Guild Wars 2

Still didn’t kitten me off as much as their usage of the word “turtle” in the description for our new trait. Considering we’re supposed to be an attrition class and they make it sound like it’s a bad thing if we use our special mechanic. Very poor choice of words on their behalf…

Any OP trait bugs that arise I will take full advantage of.

gennyt.3428:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Tarnished Coast are swallowing every server around them. You should see them in WvW. 0 defense, 100% offense, 90 – 100man blobs.

LOL what?! Is that what it looks like on your side there? I must assure you that TC most definitely defends. I’m now throwing down superior siege with confidence that it will be maintained and manned, something I haven’t bothered doing in months on Borlis Pass. There was a bit of a culture shock at the level of organization, support and all around friendliness of the various guilds. These guys sound the drum, communicate and fight tooth and nail to cap and upgrade even enemy keeps.

4 people running in to a tower when it’s being attacked doesn’t count as defense. But, if it helps you sleep at night.

8/10
Very cute. I had something similar in mind going with an appearance that doesn’t scream morbid and reanimator of the dead (my character is also a Necromancer.)

Here are two pictures, one before the recent hair style additions which was taken in better lighting and another after in much crappier quality.

Tarnished Coast are swallowing every server around them. You should see them in WvW. 0 defense, 100% offense, 90 – 100man blobs.

I’m okay with it if it’s not until after seasons… Means we won’t see a bunch of Gold rank uplevels with Applied Strength and Applied Fortitude.

Sounds great to me, but being in Death Magic not so great.
Also the fact that they used the word “turtle” in the patch notes kittened me right the kitten off.

Writetyper.1985:

Just put condis on them, thieves die in 3s

ez life ez bags

^
As a Conditionmancer, the ones that are ballsy enough to take a swing at me are melted before they can restealth.

Flumek.9043:

Rym.1469:

I haven’t lost any duel vs. Conditionmancer in tpvp on my Power necro for a long time. I’ve been fighting necromancers like Ventari and other good ones and those fights are basis for my pov.
Unless it’s a big fault on my side, I won’t lose to conditionmancer 1v1 when prepared, and if so, it comes mostly from excellent play, above my level, of conditionmancer.

I run A/D+D/Wh and with WoP, I find my level of cleansing on the level of condimancer.

As I said previously, single blind or WoD won’t save you over time, it can just delay the damage. The most viable counter is keeping up high amount of weakness

This.

Pve no comment, wvw zerg is all power, wvw with party is safer on a conditank, solo the better player wins (unless the usual bs of wvw roaming: stealth regen, PU mesmer, perplexity , healing signet….)

Necro vs necro
Depends on ammount of life force, if 100% power should win. It deals dmg and has better lf regen, condi only needs lf for fear flash. And vital persistance is great for tanking condies with DS

Any other realistic tpvp scenirios
Condi wins.
Sadly. I play power half a year Nd recently just tryed condi. It still wrecks teamsfights with aoe, downed fight control while being able to 1v1 anything beside a warr, pw thief or decap engie. Im not saying power is bad, its very decent and more fun. Condi just looks weaker cz of 40%+ warrior population

I use a condition build and hopping in and out of Death Shroud is great for Fury boon just before using Feast Of Corruption to ensure a hefty crit. Also, if you use Plague Signet, it’s great for those condition Engi’s and throwing their conditions back in their faces just before or after stacking a bunch of your own.
Still, I say it’s about 50/50 assuming the players are equally skilled. I’ve both rolled and been rolled and had many close fights as a conditionmancer against other Necromancers. Generally speaking though, if you have a good rotation it doesn’t matter how often someone cleanses or how much reduced condition duration they have. You can stack them faster than they can remove them, even against anti-condition Warriors. The key is making them come to you and not you going to them. Because by the time they get within arms reach they should be ready to run away before melting in the distance.

My utility stays about the same with one being swapped out here and there depending on the situation. But generally it’s Spectral Armor, Corrupt Boon, and Well Of Power. If I’m swapping anything out, it’s usually Spectral Armor in favor of either Flesh Wurm or Spectral Walk. Personally, I prefer Flesh Wurm albeit a bit unreliable at times I feel like it’s more difficult for the enemy to follow than Spectral Walk.
Again though, it’s very situational. What ever you choose just keep in mind a minimum of 1 stunbreaker is necessary, 2 being ideal. Warriors are everywhere and we all know how often they like to stun us.

I’ve gotten 3 precursors in less than 5 months. That is all.

I’ve wanted this hairstyle since I saw it in one of the Black Lion Trading post thumbnails quite a while ago now. At that point it wasn’t available in game and I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to be. But I am so kitten happy they added it <3

I love eeeeeeeeeett!!

Nike.2631:

The new hair was great for my lore-inspired villain Jora Corrupted .

:O, omg your Norn is beautiful. Good job on that face!

Donari.5237:

I went ahead and screenied all the hairs. Sorry that I didn’t futz with colors more to make them visible (for instance female charr get options to dye the hair and the accessories). Hopefully this gives you all a good enough preview to know if you’re interested in them for your alts. I know I love the female sylvari flower buns! Mostly on the alt that already got the fernlocks though … Also note the sylvari got -four- styles, in that the branch style also has a variation with flowers on it. I missed that when looking at the male styles, but they do get it as well.

Thank you for the photos!
The very first hair style on the human female, the longest and furthest to the left is the one I want! I had seen it in a thumb a while back when an update for released and have wanted it ever since. I’m so glad they finally added it!

T H A N K Y O U!!

There is one particular hairstyle you’ve added that I’ve been waiting for for a good while now. When I’ve made the purchase I’ll be sure to include a photo. Thank you so much for the recent additions.

If you have any photos of your characters looking stylish with the new options, feel free to post them here!

People and their loot… Play it because you enjoy it not because you want shiny things. This game practically throws gold and loot at you as is.

flow.6043:

@build:

Withering Precision is the worst trait in Curses after Toxic Landing. You should really pick a different one.
Also, for condition builds there’s only one viable food: +40% condi duration. This would also free up the Hemophilia trait slot for something more useful.
I’d also go for Scavenging runes instead of Undead, especially if you decide to mix in some more vitality.

On topic:
Mixing toughness and vitality will make you a lot more durable than picking just one or the other. And since you’re using a main hand dagger you’d really profit from some extra power. So in your case, getting some carrion into the mix is a pure win-win.
Don’t worry about crit procs. Barbed Precision is the only thing that get’s a noticable boost from a higher crit chance because there’s no icd. But everything else is totally negligable. You still have Furious Demise so lowering your crit chance to 35-40% is not a big deal.

I disagree with everything here.

As much as I hate Thieves I feel so sorely for this profession sometimes… They’re trolly and annoying but they don’t deserve most of the hate they get.
OP’s post isn’t really hate but it’s still complaining… Thieves have extremely low base health and it’s still low even if they’re geared for survival and not damage. Which means that a heal that might return them 5k vitality will seem like a lot on a small health bar. Where as say a 5k vitality return on a Necromancer might seem insignificant.
He was probably a condition build with a lot of on crit sigils and using that heal, the name escapes me at the moment but, the one where using it will break stun, roll backwards evading attacks and heal them.
Anyway, Thieves are butter if you can make them stand still for 2 seconds. It’s getting them to stay still that’s the tricky part, but if you have access to any CC’s such as, and ideally, immobilize, they’re pretty much a sitting duck.

I agree that the holy trinity is great, and I also agree that GW2’s lack of that is exactly why we have stacking.
However, they’re not going to change something like that any time soon, or ever. I couldn’t imagine the kind of trouble it would take for them to add a holy trinity to the game at this point in it’s life.
In the nicest way possible, if you don’t like it you may want to go back to WoW. That’s not to be insulting, just that I don’t expect it to ever be changed, nor do I think that if it were everyone would enjoy it. Some of us, such as myself, actually enjoy not having to rely on other people for me to survive. I was after all always a healer in games with the holy trinity. And all healers have trust issues.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQEQRAoY7djc00Tb5Ne2wfbCZqQ2A9IXwFQM6BxcMMDA-z0CBINDimWAmEAkkGi8GIHqIasVTFRjVzATlKp6YCy+AKrkC4RpRA-w

This is the build I’ve created and am currently using. I certainly don’t expect for it to be perfect but it serves me incredibly well. However, being full condition damage means that I have very little direct damage. This hasn’t ever proven to be much of an issue, I’m just thinking about the situation where it could become one. So my questions are;

~Would Dire or Carrion be better than Rabid? I chose Rabid because a lot of my conditions are triggered on critical hits. Figuring the higher chance I have of a critical hit the better chance of inflicting additional conditions.

~Would extra vitality be better than extra toughness? (Such as that which is offered in both Dire and Carrion). Since Necromancers have a high base vitality, I thought it would be better to go with toughness so I have a good balance of both while not having to make any trade offs.

~Is relying completely on condition damage a good or bad idea? I haven’t encountered any issues with it in either PvE or PvP, but again fearing the day I might I’m just curious, would it be better to go with power instead of precision?

As I’ve said, this build has served me very well. I’m not looking for a total overhaul just curious as to whether or not Rabid is a good choice for me with the given stats.

Lag is irritating but I usually don’t let it bother me too much. I just wander away from high density areas and do some scouting for a bit. However; if everyone wandered away and did the same what fun would that be. And even though I’m not using my skills while scouting about I still experience lag miles away from any action and am delayed when reporting any enemy activity in mapchat.
The lag has gotten to an unbearable level recently, however. As I’ve said usually I’ll just scout about but I can’t even do that at this point because it takes up to 40 kitten seconds just to get through a gate portal. And even if I get through I sometimes rubberband in and out of it a few times. I also experienced probably the worst lag I’ve had in my entirety of playing this game just yesterday… Zergs collided in SMC and suddenly I wasn’t able to use any of my skills. Everyone kept fighting, then eventually it went further down hill to people no longer fighting but just running in straight lines which is a good indication of heavy lag. I went to a safe place in the outer walls and watched the names float around down the hallway. When the lag finally subsided about… THREE MINUTES later… I was blasted with a horrible jumble of every character phrase and weapon sound effect all at once, every condition stacked, my health vanished and everyone was suddenly in our keep. It was kind of funny looking back but at the time I felt like putting my knuckles through the screen.

Flips camps, sentry’s, merc camps, tap keeps/towers (fully upgraded [T3/fortified] will get the most attention), stop stragglers from getting to their zergs, kill yaks, scout enemy positions and report them to commander and be a diversion when your own zerg is near by. Eg. Being an attractive squirrel. Jump in the distance and pull enemies from their zerg to keep the ones that are prone to wander away from your own zerg. Even if you die in the process, it still could mean keeping 5 people from the enemy zerg away from your own long enough for the enemy zerg to be overpowered.

My personal number one rule as a roamer for being helpful, though… Is to not be a duelist. Don’t troll around looking for fights. It’s fun, sure. But it serves very little purpose if that’s all you’re doing.

I would say it’s a toss up between Engineer and Necromancer. My first character was an Engineer which I played for a very long time and learned just about everything I know today on that very character. My current main is a Necromancer and although I’m probably a bit more in favor of Necro’s I would still say it’s a toss up.

Depending on your build, they both can provide great group support, have a good deal of survivability and deal insane levels of DPS. Although the Engineer can, as someone has said, take more advantage of using both condition and direct damage than a Necromancer can, the Necromancer can also stack more conditions, faster, than an Engineer. Or in my experience at least.
If you’re asking about strictly condition damage, and not group support, survivability or anything else, I would personally say Necromancer. If you aren’t asking about strictly condition damage, I might be more in favor of Engineer. It’s very situational and depends greatly on the build you’re using. But on my Necromancer I can maintain 25stacks of bleed, poison, burning, weakness, chill, daze, fear, torment, cripple and immobilize with little to no help. Plague Signet is great for doing this in dungeons as it pulls conditions from your party members to yourself, keeping them alive and allowing me to do more damage by sending those conditions to my enemies. With my scepter #1 ability I inflict bleed, poison, weakness, chill and burning. All in one hit given it’s a critical hit. Which in rabid gear is pretty often.
So you don’t have to take my word for it as I no longer main an Engineer and I don’t believe I came to full circle with understanding the profession. But I would still like to believe if you’re going strictly for condition damage, Necromancer is the way to go.

I’m glad some people understand what I’m saying and I apologize for any miscommunication to those who did not understand.
I wasn’t soloing the dungeon but the event to open it. Where you have to kill the trolls, inquest and then the Champion guarding the entrance to Crucible Of Eternity.
I wasn’t belittling other or complaining about anything, really. Just stating that I had always assumed what could be done with zerker could be done just as easily with different stat alignments given the player is skilled enough. But it doesn’t seem to be the case. I do more than great damage on my Necromancer but comparing a Rabid stat to a Berserker stat after having neglected my Ranger for so long it really became apparent to me just how much more effective Berserker is in a DPS perspective.
Also, for the record, I’m about as tolerant as they come. Builds, people, anything. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully when naming this thread, all I meant was that I’m somewhat upset realizing just how good berserker really is after I’ve disagreed with others so many times saying it’s not. I’m not saying my experience is the experience that all others should measure by, just that I feel ignorant having believed so firmly that the difference between zerk and any other stat wasn’t that large.

Also… I wasn’t then, nor have I ever, used a bear. Drakes are my favorites. And although yes, you’re completely right it’s easier to do when my pet is tanking… I was using a greatsword and I was face to face with all of my enemies, killing them faster than they could damage me or my pet anyway.

Lol, I like both the initial proposal and the response from flow. There are a few things here and there that I dislike but there are many I like as well. However, I wouldn’t suggest much be done to the Necromancer, honestly. I enjoy the profession as is save a few minor irritants. Such as the extremely clunky nature of Dark Path.
For this ability instead of using that god awful grasping hand for the means of teleportation… How about using the same tethers as Tainted Shackles. When Dark Path is cast, a greenish tether would be sent out to your foe giving them a few seconds to get out of range before you’re teleported to them. Again similar to Tainted Shackles how there is a short duration between the cast and the final explosion.

Corrosive Poison Cloud is actually a great ability. However, it’s basically a joke if not coupled with a ton of other conditions. Just walking through that AOE will do next to nothing to your enemies. Which leads me to believe either the base poison/weakness duration should be increased or the base poison damage itself should do more damage. Because even in full condition damage gear it really isn’t much of a threat, as fun to use as it might be.

Well Of Darkness Reduce the duration it’s active but increase the frequency of it’s blinds.

And Spectral Grasp just plain and simple needs to pull better.

As for traits, remove that, summon a jagged horror every time you kill a foe trait and the gaining might trait when your health drops below the threshold. Besides what I’ve mentioned though I’ve always been very happy with this profession. Of course none are ever going to be perfect but these are what I personally would like to see changed. Dark Path being my number one gripe.

I realized something the other day while doing the event to open Crucible Of Eternity.
I used to solo the event from start to finish many times a day on my Ranger. My Ranger is full zerk and it never even occurred to me that these events might be difficult if I weren’t glassy. Then, I eventually migrated back to my Necromancer which became my main once again (I have a bad habit of hopping mains…) My Necromancer is a high condition build (nothing creative really, a conditionmancer with more bleeding damage than most) and I can melt people in WvW as well as most NPC enemies. But of course, this means I have to bring my condition stacks up first which depending on what abilities are already on cooldown can take some time. While doing the event to open CoE, I was nearly dead the majority of the time just from the Inquest mobs… I managed to complete it all but I actually died at least twice while doing it. I would like to believe I have condition stacking down to a science. I can apply just about every one available to a Necromancer, and then some, in a pretty short window. I know how to use my Death Shroud both defensively and offensively and I know when something is too much for me to handle.. But as I was struggling to do these events I realized… My Ranger has 16k vitality in all zerk. My Necromancer has 19k with plenty of toughness (rabid gear) and yet it’s a struggle on my Necromancer but so easy I was never even aware it could be difficult when I had done it on my Ranger.
Berserker gear is the meta because killing mobs quickly is plain and simple; the best way to do it… The faster they’re dead the less chance they’ll kill you instead. I’m not just now realizing this, but I am just now realizing how different a zerk character is from a non-zerk character. I still put out beautiful damage and have great survivability on my Necromancer, but the sad truth is that even a Ranger can do better in full zerk.
So, say what you will, maybe it’s L2P, I don’t know… I’m just saying that it has never really sunken in just how true it is that full zerk is the best way to go.

No.

If it weren’t for the message body length minimum of 15 characters, “no” would be all I’d say.

MiLkZz.4789:

I got 205 ranks in 5 days with birthday boosters, they are insane.

Anyway, I first agreed with you OP. But I changed my mind. I am now rank 1500+ and you don’t do it for the name. You do it for the thing infront of it.

People don’t see invader/squire/legend, they see bronze/gold/platinum/mithril. So being gold ranked, people see way faster that I am high ranked. While it would be much harder to see with your method and let’s face it, we all like to have a big kitten.

So being in the bronze or gold tier is more rewarding than being an invader or legend.

I agree completely. The higher an opponents rank the more I want to kill them though, lol. I’ve seen a few Platinum’s and two Mithril’s. All of which I immediately go out of my way to fight to see how good they are.

I just had a super idea for defense. Make all tower/keep/castle walls twice as thick as they currently are instead of these narrow jokes we have right now. I’m not saying make them harder to take down with trebs or catas, but to make them wider so that an arrow cart placed on the wall wouldn’t have to be placed right on the very inner edges to avoid AOE’s. That way you could actually stand on the godkitten walls to defend something.

No kittening kidding right. Dodging as a Necromancer means it’s a commitment. It sucks.

Lol, I liked this as well.
I’d probably be a Thief/Necromancer, Necro in the actual game too :P. I should really learn to stop giving my two cents especially after a subject has long since been over with discussing.

sminkiottone.6972:

Geiir.7603:

Try playing shatter Mesmer and say that again. You really have to time the burst, but if you land it you pretty much win the fight.

Thief easy mode? Yes I have access to stealth, but if I mess up once I’m dead due to my low health and armor. And yeah, don’t run d/p, I find it inferior to d/d ;p

I do play shatter mesmer and yes while its hard to manage the burst its also quite powerfull and can kill light/medium armor in few seconds, but you can agree with me that a PU mesmer with perplexity is easy god mode.

Thief as a lot of cheesy builds, every time I go to obsidian sanctum I see most people running thief with cheesy build, like a guy running d/p + sb with bowl of orrian truffle… stealth spam/dodge spam/teleport, he kept stealthing/running away when low healt just to come back over and over again till I made a mistake… he made quite a lot of mistakes but that didn’t kept him from stealth/teleport away.

Yup. Anyone who plays a Mesmer or Thief for roaming and tries to justify their profession as “not easy” are just kidding themselves. Sure they’re more difficult to play in zerg combat, but when roaming/dueling, sorry. It’s easy mode. You have way more access to escapes and confusing your opponent than any other professions. If you want to walk away from the fight you can do so at any given time and your enemy would be none the wiser. Also, if you’re saying you can’t make mistakes, how about… Don’t play glassy? Lol. A Mesmer or Thief can be tanky too you know. You don’t have to disown everyone you cross in less than 2 seconds. If you want to be able to make mistakes, which even glassy these professions allow you to do anyway, build for a bit more survivability…

I hate to say Ranger because I personally love the profession but, Ranger. As someone who spends the majority of their time roaming, I found that on my Ranger just about anyone that spotted me would immediately come after me. Although if played correctly, a Ranger can be seriously dangerous in a 1v1 or even 1v2 situation, it’s difficult to play them in large group combat (zergs.) I won plenty of fights on my Ranger, but I win about 10x more on my Necromancer. And on my Necro, which I also roam frequently on, it feels like a ghost town when I’m travelling anywhere. People see a Necro and unless they’re a ballsy Thief or a Melandru Warrior they generally seem to steer clear of you.
You might even say, they avoid you like the Plague HARHAR. Sorry… I had to.

Thanks for the help. I didn’t make any major alterations but I changed a few things around according to your suggestions. It might not be a traditional build but I like the looks of it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQEQRBIhdu1IHN122TjjNc4mQkZYN/S8Bkh6h7APfIA-zUyAYrBRT+hpIgEBAqAU2rIasF3ioxqsxUvER1kCYUlRA-w

Okay so, before I get any comments that are scrutinizing this build, I would just like to say I haven’t tried it and just wanted to know if anyone has, or thinks it would be viable.
Lots of power, lots of LF regeneration, heavy damage and already hitting pretty hard as is, that axe should hit like a semi at night.
All my traits are allocated to favor Death Shroud usage as I would like to be moving in and out of it more frequently.

This is with WvW in mind, I’m primarily a roamer but also travel with the zerg, currently run a high condition build (which has served me and continues to serve me very well) and formerly ran a very tanky low DPS build. I find the one linked below to be a decent happy medium.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQEQRBIRdG2IHNV3WajjN83mIkZwrfBp491imh7QHA-zUyAYrBRT+hpIgEBAqAU2rIasF3ioxqsxUvER1kCYUlRA-w

As a Necromancer, this made me very happy, lol. Like bringing an AI zerg to a dungeon.

Guilds do nothing for servers the majority of the time other than troll around ganking roamers. So I very much agree with PUG commander’s doing more for the server.
4 though, really o,o? Have you ever done dungeons? I make something like 20g a day running multiple dungeons paths where as in WvW I barely make a g unless it’s some kind of serious karmatrain going.

… Wait.. So we can’t use trebs to knock people off of rams anymore after this patch? What the hell are we supposed to do as defenders? Just lay down and let them take our stuff? I’m sorry but this really angers me… As someone who upgrades and defends towers frequently, it isn’t easy to defend as is. Arrow carts have to be placed in incredibly awkward positions otherwise they’ll be destroyed in seconds, don’t even think about using a ballista, a catapult can be great but still doesn’t hold a candle to a trebuchet on door defense, and god forbid you actually try to stand on the walls and range the attackers without using siege… You’re either pulled down and dogpiled or you melt like butter on the walls. I understand how door-treb defense can be a pain to the rammers, but it’s far, far easier to take a tower than it is to defend it… They really don’t need to make it any more in favor of the attackers.
How about making it so that siege on walls can’t be destroyed only timed out by siege decay, or something more in favor of us defenders for once…

Purple Miku.7032:

…

Sorry, but hell no. There is absolutely no way that I’d ever want developers’ time wasted on this.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but on another game I used to play… e-dating was a prevalent issue that commonly led to friendships and gameplay ruined from people becoming overly-attached and depressed and in many cases, scammed/hacked. If it’s encouraged on a game there are many potential drawbacks to worry about.

Ever hear about “catfishing”? You’d be surprised at how common this is across the internet— especially on roleplaying games.

OP I’m not insinuating that you have these negative intentions, but please keep this out of GW2. I don’t want to see the same disasters from Runescape seep their way into here.

I agree completely… As someone who prefers to use video games as a means of escaping the woes of daily life, I try my best to avoid talking anything about my actual life. I want to play the video game and forget about reality for a while, it let’s me take some of the weight off of my shoulders and is a kind of therapeutic release. Although this is personal preference and some would rather meld their actual lives with their game lives, it can create a very unhealthy environment. Emotions are a powerful thing, and when I start seeing couples having public arguments on map chat because one of those was found to only be using the marriage for personal benefits while the other felt actually emotionally attached, and one of them decides to publicly embarrass that individual… I suddenly wouldn’t want to play anymore. Marriage and having children and anything else that has to do with real life can either be left to real life or to a soap opera type video game… This is a fantasy MMORPG. If I’m out slaying dragons and fighting soldiers from other worlds in the mists, I don’t want to have to worry about my ingame life and what my ingame family might do if I were to die.

This is one of those subjects I have a million things to say about so I’ll keep it brief instead.
If they added more skimpy male armor, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
Would forum posts by the dozens arise both for and against it? Yes
Women should enjoy looking at their characters as well.
Calling it “sexist” really aggravates me but I won’t get in to it. Just choose your wording carefully when using such a powerful statement.

Also, for those who would like to do this now instead of when, if ever, ANet were to add more revealing male armors; You can craft yourself a full set of ascended armor, unequip the chest, hide the shoulders, gauntlets and helm and you’ve got a sexy topless barbarian right there. You still have a full set of stats minus your chest piece, and with full ascended you wouldn’t have much less stats than someone in full exotic chest included. Try it out. You might be losing out on a bit of defense/offense, but I don’t think the difference would be very noticeable.

I would agree with what some are saying here. It’s a bit of a coin toss assuming both players are equally skilled.
As for Necromancer versus any other profession, power has some pretty brutal damage. But then you come across players with high toughness and that all goes out the window. Why I love conditionmancer is that if I come across someone with lots of condition removal, I can apply conditions faster and more frequently than they can remove them. If they have high toughness but low vitality (Guardian for example) conditions ignore armor so they melt like butter. If I apply poisons or stack enough bleeds, their healing abilities are basically cut in half. So although yes, a well played power Necro can do some seriously devastating damage, and if underestimated can be a hell of an opponent, I would say I’m slightly in favor of a condition build. Applying conditions doesn’t take a lot of practice, but the more practice you get the easier and more quickly you’ll be able to apply just about every condition available in the game on your enemies. And I say this from personal experience when I say, bleeding damage is the silent killer. One or two stacks, your opponent will see it, possibly cleanse it, and will ignore. But those bleeds will keep coming back, and stacking higher and higher. And before they know it they’re suddenly on their backs.

Imho, any profession can command, some better suited than others. If you’re going to command, you want to be the last person standing at all times. Always dying and having to WP your zerg isn’t going to get you anywhere. You want to be one of the vital few still alive if you encounter a situation your group can’t handle. So which ever profession you choose, gear them to survive not to kill. Given the proper instructions, your zerg will do the damage for you, all you have to worry about is what your next move is going to be.

As for “best” I would personally say any of the following;
Warrior
Guardian
Necromancer
Engineer

As we all know, Warrior’s are a powerful profession. Great for commanding. Guardians have lots of support and if built to take a beating can be very difficult to take down. Necromancer’s have a high base vitality and 2 abilities that can basically replicate it (eg. Say you have 25k vitality. Entering Death Shroud = another 25k. Entering Plague should be about 35k. That’s getting close to 100k vitality not including any toughness you might have). Engineer’s, also if built to survive and not to kill, can be one of the most difficult to defeat. Elixir’s potency can be greatly inflated with the right traits/foods/buffs. So although I would still say any profession can command if handled properly, these are imho some of the one’s that are better suited for commanding thanks to the capabilities at their disposal.

I don’t like thieves one bit but I also don’t plea for nerfs or alterations to their profession. Learn to deal with it or don’t play, about as simple as that.

And as for people who hate them, I imagine it to be similar to the reason I do; they’re the masters of the cheap shot. When someone comes up and smacks you in the head then takes off and vanishes you’re immediately going to be aggravated. Where as if you see someone coming and they hit you first, you may be upset but at least you had the chance to get out of the way even if you failed to do so. It just feels like a fight is too much in favor of the thief when in actuality all you need to do is be aware of your surroundings. It’s WvW, people are watching whether you can see them or not. Don’t be oblivious and thieves will be a lot less of a pain.

If you’re roaming zerk is fine. The faster you can flip a camp or end a fight the better because at any moment a zerg could roll you.
As for travelling with a zerg, I would very much recommend against going full zerk. If you’re well practiced with dodging and condition removal, it can be viable but is still risky. I prefer to either carry two sets on me, one for roaming one for zerging, or to have a set that’s a happy medium. Since I main a Necro, it’s easier for me to have high offence with a good deal of defense as well.

deSade.9437:

Erm, I don’t pug. Last time I did it was almost one year ago, and everyone was a scrub. Me included.
Still, you’re not the only one that isn’t objective, so everything is fine. Humans are incredibly bad at not making everything subjective.
Cats, on the other hand…
Yeah, you got it, I’m a cat. I’m totally awesome.

Good to know cats still need validation ( :

deSade.9437:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

People who have an AP requirement are the same people who have run the dungeon a dozen times and consider themselves a role model for how the dungeon should be completed. Giving completely unnecessary advice, in most cases wrong, dying and giving tips while dead, and running full support.

Sure, your personal experience totally creates the rule.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I get it, you’re that guy! That guy!

deSade.9437:

Of all the requirements, I find “pink dyes only” to be the most effective. Why? Because I did it and I got good players with a lot of sense of humour, and we had tons of fun.
See? I’ve just made a statistic.
I guess that’s how logic works here.

What I love about this is that I’ve done something similar more than a few times and it has always amounted to a great experience. One night I was in a particularly good mood and had said something like “Has anyone ever noticed there are no female giants in Skyrim? Or do the females just grow the best beards?” in my description and the fun that ensued was pretty memorable.

People who have an AP requirement are the same people who have run the dungeon a dozen times and consider themselves a role model for how the dungeon should be completed. Giving completely unnecessary advice, in most cases wrong, dying and giving tips while dead, and running full support.

As some people have mentioned, I understand being a bit cautious of those with less than 1,000AP, but other than that… There was a time when I joined a Fractal group that was asking for experience and a speed run. I thought sure, okay, I’ve long reached my 500Fractals achievement they can’t say I don’t know what I’m doing, right? I join, mouse over their thumbs and see that they all have 15k + AP. Having about 3,200 at the time, I felt sorely outclassed but carried along. We rolled swamp… I was the only one who was managing to get the wisp to the cleft and the others were asking “how the hell do I get to the cleft if the walls keep closing on me?” And with that I left…

I both agree and disagree with this…

I certainly understand your position, but like most, you’re failing to see other peoples perspectives. As someone who does dungeons daily as a means of accumulating gold, I don’t want them to take an entire day. I want to run the paths and be on my way to WvW where I enjoy myself most. But people like yourself who think they have some sort of right to push in to a group when they’re clearly going to be a dead weight are just as bad as those not willing to help these people. We all have to begin somewhere, and there are many times I will set my time aside to help certain individuals to learn strategies and what ever else they might be inclined to know. But when I have asked for experience in my group description and people completely disregard it, sorry… You’re out. If I’m hosting a party and I invite you to my house under the condition you don’t bring a bunch of friends and trash the place, I expect you to cooperate. I’m providing you with a place to have fun and be social, but because you believe you have some sort of right you invite a bunch of extra people anyway and puke all over the place after drinking too much. Which of us is the bad guy here? Me for limiting your evening or you for being ignorant?
The point is, you have the option to host your own group for a reason. Yes, there certainly are a lot of groups asking for “experience” or “zerkers” or “80’s” or what ever else, but there’s a reason for that; it’s their group. They are the host of this party and you are a guest in their home. If you want to set the rules, invite people in to your house and see how you feel when they start telling you what to do…