Guild Wars 2

I think, but I can’t be sure, that SR removes the last debuff applied. However, it’s still worth using even if it’s a random selection!

I do rather like the prot on wells though – if I’m in a team of 5 guildies I’ll use that.

Thanks for the suggestions, but I’ll stick with RotI.

Indeed, easy enough to test, but I was hoping the chaps who said “If you have any other tests you would like us to try we would be glad to take a look at some other builds. We will probably be testing minion aggro theories next” might pick up the testing and do a cast or something on it.

I’m not even sure DS HP scales at this point. I’ve gto 28khp, but I lost approx 45% of my DS HP to 6k damage

I know when you add HP your DS meter goes down, which hints it does work, but in my hasty tests I’ve found it to be the same amount of HP.

Following the axe changes I’m now sticking with AD/DF. This gives Axe (primarily a midrange weapon) some condition cleanse/blind, and allows the dagger set to have some ranged punch and also snare runners.

I’ve experimented some more with staff, and I’m still not keen. I just think being in combat and swaping for Hydromancy procs constantly is far more effective for a meleemancer.

I’ve also tried a few variants in terms of spec. I had an evening of 30/25/0/0/15, and while the damage was great, I think I prefer 30/15/25/0/0 for sPvP and WvW. In PvE the 25 points for Retal and boon duration isn’t very useful, but the 250 toughness often is.

Oh, and still 6/6 Rune of the Ice. 5% damage plus chill duration and a defensive hydromancy proc is just too good to give up.

I’m not sure at this point if they’re unwilling (dev time being spent on other things, QA looking mainly at PvE content additions) or incapable (hard coded values requiring hefty code amends for small changes).

I wish I knew. The poor kitten who was running the necro bug tracker gave up, and there’s still more than a few there. The very fact that an organisation has its paying customers doing QA work in this fashion is concerning at the least…

I want this game to be the best it can be – for my fellow players, the game’s longevity and for my own enjoyment. It seems sometimes that ANet have other ideas.

It’s getting on my nerves, and it’s a bit worrying.

How can we have an e-sport following for a game with this many bugs? How can any organisation function with such shoddy change management/change documentation?

It’s… I dunno. Anyone else? Or is it just me?

Also, kitten ANet and their pointless kittening kitteny QA process. Kitten them all, the useless kittens.

This is why I wanted it re-testing.

I’ve been a necro since BWE 1 and recently I’ve felt a bit squishier in DS. Hard to put my finger on it.

Thank you War Mourner, now can we test my questions in-depth? Specifically impact of condition damage and impact of vit/toughness on DS HP and mitigation?

So, to summarise:

Conditionmancers will be average at 1v1, with a high skill ceiling. They’re great at tagging enemies in WvW and getting bags in sieges and when zergs collide. They’re useful in sPvP.

PVTmancers are strong in 1v1, but suffer a bit in ZvZ as we don’t have many escapes or ranged abilities of note. We’re also good in sPvP and in support roles (wells plus plague and chilling darkness). Not much use in sieges as it tends to be about 1200 range abilities.

Hybrids are moderately effective in all roles.

Bunker builds are tough as nails, and solid in tPvP or sPvP if you’re so inclined. There are better bunkers, but there are worse.

MM players are free kills for anyone with reasonable AoE.

Given the varied responses, I think it merits a refresher in analytics.

Bas?

So Necrobusted guys, fancy testing this for us all?

1) Is the amount of HP available at 100% DS equal to our normal HP?

2) What impact does toughness/armour have on direct damage taken?

3) What impact does condition damage (bleeds, burn, poison in particular) have on DS? Does it do double damage, or are ticks rounded to the nearest full %?

That’s what I really want to know.

I know, it’s a complex thing building an MMO. I work in a production environment in an IT department, and I can’t begin to imagine what’s wrong at ANet.

Let’s take a subject dear to my heart – Focus as a Necro. It has two abilities, Reaper’s Touch and Spinal Shivers. They’re bread and butter abilities for the necro. I’d expect that somewhere these abilities are stored in some sort of Oracle DB so the program knows what to values to load into the build at compile time.

Assigned to these abilities must be the damage, extra logic (such as bouncing), range etc. and then I presume a bit of logic to determine what happens when various traits are selected.

There is a trait in the Spite line which reduces the cooldown by 20% and increases the range of Focus abilities. Except it doesn’t. When selected, the trait extends the range and reduces the cooldown of Spinal Shivers, but reduces the cast time of Reaper’s Touch. That’s in PvE – in PvP, it reduces the cast time and reduces the cooldown of Reaper’s Touch.

What’s more, selecting this trait prevents the bonus damage done when a boon is stripped by the use of Spinal Shivers or Chill of Death.

Chill of Death is related – it’s another trait in Spite which applies Spinal Shivers to an opponent when you strike them and they’re under 25% health – except it doesn’t! It triggers at 15%.

I’m baffled. How does this get screwed up so badly? More to the point, how is it not fixed quickly? If I, or anyone I’ve ever worked with in my career, was building a system which was to be altered regularly I’d hold the values in an external DB and that would allow my colleagues and I to edit them at will.

I’ve seen peculiar claims on this forum – there are only 2 games designers assigned to balance (well, sure, but they have QA and dev support, right? So they should be able to change simple values like this easily), that it’s too complex/time consumning to test (silly, really silly)… but what’s really going on?

Are these values hard coded or something insane? Are they unaware of the nature and extent of bugs? We had a bug tracker thread stickied at the top of the necro forums some time ago but gee, it’s been 6 months and we’re still getting new bugs and very few old ones are getting fixed!

Andele, I respectfully disagree.

If you can’t maintain melee range for whatever reason (they’re faster than you, or you’re unable to be in melee range because of PBAoE) then axe is better.

If you can be in melee range, and maintain melee range, dagger utterly whups axe.

I tested it shortly after the patch on Orrian zombies… I averaged a kill in 6.5 seconds with dagger/focus, and 10ish with axe/focus. Also, you’ll build life force a lot more readily with dagger.

I like it because I have dual sigils of hydromancy

Hrm, hadn’t noticed that Wolf. Thanks!

John Peters said it was a part of the class’ features, and to play properly we had to use it while mastering Death Shroud or something similar.

EDIT: http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2012/09/18/dev-tracker-jon-peters-on-necromancers-death-shroud/

So first a dev says to use it, then they remove it silently, and no comment is forthcoming. Sadly, this is becoming the norm for ANet. Their continued silence on all manner of bugs is getting a bit annoying.

This would explain something, but it’s not limited to necro.

It seems stability does not remove fear… I got feared and hit Plague to gain stability, but I couldn;’t

Are bumps allowed?

Yeah, just tested it in PvE. In PvE, no damage bonus on 5 and no CD reduction on 4.

Yeah, just tested it in PvE. In PvE, no damage bonus on 5 and no CD reduction on 4.

Shoddy really.

lettucemode, I’d totally agree with you… if we could see our boons and conditions. Also, the fact that John Peters said it was part of “mastering death shroud” makes me think that this is an accident.

A formal response would clear this up nicely.

I do fine in all three.

Find some build guides – try sPvP with each of them, and if you like them, level one.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necro-focus-traited-and-untraited-bugs/first#post1549144

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necro-Death-Shroud-unable-to-change-weapons/first#post1549173

If you kind souls could share your feelings on said posts and provide the occasional bump until someone responds, that’d be great. I don’t think, given the number of necro players that we have, that it’ll stay bumped like a thief or warrior post would.

Ta,

I’m assuming this is accidental as John Peters said it was a class mechanic we should use, and it’s not mentioned in the patch notes.

Formal response?

Cooldown reduction on focus 4 does not happen with traits. This does work in sPvP.

Triple damage on focus 5 does not work when focus is traited. This does not work in sPvP, not tested PvE.

sigh

No WS in DS is frickin lame, especially as a dev (John Peters) said switching in DS is a major class perk we should learn to use. I suspect and hope it’s a bug.

Either way, it does delay the switch a bit – but only by a few seconds. I don’t think it invalidates the build, in fact generally my opponents are still chilled from Dark Path, so I don’t notice too much.

The major pain in the kitten is that the triple damage change to focus doesn’t work if you’ve taken the focus trait in spite. Combined with the fact that Reaper’s Touch from focus 4 doesn’t get the cooldown benefit and I would seriously counsel against taking that trait.

Hi all.

I’ve been having fun, and wanted to share an update.

In sPvP, Sigil of the Locust is fine and frees up your weapon choice a bit – I go with DD and DF.

In WvW, I think perma swiftness is still required. DW, DF and Spectral Walk.

In instances, I go DD/DF and generally 3 wells – pick appropriate to the fight.

I’ve also experimented with axe. Personally I still very much prefer dagger – it just does more damage, and the root is invaluable. Plus you can hit people without having to target them – so that rooted thief in his house field can get a pounding even if you can’t see him.

However, that doesn’t mean people should be silly. DW/AF or DD/AF is perfectly valid, if you can make it work for you.

EDITED: Clarity.

Oh.

Most of the changes support MM builds, and you’ll have noticed that not many people think they’re viable in sPvP or WvW due to their AI shortcomings. I’m not fond of them for that reason.

Other than that, the main changes were slightly positive, but nothing which’ll cause anyone to respec. I’ll still be using axe only when it’s the only sensible option (melee boss fights basically) and I can’t see many people dropping dagger for it.

Lothial.7859:

As an ele I would like to officially welcome Necromancers to the “OMG NERF PLS!!!11” club.

The steady stream of other classes coming to your forum to sarcastically ask how to beat you while relaying amazing stories of one necro destroying entire zergs of their best uber equipped, and skilled players will warm your heart.

Here are your “I’m not OP” hats, and bumper stickers, and your block button hair trigger for all the pvpers who will grief you about how they can’t wait till ANet nerfs you every time you win a fight.

Welcome brothers.

Nothing apart from 150% damage on Focus 5 affects my build at all. TBH, triple damage on 600 damage isn’t really anything I’ll be giving a kitten about any time soon. Takes 1.25s to cast, glad it’ll do some damage if we use it when we’re supposed to.

Anyway, are you just trolling or is there some filter I’m missing that I can turn off so I can see these necro whine posts?

CD reduction from trait Spiteful Talisman doesn’t interact with Reapers Touch correctly.

Johnny, you have shamed me by being less argumentative and more civil in your tone. Props to you.

Rangers have quickness stomp, I’m sure I’ve seen guards and wars with stability. It’s significant that every class has either a stomp breaker, a stomp aid or a solid escape ability – some have all 3! The point I’m making is that Necro doesn’t have any

Well, aside from Plague.

Wurm’s handy, but subject to terrain issues, pre-cast, and the fact you’ve gotta have cast it before afight starts.

Johnny; I know how good Wurm is, and DS is a great tanking ability – but I mean a proper escape ability – the way a thief, elementalist, mesmer or engineer can become a dot on the horizon if they’re so inclined. Wurm can only take you to where you’ve been, much like Walk.

Corrupt Boon does indeed flip stability, but I’m unable to use abilities while on my back. If you can use it to stomp someone stomping you, do let me know. Plague is handy, but it’s a 180s cooldown.

Strength:

Condition application and boon removal/flipping

Weakness:

We don’t have a stop interrupt which works vs stablity, we don’t have an escape mechanism worth talking about and we don’t have a way to stomp reliably. Adding one of those three would make me happy.

Hmph, stupid title, my fault.

There’s a rune set with +cond duration which actually applies a lot more +cond duration than listed in the tooltip. Cant’ remember the name.

I seem to remember there was one, but I can’t remember which it was.

Necro needs some serious work in PvP. Stomping, avoiding stomping and escape abilities.

Can’t evade a stomp? Fine, at least let that class escape combat sometimes. Can’t stomp with invuln? Fine, give them a way to dodge the initial stomp. Can’t escape? Fine, give them abilities to avoid the first stomp and/or stomp with invulnerability.

Currently, AFAIK the Necro is the only class without a reliable stomp, counter-stop or escape mechanism.

Which of the following (if any) do you deem to be unreasonable and/or annoying to the point you feel the game should be changed to remove it/them?

• Finishing while in stealth

• Finishing with quickness

• Finishing with stability

IF you think they’re all fine, do they then consider all of the classes current downed states to be reasonably balanced, and if not…

• Which class has the biggest downed state issues

• Which class has the most OP downed state issues

Keep it civil.

DD is considered a poor choice by most of us meleemancers. Dagger 4 and 5 are generally accepted as conditionmancer abilities.

Instead, try DF/DW (with SW for permaswift) or AF/DW (with SW for permaswift). When you switch to axe, use 2 and 3, then both focus abilities, then axe 2, then switch to dagger again.

Minions are kitten. Not sub-optimal, not “a little bit dodgy”, they are outright kitten. Buggy, weak, unresponsive, poorly designed. Feel free to use them if you want, but they’re garbage.

Instead, try full PVT gear and WoC/WoS/SW. Then root, wellbomb and dagger 1 people/monsters to death.

Some of us even have full explanations and stuff of how to build a decent meleemancer in our sigs.

So, I did some more thinking.

6 Crest of the Soldier grants:

120 power
84 Toughness
84 Vitality

6 Runes of Ice grant:

165 Vit
5% damage on chilled
20% Frozen duration
5% chance to proc a Hydromancy equivalent effect (tested, doesn’t share cooldown with Hydromancy; it does 311 damage and lasts for approx 4 seconds with my build)

Given that 5% of 2550 (power before buff) is roughly equivalent to 120 power, we can see that we’re really not losing much of anything by going with Ice runes provided the target is chilled. In terms of EHP, 165 Vit with 1.7k toughness is a great idea.

Then, factor in the 5% chance to proc the AoE chill (which compliments Hydromancy and dagger use very nicely) and I think the winner is Superior Rune of Ice.

This is the first time I’ve seen someone recommend a full set of 6 Rune of Ice >.<

OK, so right now there’s pretty much no contest for PBAoE damage to survivability ratio between warriors and the rest of the game. This is what’s leading to “LF1M warrior for CoF Speed run” and the hordes of warriors etc. in the rest of the game.

So, pick an option and explain your reasoning!

a) Warriors stay as they are, other classes are buffed, equal playing field and everyone’s happy. ANet have to tweak balance of content to match this horde of ’zerkers.

b) Warriors get nerfed, other classes are sought for instance speed runs, large numbers of Warriors complain vociferously and the rest of the game laps up their tears.

c) Nothing changes, cos if ANet think Necro/Engi/Ranger are fine, they’re also blind to Warrior/Mesmer CoF speed run balance etc. and have no idea how their own players are playing the game.

I’m gonna go with a). Not sure though… Keep this thread civil, avoid debating other people’s choices and if you need to add an option, do so.

The list of things ANet “should” have done since BWE1 is a very kittening long list indeed dear chap.

Don’t hold your breath.

Axe in DS with Axe Training will still, and I can guarantee this, do less damage than staff with no training in DS.

Base stats and power coeffecient for Axe are garbage. It’s a kiting/superiority weapon, not a main DPS weapon. Use it as such and it’s axe-ceptable.

LOL

If you like a slightly more DPS centric version of the juggermancer, try mine

WoC generates life force, can crit/proc effects AND flips boons on up to 5 people. Spinal Shivers has a 1200 range when traited, a lower cooldown and while it only affects 3 boons it does replace them reliably with a chill.

I’d go focus and WoC over Corrupt Boon tbh, especially with that 6s weakness. Never underestimate weakness, it’s a very dangerous condition.

Hey, thanks v much for the positive feedback!

I love SG, but find it bugs out a bit too often for it to be a permanent utility. I use it in sieges a lot, but WoC and WoS have to be my number one pick – wellbombing (and WoC for guardians) is just terrific in open world.

Glad you’re having fun.

I can’t help but feel that Plague with Chilling Darkness is going to get nerfed.

My build. Tanky but hurty.

Skull Masque with the longest horns possible. Epic charr.

That’s about the same as a regen tick.

What would you give up for that regen tick? I wouldn’t give up Fury on DS (as that provides a massive DPS boost), I wouldn’t give up 20% extra damage at 50% or less health, and I certainly wouldn’t give up the 100ish power and 50 toughness from the final trait in Death Magic.

It’s cool if people like it, but I really don’t think it makes a much of a difference. Assuming a fight lasts 10-15 seconds, thats 1-1.5khp tops. Less if you were in DS. I’d much rather pick something which has a more direct impact on me killing or not killing the enemy.

Lest we forget, we’ve already got 26-27khp which means that 15 point trait is a 4% increase in our overall survivability. 15 points in Curses or Spite as a much, much better improvement in our overall ability to win fights.

That’s IMO, you can do as you will

Hmm, I’ve experimented with that – I think that mathematically the 20% boost to damage when below 50% is better than both an extra 150 precision and the 2% per condition trait, but it’s about what works for you – and weakness on your target can be a game changer, so that’s totally valid.

I’d still go 10 into spite for retaliation in DS if I was in WvW or PvP – I can’t abide Blood Magic (the 15 point heal on hit is an insult to the mathematically literate) but I will experiment a bit more with 30 in Curses before ruling it out altogether.

Craptrain.7203:

Only a Condition necromancer would lose a 1v1 against a graveling burrow.

Fix’d >.<

Only a(n) (axe) power necromancer has a 600dps autoattack with 2.4k power.

Only a necromancer arrives before his staff projectiles