Guild Wars 2

I’ll just throw in my two cents on this thing. (wvw is not my main game mode, mainly use it to get some small scale fights and command once in a blue moon when the enemy night crews come on)

I think the new features will be interesting. I’m a little worried about the super cannon, but think it could help make small group and roamers more valuable. I love the dolyak buff, as i hate that when i’m escorting a dolyak a thief just pops up from stealth, bursts it, then runs the moment I retaliate. I am a little bit worried about the enforced chokepoints, but I think that will be good to help defend against night karma trains.

Overall, I think it’ll be interesting. Seems like they’re trying to add more objectives to the map that affect your priority list more than just “Which building will give us a better PPT?”

hey sorry sorta lost track of this topic. Seems to be working now though i am getting a bit of bad lag.

Heyo, tried firing up gw2 today and everything appeared normal at first, logged in, chose my character, started in Divinity’s Reach. Tried to port to Cursed shore and nothing, stuck at the loading screen, tried with my other characters too and they won’t load in at all now.

For a power necro it’s really hard. Most will run the moment they see you enter deathshroud, then come back when you exit for an easy kill. If you use spectral grasp it’ll maybe let you chain them with doom for 2-3 hard hitting life blasts. Usually though they’ll start the fight because of the 900 range gap closer steal has, then use the skull fear in stealth and burst you down, or force you to enter deathshroud and again, run away.

For condition it’s a lot easier. If you have runes of the nightmare, the fear proc will interrupt their initiation, then if they skill fear you (and they will) they’ll be feared from reaper’s protection.

I run a 6/4/4 condition build for roaming with dhuumfire, for the extra damage. Also run shrouded removal as that will remove the fear from skull fear, letting you turn around and blast them with life blast, tainted shackles, and chain into doom for another fear. Exit deathshroud, pop signet of spite to make their life heck. Use scepter 2 an knife 5 to stack bleeds, weakness and cripple. At thi point they should b near dead or dead. If they try and use shadow refuge, fear them out of it with staff 5, don’t not combo it with chilblains, o they’ll stay in it when they go down. If that happens use staff one to keep them from reading and go into ds to use life transfer and tainted shackles if they’re on cool down. Use corrupt boon if they have boons of course, as it applies a lot more pressure. For a stunbreaker, use what you want, I prefer plague signet personally. For an elite if human, I’d use hounds of Balthazar, they apply aoe burning that scales with condition duration and condition damage. Flesh golem the knockdown is great, but I find it’s better to keep an ace in the hole.

The main thing when fighting a thief is limiting their options, as they have a ton. The only real way to do that is CC, cripple and chill help, as well a weakness, but with their teleports and initiative they are semi immune to cripple an chill you could say. Sorry this is typed hastily, on my phone so yeah.

I only use it to solo camps in WVW and in silver wastes. It’s good if you have a bunch of mobs together and pop epidemic on a heavily conditioned target, but PvP and solo roaming, not so much. The healing isn’t enough to get back the damage you’ll be taking.

I was going to type up a big long post on why I hate the thief’s on demand access to stealth and class design in general,…then I thought what’s the point?

Simple fact, thieves are a profession that have been unfortunately designed around the way stealth works in this game. Heck, they have an entire trait line devoted to the dang mechanic. Sure mesmer’s do too, engie’s have a bit but I think it can be said that thieves are the undisputed kings of stealth in GW2. BECAUSE OF THAT they are designed to be squishy, not have that much condition cleanse, and be mobile as hell (mobile meaning able to get in and out of a fight quickly, not dodging everything left and right.) Sure you can make a thief that uses evasion more than stealth, but that requires so much more effort and if you slip up once it can lead to disaster.

Plus the main thing I think people hate about thieves (myself included) is how in WvW they just appear out of nowhere and burst you down before you even know what happened, then when you activate your defenses, they stealth and run away, wait to regain whatever initiative they had to use, then come back in because they know your stuff is on cooldown and now can kill you much easier. PvP this isn’t such a big problem because it’s Conquest, requiring your team to capture and hold points, so the thief has to get close, as well as hold their ground, something the class is not really designed to do, plus stealth doesn’t contribute to capturing a point.

So yeah, my point, is they nerf stealth, the thief would be ruined because it is one of the class’s primary survival mechanics. Even if they buffed a dancing build or pistol build, I still don’t see any thieves using anything else other than the popular D/P because of it’s utility and damage. My advice for all stealth haters, just get used to it and learn to deal with it, it’s probably not going to go away.

Big time thief hater here….and I mean really big.

Ok, now that I’ve said that, what do thieves need to not be SOOOO reliant on stealth and running away. Really, if I could start fighting thieves that didn’t turn tail and run the moment they lost a tiny bit of health, that’d be great, really flippin great. I learn mainly from fighting other professions, learning their mechanics, signs, and telegraphs, but thief is the one I have yet to friggin crack. (and yes, I have lost…a lot….to every profession)

I mainly play WvW and roam, did some PvP but…that community…ugh, felt like I needed to take a bath when I got outta there each time I played. And the fact most thieves I encountered in there weren’t actually trying to win, but instead screw over people didn’t help either in my outlook on the thief community. -_-

Also, necromancer player. LET US DISCUSS!

Can I have your stuff?

Would love the ability to enthrall my defeated allies, reviving them as lesser undead versions (no healing, utilities, or elites, only 1-5 skills like a transform to a risen mob), they could feed off my life force and have to attack enemies to refill it, I couldn’t go into deathshroud while they are tethered to me and the tether breaks at 600 range killing them. Though I KNoW something like that would probably never happen. Idk, something dealing with reviving or sorta making a deal with my allies to help or let them live in exchange for servitude.

Also, better corruption type skills.

Personally, I feel that the specializations will flesh out what our character already does. Example, one might be more minion control/summoning a minion army. Another will be focused more on using the life force side of the necromancer to buff himself (and hopefully) allies, possibly even allow the necromancer to step out of his body for a time and become in essence just a soul, reinforcing spectral skills. For wells…i’m not sure, corruptions though I can see this being about sacrifice for greater power, possibly even letting us start to actually trade health and/or life force to give ourselves more power. For siphons, i’d LOVE for us to be able to use our life force to heal ourselves, instead of just going into deathshroud to protect ourselves. Something sorta like Alucard from hellsing and his whole soul tank thing.

I have some hope for the necromancer after seeing the xpac….some. Honestly, I can say I am hyped but one must always stay cautious.

I wouldn’t hold your breath. I got all hyped up about the September patch when they said they’d buff our sustain…and then only added 1 sec to the SoV active. Yeah they also buffed spectral armor, but hell, that still wasn’t much.

I think it’s hilarious that as a class that can manipulate and use the very essence of life itself, we have the worst heals (besides consume conditions which is easily interrupted) and support in the game, heck we don’t even have a good revive skill except on signet of undeath!

One thing i don’t get is why are we necromancers designed around only optimal scenarios that never happen when it seems the rest of the classes are not?

Could you add some dialogue to the ghost mail carrier, I love the guy but something like. “At once sir/ma’am” when you send something and “letter for you sir/milady”. Would be awesome.

I’ve used it against guardians that are behind me, as long as you have them targeted it should work.

Also, against thieves it isn’t as useful because I believe it breaks stun first, then transfers, so you don’t transfer the fear. Also for thieves it helps to take shrouded removal I find, when they fear you just pop into deathshroud, which will remove the fear thanks to shrouded removal, then fear them back with doom. After that it is a matter of bursting them before they stealth, or overloading them with conditions….sorry, got a bit off topic but on my “professions I wish would disappear” list thief takes slots 1-8.

Yay! My favorite class gets next to nothing while the class that I wish would implode gets buffs….sigh Ok corrosive poison cloud is a nice buff, and the signet of the locust shows MAYBE they are starting to get that our sustain is next to nothing. But those will still not see play as we need stunbreakers to help counter our huge weakness to CC.

A friend begged me to get it and play it with her…so i did. Very fun, love the lore and the world itself, just sorta wish that I could experience dungeons and the dragon world bosses as they were designed. >_<

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Conditions are fine in PvE, but there can only be one (two if one is a Mesmer)

This! This very much. HAIL DRARNOR!

I liked the IDEA behind no white swords, but not the implementation. When the season started my server got blitzkrieged by the enemy servers, each fighting and taking about half our borderlands during the first couple of days. We didn’t have enough people to scout AND fight off the 2 large zerfs that were now just rampaging throughout our borderlands. We couldn’t get supplies for defensive siege or really anything.

If they added a trap or trick that marked all enemies in a range when it went off that would be great! Or if npcs are alive, enemies appear on the minimap or something to that extent. Anyway thats’s my two cents. EU t2.

Same, it was interesting…only thing I have to say is thank grenth for deathshroud!

Favorite: necromancer

I love the lore, magic, and play style of the necro. And would love it more if anet made it like they said it should be, a class that once you engage, is hard to run from. I love loading enemies up with conditions, then using epidemic to see them all spread. I love deathshroud, and I like the concept behind life siphons as well, just wish they would work…most of all though I love fighting enemies in WvW like guardians eles and engies, boon heavy classes, then just using corrupt boon at the right moment, oh the satisfaction.

Least favorite/most hated: Thief

Every game I play I HATE the stealthy, glass cannon type classes, but eventually I figure out how to counter them….however the thief in gw2 is by far the class/character/profession I hate the most out of any game I have played with the stealth type in it. Between the instant teleports, on demand stealth, their dang initiative system, and their ability to take away about 1/2 of your health away before you can react, they just make me want to pull my hair out! And if they even suffer so much as a light scratch they just stealth, port, and leap away. I’ve fought guardians, warriors, mesmers, engies, rangers, eles and other necros and have won and lost, most of the fights ill enjoy even, but I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed fighting a thief and probably never will.

This is primarily based on PvE and WvW, some experience in pvp but it’s about the same.

Honestly, give me a guardian and a ranger and I am good. They are both great at peeling and helping to make some space, whereby I can do a condition dump or burst them down with life blast.

No, it’s one of the reasons I prefer WvW to PvP.

Sometimes I feel like this when playing necromancer:

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/106/b/7/merasmus_is_here_by_viventomortus-d7ep670.png

Other times, I feel like this:

http://7-themes.com/data_images/out/46/6925946-grim-reaper-26460.jpg

I like that they are trying to reward you more for playing the game and exploring, but….well for those of us who have been playing a while it just sort of sucks, plus sometimes you have to do the same things again. For me, leveling once was enough, I don’t like leveling, I like experimenting, making new builds, seeing what I can and can’t do with a class.

Yes…..it is absolutely horrible. Why? BECAUSE SECOND HEALTH BAR OP!!!!!

Really am not enjoying, and looking forward to when they switch back. I’m in EU T2 and the only thing I’ve seen is a big increase in zerging. Sure scouting is more important now but who the heck wants to do it when it gives you no rewards, and if you don’t have enough people to defend something than you are screwed anyway.

I support what they wanted to do with the white swords, I really do, but instead, why not put in a trick or trap that when used or triggered, causes all enemies in range to be highlighted an tracked on the minimap for a certain amount of time? Or even better, make it so when an npc sees an enemy they show up, that way the stupid guards and sentries are actually worth something!

Id honestly like it if they would charge at the target, not slow like flesh golem but just like a mad dash and then ka-boom! I like mm too and have even taken it in dungeons to see how it did, when they worked it did great! Not like meta or anything but I was able to save my team from a few boss wipes when something went wrong.

Favs:
Predator and spear legendaries.

Disappointed:
Quip, bifrost

Rest I’m just indifferent to.

I use a rabid bleed build with krait runes, scepter/dagger and staff. Scepter has sigil of earth, dagger has sigil of corruption, staff has sigil of malice and geomancy. I run blood is power, epidemic and a stunbreaker, usually well of power of spectral armor, going 6/6/2 for traits. It runs rather well for fort defense, escorts, and general roaming. For forts I usually take the less populated side, stack conditions on a husk slinger or sieger and epidemic them thus killing the menders and teagraffs quickly. Long as you don’t put yourself next to a teagraff you’ll have no trouble.

Who wants nachos? Spicy, extra jalapenos! Comes with choice of guacamole, sour cream, or cream cheese!

I usually play necro, also play engine from time to time. Necro I can flip camps pretty easily and quickly, wellomancer, just stack up the npcs, drop all the sellin em an go for broke, not my fav though. Minion Master usually had no problems, just b sure to keep an eye on the position of your bone minions, and use flesh golem to interrupt the heals, if running death nova, you can stack a lot of weakness with the bone minion putrid explosion, staff 3, staff4 putrid explosion chain…least that’s how I do it.

My favorite way though is probably conditionmancwr with a 6/4/4/0/0 set up, using parasitic contagion. Just kill the scouts first, then stack conditions on supervisors and the guard with your staff an scepter/dagger, lay down a corrosive poison cloud before engaging btw gives weakness and poison., then epidemic the supervisor to just melt te guards, camp should be your in just a few seconds. I like this set up because if someone tries to gank you to steal the camp or shows up to defend it, you can epidemic the supervisor again and watch as their health melts, just interrupt their cleanses with your fears and you should be good if that happens to you.

I also said I play engi, but don’t use him much in WvW, but I do mainly use a bomb setup. Just use smoke bomb first and you should be good, can also use grenades if you wish.

Add one second to the active…..

I resolve to kill more thieves in WvW and PvP.

Edit: Like to make an addition, and dance/laugh/sit on each ones corpse.

As people have been saying, we are part of the Gwen meta, and 1v1 are good at holding our own. Honestly though, I don’t like to Zerg and instead enjoy roaming with my group of friends or by myself. I think necro is probably one of the best, least IMO, for taking camps quickly since as a conditionmancer I can usually take one in around 30 seconds, same for wellomancer, and even Minion Master if you pay attention to the position of your bone minions and time their putrid explosion right.

A little divided on the issue myself…but I gotta go with no. We’re not supposed to be a stealthy class, and don’t have mobility to take advantage of said stealth even if we did have it.

I tried going for a legendary but the grind wore me out, and the only one I was interested in was the predator which, as a rifle, is only useable by warriors and engies. The stat swapping would be nice, but I find that having the ascended crafting on my necro is far more useful. (necro is my main, engie was for a while but I keep creeping back towards my necro…) I can make a nice bit of money off the damask bolts, get rid of excess bloodstone and dragonite ore, and the skins look nice….THOUGH I STILL WANT THE DANG SPIRE OF THE SUNLESS FOR MY NECRO! GIVE ME A BREAK TEQUATL!

Honestly, I think it’s good. Helps to sorta discourage blobbing because if your zerg gets wiped, that’s a lot of points for the enemy.

…so glad I took piano lessons for 10 years. _

Zetsumei.4975:

TheLastNobody.8319:

ty for all the suggestions so far. Right now a condition build sounds better to me as it would give me more control over the fight. The standard attack pattern i’ve seen from thieves is that they enter stealthed, steal skull fear and use it at point blank to get the long stun, I then have to use a stun break or go into deathshroud to keep myself safe. If I go into deathshroud, I find they usually run away by porting or restealthing, then getting a safe distance until I am forced to drop out of it. After dropping out they port back in with shadow step or their one signet to try and burst.

If I use a stunbreak, the scenario is pretty much the same. So TO ME it seems like I’d have to screw up their initiation first. Would this be a safe assessment?

When you get hit by that steal-fear or most stuns in general, you should make a habit of having a knee jerk reaction and instantly entering shroud and using the fear skill 3 on them which you can do while stunned/feared if you dont want to blow a stun breaker.

Also when carrying out a rotation keep in mind they will stealth as quickly as possible so do things like release shroud #2 skill towards the end of their reveal duration, the hand will track them during stealth even if they blink around. Once shroud #2 hits, you know you are at their location so what i would do is (I hold my forward direction button just before it hits so I know as soon as it hits i will be slightly in front of them, and them being chilled helps) land staff #5 on your position to fear, now remember they run away from you so land the rest of your marks behind you in a line, basically you can see that im getting at ways to 100% know their location when they are in stealth and in particular while playing condi do not stop bombarding them with attacks.

Lol apologies if that was a bit overly detailed.

oh no no, I find overly detailed better than overly vague, or underly…detailed. If that makes sense. Also! quick clarification, I do usually run shrouded removal, so when I enter deathshroud it does break me out of the fear.

ty for all the suggestions so far. Right now a condition build sounds better to me as it would give me more control over the fight. The standard attack pattern i’ve seen from thieves is that they enter stealthed, steal skull fear and use it at point blank to get the long stun, I then have to use a stun break or go into deathshroud to keep myself safe. If I go into deathshroud, I find they usually run away by porting or restealthing, then getting a safe distance until I am forced to drop out of it. After dropping out they port back in with shadow step or their one signet to try and burst.

If I use a stunbreak, the scenario is pretty much the same. So TO ME it seems like I’d have to screw up their initiation first. Would this be a safe assessment?

I’m having the same problem, and I know it isn’t my isp. Everything else runs and patches fine, it’s just gw2 that has problems patching.

So what WOULD be an ideal backstab?

So yeah, topic title. Personally, I hate thieves with a passion. The other professions when I’ve fought them I don’t have too much of a problem with, and have had a generally enjoyable experience fighting against. Thieves though, I have never really enjoyed fighting them, and they are the majority of my fights in WvW. So now, i’m looking for some builds to allow me to better combat them when I have the unfortunate experience of encountering one. And yes, I know a build itself will not make me win 100% of the time against them, I still need to improve my tatics and thinking, but having a good foundation will do wonders. Thanks for all the help and here is a cookie. (: Also sorry for being a bit vague in my description but I was in a rush while typing this.

I know people say giving necros heals in deathshroud would give them too much sustain, but the way I look at it, we don’t have that many ways to avoid damage. Other classes have access to vigor to increase dodges, guards to block damage, invulnabilty/pseudo in invulnerability, stealth, mobility, short cool down burst heals, passive health regen, stability to let them not be cc’d into bad positions, and other mechanics. Essentially, we may have two health bars as necros, but other classes have ways to block, avoid, or just flat out ignore more than two health bars worth of damage. Since we don’t have access to things other classes have let us be healed in deathshroud, let us have insane sustain to counteract the fact we don’t have many other defensive mechanics other than deathshroud.

Corrupt boon, love when i get their stability with that skill, especially eles.

killahmayne.9518:

Epidemic is actually an amazing ability for small group stuff, however I think the reason why it isn’t used so often is because Necros need or tend to take survival-based utilities, or play well builds.

It is always satisfying to pop Signet of Spite on somebody and pop epidemic onto a whole group :p.

This. IF you can get a good epidemic off, the enemy is going to have to cleanse, or be horribly hampered in the fight. However since necro has no actual escapes or ways to defend itself from multiple attackers, we have to take other utilities to compensate, thus ruling epidemic out in PvP.

i might recommend Engie. Fun class, good variety of builds, lots of AoE with bombs and nades, doesn’t require that much equipment since you can only carry 2 weapons max, synergizes with other classes in dungeons by providing might or stealth, jump shot lets you get through jumping puzzles easier. Overall fun class….though i have only really played necro and engie…and i still main my necro. I love my necro. _

Bah i’m not worried about turning a profit in cooking, I just don’t wanna pay out the wazoo for my food anymore…annnd now i sound like a free loader.