Guild Wars 2

Dondagora.9645:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Topic title pretty much, this always has confused me when fighting mesmers. I mainly play necro. Main reason I’m asking now is because I fought a mesmer a couple weeks ago who was using, least according to a friendly mesmer, was a PU build.

So basically, is it wise to destroy the clones as fast as possible with AoE, or just try and identify the mesmer? What would the consequences be from destroying the clones? Sorry for asking this but most other classes I can figure out if I fight long enough, but still don’t understand what’s the best course of action against mesmers.

Don’t melee the clones, at least, or kill them close to you if you want to avoid the conditions at all costs. You can risk-reward it and say that less clones to deal with will be worth the bleed, weakness, etc. The AoE around them isn’t all that strong, but can stack if you just try to kill them all constantly.

Definitely try to identify the mesmer if you can. Mesmers have limited stealth, so unless this guy is spreading his stealth out and staying in the open for bits at a time, he’ll run out within 20 or so seconds and you can burst or stun him down.

Honestly the conditions don’t bug me because I could just send them back or eat them. This guy was mainly spreading his stealth out it seemed, used a port and some invulnerability skill as well, made him look like a phantasm? Sorry! Don’t know the skill names, like I said I have almost no experience fighing or playing as a mesmer compared to the other professions, only thing I do know for certain is that you guys have portals….yeah…looked at your wiki page like twice I think.

Topic title pretty much, this always has confused me when fighting mesmers. I mainly play necro. Main reason I’m asking now is because I fought a mesmer a couple weeks ago who was using, least according to a friendly mesmer, was a PU build.

So basically, is it wise to destroy the clones as fast as possible with AoE, or just try and identify the mesmer? What would the consequences be from destroying the clones? Sorry for asking this but most other classes I can figure out if I fight long enough, but still don’t understand what’s the best course of action against mesmers.

Honestly, I feel they should just allow regeneration and siphons to go through, along with our signet effects (but deny access to using the actives)

Necro’s are so balanced around the best possible scenarios it is ridiculous!

Well I was playing my necromancer yesterday in PvE using my condition build, when I just started wondering how to give necro more access to torment, and at the same time make effective use of it. This is what I came up with.

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0UebvN22webighSyW4Di+ACgzlyvIKA-TFyHAB0eQAIS5Hu7PMo6PmpzBgHAwTKB/9KAQKAI2VB-w

Basically, it’s really just a modified terrormancer build, but i’d still like to know your opinions or ways I could improve it, or if it would be worth improving. This is a build just for WvW because the runes and sigils are not in PvP, and so this would mainly be regulated to small group fights and 1v1’s. In group fights you could swap out corrupt boon for epidemic to stack torment on the enemy group more easily I would think.

Also, question, I don’t imagine it would, but would having the Torment Sigil on my scepter make the torment it gives be affected by Lingering Curse? (scepter skills have increased durations)

Yeah that’s another thing, I’m a little bit afraid about if I get predator. I pretty much HAVE to use it to justify it. -_- So if there are any other skins that come out I like getting it would be sort of a waste cause there only only two classes that can use rifles, warrior and engie.

Honestly, i’d like to see it become something more of a shoulder mounted cannon. It could be considered a kit but have a cooldown and usage charges like the Fiery Great Sword. The biggest problem with mortar is that it is stationary, and the range is pitiful for a stationary weapon. I’ve tried using the thing on WvW to defend but it has such a small arch, unless I put myself in immediate danger I can’t use it. I can’t imagine it being even remotely useful in PvP for anything.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I saw the test of the new interface today and it looks solid to me. (I also happen to think it’s very attractive, but maybe that’s just me. )

The interface and Custom option move into testing now, and the text is already headed to Localization.

The dev team is keenly aware that there are Halloween items available only during a specific period (through November 4) and therefore they intend to do their darnedest to offer the new options in the next few days but certainly in advance of November 4th if humanly possible.

Now see that, THAT is a good response, none of this “soon” or “couple of weeks.” that let’s us know you guys are actually doing something and how seriously you take this. If there is one thing, especially gamers hate (least I think so) is vagueness. If you give us a date or at least a time frame, we know when to expect it. Then if something bad happens just say, something like, “Sorry guys, something unexpected happen, have to push the release back a bit.” I understand that you can’t give us too much info on things, you’re a game dev, you need to keep some things secretive, but this response was excellent. applause

Far as attractiveness goes, for something like this, long as it is useable i think people will be happy. If it was a skin or something I’d understand, but even if this custom gem amount interface is just a white box with some text I think people will be happy.

Frostaneous.6790:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Frostaneous.6790:

What helmet is that?

It’s the gasmask helm from living world season one. Got it from the laurel vendor, they sell it for around…i think it’s 15 laurels and some gold?

is it still in game…I missed season one?

Yep yep, like I said, got it from the laurel vendor in divinity’s reach. Though any laurel vendor should do. I like it, you can change the color of the visor, metal and the mesh? on it.

Frostaneous.6790:

What helmet is that?

It’s the gasmask helm from living world season one. Got it from the laurel vendor, they sell it for around…i think it’s 15 laurels and some gold?

Honestly, I really like it. I understand teh random factor because I’ve gotten a lot of buffs with this thing on just 100 pieces of candy corn. I do agree though they should tone down the transformation chances however. Seems I get a buff every to every 5-6 times I transform.

If they toned down the transformation chance but in turn reduced the time of the buffs (5-10 minutes instead of 15) I think that would be fair.

Gobbler is awesome, I wish the gramophone would however cycle the sounds a bit faster…honestly surprised the grammophone costs 600 and the gobbler only 300.

@ Duke: I’ll take your advice on the color swapping, thanks! You also make a good point with kits.

@ Sizer and Marmatt: Also a good alternative, do legendary weapons generally sell though with their high asking price? I’m willing to wait a bit but don’t wanna put it up on the tp and wait a month to get my money back haha.

@ The V: I do agree with that.

So so far it’s swinging in favor of keeping Phoenix and making another legendary to flip by about…3-0. I’m not counting myself because again…arguments. Also realized this should’ve probably gone in the crafting section, so 1000 apologies!

Ok, trying to get The Predator, and can’t really decide if I want to continue, or just say screw it and get some other items i’ve been wanting (deathly bull’s mantle for my necro, p/s condition build for my engie for WvW, reach 500 for ascended crafting etc. etc.) Right now i’m sitting on about half the gold I need to buy the precursor for it, along with a lot of t6 mats and ectos, and of course the 77 mystic clovers. And I have gift of mastery as well, so I still need the gift of the predator, and of course the precursor, The Hunter. As far as money goes, I haven’t really tied up much of anything yet, most of my mat’s i’ve gotten from salvaging and turning t5 into t6, as well as what I got from doing the clover recipes.

So this brings me to my problem, I can’t decide if The Predator would be worth it for me. I currently use the Phoenix rifle and aesthetically, I love the look. The gatling-like barrel makes me think that this gun could actually fire like a blunderbuss, but still be able to function like a rifle when it needs too. I like the glow, and it matches my color scheme, as well as I believe, my look, it’s also got some sentimentality behind it, but i won’t get into that.

However, I know the Predator can be considered sort of a bragging rights weapon, something that people WILL notice you having because of the glow and sound effect…personally that doesn’t really matter to me that much, as I see a good bit of Predators in WvW and just general roaming, but not that many phoenix rifles. Also, it looks like an engineeer weapon, but doesn’t look like it would perform like one, again it’s a rifle, not a blunderbuss or something like the Phoenix Rifle.

I guess by reading my own typed out post I’m sorta convincing myself to just stop with The Predator and craft an ascended rifle, but now it’s become a problem of that I’ve come this far in crafting it, it’ll feel like I’m just giving up…oi I hate the way my head works, feels like I got 3 voices arguing in my head. -_- Any help in putting this beast to rest would be appreciated. Sorry for bothering ya all.

manveruppd.7601:

If they increased dark pact to 1000 then the immobilise would expire by the time you walked up to them. It’s not meant as something that gets you close to your opponent, it’s meant as something that keeps them there while you deliver your damage. What we need instead is a Dark Path that WORKS. Either by substantially increasing projectile speed or by turning it into a targeted teleport.

I love the idea of being able to teleport back to your marks! I would absolutely take such a trait! I think though it should only be possible BEFORE they’re triggered. Being able to hit your enemies with the mark AND teleport back to it would be too much.

Guess I never really thought of Dark Pact like that, so yeah that makes sense. And agreed with Dark Path, that thing is just a waste I find unless I use it within 600 range.

Honestly surprised somebody liked that suggestion. O_O the only thing that would arise from teleporting before triggering is that it would give us a great escape, which they don’t what us to have. But that could be solved with a cooldown on the teleport ability I guess. The main reason I suggest a teleport after trigger is to prevent us from having an escape tool, but reinforce that necro is a class that is hard to get away from once you have engaged one.

This is the first time I started watching the tournaments, and yeah various things can happen to cause a DC, from Areneanet’s end to the players end. But there needs to be a system of checks and balances. A pause game feature would help immensely, two pauses for each team.

Eh, what if they made it so the warrior is healed every time he gains adrenaline?

Jayce.5632:

TheLastNobody.8319:

Honestly, I think necro needs the most help with just some team utility, we bring nothing to the table, and a way to not get focused down so easily in group play. Also, siphon buffs or as you said, stability…though they said in the recent ready up that stability doesn’t fit the necromatic theme for some odd reason.

Would love Minion AI fixes but it’s not the most important thing on the list.

I know every class has needs to have some weakness, just seem necromancer has more weaknesses than others…

Arenanet can buff Life Siphon base by 100% and increase it’s scaling by 150%. It will all be a mute point when you can’t get the skills off or, much less, complete the entire channel because you have no way to (say it with me people, Arenanet, dwellers underneath rocks, etc.) prevent yourself from getting interrupted.

Indeed. It’s even worse when you get stun locked and forced to go into deathshroud to survive, thus losing all stunbreaks and utilities, and probably all life force in a couple of seconds. That’s why I hate it when people go with the “Deathshroud is a second health bar.” argument. We may have a second health bar, but to use it we have to lose all access to our utilities and weapons, and use skills we may not even be built for, as well as be unable to be healed by ourselves or allies…

Yeah that came outta left field…sorry.

We need leaps, or ways for us to stick to an opponent, other than just teleports. Honestly, I like that we aren’t THAT mobile. I would like for us to be more of the profession that is extremely hard to get away from, not one that just teleports or runs away like all the others..

What if, and this is a big BIG if, they made a grandmaster trait that made it so after an enemy triggers a mark, you can teleport to it for a set period of time. If not that, and I would understand why people would think that’s ridiculous, they increased the range on dact pact to 1000? Same with life siphon? Also the axe, as others have said, needs some big work. The thing works barely outside of the range of most melee weapons, and most classes will be dancing around you as you try to keep them infront of you.

Honestly, I think necro needs the most help with just some team utility, we bring nothing to the table, and a way to not get focused down so easily in group play. Also, siphon buffs or as you said, stability…though they said in the recent ready up that stability doesn’t fit the necromatic theme for some odd reason.

Would love Minion AI fixes but it’s not the most important thing on the list.

I know every class has needs to have some weakness, just seem necromancer has more weaknesses than others…

yeah conditions won’t work really in a group of that size. 5-6 maybe. once you get above 10 the aoe conditions cleanses will shut out any and all forms of conditions.

It’s never a good thing to take choice and options away.

I remember when I was trying to make the eye of rodghort…I think I got like 1 giant’s eye out of like a week of farming all the giants I could find. That was it…

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Two things:

Necromancers have Signet of undeath, which essentially fuels their Death Shroud while in combat, as well as Consume conditions. At basal level, Consume Conditions heals moderately well. It also functions as a defense as it removes all conditions and grants health for each one consumed.

Consume Conditions, you are right, is amazing as a heal. All the other necro heals are pretty lack luster though, well of blood, signet of vampirism, blood fiend I think is good but only really in a MM build, and IF it freaking attacks since apparently minions don’t come with brains!

Now for the part about signet of undeath, that is just false sorry to say. We lose the signet’s ability while in deathshroud, as well as only generating 1% life force per 3 seconds. Now, I can get my deathshroud to around…15-17 thousand depending on my build so going with 17000 life force, I am generating a whopping 170 life force every 3 seconds. Now this value can change because deathshroud does scale with vitality. Also if we use the active, that puts it on a 180 cooldown, 144 if you take signet mastery and that’s taking up a utility slot we could use for better utilities such as a well, corruption, or the ever so needed stun break since necros lack stability.

Also, not trying to throw your whole post out the window by just highlighting this one point, it’s just the one that stuck with me the most since I play necro a lot.

Happy with the change to staff and dagger, least it’s something, now if they’d just buff Dark Path….

Looking at their track record with necro since the September patch though, i’m afraid what they’ll consider over performing after this.

I’ve sat here for about 15 minutes trying to type up a good argument but just can’t bring it together. so I’ll just say this.

Healing signet isn’t op, just the warrior has a lot of defense to compliment the passive heal with its stances, mobility, and CC. It’s also a profession that, I believe, has fulfilled its class concept of being a juggernaut that not only relishes, but grows stronger as the fight goes on. (yes i know it still has bugs, but still, it has fulfilled that design of being a first in, last out type of profession).

I also think its the case of some other profession not reaching their fulfilled design. Necromancer is a good example, like the warrior, its a profession that is supposed to grow stronger, or at least stay constant as the fight goes on…yet it is probably the worst at doing that because of its lack of defense.

So my take, don’t nerf healing signet, just give the other professions ways to sustain themselves in a fight in a way that is unique to their profession, and maybe make the other warrior heals worth taking. Hell, maybe make mending flip conditions to boons.

A.e.d.- honestly, this has pulled me out of the fire a lot. Thief tries to get me while roaming, gets me under 50%, pop this, he bursts, I heal and counter. Though it is lengthy…still, it has saved me a good few times.

Med kit-toolbelt skill heals for 5k plus 1.0 healing power. Plus, you can proc enhance performance without wasting a heal. It also comes with the medlits, a 1 condition cleanse and fury plus swiftness on the 5 skill. Downside, need time to set it up.

Elixir H-good in an elixir build…but not much else.

Healing turret- Probably our best heal period. You get healed 2.5k on the deployment, can cleansing burst right at the drop to get another 2.5k heal plus 2 condition cleanse group heal, then you can just pick it for reduced cool down on detonate during cleansing burst to heal some more. Downside, takes some time. I’d say 1.5 seconds to do the full rotation.

Really, all the heals are dependent on what you are doing and what you need. Need to do something you’ll probably die doing, AED. Need to help the group? Healing turret. Have time to prepare against an incoming siege? Med kit. Running elixirs? Elixir H. Least that’s how I see it.

I can solo the honor of the waves p2 pretty easily with necro, though I haven tried others.

Honestly damage wise we aren’t too bad, and we can last pretty long if we manage our deathshroud correctly. The thing with necros in dungeons though is we bring nothing for the team. We don’t stack vulnerability well even with axe, WoS, Focus, and unyielding….whatever trait that gives 2 vulnerability stacks on life blast.

We can’t stack might, or stealth, or anything meaningful, and if we use wells, they prove more harmful to the team than helpful, as they cover up fire fields. We have one group condition cleanse with WoP, but that takes a while and you have to stay in it.

Finally death shroud stop heals on us, and it’s tough for teammates to tell whether or not you’re in deathshroud or are normal, so they might try to heal you to find you we’re just fine.

Now, ALL this being said, we do have some decent qualities. We’re tanky with deathshroud, so we can take some hits. We do good damage, and can apply a good bit of chill, immobilize, and cripple. If you time the wells right so they don’t overlap with other fields, again, this helps.

Honestly though any class can go through any dungeon so long as everyone has a vague impression of what they are supposed to do. It’s just people who like to do dungeons in the most efficient way possible or the fastest way. The only problem I have with bringing my necro to a dungeon is that I also play engi, and when I’m an engi, I can contribute stealth and might, and decent condition cleaner and healing. I feel like I’m part of the team when I’m an engi, where as necro I feel like I’m just sorta there.

I’m running scholar runes right now which aren’t too bad, though you could go with strength and possibly hoelbrak. I run hoelbrak on my engi mainly for the combined condition duration reduction plus might duration. Is this for pvp, Wvw, or PvE?

Minions- when their ai doesn’t screw them over, they do get the job done. I loved using MM with a condition variation, and just pinning opponents down with bear constant cripples and te occasional chill, plus stacking weakness and poison with chilblains and putrid explosion with death nova. That combined with vampiric master and blood fiend, and the condition transfers, I found I never had a problem with forcing an opponent to stay in the fight. I’ve even run MM in some dungeon runs with some success, impressing my then guild leader at the time.

Condition magnet- I remember fighting the high priestess of Lyssa in Arah, and using my aoe, would pop all her clones, I’d get the 25 stacks of confusion, which I then would eat with consume conditions, or flip with well of power.

Boon stripping/conversion- corrupt boon, well of corruption, axe 3, spinal shivers, chill of death.

No, signet of vampirism is just bad. As mentioned by CastIron, the ICD makes it so it will only heal you for one hit per second on the passive. Even then, it only heals for 350 + 10% of your healing power when you are hit, so that’s easy enough to overcome. It MIGHT let you survive for one more hit but that’ll be it. You won’t be surviving anything for long when you combine that with the necro’s lack of ways to mitigate damage, and heals do not work when you’re in deathshroud.

The active is not that good either since you have a 1 second ICD per player on that as well. So you hit an enemy with Axe 2 for the full channel, you’ll only get 2 procs. With allies, I find it doesn’t work too well either, because if they are low on health for anything, they will want to run away and use their own heal. And even when they attack the target, again, only 1 attack per second….

In short, it could be a decent heal if they ditched the ICD on the passive and possibly the active, and made the passive heal for a percentage of the damage you take instead of just a flat 350. But na, just increasing the active’s duration by one second was apparently enough in their book….-_- yeah i’m still bitter about that feature patch, and the subsequent “fixes” after.

what about stability per pulse on well of power?

I am really resisting the urge to go on a rant right now…It’s not the fact they did this to death shroud, it’s the fact they keep nerfing us for no dang good reason, and giving us NOTHING in return.

7/10, like the white hair one better as while black is a good color for necromancer, it’s nice to have some lighter colors.

I’d be interested to see a screenshot of her glowing at night.

Bweaty.9187:

Been away a ‘few’ months… Guess nothings changed.
Tho litch form nerf means zerker necro even less useful?

Pretty much. You can no longer well bomb, and the ten second loss cuts down on our burst. But necro has never been too bad when it comes to DPS, just we offer no team buffs or utility. We can stack vulnerability, but heck, so can engi, and he does it faster, more efficient, and can maintain the stacks, as well as provide might, stealth, and group AOE heals plus condition removal.

I’m not sure if I should be happy or disappointed, or a combination of the two…happointed?

I’d have to say engi…though necro is my favorite.

Engi works good in dungeons and can do a lot of things in WvW. He’s mobile, has tons of CC, decent group condition clear, pretty much, you know how to play him, he can do a lot of things and compliment a lot of other classes.

Necro though….I love it so much because of WHAT he is supposed to and still could be. I like the concept of siphons, I love the fact he is a master of conditions, I like the concept of turning my enemy’s own strength’s (boons) into weaknesses (conditions.). I also love the concept of using other people’s life force against them, that the more enemies that are around, the more life I can draw on to fuel myself, not to mention having my own minion army to do my bidding….or at least a squad. I would love to see them do more things involving soul magic. But the minion ai is horrible right now, necro’s don’t bring really any group utility, are very weak to CC, and can only use life force to just enter into a state that cuts them off from utilities and doesn’t help allies much and blocks all healing so there go siphons, and the amount of health you get from the siphons is just pitiful, and necros are not too difficult to get away from if you just bring a couple of movement abilities like a teleport or dash.

In short! Engi fulfills my needs, but necro is the class I truly want to play.

Least rangers can order their pets to attack and not just stare off into the distant void…

This mainly for roaming I guess?

Honestly, if you’re worried about not having enough condition cleanse, i’d drop the focus for the offhand dagger. Or you could drop the warhorn for offhand dagger, and use spectral walk instead of the well of darkness. Tell me, how much do you want to be in deathshroud?

If you’re wondering of vigor will stack with adrenal implant, it won’t. But what you can do is take infused precision, the vigor on swiftness trait, go for the eyes, and armor mod. I found those traits working together made me very…tanky isn’t the right word, hard to hit? Evasive! That’s the word!

Other day I was roaming in WvW with my condition Minionmancer and fought a ranger about 3 times. Not a duel just a straight up “Oh there is an enemy, let’s fight him!” fight. Got myself beat twice, third fight I only won cause I got him right when he finished off a camp supervisor.

So, problems I had, couldn’t get close enough, I run staff and scepter/dagger, tried to get close where my marks could affect him and that didn’t work. Used my flesh wurm, it did some damage but not enough to actually make him run or really consider a reposition. Dodged the rapid fires and the wolf, ended up getting pushed back. Also my minions could never get in range to actually do anything. I tried to do the dark path trick on a nearby mob, but either I was unlucky or he really had his positioning down. Note I did use deathshroud but again, problem was that I wasn’t able to tank it, I just couldn’t get close enough to actually engage him.

So, anyway for me to really fight back against this using a Condition MM build? If not would a Conditionmancer or Terrormancer do any better? I’m not big on power based necro builds unless i’m running wellomancer in a zerg, especially after the lich changes. Any help is appreciated.

Wonderful! Now if only they’d fix the dang flesh of the master bug for necromancer minions. -_-

New to sellin dungeons, mainly just AC path 3 and TA upper with a friend. Would it be ok if we joined? On EU by the way.

Next to flesh wurm, bone minions are my favorite. When traited they hit for about 2k when you use putrid explosion, which is instant and has a one second cooldown, plus if you use death nova, they leave a poison field behind. One thing I love doing is using staff 3, which leaves a poison field, then blow them both up, stacking a lot of weakness and poison.

Sure they’re flimsy, but their main use is to be moving land mines that go off at the necro’s command, not melee fighters like flesh golem or shadow fiend.

Shanks.2907:

Don’t abuse your mobility to reset fights so often and you won’t have to deal with it as much.

I don’t think that’s the problem they are talking about. If warriors are fighting someone, say a thief, the thief can reset the fight whenever and however he wants because of his stealth and mobility (not saying thieves are OP). This leads to the warrior loosing his adrenaline, and thus the thief’s biggest threat from the warrior is removed, meaning he can go back in without having to worry about the burst attack, as well as the warrior’s adrenaline reliant traits becoming useless.

Other classes that can do this that come to mind are engineers, mesmers, rangers, and elementalists…not sure if the guardians have that same luxury, and I know necros don’t.

I ran a condition engi for a couple of bouts against friends in PvP, seemed to do pretty well. Using grenades, coupled with rabid and balthazar runes, you can apply a near permanent burn if traited right, and using pistol shield, you’ll be very tanky, the 4 on shield reflects projectiles so you can laugh at poor rangers. Can also run P/P for more burning and an AOE immobilize, though it’s riskier. Coupled with all the other conditions you put out, the burn should be hard to get rid of since it’ll be covered under immobilizes, bleeds, poisons, chills and the sort.

Main thing you need to look out for will be necromancers, as they’ll just send all the conditions back to you, and if you use elixir c, convert all the boons back into conditions.

Holy….6,000 per hit?! That’s insane! Chalk another up for the list of things ANet needs to address in this patch. Seriously, did the last feature patch have this many bugs?

Yeah that helped to clear things up for me. Being able to walk about half of cursed shore though (I assume that’s an exaggeration) is a bit much, but again, not being able to even attack a nearby mob is like gutting your profession. There are also audio cues for when you are building and finish building adrenaline aren’t there? So people can just high tail it the moment your character announces they are full.

Ohhhh, yeah instantly starting to lose your adrenaline when your ooc is not good, not good at all. There definitely should be a grace period of a couple of seconds at least. Oi, hope it gets fixed for you all. I won’t lie, I did want the warrior to be nerfed a little bit but that just seems too much, it’s like the warrior nerf patch on Smite all over again….dark times, dark times.

Don’t worry, i’m sure they’ll fix it in the next feature patch…

Yeah look, sorry still salty cause I loved running minion master in WvW roaming. Ever since the April feature patch their AI seems to have been lobotomized and this bug just takes the cake after everything else they did to necromancers in this feature patch.

I don’t play a warrior but if I may ask, how long DOES it take you all now to lose 3 bars of adrenaline after exiting combat?