It really depends on if it counts as hitting with the GS while in reaper’s shroud. Those are all fast hitting, multi target abilities, and if the extra life siphon still procs, it will be pretty nice to have.
Actually this makes a lot of sense and it would make RS a nice OH kitten if you also have blood magic and a full life force bar since you’d be refilling your hp while LF depletes unlike that worthless US.
Ragnarox, we got some awesome stuff. I disagree completely. Now granted, we need to see what the other professions get but so far i’m incredibly happy.
What stuff we got? LB? Lb is good but traps are useless….I’ll stick to my medi build because all other classes are getting deadly condies on autoattack and similar.
Did anyone else burst in laughter at the bolded statement? I almost fell out of my chair.
Anyways did you notice the 80% self fury that can easily become 100% with a bit of boon duration? How about the vulnerability burst from trap and Big Game hunter? What did you think of the Cripple? Hey what’s the deal with those immobilizes? And who could forget the 20% damage modifier in zeal thats changing the meta from sword focus to mace focus and making hammer a top contender?.
You are mixing duration and 80% with 100%? Nice. Imobilize ? you mean virtue with 60 sec cd for 3 sec imm? You mean symbol dmg which you can dodge like traps. Cripple ? you mean if someone is near your target? Don’t cry when HoT comes and then you suddenly felt disappointed with guardian.
I am worried about Guardians, we are going to be left behind.
Ive been complaining about symbolic exposure for as long as I can remember. It’s the weakest vulnerability application across professions as far as I know. Nothing has been done about it.
I can see the heal in PvE for more RS uptime when not under condition threat but beyond that no. And the unblockable buff might be useful on the grawl shaman but thats 1 fractal lol.
Death spiral is the only skill that will take significant advantage of the lifesteal but at best it will be on par with guardian’s zealous blade trait healwise, damagewise…
Somthing that bothered me was that the character used in the demonstration never did more than 3.8k with the greatsword BIG attack meanwhile the DH was doing 4.5k burn ticks and 4.8k true shots with lower cast time and more range. I know they still have to tweak the numbers, but either reaper needs a huge buff or DH will be a huge disappointment
I wouldn’t get too caught up in the numbers, there seemed to be some different amulets in those scenarios. The necro amulet was definitely not a zerk amulet.
The guard was using carrion I was surprised at the 4.8k trueshots, the burns not so much cause I think they are not done working on the condition overhaul.
Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.
If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?
You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.
Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.
Did you know that thieves can provide group life stealing? If not now you know why…
By giving up a significant amount of dmg and utility(they have to take venom utility skills and 6 pts in shadow trait line). So it is not as easy as saying: “Yeah, they can do more.”.
Edit: Also, to expand on this, there is a post over on the gwguru board that does the math for 15/3 pt vampiric traiting for necros to deal the most dps in dungeons.
If these numbers somehow keep their balance (which is kind of likely since the 5 pt minor in curses gets changed to crit chance) this trait option will be the optimal dungeon build and will allow picking up vamp aura for free (changes to picking specialisation line instead of investing 1-6 pts in a line).
Meaning there is 0 downsides for necros traiting for vamp aura, whereas thieves have to give up on damage.
Necro would be doing the same thing in PVE to pick blood magic. The best thing that’s coming to blood is the ability to heal through DS/RS with lifesteal which will be amazing for roaming or dueling builds. The aura would have to be stronger than all blood traits combined to even be considered over Soulreaping/Curses. And whoever is traiting into blood for dps ATM is doing it wrong precision and critical damage are more valuable than a static 40 damage per hit unless its a world boss build where crit is void.
My point isnt that thieves have better lifesteal even though they do. My point is that even though they have access to group lifesteal like the aura well get, they still never use it because its bad. Saying that sacrificing personal dps for party support is a complete lie because PS warriors and scepter/focus eles give up their max dps builds. With that out of the way dont expect lifesteal to get you into parties, hope that permanent chill and max vulnerability do.
One thing what is good for guardians is longbow…but…..other stuff is just….NOT.
As I said in my thread, guardians will be last and least played in HoT, all other classes getting better stuff and feel better and fresh.
“We are in a good place” so we dont need new stuff or more than few hours of tweaking by devs (hint- look at its specialization name)
So far:
Chronomancer – almost perma slow
Reaper – perma chill on autoattack (with better shouts and 3.5k heal on 20 sec O.o)
DH – nothing good except LB …
lets wait for others As I said r.i.p. guardians in HoT ;(
Did anyone else burst in laughter at the bolded statement? I almost fell out of my chair.
Anyways did you notice the 80% self fury that can easily become 100% with a bit of boon duration? How about the vulnerability burst from trap and Big Game hunter? What did you think of the Cripple? Hey what’s the deal with those immobilizes? And who could forget the 20% damage modifier in zeal thats changing the meta from sword focus to mace focus and making hammer a top contender?.
Chronomancers are selfish? They basically allow mesmers to specialize into support. Dragonhunters just make guardians more selfish and more like jack-of-all-trades. The amount of support in DH is minimal, which is what I have a problem with. DH was advertized as a ranged damage/backline support spec; in no way, shape, or form is this a backline support spec, or even offer much support at all (probably takes away more support than it gives).
I don’t play a guardian to be a ranger-wannabe with a lot of control. I play a guardian to support, and I was hoping that the elite spec would allow me to support more from the backlines with less of an emphasis on self-defense and more of an emphasis on selfless glassy support. Instead I got this and ANet threatening to remove Tome of Courage.
I honestly hope this spec gets redesigned by a different designer, but I don’t have much faith in ANet at the moment.
I think he meant necros are selfish. And Guardians will be fine and so will DH as long as they tweak the cooldown on the reworked virtues (1min cd on a 600 range leap is ridiculous even if they have to nerf the healing or tack a significant cd reduction to the damage trait)
Not anymore, read the new version, since burning stacks, and it still applies with RS’s auto and even though the burning itself doesn’t last that long (3seconds?) it’s going to be a lot of consistent damage.
I already check dulfy still doesnt say anything about the dhuumfire changes. Th spec calculator while a great tool to keep people informed is pretty vague given the lack of information about the expansion and numbers not being set in stone. It lacks internal cooldown, boon/condition duration/intensity, and stuff like that which is what I was looking for when I asked for updated tooltips.
Not anymore, read the new version, since burning stacks, and it still applies with RS’s auto and even though the burning itself doesn’t last that long (3seconds?) it’s going to be a lot of consistent damage.
Solving it via blast finishers is really a patchwork solution.
If we get any kind of blasts why would anyone take a necro over another kind of class? Seriously people, thieves got blast finishers with no cooldown on shortbow, so what would change if necro had better access to blast finishers?
You get a guaranteed dungeon spot by having extraordinary dmg or having certain, unique types of utility.
W/e the case, simply adding blast finishers won’t solve problems, having unique support or strong dmg would though.
Vampiric aura is a step in the right direction. Nobody knows if it’s enough or not at the moment.
Did you know that thieves can provide group life stealing? If not now you know why…
Not anymore, read the new version, since burning stacks, and it still applies with RS’s auto and even though the burning itself doesn’t last that long (3seconds?) it’s going to be a lot of consistent damage.
Resistence does not affect condition application from how it was described all it does is nullify the effects of conditions while its up. Say you have 25 stacks of bleed, torment and cconfusion and 5 secs of resistance. You can run around in circles spamming autoattack on all things you can find with out issue and when the 5 seconds are up confusion torment and confusion ticks kill you if you dont stop being a moron and cleanse them :p.
Reaper and Blood is already a pretty sweet combo since every shout can proc Vampiric, whatever the minion shout is will proc Vampiric Master, a lot of our skills have not only multiple hits in AoE but also whirl finishers for extra siphoning. If Blood Magic gets a decent rework we have a lot of sustain options.
Shouts however will suffer the same problems of signet of the locust.
Why would one blast finisher be enough? Why would any amount of blast finishers be enough? PS Warrior and eles are the kings of might and fury. Unless necro gets some rediculous amounts of blasts/might, blast finishers don’t really help their viability at all. Necros need something that makes them unique and offers a special way of buffing the group. Mesmers have reflects and portal. Rangers have Spotter. Eles have lots of fields and finishers. Warriors have lots of might. Engineers have lots of vuln. Necros…Well it looks like life siphoning could be a great option with the new Vampiric Aura trait!
It seems like people think there is one way to support allies, and there isn’t. Blast finishers aren’t the end all be all of support!
We are also getting perma chill and max vulnerability if they dont nerf it before release. It might be enough to bump us to the ranger tier in speed runs. As for why blasts because blast is the most versatile form of support. Need might? blast fire. need heals? blast water. need stealth? blast smoke. When your ele is inexperienced, or you have someone else providing the firefields extra blast finishers make the difference between 15 and 25 stacks of might to the party. ( which seems wrong from my pov since 1 finisher overshadows all other 3 , but it is how it is)
They addressed that specifically in the livestream. We’re not getting a bucketful of blast finishers or fire fields, but Blood Magic is being reworked into a support line. One example given was to give allies lifesteal. They know the problems, and are going to give us a necromancer-themed way, rather than just a ton of blasts. We don’t know specifically what, but they did say specifically that it wouldn’t just be blasting fire fields.
From the stream notes and what I watched (the last 1/3), it looks like they’re aiming for non-combo based support with things like Vampiric Aura. If its done right that will be pretty useful in teams since no setup will be required for Necro support. This allows people to keep the offense going without retreating for water fields and the like.
They’re also playing around with Transfusion reviving downed allies (hopefully they mean the heal affects downed players). That could be a big deal for Blood Magic too.
Actually we got access to leap and whirl finishers previously not available to necro.
Somthing that bothered me was that the character used in the demonstration never did more than 3.8k with the greatsword BIG attack meanwhile the DH was doing 4.5k burn ticks and 4.8k true shots with lower cast time and more range. I know they still have to tweak the numbers, but either reaper needs a huge buff or DH will be a huge disappointment
The problems i see with shouts is that they are useless when facing 1-2 targets (like in pvp) and decent to strong when facing 3-5. The Reapershroud in the other hand had me drooling. The Blood magic changes might actually make Blood viable outside minionmaster builds thanks to the healing through the shroud. The blood aura seems questionable for pve since I have yet to see any group asking for venom share thieves despite them giving stronger heals conditions etc. The Greatsword looks good but the AA damage better be massive to make up for being the slowest AA chain ever, the number 2 seems broken unless they meant 50% instead of 100 or it has an ICD cause spamming the most damaging ability without a cooldwon would be game breaking and incredibly fun.
And honorable mention – We lose our only source of Torment as a Reaper.
That totally slipped past me. Certainly feels like Reaper is cemented into Power only and the possibility of Celestial or even Rampager builds are out the window.
The lack of torment does suck, but the vulnerability stacking is insane & if you wanted to you could grab dhuumfire.
With the cast time of the auto in shroud you could potentially keep up 6 stacks of burning in AOE around you.
Doing so however means no crit chance or stability from the soul reaping line.
You can gain up to 50% crit from a master trait in the reaper line. to make up for the loss of death’s perception.
Aoe poison synergizes with putrid defense if Reaper’s Shroud carries DS damage reduction, reaper could reduce damage taken by 74%.
I thought chill deals damage opened up an option to be a condi reaper.
The only possible way this could turn out to be good is if all future endgame content is designed more like SW farming, where cleaving crowds of mobs is more important then being able to cheese a boss with reflect or having to find ways of not dying to giant oneshot monsters like lupi.
I remember in the previous class changes livestream, despite the shown necro changes being glossed over and generally disappointing because it was clear the people showing the changes had never played necro and didn’t give a ****, one thing that stuck out to me was that necro would have a really good source of self might generation when attacking. All this needs is to be changed to be like that one warrior spec that constantly provides might to the whole group and necros would be great for dungeons since not even eles seem to be able to find time to spread might to their allies in a fight that lasts longer then 15 seconds.
O_o what kinda eles have you partied with that cant blast might midfight? were they staff fire campers? cause that’s the only thing i can think of.
I am pretty bad with my ele but i can still pull off 12 might in mid combat.
Personally, I’ll try Zeal, Honor and DH with Hammer/LB or GS (depending on which offers better damage). As for traits, I’ll definitely get the virtues one, especially the one that adds 15% damage with VoJ.
Main weapon will now be hammer for the 20% more damage while standing in symbols. So we’re looking at least 45% damage modifiers with hammer (honor is primarily for long lasting symbols.)
Thats pretty nice permanent protection, healing, vulnerability, burns, +20% more damage all from just pressing 1
Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day
Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.
The Reaper Profession probably brings us close to max damage with lots of blinds, lots of chill and vulnerability stacks when you use Chilling Darkness+ Bitter Chill together. For example Well of Darkness applies up to :
- x5 AoE Blinds 3 seconds in duration.
- x5 AoE Chills from Chilling Darkness at 1 second duration per pulse for 5 seconds total.
- x5 AoE 5 stacked Vulnerability with an 8 second duration from Bitter Chill. 25 stacks at the end of pulsing.
One skill that makes an area of enemies chain miss, while slowed both in movement and skill CD by 66% and take 25% more damage.
Dark Fields will be more useful in HoT as blinds will be used to take down defiance bars. Well of Darkness +other Wells + Leap/Blast finishers will equal lots of blinds.
Our unique group support is condi manipulation that converts boons/condis instead of removing them. Hopefully we see a lot more places where this can be taken advantage of in HoT PvE (evidence in Silverwastes of this already).
Again if the Silverwastes is anything to go by, mobs will have healers and heal.
See above why blinds are now useful.
Protection on Wells is actually not too bad in combination with their additional powers and it will be bundled with Vampiric Wells/Ritual Mastery as a GM trait.
We dont know yet about reaper I was talking as of currently in game
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.
Some of those things will change in Hot though. Blind will be useful against champions since it will help breaking their defiance bar. And i wouldnt put it past Anet if we would get mobs that will heal/dodge etc. making weakness and poison more useful.
I would love that but we(necro, engi, guardian) have to suffer with an insignificant blind in pve thanks to thief perma blind. They cannot make the blind too strong against defiance cause of thieves.
The Mesmer and Guardian forums have had active ANet posts in them since their spec/elite spec reveals.
Us? Bugger all.
The sheer level of developer bias is so evident and so disheartening.
They wanted feedback on something they asked in the stream for guardian, and mesmers complained that their traits were not shown on their stream, maybe you should wait until after the reaper stream to start complaining for a red post.
Necro brings support just like every other class. If you don’t like the fact that it isn’t might stacks than go roll an ele and run CoF 1 all day
Can a necro blast effectively? Does a necro provide any useful Combo field? Can a necro maintain 25% stacks of vulnerability while doing max damage? Does the Necro have unique group buff (empower allies, Spotter, banners, Frost spirit)? Can a necromancer shield a group from projectiles or reflect for the group? Can necro provide stealth for the party? Can necros create portals for the party?
What does the necro bring? Poison which is useless in pve because mobs dont heal, blinds are useless on champion mobs, Lifesteal provided by dark fields is incredibly weak, Protection on well does not last long enough even if you ran 4 wells.
If Druids get Mantras I am going to be very sad. Very clunky mechanic with effects not really worth the charge time compared to other classes instant use skills.
You cannot even judge any effects if you don’t know what they are. Just because mesmer mantras don’t see much play doesn’t mean druids are automatically bad. Your comment is silly.
Idk about you but I always carry 1 mantra on my mesmer depending on the situation, I switch between condi cleanse and stability mantra.
Not sure why I didn’t see much about it. I may have even missed it in the write up, but that first move seems to also freeze enemies? That’d be kind of a cool Aoe interrupt…
I’ll probably run a PvE Zeal/Radiance/Dragonhunter build using greatsword and signets/traps. +70% damage modifier and 80% chance to critical with celestial gear? Yes, please!
and if I wanted to support my group, I wouldn’t be playing my Necro, I’d be playing my Guardian or Elementalist.
And as long as this is the case, Necro will not be wanted in dungeons.
What dungeon runners even care what profession joins up? I’ve yet to see a single lfg complain about any profession that joined. Whatever elitist mentality these players (you claim to refuse Necros) have isn’t a healthy one that promotes the fun nature of games like this. “We must run this dungeon 15.2 seconds faster than the last time.”
Ok no, that’s not the overwhelming majority of players definition of fun.
Ok how about this " we need perma 25 stacks of might, fury, banners, Spotter and Frost spirit, reflects, stealth and Icebow" can the necro provide any of those to get a spot?
Like the Bosses in Glints Lair… If they made that mechanic again, but with the need of ALL party members using the vortexes at the same time to bring down a shield on the boss, that would already be awesome.
You mean those encounters where you have to forget about the game’s actual combat style and just press 1 button? those are the mechanics you found great?
When you are only pressing 1 you are being carried, or a necro ( LB, dagger #1, Lich form 1 :p)
I notice you play a thief and are able to support your party via stealth fields, interrupts, projectile defense and blinds. Would asking for something along those lines really be too much for you?
The best support from thief is nearly limitless blast finishers imo.
The biggest downfall of PvE is that the definition of “group support” is strictly defined to include things a Necromancer doesn’t do. I blame the design of PvE, not the design of Necromancer.
Plus, Shouts may still apply unique debuffs to enemies that indirectly support the party. No one knows yet.
Also, if anyone is going to say that Necromancer doesn’t feel fun, please don’t presume that everyone agrees. Necro in its current incarnation is more fun for me than any other class, and it looks like it’s just getting more fun.
This is one of the biggest things people seem to fail to understand. The necromancer isn’t meant by design to party-stack 25 might. They offer TONS of support, just not pro-damage-based support. They focus heavily on debuffs and AOE damage. That’s why they’re widely regarded as the single most important class to have in WvW and GvG; your hammertrain and might stacking can be amazing, but if you’re countered by opposing defenses and your own defenses are negated by a necro or two, it’s all over.
While I’m not a big fan of the necro as it is currently, the Reaper spec looks like a blast.
i mean i afraid of the outcome from this spec to much ranger in my opino, its seems the gurdian will lose he identity what do you guys think ? me personly this class made look for anouther option im willing to loose the bow and long range for something that actully suit my class like anormal shild skill set + traits and ithnik i representing most of the gurdian community sorry for the spelling guys ty for listining
You dont have to play DH you can play regular guardian like you are right now.
You seem to all forgot about the changes to trait. Radiance won’t be as good anymore, while the emphasis on symbol make Honor a better choice. At thing are right now, it seem that Zeal, Honor, DH could be the new meta. But a lot could change before release.
lets see 15% more crit for 1hs or Fury for all weapons adept, 10% damage modifier with retaliation or burning on crit on master, 33% more burn damage and burn on block for GM doesnt seem bad at all for a power build especially since several of our good traits trigger on burn like Fiery wrath, Radiant Power, and Fire inside.
One of the most immediate things you’ll notice when you take charge of the reaper in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ is that the greatsword attacks are slow. In fact, most of the reaper’s attacks have a fairly sizeable cast time.
Do they mean ‘slow compared to the default necromancer’s skills’? or slow compared to others?
I’d be fine with that concept, actually, if more classes would play by it. But so far im afraid the pay off just wont be big enough for how easy it is to evade those skills. Just like it is with the default necromancer.
Hopefully not lifeblast slow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it acts like Guardian Hammer with the first 2 attacks being nearly 1 second and the last being nearly 2.
That would be terrible as writ of persistence is mandatory to make hammer a dps viable weapon in PVE.
The current PVE meta is a combination of Zeal, Radiance and Virtues. By selecting DH we would have to give up one of these traitlines in order to gain access to the reworked virtues, bow and traps. Zeal contains 3 damage modifier that add up to 35% additively or 38.6% multiplied. Radiance contains a 25-45% critical chance and enables blind/burn/might/vulnerability spam with renewed justice. Lastly Virtues offers unscathed contender, consecration duration/cooldown, absolute resolution, and group stunbreak+stability. Would you be able to sacrifice one of these lines for DH in pve? Which line would you give up?
keep in mind that the strongest DH modifiers are hard to maintain in a pvp setting (UC, SA, Big Game Hunter) and we’ll have to give up either virtues or radiance to pick up DH.
This thread is about PvE, so that’s not overly relevant.
Well the damage modifiers thing is bogus then, but losing out on either radiance or virtues will definitely have an impact on Guardian PVE. Losing radiance means reduced crit chance, no Blind+might spam from renewed justice. Losing virtues we lose boon on virtue use, consecration traits, absolute resolution, group stability and stunbreak on VoC.
So picking DH is not a braindead choice you either go balls out dps and lose a lot of support or lose a lot critical to have about keep about the same damage and support that we have now.
I didn’t specify group vs single because it’s obvious that the individual DPS makes up the group DPS. That’s why I like to run in zerker groups because overall of the group is higher, than say, cleric group DPS. Need active defenses (that’s good support) such as blinds, etc, then that combined with dodging people shouldn’t be dying. Of course, player skill has to be there. So, I imagine that if the DPS is high enough I wouldn’t mind bringing in my Reaper. Think of it this way, why should I bring my Reaper vs Dragonhunter? How will having a Reaper in the group benefit the group MORE THAN having a particular other spec/build for the encounters? That’s what one has to weigh when considering group composition. I need reasons to bring the Reaper over over classes.
To point it bluntly :
You can easily see a DH with 55% damage increase against a foe from the very start of the fight.
You can hardly see the necro with more than 30% damage increased and thus when it’s foe is finally under 50% health pool.
That’s the very difference there is at the moment between the DH and the Necromancer. Which mean that the Reaper traitline need to give at least 25% damage modifier to the Reaper to make him on par damage wise with the DH.
And I’m just talking about damage, I’m not bringing utilities on the table.
keep in mind that the strongest DH modifiers are hard to maintain in a pvp setting (UC, SA, Big Game Hunter) and we’ll have to give up either virtues or radiance to pick up DH.
Nothing. I don’t have to sacrifice anything. I’ll be taking Curse, Soul reaping and reaper. And on my Power build I’ll be taking Spite, soul reaping and reaper. That isn’t a sacrifice.
Depends on if the GS has the potential to do more damage than dagger or not. If the gs’s numbers turn out terrible and dagger ends up being a better melee weapon, then blood magic and lifesiphon on hits is > reaper.
What kinda numbers are you seeing from life siphon cause i cant get a trait to do more than double digits.
I dont think that GS will replace dagger, well just become more like guardians where they use GS for skills 2-5 and sword /focus for autoattack (in the necro’s case dagger focus)
Vulnerability is condition that’s easily added by every profession in game. What matter is the % increase of personnal damage that you can stir out of your traits. At the moment curse and spite are mandatory for close to death and target the weak. Sacrificing one of them is a net loss.
Target the weak is not necessary if you go the soul reaping route and pick Death’s perception. Soul reaping makes for a great alternative for a powerbuild .
There will be more condition with HoT making Target the weak even more desirable. If, actually you can count on an average 5 conditions from your party (10% more damage) after HoT, it will probably be 7-8 conditions (let’s say 14% damage). Do you really think that the 5% from SR can compete with that?
SR wont be only about the damage modifier. If the new class mechnanic is as good as they are trying to sell it, the reduced CDs + the guaranteed crits + the damage modifier could easily outweigh the guaranteed crits from curses.
Target the Weak is going to be changed. It’s a pretty small sacrifice now.
Well that depends if you have 101+% crit damage and less than 80% crit chance with fury then its stronger than before ( against non crit immune mobs). Banner of discipline and spotter will also affect its usefulness. (the closer to 100% the less desirable it becomes)
As I said r.i.p. guardians in HoT ;(