Guild Wars 2

So, as a necromancer, when I fight boon strip interrupt mesmers who play properly, they totally dominate me.

I have always used the traits that give me retaliation, stability and fury when entering death shroud – that’s 3 boons. I have been thinking of adding sigil of strength to my build because that will passively give me at least 1 might (cover boon) at all times – that’s 4 boons when entering death shroud.

Would stability not be stripped if the mesmer isn’t using illusionary persona?

I tried to keep information minimal to make it look tidy in the unrealistic expectation that Anet might read this and because Anet could really care less what numbers we put in suggestions I think, since they’d be doing the fine tuning.

The spiteful marks healing allies would be like soul marks, yes. No idea what the heal amount or scaling would be, but it would definitely help out quite a few build variations.

The necromantic corruption change is a total revamp, yes. This is because Tainted Shackles is the only death shroud skill that has no affecting traits and I don’t like that there are currently 3 grandmaster traits for minions, so this seems like a good spot to put a trait for Tainted Shackles.

I believe that these changes would do wonders for necromancers and build diversity. Even changing spiteful marks alone into a healing ability will increase the effectiveness of currently bad traits such as mark of evasion or mark of revival.

Changes to curses such as withering precision inflicting weakness with life blast could allow for offensive builds that use death perception to have an active form of defense. This change could also allow for a dhuumfire and withering precision life blast build and more. We will see terror get nerfed if the opponent has few conditions on them but deal even more damage with more conditions.

We will see a lot of bad traits become not bad and support necromancers may actually become a thing.

These changes will make blood magic actually synergize for once as well as turn unholy martyr into an active ability that is actually useful and synergizes well with many other abilities as well. A simple change to full of life converting vitality into toughness will even make blood magic synergize with death magic, which it never did before.

Spite
Parasitic Bond

Deaths Embrace
Spiteful Talisman
Spiteful Removal
Signet Mastery
Spiteful Spirit
Reaper’s Might

Death Into Life

Spiteful Marks – Marks now cause healing on allies instead of a damage increase.
Axe Training
Training of the Master
Chill of Death

Siphoned Power

Dhuumfire
Close to Death
Parasitic Contagion – Scaling off of healing power instead of condition damage.
__________________________________________________________________
Curses
Barbed Precision

Toxic Landing
Hemophilia
Chilling Darkness – Chill duration changed from 1s to 3s with 3s cooldown per foe.
Weakening Shroud – Weakness and bleed inflicted are now 3s.
Reaper’s Precision – Increased chance to gain life force from 33% to 50%.
Focused Rituals

Furious Demise

Master of Corruption – Corruption skills also grant 5% life force when used.
Banshee’s Wail
Terror – Damage scaling changed per amount of conditions on foes. (Nerf & Buff)
Spectral Attunement

Target the Weak

Lingering Curse
Withering Precision – Life blast inflicts 3s of weakness on critical hits. (No cooldown)
Path of Corruption
__________________________________________________________________
Death Magic
Armored Shroud

Dark Armor
Spiteful Vigor
Minion Master
Ritual of Protection – Changed to pulse 1s of protection rather than 3s when cast.
Staff Mastery
Shrouded Removal

Soul Comprehension

Greater Marks
Reaper’s Protection
Death Shiver
Flesh of the Master

Deadly Strength

Death Nova
Unholy Sanctuary – Healing increase or 3s of protection when entering death shroud.
Necromantic Corruption – Tainted shackles turns all might stacks into torment stacks if immobilize lands at the end of the channel.

Blood Magic
Vampiric – Moved from major to minor baseline.

Full of Life – Moved from minor to adept. 5% of vitality is converted into toughness.
Dagger Mastery
Mark of Evasion
Ritual of Life
Vampiric Precision
Deathly Invigoration – Moved from master to minor.

Bloodthirst – Moved from adept to major baseline.

Transfusion – Moved from adept to master.
Ritual Mastery
Vampiric Mastery
Quickening Thirst – Changed to be 33% movement speed when wielding a dagger.

Blood to Power

Vampiric Rituals
Fetid Consumption
Unholy Martyr – Revamp. Life Transfer draws conditions from allies. (Underwater version changed to no longer do this as untraited effect)

Soul Reaping
Gluttony

Fear of Death
Vital Persistence
Path of Midnight
Spectral Mastery
Speed of Shadows – Changed to grant 3s of swiftness when entering death shroud.
Unyielding Blast

Last Gasp

Mark of Revival
Near to Death
Master of Terror
Soul Marks

Strength of Undeath

Foot in the Grave
Death Perception
Renewing Blast

Just play celestial strength rune ele, you’ll never die to anyone ever while you can kill anyone ever and you will never get nerfed because Anet doesn’t understand that it’s broken because it’s not as straightforward as duumfire or hambow.

Warrior builds are the same still.

Roe.3679:

First, lich removes spectral armor.

I’m surprised, I never actually tried that out until you said that. Strange that the trait triggers while in lich form then.

I would like to hear everyones thoughts on this. Necromancer is the only class that cannot properly defend against berserker stance because our fear does nothing, we have no evades, blocks, invulns or teleports.

The only solution I have really came up with is this: If you’re a power necromancer, save spectral armor for when they use berserker stance and then just trade blows with them – because you’re not going to escape or CC them away from you. You could also pop lich form with spectral armor and trade blows with them.

If you’re a condition necromancer or a hybrid though? From what I’ve seen, players will take flesh wurm and spectral walk as a condition necromancer to avoid situations like this. But if you’re taking flesh wurm and spectral walk, you might as well play an elementalist, mesmer, ranger or thief because they’ll be doing the job of far-casting significantly better than you.

This isn’t a rant, I’m just curious what everyones thoughts are on this.

Could either be normal or use fire attunement. I’d rather say normal though so that you can use flame axe and fiery greatsword if you want to.

grifflyman.8102:

Axe main hand burst skill is a joke, it’s easy to dodge, be out of range or just avoid it all together. Now that we lose all are adrenaline if we miss with a skill already difficult to land I don’t see many people using axe.

Well to be fair, it’s easy to land with shield and mace off-hands. This change would make it easier for axe off-hand as well leaving off-hand sword as the only one that can’t assist eviscerate which is fair because axe/sword isn’t really synergetic.

Noyz.6430:

That’s actually a pretty cool idea.

Glad to hear it. I’m glad so many responded with their thoughts about one of the most discussed issues of conjures. =P

Because weapon swap would be overpowered, what if conjures replaced an attunement instead?

When attuning to earth you materialize an earth shield and have those skills.
When attuning to water you materialize an ice bow and have those skills.
When attuning to fire you materialize a flame axe and have those skills.
When attuning to air you materialize a lightning hammer and have those skills.

Would give synergy with attunements and should be balanced because doing this locks you out of the attunements basic skills until you conjure is gone.

Outplayed.

Not as bad as burst ele though.

Anet balance team.

Needs a 4s ICD, actually. There are runes for swap decrease.

sminkiottone.6972:

Zefrost.3425:

Mesmer greatsword is actually viable unlike rifle for many reasons.

Why do you keep editing your messages ? if you want to troll then do it right

Because I really didn’t care about a next person lol.

jcbroe.4329:

Zefrost.3425:

jcbroe.4329:

Zefrost.3425:

Fluffball.8307:

Ok I’ve been tossing this challenge around for like 12 hours straight and not a single taker. I’m going to bed, but this thread will continue to exist. Great critiques Zefrost, you really proved you have any idea what’s going on.

You have a problem? I don’t have a ranger.

If you knew anything about balance then you would know that you don’t have a ranged burst that powerful – it makes any other melee burst in the game look like a job. Fresh air elementalist is even worse than ranger longbow because there isn’t counterplay to it. You just don’t have ranged attacks this powerful in a competitive game – but that’s why this game isn’t competitive, clearly.

Killshot and volley say hi.

Nice troll.

So those aren’t ranged burst skills? How about mesmer GS 2 -> GS 4 -> GS 3 -> Shatter?

It seems to me your biasing your definition of ranged, burst, and counterplay in your arguments favor.

Mesmer greatsword is actually viable unlike rifle for many reasons.

Let me guess, you’re going to build specifically to counter longbow rangers using evade spam and possible striders defense?

At this rate we should all… run!escape!

RuneScape was at it’s glory days around 2007 until JaGeX started massively overhauling the game and changing starting areas, tutorials, EOC combat among many other aspects -similar to the current path that Guild Wars 2 is heading on.

JaGeX thought that players would like these changes over the years – they didn’t. Guess what happened to RuneScape? I won’t explain the details because it basically comes down to not listening to their player base (sound familiar?) but losing over 70% of your player base is kind of a big deal.

Now, JaGeX is basically reverting all of the bad changes that they made to the game in hopes to revive their game, but the reverted changes will still be totally different than what people loved and the game will become massively more confusing than they already are. Currently, there are 3 different combat modes and they are adding a new one. There are too many negative aspects to discuss, but…

…You’re heading down the same path ArenaNet!

A couple quotes from different RuneScape forums about why RuneScape died.
Do these quotes seem at all similar to the complaining about Guild Wars 2?

RSRandom

To me their attempts at making the game more appealing have only made the game seem worse (to me). It seems like its individuality and uniqueness was lost a long time ago, which I know a lot of people loved._

China/KongZhong anyone?

It started declining ages ago, pretty much as soon as IVP bought controlling interest of the company. RS3 doesn’t look too promising either.

RSRandom

Some people feel like Jagex is ignoring their community, and completely focusing on the money.

RSRandom

Jagex is definitely in decline. The management don’t listen to the players, and keep driving away large sections of the player base with unpopular changes.

RSRandom

It used to be good before they really dumbed it down so much and made it more a kid game.

RSRandom

Jagex alienated their own community by releasing the SoF and the other store. Less good updates as well, it seems that most updates these days, are for the SoF or the store thingy.

It’s not what it used to be, when we got a quest each month, with some other useful bug fixes/content.

RSRandom

People have demands, Jagex isn’t filling those demands thus making them lose players.

If an entire megaserver is filled with rangers there’s no problems.

Why is there an issue with minis suddenly?

Minis are going to become very popular!
You know you want to show yours off!
Let’s see your mini pics!

This is me and my Mini Orrian Wraith that I would like to give a custom name to!
PS! Anet! Let us name our minis!

Josh XT.6053:

Words

That’s not warrior being too strong. That’s simply an unbalance of WvW/PvE stats availability and the fact that mixing stats is possible. IMO mixing shouldn’t be possible because it would pretty much fix all balance issues outside of SPVP.

A change like that would be very healthy for the games balance even if many people would QQ about it.

I’ve been pro adrenaline nerf and still am because it makes sense for balance purposes. However… what isn’t balanced are evade/stealth/blind spam thieves (DP especially) and DPS meditation guardians. It’s almost impossible to beat one of those on a glassy warrior.

Both of them spam evades, blinds and/or stealth/block more than anything and it’s ridiculous. You will miss your burst even if you’re the best player in the game.

As an axe user for almost 2 years now, this should hopefully mean that… it’s hard for me to explain, lol. Sometimes ghastly claws will not activate for ~0.5s or so after using rending claws in the midst of combat – it’s not easy to repeat. That’s pretty huge because it totally throws off your combos.

I was never really sure why it did that until now because of them showing the new rending claws, reason being the aftercast on rending claws.

Rending claws is something you basically do in between combos to keep pressure up because you never want them to dodge ghastly claws. This change should allow for rending claws pressure -> opponent dodges or whatever else -> you ghastly claws when you need it.

dancingmonkey.4902:

No seriously, show us a damage log, not an inaccurate tool tip that does no actual damage in game.

http://oi60.tinypic.com/2rruzdh.jpg
http://oi58.tinypic.com/5br6nr.jpg
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ng95yf.jpg

dancingmonkey.4902:

Zefrost.3425:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Zefrost.3425:

For those who don’t know, Glacial Heart does very high damage

Are you one of those who “don’t know”? Cause the trait does 0 damage.

Your lack of knowledge is off the charts lmao…

Feel free to link a video or wiki link showing evidence that this trait does damage. Otherwise you snide comment would more accurately apply to just yourself.

http://oi60.tinypic.com/2rruzdh.jpg
http://oi58.tinypic.com/5br6nr.jpg
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2ng95yf.jpg

Try educating yourself on basic, basic mechanics before attempting to play.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Zefrost.3425:

For those who don’t know, Glacial Heart does very high damage

Are you one of those who “don’t know”? Cause the trait does 0 damage.

Your lack of knowledge is off the charts lmao…

Yeah, with hammer, which can be used on meditation builds. The change will basically make it proc every rotation now which is pretty big.

Superior Rune of Ice
(1): +25 Vitality
(2): +10% Chill Duration
(3): +50 Vitality
(4): 25% chance when struck to cause an ice nova. (Cooldown: 30s)
(5): +100 Vitality
(6): +20% Chill duration; +7% damage against chilled foes.

Upcoming Glacial Heart Buff
Cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds.

For those who don’t know, Glacial Heart does very high damage (more than superior sigil of fire) which works well on meditation builds, which are also getting buffed, is AOE and unblockable.

Vitality is a very good stat for guardians and 7% damage is nothing to be scoffed at. Not to mention that it costs ~25 silver to craft the rune but it is currently only listed at 1 silver.

Any bets on how high this rune will rise when the feature patch hits?

I made my guardian 80 with Zealot stats (power, precision, healing power) but never played it because of the amount of terrible traits in zeal and radiance.

However, with the upcoming buffs, I’m currently thinking of meditation guard with zealots stats that is 4/0/6/4/0 with hammer, greatsword and ice runes (vitality, ice nova when hit and damage increase against chilled foes).

I understand that zealous blade is a low heal, but with zealot stats the heal is pretty much doubled. Also, glacial heart is getting a pretty good buff by being 15s cooldown and I do like my chills. (Off topic but I wonder if ice runes are going to go up in price with glacial heart buff?)

Think it’s a viable meditation build?

Actually, 2 meditation guards running together can use merciful intervention. I could see it actually being a viable comp too.

Does retaliation work with Littany of Wrath to give it a Defiant Stance’esque ability?

There is nothing wrong with axe. Learn how to set up combos like Mesmers have to for their shatters.

To our guilds shame…. ENJOY!!

Elementalist owning 2 players simultaneously in EotM

That ele was actually pretty good. If anyone knows who he is could you direct him to this video? I’m sure he wished he had recorded this moment lol…

Rym.1469:

To be honest, if they give my Axe a power boost or LF generation boost, I guess that my tpvp build will be even bigger powerhouse and hardly beatable 1v1…

This.

The build that I’ve used for forever was designed specifically to counter the fact that necromancers always get focused and yet still be able to kill my opponents. My attack (~1800) being on the low side means I take a little longer to kill my opponents (unless I use Lich Form, which is why I have it in every build – for burst) but any buff to axe other than the auto attack might make axe too good. It’s a ranged power weapon without projectiles.

Shinya.2598:

Scepter needs better animations!

I agree with this. Scepter #1 and #2 chain should shoot out red orbs and scepter #3 chain should be a green orb. They should then become 20% physical projectile finishers which adds counterplay and is a buff and nerf in one.

What is map is battle of khylo? Does the thief use treb to win mid fight? What if the 5th enemy is heading to their own treb?

Mbelch.9028:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

air GM buff was a buff to the new GM air trait that strikes foe with lightning on interrupt… it will strike any foe that is disabled. so it will synergize with earthquake now and other like skills.

This is the air GM buff.

It doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Still not worth taking IMO.

Would work well with tornado Really well, actually.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Zefrost.3425:

Mesmer was strong enough in 1v1 already.

1v1 is not an official game type.

As for the official 5v5, mesmer is not the most desired class in top tier.

Good thing 1v1 happens in every single TPvP match ever played.

If this thing is being summoned right in my face the animation speed of the clone needs to be nerfed by 50% so that people can actually dodge it.

Mesmer was strong enough in 1v1 already.

Thanks to ArenaNet’s very own actions and the work of an Asura named Eexa, SAB suddenly fits into living story:

Eexcelsior! Episode 5: Protest

You could go even further and somehow tie this into Taimi’s waypoint research and Counsellor Phlunt. There you go ArenaNet, the plot thickens.

Need money out of SAB?
- Sell the infinite coin again and keep SAB a permanent feature.
- Sell world 1 and 2 boomboxes in the gem store again.
- Sell a newly made world 3 boombox in gem store.
- Sell the super explosive finisher in gem store again.
- Sell Miniature Super Trio in gem store again.
- Put an infinite super tonic as a rare drop in black lion chests.
- Put a tradable and permanent Super Adventure Box O Fun as a rare drop in black lion chests.

(Make sure you let us play all worlds without having to pay to unlock old ones)

This will make you money while making your customers happy.

Howell Qagan.9752:

More like samurai (actually Ministry of Purity armor but their armor was inspired by samurai):

Howell the Reaver

• Protector’s Helm
• Priory’s Historical Pauldrons
• Phalanx Warplate
• Pit Fighter Wristguards
• Protector’s Chausses
• Phalanx Warboots
• Rox’s Quiver
  Dyes: White, Graphite, Icing, Peanut Butter, Chalk, Scarlet

More images: http://imgur.com/a/xLMUN
Video of armor + all weapons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMjWm9CAbNQ
http://gw2style.com/look.php?id=1779

Fun fact: this character was created just to make this look. >.>

This looks amazing.

My Norn Engi armor.

Noble Mask, Rubicon Shoulders, Whisperer’s Chest, Lawless Gloves, Studded Pants, Koda Boots.

I opted not to use Magitech because most engineers use that and I like to be different so I came up with this. Magitech will look good on any engineer, though.

Sublimatio.6981:

I already made a refund request about my infinite coin

I recommend everyone else do the same to help get the message across.

Give players what they want, not what you want, noobs at being game developers. No one wants living story over WvW, PvP, PvE, new zones, new weapons, new skills, fun kitten like SAB.

Stop with the outfits too, we want armor skins that we can mix n match. Basically, stop being lazy. You don’t work for ~2 months then take a month off because you’re tired from doing such “hard” work.

Try building/repairing houses for a living. That’s actually hard work and you do what the customer wants or you don’t get paid.

Can I salvage my exotic zealot armor with black lion salvage kit for the insignias so that I can use them to make ascended zealots now that I’m 500 armorsmith?

I heard no… which I’m counting on because that’s typical Anet not making any sense, like chest pieces requiring a vision crystal instead of a lesser vision crystal whereas all of the other pieces require lesser vision crystals. Of course! That’s so logical!

Chill, fear and condition transfer have little effect on your opponents?

Can’t wait to see what they mean with axe animations… I rather liked ghastly claws and unholy feast.

Necromancer staff has some of the best skills in the game which you can combo off if you have enough experience.

Example: “Good” sword/dagger thieves with multiple teleports will try to be relentless against you. Get good at predicting thieves and you can make them teleport into reapers mark and combo from there.

I have 2500+ hours on my necromancer and I think that marks are actually too good because the opponent has no real chance to dodge them. I’ve always said that marks should have a 1/3 or 1/4 second delay before actually going off, starting from a dull colour to turning bright green when they activate. Would actually give them some counterplay lol.

Feels ridiculous being able to start any fight just casting mark of blood at the opponents feet and they have no way to dodge it.

DPS guard is able to 1v1 just as well as anything if you know how to play. Also, you could try zealots instead of berserker. (Power, precision, healing power)

The issue is that other builds (celestial ele, hambow warrior, turret engi) are overpowered. Don’t worry bro, I can’t kill a turret engineer on my necromancer using main hand dagger either.

Dirame.8521:

Engie meta isn’t changing in any way unless the changes that are coming are greater than what has been shown to us.

I don’t really agree with this. With the change to “Analyze” now applying revealed, static discharge engineer may become the best roaming class in WvW over thief. Static discharge engineer offers a lot more than a berserker thief does (tool kit, rocket boots, utility goggles, personal battering ram is getting damage boost and is a launch) and now he can also apply revealed. Power wrench is getting buffed too and a lot of people already took that in static discharge build, so it’s just more damage for them now.

For PvP, I would think that engineer could also rival thief or elementalist as the burst roaming class. Rangers might also be able to fill this role with the buffs they’re getting.