Guild Wars 2

Rising Dusk.2408:

In all compositions your Chronomancer will be the tank, and it will definitely focus on the concentration stat some when gearing in order to reach 100% boon duration for quickness uptime. Very few other classes really use gear stats to reach 100% boon duration, however, with the only one I can think of being healer Herald.

Fixed that for you.

There are zones where a character should be unique, and where it should not. Problem is that current state is far from “should”.

Chronomancer being prime example. His party wide buffs are too unique and too powerful to ignore. Probably due to that his support build damage is rock bottom. Which means everyone gets their arm twisted into chronotank.

What should be is chronos having greater damage (so they can go dps role without a hitch), but lesser utility with weight of party wide quickness/alacrity upkeep falling more to other professions.

Same for druids and their #1 healer spot. With tons of party-wide damage buffs, a pet that doesn’t have to follow druid’s own stat build (dps pet vs healy druid) they outclass the other 3 potential healers (guards, revs, eles) by far.

How about some fairness and giving the other 3 something to show for and environments to use their strenghts? And no alacrity on rev is not a good start. kitten thing depletes his energy bar, not letting him make any good plays if he wants to focus on keeping it up. You don’t see chronos having such issues while being able to do tons more while there.

I know balance ain’t easy, especially in raid scenario, but right now it is out of whack. If not for damage numbers (save some exceptions), then definitely for how some professions don’t exist in any role at all, while others are the “golden child” that has the sole and exclusive right to hold a given position (mostly healer/tank), and all else is blasphemy…

Asides necro himself (which is in a bloody shameful state raid wise), the general rule of “balance” is:

“Balance starts with killing off monopolies”.

And right now who’s the tank? That’s right, the chrono. No one else. Ever.
Healer? 90% druids. 10% tempets.

Dps at least offers some variety, but how about letting other professions get a go at tanking and healing?

I’d very much like to see more revenants, necros/reapers, guardians/dragonhunters or even warriors/berserkers get a shot and healing and/or tanking. Not saying it’s not possible atm, but it’s just bit too far of a strech in some cases.

I honestly would love to play reaper tank myself, hell got a build for it in plans. Just if i had more reasons to convince ppl it’s worth the go.

1. Radius on skills increased from 240 to 300.

360 at bare minimum if you ask me. The huge downside to revenant healer (right after no GotL buff) is the abysmal reach of tablet’s heals. That should be addressed, given how unlike yourself tablet has limited movement options (only straight line once every 3s). A druid or ele may reposition himself to get the best of their heals at any time, all the time. Revenant’s tablet does not have that luxury.

I reckon not everyone wanted to read my wall of text so long story short:

If a-net would care to stop joking and get serious with necro’s “transfer condies off allies to self, then into enemy + epidemic” we’d have a real, necro-themed dps boost option.

Currently that’s just wishful thinking as the only two ways he can do it are passive and very weak (1 condi per 3s on one person if i remember right). What he needs is a big active like ranger’s signet or reneval, or guardian’s “Save yourselves”, paired with bit of resistance to not kill himself on the spot (be it from skill itself or another potential source in his kit).

There are many more great ideas here in this forum how to fix the necro. Wish we’d see some red replies to them..

@Murdock:

Fist bump, bro! I also vomit this “top dps or go home” attitude in raiding parties. And the fact that some classes are shunned just as bad now in raids as it was in the old days in dungeon lfg. Plus awesome nick, loved Murdock from A-team

As for necro the potential is there, just that A-net is too afraid to let it bloom. The main appeal of necro in raid is “I can do support, while not losing much of my dps” unlike most that take hard blows to dps if they want to heal/tank/support.

Problem is a-net is too scared to take the plunge and let that be a real thing in raiding scenario. The two most obvious extra roles necro can take is healing and condi cleansing/transfers.

Healing fails becuase his healing sources aren’t numerous/strong enough. Signet of vampirism is not meant for group of 10, but of 5. Vampiric presence can free up druid’s dps by a lot (no more forced heals to charge celestial) but druids don’t have that much dps anyway. Transfusion in pve may get sweet cooldown cuts while killing mobs but you can forget that vs one big tough raid boss.

Condi pulling off allies screams “awesome raid tool” as it can turn simple condi cleanse into strong dps boost (transfer it back into boss with epidemic follow-up when needed). Least it would, if necros weren’t stuck with pathetic 1 condi off one person every 3 s (correct me if i’m mistaken). That doesn’t do jack, neither for dps, nor for cleansing the party. While both are passives (signet of plague and unholy martyr) no active that would do mass condi pulling for big transfer exist! Again a failed aspect that could shine.

And there’s boon corruption which doesn’t exist in raid setting and is a huge, defining part of necro kit. Here i actually feel like this game has 8 professions…and a necro. As the gameplay of other 8 is “apply condies or cleanse them”. Only necro has real condi manipulation options that go beyond that yet see no play vs raid bosses, and that sucks.

What i would like to see are boss boons that are corruptable, and upon corruption do affect it. Currently player condies such as weakness, immobilize, chill etc cannot affect a raid boss. Let’s say he’s got imaginary “anti debilitating condi armor” that negates all outside attempts at applying these condies. But it’s boons are something that comes from inside, and by corrupting these he could be affected.

Now that may need some tweaking (to not become overly powerful), but by using boss’ own boons for that effect a-net already gets a lot of control over what condition and at which times can be applied. There can be some special modifications or effects upon corruption for balance purposes (for example corrupting protection makes boss take 20% more damage) instead of applying vulni stacks which are usually at cap all the time, ergo such corruption would be no different then just boon removal in real fight.

At any rate the current necro & raid boss design makes necromancer the class which underperforms or flat out doesn’t exist in areas where his kit should shine.

Necromancer has power builds with reaper shroud.
He has condi builds with reaper shroud.
He’s got a problem with death shroud.

As i posted ..somewhere – necro could have the top damage and shroud as is, with the rule set in place that he needs time to wind up his damage. Time without getting downed and perhaps meeting additional conditions for success. But once he would get the ball rolling he’d be strongest, as long as he doesn’t blow it.

@OP if you suck (which hopefully is the case) then i got good news for you. You can easily improve your win ratio with one simple trick:

accept you suck. Simple as that. Once done with that it’ll get way better, since rather then tryharding to prove something you’ll focus on map awareness and taking objectives. If you can’t fight, then be a good roamer and a pest in general.

When i play my condi ranger in ranked, i rarely go mid or generally into big brawls. Instead i cap/decap lone points, set traps in choke points and drop in for quick kill when the big fight is already underway and some of enemy big skills got burned. Go in, down them, stomp them (if not under heavy fire), go out.

There is a LOT to be gained by just being in the right place at the right time, even if you fight like you were wasted.

long story short – death shroud (the core necro one) obstructs just about every type of gameplay you want to have on necro:

healing build? Nope, #4 has atrocious cooldown and no way to give it a significant cut (unlike reaper)

Condi build? Lol, with what? Life blast that will apply 1 burning stack per 1.5-2s or so with dhumfire? Or the pitifully weak 3 stacks of torment on tainted shackles? Doom + terror might get a bit of damage going, but that’s nowhere near what is needed by a condi build to keep dps going while staying in shroud to give base healtpool a breather.

Power build? Here it’s closest to something viable, but still not that good, and in spvp it’s a joke – you fire these shots so rarely that a simple blind or two will severy cripple your dps for the time enemy needs to burn down your shroud hp.

If it’s raids necro also does well on:

vale guardian – epidemic the seekers, can get his dps going vs red guardian (most raids his dps falls off because his chill field is overriden by others), can ress ppl outta exploding zones during main guardian sequence.

sloth – damage wise nothing to scream about, but does have aoe projectile block vs his spawns (along with epidemic), can pull & ress ppl outta poisoned ground, and unlike most dps is tanky enough to take a few hits if that’s what’s needed to drop the poison away from party or tank sloth when you get marked.

That’s actually a good point, didn’t think of it that way, thanks for input guys.

Aren’t we dramatizing a bit with this “future of pvp”? I play pvp nearly every day and get my matches, high level pro players might have issues but your average Zef doesn’t lack competition in there.

Also gw1 had great spvp for all i hear and there was no ESL to it either. Leaving esl does not immediatly mean pvp in a game is dead. The money for whole e-sports promotion now can be put into development and maybe more frequent balance passes i hope.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Profession_mechanic

We learn everyday, don’t we Sephy?

/sarcasm

I’m not saying warr op, i’m saying badly designed. No build variety because one type of utility (stances) and one traitline (defense) is mandatory for survival.

You got either unstoppable juggernaut or easy picking with warr, rarely anything in between. That’s the problem.

Didn’t knew defense and stances were warrior’s profession mechanic…
/sarcasm

Bottom line – it’s a poorly designed profession spvp wise. It offers nearly 0 build diversity as all builds have to use defense line and stances or be a free kill.
A necro, deemeed bottom of barrel class (unless cared for) does not have such issues, and can use multiple traitline and utility skill combos with success for different types of builds.

Sorry to dissapoint, i have played both warr and against a warr as well, the latter all the time. If you’re so sure I know nothing then feel free to show me meta warr build that does not use defense line and/or stances. I dare you.

if duelling a warr i think only bunker ele and corruption necro have a shot. And that’s given they know their game.

Warrior is broken and that’s a fact. No need to go to arguments, proof is right in front of everyone’s eyes. All warrior builds for spvp must have defense line, all will have at least one stance (berserker or endure pain) most often two.

If a class is OP with certain set of skills, and total trash without it, than we call that a poor design. Take a look at necro – say what you want about it, but i don’t recall any skill on his bar being “have or die” skill. Necro has some actual choices, maybe few that are trash (shadow fiend + signet of undeath) but none being “do or die”.

@ mooncrash – while that can be an idea for gameplay style, current implementation is lacking.

In PvE (raids) dps is king, and necro is sorely behind the rest = necro getting flipped off in raid groups.

In Spvp = necro gets focused = bye bye necro. A lot of jobs can put much better resistance vs focus before they go down. There goes our attrition.

How it should be implemented if we’re talking attrition class:
1. DPS – necro should be #1 dps class (unless he receives powerful support options), above all even ele. Key to making it balanced would be that unlike most he’d need time to wind it up. The raid “winners” are those who can dps hard in small timeframes. Necro would have to work for his dps (staying alive and keeping his damage going) to awaken his true damage potential, but once there he’d be a monster second to none.

The very simple (albeit flawed) implementation of this is the might stacking offered by spite line. Problem is that in raid everyone and their dog stacks party might faster then you do your own. Ergo it’s flat out useless in raid setting. Now if that was some unique buff that boosts your damage and has extra conditions to keep that damage growing (asides staying alive ofc) that could get very interesting…

As for survival it’s better in that front. I would say necro is almost at a point where he can be a true attrition class but he needs less restriction on his skills to make it truly possible. Like access to his utilities when in death shroud/transformed, more liberal access to his healing when in death shroud, and better access to stability without shrouding or popping elite.

Still a well played necro can be quite a fortress to topple if not hopelessly outnumbered.

Unlikely that Reaper Shroud will be forgotten. Death Shroud wasn’t forgotten because reaper’s is newer, it got left in the dust because it’s trash that barely fits a power build, let alone anything else. It’s just a hp sponge with a good single target fear, that’s about it.

Reaper shroud offers up great versatility (you can build real healing, condi and power builds off it) and very badly needed features that core necro heavily lacked like great melee cleave, non-elite access to decent stability (not just 1 stack), some real combo finsihers, solid cc, and a great ice field.

Not saying sand shroud will be worse then reaper’s but I doubt it’ll be total blowout like in previous case.

I would like to remind people that just because a-net screwed it up, doesn’t mean you should also.

By that i mean all the talks about buffing reaper damage completely forgetting core necro. Now that guy is in the dust far more then reaper and that should not be.
If we’re talking direct damage buffs then last place they should be is the reaper-exclusive traitlines or skills.

On my part i would suggest:

1. % direct damage buff upon corrupting a boon (help for power necros who care to corrupt, as right now they don’t get half the good deal condi necro does when he corrupts boons due to lack of condi damage)

2. Life blast major rework – greatly enchanced cast speed, 100% projectile finisher, adjusted damage.

3. the vulni cap trait pushing it to 35 is a good idea. It’s not over the top – 10% base damage on top of 125% of it is basically a 8% dps increase. Fair game if you ask me and works well with necro’s “master of condition manipulation theme”.

If however 8% condi and direct damage buff is too much then 5-6 stacks over the top is accepatble too (4~4.8%).

4. Trait that lets necro share his boons with minions (much like ranger with his pet).

I won’t say pick what you like, i believe current power necro (especially core!) calls for all these upgrades done together.

While HoT elite spec power creep is here, for those without xpac short reminder of professions that bring great dps in their core game versions:

- ranger (condi build) – one of top condi dps in raids, and there you’re expected to hit really hard

- engineer (both power rifle and condi twin pistols) – top condi damage potential and very respectable power damage.

@dadnir – agree to disagree – ress+teleport is crucial unless you’re running pro group that doesn’t die/wipe ever and just seeks faster dps.

Also i’m not saying to not give necro the party-wide dps buff. What i’m saying is “hold your horses, let’s address necro’s personal dps issues first”.

A raid squad wide buff needs to be carefully balanced and planned out lest we get atrocities like “dps 3 eles or go home” in lfg.

Necro’s own personal dps issues should be fixed without involving all other profession and team composition. AFTER that you’re free to add a unique buff for necro, because the knife gets removed from the throat (“it’s gotta be direct damage boost else necro is shafted!”) and best decision can be made.

NeXeD.3042:

I used to use staff all the time on pvp necro, I’ve found myself going away from it the last year or so. Axe and dagger just seem much better options unless you take souk marks.

Exactly. The moment they butchered deathly chill in spvp staff become “utility” with no kill potential. After you burn through marks you go shroud, use utilities or just /dance before you can swap to 2nd weapon for real action.

And it’s not like marks are that good anyway. Without soul marks they’re garbage (guards block’em, everyone around guards tends to have aegis, guess from who?). They don’t make good traps as they’re visible from space. One evade is all you need to neutralize 4/5 necro’s staff skills if they pile them up close enough. There are way better methods of applying posion, bleeds, chills and fears then crippling yourself with this “utility” weapon.

Necromancers are a benefit to those around them, just that majority of ppl fail to see it because it’s not visible raw dps.

Support healing without breaking dps rotation, freeing up druids to go more dps (vampiric presence charging their CA like crazy), raid wipe saves when you transfusion downed ppl out of certain death scenario, projectile block that’s not a light field and does decent damage on it’s own (CPC), transferring condies off allies and using them as a weapon (plague signet).

Necro has party things going for him.

The real issue here is the dps. Unreliable for condi (ice field dependant), too low for power.

Condi issue solutions:
a) self field priority option (but not a must)
b) change whirl finisher to projectile. Then drop the field move to it’s rear (where there are no other fields) and spin 2 win. Projectile finishers will not miss because you’re not in point blank range.
c) move the chill mass aplication to another part of necro kit.

Power issue. I’ll say it straight – i believe that outside too low damage in general, the idea behind power necro and the balance of it’s roles (pure power, power tank, power healer) etc is great. What’s inside is well adjusted, it works well. It’s just that the damage overall is lacking.

Here i see 3 solutions as well:
a) adjust skill damage coefficients to higher values.
b) adjust skill cast times to lower values
c) introduce additional temporary direct damage % boost that activates with necro making some sort of play (facing enemy frontally, landing a crit, getting hit in shroud, on condi cleanse, ally heal..whatever). I’ll let others ponder on that for now.

I’m generally saying that before we go to town with whole raid group wide balance via a new dps profession specific buff, let’s first fix necro dps problem “inhouse” and then without the burden of “must fix his direct damage output” ponder on what to bring to the table in terms of group dps.

Lahmia – your wording is bit misleading there. People ignore power necro in anything competitive. Just saying power makes it sound like every meta for every profession is condi, power being the unwanted red-haired step child.

Hash – 47k dps on condi ranger? i find that absurd value hard to believe, though quite tasty if real (which if possible at all is most likely under unachieveable conditions in real raids).

Now here’s the thing – boosting power necro’s damage is completely different story then boosting all power classes’ damage via such a debuff. This can seriously shake up the balance with elementalists, which are current #1 damage classes for boss raids with large hitbox (and we’re talking power damage here) escaping even further ahead from the rest.

A buff like that will not make power necro desired, it’ll make necro with this specific trait desired. Nowhere does it say he has to be a power build.
It may help bridge the the condi vs power reaper personal dps gap, but it’s gonna shake up a lot of unrelated stuff while there.

If you’re out for that then sure. But if you’re out for party utility and more dps for power necro without affecting the whole ecosystem of all professions while you’re at it, then another option or more might be in order.

Peronally for longest time i was under impression that:

a) power necro = strong sustain, strong party play (blood magic fits well with power), weaker dps, kittenty condi counter-play (even if you transfer them off, they do no damage because you’re power)

b) condi necro – powerful corrupting, strong condi damage, stronger dps then power, but poor sustain on both health and life force fronts.

This is changing with new builds, but i would say this may be the key to solving power necro’s personal dps problem. Corruptions and condi transfers are greatly rewarded if you’re a condi build (high condi damage). On power it’s 50% the effect (you got rid of them, but the enemy just got tickled). Maybe if there were perosnal direct damage buffs associated with successful condi transfer and corruptions, power necro would get his spot back without affecting everyone else.

Also while condi necro should get more ….stable dps source (counting on ice field in raids where it’s a mess of everyone’s combo fields is asking for a bit much) he should be behind condi ranger dps wise.
That is because necro has a lot more condi utility then condi ranger. Necro can transfer condies off alies to himself and into enemies for additional dps. Rangers don’t have epidemic. Rangers can’t corrupt boons on enemies. They sure don’t have half the tools to deal with condies applied to them either. Projectile protection is also looking better for necro – corrosive posion cloud which is a big safe cirle vs wonky whirling defense (with offhand axe no one uses in raid builds) or staff’s sublime conversion, which is a dps loss, as that staff has to reaplace a real dps weapon if we’re talking dps condi ranger and not support druid.

For ranger getting some real supporting skills, means axing his dps. For necro getting around to support allies as oddball his ways of doing it may be, means very little sacrifices to dps if any.

Corrosive posion cloud? Does very nice poison dps on it’s own.
Plague signet? Also an extra dps option if used right.
epidemic? Sheer dps monstrosity.
Signet of vampirism? heal and extra dps while you’re there.
transfusion? Performed with shroud #4 – it doesn’t break your dps rotation at all, you just heal/ress as you dps.

Only two…ok three things i would suggest for necro’d dps are:
- boosts to direct damage on condi transfers/corrupts. So it’s inline with condi necro when his transfers/corrupts mean actual damage.
- less reliance on ice combo field for his damage (because in real raiding situations it’s sheer luck to get combo field you want for your whirl finisher).
- fix core necro’d deathshoud. It’s completely useless, helps with just about nothing, and adds insult to injury seeing how amazingly well reaper shroud fits into different kinds of builds and situations.

I like how you did your homework on it’s effects vs different armor values. I will however add a point to consider here:

150 toughness deduction is a pure power damage boost. It does nothing for condies, while vulni does boost both types of damage.
If it is to replace vulni generation (which is one of the necro’s strong points and i like it that way), it should also affect condi damage somehow if you ask me.

“Now, when you start doing 100CM or certain raid bosses where overall squad/party comp plays a bigger role- its less viable ONLY because there are groups out there who sit on their thumbs and pray to metabattle rather than doing what the spec/class system was designed to do. It gives you clear possibilities to make different variances of the class which allows for different play styles.”

Mavrip – your dog may hate you, your family may hate you, hell yout deity may hate you, but i freaking love you for that sentence

On topic – if you want easier time in your life i’d say condi, because that’s also raid meta – so one gear set for both fracs and raids without having issues with ppl cussing at you.
If you like power necro and got a set of big and hairy ones, then bite the bullet and go power. Generally play what you like, that’s what the game is about

also first time i hear axe corrupts 3 boons, last time i checked that was something focus did, axe at best deals with 2.

Cry me a river over diamond skin. I was playing a necro back then and i remember the horror. “No power” my kitten You could go viper (so plenty of power) and you still couldn’t beat bunker tempest. Full power necro couldn’t. That thing was broken from top to bottom.

Also for “useless class” you guys sure get a very “depressing” #1 spot in raid dps on many occasions.

Bring your staff reaper to spvp ranked, see how far you go.
I said clearly – necro has easy entry (hp, ds, minions, staff too if someone loves it). But getting good on necro vs opponents who know their stuff, that’s another story.

Justine.6351:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

s.

What many…nvm, what everyone fails to notice is that stories of necro being an easy class are royal bs. Necro may be easy to pick up, but he’s hard to build and he’s hard to master. While not filled with gimmics like clones, time manipulation or gazillion kits, necro’s skillset is closest to a swiss knife setup with each skill being a tool for certain situation, but none of them for all. When a necro makes a build he must make some tough calls and his general playstyle (save fear spammers) is about countering what your enemy is doing and planning your defenses well. As with any counter-class this requires keeping your cool and knowledge of enemy, therefore often resulting in “necro sucks” experience unless you’re willing to take the dive.

Because it is difficult to hit with marks while wearing dire/trailblazer with deathly chill slotted.

If you’re dying to that then that speaks a lot more about you then necros.

Thieves will dodge, eles cleanse it off in 0.2s from getting condies. Guards might get victimized, until they decide to pop one of their hundred heals and yet another stunbreak. Rest has enough hp to simply not die from something like that.

Necros are hands down best at:

1. reviving – transfusion + last rites. We’re made for this.
2. boon corruption
3. condi manipulation.
4. inflicting fears

Necros are also very good at:
1. power tanking – get insane toughness or vit, while keeping zerk level power damage.

2. support healing – with blood magic you pump heals as you go through your dps rotation. No “heal mode” that makes your dps drop to 0 as long as you’re in it (like celestial avatar or elementalist’s water attunement)

3. condi dps (well reapers at least).

They’re not #1 in these fields, but can hold their own.

What necros do suffer from indeed is:

1. atrociously bad death shroud. Compared to reaper, after pressing F1 core necro is screwed, hard.
2. no “invunlerability” defenses (blocks, evades, blurs etc).
3. disgustingly slow casts on certain skills
4. misconceptions about the class.

What many…nvm, what everyone fails to notice is that stories of necro being an easy class are royal bs. Necro may be easy to pick up, but he’s hard to build and he’s hard to master. While not filled with gimmics like clones, time manipulation or gazillion kits, necro’s skillset is closest to a swiss knife setup with each skill being a tool for certain situation, but none of them for all. When a necro makes a build he must make some tough calls and his general playstyle (save fear spammers) is about countering what your enemy is doing and planning your defenses well. As with any counter-class this requires keeping your cool and knowledge of enemy, therefore often resulting in “necro sucks” experience unless you’re willing to take the dive.

Caution: genius ahead!

As a raid condi necro i’d like to point out that there is a genius level solution to condi necro and his chill problem.
Let necro inflict chills on himself! Self-inflicted conditions are already a part of necro gameplay and that’s the deeper, more complex part, which raids should reward and bring to light.

The benefits of such move are many and align perfectly with class design and balance. Here are but a few:

a) strong, controlled damage. Chill yourself (with deathly chill on), get chill + 3 bleed stacks. Transfer that, cause additional 3 stacks of bleed from chilling the enemy and end up with 2x the bleeds! No combo field issues, no need for enemies to cast it (to transfer it off allies or getting chilled yourself).

b) access to resistance. Looong overdue might i add! If you use well of power when chilled you get the boon which should’ve been there for necro in the first place!

c) balanced. It does allow some serious damage if used right (and more then one source of self chilling is given), but comes with adequate risks and opportunity costs.
Stacking bleeds on yourself this way can get pretty deadly without a fast transfer.
And said transfer needs to be available (what if you just used it for self-cleanse?) and hit it’s target! (blinds, interrputs, target evading etc).
Also if you use well of power then obviously you’re not getting sick damage from the chill-inflicted bleeds. Resistance or damage, you’re not getting both off this.

That being said (and obvious genius!) i would hate to see reaper shroud #4 lose it’s whirl finisher or #5 it’s combo field. They are both very good and healthy tools for reaper, that allow for some plays in more ways then one.

It’s the uninspired, bland and extremely static deathshroud that needs a trip back to the drawing board!

I’d definitely like to see 2 stacks in spvp. One is a bad joke for an alleged grandmaster, playstyle defining trait..

I would enjoy seeing marks becoming a charged type of skill. Tap the key for regular mark with shorter cooldown. Or charge it (channeling), risking an interrupt, but receiving a beefed up version of mark for my trouble if it’s not interrupted. Also would help with the stupid “I burned all marks in 4 s, can’t swap, aa is trash, and everything’s on cooldown….”

I too had the idea and tested it. Hell yeah it works. Got a pretty good dps on golem with dagger (0 chill of it’s own) just using the pepper popper. Bad news is raids aren’t at night. So you can’t use it there sadly.

But in maps with night mode – yeah, it can be a real kitten damage boost.

You got protection they don’t. They can’t remove it, while you can strip them naked of their boons (albeit then tend to pulse so be careful). If you use deathshroud and your other defensive skills well, the warrior’s initial momentum will go down the toilet.

Remember – the longer the fight drags out the more warrior loses and you gain. Watch out for opportunity when his resistance goes down (in case of stance, one from healing you can just corrupt/strip). That’s when he’ll start being sorry he ever thought of going 1v1 vs a necro..

It’s not all bad. Necro’s viability depends on raid team quality. If we’re taking speed clears and pro runners then epidemic is most likely the only reason you’re there.

But if we’re talking..less extreme raiding squad then a necro may be a godsent. Let’s not forget that when push comes to shove no one even comes close to necromancers ability to revive. And since in raids there is nor ressing the defeated, only painful trip to checkpoint, having a good resser may be a difference between a “minor setback” and a wipe.

Also a necro is known for being able to go tanky at very little loss do dps, which is another high point of the class. A necro player’s damage may not be high, but he’s far more likely to survive and keep his damage going vs professions that either go full dps or go home because going tank would kill their damage potential.

Another issue is that necro suffers from elementalist syndrome.
That is people are so fixated on meta they fail to see other classes in other roles then what’s on metabattle.
Ele can be a great healer, but no one sees him as such. Druid or go home. Necro has the ability to do damage while healing others and being tanky. He’s not top dog at any of the 3 (albeit his damage mitigation can get very powerful), but key thing most neglect is that he doesn’t switch between the three roles – he can do it all at the same time, while most even if they can do dps and heal, have to change modes and either heal, or dps at a given moment.

And yeah as a necro main i too feel that A-net despite improving in PvE design is still dropping the ball in raids by failing to see that it shouldn’t always be “dps first” philosophy.

I ain’t got time atm to write essays on it, but take a look at spvp. You can build many ways, not only dps and it often makes sense and is good. Hell i play defensive power core necro (a.k.a. my “battlemage build”) and i can say it’s great. When i die it’s because i’m not using it right (there’s some depth to it) and not because build itself is lacking.

Now let’s see raids test our defenses for once, instead being a dps checks with “dodge & move to this spot to live”. I’d very much like to see a raid that makes you eat damage and tests how well you can defend your hp bar to pass the test, instead if you graduated the dps university and little more.

To me the staff auto looks like fanning something. And we know what gets fanned irl – flames!

I would like to see virtue of justice passive hit all staff aa targets when it activates. Also to let it have burning upkeep 100% if proper condi duration is build.

Another option might be slight heal that gets “fanned” into any allies in aa’s cone. Since guardian is supportive and staff is to be THE support weapon…

Core necro has been receiving some nice updates, making him more viable. Heck i even made a pretty good spvp build for him because he met it’s requirements unlike reaper.

However core necro still does suffer from few serious issues that prevent him from being a fair reaper alternative:

a) absolute trash access to stability – mesmers get more, eles get more, everyone save maybe thief gets more..
b) death shroud is still horrible. Having amazing reaper shroud as alternative only adds insult to injury.
c) minions make you wanna cry – reaper can spawn up to 5 with one button press. Core necro gets 6 if he places a minion on every slot he has..

Let’s not exaggerate. The nearly yearly content draught before and after HoT – now that was a legitmate reason to complain.
and
Current releases get my thumbs up, we get some story, new maps, new meaningful items to obtain (HoT stats ascended trinkets to qualify for raiding parties) , and along the way new legendaries and raid wings (i never suspected we’d get raid 2 before new xpac!).

My only wish is that they don’t wimp out just cause some whiners that go “help me HoT too hard” and make kitten vertical, maze like maps like in HoT with challenging mobs. Verdant Brink and Auric Basin get my votes for best maps in whole game, period.

Only complain i have about current content (LS3) is that new legendaries too often are joke or disco weapons, while i would like to see more serious weapon that obtains it’s legendary status not with "bling bling’ but well thought out, complex and appealing animations. Such as some of the Black Lion weapons that have special animations on take out/stove, but taken to whole new level.

Or a staff that completely changes based on it’s usage (one skin for lightning, one for fire, one for water, one for earth, one for necro, one for guardian one for thief etc).

Same here. Got awesome necro that asides looking kick-kitten is in dire need of “on demand stat switch” gear for all sorts of mad experiments :>

Also got me a ranger that after some proper gearing will become evil condi ranger. Because evil always finds a way!

Am defo past my 18, inventive, creative, got dark sense of humor and will be there when a raid is going on

B> guild like that on EU server..

Looks like GW2 dev team need to make a bold move, time-travel into the future, around year 2017 I’d say and learn of these strange artifacts of power called “additional cores” that tend to be present in that time’s processors. Might help future-proof their game…

Important thing to note is that Ryzen is known to gain around 10% performance in games when you disable it’s multithreading.

I’m also waiting for benches. I don’t expect Ryzen to be top dog for gaming, just want to be sure that it can give me comfortable 60fps. If it can do that, given it’s great results on all other fronts AMD would get a buyer here.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Their cutesy form is basically an anthropomorphic manatee. Manatees seem to survive just fine on their own, when people aren’t murdering them with motor boats.

you hear that a-net?! Next xpac we want motorboats, no “buts”!!

Agreed with OP. This is also very true in pvp. You may dodge that warrior adrenaline building move or necro shout, but your pet won’t and it’s a free 100% sure gain for ’em, despite you doing your job dodging/blocking.

i too got no idea what went through their heads when getting rid of perfectly good and appealing gem-based division naming and graphics. These things looked great:(

Nila.7813:

( i dont need ascended gear as pvp player, no way to get a legendary even if youre top tier),

Well I do. I wanna go raiding but enjoy spvp, so i would very much welcome a pvp ascended set to let me gather gear i need in a mode i like.

What i don’t like is divisions being LoL namesake’s instead of good old gem-based naming and graphics. What’s wrong with the old system? It was it’s own thing (which is what gw2 is all about), had very beautiful art and felt unique. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!

Watching thieves come to close thinking they got an easy kill, only to fall into my traps and end up dead seconds later. It’s hilarious:3.

But other then that it did get pretty darn toxic to a point I decided it’s time for a break. sPvP maps being butt ugly doesn’t help either (hi colloseum, capricorn, foefire).