Guild Wars 2

The mobs are tired of taking our crap, therefore they have stepped up their game.

I can see what you’re getting at, and how it might look. When you use your heal, your are definitely going to have health restored, but unless if says it cures conditions, that bleed is going to keep taking your health. That’s why they’re dangerous, because they keep going until they run out or you take them off.

atheria.2837:

Zeke Minus.5720:

You can dodge all other attacks for the most part, but conditions are the one thing you cannot dodge. Bleed, burn, poison, etc., they all hit you through immunity spells and dodges.

You have to learn to cleanse them when necessary and plan for them if they’re an issue. They can be very potent and sneak up on you since they keep hitting, but many professions have ways to cleanse reliably.

Excuse me but when I am applying bleeds they can dodge!

You can dodge the hit that applies the bleed, but once it’s on you, you cannot dodge the bleed damage.

You can dodge all other attacks for the most part, but conditions are the one thing you cannot dodge. Bleed, burn, poison, etc., they all hit you through immunity spells and dodges.

You have to learn to cleanse them when necessary and plan for them if they’re an issue. They can be very potent and sneak up on you since they keep hitting, but many professions have ways to cleanse reliably.

Edit: To be clear, you have tools to remove conditions and you need to find what works best. It’s a part of thinking ahead and not just hitting buttons.

You cannot dodge conditions. Bleeding is a condition.

It seems like a lot of us are getting strange lag. I’m curious as to what’s causing it on their end.

I, too, have recently began to get lag again. It’s Anets servers, not my ISP. They must have changed something again.

From watching the entire video, and hearing Mr. Sharp repeatedly say, “We have a process and we only like to tweak over time, not nerf quickly,” I don’t see how you’re getting that.

Why would you think them to do something like that when nothing in the video insinuated that wanted to be quick and sloppy about it?

I could see them tweaking numbers for PvP only, as this was the discussion topic. I doubt Epidemic will be touched. I also doubt a lot of Necro stuff will be touched. Maybe Marks?

It is a valid point, however, that most people just AoE the person being revived as well as the reviver very easily, but there can be counters. I wouldn’t take what Mr. Sharp said as, “We’re going to nerf AoEs,” just more along the lines of, “We’re going to look at how to better balance the situation of AoEs and reviving allies.”

This was already posted here.

I’d rather this not happen for several reasons:

1.) The current business model is a very good solution to those who enjoy subscription-esque models, and those who like free-to-play models. A one-time purchase to play for free is a great deal, especially when the cash shop is not intrusive and unfairly biased.

2.) Free-to-play usually means the cash shop needs to contain items that are very incentivised. This usually means pay-to-win or pay to have an unfair advantage. You end up thinking, “I might as well pay money to play this game.”

3.) General community cohesiveness and quality. This might be an unfair judgement, but communities tend to not be very friendly when it’s a free-to-play game. This doesn’t mean there are friendly people, but they are few and far between.

I think it’s somewhat safe to say that the only reason the Gem Store lacks potential intrusiveness is because of the business model the company has adopted. They don’t depend on sales of the items in that store as much as f2p games do. They get the initial profit from the game sale, then when people see that they aren’t forced to buy from the Gem Store, they stick around to see how the game is. The longer they stick around, the higher the chances they’ll buy from the store (generally).

Also, the reason most free-to-play games have not been able to forgo with the general unfairness of their cash shops is because they need people to buy things. It’s not a situation of, “They don’t have to, but it helps,” it’s a situation of “We’d like to make it so that they really, really want to for many reasons.”

The funny thing is, though, that people who say “Oh, free-to-play with a cash shop is better than sub” usually end up spending more in the shop than they would monthly on a sub.

The #2 ability applies 3 bleeds.

I see nothing wrong with this content, but that’s just me.

The way I see it, and how the Asuran race is represented in Guild Wars 2, I’m surprised the Asurans haven’t done something even crazier. They are nuts about magical technology, and have such large egos that it’s in the realm of possibility for one to be crazy enough to build the largest golem Tyria has ever seen.

I’m commenting on the concept and what I know of Asuran culture, by the way. I am very interested to see how they explain this in the lore.

And for your comment about being a gamer: I don’t see how you have any right to truly tell anyone what is and isn’t “a gamer”. This content fits right in with what a gamer could be defined as – spirited, creative, and even possibly wacky. Games are often times not serious, or make light of a trait or character in their own game. This is one of those moments.

Asurans are comical by nature, and the developers know it. They intended it. They know how to capitalize on this and seek to emphasize their outrageous and sometimes ridiculous creations.

Asking for serious lore is a cry from your own opinion, so I find it quite presumptuous for you to think your opinion is better than anyone elses.

Yes, Necros can do great things in PvP. They can turn the tide of battle with well-timed abilities, and can be very hard to take down.

With conditions, a random little trick I like to do is to stack bleeds on a pet (if there’s a Ranger) and other conditions I have and Epidemic them onto everyone. Condition removal can be a pain, but it’s really more about positioning and waiting it out, seeing as the longer a fight goes, the higher chances a Necro will win.

Daggers can be used in may ways, but I find a DS/Chill/Well build to work well. Not many people expect a melee Necro, so it sometimes catches people off guard. We don’t have issues keeping an opponent pinned down or staying on them. Chill is a very strong condition.

hackks.3687:

I’d ditch the II trait in Soul Reaping since it has no effect on the actual cost of the skills. I prefer either the 15% increased speed or the CD reduction. Since you’ve taken CD reduction for DS I’d recommend the DS skill CD reduction.

Spectral CD reduction is getting minimal use as well since you’re only using the Grasp which is the shortest of all the Spectral CDs. You might try Soul Marks for added LF on marks, or the increase in Fear duration.

You could then take 10 points out of curses and put them back into Spite for the Spiteful Marks, or go with add another chill with Chill of Death. You could also move them into Death magic for the CD reduction on Staff skills. The 33% chance on crit to generate 1% LF is barely noticeable and not worth the trait IMO.

Just my thoughts after giving it a quick glance.

I will move traits around and see how things sit.

The only reason I had chosen the Spectral cooldown over DS cooldown is because it gives life force/chill and pulls. The control it can give if timed correctly is wonderful, especially for interrupting a heal or catching someone. DS#2 is already a short-ish cooldown ability, but he prospect of a shorter cooldown fear seems like it would be nice.

The thought behind Soul Reaping II is that I notice I “bleed out” of DS quite quickly. It mostly helps when needing to dip into DS to take damage (not using skills, if they’re on cooldown or I’m knocked down). The life force bleed minimization also helps preserve life force, if only by a bit.

DS, for this build, is basically being used as a boon/purge mechanic and utility, with the intent of using the life force pool to absorb damage. I never have issues catching anyone since I have a ton of chill and other tricks.

I will see how Soulful Marks works out. I never actually thought about it, but it could work out better than the Soul Reaping II. I’d then want to take Greater Marks, but I suppose that’s optional. I’ve used it so long in other builds that when I don’t have it, the marks feel so tiny, lol.

Is something like this what you had in mind?

Thanks for the feedback.

It’s a bit slower, definitely, but it feels as if Necro isn’t build for glass cannon anyway. There’s just too many things that help in other ways. It feels that the longer the fight goes, the higher the chances I have of winning it as long as I don’t get zerged, lol.

With this build, you can definitely plan to absorb most, if not all, of the burst you’re expecting. With chill, this means they will have to wait a good while if the ability had a longer cooldown.

@hackks
I agree, fights are completely dependant on the build chosen to use, and I can’t plan for everything in one build. I will spread my fears out a bit more and see how that works. I’m still trying out new ways to approach these kinds of encounters, and the insight really helps.

@Embershard
Thanks for the advice!

I’m not sure why the build editor doesn’t show the correct percentage of crit that I have, but I normally hover around 35 to 40%. That said, I will definitely try the mark/hydromancy combo and see how it works. I also tend to stick with the Golem unless I know I can get away with the Lich form.

I have begun to try to branch out and see how far I can push dagger with chill, and find that this build also works quite well.
The build link is showing XI for the final Soul Reaping trait, but it’s suppose to be XII.

With this new build, I aim to do a couple of things:

• Become more survivable. A large DS pool helps to absorb damage when I need to.
• Cleanse conditions and gain perma-fury to help stay alive as well as build more life force through crits via the Curses trait.
• Always-accessable DS. So far, this has made a huge difference.

I have found this build to give me as much life force as I could possibly ever want. It’s pretty awesome. Conditions are also much, much easier to deal with, too. It has definitely helped against Thieves and other bursty classes.

@Box of Ants
Thanks for the build!
I’ll give it a try and let you know how it goes. My main issue with dagger (and it seems many other share this issue) is how dangerous it can be. I agree that, with well-timed dodges, Warriors become a non-issue. It’s really Thieves that pose the largest threat most of the time.

@hackks
Very good advice, and something I have done briefly. I understand how fragile Thieves are, and also understand how they can blow all of their initiative easily. As Box of Ants has mentioned, there are combos that are nearly unavoidable. If you do manage to DS-Fear, back off and plant a staff#5 and drop a well, they tend to just ignore it.

With conditions against a pistol whip build, building them up to be threatening takes much longer than the time it takes them to lock you down. With chill/dagger build, they can back off and use a Shortbow until you get to 75/80% and rush in to try and take you out. I played against this kind of Thief and was unable to do much.

I will experiment with how I approach them and practice at reading which cooldowns they use. I really have trouble with them shooting from range as I try to slow them/apply bleeds, then start the CnD or pistol whip routine, then I DS fear. By this time, in either spec, I have about 50% health. I attempt to heal, then they either use basilisk venom/steal-fear and heartseeker, or pistol whip until I die xD

EDIT: To be clear, the issue is not “Can I reasonably kill them,” it’s more along the lines of “How can I prevent my death within 5 seconds.” I know I must do my best to trip them up and make them waste initiative and cooldowns, but I only have so many things to keep them occupied or repel them.

Thanks for the reply!

I definitely do use my marks when a Thief stealths (either in their stealth field, or around me). The problem is, they don’t do much even if I am able to time my DS fear to interrupt their rotation.

I’ll admit – the fear isn’t as devastating as their damage combo. It really shocks me how a Thief can spam pistol whip through a Well of Darkness and kill me, even with 30k HP lol. Normally, WoD helps stop this (and it really helps against warriors), but maybe I’m missing something on how to better survive against super glassy and talented Thieves.

Hello!

I do a lot of sPvP, and have a couple of questions about how you guys deal with a certain profession.

I use this Perma-Chill Dagger/Focus & Staff build.
2 Runes of Svanir, 2 Runes of Ice, 2 Runes of Sanctuary

I also sometimes use this Condition Scepter/Dagger and Staff build.
6 Runes of Undead

I’m curious as to how I can better defend myself against Thieves that spam either pistol whip or other variations (backstab, heartseeker, steal/fear). Both versions, if played skillfully, I have found nearly impossible to kill. I actually fought a guy who spammed pistol whip and killed me (through half DS). I switch to stunbreakers when I anticipate bursty players (then drop a staff #5), but it seems to not matter if they catch me.

Normally, I can either bleed them out or drop a Well of Darkness on their face, but I have found myself unable to use these to great affect against a couple of good players even if they stand in it the entire duration. I find that Well of Darkness doesn’t nearly help to stop the burst they deal, even with 2800 toughness or 30,000 HP.

I’m not sure what more I can do, or how to better my builds without losing some of the nice synergy. I hope to gain some insight!

Also, what are some interesting and successful builds you have tried? I’m eager to experiment, however, I have not had good experiences with most power builds (but am eager to try).

Thanks guys.

Same – I really wish I knew what caused this. I can only imagine this sucking even more for those who pay for tournaments and whatnot.

Hello!

I’d like to report an issue with the loading screen when playing hot-join PvP. Sometimes (it seems random), I’ll get stuck at the loading screen for any given match, and will eventually be logged out due to inactivity (from sitting at a loading screen).

I only did a cursory check of the forums to see if someone else had reported this issue, so I apologize in advance if this has already been brought up.

Thanks!

I use Spectral Grasp for sPvP all the time, but there’s one thing that I have noticed that really hampers its usefulness:

Spectral Grasp has a hard time chasing anything that’s not on the same level as you.

Aside from this, I think the skill is muuuch, much more useful. I use a perma-chill build with wells, so this skill is awesome for not only another source of chill, but making sure an opponent eats most of the well(s) I put down. I’d say that outside of the elevation issue, the skill works 80% of the time or more, depending on whether or not they are able to dodge.

ocfallwind.4821:

They can keep the ascended all they want. Just adjust the stats to: exotic = ascended = legendary and see the reaction.

I would like to see this, too. This would be more in line with their ideals.

Fernling.1729:

Zeke Minus.5720:

This isn’t against their Manifesto.

They’re just adding a more obtainable step between Exotic and Legendary items. Most people think this means they’re going to keep adding items higher than Legendary rarity, stat-wise.

Their loss, honestly. I think it’s great that Anet can take a step back and say, “Ahh, yeah, there should be something in between Exotic and Legendary that people can get, yet still feel accomplished about.”

Collin said in an interview that they do not believe in grinding for gear with better stats, if people want to grind they can grind for cosmetics only. That is why I put manifesto/interviews. From what I have read, there is no fine line when calling it a grind.

So, then why did people play this game when there’s several different item tiers, each with their own level of difficulty to obtain?

Also, grinding… is very subjective. If you want to have a Legendary now and have only been playing for a month, you will grind. That’s your fault, honestly, as Legendary items were meant to be long-term investments

Also, think about this down the road: Legendary is the final step, and on a year or two, many people will have them. I’m positive they will get easier to obtain as they add more (equally stat-distributed) Legendary armor/weapons. Right now it seems somewhat grindy, but it’s because many people have short-sighted views.

This isn’t against their Manifesto.

They’re just adding a more obtainable step between Exotic and Legendary items. Most people think this means they’re going to keep adding items higher than Legendary rarity, stat-wise.

Their loss, honestly. I think it’s great that Anet can take a step back and say, “Ahh, yeah, there should be something in between Exotic and Legendary that people can get, yet still feel accomplished about.”

EDIT: To be more clear, they’re going to add Legendary armor eventually, and people are going to complain like this. They have said that Legendary is the be-all, end-all in terms of difficulty and spectacle, so I’d take this to mean that they’re just bringing armor up to par with Legendary-tier weapons.

I’m sorry, but this person seems to be misinformed.

They’ve said they’re just adding a step between Exotic and Legendary, and I’d like to wager the armor progression will eventually be Common, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, Ascended, and Legendary for both armor and weapons. The statement I linked explicitly says that they will not be adding any more item rarity tiers after these.

I’m assuming they’re going to keep adding armor sets to each rarity, but I’d trust their word that they don’t plan to keep releasing rarity tiers once they have all of the planned ones in place.

I can see how this may be misconstrued as “breaking their promise,” but that’s simply not true. They have always had Legendary-grade items in-game. It’d be reasonable to assume that they plan to add Legendary-grade armor sets as well.

Will people complain? Absolutely.

The only point people should begin to worry is when they start to go beyond Legendary.

Ynna.8769:

IV Endu.8920:

If there are multiple combo fields stacked upon eachother, which combo field will proc with a finisher?

I find that sometimes I’m not getting the combo effect I want and it’s probably because of stacking fields upon eachother :x This info would be really useful to know!

Whichever was put down most recently, apparently.

I can confirm this.

I play with an Elementalist friend of mine quite frequently, and we always set up combos. If I lay down a symbol, then he lays down another field on top of it, Hammer#2 triggers my combo field.

I use Rabid/Khilbon armor because every stat in that set is working for you.

Precision for bleed procs, Toughness for higher effective health AND more condition damage (Runes and Tuning Crystals), and Condition Damage is quite obvious. Sometimes I wonder, though, if you can have too much Condition Damage…

Noll is working on SBI overflow. Not on the main server.

Canach is in the house up top in the area his icon is in.

Noll is bugged on SBI, so nobody can progress

I am SO glad I can now equip and stow kits midair.

/endsarcasm.

Talloc.6835:

Dware.4259:

WvW is a HUGE zergfest that normally involves pounding on empty keep doors.

Who cares what gear your wearing? I roll WvW on my level 20ish alts..

Lets not pretend GW2 has some fantastic Group RvR action going on where gear actually matters.

Its zerg vs zerg 99.99999999999999999% of the time.

If you’re with the zerg 100% of the time then you’re not actually contributing much, sorry to break it to you.

The fact that you even say something like that means you have basically no understand of how WvW works.

I dunno…

On my server, there are several medium-sized groups of people doing many things (usually with commanders). Sure, small groups are quite awesome at doing supply caps and whatnot, but saying zergs are useless is quite an inexperienced thing to say.

Zergs can be absolutely terrifying when led by a great commander, especially if there’s more than one roaming around and hitting key points.

What I understood when I read about Agony and its relation to Ascended gear is this: Ascended gear lets you negate Agony.

If this is not what they were suggesting, then this will be only a mechanic build to punish players, which is not good. I’m assuming Agony is a form of gating which will prevent players without Ascended gear from being able to complete Agony-heavy areas.

CarelessKrow.8032:

There’s always fighting going on between Klovan and Quentin. Why? SBI can’t stay away from Quentin. It’s like a magnet that draws their zerg from time to time. Same goes for Klovan. We love attacking it.

This.

We (SBI) are ALWAYS pushing QL/DP. I don’t know what Smoke is talking about.

A lot of times, while game studios have a general plan detailing what kind of content they’d like to make for the next year or so, things generally change. Nothing is completely set in stone.

An example of this is could be sPvP and the addition of Paid Tournaments. I’m sure they wanted to include as much as the Tournament system as they could have for launch, but because of a deadline (and the fact that they got to a point at which they thought the game was “ready” for launch), this feature was added later. All things are flexable, and some things simply do not make it as features (which are the things we never hear about, or are never implemented).

This is why companies can’t just tell us their entire plan. They don’t have everything absolutely nailed down.

I ran into one of these kinds of Thieves today. T’was quite amusing at first, but then I was surprised at how many stealths he/she had available.

I like how strong Thieves are. I do not want them to be nerfed. I would rather each class be able to do something as “powerful” as a perma-stealth Thief. Which is not the case.

I think the biggest thing that makes these guys problems for most people is that they have nearly unlimited mobility and numerous escape mechanisms, which they should, but the fact that stealth deselects AND isn’t broken on damage is what makes this mechanic very, very powerful. To be fair, though, the guy built a troll spec and used it very well

I tried leveling a Thief. I hated it. You don’t really have much at Lv. 7 to avoid hits, so each strike against me was like someone taking a sledgehammer against aluminum. xD

I’d rather Anet test and make needed, logical changes rather than a new nerf/buff every patch.

I hated that about other MMOs. I’m extremely happy that they’re waiting and testing rather than using the live populace as beta testers.

I do believe so. I have used Epidemic to spread 25 stacks of bleed, and it showed the enemy being hit by my bleed damage.

Awesome work, Brutaly Thanks for sharing.

I’d like to suggest the food Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for this build, as I have found it to synergize wonderfully with how the build works. More dodging = more healing, plus additional might on dodge.

There are lesser versions (Bowl of Meat and Winter Vegetable Stew) which are much, much cheaper that work just as well, too.

EDIT: Whoops, it looks like you already included it. My mistake, I must have missed it, hehe. For anyone curious about which food to choose, this one is a great choice for any situation.

Lt Latency.7415:

Whargoul.9613:

If you’re a Necro I would go with Rabid gear because you already have a high vit pool and if you’re running a condition build you already have multiple ways to dump/transfer your conditions. so you shouldn’t even need to worry about them killing you.

is rabid a type of armour.

I checked that ah and there is no rabid only seals

It’s a stat description prefix, but the only lv. 80 Rabid-type armor is from dungeons or dropped and karma, I believe.

I find using Rabid gear (prec/tough/cond) w/ crit proc sigils and Undead runes to work quite well. I have no use for power, and toughness is always a good thing.

Also, this is from a Necromancer point-of-view. If you don’t have much synergy with crit procs in your traits, you might benefit with the other condition gear.

Very nice video I started a Necro focused on conditions, and you’ve made me want to mess around with power builds. Thanks for sharing!

Also, the number tally (the, “1052 + 2104 + 3156…” etc.) is not each hit, it’s the total accumulation of damage the skill has done. That’s still quite impressive, but it’s not 40k damage xD

The OP is probably using a variation of this condition build, which performs very well and tries to make all skills synergize.

The general idea (and much of the build) came from the “Necromancer tutorials” thread.

From a dev in the Halloween Event forum:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Yes, Halloween should be over tomorrow in it’s entirely. No Thanksgiving or anything like that. As for what’s next, you’ll have to wait and see.

So, no Thanksgiving event, but it looks like something is planned for November.

I definitely see where you’re coming from, and it would be pretty awesome if they came up with an inventive way to replace it.

Reading random dev posts recently, however, leads me to believe they don’t have the time for that kind of stuff at the moment. It seems they have a lot of other content to work on and push out in the coming months, and I’d rather them do that (along side hefty profession bug fixes) than to worry about replacing an asset they already have.

Aside from this, your post was about a source saying that the statue was going to be changed, and this has been found untrue. I’m just posting what was said.

Shadowlancer.7102:

snip

The dev would have worded what he said differently if he wanted to suggest that the lion statue was not making a return.

Furthermore, I know he would have not posted what he did if he thought he was wrong, or didn’t know if the statue was being replaced. It would also be detrimental to the image of Anet if he were to lie about it.

You have your source, but I’d trust a dev over an unnamed source on this topic. It’s not something that they’d find much worth in hiding or deceiving the fate of the statue.

The claims that the statue is going to be replaced are false, as stated by an Anet dev.

Everyone has CC. This is a form of aggro control.

I can’t relate to the feeling of waiting for the event to start each time. It’s not that bad. xD