Guild Wars 2

Bohantopa.5729:

Zenith.7301:

Breath is not even that bad. It means the rest of the dps that are not being breathed on can dps freely without worrying about eating melee cleave.

That would be nice, but a lot of pugs (even at 50) still run in cirles around the boss, nicely hitting everyone. I always cry when this happens while I’m on mesmer, all my phantasms gone

That person kiting the ettin into my 3 illusionary duelists i carefully put away always makes my blood boil.

Apexevolutionx.1203:

I will be testing as well tonight and will report my results. If this is indeed the case and illusions and mini pets no longer count as pets for the ranger runes what is the best alternative for dungeons and general pve ( pvp or wvw suggestions welcome however i typically run pack or travelers runes for those)

Scholar for pve. Get ready to break the bank, at least it isn’t strength runes. For WvW I can’t give up traveler, it’s way too useful to not move at a snail’s pace and 12 seconds of swiftness on a 20 sec cd focus skill is crap.

Making it work only as an interrupt would only render it useful in pvp. I think just using a CC skill should trigger the heal.

I wonder, what if it turend attacks blocked/distorted turn into healing for the mesmer? Warriors have that mechanic in the form of a heal that absorbs damage and converts it to healing.

And in GW1 we had plenty of spells that converted something nasty into something beneficial.

It’s a grandmaster trait so it should be powerful enough to compete with the others, and damage conversion to healing from blocks/distortion would be enough to make people consider dropping the 6 points in other lines.

Yeah, I get an ill feeling from testing on Plaguebearers in Orr that this is the case, just using the first part of the autoattack to exclude vulnerability stacks and making sure to use it before the clone applies vulnerability himself.

Ugh, if they broke this I’ll have to go sell a kidney to outfit myself on scholar runes again….:(

I want Marjory’s weapon skins back ;(

Yup, another example is those Tequatl death zones. Sometimes they won’t even appears for a good while, yet you still receive damage.

It’s really annoying when it happens.

BTW those fire field issues have existed since the molten instance went live in season 1. They’ve always been there sometimes you’ll die to something that has no telegraph and doesn’t appear on the screen.

Same principle with bloomhunger. Sometimes with Archdiviner he’ll do his swirl, a projectile doesn’t hit you at all on sxreen but you still take the damage, or sometimes the damage is delayed so even though you evade the projectile the damage registers afterwards.

These kind of things will sadly always happen in an online action combat MMO. You take the good with the bad.

Breath is not even that bad. It means the rest of the dps that are not being breathed on can dps freely without worrying about eating melee cleave.

Ranger isn’t passed over for mobility. Greatsword on a ranger is virtually one of the most mobile specs in the game, Swoop has a joke of a cooldown and with the 25% speed signet a ranger is not having trouble rotating. If for some reason longbow is passed over, greatsword/sword+axe or warhorn has swoop+ monarch’s leap which is not something even a thief can catch if the ranger wants to disengage, because the cooldowns on those skills are that low. Mobility is NOT a ranger problem.

Ranger is getting passed over because it can’t burst anywhere near as often or as reliable/potent , maul is a hilariously easy telegraph to avoid, ranger has no strong aoe/cleave to speak of, and his survivability is summarized by signet of stone, which is on a long cd so its uptime for fights is, well, really low. Stunbreaks on a ranger are just bad, generally long cd’s with weak effects.

Basically, besides rapid fire there is really no reason to bring a ranger over a thief, and rapid fire cannot carry a class that’s outmatched in every other aspect. Longbow is only a strong weapon if you can camp on it, but most classes in this game have some tool to stay in your face and the longbow simply has no real kiting tools. So the one thing the ranger can do better than anyone (ranged single target pressure) is easily neutralized by most comps.

Oh, yeah, maul can hit for 6k, when blowing a bunch of lengthy cooldowns under ideal circumstances where the planets align. So going by that little nitpick, I guess I should amend my statement about backstab hitting for 5-6k to you knnow, hitting for 7-9k, because it CAN hit those numbers regardless of them not being the average numbers if I conjure up a bunch of special circumstances.

But ok, I’m totally enlightened. I expect a swarm of power rangers to take over the tournaments after this great discovery of yours. Tremble in fear thieves, rangers are here to take your ganking spots.

Impact.2780:

Zenith.7301:

Impact.2780:

This is about PvP. You’re now showing me damage scaling off PvE stats. It might be on an NPC, but those are the same stats used in WvW. Whatever the scenario, it’s not important. What is your point?

The skills’ damage formula does not change based on whether it’s spvp or wvw/pve. A backstab will do that much more damage compared to a maul regardless, and that’s why the wiki tooltips are what people trust instead of your meaningless comparison that’s just plain wrong.

Do you want me to take the screenshots naked? Backstab will still outdamage maul by a fair margin. Sorry, you can’t wiggle your way out of base damage differences and a coefficient that’s almost twice that of maul.

Dear God man. I can own your whole little charade right now by saying DUH. Yes backstab hits higher. It always has. Now, kindly show me where anyone – specifically myself – said otherwise. Show me where the topic was “maul = backstab.” I think you’ll find it was you saying maul can’t hit 5-6k, and me saying yes it can. I’m starting to sound like a broken record. Now that I’ve proven it irrefutably to you, you’re just trying to save face by attempting to alter what this was about. As if I’d ever be so stupid as to say maul and backstab were equal. I’m insulted that you’d try to pull that. The only one wiggling here is you.

Of course it can, except when it hits for 4.7k, and you need to use an elite, a 60 sec cd (which is 60 sec, because traiting for it at 48 also means giving up either a hefty crit chance increase from spotter or giving up piercing arrows), a 30 sec one to hit that 6k mark. Clearly the average maul is hitting for 6k.

I grow tired of you. In one post you do a damage forumula for both maul and backstab, showing “similar” damage, and on the next you say you never meant to say maul could compete with backstab numbers.

You even gloated about screenshots trumping a wiki, and when provided screenshots that contradict your claim, you simply try to distract by saying they are with PvE stats, as if that changes anything.

champ.7021:

Dont some stats change between pvp and pve? for example people messed up thief rotations in pve by testing them in pvp, (thinking you should start hs at 50% instead of 25% health). My normal backstabs with crit strikes is 5-6k sometimes that jumps up with fire sigil procs

why has this thread become about backstab vs maul?? Rangers have #2 on LB and can hit at a distance of 1900, which i can definitely not do on thief. I think sb needs a buff

No, the skill damage does not change. That was before the critical damage change and ferocity introduction lowering the crit damage cap.

And that heartseeker scenario was wrong to begin with. The pvp scenario doesn’t change, heartseeker’s damage is the same for the thresholds in both pvp and pve, and the fact is hs is never worth it at 50% versus a cnd>backstab weaving in between autoattacks. HS for damage is only ever optimal over the alternatives at 25%, except in pve you want to keep above the 6 initiative threshold to get the bonus damage (which is not feasible in pvp sometimes).

Rapid Fire is a channeled skill, that doesn’t hit from invisibility, and can be reflected and whose damage is consumed by aegis/block (unlike backstab, which does not reveal the thief it’s blocked or misses via blind).

Rapid Fire’s DPS is undeniably worse than a backstab.

Impact.2780:

This is about PvP. You’re now showing me damage scaling off PvE stats. It might be on an NPC, but those are the same stats used in WvW. Whatever the scenario, it’s not important. What is your point?

The skills’ damage formula does not change based on whether it’s spvp or wvw/pve. A backstab will do that much more damage compared to a maul regardless, and that’s why the wiki tooltips are what people trust instead of your meaningless comparison that’s just plain wrong.

Do you want me to take the screenshots naked? Backstab will still outdamage maul by a fair margin. Sorry, you can’t wiggle your way out of base damage differences and a coefficient that’s almost twice that of maul.

It’s not even WvW lol. And somebody can’t read the meaning of + on the number, because the whole point is no berk class can crit for what a thief does and do it as often. You yourself showed a 4.7k crit on maul average, needing a 60 sec cd, an elite, and a 30 sec cd signet to do with an ability what a thief does more unbuffed and more frequently if you want to get a maul above a 4.7k.

You’re the one wilfully ignoring the point. Thief burst is not equivalent to any other class, it’s just betetr and that’s why you see thieves instead of any other berk class in high level play.

Thief. Full berk, ascended berk trinkets, exotic daggers with force sigil. 15 might stacks from signet.

Ranger. Full berk, ascended berk trinkets, ASCENDED greatsword with force sigil. Signet of the wild buff+ moment of clarity+rampage as one+ predator’s onslaught damage buff from crippling throw debuff.

same mob, same armor. Clearly 12k backstab= 7.4k maul.

Backstab and maul are not even on the same league, but feel free to pretend like they are equivalent burst.

Ok on the ignore list you go. I can’t bother with people who go “lalalala can’t hear you the tooltips and coefficients confirmed for over a year on the wiki for these weapon skills are wrong and maul totally does similar damage to a backstab lalalalala”.

It’s like years of youtube videos of dungeon runs with thieves and rangers in them don’t even exist. I’m being told by this guy something along the lines of Mind Wrack being equivalent damage to 100b.

EDIT: And since I actually felt like posting screenshots to end this bullcrap

Yeah, and for bonus annoyance a ranger using his greatsword block which normally works on projectiles indefinitely, somehow the lupi projectiles would manage to go through it. They were super wonky.

The cannons with mai trin can do that too sometimes, you’re outside the circle but somehow a few inches away it still ticks you for damage. It was similar with Bloomhunger at some point until they fixed him, but I think it still happens with Molten duo where sometimes a projectile will fail to show a telegraph.

I also want to add that something like this also stinks up of Lightbringer ranks to me, or even the previous fractal levels fiasco. It could fracture the community and make latecomers/returning players have a harder time integrating to the scene as most people will make mastery demands.

Can’t take an article with such a sensationalistic, hype train headline like that seriously.

Impact.2780:

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, thanks for glossing over the skill tooltips that just contradicted your whole “ranger can get as high with maul”.

All it tells me is you haven’t mained a ranger, like ever.

1) Those weren’t tool tips. They were the names of skills.
2) It in no way contradicted what I said about ranger or any other class.
3) Unbuffed maul.
4) Maul with moment of clarity. Edit: Bah I missed the screenshot of the hit. It’s in the combat log though.
5) Maul with signet of the wild.
6) Maul with signet of the wild and some might stacks.
7) Maul with moment of clarity and some might stacks (I was actually going for a grand finale with moment of clarity, some might, AND signet of the wild, but I was a bit too slow).

“Why light golem?” It puts it into perspective really, since the 5-6k backstabs are on squishies. In fact, a shatter mesmer has 1850 armour, a meta thief has 1955 armour, and a pewpew ranger has 2055-2105 armour. That light golem has 2180 armour, so imagine those hits being a bit higher.

Are you, like blind?

It’s right there in the godkitten wiki links, the base damage and POWER SCALING COEFFICIENTS.

You posted only the screenshot of mauls, which hits for a pitiful 4.7k CRIT, and then wanted to beef it up with a 60 second cooldown signet of the wild.

Compared to a thief who can backstab as often as he can blackpowder, or hide in shadows, or shadow refuge. And how convenient of you to compare maul with backstab without bringing up might on signet use backstabs with the 15% damage boost.

By this point I just can’t take you seriously. You show someone the damage numbers from the wiki, with the coefficients, and they just proceed to ignore it. Do you have a moral objection against math or something?

Ranger’s aren’t even balanced with pets in mind. Ranger autoattacks do virtually 30-40% less damage than regular classes yet the pet doesn’t even come close to making up for that gap.

Only the longbow on the ranger appears to do damage on par with other classes’ ranged weapons, but that is not the case for his melee weapons.

Maul is pathetic compared to backstab or 100b or whirling wrath, and a cat critting for 1.6k autoattacks isn’t going to make up for that.

If you are eating agony, you didn’t have enough AR, or you are eating agony causing attacks.

And the thing about agony causing attacks is, they’re there to be dodged not facetanked.

There is no situation with molten duo where not having more damage is better. The difference between a PVT eating a fire projectile poool and a berserker is virtually the same, you’ll die after eating two, 2 stomps will also probably kill you.

Just bite the bullet and learn to dodge and go berserker.

Part of games is learning them. When you played Super Mario 64 the game didn’t give you the option for more forgiving jumps and when you fought Bowser the game did not reduce the damage you took. You died until you did the encounter/map properly.

Um, you were probably the cause with your “support” guardian why the group didn’t kill the molten charr within the first reflection wall, which is likely what wipes a group.

This is literally the the one fight in the game where the longer you take to kill a boss the harder/more unforgiving the fight gets.

The real support in this game is boosting your team’s DPS and reflecting/aegis the crap that kills them. They don’t need you to tank. They don’t need you to heal. They just need you to kill that crap asap and give them enough blocks/reflects to get that burst uninterrupted with 25 might stacks and fury.

Stop thinking there are roles other than DPS in this game. The way it functions is you maximize offense and bring the bare minimum of support required so that nobody dies.

champ.7021:

Zenith.7301:

BlackTruth.6813:

Thief burst isn’t the real issue. Guard could do the same with the focus pre-cast, face-tank/cleave a point better and arguably finish a downed person better. Burst is something you can’t take away from Thief really. But z-axis you can cause Thief is high skill cap even without it.

Focus pre-cast is also a 45 sec cd.

thanks, ill add that to my list of non sequiturs

Clearly an irrelevant nuance to say a guardian can do thief burst every 45 seconds when a thief can do said burst with a fraction of the recharge time.

Impact.2780:

Zenith.7301:

LOL. A Maul is one of the most obvious telegraphs ever, and opening strike on stealth is a GRANDMASTER trait which most people won’t even take because predator’s onslaught is significantly better.

I can tell by that list you just made you’re not the most unbiased source. Your types deserv e to be banned from playing thief for a while and be forced to play any other berk class against teams with berk thieves.

Clearly thieves are just fine, that’s why they’re easily replaced in any tournament and top teams by other berserker classes.

Now you’ve missed your own point. From stealth right? I don’t think maul can be seen when invisible on account of it being… you know. Invisible.

As for your direct attack; I’m not going to get into what I do and don’t play, because this thread isn’t about me. I’d appreciate if you didn’t try bait responses that are specific to an individual’s playing habits irrespective of the original topic.

Yeah, thanks for glossing over the skill tooltips that just contradicted your whole “ranger can get as high with maul”.

All it tells me is you haven’t mained a ranger, like ever.

BlackTruth.6813:

Thief burst isn’t the real issue. Guard could do the same with the focus pre-cast, face-tank/cleave a point better and arguably finish a downed person better. Burst is something you can’t take away from Thief really. But z-axis you can cause Thief is high skill cap even without it.

Focus pre-cast is also a 45 sec cd.

I mean,

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maul_%28ranger_greatsword_skill%29

434, 1.5 coefficient

vs.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab

806, 2.4 coefficient

This guy is so full of crap saying Maul can hit that high.

It’s so comically misinformed.

Impact.2780:

Zenith.7301:

Thief is the only class who gets the ability to crit for 5-6k+ from stealth.

1) No. Rangers have a trait that enables them to regain opening strike when entering stealth, which in such a build is a guaranteed crit. Combined or not, with moment of clarity, greatsword can hit that high.
2) No. Anyone can crit 5-6k if built right, and any class can enter stealth. 4/8 can enter it themselves, and the other 4 can be given it from 3 of the other 4. What you mean is, thief is the only class that has a skill that hits that high that can only be used from/is restricted to stealth.
3) Anyone can play the X is the only class who can Y game. I’ll show you: Mesmer is the only class who gets the ability to (reliably) deal 5-6k+ damage from stealth, without getting revealed.

Edit: For clarification on point 3, even though it was an example – by reliably I don’t mean “they always will.” I mean as opposed to rangers who theoretically can following the same concept – the AI deals the damage while you’re in stealth – but it is less reliable because it’s easier to avoid a pet than a phantasmal berserker. E.g. if you’re out of dodges, the berserker will hit, while the pet can be kited just by moving away.

LOL. A Maul is one of the most obvious telegraphs ever, and opening strike on stealth is a GRANDMASTER trait which most people won’t even take because predator’s onslaught is significantly better.

I can tell by that list you just made you’re not the most unbiased source. Your types deserv e to be banned from playing thief for a while and be forced to play any other berk class against teams with berk thieves.

Clearly thieves are just fine, that’s why they’re easily replaced in any tournament and top teams by other berserker classes.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Yep, the meta is centered around Thieves…

That is why most optimal builds are like AoE happy machines that makes spectating for a new player seems as if they are watching Rainbow-Simulator 2…

… Or was the meta buid around, you know, conquest? Might sound silly, I know, but there might be a possibility no?

Yeah because aoe spam isn’t the only way to hit stealthed targets or pressure a thief from stealth stomping targets.

And if we’re gonna go for aoe, why aren’t frostbow or staff eles swarming the format, because no class comes even close to the aoe damage of those two.

I don’t want to hear about other classes having stealth. Mesmer has 3 seconds top of stealth, that doesn’t stack, and requires utilities of 32 and 90 second cooldowns respectively, or running a torch that has the worst, most worthless phantasm out of all weapons and The Prestige is a whopping 30 sec cd.

Don’t you even dare compare mesmer stealth to thief stealth, it’s not like mesmers get an invisible phantasm that crits people for 6k from stealth and has no telegraph and can be cast repeatedly instead of having the usual 20 sec cd.

Thief is the only class who gets the ability to crit for 5-6k+ from stealth.

You’d be surprised how many eles I’ve told not to put swirling winds on my feedback for lupi and they still do it. Or people killing the marked mob on colossus fractal. Or guardians putting symbols on top of smoke and fire fields.

TY! It worked perfectly

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

It is easier to add the command line argument -prefreset.

If you continue to have difficulties, contact the Tech CS Team using the link above/below, and ask for assistance. Make sure you list everything you have tried, so far, so they don’t suggest you do those things, again.

Good luck.

What does that even mean. Like, where do you put that.

EcoRI.9273:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/300m6m/perpetual_dungeon_noob_conundrum/

I feel this guy is a prime example of someone that can greatly benefit from this cleric build. Some people just don’t have time to improve their gameplay to warrant running berserker.

And it’s not even a question of time. Some people just will never have the reflexes. People are born with different talents and capabilities for honing certain skills.

Eyesight is another thing. It takes a good one to discern animations on humanoids with spell effects and the floating numbers right on top of the mob.

Every zerker dies easier compared to a thief.

Stealth in this game is plain broken, with few counters other than guessing and flailing at thing air since blocks and blinds don’t reveal the thief.

And even if the thief fails the burst he can reset at will thanks to sword port/shadowstep/shadow refuge or hell just the good old BP>HS.

What did you think would happen if you gave a class the highest burst, the highest mobility, and plenty of resets plus constant access to invisibility?

They went and nerfed ranger endurance regen trait from 50% down to 25% yet thieves got to keep feline grace, which was a way better version since feline graces STACKS with vigor, while the ranger trait did not (endurance refund stacks with vigor, endurance regen caps at 100% with vigor up).

But apparently a thief with the equivalent of a serpent strike that can be chained several times and nukes people for way more damage on top of all the evades/ports/blinds a thief can have is totally fine.

Dawdler.8521:

Erzian.5218:

zone.1073:

If the damage from celestial is strong enough to take down a berserker necro, doesn’t that show that the build can pull its own weight?

Which build can not take down a berserker necro (if he doesn’t use lich) in a 1v1?

Which build can not take down a zerker anything in 1v1?

Zerkers are designed to +1. Put any zerker against the real game winning 1v1 builds (ie various bunker variants that exist across all professions) and they all will fail.

All strong thief duelist specs are zerker. If you’re saying a shadow arts stealth spam thief is not one of the strongest 1v1 specs, I don’t know what to say other than you haven’t dueled enough people in WvW.

Ragion.2831:

Aenesthesia.1697:

Rolisteel.1375:

You recommend me keep playing necro solo ranked? or play other class for solo ranked? i don’t want to be in disadvantage. Thanks

I think that for solo ranked, power necro is the best necro you could have.

Minion master requires the team actually coming to your help or you will not be able to hold points. Help is scarce in solo qeues.

And terrormancer also shines in teamplay (though it can win 1vs2 more often than powernecro, at least from what i experienced in my short noob stint as a terrormancer), while it also lacks mobility.

For solo qeues, i think that what you really need is mobility to make up for your team’s lack of coordination, and strong 1vs1 capability because goup fights are not in your advantage (unless the other team is also bad). Power necro is really good 1vs1, and lacks a bit in mobility, but is probably the most mobile necro of them all so…

You won’t be so bad in group fights either if you bring Lich form. It can down a squishy in 2-3 hits, and the squishy trying to revive him also. Great for contesting mid the first time (when a team clash is guaranteed) even though your lf will be close to zero.

Plague is not such a good idea. You are meant to kill, not to survive. If you have to pop plague it means that you are already in a kittenty situation and can, at best, delay the inevitable. But you are not specced to hold points so, why take elites to hold points?

Oh, make sure you give Death’s embrace a try. It almost makes sure you never lose in 1vs1 situations and opens the door for a lot of lols.

^ mobility, is really the only problem. I think by now every necro agrees on this. I’m really hoping they give us a DS escape skill. Perhaps in team fights necros should be the one dictating the targets since we are the most vulnerable.

Personally i never use lich in pvp cuz of the cd but that is probably just me being stubborn.

WE USED TO HAVE A DS ESCAPE SKILL.

You see your Dark Path in death shroud? It used to be a blink, and by the end of beta it got nerfed into the garbage it is today.

Loonita.7421:

Rapid fire should not hit through stealth. Its already the best channeled skill it should not complete its duration through enemy stealth. Nothing else needs to be said this should not happen.

You can have that when your cloak and dagger stops working on pets. L2P you pathetic thief.

Try doing one of those “chill” Arah runs where they kill every mob pack and you’ll quickly understand why people skip and do “speed” runs. You can kill every pack in Arah and what you’ll get out of that wasted time is less than half a gold if anything at all from what is likely to drop.

This game doesn’t introduce rewarding loot tables for trash mobs unlike other MMO’s raids who have a good chance to drop high quality loot. So people skip it.

Purple Miku.7032:

Zenith.7301:

Lorgus.6148:

If you want a real challenge try heading over to the General Discussion forums and convincing them that warriors aren’t top-tier in DPS.

You mean top dps. Because in terms of tier they fall behind only to ele, thief, and the odd engi, in practical dps (not some idealized scenario for a ranger, for example), and no group will run without one simply because of banner of discipline.

And it’s all context sensitive. In a pug or lower skilled group I can bet you the warrior is the one pulling the larger chunks of damage.

It’s really kind of unfair comparing any class to frostbow and meteor shower. Compare a D/F ele to a warrior and it gets closer.

Actually D/F ele is always better if you’re in a group, when compared to warrior.

Warrior benefits the least out of all classes when surrounded by others because in a solo setting its offensive buffs are still there for itself. Regardless of PS builds in a group or DPS builds, warrior will be peaking above 20 might and be using banners.

D/F ele, on the other hand, provides no unique offensive buffs to itself but rather permanent fury and might. In a solo setting D/F ele optimizes DPS with strength runes and sometimes strength sigil too, so that they can maintain 25 might. In a group, however, D/F ele optimizes with scholar and without strength sigil. In other words they won’t be the only person contributing with might gain and they’ll have banners. In this scenario, D/F is far beyond warrior.

In a solo setting D/F is still better DPS than warrior but not by that much. I spent a good while in heart of the mists testing it with different runes/rotations and D/F ele usually averages around the same in a solo setting as a warrior does without using glyph of storms/ice bow.

Also, the argument you’re making about pug warriors dealing more damage than other classes is just as valid as me claiming that the average pug warrior is a terribad rifle + axe/axe warrior. It’s subjective to your own experiences in dungeons and means nothing. When we’re discussing DPS I see no point in calculating and comparing it to that of random people in pug groups rather than comparing the classes based off of what we know they can do and what we know we all here do.

You’re right, I’m not disputing ele being top dps, it’s why I said a closer comparison, not an equal one. I just don’t like the suggestion that warrior is mediocre DPS by any means, with vulnerability and banners and might/fury stacking it’s always a welcome addition to a group. What it doesn’t contribute in personal DPS you can add to with the banner’s contribution and its vulnerability stacks.

I just disagree with the idea that the warrior is not in the top tier of performance for classes you want to bring to a group. There’s a difference between being in the top tier and being number one. And when I look at a warrior vs. a necromancer or a mesmer or even compare him to the mid tier standard that is a ranger, I don’t think he belongs in any of those tiers given the DPS contribution to the group.

Don’t pay attention to what Collin said, it was just pretext for justifying taking the easy way out.

The fact is they promised a personal storyline with many branches and options. That looked bright up to lv30, and by 40 it went downhill as all the branching soon converged and your choices didn’t matter.

They realized it’s a lot more work to create different stories and outcomes, so now they just make it all about the big bad and races are just a cosmetic choice with no real meaning to gameplay.

I remember the days when Robert Hrouda was making earnest efforts at revamping dungeons, and then he was gone from the company and any dungeon business died with his departure.

I don’t hold much up for HoT, since they even said they’re leaving old world dungeons as is ( a mess).

P.S. I hate open world content. I bet you would too if you were forced to play a mesmer and play the tagging game and the open world bosses who 1-shot your main source of damage via aoe spam.

I get the impression a lot of people who like open world content are greatsword/staff camping people whose 11111111 spam actually happens to be good for that content.

Everything about open world is “Do you have a big zerg? If not, get a big zerg and brute force it.” There’s not a single open world encounter where zerging is not an effective strategy.

Lorgus.6148:

If you want a real challenge try heading over to the General Discussion forums and convincing them that warriors aren’t top-tier in DPS.

You mean top dps. Because in terms of tier they fall behind only to ele, thief, and the odd engi, in practical dps (not some idealized scenario for a ranger, for example), and no group will run without one simply because of banner of discipline.

And it’s all context sensitive. In a pug or lower skilled group I can bet you the warrior is the one pulling the larger chunks of damage.

It’s really kind of unfair comparing any class to frostbow and meteor shower. Compare a D/F ele to a warrior and it gets closer.

Mesmer is not a fun pve class, you’re basically there for portal, feedback, and time warp. Occassionally iwarden stacking.

Mesmer is a fun wvw roaming class and even in spvp, thief issues aside.

So, basically, play it if you like PvP. In PvE nothing waits but frustration because it’s largely a pet class in a game where pets are atrociously weak and vulnerable. Ranger and minion necro are the same story, except the necro’s minions are an optional playstyle, and the ranger’s pets have more health (but still die in an instant to most pve mechanics).

Ross Biddle.2367:

You can put me down for Dungeon spec. I come with one word of advice. Play a real game mode. Honestly, who throws a shoe?

That’s not one word ;o

Arenanet is fond of making hybrid weapons, which end up being weaker weapons with kitten skills.

Look at the ranger mainhand axe for example, used only in condi builds but its autoattack is a power based (and miserably weak) autoattack. Or the mesmer scepter. or the Ranger shortbow ( a weapon with low coefficients on everythign since it applies both conditions and has a small power component).

Thieves’ leaping death blossom on dagger/dagger ( a power weapon) is another example.

The sad thing is if they had not had the terrible idea of splitting condi damage from power, all these weaponsets and skills would work much better,

WildFang.7190:

After years of training, my Necromancer has finally succeeded in creating a clone like a Mesmer!

That’s a pretty cool looking necro, for a charr

Don’t be so quick to dismiss one of the better warrior players around. Just try out the suggestions if you find them persuasive, some playstyles and builds aren’t even good for some people — s/d or s/f ele is definitely NOT a build everyone will play well, whereas d/d cele is a far more universal spec (ie foolproof).

I do think celestial amulet is wasted on a necro, if you want more survivability why not go with something with vitality and condi damage alongside power. Toughness and healing power are horribly wasted stats on necro.

NeXeD.3042:

Zenith.7301:

Yeah, just give Life Siphon the rapid fire treatment. Compress its castime to something similar to Blurred Frenzy and keep the damage the same.

The same needs to go for Ghastly Claws by the way if its damage stays the same (lower than warrior rifle’s Volley, just pathetic). Compress the cast time and then its DPS becomes better.

And may I say something about the dagger auto? I find it really obnoxious how the secondaries we get on skills are purely about some little life force generation instead of actual utility. The thief’s auto refunds them endurance and gives them permanent poison uptime, but all we get is like 8% life force per auto chain.

You need to stop comparing classes like this.

Oh, really? Please do explain, or are you going to pretend classes exist in a vacuum and their evaluation for a role does not depend on the competitors?

Yeah, just give Life Siphon the rapid fire treatment. Compress its castime to something similar to Blurred Frenzy and keep the damage the same.

The same needs to go for Ghastly Claws by the way if its damage stays the same (lower than warrior rifle’s Volley, just pathetic). Compress the cast time and then its DPS becomes better.

And may I say something about the dagger auto? I find it really obnoxious how the secondaries we get on skills are purely about some little life force generation instead of actual utility. The thief’s auto refunds them endurance and gives them permanent poison uptime, but all we get is like 8% life force per auto chain.

Yeah it seems like we’ve just got plain concern trolls who’d just want the necro to rot in irrelevance since they’d rather notdeal/adapt to another viable class.

Vanthian.9267:

Zenith.7301:

hackks.3687:

Sagat.3285:

hackks.3687:

Healing behind DS is the same concept as healing while Invulnerable. There’s little to no counter play and that’s why it was removed from other classes ages ago like Ele and Engi healing while in Mist form and Elixir S. It’s not going to happen.

Are you one of those people that believe zerk stance and endure pain shouldn’t let you cap point? Invulnerable negates all damage,DS has a limit of how much juice the meat can give before you break the fragile bones and is a class mechanic/resource it’s different from Distortion or Mist Form. Using those skills doesn’t prevent any already applied healing or healing traits to work, true invulnerabilty doesn’t get it but stuff like stealth,stances,blocks does. Do I also need to mention you can CC DS??

At least try to make sense. If the devs are thinking like you it’s just going to go downhill faster.

No, I’m one of those people who understands that Zerker stance and Endure Pain aren’t invulnerabilities…

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

They are not true invulnerabilities. Endure Pain just stops all physical damage not new application of conditions or CC. Berserker Stance only stops new applications of conditions not psychical damage or CC.

Invulnerable implies you can neither be damaged, cced, or have conditions applied. So he is correct. Examples of invulnerabilities, since you are having a hard time reading the skills: Distortion on Mesmer. Elixir S on Engineer. Mist Form on Elementalist.

Except conditions do damage you through distortion, and you have no clue what you’re talking about.

For example, go to the Grenth temple event and try to distortion/blurred frenzy the falling crystals the priest of Grenth summons. You’ll still be one shot.

Don’t move the goalposts, berserker stance makes you invulnerable to condition damage while it’s active and endure pain makes you immune to physical damage while it’s active.

Invulnerable does not have to mean immune to CC’s. That’s your convenient definition used as apologia for OP stances.

It’s not like the class that in the pvp manifesto was declared as intended to be weak to conditions and needing help from allies to remove them suddenly has become the best class at countering conditions alongside the elementalist.

No it isn’t lol. By all means make it a single target weapon and proceed to make it virtually useless for most game content considering outside single bosses everything in this game is about cleaving.

What’s with the insistence on handicapping the weapon and making it more niche instead of just getting it to the level of GOOD weapons other classes have. The dagger should be good without needing some specialization weapon for the class to function competitively.

Bhawb.7408:

Life Siphon is literally fine except it takes too long to cast.

Like, oh about every necro spell in existence. Pin down casts faster and brings with it 6 stacks of bleed. Chains of light, 20 sec cd (5 less than necro) 0.5 sec cast only 1 less sec immobilize but vulnerability stack. Guardian hammer has the same cast time but immobilizes in a line and has 10 secs less cd than dark pact. Net shot, 10 sec cd. Magnetic grasp, 12 sec cd.

And that’s just one skill comparison. Virtually most necro skills take longer to cast and have a much longer cd for a similar or inferior effect/utility/damage. Ghastly claws is basically a kittenty warrior volley (because I won’t even compare it with rapid fire), a weapon with a miserable autoattack and that for some reason has managed to stay at 600 range for 2.5 years.

Necro utilities. Well of Power, it’s basically sorta an analogue to null field (one gives boons while removin g conditions, the other strips both), yet the well has far greater cd and requires a trait to be ground targeted.

What you see of the current necro is basically the broken remains of a class that was nerfed to hell late in beta before release. In case you haven’t noticed, the same happaned to ranger and mesmer. The classes that got heavy nerfs late in beta development stage are, big surprise, the classes that have been in the crap pile for well over 2.5 years.

To give some perspective, just before release Jon Peters made a post in the beta forums about the wide mesmer complaint that shatters like Cry of Frustration were useless (they are). He said he was open to suggestions and would be taking a look at the issues soon.

And then nothing ever happened,Cry of Frustration is the same pile of garbage it has been since release.

Debuti.6017:

I think it´s not a big deal that we only get an off hand shield in this expansion.

They confirmed that they will bring in the game more specialiations in the future besides this Chronomancer, and also they will introduce new weapons.

I guess in the second package of specialitions we will get a new main hand or a new 2 hand weapon ( I would love to see a mesmer with a scythe…)

They haven’t even called it a Chronomancer and in one interview with Isaiah he actually commented on that made up name.