Guild Wars 2

The thing that a lot of the populace that is complaining about this system is forgetting is that the backpiece can be ground out. Given a large enough amount of time, any player that wants the backpiece can have it; The tickets that are earned from crossing divisions are a currency, the crossing divisions achievement doesn’t reset between seasons, the daily time-gating never resets. Anyone who is truly interested in the item knows this.

The real issue here is that the populace in question wants instant gratification. They don’t want to wait 8 months and 4 PvP seasons to have earned enough tickets and division crosses to be able to finally craft the backpiece, they want it as soon as a number of these other players are getting it.

I think Anet implementing rewards that are gated behind different in-game skills is a good idea — it grants a sense of prestige to players that excel in the skills/areas in question by enabling them quicker access to the rewards and puts an emphasis on the value of each individual game space — however, the previous acquisition of rewards in the game contradicts this new concept, and thus players are upset and feel “cheated” by the fact that they can’t have them as fast as others.

Ranked play is “ranked” for a reason: you can’t be upset by the fact that others may be better than you or have a better time in the system than you, it’s meant to reward high level play and it will be volatile at times by nature. Arguing that the backpiece is unjustly locked behind the Leagues is both an unfair assessment of the purpose of Leagues, as well as simply a false statement; if you want the backpiece, you can eventually have it, given you understand how much longer it will take if you can’t cross Divisions as effectively as other players. If this bothers you or you still feel entitled to equal acquisition of rewards as other players, then it’s advisable that you either reevaluate what Ranked entails, or simply settle for Ad Infinitum instead.

Rise isn’t here for damage, it’s to attempt shoring up the Necro’s lack of active defenses by giving us passive mitigation. It’s like having better Protection that can’t get boon corrupted. In this role, the shout is pretty sweet, and certainly shouldn’t be overlooked.

Yes. PC used to be really kind of lackluster, but the consistent damage of Deathly Chill has really helped to increase the effectiveness of it. I still only really recommend PC in a WvW havoc/zerg environment, like 8v8+.

Some of these concepts are fine, but the power levels of a lot of these changes are absurd or unnecessary.

GreenRipper.6432:

I actually still have to improve my dodge with the reaper. My main class is Engineer and sometimes get lost in how to defend myself with the reaper and end up using the dodge, the Scrapper left me spoiled by the constant superspeed.

Regarding the Putrid Mark does not make sense not to use it if u are not fighting a class that does not apply condition or applied inefficiently. And in my opinion you to use it with Chilblains to cause Weakness in power-based classes.

But I will try not select battles within shrine or camps the next time and try more ranked players, but believe me, these were the battles that lasted more.

You blew the Mark in one of the most important matchups to hold it in: against another Necro. Granted, the Necro more or less didn’t fight back, but it’s still a misplay.

Bhawb.7408:

The attack also isn’t “targeted” in the traditional sense. It is essentially an AoE attack with a 1 target limit, so even if the person you are targeting dodges, if there is some other unlucky schmuck in the area they’ll be hit by it instead.

Also unfortunately works in reverse, where you could target someone at the edge of the radius, but if someone is placed more optimally, it will stun them instead.

If nothing else, I would at least recommend swapping Reaper’s Onslaught for Deathly Chill. In general, though, a number of other things could change to become more optimal, such as swapping Rending Shroud for Chill of Death, and potentially swapping Decimate Defenses for Chilling Victory for increased overall damage and sustain.

For what it’s worth, you can still pull from this video negatively: Almost half of your opponents didn’t have a colored rank (i.e. Bronze, Silver). A bunch of your dodges were wastes, although never appropriately punished. You tried stomping a thief. Twice. You used Putrid Mark with no conditions on you. You fought a 1v1 under a camp (shrine). Not the worst video, FASTCAR probably wins there, but there’s certainly a ways for you to go.

Yes, they are.

/15Chars

The problem with this build in WvW is that you’re basically playing a glassy melee build that kills slowly. You’re trying to go all-in on Dhuumfire by taking Reaper’s Onslaught, but not only is this a sustained DPS loss in comparison to Deathly Chill, but you’re forcing yourself to want to spend most of your time auto attacking while in Shroud. In general, Dhuumfire does less for you than simply scepter auto-ing, and forces you to suboptimally use Shroud. Most individuals in WvW can simply kite and out-range a build like this.

DutchRiders.2871:

Are they OP ? In any organized fights hell no. In ranked they are as OP as they come.

This is redundant, as Ranked more or less embodies organized fights (at least at high tiers). With that said, a better revision to your statement would be “Are they OP? In areas where opponents are competent, no.”

The V.8759:

Im more annoyed by the fact that the field is unblockable

The field being unblockable is counterplay in itself, depending on perspective. It allows you to Executioner’s Scythe a shield-blocking Revenant that’s trying to reset to keep him from doing so, at the loss of the on-hit effect and stun. Seems reasonable at times to me.

Lmao, no big deal, we all good here.

Corruptions are more utility-based and more spammable, while Signets are potentially more punishing. The problem with Signets, however, is that to a degree you force yourself into suboptimal utility skills just to increase pressure. I personally think that on a utility-for-utility basis, the Corruptions build is better, as it offers just as much boon-flipping pressure, but it also offers higher sustain and better utility, which becomes generally more valuable when you start to become the focus in fights.

Shout heal sees play because it generally lends itself to higher sustain, and it’s harder to interrupt, which becomes more important as you start to play against players of higher calibers. In general, I’d always recommend Consume Conditions if the opposing team has two or more Necromancers, but with only one Necromancer, etc., the decision is up to you.

ScarecrowHD.4120:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Three reasons:

1. Reaper is on the lower end of skill floor. To be completely honest, you don’t have to be that great of a player to have a decent performance as a Reaper.

2. The counter to Reaper is not so much a build as it is tactics. Lower skilled players see Reaper as overpowered because they haven’t figured out how to take on an opponent in anything outside of a straight-up brawl, which Reaper is designed to be absurd in. Any profession can beat a Reaper, but it does take thinking.

3. Necros as a whole throw a monkey wrench in how people like to play. From neutering healing with poison and screwing up rotations entirely with Chill to laughing at your Stability and Protection that you were relying on. Necros force people to change their play by screwing with them. People hate being weakened in games, and Necros are the kings of debuffing (always have been, even across games).

See this is where you people loose me. 1st of i dont get what you elitist guild wars players always have the same problems 1. you think beacuse something is easy its not fun, and i dont get that, im not gonna give up my favourite class that i enjoy very simply put more of the way it looks and feels but for people like this im a noob beacuse im playing a diffrent class they dont enjoy as much or find as challegin as their mains. and i do think Us Reapers are op at alot of things but the thing i see most as reaper mainer is people who just get up in my face and thats how we chew trough you. when i finnaly come up against someone who knows how to actually play their class i get destroyed just as easily as anyone else,

First you dindt want us in pve beacuse we dont have any support cababilities and know youre trying to push us out of pvp beacuse we finnaly got the buff we deserved, a quick newsflash when we invetabel get nerfed another class is gonna take its place as the apex preadetor and all the noobs and eletists who just want the best and the best goes to that one. Im sorry if this comes off as a kind of assholish post but i strongly dissagre my favourite class being put back at the bottom of the food chain beacuse idiots give us a bad name.

I’m not sure why you started losing your mind over his post, but not only is he completely correct, but nowhere in his post did he say anything about us needing nerfs or “being put back on the bottom”. To be fair though, Necromancer is not an easy class, it is simply easy to do damage with.

Sarrs.4831:

DeceiverX.8361:

Soul Eater is just a horrible trait.

Ehhh, I think it does what it does well. It’s only ‘horrible’ because it’s on a tier with another trait that does far better in most traditional situations.

It’s also balanced around the best case scenario of being able to spam Gravedigger uninhibited on multiple targets simultaneously. It would be better if it was balanced to more of a median, and was very strong in best case scenario, since in my time of playing GS the “best-case scenario” only occurred about twice.

Sidizen.9048:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Yes. Terror does damage based on fearing a target, and while Breakbars mean the target doesn’t actually suffer from Fear, Fear is still applied and breaks the bar slowly over time, meaning any accompanying effects also occur, such as Shivers of Dread and Terror.

Oh ok. So it’s worth it to run deathly chill against enemies with breakbars if I’m a condi build? Just making sure :P

So, yes it’s worth running because it does a lot of damage, however be aware that if anyone overwrites the chill that you put on an enemy, then your chill will no longer do damage.

Ragion.2831:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Again, the weapon isn’t perfect, but it’s not the only slow melee weapon that suffers from being unable to hit a Rev that’s in Crystal Hibernation (like 95% of weapon abilities). A blink of some sort would certainly be nice, but weapon sets only ever have one form of “mobility”. I’ll use Flashing Blade as an example, since you brought it up. There is no other form of mobility on any other iteration of Sword/X, Sword 3 even roots you.

You’re trying to use the idea of “compensation” the wrong way in my opinion. The compensation is that the weapon’s bases are high, and hits quite hard by default. “Compensation” does not have to equal “My autos crit for 6k with no Power or Ferocity”, considering the weapon has a potentially spammable 10k nuke. Should anything be designed around best case scenario? No, not really, and that’s where Gravedigger starts to feel pretty bad, since its actual cast is so finicky, but I certainly think GS is balanced in its current iteration.

I get the impression you either dont play PvP or you were paid by Robert Gee to say this because I dont understand your argument. Potentially spammable? it is either spammable or it isnt…

Not going to bother taking the rest of the quote because it’s both long and shortsighted. Anet balances abilities based on the best-case scenario, which in this case would be spamming Gravedigger uninhibited repeatedly. “Potentially” means Gravedigger could at any time become spammable, as per the condition of an opponent being below 50% HP. I recommend you find a dictionary.

Also, I shouldn’t have to flash credentials to have an opinion on the subject. You can believe I’m right or not, but the baseless concept of saying “I don’t play PvP” (which is false, by the way) when you don’t know me isn’t exactly grounds for debunking my position.

Yes. Terror does damage based on fearing a target, and while Breakbars mean the target doesn’t actually suffer from Fear, Fear is still applied and breaks the bar slowly over time, meaning any accompanying effects also occur, such as Shivers of Dread and Terror.

Blighter’s Boon is strong and build-defining, but Soul Eater could definitely use some assistance. Reaper’s Onslaught is great in WvW, and I think it’s perfectly fine where it is. The major thing that people are overlooking with Decimate Defenses is that it’s completely high-variance and unreliable. The Precision multiplier is based entirely off of a condition that only so many people apply and gets readily cleansed. In PvE it’s perfectly reliable because NPCs don’t use condition cleanse (with a couple exceptions), but in PvP while it is potentially a nice steroid, it only gives an average of 10% Crit Chance. Besides, even with the effect of Decimate Defenses, it doesn’t completely nullify Death Perception, it actually makes it arguably stronger, as now the two of them combo’d together means that you can run armor with heavily decreased Precision, and instead run stats like Toughness or Vitality.

Ragion.2831:

Zero Solstice.9754:

To be completely honest with you, GS is viable in casual+ PvP. I used it to climb the Ranked Ladder last season because the build is simply fun. While the weapon has some minor issues that could be addressed, I definitely think way too many people call it trash just because “Oh, it’s so slow compared to other Necro weapons!”

No mate the problem isnt just that it is slow, slow can work, the problem is that it is slow with zero compensation or offset. It is slow, and you have to eat everything that is thrown at you. If you are using GS and fighting a Revenant or guardian that is stacking blocks, forget about hitting. “Nothing can save you” is not compensation. Revenant and Guardian dont have thier weapons held back because of sitational utilities. Also using the weapon means that you have no way of shutting down range unlike other classes, even guardian has a z axis gap closer that isnt affected by stability, block, blind, evade etc

Again, the weapon isn’t perfect, but it’s not the only slow melee weapon that suffers from being unable to hit a Rev that’s in Crystal Hibernation (like 95% of weapon abilities). A blink of some sort would certainly be nice, but weapon sets only ever have one form of “mobility”. I’ll use Flashing Blade as an example, since you brought it up. There is no other form of mobility on any other iteration of Sword/X, Sword 3 even roots you.

You’re trying to use the idea of “compensation” the wrong way in my opinion. The compensation is that the weapon’s bases are high, and hits quite hard by default. “Compensation” does not have to equal “My autos crit for 6k with no Power or Ferocity”, considering the weapon has a potentially spammable 10k nuke. Should anything be designed around best case scenario? No, not really, and that’s where Gravedigger starts to feel pretty bad, since its actual cast is so finicky, but I certainly think GS is balanced in its current iteration.

The Necro vs. Necro matchup comes down heavily to whoever has the larger number of transfers. If you really find the matchup gives you trouble (as you generally should), then try running Dagger offhand and Plague Signet as a stunbreak instead of whatever else you’re likely using. Against Condi-heavy teams, my power utilities would usually look like Consume Conditions, Plague Signet, Well of Corruption, Well of Power, and Chilled to the Bone.

To be completely honest with you, GS is viable in casual+ PvP. I used it to climb the Ranked Ladder last season because the build is simply fun. While the weapon has some minor issues that could be addressed, I definitely think way too many people call it trash just because “Oh, it’s so slow compared to other Necro weapons!”

claytonmorby.3751:

OP build is basically what half the necros run. Nos and many other have been using this give or take a utility. The necro builds on metabattle are not what most high level players are using, so for those of you looking on that site for an edge you might be disappointed.

Can confirm. I myself run something that isn’t on Metabattle, and I solo queue’d to Diamond in roughly 15 hours last week. There are a bunch of playable builds available to you as a Necro if you’re willing to find them and learn them.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zero Solstice.9754:

The concept of healing on Necromancer has always been a fun thought, it’s just that it gets outclassed by everything else, and being so suboptimal isn’t really that fun.

Necro self-healing is fantastic. Healing others…well, it can work, but there are better choices.

My point exactly though; it’s not a matter of self-healing, it’s a matter of group healing and utility, and in that department Necromancer is simply outclassed.

Blood Magic utility is marginalized by party composition, like if you have a Druid, and in those situations there isn’t really a reason to run Blood Magic at all. Soul Reaping translates to a direct DPS increase, while Vampiric Aura translates to incremental sustain and damage increases across the board.

In general I like to have sustain in my build in PvE, but I much rather have it from Blighter’s Boon and the Spite line, as this leads to the highest overall DPS with the Chill of Death procs and Close to Death.

The concept of healing on Necromancer has always been a fun thought, it’s just that it gets outclassed by everything else, and being so suboptimal isn’t really that fun.

Use Valkyrie and Cavalier gear to stat balance for maximum damage and survivability. It’s easy to be as sustainable as you want to be with a mix of Valk/Cavs armor, Valk weapons, and full Berserker trinkets. The stats balance out to be roughly 24k hp, 3.3k power with 25 might, 2.1k armor, 30% Crit Chance baseline, and ~200% Crit Damage.

[“You Are All Weaklings!”] is only really useful in specific encounters where a stunbreak is reasonably vital, such as Fractals with the Afflicted Mistlock Singularity. I would generally recommend replacing it with something like Corrosive Poison Cloud instead, as it offers more utility which is useful more often on the same cooldown.

Scrapper Runes are “fine”, as are the Force sigils, however I would recommend using something more along the lines of Superior Rune of the Companion, if you really want to drive home the feeling of synergy with your minions while increasing DPS. In general I’m not a fan of Sigil of Accuracy, and would recommend you replace it with something like Superior Sigil of Air, as the Air would probably represent a larger DPS increase when actually in practice.

In all fairness, Chill is extremely punishing as a standalone condition: It keeps players from moving, keeps them from using skills, and with the addition of a Grandmaster trait, it also kills them! If you were to ask me, I think they should look into modifying the movement speed reduction from 66% down to 33%, making Cripple the go-to movement impairing condition, as you would probably expect it to be.

With that said, Necros still fall short to the same slew of getting kited, getting CC locked, and getting trained. It’s not the worst balance on the planet that if you give a Necro room to breathe, they can appropriately punish you. If you want to kill a Reaper, simply drain their shroud through educated disengages, and apply non-stop pressure to the “Human” form.

People aren’t annoyed with Deathly Chill because of the damage, they’re annoyed with Chill as a debilitating condition that locks them out of the game. Chill keeps you from moving, it keeps you from using abilities, and combined with Weakness, which keeps you from dealing damage and keeps you from dodging, it makes people feel like they’re barely playing the game. Condition-based Necromancer isn’t strong because of its damage, but because of all of the control it has over people and other conditions applied to it.

Fighting a thief that actually plays well is extremely difficult as a Reaper. The only honest way you win the matchup is to severely outplay the thief. Use abilities such as Reaper Shroud 3 and Marks just before evade frames end so that by the end of the cast, the thief is between evades. If you manage to apply meaningful condition-based damage into the thief, it may be worth it to stop attacking, as to avoid proccing Escapist’s Absolution.

Easy Grenth is easy.

This concept was my major gripe with HoT back during the BWEs and the initial launch. They failed to deliver on their own design philosophy for how the elite specializations were supposed to work. Not only that though, but even throughout the BWEs where classes were shown early-access playtime with the community, it seemed no one questioned it or bat an eye at it even though we were still in the literal middle of the development phase where this concept was supposed to be the most prevalent, which means not only did they fail to deliver on their philosophy immediately, but the community in general didn’t even care. Now we have an outcry of “power creep” in the community and most people couldn’t even tell you why.

Foot in the Grave is certainly not meta. Also, and I say this with all of the care in my heart that I can muster, if you are a Thief main and you can’t kill a Condition Reaper, then reroll.

To get back onto the actual topic, minions only scale off of the Necromancer’s Condition Damage, Condition Duration, and Boon Duration, so take what you will from that knowledge when deciding which damage form is most effective.

However, from my own personal experience using every amulet with Minion Master specs, I would probably say the most reliable of the specs is running a beefier amulet like Paladin’s with something along the lines of Soul Reaping/Reaper, Death Magic, and Blood Magic. For what it’s worth, though, Minion Master has been a Tier 3 build at best since the bunker/AoE meta came out in force, so I’d just recommend not putting the effort into playing it right now.

Come on guys, can you really not see the satire behind the fact that this is pretty much what half of this forum looks like? .__.

Corrosive Poison Cloud is great in the matchup, just be aware if they’re running Signet of Might, as unblockable projectiles are not destroyed by the Cloud. Plague is great for sustaining through CC, burst chains, and stances. Corrupt Boon is your best friend; use it on stability whenever applicable to gain time for yourself through CC. Keep him just out of arm’s reach, far enough to be out of GS/Mace/Shield range and to have enough reaction time to react to Berserk Gun Flame.

Reaper’s Onslaught shines in the WvW environment, where you get to bomb the opposing group, go in with Death’s Charge, cleave them out with Soul Spiral, and then either get out with your refreshed Death’s Charge or go in to kill some more, and the cycle continues. It has not been unheard of for me to use Soul Spiral 4 times in under 15 seconds on a hard engage against an enemy zerg. The attack speed increase is probably the more negligible portion of the trait, but it’s still strong.

The only reason people complain about condition damage as a means of killing people, and about the current state of Condi-based Necromancer, is because conditions are inherently punishing. Not only does Necromancer having access to damaging chill increase their raw damage output beyond what it used to be, but it also puts more emphasis on chill as a soft-CC. Chill combined with weakness, if not dealt with properly through proper cleansing and counter-pressure, can completely lock an opponent out of the game. Conditions punish classes for not being able to apply enough pressure, not being sustainable enough, trying to be too greedy, and a number of other minor nitpicks. This causes a tension where if you don’t employ smart play against condition-based opponents, it feels like they have a major disparity in power level over you, and leads to the general anthem: “Overpowered.”

If there was any one thing that ANet may have not needed to do for Necromancer, it was probably the scepter auto boon corruption. However, the scepter auto change perfectly illustrates the concept that I mentioned above; if you are unable to apply substantial pressure on the Necromancer, then he can simply start stripping you clean and whittling you away until you’re too deep in the hole to come back out on your own. However, the scepter auto falls victim to average shortcomings: It’s blockable, it’s single target, it’s slow, it’s evade-able, and it’s easily overshadowed by many other abilities and attacks in the game on a raw power level basis.

Exactly. The fact that Necro Wells don’t CC for themselves like Chrono Wells and Dragonhunter Traps means you need to understand how and when best to appropriately utilize their potential.

Wells still see plenty of play in WvW as a form of denial, as much as a form of damage. Wells offer Area Denial, Boon Denial, Ress Denial, and simply a larger chunk of damage in a head-to-head collision. The fact that people can walk out of wells doesn’t matter when you know when to drop wells on a committed engage, and the major goal outside of producing downs is to simply out-trade the other guys.

Like you, I feel that this is quite clearly our best designed line, not just from a power level standpoint, but also from a flavor perspective. I feel like Spiteful Spirit has it’s own unique place on Condition based builds, however it could also stand to be more in line with its competition. In line with the concept of doing damage and having it retain its place as being for condition builds moreso than, say, full Berserker builds, you could potentially make it so that for each condition on the affected player, it converts some proportional number of boons on them into conditions, maybe on something like a 2-1 conversion ratio, where 2 or fewer conditions converts 1 boon, 4 or fewer converts 2, and so on. Obviously this has some strange interactions with the fact that Spiteful Spirit is modeled around the Axe Unholy Feast, however I feel an ability like this is more unique and flavorful in a line already flush with options for direct damage.

Does anyone here know where or how to acquire the “Guild Pants” skin for light armor? I see it in the wardrobe, but wiki and google searches turn up literally 0 results.

meow one twenty.4376:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Honestly, I don’t even really like it in my builds for the damage, I like it for the fact that it cleanses blinds and corrupts boons when playing a condi build. While it’s probably worth looking into sorting out the damage numbers, I don’t feel that’s the most compelling reason to run it.

Just look at what it is competing with, two very build definining traits being Close to Death and Signets of Suffering. The least it could be improved by is doing the damage it is supposed to do.

You’re not wrong; a place for everything and everything in its place, right?

I guess the real question then is even if they pumped the power on it to match the actual skill, would you even choose to run it over the other two GMs then? What I was saying in my post is that I found the only builds that I ever really wanted Spiteful Spirit on were Condi builds that were running more utility (such as CPP) and Corrupt Boon rather than signets, at which point a power creep on it wouldn’t even change my opinion on where I use it.

I have used mostly GS in my power builds in all walks of the game since HoT launched, and I can personally say that it works to great effect pretty much everywhere. I feel people only complain about the speed of the abilities because every other Necro weapon is so much faster in comparison. If you have ever enjoyed Mediguard and played the Hammer variant, you would know that the speed and numbers on that weapon are roughly equivalent, and that weapon/build was meta for around a year, only really being knocked out by classes with teleports seeing increased play, reducing the effectiveness of Ring of Warding. I find the general utility and damage of the Greatsword to be great in farming Fractals, running regular PvE content, holding nodes in PvP, and even when zerg crashing in WvW.

A lot of people would probably like to see speed increases, but for the damage and flavor that Greatsword has, I don’t see it as necessary.

Honestly, I don’t even really like it in my builds for the damage, I like it for the fact that it cleanses blinds and corrupts boons when playing a condi build. While it’s probably worth looking into sorting out the damage numbers, I don’t feel that’s the most compelling reason to run it.

Trying to put the counter-intuitive nature of it behind us, isn’t the way it originally functioned the way we would want it to work? It gave it a certain niche where we would want it sometimes and not want it others; A place where it was absurd and a place where it was simply bad. Makes it feel more like the Grandmaster of an Elite Spec: Polarized and Specialized in usage. I would honestly almost prefer for them to play with the scaling and just cut the numbers, but allow us to retain the group nature of it. I would use a Grandmaster that was simply terrible in 1v1 if it was absolutely incredible in XvX, like havoc or zerg environment.

To get off on the right foot, I think the change to Blighter’s Boon was necessary; the amount of sustain that it gave to you when in the most extreme WvW scenarios was outright absurd. What I want to talk about is the way they changed it, and other possible ways of keeping it strong and flavorful for a Grandmaster trait.

Personally, I think that the new effect is too linear, even for an elite specialization, and pidgeon-holes individuals a little too hard into a build. Since necromancers as a class don’t have copious ways of applying boons to themselves, it forces most players to pick Spite for the unhindered generation of Might that it provides.

With the literal concept of “Blighter’s Boon” in mind, why not try to make use out of the thematic centerpiece of necromancers: Condition application. What if Blighter’s Boon triggered whenever you applied any number of stacks of a condition on a foe, or even better, whenever you corrupted a boon on your opponent? After all, the Boon of a Blighter is when the foe’s own strength becomes their weakness.

Obviously this approach comes with a number of conflictions. Necromancers have vastly too many different sources of varying conditions to allow Blighter’s Boon to trigger on every single application of a stack or stacks. It then also has some minor conflictions (or synergies, depending on your mind state) with Parasitic Contagion. With the corruption concept, it not only makes Celestial Signets even stronger, but then you still just run into the issue of being mostly forced into picking Spite in concert.

Still, I believe this is some interesting territory to be explored since we’re still in the tweaking/open-creativity stage of the HoT Release.

TL;DR How would you like to have seen Blighter’s Boon changed?

I honestly personally feel that looking at the entire Specialization concept as a whole, Reaper (with Dragonhunter extremely close behind) is actually the only specialization that has been created 100% perfectly. Reaper completely changes how our class chooses to function, and changes the way that we’re really made to play and what our class is/isn’t capable of. Elementalists lose nothing for their specialization except for a few statistical improvements like %healing or %damage, Mesmers lose literally nothing by running Chronomancer. This completely negates the entire purpose of the Specializations and is poor design straight through the gates. Mesmers should atleast trade off a similar effect for Continuum Rift, like Distortion, rather than simply having Mesmer+ tacked onto their kit. With this in mind, Mesmers would then have to make a real and meaningful decision between better damage survivability or better utility and team functionality.