Guild Wars 2

FYI- You can’t really hit the enemies with Spinal Shivers if you are using the Warhorn.

Nuka Cola.8520:

all you used is a staff and you call torch/scepter viable lol. THEY BOTH SUCK! there’s no learn how to play it because its bad, baaaad. iMage is one of the worst phantasms in the game. Prestige is awesome but do you want a skill that takes half a year to recharge while your 2nd skill (iMage) is only good at shattering? I made a thread about how of a joke scepter is compared to any main hand weapons so i won’t write what i think of it. What you’ve done in this video could’ve been done better/kill faster with any weapons but torch/scepter.

The main issue with iMage is that the confusion and retaliation aren’t affected by condition/boon duration affects, so they are always 9/3.

I am condition damage specced, and right now the iMage will end up doing as much damage as other phantasms — though with an unnecessary cooldown. However, Prestige is a much better skill than the offhand sword block and the pistol stun (IMHO).

I often swap between the scepter and mainhand sword, depending on the situation. If I expect to be outnumbered, I really like the sword — but for even-ish fights, the scepter is stronger for how I play.

wads.5730:

confusion based builds simply isnt viable in wvw. it’s too unreliable of a damage source. its somewhat viable in spvp because the fights are much smaller in scale, and you’re almost always fighting over a single contested point, in which case you’re presented with the choice of use skills to capture the point and take confusion damage, or back out of the fight until confusion wears off.

not applicable in wvw since you can just run away for a few seconds, then re-enter the fight with no downsides.

Its absolutely viable in W3. At its worst, its causing a small group of enemies to completely stop what they are doing and run for 5+ seconds. In reality, most players will at least get caught with 1-2 activations, and with 6-8 stacks, it hurts quite a bit.

Plus, plenty of W3 is contested over ‘capture points’.

anyone that you hit for 4k would die rather easily no matter what build/weapon you’d use. it is not something to really worry about.

wads.5730:

Phira.3970:

5 illusions? Fact or opinion? I’d say opinion.

opinion if you dont plan on using illusions as a mesmer.

No such build exists.

Agreed with 1-4
Disagree with 5
Unsure about 6

Agree with (i) and (ii)
Disagree on (iii)

Also feel scepter is still a touch too weak.

For WvW, Focus is arguably the best offhand for all specs.

We need a “common suggestions that have no chance of happening” sticky at the top of the forums.

This is about the 6th time this exact thread has been posted. The TL;DR of those threads are basically “never, ever, ever going to happen”.

Solid looking weapon skins.

They’d have to significantly tone down shatters if they were instant.

As a condition focused Necro, I’d be completely happy with the underwater DS.

Zogyark.4597:

So what’s the deal with cond/prec/toughness gear, i see many people thinking it’s the best for a necro, why the toughness though? is it because of the staff traits or the undead rune that goes with it? I know that in PvE dungeons having too much toughness will cause mobs to aggro on you more.

Because Toughness is the best defensive stat for Necro’s, and it is the only gear we have that has Condition Dmg and Toughness.

If there was Condition/Toughness/“any other stat”, you’d likely see that as the most popular.

Ascii.9726:

The Vatlaaw’s set seems to be the cheapest Precision, Toughness, Condition Damage set at the moment at about 25 gold if bought straight up which is about 8 to 10 hours farming.

Necro’s can’t wear medium armor.

JonathanSharp.7094:

So, quickly, on the design philosophy at play here (you can feel free to disagree, but this is what I feel):

We want the Thief to be the class that most “slips through your fingers”. Other classes like the Ele and Mes have some of it too (and rightly so), but if anyone is escaping a fight, that should be a slippery Thief.

The Necro, on the other hand, should be the dude you CANNOT get away from. It’s an attrition based class, so the idea is that if you lock horns w/ a necro, know what you’re getting into: you’re fighting a class that’s built for attrition. It can dot you, dps you, rip your boons, and severely hinder your movement. AND it also has the ability to soak up a lot of damage. So the longer the fight goes, the stronger the Necro should get. That’s the idea behind Death Shroud, but little escape ability.

So we don’t want that attrition class to also have great ways to escape. This used to be the case, and we felt the Necro was just too strong if it was great at attrition as well as movement/escape. We wanted the Necro to be more about attrition, and for other classes (Thief, Ele, Mes) to be more about escaping and mobility.

Hope that makes sense.

I completely agree with the design philosophy of the Necromancer that you presented. To the other replies in this thread — I’m pretty sure that Chap understands that the philosophy does not currently match the gameplay.

The biggest reason is due to the nature of toughness, and certain boons and conditions.

1. Toughness just doesn’t provide as much benefit as glass cannon DPS gear.

2. We have no/limited access to Vigor, Protection, and Stability. All of these provide better damage soaking/mitigation than Death Shroud mechanics.

3. Weakness is terrible. It should be -25% damage, or at least -25% crit.

I’d be fine with giving up the Blind if, in its place, was something that actually did any damage whatsoever.

Despite the blind, I take much more damage than I dish out during Plague form.

1. Clean up the traits a bit, primarily making them more interesting. On my Mesmer I respec often because of how many other traits I enjoy playing with. I haven’t respecced the Necro in a while because I’m not missing anything (and frankly, most of what I have already is underwhelming and uninteresting).

2. Increased minion AI and viability in WvW. New ranged minion would be nice.

3. Increased access to boons. Ours is quite paltry. Even w/o using Blink or Stealth, I have much better survivability on my Mesmer due to Vigor, Aegis, and Protection I gain.

Osicat.4139:

Ok alanis, if thats how you prefere setup, i just dont find focus a good wep for other than pull, swiftness you have by the team, movment by your utilitys. I dont think focus is a wep to use in a fight other thean for utility of pull ppl fron stuff. In those situations you not in danger anyway. A mesmer wont run away from anyone, period, a mesmer get away by portal blink etc.

Putting a iWarden down right prior to Feedback is actual pretty effective vs groups, but certainly not something I’d choose over a GS if it weren’t for the swiftness.

If swiftness provided by a team was reliable, people wouldn’t use the Focus as much. In actuality, the AoE range on most group-based swiftness abilities is rather small, and you won’t always get them.

And I never run around without blink, but blink alone won’t ensure your escape if the enemy has swiftness and you don’t.

Note: running Centaur solves this issue for those that like that Rune set.

Frankly, you can get enough “Rabid” gear from Armor and Weapons that you don’t need to be running around with greens/rares in your jewelry. Just use Carrions.

Nuhj.8372:

Condition Necros are always more powerful when partnered with other classes, especially Engineers and Guardians. Our access to burning and confusion may be very limited and/or situational but that is a necessity with the bleed durations we can achieve. I just wish we had more combo options i really miss those when playing Necro.

I play Necro and Mesmer, and am unfortunately the only condition Mesmer that we run with. I’d be all sorts of giddy if we had another condition Mesmer that throw 8-12 stacks of confusion on a target that I could Epidemic.

Using a staff and slotting Blinding Befuddlement will cause even more confusion.

1/10, for the effort.

@Alekto
We have lots of access to Poison, which I’d much rather have as opposed to Burning.

Confusion is nice, but its 1) very unreliable, and 2) condition Mesmer’s pay a big price in lacking many other conditions when they spec for confusion.

Kardiamond.6952:

alanis.6094:

We place conditions at a much higher rate than ANY profession can cure them.

No? :P

Even if you place 14 blood, you know they can remove it all at once right?

Good thing we can put more than one type condition on a enemy.

@osicat

Because if I need the swiftness buff, I need it right now, not ‘when I manage to get out of combat’ — which often amounts to “I get caught and am dead because my enemies had swiftness while I waited for mine”

We place conditions at a much higher rate than ANY profession can cure them.

Andele.1306:

That was posted pretty long ago and i still agree on :
Power & Condition Duration
Precision & Critical Damage
Toughness + Healing Power
Vitality + Boon Duration
Class Mechanic + Condition Damage

This would be a bit more acceptable for me, but I’d still prefer:

1. If DS is fixed to not be rather horrible for condition builds:

Power/Duration
Precision/Crit Dmg
Tough/Boon
Vit/Compassion
Class/Condition Dmg

2. But if DS remains disjointed for condition builds:

Power/Duration
Pre/Crit dmg
Toughness/Condition dmg
Vit/Compassion
Class/Boons

In both scenarios, I think Vitality and Compassion go much better together.

Null Field follows the 5 person limit, but each ‘pulse’ doesn’t have to always hit the same people.

Aexrael.5918:

Anything beyond those changes require a rework of the placement of the traits, which while a larger undertaking, could be warranted instead of patchwork changing the class.

I think any assumption about moving the attributes around into different trait lines is assuming that certain specific traits would also be moved to the new/correct lines.

I.e., if you move Condition damage out of Curses, you’d also be moving Hemophelia.

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaGw1DOzQhE

There is a video of this somewhere. Feedback on a dagger storm thief is a quick death for the Mesmer.

I’ve gotten caught, somewhat, on this in WvW. Luckily those Thieves don’t like to stand still and are quickly out of the Feedback radius.

I think the best we can hope for is a replication of the Mesmer or Elementalist trait lines — having Precision and Critical Damage in Curses, and moving Condition Damage to either Death (like Elementalist, with Boons to SR) or Soul Reaping (like Mesmer).

Drunken Mad King.8193:

I had been playing GS / Staff but heard down the road they don’t synergize well for shatter builds.

GS & Staff are both great for shatter builds. GS is nice that is provides the clones to already be in melee range.

I’d love to be able to go GS/Staff more often in WvW, but the often need/utility of a Focus is hard to give up.

ehtom.5047:

Phantasmal mage applies 3 stacks of confusion.

Confusion from my iMage lasts around 12s.

3s of confusion on a target for 12s, while also giving me retaliation, would be a bit over the top. In WvW, 3 stacks will do about 1k damage per activation, and retaliation is about 300-325. That’s a pretty significant amount of damage.

But of course the numbers can be tweaked in relation to duration or stacks. I think iMage would be better if they 1) lowered the CD to other phantasms (20s untraited); 2) increased the retaliation boon; and 3) moved the trait into a non-power based trait line.

The initial damage from a shatter is based on power. The confusion damage from CoF is obviously condition.

Yawn, this thread again.

You will never, ever, EVER see two primary stats (Vitality and Precision) in the same trait line, as well as never, ever, EVER seeing two secondary stats (Condition Damage and Duration) in the same trait line.

Anytime any trait says “when you heal” or “healing skill”, they are referring to what you have as your #6 slotted heal.

@kefro

While you were posting that, JQ sent an Omega Golem and 3 other Golems to DFB in JQBL, and about 40 people with them. You aren’t getting double teamed.

EasymodeX.4062:

The only problem is that the cripple on kill is in the same trait line as 20% mind wrack damage, and who wants to sacrifice pew pew for utility?

Additionally, Debilitating Dissipation only really has 1/3 chance of a good condition (bleed) on the target. Weakness is awful in its current form, and Vuln is a little underwhelming.

I’d love to get the 3s confusion on death trait, but not at the expense of IP or the staff trait.

Osicat.4139:

Tbh Alanis thing you need to explain what you after, what you ask and what you mean here. With:

Whole lot of glass-cannon sPvP Mesmers happening in here.
The video includes only one WvW fight, which was, shockingly, a 1v1.
When I went glass cannon, Rangers and Thieves (particularly Dagger Storm) ate me up when Blink was on cooldown

You say, 1* you feel the build played is glass cannon? The vid show it survive longer fighting vs 1-3 players in solo.

I wouldn’t discount that you are significantly better than anyone you ran up against in that video. And like most videos, you don’t learn about as much from the victories as you would as showing the defeats.

2* you say its low thoughtness for wvwvw? Under what situations? To be in middle of zerg and aoe ? I never do that. To run in a smal team and fight bigger number or other teams of 5-10 ppl? I do that regulary and I can confirm it work.

If all you do is fight 10-15 bad, uncoordinated players as a coordinated group, you might be able to get away with more. Of course, as the below video shows, if you never, ever get targeted by enemies then you certainly don’t need any vit or toughness. I watched about 7-8 min of the video, and only saw once that you even took any real focus at all and you immediately had to pull off and regroup.

3*You mention thievs give you problem with glass cannon? Well depends on build, this is not a glass cannon build, 1st movie show several fights where thiefs fight me and fail, 2nd movie is a 1 vs 1 movie ment to show that you can recover even if you do a mistake vs a thief.

I mentioned that thieves with their elite can cause problems in WvW, not 1v1. In 1v1 I’ll likely have cooldowns available to deal with this. In WvW, unless I want to AFK between survivability cooldowns, there are times where you’ll take heavy damage w/o your blink (or decoy, if you go that route).

Tbh what do you mean, are you insinuating that shatter is unviable for wvwvw?

I run an IP build in WvW.

if so say so. You mean only massive tank spec work for wvwvw? if so say so.

I’m suggesting that for larger fights, or fights where you’d rather not hide/afk after using your blink, or fights vs equal number of skilled players, Toughness > Glass cannon.

You say that we can handle thiefs in fights with more than 1 vs 1 , again say so so ppl can give you a good answer. Atm you just throw our argument without make clear what you mean. You taking about zerg wvwvw or smal number wvwvw?

I’m talking about WvW that is either 1) larger siege; or 2) evenly matched in skill.

EasymodeX.4062:

This may be the biggest thing. Blink, Feedback, and Decoy, in that order, are the biggest 3 get out of jail cards a Mesmer can play in WvW (and in certain situations Mimic is even better than Decoy).

I could definitely see a lot more Tough or Vit if you are running Glamour spam or any other combination of “I am not using Blink”, and you still want to pull fun stunts.

When I rolled glass-cannon, I had Blink-Feedback-Null Field. I was fine when Blink was available, but you’d pretty much have to really hold back and not get as involved when it was on cooldown — I hated that.

“on kill” means that the illusion died via enemy reducing the illusion to no health, or the illusion being replaced by another illusion.

Shatter does not count for these traits.

Solid player skill, but the glass cannon vs. poorly played glass cannon video’s gets repetitive.

The video includes only one WvW fight, which was, shockingly, a 1v1.

@Savan

I guess that depends on PvE vs WvW. I only WvW, and roll 5x Carrion (though I will likely drop the amulet for Soldiers from Badges).

@EasymodeX

Your edit comment probably factors in greatly. Perhaps I am much more aggressive than the Berserker GS-spammers. I also like to roll with utilities that matter for more than just myself, which limits some of that on-demand survivability.

When I went glass cannon, Rangers and Thieves (particularly Dagger Storm) ate me up when Blink was on cooldown.

Anyone have a score update for the JQ vs. SBI match?

Cempa.3645:

alanis.6094:

Whole lot of glass-cannon sPvP Mesmers happening in here.

9xx Toughness for a Mesmer is not glass cannon…I know it dose not sound logical but I guess class mechanics allow the class to get away with much lower Toughness than others.

For WvW, 9xx toughness is absolutely a glass cannon. Of course, this is assuming your in WvW to participate in events that happen there, instead of trying to find 1v1/1v2’s.

If you run Null Field or some other form of condition removal, I’d greatly recommend going Toughness.

Whole lot of glass-cannon sPvP Mesmers happening in here.

Overkillengine.6084:

Vitality isn’t as overrated as healing power is from my experience. Having enough HP to survive a fight without putting a heal on cool down seems to work out better.

Though I would not mind condition/toughness/healing gear either…..at least toughness and healing power seem to have a better synergy than condition/precision does.

If you have a fight where you don’t need to put your heal on cooldown, then it probably didn’t matter which gear you are wearing.