Guild Wars 2

I think the biggest problem with us having a DPS spec is how our damage is affected by shatter and by clones/phantasms. We are dependent on those for our dps, and I’m not sure how a dps spec can be balanced with those as they currently stand.

I made a norn necro when reaper was announced. I used one of thinner builds, gave his skin a dark ashen color, that face tattoo of three lines in white on one side. I used the monk outfit in shadow abyss and one of the dark greens (kinda felt like a mortal combat character lol). I’m currently using some of the vigil gear (I refuse to have him in a skirt) with the reaper hood. He’s my power necro (no condi gear, he beats everything to death himself so no minions either, just straight up power beatdown). I have a female human necro for the more squishy necro (not reaper) theme (minions and condi).

Famine.7915:

I’ve been finding classic vanilla power necro to be much more effective for wvw zerging and roaming than power reaper. Tried ot recently and realized how much I missed life blast. Makes thieves easy for the most part. I do miss the shroud 2 leap from reaper, but I manage. Still use reaper for condi of course.

Shroud switching to a melee orientation was a hard sell for me too. I found using staff and lich form, and switching to shroud when the enemies closed was a viable strategy.

Necro: power over life and death and undeath
Elementalist: power over elements
Mesmer: power over the mind and perceptions
Ranger: power over nature and celestial forces

Tough call. This is gonna be VERY situational…

I’m gonna throw this tidbit into the conversation cuz i’m curious to see what opinions are on this. One of the arguments I’ve heard against condition duration as opposed to condition damage is that it stretches your damage out over time, so unless you are using the character for content that has a lot of boss fights (fractals, raids, WB, etc) where the fight is gonna last a long time, you end up losing damage because the creature dies before your damage finishes ticking, so it’s possibly better to beef up the damage so it bursts more than it drags out.

Thoughts?

I was gonna suggest dragonhunter. longbow and GS, lots of boons, burning uptime pretty high if you spec it right, good at all stages of the game.

Though I have to agree on Warrior. Good condi with LB and swords, plenty of buffs for yourself and others. Haven’t played one in end game content though…

Edit: Engineer. lots of condi, boons, and has several different range options, including mortar kit which is one of only two weapons in the game that has a 1500 range.

So long as the elites work underwater. I hate that we have only one underwater elite…

Amaranthe.3578:

yea no matter how you twist it you are not a guardian/paladin
youre actually a mystic knight

Your opinion. Not mine.

They still work well in stationary fights, I think. If I am wrong, please enlighten me, but I find they have similar utility to ranger’s spirits and similar stationary buff/weapon things.

Yeah, if you don’t like pets (or any number of other things that make a ranger a ranger), play a dragonhunter if you prefer direct damage or a warrior with a longbow for condition damage. If you are ok with shortbows, thief is also an option, but the range isn’t as good.

To answer your question, the reason is that the power stat that Viper offers that Rabid does not boosts the direct damage of your attacks to the point where even though you are losing a little condi damage, you gain so much direct damage that it makes up for and exceeeds what you lose in condi, even with the toughness to condi trait and runes of the undead. You can still use both without the toughness boost from rabid, and come out ahead on overall damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhIQNAraWnsIC1ohFoBOoBcrhFVDiMAVYnodJNXp8DJf5A-TBSAQB9Y/BspM4LK9k2pAAAPBgLpEMg6Dio6PAA-e

This build is a work in progress. The idea is to set up the pistol phantasms to do lots of damage, and then sneak/stealth around and hit them with interrupts as much as possible while they take lots of direct and bleed damage.

Fay.2357:

Ok, there’s several parts of this post that are very…questionable. I’ll start from the bottom since that bit caught my eye.

You’re saying that bringing back clone death builds will revive power shatter and phantasm builds? Ok, no. Nothing about that makes even the slightest bit of sense. Power shatter never used clone death in most builds because it conflicted with more powerful traits. Phantasm never used clone death because it conflicts with traits and was antithetical to phantasms, you know, functioning. So you can go ahead and axe those two points for why this would be a good thing.

Necromancers have a minion death trait. Necromancers also don’t have the capacity to pump out minions more or less non-stop. You’re trying to compare two totally different concepts, stop.

The argument that clone death traits punished mindless aoe spam is valid…kinda. Here’s the problem with that line of thinking: why is it any better to mindlessly spam clones inside the mindlessly spammed aoe? 2 wrongs don’t make a right here, they just make double the amount of wrong. Instead of just dealing with all the aoe that exists, you’d now also have to deal with the clone death aoe!

Mindless aoe spam is a problem in this game. Adding more mindless spam is not a valid solution to that problem.

Lastly, I’ll address the issue of clones and phantasms dying easily and without consequence. This is an issue, but you’re looking for the solution to the wrong problem. Clones and phantasms should be prime targets to kill when fighting a Mesmer. Killing them should be a reward, it shouldn’t have a punishment to it. The problem is that clones and phantasms die too easily, not that there is no downside to killing them.

The downside to killing the illusions should be the very fact that they had to focus on the illusions instead of the Mesmer. The reward should be lowering the mesmer’s power by removing their illusions. This balance is upset currently because it’s too easy to kill illusions, and that’s what needs to be fixed.

Especially since they make up the bulk of our damage. We have to use them to achieve anything resembling decent dps, our own dps output isn’t up to par as it is, much less without them. I’m somewhat ok with that, since illusions are kinda our thing.

Mikkel.8427:

IF we’re talking about PvE-

Vipers is meta for most professions, but Sinister works better on Mes because it heavily relies on the sharper images trait for its DPS. I use mostly Viper for my Ele’s hybrid damage build, as an example, because very little of its condition application is reliant on crits and the few traits that do require crits to activate have ICDs.

Chaotic Transference is a great trait, but its not worth investing in toughness gear.
You have a base of 1000 toughness at lvl 80, w/o any gear investment you get a free extra 100 condi damage. A full set of Rabid gives an extra 960 (I believe) Toughness. That only translates to an extra 96 condi damage from the trait…. If you use Sinister instead you’d have gotten 960 power, which will easily out damage the measly extra 96 condi damage you converted.

Rune of the undead- Same logic applies. There are many options that will serve you better.

Now if you’re talking about WvW or PvP-

The conversation is completely different. You’ll be running a shatter build that relies on torment and confusion and toughness actually has value in those game modes. Vipers also works great for condi shatter.

You are giving me the impression you’re overestimating the scaling of the Condition Damage stat on actual damage output, though. Here is a link to the wiki with a condition damage scaling table-

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_Damage

If you’d like more detailed advice you need to give us more information like-

What is the goal of your build?
Game mode?
Do you care about min/max?
What weapons were you planning to use?
Are conveniences like movement speed important to you?

Actually what you said puts several things into a good perspective for me, in addition to other contributions earlier in the thread. I believe I have my questions answered and my confusion cleared up. Thanks All!!!

As for the rest, I should be good to go on figuring those out. I’m not new to the game, I just sometimes get confused on the math.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Mouse.7382:

Agree with above post. Ascd armor is a metric ton more expensive. You’ll do fine with exotic armor for raids(I do). You’ll only need Ascd for fractals; it earns good money and they are surprisingly fun.
Happy hunting

Exotic & marauder stats? I pitty the rest of your squad..

The difference between exotic and ascended for armor is negligible. The only reason to craft ascended armor (as already stated) is for the infusion slots for agony resistance in fractals. That’s it. If you are going to craft ascended for non-fractals, save the money for weapons. Better return on your investment.

If you are doing fractals, then there is no question at all that you should craft ascended.

Wolfey.3407:

Because no matter how badly you trash talk us, no matter how much you despise us, no matter how much you don’t want us in Dungeons, Fractals, or PvP …. we still care enough about you to scrape you off the floor.

You have made my day with this comment. Nothing else I read today will be this awesome.

Krispera.5087:

Let’s see other weapons that have bouncing AA :

Ranger’s Axe Ricochet
Only good part is 250 ferocity and the Might stacking from the AA. The ’’buff’’ was nice, but it’s still low. It doesn’t make any punch.

Thief’s SB Trick Shot
Trick Shot bouncing can attack the same target again. Before the Ranger’s Axe bouncing nerf, the same target couldn’t be hit again.

DH’s LB Puncture Shot
Is at 1200 range, do more damage and do one bounce, like Ranger’s Axe. At this range and damage, it is more understandable. Ranger’s Axe at 900 range do less damage at the same speed.

You forgot Winds of Chaos on Mesmer staff.

While having chill do damage may work in pvp, it doesn’t in the rest of the game, because of how stack sources of chill from multiple sources works (duration not intensity). We might as well not even have damage on chill because someone else’s chill will override ours.

Please keep that in mind. The current trait is better for most of the game because at least its damage actually gets applied. If you want to improve on it, go for it, but going back to what it was will screw over alot of us.

Mikkel.8427:

Is this for PvE?

If so, I don’t suggest any of those stat sets…

You should aim for full sinister.

Your primary source of damage is going to be bleeding, you want as much Condi and Prec as possible. If you want the extra toughness for survivability, then you can use some rabid until you’re more comfortable.

This is what I use:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJArKnsIiNoBWoBUrhlcjqMAStWrWtero/wSMDA-ThhPABbq8ryTAoHIT1fAY/BtUCS5DAgUALqsC-e

The blank areas change depending on what I’m doing, but that’s the general build.
W/O food and no additional buffs it puts out about 8k DPS on a stationary golem.

If you don’t want to use Chrono, then the runes and sigils change.

I’m not sure if this was even helpful, I’m confused about what exactly you’re asking…

I intentionally didn’t discuss what I was doing with the rest of the build, to keep focus on the trait sets. Viper’s has been practically the meta since HoT dropped, and I can’t see a reason to take Sinister over Viper. If I’m wrong please explain.

Important note: As I don’t have all the sinister/viper trinkets unlocked, I’m looking for viable options.

Rabid seems good not for the toughness alone, but for the boost to condi that toughness offers (especially with the runes of the undead as well). Not sure if it’s worth taking that trait or rune set in terms of what it does for damage, I don’t know. Also, extra precision works well with the Sharper Images trait.

Carrion was the other option mostly for being a hybrid set (power and condi), and it seems hybrid is generally the way to go.

I am open to suggestions. Also, currently don’t have chrono unlocked, but plan to when I have time. (working alot). So suggestions for base mesmer as well as chrono are welcome.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

It’s bad since it only improves base condi damage but not other sources so it’s not as good as you initially think. So basically a 6% increase to gear stats but not from the bonuses from might and banners which makes it less than 6% in the end.

Yep that’s the part I keep forgetting. Thanks!

Wow… I thought I was the only one who wasn’t a fan of the traps…

They didn’t even have Caithe ask to have the weapon to take back to the Pale Tree.

Ok, just trying to understand it better. The mathing of this stuff sometimes confuses me. Still can’t get it to stick in my head why the sigil of bursting is bad, for instance.

All ascended gear (for ease of comparison):

Trailblazer w/carrion trinkets did 205/410 torment w/273 direct damage (etherbolt)
(Condi 1927, Toughness 1692, Power 1466, Precision 1000 (4%))

Viper/carrion 196/392 w/384 DD
(Condi 1826, Toughness 1100, Power 2058, Precision 1325 (19.48%))

Trailblazer/rabid 212/425 w/186 DD
(Condi 2006, Toughness 2158, Power 1000, Precision 1466 (26.19%))

Viper/rabid 203/407 w/ 297 DD
(Condi 1905, Toughness 1566, Power 1592, Precision 1791 (41.67%))

(listing precision because of the Sharper Images trait)

So I am working on a condi build. The build itself doesn’t terribly matter much, aside from knowing that I am using the % of toughness to condi damage trait (which I may drop depending on what people say in response to this). I tried a couple different stat builds for the equipment, namely Viper and trailblazer for the weapons and armor, a sinister amulet, and alternatingly between carrion and rabid for the trinkets (I don’t have access to 4 stat trinkets, or sinister trinkets other than amulet at this time, working on it eventually), and Runes of the Undead for more toughness > condi damage. The thing I noticed is this: The difference for any direct damage was massive (which I expected), but the difference to condi was relatively insignificant (seemingly, I could be wrong) between any of the combinations. (I was looking at the damage for Scepter 1 and 3 specifically, not that it should matter which condi skill I looked at for damage comparisons). I was theorycrafting on the build website everyone uses, if that helps.

So, am I wrong in wondering if the condi damage isn’t scaling as much as it should? I expected it to make more of a difference.

Let me know if more info is needed.

I actually like this idea alot better. The laser beam thing as you call it feels like a very lackluster way to use a greatsword. Swinging the sword to create energy waves would be more gratifying (to me at least) than holding the sword suspended by purple lightning as you channel energy through it like some sort of focusing crystal.

In solo play, Meditations with the Monk’s Focus trait is pretty good in terms of survivability. Just a thought since you mentioned using meditations.

Senario.2038:

bearshaman.3421:

Senario.2038:

bearshaman.3421:

The problem with dedicated developers is that they would suffer from the same myopic viewpoint of the game that a lot of players have. A team approach prevents a lot of strife between developers, and will, in the long run, lead to a more balanced game overall imo.

Except when nobody on the team understands the class -> Look at engineer. It seems nobody understands the class bc patch after patch they nerf engi and they are still good in PvP and pretty bad in most PvE (you only really take them on vale guardian). They don’t know how to balance it. Same with Ele scepter lol.

In my view it is better to have 1 dedicated dev per class who really understands the strengths, weaknesses, and what is good/bad to give to the class. Karl clearly didn’t get the memo because if anything would’ve made ele OP it is more team utility and healing and tempest was intended to be all team utility and healing.

Engi is one of the better condi classes out there, and honestly it hasn’t been nerfed that much. scrapper got a couple things, and those really only affect pvp. I’m not sure where you are getting this idea that engi is in a bad place (maybe in pvp?).

In any case, sure, they may take a class in a direction we don’t like, but at the end of the day, it’s opinions. There is no right or wrong about class direction (look at all the screaming in the ranger forums over druid sometime), and if they go in a direction we don’t like, that doesn’t make it wrong, just undesired.

Also the problem with what you propose is: if one person handles a profession, eventually it has to be balanced against the other classes anyway, so they will end up having to confer with the others. And oh look! you’re right back to working as a team. It’s the reality of the situation. Can’t do profession development in a vacuum.

I think you’re misrepresenting my argument. My argument isn’t “Do profession development in a vacuum” My argument is that you need a person on each profession that understands the profession fully to be able to reason with the rest of the group in order to get the best outcome(best way to nerf and or buff depending on the class) for what you’re trying to go for. I never said you shouldn’t have them work with each other but when you have somebody who doesn’t understand the class at the head of the class’ balance when you come to the table of “how to nerf” 20% CDR from 33% without reducing cooldowns that weren’t a problem seems like a good idea. No Ele player would’ve thought that was a good idea and other classes’ heads would’ve thought it was ok bc they don’t understand ele and they don’t understand the distinction being made between their classes’ weapon skills and Ele attunements and the way the class plays.

By saying “Oh you’re saying ele should be balanced in a vacuum” you’re essentially ignoring any sense of detail of my post.

And on Engi – You’re uninformed if you think Engi is in a good place. They have great single target condi dps…if the enemy isn’t moving. In addition to this while they do have theoretically the highest single target it pales in comparison to what Necro offers as a condi class through Jagged Horrors, corruptions, and most importantly EPIDEMIC. Being able to double up on boons from everybody on the team on a boss with just 2 Necros is great. I personally don’t think it is imbalanced but it most certainly shows just how much being useful to the team is that Necro is more useful than Engi in almost every case for PvE regardless of DPS.

Engi is not taken on any raids except Vale Guardian where you need knockbacks. Any other boss and it is much better to simply run another Necro and double up on/manage conditions. Being “one of the better classes by the numbers” doesn’t mean they’re actually useful in a real applicable setting. If DPS was the end all be all we would just run thieves for all small/mobile targets and engi for condi. But we don’t. Doing mechanics in a raid is >>>>>>>>> most reasonable/not OP damage differences.

I will correct you on one thing: I didn’t so much misrepresent your argument so much as I misunderstood it. For that, I apologize. Now that I understand what you were trying to convey, I will say that that situation would be most agreeable. I will also say that they may have that in place, but without explicit knowledge of their methodology, we’re just guessing, intelligently or otherwise.

As far as engineer vs. necro, again I will agree with you. I have seen raid group makeups use both, and the way that each class does condi is very different. Necro is the more useful for their ability to manage conditions (pulling them from allies, sending them to the enemy, epidemic, boon corruption, etc), which is great because you are performing a support role (in a sense) while piling on the condis on the boss. That said, I have seen where people preferred to have an engi (they can might stack and grant other boons while applying condi, and burn is the most consistently damaging condis in the game, along with them being a more well-rounded support class). So it really depends on what the rest of the raid party consists of in determining which class is the better choice.

For less button mashy, ranger/druid (as Corvinus has already said) is a good option. Another would be a minion master necro (you summon the critters and let them go to town), or a mesmer (specifically a phantasmal duelist bleed build, since they come out and do the bulk of the damage, leaving you free to add to the damage, support the group, rez people, etc.). Just for options.

Edit: Also, that is an entirely valid reason for another one of these threads. I hope this helps you continue to enjoy the game.

Engineer. It’s a class that really is what you make of it. Many different playstyles, lots of options. You can have a lot or very little survivability, a lot of damage or mediocre damage, no support or lots of support. And scrapper adds a melee option to the class, along with, yet more options.

Edit: or anything in between. It’s not all or nothing lol

TokyoGhost.6492:

Oh yeah I can relate with this. My first character, back when GW2 got released was necro. It was in terrible state back then(everyone used to play warr) so I decided to re roll into Warrior. I tried every class but necro was one of the most enjoyable among all. I find my charrior(which is geared af n looks like richest cat in the game) very boring to play.

As alternative to reaper, I recommend Revenant. Its kit might be unfinished, but idea behind it is fun and staff skills are reminding of reaper shroud skills. On top of that rev is close combat class.

It is good at melee, but I will say I see a lot of hammers flying through the air whenever a rev is around….

Ele is great for the blow it away feeling, mesmer is great for backline support in any gametype. You won’t get the blow it away feel from mesmer (more the death by a thousand papercuts), and I haven’t tried support with ele, but I feel I can safely say it’s not really the ele’s forte.

Mr Godlike.6098:

bearshaman.3421:

soulknight.9620:

What we get now is total silence as if everything is according to plan and we have nothing to worry about.

This is the one complaint that might be valid. (I agree with zinkz’s post above).

I think given the sheer volume of opinions produced on the forums concerning what needs fixing/buffing/nerfing, if they started addressing every concern put out there, they’d have to hire people for each forum just to deal with the sheer volume of requests for information. I get the impression that they use a light hand when posting in the forums, but they do post (you can look at the dev tracker thread to see what they are saying and where). Also, having paid attention to what people have suggested and to what changes are made in the patches, while they don’t implement every suggested change (that would be insane), they do get ideas from what we post. They may not say anything, but they are listening. They just don’t have the staff to risk opening the floodgates.

Edit: In case you think “floodgates” is an overstatement, someone did respond to some questions on the Lore forum a while back. What occurred was a veritable tidal wave of questions, with the OP doing his best to organize them for the staff member to try to answer, and eventually he had to back off and say they would work on a better system for trying to answer those questions. The thread title is “Lore Q&A” if you want to see it, a change made after the staff member answered some questions. That was on a thread that doesn’t see the active participation that the profession forums do. It would be even worse here.

I will agree with you if you show anything that points to ,,they are listening to us" in last balance patch. If not I would say they never ever seen a post in their life’s from elementalist subforum!

If you are limiting it to the ele subforum, I will have a harder time proving that, mainly cuz I stopped reading this forum for a a few months, and am too lazy to go back and read that many threads lol.

sophiewhite.3149:

bearshaman.3421:

The Gearhead.2301:

Well I’m glad to finally see some positive words about the thief. I was beginning to think it was pointless to level him. I think I’ll stick with it, then. Worst case scenario, I hit 80 and wait for a buff from ANet and level my ranger in the meantime.

How are thieves 1v1? I know when I first bought the game and started playing, all I did was PvP and I felt unstoppable against any profession with my thief in a single target combat situation. Get into a group fight, however, and it almost always spelled disaster for me. Is this still the case, or have we gotten weaker 1v1?

FYI, never use the forums as a litmus test for how a class is doing. In general (and this is true everywhere, from consumer reviews of products to how people feel their favorite (pick something) team is doing), those who are happy with it don’t say anything, and those who have an issue will make sure everyone knows it. Just how people are.

the reason he wanted feedback was because its a major timesink. you cannot know the potential of a class until its fully geared at lvl 80 and doing high lvl content.

I get that. I wasn’t referring to feedback. I was referring to the fact that 80% of what you find is people QQ over something in a non-constructive fashion, and the other 20% is actual useful feedback. I was basically saying don’t base your opinion on the 80%.

When i first leveled a necro, (after HoT dropped), I was amazed at how well I was doing with the class at melee range (a range i didn’t expect to be good at), and with no minions (It’s an rp character and will never use minions). I ripped through enemies like crazy. AND THAT WAS BEFORE I UNLOCKED REAPER!

I still have the character, and he is my bruiser. I take him in when I just want to decimate everything in my path. I completely understand OP.

And at least for me, that feeling has not changed with any of the patches. (I still play my other characters, just depends on my mood on what I feel like playing.)

Dravis.7681:

As a new player (started 3 weeks ago) who picked Elementalist as my first class and will hit level 80 with tonight… I find this thread rather depressing. :-/

Enjoy the class. There will always be people who will whine because something isn’t exactly the way they want it, and they will be “loud” about it. It’s a good class, and a lot of fun to play. Go forth and be happy!

soulknight.9620:

What we get now is total silence as if everything is according to plan and we have nothing to worry about.

This is the one complaint that might be valid. (I agree with zinkz’s post above).

I think given the sheer volume of opinions produced on the forums concerning what needs fixing/buffing/nerfing, if they started addressing every concern put out there, they’d have to hire people for each forum just to deal with the sheer volume of requests for information. I get the impression that they use a light hand when posting in the forums, but they do post (you can look at the dev tracker thread to see what they are saying and where). Also, having paid attention to what people have suggested and to what changes are made in the patches, while they don’t implement every suggested change (that would be insane), they do get ideas from what we post. They may not say anything, but they are listening. They just don’t have the staff to risk opening the floodgates.

Edit: In case you think “floodgates” is an overstatement, someone did respond to some questions on the Lore forum a while back. What occurred was a veritable tidal wave of questions, with the OP doing his best to organize them for the staff member to try to answer, and eventually he had to back off and say they would work on a better system for trying to answer those questions. The thread title is “Lore Q&A” if you want to see it, a change made after the staff member answered some questions. That was on a thread that doesn’t see the active participation that the profession forums do. It would be even worse here.

Senario.2038:

bearshaman.3421:

The problem with dedicated developers is that they would suffer from the same myopic viewpoint of the game that a lot of players have. A team approach prevents a lot of strife between developers, and will, in the long run, lead to a more balanced game overall imo.

Except when nobody on the team understands the class -> Look at engineer. It seems nobody understands the class bc patch after patch they nerf engi and they are still good in PvP and pretty bad in most PvE (you only really take them on vale guardian). They don’t know how to balance it. Same with Ele scepter lol.

In my view it is better to have 1 dedicated dev per class who really understands the strengths, weaknesses, and what is good/bad to give to the class. Karl clearly didn’t get the memo because if anything would’ve made ele OP it is more team utility and healing and tempest was intended to be all team utility and healing.

Engi is one of the better condi classes out there, and honestly it hasn’t been nerfed that much. scrapper got a couple things, and those really only affect pvp. I’m not sure where you are getting this idea that engi is in a bad place (maybe in pvp?).

In any case, sure, they may take a class in a direction we don’t like, but at the end of the day, it’s opinions. There is no right or wrong about class direction (look at all the screaming in the ranger forums over druid sometime), and if they go in a direction we don’t like, that doesn’t make it wrong, just undesired.

Also the problem with what you propose is: if one person handles a profession, eventually it has to be balanced against the other classes anyway, so they will end up having to confer with the others. And oh look! you’re right back to working as a team. It’s the reality of the situation. Can’t do profession development in a vacuum.

Arden.7480:

But DSD is absolutely the biggest secret in GW2.

DSD?

Ranger/Druid is a good option. They are top for healing (thus raids) but they are decent at just about everything else, and having a pet that can tank for you helps when you want to solo more difficult content. Other possibilities include a minion master necromancer, possibly a guardian or warrior. not sure about anything else.

The problem with dedicated developers is that they would suffer from the same myopic viewpoint of the game that a lot of players have. A team approach prevents a lot of strife between developers, and will, in the long run, lead to a more balanced game overall imo.

Deepcuts.9740:

bearshaman.3421:

Deepcuts.9740:

bearshaman.3421:

The Condi druid build only uses CA to proc Grace of the Land for the group damage buffs.

Now, if only people could understand they need to stay closer to others, specially Druids to benefit from buffs and healing…
Not just once I was told “why you are not buffing us?” while basically all party was spread out so far away from one another that not even a 1500 range could have covered them all. No matter if I tell them “please stack”, they will flee like rats as soon as they can, only to rant about “why no healz?”

That’s an issue in general. I can see heralds and mesmers and guardians and etc making the same complaint. That’s a l2p issue, not anything specific to druid.

As you can see, I wrote: "they need to stay closer to others, specially Druids "
Did not say it is specific to Druids

I know, I was agreeing.

As far as the pet mechanics, while I can see why many people have issues, I’ve generally treated it as an environmental effect that works in my favor that I can make do something specific every so often, and if I want, make it stronger. I’ve also not played much of other MMOs that might also have pet classes, so my expectations aren’t up there, so I’ve generally been happy with it, admittedly because I haven’t experienced anything better. I liken it to the engi’s turrets: it’s there, it does damage, and I can buff them or occasionally make it do something spiffy, with the additional upside that I don’t have to deploy it per se.

Aside from that, I honestly have a lot of fun playing this class. It has good options at all ranges for weapons, decent options for power and condi builds, I love the flavor of the class and the (one so far) elite spec we have. We might not be the top of the list for dps, but I do think we are up there for versatility and being able to fill any number of niches. I play all the classes, but this is one that I am very comfortable playing without much thought (and I don’t mean facerolling, I mean its playstyle suits me well).

The Gearhead.2301:

Well I’m glad to finally see some positive words about the thief. I was beginning to think it was pointless to level him. I think I’ll stick with it, then. Worst case scenario, I hit 80 and wait for a buff from ANet and level my ranger in the meantime.

How are thieves 1v1? I know when I first bought the game and started playing, all I did was PvP and I felt unstoppable against any profession with my thief in a single target combat situation. Get into a group fight, however, and it almost always spelled disaster for me. Is this still the case, or have we gotten weaker 1v1?

FYI, never use the forums as a litmus test for how a class is doing. In general (and this is true everywhere, from consumer reviews of products to how people feel their favorite (pick something) team is doing), those who are happy with it don’t say anything, and those who have an issue will make sure everyone knows it. Just how people are.

Viper is good, the only thing I think would be better is if Power and expertise were switched. The duration off expertise alone would be huge, and would free up runes/sigil/food/etc for other things.

Try guildex.org. It’s a listing of guilds and there is a pretty robust search function.

I don’t think Primordus is gonna be that much more powerful from Mordremoth’s death, BECAUSE Taimi stated that the vast majority of the magic from Mordremoth went into Glint’s Egg. Some went elsewhere but most of it had one destination.

vesica tempestas.1563:

bearshaman.3421:

Congrats. Now you feel like everyone else does. I’ve seen this thread on pretty much every profession forum.

great insight on topic.

I see this as a pointless topic. They don’t have devs for specific professions, they have a team. We aren’t being singled out in this. We aren’t “being forgotten”. There is a larger picture they are dealing with. Enjoy the game or don’t, make useful criticisms or don’t, but threads like this are pointless.

Deepcuts.9740:

bearshaman.3421:

The Condi druid build only uses CA to proc Grace of the Land for the group damage buffs.

Now, if only people could understand they need to stay closer to others, specially Druids to benefit from buffs and healing…
Not just once I was told “why you are not buffing us?” while basically all party was spread out so far away from one another that not even a 1500 range could have covered them all. No matter if I tell them “please stack”, they will flee like rats as soon as they can, only to rant about “why no healz?”

That’s an issue in general. I can see heralds and mesmers and guardians and etc making the same complaint. That’s a l2p issue, not anything specific to druid.

Congrats. Now you feel like everyone else does. I’ve seen this thread on pretty much every profession forum.