Guild Wars 2

Aexrael.5918:

Clearly the sound effect needs to be much louder so our enemies can hear it from the other side of the zones/maps and be more of a screeching sound, plus make projectile faster and AoE.. Akin to this WW2 weapon.

That way you know there’s a Necromancer in the area and you better run!

Hehe, Stalin Organ indeed.

Thing is tho that i am unsure if others hear the sound as loud as we do. Remember, there was a bug regarding children’s voices in Lion’s Arch related to positional audio or something.

Hope to see more responses in the future

Ugh, more evidence that the code is cut and paste, as the health handling of the minions are not universal. This even tho it seems that the AI code for NPCs were once shared, given that friendly sharks would stop to revive a defeated toon.

And after finding a mention about minions not regeneration in a old Anet blog entry on GW2 necro, i am unsure if the golem is bugged or working as intended.

here we go:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/GW2-PVP-Feedback-Merged-Topics/page/4#post674835

I speculate that reanimator has been touched on, as it got a specific mention here earlier.

Panhauramix.2784:

Now Lifeblast states that it hits more the more lifeforce you got, so I guess my 20% more lifeforce was helping there.

What life blast does it do one amount of direct damage when you’re above 50% LF, and a quite lower one when below 50%.

I would happily replace Warhorn 4 with a “ghastly fire” effect.

You can save yourself the warhorn #5 effort as long as the “on health below X” DS bug persists. Instead you can pick up Decaying Swarm from the Soul Reaping line and get Locust Swarm the moment you take damage while in DS (or perhaps simply on entering DS).

Well there is also the traitable pierce on Death Shroud Life Blast, and i think the Engineer Pistol 1 skill can be similarly traited to Pierce (as well as explosive engineer potions iirc). So there are some in there, but most seem to be percentage and condition fillers. Could be they found radical traits to be a pain to balance in time.

Necro wells can be traited for ground targeting, same as ranger traps.

And various additional effects like health stealing can be put on necro skills.

Likely the initial posts are spur of the moment frustration vents. And under that scenario finding a existing thread of the same topic gets overruled by emotions.

I find that i much prefer the Champions Online take on mob CC than GW2s.

In Champions you have a block button, that while held down stops you from attacking but drive your defenses way up and rebuild your energy reserve that powers most abilities. Tapping said button while under a CC also break that CC and make you immune for some time.

What Anet could do was to give a similar effect to the current dodge. Tap the dodge after the CC have hit and you break CC and are immune for a while, but spend endurance as if you did a dodge.

This because at least with mobs i find that what usually gets me is a respawned mob out of view while i am fighting some other in my path. And those are impossible to dodge, no matter how long their tells are.

Never mind that big bad mobs have one up on us in the CC department, in that they have innate CC shield that has to be worn down before you can yank them off their feet.

Only for those that has effective skills that recharge within 10 seconds. The rest are fire and forget for the most part anyways.

So in the end necro’s are for one thing, PVP point holding/taking, and little else…

Well mesmer and thief has the ability to confound the player, not just the toon.

In the mesmers case being able to spawn lookalikes while stealthing, breaking target lock.

And it would be nice if they could elaborate on the parts that are “working as intended”…

Face it, the game is tuned for esport. This is why the game is more player twitch and burst than methodical application of skills over time.

Depends, DS 1 is still nice for smacking mobs when traited for vulnerability+penetration, might and fury. Sure, it’s no 100-blades but it sure delivers some hurt. Then again, i seems that PVE is devolving into a kite fest…

With every profession having access to a ranged attack of some sort, and mobs being basically brainless unless champ or higher, you can simply circle strafe to victory with the auto-fire…

As usual, what works depends on the intelligence and reaction time of the opposition.

Against any relatively aware human, the skill is one button away from worthless. Against mobs however, it can be a life saver or breathing space.

But then again, you can just apply player skill rather than toon skill and kite the mobs until the cows come home for no real danger…

Meh, Lich cooldowns are such that you only get a single shot at each before you drop out of the form.

they thought they had a nifty profession mechanic in DS, but ended up side tracked because it either under or over performed in testing.

an yes, time. Sadly the game is more tuned towards short decisive fights than long grinding ones. And as such, time related effects are less effective than large singular effects. Likely our biggest beneficiary to this damage boost is dagger 1.

What i was trying to say is that Thiefs become effective vampires earlier in the game than a Necro, and also have access to more effective hard counters to harm than our infamous DS will ever offer. Never mind that a thief out of stealth can hit like a proverbial truck.

Not like 2% increase pr condition is a big jump in the first place.

There are only 11 conditions on the game, meaning that at best there would be a 22% increase in damage.

This compared to say the mesmers warlock that get 10% pr condition, meaning it can potentially double its damage output. Oh, and it is a weapon skill and the mesmer may be able to keep 3 of it in play.

Honestly, the more i think about it the more i feel that Anet devs must have a nasty sense of irony…

Thief has a signet he can opt for in the healing utility slot that grants 100+healing power on every hit as a passive, and a heal on activation with a 15 second cooldown.

Meaning that out of fight he can pop in any other healing utility if he feels it does not work for him, anywhere in the world.

If i want to set up my necromancer for vampiric healing, i need to drop at 10-15 points into blood magic, and if i want to change a large part of that i can’t do it in the field like the thief swapping his utility. I need to head back to the nearest area with a profession trainer, fork over some silver and set all my traits again (i could potentially attempt to adapt the major trait slots for different uses, but that is rarely effective).

Also note that say the thief trick shot (short bow 1) attacks as fast as necromancer dagger 1, is ranged, and bounces between targets. Meaning that each shot near a group is likely to land the thief 300+healing power each 0.25 second. That is almost 1000 each second just from the utility passive.

Never mind that he can temporarily withdraw from the fight by stealth, something that can be traited to heal and remove conditions.

In comparison going death shroud means the necromancer is still in the fight, but has lost access to all weapons and utility skills (outside of the 4 that DS offer) and do not heal.

In essence the thief appears to make a better vampire than the necromancer, and can swap in and out of that role between fights.

Savan, i suspect by laying down he means downed state rather than simply bowled over by a knockdown effect.

Sure, the siphon “works”. But it still remains that other professions get more bang out of a easily replaceable utility slot while we have to head for a city and dump money into a npc if we want to stop using our traits (sure, the major ones can be swapped between fights. But rarely do you get two builds that can live on the exact same trait lines).

Levian.6742:

How do you do the shroud stomp properly? I’ve been going in and out of DS quickly and hoping they use their downed CC within the first 2 seconds.

Hammering both at the same time should apparently do it.

Never mind that condition damage and marks do not apply to objects in the first place (makes dragon fights with staff a case of standing around and sending out screaming hands).

If they want us to trade life steal for death shroud then they should drop the whole “down state” analog as actually give us access to our weapons and utilities. The DS state traits, like the area effect vulnerability and on entry fury, could still be in there, but the one that grants might and vulnerability to life blast could be moved onto weapons (staff 1 basically behaves like LB anyways).

Sure, kiting works. But imo it cheapens the role part of the game as it ends up being about player vs mob rather than role vs mob.

Interestingly a 27 warrior would be without any elites what so ever, as that slot only opens at 30. Would love to have known the guys weapons and utilities tho. This because level tells us much less about someones potential than his weapon and utility choices. a level 20 have more utilities on hand than a level 4 after all.

And that basically sums up the issue with these debates, what works in sPVP may not work in WvW or PVE because how factors like gear and opposition smarts gets involved. So far the best test seems to be going naked and going all out on one of the mist golems, that is the most level test we can perform at present.

PinCushion.7390:

BS Thieves have to blow most of the cooldowns for their better burst, and have to rely on their class mechanic (stealth) to not die. This seems pretty cool and very similar. Good show! This is a total commitment build. Either you win or you don’t. I like it.

Thanks OP. You’ve improved my opinion of this profession.

And this may well be why thiefs and mesmers appear to be on top right now, they have the most reliable ways to confuse and disengage from a situation gone bad (from their pov). The rest needs to commit fully, and chance going down. And under those circumstances, warriors, and perhaps guardians, seems to have the highest chance of success right now.

That may be a potential issue with moving it down the trait ladder, as then it could be comboes with the 5 second DS cooldown to have near continual stability.

Then again, we can via that route have continual fury and near continual retaliation…

Likely another side effect of the DS “tuning” that was done right before release.

Not sure if it has a massive impact, but i counted 11 axe crits in Ascii’s video, vs 8 in Barti’s.

That and monthly achivements. Seriously, it seems we are being forced to play some degree of pvp even if we have no interest in doing so what so ever.

As was pointed here or elsewhere, vulnerability got a change right before release.

Best i can tell, it used to reduce armor. Now it increases damage done. What i wonder is if increase damage before armor is accounted for or after. In either case, the change is only 1% pr stack unit, maxing out at 25%. Axe 1 alone can reach 9-10% meaning 10 for each 100 damage done (or adding the damage of 1 extra attack every 10 attacks, meaning that a fast weapon will get more out it than a slow one).

Funny thing is that the power from might do not do much better. But might also adds directly to condition damage, potentially increasing each tick there by 100+.

As demonstrated in a different thread, the trick about axe is that the main damage is not from 1 but 2. Something that is backwards from just about every other weapon skill set out there.

Ascii.9726:

iSinner.4285:

So necros can DS and fall of the highest mountain in the game, and still be alive? no. Guess why?

As several people have pointed out, fall damage is separate from player damage in the same way normal health is separate from death shroud health. Fall damage is % damage of your health, if it hits 100% you die, simple.

And one of the reasons fall damage is like this is so people dont exploit Death Shrouds second health bar, falling in DS taking damage that would of killed you and having DS absorb it.

And also to avoid this old MMO classic:
http://www.clichequest.com/index.php?pos=420

Sure, once you use all 3 of the weapon skills, axe can drop someone faster than scepter.

But comparing only auto to auto, the axe is the slowest and shortest ranged of the two. Never mind that with the 600 range (was 1200 at launch, had some unfortunate ecounters with svanir’s thanks to that) of axe 3 you’re liable to attract more trouble than it is worth.

I guess that is one issue I have with the axe, it is the only MH weapon where the auto-attack is not the primary damage skill. Dagger, staff, scepter, all use 2&3 to augment the output of 1, but axe use 1 to augment the output of 2 by stacking vulnerability on the target.

Heck it may well be the only weapon skill set that works that way in the whole game.

Just wish that the cooldown as on spawn, not on death if so. Mesmer phantasms are cooldown on spawn, right?

Honestly, its the combo of random AI, no out of fight healing (except for the flesh golem, go fig), and the cooldown on death that makes minions a mess to deal with.

Hemorrage perhaps?

While stacking them gives results, things quickly become all or nothing. You either go down blood magic to stack up on heals, our you forgo them completely as piecemeal ends up going nowhere. Remember that we are talking 30 points worth of traits here, that can be spent elsewhere. Tho i guess this is a bit of a problem for necro in general, we either have to go all in with one kind of ability, DS, minion, life steal, or the results will be less than favorable. Also, with the thief siphon being a utility, they can swap it in and out between fights if they find it to not be working to their benefit. And also the cooldown is 15 seconds. Not a lot for someone that can potentially heal when stealthed as well.

Another comparison is that axe 1 do about as much damage as staff 1, but with half the range and no pierce.

Sparda.9750:

just remember that with minion u gain 38* minions number life!! (not sure about 38)

Topping out at around 6*38 with blood fiend, two bone minions, bone fiend, shadow fiend and flesh golem.

Also grab the traits from spite and soul reaping that apply might and vulnerability on each LB. can result in some nice stacks by the time you come out of DS. I recently noticed that i manage to get vulnerability up to 20 via that and focus 4. Had i been going axe rather than dagger i could potentially have gotten it to max (25) on my own for a while.

While i have yet to try it with axe, i recently discovered that Life Blast traited for vulnerability stacking along with a close up focus 4 hit can result in almost 20 on their own. Mix in axe and you could in theory maintain a full stack of vulnerability on your own fighting a single mob. That would add some 25% additional damage on each direct damage hit.

Now i wonder what kind of numbers we could see on axe 2 if we get that stack up, hit BiP for 10 might (based on some basic math i did it seems that 1 might match or sightly exceed 1 vulnerability in terms of damage increase), and perhaps has DS traited for fury and LB traited for even more might. On a perfect run you would almost double the damage with just the base crit increase.

In this setup axe and focus would be more like support for DS tho.