Showing Posts For gavyne.6847:

Politely Calling Robert Gee Out:

in Necromancer

Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

For what it’s worth, a lot of comments in that article are fairly accurate. Namely: The Greatsword doesn’t do enough damage to justify its long cast times and relative lack of stability. Exact same deal with the Shouts. And the reach/range on a lot of Greatsword and Reaper Shroud skills could be bumped up a bit.

However, and this is the problem with a ‘prominent’ website publishing an article to act as pointed feedback, that guy’s build sucks. His trait choices are bad and lacking in synergy. By his own (clueless and ill-guided) “suggestions” he demonstrates that he doesn’t even know how Decimate Defenses actually works, but he lists ideas of how to “fix” it, even if his ideas being implemented would actually severely reduce the effectiveness of the trait.

TenTon guy took a metabattle build for live and Dagger+WH/Staff, ripped out one of the trait lines, dropped Reaper in, presumably replaced one of the weapons with Greatsword, changed nothing else, and ignored a lot of synergy opportunities within Reaper and with other trait lines he kept. He appeared to go for a Power/Condi mix (given his obsession with chill and chill damage) which is usually a no-no, but even then didn’t connect all the proper dots to make a chill-focused build.

Yes, Reaper needs some love in the math department, and maybe a little bit in the mechanics department (GS and Shouts need to hit like trucks if they’re going to remain that slow, and/or need to have a lot of built-in stability) but I’ve seen that bloody TTH article linked in multiple threads here, and on Reddit, and it needs to stop. While he makes a lot of valid points, they’re a little undercut by the fact that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing, given his bad build and ability to babble about fixing a trait he doesn’t understand. If 95% of what you say is factual, but 5% is demonstrably flawed, people are only going to remember the 5% and use that to discredit the 95%, no matter how legitimate it may be.

+1, I didn’t care for the TTH article either, nor his build.

31/07 [NEGATIVE]Feedback

in WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test

Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

-Too many choke points, choke points in the current meta are just boring because nobody pushes. Nobody pushes because they really can’t, and those that do ends up getting farmed most of the time.

-There needs to be open fields with maybe hills, ruins, some trees here and there, but that’s about it for people to enjoy open field battles. NPC’s rally people, they are annoying. I’m a necro and I hate blowing my horn and get in combat because locus swarm tags random mobs. Open field battles are fun. Fields with npc’s or next to keeps/towers where people can hide in & cast over you are not as fun.

-If EOTM was a test, then you should know the result of that test. Yes I took an alt in EOTM recently because it’s a place to gain easy exp. All I saw was zergs of people exchanging objectives, totally completely avoiding one another. When I, the lowly uplevel, tried to initiate a fight, I watched the zerg run another way because hey there’s another tower to cap. It was like 2 hours of circle capping, and when I tried to initiate a fight, people didn’t want to waste even 1 minute to fight another group. Please for the love of Lion’s Arch don’t turn WvW into EOTM.

I mean GW2 modeled WvW after DAOC’s RvR right? So we all know what happened after ToA expansion when Mythic added too much PvE into a game that was all about RvR. They drove RvR players away because people just hated grinding PvE.

I’m totally fine with EOTM being EOTM, because WvW players didn’t have to play EOTM. I’m 100% fine if PvE or part-time PvP players like to ktrain. But it would seem HoT expansion will be forcing EOTM on us all.

Ten Ton Hammer review on Reaper

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Blighter’s Boon is awesome, if you don’t like it, you didn’t use it right. It may not seem as good soloing, but even in 1v1 situations I found it to be good. In any group or zerg situations, it’s a godsend. I can refill my lifeforce bar in matter of seconds. It’s our first and only passive LF regen. I find it awkward to play my necro now without it.

Bhawb's Reaper Feedback

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Take how it works right now. With my change, all you would have to do is not have a target selected, and it functions exactly the same, no change at all in any way. If you do have a target, it behaves like a normal leap and you go directly to and stop at that target. It only adds functionality, everything you’ve been using for it can still do.

I can support that. I don’t ever want them to make this target required. I’m using it to escape as much as I’m using it to leap at someone.

An alternative if they want to make this a bit more skill based, is to make it a 2 step skill. Pressing it once it choppers forward like it does right now. If you press it again while it’s flying, it drops and does an aoe stomp of some sort.

Kind of like how WoW monk’s flying serpent kick works. In fact I prefer this way over the target/non-target method proposed.

I miss my Reaper

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

+1, I feel so lost now. My necro feels so slow, sluggish, and…normal.

WvW Reaper for BWE?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Instead of trying to build a Reaper as a frontline melee, I tried building the Reaper around the current meta-wellmancer builds for WvW. Reason being I tried to hang with the frontline on reset night, tried it with both cele and soldiers. Problem is when things get very hot, when Guardians & Warriors pop their invulns, blocks, reflects, long leaps, etc.. we have access to none of those things. So you either get out before things get hot, or you’ll die. This unfortunately makes Reapers not quite frontline worthy at the moment, just as Reapers also don’t bring much by ways of group buffs & utilities.

So building a Reaper around the standard power wellmancer, I had pretty good success once I got used to understanding when to leap in & out of heat. First tried it with Blood Magic / Soul Reaping / Reaper, here’s the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZIj0prE5MM

The idea behind the build is to have as much power as current meta-wellmancer, have the wells cd from BM and the sustain of siphon heals. You would bomb as a backliners, but when the zergs inevitably clash, you pop Reaper and cleave with it.

Then I felt the pop isn’t quite there with Blood Magic spec, so tried it with Spite / Soul Reaping / Reaper, and the results are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIk2dSRZes

Definitely more pop, higher spike damage due to Close to Death & Chill of Death. Better might stacking, which along with Blighter’s Boon resulted in more LF/hp regen. More vuln which also means it helps with your crit.

Gear is zerker with valk jewelry. Tried full zerker but there’s just not enough lifeforce with it. Playing up front in melee range, you really need the extra lifeforce or you’ll find yourself out of Reaper Shroud often. Unfortunately GS just isn’t viable in WvW at the moment, people don’t stand around like target dummies. Suggest to stick with Staff – Dagger/WH for now until Robert Gee hopefully fixes Greatsword. Also shouts are hard to use due to the cast time. I’d find it more useful if we could use shouts in Reaper Shroud. That or get cast time reduced, especially the elite.

I absolutely love the added mobility that Reaper Shroud brings. I think Blighter’s Boon is a must have, it’s our active and passive lifeforce regen that works wonders (we need this for death shroud). Also Soul Reaping seems to be required as well, I can’t imagine running without it. You can take DM if you want to tank up more and go more melee oriented. You can take Curses if you want to do more 1v1. There are choices out there, I didn’t get a chance to test them all unfortunately.

I find it hard to get used to standard necro now that the beta weekend’s over. It just feels so slow and normal now. I need the Reaper. Reapers have made the necro class much more interactive and fun to play. Please hurry up with the expansion, thanks.

Reason Reaper Shroud feels Squishy

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

You probably should’ve mentioned you were talking about sPvP. The only downside to Blighter’s Boon is that it isn’t as good when it comes to sPvP. It is however awesome when you’re in GvG, ZvZ, or with any class that can stack you with boons.

Lol, Blighter’s Boon gives you life force per boon gained from yourself or from allies around you. So a Full empower from a Guardian gives you 14% life force, that Ele/Tempest that spams all his boons and shares it with you with his warhorn? He just gave you full life force (or a bit of healing if you’re already in shroud) so you saying that Blighter’s boon isn’t good in SPvP, is you not knowing how good it is.

Oh I know Blighter’s Boon is good, it’s the OP that doesn’t get it. But I did mention that I think maybe Blighter’s Boon isn’t as strong in spvp as it is in GvG or ZvZ. I do think that’s true just because the amount of boons you’ll get in GvG/ZvZ is far more than spvp where you may be by yourself often.

Reason Reaper Shroud feels Squishy

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Also if you take Spite, along with Blighter’s Boon trait, RS 1 auto will stack might. Might stacking = boon stacking, which triggers more healthregen via Blighter’s Boon trait. I had taken Spite off during beta weekend but tried Spite tonight with Reaper, it was pretty glorious.

Spite also offers more might stacking outside of Reaper Shrouds, and it = more lifeforce pretty easily provided you can get people under 50%.

(edited by gavyne.6847)

Reason Reaper Shroud feels Squishy

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

You probably should’ve mentioned you were talking about sPvP. The only downside to Blighter’s Boon is that it isn’t as good when it comes to sPvP. It is however awesome when you’re in GvG, ZvZ, or with any class that can stack you with boons.

reaper back to drawing board?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

The design philosophy is rubbish because dd eles can be as tanky as a reaper, but they have some of the best mobility around. If Anet insist on making us slow and immobile, then we need to truck very very hard. Otherwise give me the mobility and stop making excuses.

Reason Reaper Shroud feels Squishy

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Lifestransfer doesn’t make death shroud tanky at all, it’s just an illusion, it buys you an extra few seconds at best when being pressured. This is with necros playing Death Shroud like a ranged caster.

Reaper Shroud feels squishy because we’re playing them like a frontline melee. But Reaper offers no invulns, reflects, blocks, knockdowns, knockbacks, reliable immob, etc.. By all rights we should feel squishy, that’s because we are. Playing frontline and being in middle of all the crap will cut through your shroud faster than playing death shroud like a ranged caster.

Death Shroud doesn’t even have access to Blighter’s Boon. Realistically Reaper Shroud actually gains lifeforce much better and faster than any other necro builds. Even if you run out of lifeforce, I’ve gone from 1-100% lifeforce within 5 seconds due to Blighter’s Boon.

Necromancer is Now Meta in Spvp

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

That build is made to hold points until help comes. Ironically the dd eles did the same jobs, but with less deaths, and they have great mobility to boot. This isn’t a knock on Nos at all, he did all he could given the toolset available to him, and he played well and made some great moves during the final. My problem is with the necro class and how they (devs and some players) think necros are so great at being tanky. When the tournament showed necros were getting destroyed left & right.

General Reaper Feedback

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

I have to agree with the general feeling that chills aren’t as advertised. I don’t see them staying on players for long, I hardly notice their effects on people I’m fighting against in WvW. Trying to sell us Reaper as this crazy immobile monster that pulls people to us and keeps them within our grasp is just wrong. In reality, in real-time action combat, in WvW, none of this is true. It’s hard to stick to people, GS too slow and clunky, shouts are hard to use because of long cast time (2 second elite cast time are you kidding me? nothing should take 2 seconds to cast in PvP situations). The pull which was what I was excited about doesn’t work, it seems devs only tested it on stationary target dummies rather than in PvP/WvW where players actually move.

Reaper Shroud isn’t far from being a great implementation. But shouts & GS need a look at and lots of tweaking. Also please consider giving Reapers better defenses. You want us in middle of all the crap, you want us playing frontline, but you don’t give us what made warriors and guardians viable in the frontline in the first place. This includes but not limited to invulns, blocks, reflects, long leaps, knockdowns, knockbacks, reliable immob, etc etc..

Population shift going good so far?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Activity is at an all time low on the NA T1 server I’m on. The WvW regulars aren’t playing as much these days. All you see from the other 2 servers are new ppt guilds/players that are playing ppt/pvdoor 24/7. Fights have gotten lame, it’s mostly cat & mouse…some raid hitting a tower, we respond, they waypoint out or run. They hit another keep, we respond, they waypoint or run.

I’m sorry but whatever Anet is doing or trying to do, it’s not working and it’s killing the once vibrant, healthy, and action-all-the-time T1 servers.

WvW Reaper for BWE?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Frontline reaper don’t work. The reason warriors and guardians can hang in the frontline isn’t just because they have stab, high armor, and hp. It’s because they have access to invulns, reflects, blocks, long leaps, knockdowns, etc.. Reapers unfortunately don’t have the defenses allowing them to hang with the frontline. Sad to say, I did try it yesterday in WvW during reset on a T1 NA server, with full soldiers. Without the above defenses reapers just can’t take the heat properly. And sadly Reapers also don’t offer enough group buffs to warrant a frontline spot.

GS is not usable in WvW at the moment, you won’t be able to hit much with them due to the long cast times in laggy, fluid, environments where people don’t stand still.

World tournament series..

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Just a quick comment.. It’s sad watching the world tournament series and see how often Nos goes down. And how many comments in the chat saying it’s just bad to bring a necro.

General Reaper Feedback

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

With GS 5, pretty much we were told the design idea is to not give necros mobility & escapes because we are to pull people to us. So GS 5 has to work, and it has to work a lot better & more reliably than its current iteration. Otherwise the whole design idea is just moot and failed. Frontal cone never works well in laggy environments on moving targets (WvW). I know you guys like to test things on test dummies. But in fluid, PvP environment, a lot of these GS ideas just don’t work out well in realtime.

This can be fixed by increasing the pull range to 900, and make the pull be an aoe rather than frontal cone. Or even ground target will be ok. I must have tried to pull over 20 times without success tonight in WvW.

General Reaper Feedback

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

So tested out Reaper during reset night in WvW on a T1 NA server. I built the reaper to be a power reaper, enough power to drop well bombs, but a bit added toughness & protection from Death Magic line for going in deep.

The good:

-Blighter’s Boon, I went from 0 lifeforce to full just running with the zerg from one tower to another. Remember we asked for passive LF regen for death shroud? I’m happy to see this available for reapers, but a bit sad that we don’t have a similar version for death shroud. During combat when boons started flying all over the place, my lifeforce regen was just crazy, allowing me to keep popping into reaper shroud or stay in shroud and keep whacking away. If you’re rolling reaper, please try Blighter’s Boon. It is awesome, and I feel it’s a must have for all reapers.

-Death’s Charge, I use this to get in, also use this to get out of heat. Love it, and thanks for the short cooldown.

-Soul Spiral is pretty much the highlight of reaper shroud’s dps abilities. This is good and bad because when it’s on cooldown, I feel vulnerable. I was hoping reaper 1 was going to be good damage but I just didn’t feel the pop.

-Infusing Terror is nice, love the stab and optional aoe fear.

The bad:

-Executioner’s Scythe is a great ability, but it reminds me of Focus 5, the cast time is just too long and easily avoided. This will become an ability that won’t see a lot of use because of how long the cast time is, much like Focus 5.

-Reaper 1, not feeling it. Good for cleaving downies, but that’s about it.

-GS all around just too clunky in a game that shines on active action combat. Too slow, not enough oomph when it does it. GS 5 doesn’t pull properly on moving targets otherwise I would use GS just for it (suggest to change this to aoe rather than frontal cone). GS 4 has that awkward pause at the end that’s just not needed.

The problem with GS is that Reaper Shroud outshines it, making GS unneeded. When you’re out of Reaper Shroud, you just need to build up lifeforce, which GS is very poor at. GS can use a range boost, and/or shorten cast time. You factor in lag in WvW, I couldn’t use GS even if I wanted to, because I couldn’t connect any hits for the life of me.

Feedback: Reaper Shroud "Flashing"

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Agree with OP, please remove the cd. I was trying to flash reaper shroud but couldn’t, it really messed me up as I’m used to flashing death shroud.

People who want this artificial c’block needs to just learn not to spam keys. Don’t create this artificial block mechanic for ppl that accidentally press it twice. Flashing shroud has been an optional mechanic to necros and should remain so.

Reaper Greatsword is BAD :/

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

People don’t need to dodge, they literally just walk away.

That’s pretty much it, short and sweet…and sad. Attacks are too slow to connect properly. You factor in lag from WvW, GS is simply unusable.

General Reaper Feedback

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Definitely feels like the lifeforce is draining too fast in reaper.

Grasping Darkness just don’t work well on moving targets. I was well within range to grasp someone but nothing happened after using it. The ability to pull may be the only reason why I would even consider using GS.

I agree with someone said above that GS 2 and 3 are being spammed because GS 1 is way too slow and too lackluster. This does make GS 2 & 3 a boring skill being used on cooldown because GS 1 is so bad. I know necros have asked for better skills to use than autoattack. I have no idea how to balance this to be honest.

WvW Lag March 2015

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Please fix the lag before expansion. It’s really hard to enjoy the game when skills don’t go off, and you’re forced to 11111. If I was doing PvE, it’d probably be fine. But that’s completely unacceptable in PvP. While the melee classes may be ok with spamming 1 during skill lag battles. Playing any other class is pure frustration.

Could Robert Gee be more transparent with us

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

GG Robert Gee, thank you for the response. It makes me happier now. Good to know axe may get a look at, I’m excited but holding back the excitement because axe trait got a nerf during the traits revamp. I hope you work some magic, there are definitely a lot of things the necro community would like for you to review.

WvW Invitational Statement from John Corpening, game director for World vs. World

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Might I suggest the devs open up communication with players and ask for help, ideas, and suggestions. I know it’s a tough pill to swallow because it’s your job to do. But the players who play this game mode every single day for years might just know what makes WvW players tick more than you do.

Sometimes it’s not about reinventing the wheels. There are a lot of good things from DAOC you still haven’t utilized, things such as player/guild stats on the website, the relic siege system, and more carrots for players to aim for such as more WvW-oriented abilities.

Lastly don’t forget the basics, WvW still lags horribly when 3-way battle occurs. This game prides itself on large scale WvWvW. But currently WvWvW isn’t really playable due to skill lag. You get better enjoyment when it’s just 2 servers going at each other, and hope the 3rd doesn’t hop onto the map. That just kills the “large scale” nature of WvW, you guys really need to fix this. This is something that has been broken ever since the fabled Stability patch, as many guessed the extra taxed programming nature of stab changes caused more computational lag server-side.

Anyways, good news for you is you have a very dedicated, very hardcore, very enthusiastic crowd that will play through the lag and lack of content updates in WvW. Even when people can only press 1111111 during terrible skill lag moments, people still fight, they die, and they go back and do it again. You have something good going here, please don’t waste it.

Gamescom 2015 necro footage

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

I lol’d really hard.
Concept: Reaper is big and slow, but hits really hard meaning you will get rewarded a lot for landing the slow hits
Reality, reaper is big and slow, but doesn’t hit hard because the actual damage per second is low meaning you get no extra reward for landing slow skills

Concept: reaper will keep people in range with chill.
Reality: people will use one condi removal to remove the chill than leave if they want because reapers mobility will still be below other classes.

Concept: Necro is supposed to be a selfish class.
Reality: Other classes are better group buffers than we are self buffers.

Concept: Shouts that deal damage should have a cast time.
Reality: ele shouts deal damage and have minimal cast times while reaper shouts have huge cast times.

Concept: Necros can’t get X, Y, or Z because it doesn’t fit our design.
Reality: Other classes don’t have design limitations and therefore get things that look and feel epic.

I could go on and on and on, but the point stands. It isn’t all about the numbers, and in fact the design is what most people want to be addressed first. Having said that, in pve numbers, aka dps, are third only to team utility and player skill in importance and necros have bad numbers meaning that needs to change because it is important.

+1 this, there’s a huge disconnect between concept and reality when it comes to necromancers in GW2.

[WvW] What is the optimal backliner build?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Your build is fine as a WvW backliner, although I would recommend shooting for 45-50% crit. That way when you go into DS, you’ll be at 95-100% crit. I personally like Death Magic and Curses better, but when in ZvZ or GvG situations, I’m forced to take Blood Magic for the reduced wells cooldown. Because that’s what your raid needs you for…big well bombs. So you just work your build around knowing what you’re expected to do, and try to squeeze as much dps out there as you can.

That’s another reason to shoot for 50% crit because you can drop the wells, go into DS, and ensure you have 100% crit on your well bombs.

I can see how death magic is a nice defensive line but what’s good in curses for a backliner?

My crit chance is 30 on staff and 39 on dagger because of my party comp (2g 2n-pack runes 1w) I am able to maintain some nice in-combat fury. Unless stripped, my wells + life transfer bomb is full crit. But I just recently switched from axe to dagger and thus I’m using dagger autoattack more actively so by time I’ll convert some valkyries to zerk.

I wouldn’t take Curses in large scale ZvZ, definitely stick with Blood Magic or Death Magic as a ZvZ backliner. But if you’re in small group situations, or solo roaming, Curses is superior for Plague Sending and Weakness uptime on single targets.

And I agree to pick consume conditions as your go to heal. It’s just awesome to be able to get rid of large stacks of condi’s on you when you need to.

[WvW] What is the optimal backliner build?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Your build is fine as a WvW backliner, although I would recommend shooting for 45-50% crit. That way when you go into DS, you’ll be at 95-100% crit. I personally like Death Magic and Curses better, but when in ZvZ or GvG situations, I’m forced to take Blood Magic for the reduced wells cooldown. Because that’s what your raid needs you for…big well bombs. So you just work your build around knowing what you’re expected to do, and try to squeeze as much dps out there as you can.

That’s another reason to shoot for 50% crit because you can drop the wells, go into DS, and ensure you have 100% crit on your well bombs.

Lag is REAL

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Lag is real, don’t listen to people that claim it’s not Anet’s problem. I have great ping and the skill lag is simply terrible during any 3-way encounters. 2-way seems ok unless there’s another blob on the same map elsewhere.

Can you large-scale fight lovers explain

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Blob fights are fine, it’s 3-way fights that have a lot of skill lag. It’s sad because it used to be a lot smoother, pre-stab patch.

WvW Lag March 2015

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Lag is horrible, TCBL at the moment, terrible skill lag when just 2 blobs meet, doesn’t even take 3 now.

World Population Changes Are Coming

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

we know you like winning.

Actually, for overwhelming majority of the players, we just like having action and people to fight all hours of day & night. T1 servers are what WvW is supposed to be like, servers packed with people so when you have a day off, you could login during the day and find action. When you can’t sleep one night at 2am, you could login and find fights. T1 servers should be considered “healthy”, “vibrant” servers. They are servers to model after. Not some toxic crazy imaginary things that people like to say about T1.

Honestly, players should not be demonized for wanting to be on servers where they can find action and fights. And no I don’t consider PvDoor action, and PvD is what all those “medium” servers give you. Even “High” servers have very poor non-NA coverage, so again if you don’t play during NA, you aren’t going to find good fights on servers outside of T1 and some T2.

Anet should be encouraging full servers, and merge all those low pop servers because we all know this game has too many servers for its current WvW playerbase. They’re doing all these workarounds, sorry but people from Full, Very High, and High servers are not going to transfer to empty servers to PvD. They’ll quit first, which is what they’ve been doing slowly for the past few years.

So sure, we like to win, but we like to win fights and battles. Nobody on JQ I know of enjoys PvD and we get bored to death when there are no fights around. When there are no good fights, people actually logoff and do something else.

Necro WvW: Lich vs Plague

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Deathly Claws is just a flawed skill. Travel time is too slow, it’s not homing, it’s affected by terrain/objects, and it can be reflected. You can’t really compare wells to Lich 1, not even close. I’ve recorded fights and compared when I used Lich to without, I’ve found that I actually lose dps popping Lich in WvW. Due to the slow, straight line projectiles of Deathly Claws, they simply don’t connect often. And when you think you’ve got them where you want them, someone pops reflects and you actually need to stop attacking or you’ll kill yourself. Reflects are in the current meta and it’s used all the time in WvW.

The best time to use Lich I’ve found is when there are lots of downies, you spam Lich 1 to finish downies that can’t move, and tag for bags. It’s honestly a waste of an elite skill in my opinion. Sure there are glorious 10k+ moments, but they’re honestly rare and in large scale WvW, Lich are rarely if ever the deciding factor of winning battles. Wells on the other hand, properly placed and timed, can end a battle within 10 seconds.

Compare Lich to say, simply popping Death Shroud. You have DS 5 + 4, which is an aoe cc + bomb that isn’t affected by los, and can not be reflected. You’ve got DS 3 fear, which when used on someone under 50%, you often can burst someone down with 2 lifeblasts. Then there’s DS 2, which is actually mobility for necros, a 1200 range gap closer (or 1200 range “hitch a ride” get out of dodge) ability. Not to mention aoe chill to boot. And of course there’s lifeblast, while not as fast casting as Deathly Claws, nor does it hit as hard, it is homing, and it pierces when properly traited.

I just find that with Lich, you lose way too much utilities, mobility, control, and useful skills. Compare to Plague though, 1 necro using plague 2 can blind 5 Lich and neutralize them, that’s how bad Lich is. A few necros rolling Plague 2 can neutralize a melee train to assist your raid should they truck through your well bombs. Plague allows you to roll through hot choke points, enabling you to actually bomb and do dps. And Plague buys you time if you’re in a pinch, often making a difference between life and death. A dead necro is very much useless, your raid needs you to lay big bombs.

Lich is more useful in 1v1 situations or solo roaming situations. Plague on the other hand, is infinitely more beneficial to your zerg/raid. But with that said, you’ll likely want to run what your commanders ask you to. Some guilds run specific comps and fighting strategies that might make good use of Lich. Personally I always keep Plague on myself, because of my aggressive playstyle so Plague works better for me.

Giving WvW a "Win" mechanic

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

DF was a great design and worked for DAOC, but it won’t work well here. In DAOC, RvR was the endgame. Here however, the divide between PvE players and WvW players are huge, WvW is not the endgame here. This is likely a decision by Anet to cater to more players and get a slice of that PvE playerbase pie, I don’t blame them.

But anyways, DF worked for DAOC because loot upgrades were great incentives to fight over. For the most part you don’t really need to worry about gear & loot here in WvW because they come by rather easily. This is actually a good thing in my view, one of the things Anet did right.

WvW Lag March 2015

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Skill lag in 3-way battles are still there unfortunately.

Giving WvW a "Win" mechanic

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

No PvE please, that’s what Blizzard does to entice their players to PvP. Result was everybody just avoided each other for the sake of faster rewards.

People who really enjoy doing WvW enjoy killing people, busting defended waypoints, and doing things that are actually hard such as fighting outnumbered and winning. What we need here is something like DAOC’s relic raids. While the focus was to sack the relic keeps and steal relics, majority of the time you still battle players for it. And in order for relic keeps to be open for attack, certain amount of towers and keeps had to be taken on the map first. Think capture the flag…but on a large, grand scale. That, would be something worthy as content to add here in GW2.

ESO added relic gameplay, I’m really surprised GW2 haven’t.

Necro WvW: Lich vs Plague

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Definitely go with plague for anything more than a small group (3+ players). Problem with Lich besides it being a “I’m here come kill me” neon sign, is that in this meta, reflects are everywhere. I’ve seen so many Lich die to their own 1 spam because it’s hard to see and discern enemy reflection from friendly.

Also WvW is a fluid environment, and Lich lacks mobility, escapes, and heck it doesn’t even have Dark Path. Often you’ll find yourself popping it and wasting it because your group is moving back or dodging bombs, and there goes your “elite” ability. Not to mention Deathly Claws can be avoided by simply side strafing or people moving, so the only way to use it effectively is to be on top of someone. And if you are on top of someone, you can better control them by being in deathshroud or even your normal form with your dagger.

Plague on the other hand, can save your life so you can live and bomb another day. A dead necro is kitteneless necro. Power wellmancers bomb hard enough without Lich that you should always focus on survival and staying alive, this way you can contribute the best to your guild/zerg/group. Plague will save your life, giving you room for error should you get out of position, or get focused. And it’ll allow you to get through a hot choke point when making pushes.

I think people underestimate reaper

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

We are very concerned about reaper because

1. Melee builds need survival tools that the reaper doesnt have

2. Melee builds need chase down tools that the reaper doesn’t have

3. reaper, at least greatsword reaper, may have really poor life force generation. Even if the grandmaster trait makes up for some of this, reaper should get something better from its grandmaster trait than life force to make up for the terrible greatsword life force.

4. Reaper GS chill access depends on a 4 second chain attack all hitting, but the attacks are slow and well telegraphed.

4a. Chill is supposed to be the main control tool of the reaper, but chill got nerfed hard that the condition will not fill this function very well.

5. If reaper damage is not best in the game top notch, then the whole class theme falls apart. Reapers, instead of being feared will be trying to run away from eviscerate warriors for example.

6. Axe and Focus are needed more badly than ever. With Reaper shroud and greatsword both melee, there is a real need for a legitimate power weapon tools (staff doesn’t count). Unfortunately, those two got Dhuumfired in beta and still suck today.

7. What OP said, shout and utilities don’t matter if we are going to be stuck taking (weak) stun breaks for utility.

8. The traits look very weak & boring, here’s what every Pvp & WvW reaper will take: (1) immobilize duration reduction (2) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking and (3) more life force to make up for greatsword life force sucking. That is very boring, even if the particular numbers turn out make the traits strong.

9. No scaling defenses for team fights & no team utility for team fights.

+1, I was excited about Reapers until our WvW commanders on the server pretty much explained why Reapers won’t be good in WvW. Anet essentially have made a melee spec without giving Reapers the tools to be melee properly. Imagine a Guardian without JI, invuln, and stability. Imagine a Thief without stealth, mobility, and high damage spikes. Or a Warrior without mobility, leaps, cc, and rampage.

In large scale WvW, they won’t be able to hang with the frontline melee train because of lack of defenses. In small scale or 1v1’s, I fear how easily they’ll be kited. Reapers will be the first melee in GW2 that has no escapes. GG

Oh yeah and this isn’t beginning to touch the lifeforce issue, which I honestly thought we wouldn’t have to worry so much about. But Anet seems deadset on their vision for necros. Ironically, Revenant is getting the best of all worlds combined into one class, and Anet isn’t shy about giving them what melee classes need to perform well.

Reduce weakness uptime on necro

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Weakness uptime in Curses is one of the shining bright spots for necros in 1 v 1 situations. Taking it away, necros take a huge hit in 1v1. You also ruin the viability of many builds involving Curses. Necros at the moment need more build variety, not less.

World Population Changes Are Coming

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

This pretty much helps servers marked as “very high” as people who want to play on populated servers will transfer there. And let’s not kid ourselves, people play RvR/WvW games for large scale combat. They play WoW if they want 1v1 arenas or 2v2, 3v3, etc.. This just doesn’t fix a large amount of servers currently marked as Medium (which we all know are low pop WvW servers).

I don’t want to hear people preach about how this helps everybody or how it helps the little guys. It doesn’t. It’s going to help a handful of servers currently marked as Very High or High. Then we still have issues with a large amount of low pop servers that are dead most of the times in WvW.

Anet should’ve merged the servers or created different forms of WvW matching a long time ago. People cheering this on are pretty much servers marked as Very High or High, as they feel this will give them the added advantage to match their opponents. And if you are on a server with a healthy community and population, you’re essentially punished for being there as you can’t bring any friends, guildies, and such to play on the same servers. Anet’s vision is for these healthy, vibrant servers to die off slowly while they “balance” the other servers. Wonderful plan…you know something’s wrong when the plan is to choke the healthy servers so they’ll die off over time.

Balance Changes 28. July

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Next thing they’re gonna say is Soul Marks isn’t supposed to make marks completely unblockable, and remove the text, and have everybody pretend it’s not a nerf or a bad/lazy change.

World Population Changes Are Coming

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

If you’re in lower tier, this will bring more population your way. If you’re in high tier, this will alleviate your queues. THIS IS A GOOD THING . UNDERSTAND THAT , PEOPLE !

I’ll believe it when I see it. And honestly, I don’t for one second believe this will change much of anything. People who can’t transfer to servers to play with their friends will simply leave and play other games, like they have been for a long time now. Especially so for those that didn’t feel like running an auto-clicker. This change actually solves the problem because people can stop using the auto-clicker with a slim hope that they would get in, since they know Full servers won’t even go off Full now. This update shatters any and all hopes of getting in a populated, fun, WvW server.

Low pop servers (now marked as medium) will likely stay that way, because there are simply way too many servers to support the existing WvW player population (caused in part by Anet’s lack of WvW updates and content). This change won’t all of a sudden get people to want to transfer down to low pop servers, otherwise people would have done so already in the past 3 years.

The real way to fix the problems they want to fix, is by merging servers and reducing the number of low pop servers available. Mega server technology was introduced to solve these kind of problems in PvE. Since they don’t solve WvW issues, then they should’ve thought of a better way to merge/combine or change the way they do match-ups.

Balance Changes 28. July

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

There’s nothing worse than token changes that make absolutely no difference. What was bad before is still bad now, which makes them worthless token changes. Unlike some of the changes to other classes that are net positive changes that really do affect them positively. Spinal Shiver change for an example, if they want to remove Unblockable from it, at least shorten the cast time to make the skill viable to use.

As for some of the “nerfs” to mesmers and warrior’s rampage nerf, they’ve been long time in coming. But none of this changes anything with us necros however. If you bump into a Mesmer in WvW without any lifeforce, you’re still going to die within 5 seconds.

World Population Changes Are Coming

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

This is exactly what they’re trying to fix. By closing off the highest population servers, we’re forced to fill other servers and increase their population, resulting in a better experience for all players. Unfortunately, that is bad news for people like yourself who stacked in the top 5. Players have been asking for a WvW population balance for a long time… The only way to get it is to not allow players to move to full servers.

I understand what they’re trying to do, but the best way to really accomplish this is by having less WvW server choices. There’s simply too many servers to choose from, and locking people out of top 5 servers is not magically going to fill all these servers marked as “medium”.

I just think they’re doing it the wrong way, and forcing players to transfer only loses people. I’ve seen too many guilds break apart or are a shadow of their former self after transfers to lower pop tiers. Enticing people to move to “high” or “very high” servers would be the better idea. There’s just not enough players to fill the big list of servers marked as “medium” right now, and we all know most of them are really low populated.

World Population Changes Are Coming

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

It’s a bad idea and not healthy for the game to lock people out of some of the most active, and FUN, WvW servers. Currently I also can’t bring friends into the game because they won’t be able to play with me on the server I’m on (and no I’m not switching off a server I’m comfortable and used to).

I thought the idea of queues for maps already control the amount of players that can be playing on a map at each given time. Hard locking population control is just bad for the game, it’s a MMORPG, people like to play together, and they like to play on populated servers. It also hurts the guilds that can use fresh blood but now they know there are none coming in.

Balance Changes 28. July

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

I can’t believe we got nerfs while other classes continue their power creep. It’s really beyond me at the moment to comprehend.

Necro is designed to be a burst class.

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Necros are good at aoe burst, well bombs are very much the meta in the current WvW side of the game. But single target burst, other classes can do much better.

This isn’t to say that when all the stars align, that we can’t have a nice burst. Such as when the target is below 50% hp, and you’ve taken the 20% extra damage trait, also having chill of death proc at the same time, along with your sigil of fire/air proc at the same time…all the while doing a DS 3, 1 combo. That, is a nice burst. But again, it requires stars to align. This is power necro I’m talking about though. Condi builds are better at attrition.

With that said, OP is right in that shroud mechanics don’t work well. If you don’t start a fight with near 100% LF, you’re at a great disadvantage. And during combat after your LF is blown to pieces with one shatter combo, it’s hard to gain LF again. The mechanics require you to hit things and well in PvP, people tend to avoid getting hit. So there goes your attrition as you scramble to gain LF because a necro is very vulnerable while outside of death shroud.

(edited by gavyne.6847)

Alternatives to well of suff, and bm?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Curses is great for roaming 1v1, plague sending is very good and throws people off (including mesmers), and weakening shroud can save your life. A lot of power necros don’t look at Curses but if you want to roam, give it a try.

Blood Magic is still good, sometimes you don’t use wells for their damage as much as the protection if offers for yourself. When a Thief or Mesmer suffocates you by being in your face, dropping Wells on yourself gives you Prot and it’ll inevitably hit them as they try to come in for a pop. Not to mention it siphons a lil hp to help with sustain. Works better if you know when they’re going to try and come in for a hit though.

Death Magic to me feels the weakest when it comes to roaming for a power build. I like Death Magic when I’m with a group. But by myself, I feel it’s just missing something and I’ve performed better roaming with either Blood Magic or Curses.

Life Force outside combat suggestion

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Lifeforce should just regen out of combat, because with this meta, a necro with no lifeforce is a dead necro. They’ve used this “second life bar” as an excuse to not make us better time and time again. Well then, give us that 2nd life bar. It should by all means regen out of combat.

Ever tried to fight a Mesmer or Thief without lifeforce? You might as well not try, seriously.

Anyone sick of not seeing loot in the floor?

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

I’m sick of having to loot at all, the game really should just make it a feature to truly auto loot bags. It’s a tedium that’s not needed, I’d rather just enjoy the game and the battles.

Reducing the glicko on T1 NA servers

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

So which of the T1 servers is going to drop to T2 so that YB can stay there ? Or even get there ? Which is the volunteer ?

People that planned this had something in mind. But no T1 server’s volunteering. At the moment the three T1 servers are separated by 3k, the closest match I’ve seen in a very long time.

It’ll be interesting to see how things develop in the future, especially with the changes coming to server status.