Guild Wars 2

combat: 9/10 – 2nd to none and obviously what ate up most of the time and budget
hotjoins: 2/10 – just wrong. all wrong.
tourneys: 6/10 – meta gets stale far too quickly, still seeing the same classes in the same roles doing the same things
balance: 5/10 – not horrible but still so much work needed

overall: N/A – PvP is clearly an unfinished product and not in a state worthy of being ranked

Zenyoga.6910:

Good point about having LF or not verse a theif or any of these matchups. The question is about not having life force, since having half or so makes a world of difference. I’ll try the dropping at my feet, but I’m not sure it would of made a difference against this one guy (of course I ended up having 7 out of 8 fears not work on the guy, and he didn’t have stability).

Ya just learned to dodge into the shatter, not away and its helping.

D/D I don’t have a Corrupt Boon, but your strategy is sound (close to what I’ve been trying to execute, but it doesn’t always seem like I can side step RtL and have to dodge and are you saying to eat the churning earth to then send it back at them? I always get out of the circle.

by the time they’ve dropped the churning earth they’ve pretty much dumped everything they have on you. if I can’t get outside the range, or simply time the dodge to evade, I’ll pop into DS and let that eat the physical damage, then pop back out and drop the putrid mark to send all bleeds, burns, chills, etc., right back to them. that forces them into water attunement to attempt to cleanse. Here I’ll swap to dagger/focus and rip the regen/protection/vigor off of them. Once they’ve gone through all 4 attunements they’re basically making it up as they go and are far less potent than at the start of the fight.

Thieves – If you have LF at the start of the fight, the odds are in your favor. If not, life will get hard real fast. drop marks at your feet since he’ll port over anything in between you both. wells reveal them from stealth. use DS to absorb burst and #3 fear to interrupt burst cycle. aoe bomb shadow refuge – this is actually an easy chance to kill them as they’re stationary trying to get as much stealth stacked up as possible. save a stun break for the fear steal or at the least pop DS and save your #3 until they’re actually about to hit you. it typically comes late and will turn the fight for them if you’re not prepared.

mesmers – conditions are their soft spot. mark the real mesmer immediately and start harassing them with bleeds and chills keeping an eye out for the incoming CC (stun immobilize – both come from sword/pistol) and shatters. avoiding the first two shatters is key. dodge through the clones, use fear mark when endurance is exhausted. lead with aoe to remove clones and then go to work on the real mesmer with single target dmg. the trick is to keep them from just being able to sit back and chuck ai and shatters while being mindful of the potential burst from shatters and blurred frenzy.

D/D Ele – stay on the move. their leaps only travel in a straight line. side stepping Ride the Lightning into Updraft and Burning Speed are crucial. save putrid mark for after their churning earth and throw all the conditions back on them. remove/corrupt boons after they pop into water attunement. they’re running on fumes at this point.

with any fight though the key is to understand the class and build you’re up against and the key skills within it. being able to identify where they are with their CDs, dodges, stun breaks, etc. is key to reacting appropriately in every fight.

it’s not about whether or not a skilled player can counter a noob. it’s about the game doing too much of the work that should be required of the players themselves. and not just with thieves but across most classes.

and as for Necro’s and their fear: the instant Fear requires a target to actually work (meaning you’re eating dmg before the thief renders and you can use the skill), and the aoe fear mark has a 3/4 sec cast time which is far too long to be considered a reactive skill while dodging (dodge cancels cast) and avoiding hasted burst.

the problem IMO is that HS is a leap that tracks the target removing the opportunity to counter with positioning. the traditional skill curve of rogues has been defined by their ability to stay on a target through their own positioning. Steal already does this for them. After that the onus is supposed to be on them to accurately deliver dmg. Instead the game does it for them.

Additionally the inverse is true as well. They are too capable of escaping and resetting the fight. Once a rogue commits to a fight they should only have one way out and that should be through their opponent.

tl;dr – remove the leap from HS, and remove haste from the game (for more reasons than just HS spam).

Bill.8941:

I can’t find the gw2 file in application support part………..

make sure you go to your user library and not your system library.

i.e. user/library/application support

Crystalmyst.3518:

Hey guys,

I’ve hit the same issue BUT FOUND A SOLUTION.
Click Finder, press CMD+Shift+G and type: ~/Library/Application Support/
And press enter. Then find the “Guild Wars 2” folder and delete it.
This is all your preferences and saved config. You’ll need to re-enter your login info and setup your settings and such, but you should be able to play now!

I assume there’s been an update which patches the windows files’ graphics settings, but the OSX client hasn’t been updated to work with it, thereby breaking it for those that have changed that configuration themselves.

To Guild Wars staff, could you please get your OSX team onto this as soon as possible?

Hope that helps someone other than me

Cheers all,
Tim

this works

muchas gracias

just got this. was playing fine till tonights update. haven’t been able to log in since.

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

Staff1 doesn’t have a 2.25 second cast that is trivial to interrupt or dodge partway through. Staff1 being dodged is not a big loss, axe2 is a cooldown and therefore a much bigger loss.

USING an axe is a loss of efficiency, a scepter would be better SOLELY for its ranged snare, or dagger for that in your face damage, depending on playstyle. Axe has no place anywhere, 600 range is within range of too many gap closers.

now you’re comparing an AA to a CD skill. not a fair comparison at all.

And why are you discussing it like you wouldn’t use both weapons for a max LF gain build? Toss in Spite VI and Soul Reaping VI, maybe even reduce DS recharge or DS skill cd, and wreak DS havoc. My point is there’s plenty to build around there. Axe isn’t perfect, but the only reason it’s not a must have weapon is because Staff outshines them all and people seem to keep looking at Axe as a replacement for Staff. The largest major issue for Axe is it’s best suited for minion builds and as Minions are hardly working as intended (we hope) Axe’s usefulness is diminished further.

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

Tuluum.9638:

hackks.3687:

tl:dr – post your previous and current build. http://intothemists.com/calc/

First (old) build: 0/0/30/30/10 (IV, V, VII), (III, VIII, XII), (II)
Second (new) build: 25/0/25/20/0 (VI, VII), (IV, V), (II, IV)

If you want it in your easy to read calculator, thats fine, but then that kind of takes away the validity of disliking when others want their hand held.

Like I said though, necro is getting shelved. Strange happenings with damage (that is likely just me missing something) + a community like this = me go elsewhere. All the best!

I didn’t link the build calculator so we could see what traits your using. the site will calculate all your cumulative stats based on weapons, traits, runes, sigils, amulet + jewel, etc. You know, all those things that help you decide on what build best suits your goal. Listing your trait choices is a small part of what is actually going on in your build.

Also, why would you stop at 25 pts in Spite when the minor trait is kittenty but the XII major trait is the bulk of the reason to put any points in that tree in the first place with a power build. Additionally, Blood Magic is a kittenty tree, we have HP already and healing power doesn’t do much of anything for Necros since all we have is regen and syphoning. Neither of which scale impressively with healing power.

There’s virtually no way to tell you what’s going on though without knowing all weapon choices, runes, sigils, amulet+jewel, etc., in addition to the traits.

But if you want to just half kitten things then perhaps the necro is better left on your shelf…

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

I’m with Xil on this one. OP provided zero pertinent information. just enough for everyone to speculate along with him. Hand holding will ensue, leading to “bad touches”. Bring your dollies, kids. The judge will want to see where he touched you.

tl:dr – post your previous and current build. http://intothemists.com/calc/

Warhorn is utility. Focus is dmg. Dagger is Conditions.

Answer: which ever one you feel you need more of. A wise necro carries one of each in his bag.

Boon duration stacking for protection up time with Spectral Wall and Spectral Attunement seems like a waste to me. The wall stays there for almost 15 sec and every time you step through it it reapplies the protection. Not to mention if your opponent follows you thru they add another 10 stacks of vuln on themselves (hint: you want to be doing this anyways). Throw 15 pts into Soul Reaping for Last Gasp and Spectral Mastery and protection up time goes way up just from the shortened CDs and Spectral armor proc at 50% health. Spectral Attunement can be a quick way to load up some LF at the start of the match as well. Never a bad thing when starting at 0%.

aside from our new terror buff, % dmg modifiers do not effect condition dmg. only physical dmg

5.) this patch had no effect on me. I rolled kittenes in PvP before, I’m still rolling kittenes now.

some of you act like we got nerfed into the ground. this patch wasn’t the “big patch” we might have been lead to believe it would be, but it’s not like we got stripped down and left on cinderblocks in ANet’s front yard.

Knote.2904:

Should be changed to “LF will regenerate passively at a rate of 1% per second up until 25%” or something.

we have a signet for that.

I think gluttony should work more along the lines of all attacks build 1% LF and does not stack with those that already build LF.

You’re still talking about a lot of attacks to build LF but the accrual would at least become more steady and predictable. Considering how quickly it degenerates, LF accrual could use a buff to smooth.

Knote.2904:

hackks.3687:

I was more kitten off by the comment of not having the “escape and damage reduction abilities but lots of ways to win attrition fights” along with the “ability to combine direct and condi dmg”. Are they completely unaware of the fact that those classes that have escapes and dmg reduction also have attrition builds AND combine raw and condition dmg? There’s gotta be some devs who play Thief, Ele, Mesmer, Engi that took one look at that philosophy post and just giggled before signing off on it.

They were actually talking about Condition Thieves and Mesmers. I’m 100% sure it was a typo on their part.

Try retitling the post as “Engineer” and read it again. It will actually make sense.

rule of thumb: you will gain 1% LF for every 9%

it’s something. not much, but it’s something…

I was more kitten off by the comment of not having the “escape and damage reduction abilities but lots of ways to win attrition fights” along with the “ability to combine direct and condi dmg”. Are they completely unaware of the fact that those classes that have escapes and dmg reduction also have attrition builds AND combine raw and condition dmg? There’s gotta be some devs who play Thief, Ele, Mesmer, Engi that took one look at that philosophy post and just giggled before signing off on it.

should also be mentioned that the +condition duration values add multiplicatively. doesn’t need to be a flat, summed 50%. it adds contribution from spite, then fear trait, then runes. should put you over the 2 sec mark with just 10% from Nightmare runes and give you an additional fear from 6pc proc.

the design of the trait seems odd to me though. % dmg modifiers have never effected conditions on any class. Suddenly though we have one class able to bump a condition based dmg by a large % value. Why not just buff the base dmg to something respectable? There’s far too much build work going into making an interrupt do some dmg. Conditions ticking for 1k is a bit excessive as well and way out of line with the rest of condition dmg. I have a feeling this “exception to the rule” could be the top of a slippery balance slope.

hmmm…

- still no stability
- no cast time reductions
- changes to water combat skills? my necro don’t swim…
- Reanimator still there even though there’s ample proof that’s it’s rallying people, on top of being plain worthless
- nerf to vampiric proc but no buff to heal value /sigh
- speed buff for dagger builds but on a trait in the most worthless tree we have
- 10% increase to LF gain with Gluttony. I’m going to withhold judgement till I test it but at first glance 10% is not what I wanted to see.
- …. actually I’ll stop there. this kitten is depressing

So Christmas came early and Necro’s got a lump of coal… awesome

I’ve been super patient with ANet and have even defended them to a good degree, but it’s been a really long day and I was excited to just get home and check out the patch, only to find this bullkitten. Think I’ll just turn on a movie and smoke a fatty instead of logging in…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Illusion-of-Life-and-Vengeance/first#post991907

interesting video…

check out the build thread. page 2. top post. merch’s spectral build is pretty fun.

edit: warning – it’s pretty squishy

Staff is currently the best group utility weapon, as well as being an easy fit into both power and condition builds. It can generate LF quickly when traited, provide a full aoe condition clear, aoe fear, aoe regen, and the only weapon based combo field and blast finisher.

It’s hands down the best weapon Necro’s have. You can build without it, but you won’t be nearly as useful to a group.

Jason Segel.2908:

hackks.3687:

Eidt: also avoid vampiric and syphon traits as they their scaling is fubar’d currently and won’t net you enough HP to make it worth the points in the current Min/Max meta in PvP. Personally, I haven’t put a single point in that tree since week 1 after release. Huge base HP pool, DS, and lack of decent traits are more than enough reason to warrant never putting a point in that pathetic tree.

you are completely wrong on siphon not being worth it. the 50% better siphoning works on all attacks now.

Jason Segel.2908:

life siphon gives me 317 per pulse + 38 for regular siphon + 58 for critting x 8 pulses bro.

if this is your idea of an effective source of healing then, no, I’m not “completely wrong”. Unless you’re going fullbunkertard the heals from siphoning will never keep up with maxed burst dmg builds in PvP. The fact that you had to drop a well (45-60sec cd) to get more than a two digit value on your siphon is indication enough that it’s not worth the points.

if you want to see what effective healing is I suggest you try Ele, Engi, or Guardian and then think about whether or not you want to waste your trait points on more HP and inconsequential siphons.

Survivability for necro’s is entirely based on proper and liberal use of DS. If you see a big hit coming or are being jumped DS should be immediate. If you’re using DS offensively then use the skills you need and get back out. Don’t waste LF if it’s not necessary. Some ways to bolster DS are by increasing the LF pool by putting points into Soul Reaping tree as well as stacking Toughness and Vitality.

Building LF is crucial and should be considered thoughtfully when building your Necro. There are a lot of ways to do it and some weapons will give more than others i.e. Scepter low LF gain, Dagger medium LF gain, Axe high LF gain, Staff + Soul Marks (Soul Reaping X) medium-high LF gain. Spectral Walk and Spectral Armor will allow you to gain LF rapidly when under pressure and taking dmg.

Plague form is typically a “tank mode” elite mostly used by glassy spec’d Necros as an extra source of prolonged life. It won’t due much other than make you hard to kill and a minor annoyance till your teammates arrive but when it’s all you’ve got left to keep you alive a bit longer, it will do the trick.

If you want to increase dmg on a power spec look into Vulnerability and Might stacking. My current build is a 30/0/10/0/30 build with an emphasis on Vuln and might stacking and I melt faces. Amulet is either Berzerker, Knight, Soldier, or Carrion depending on the opposition and my role in the group. I prefer to play glassy and with proper DS management it can be very forgiving.

Eidt: also avoid vampiric and syphon traits as they their scaling is fubar’d currently and won’t net you enough HP to make it worth the points in the current Min/Max meta in PvP. Personally, I haven’t put a single point in that tree since week 1 after release. Huge base HP pool, DS, and lack of decent traits are more than enough reason to warrant never putting a point in that pathetic tree.

KirinDave.6451:

Lackluster? Compared to what, Time Warp? Perhaps you’d like Mortar or Tornado instead?

Plague Form can be used offensively to spearhead assaults into larger groups in WvW and its devastating when used this way. In PvP plague can tip the balance of a mid point very suddenly. Plague is one if the better elite skills. It’s no Time Warp, but its not Elixir X either.

I would definitely take Tornado over plague form. Both are stupid but at least Tornado gives you a CC which can actually be useful.

Just so people understand what I’m talking about when I say Blind is underwhelming.

Copy/Pasta’d from wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind)

“Blindness is cured on the next outgoing attack, regardless of whether that attack would’ve hit anything if not for the blindness or how long the blindness had been stacked up for.”

The only saving grace for Blind in our case is having the trait for applying chill on blind, though as our bug list informs us that doesn’t work in Plague form. Even in the case of Well of Darkness, while it works decent at allowing us to avoid relatively basic melee attacks, as soon as Haste is applied the attack speed quickly begins to outpace the reapplication of the blind on the 1 sec pulses as so many thieves, warriors, and mesmers have been kind enough to demonstrate for me.

KirinDave.6451:

hackks.3687:

bah Plague form just turns you into a punching bag. all it’s good for is buying you time till help can arrive.

It’s one of the best support abilities out there. PvP, WvW, PvE, if you have a teammate you have a friend.

who is it supporting? because every time I see a necro go into a plague form I know it means I’ve won the fight. How do I know, that’s just how it always ends. Rip the stability off of them and they’re kittened unless their friends can bail them out. Plague form is a desperate transformation that will only buy you time and nothing more. It hits for nothing, blind is an underwhelming condition, and enough stacks of vuln will make even plague form into a squishy.

not trying to be a dick or anything, but I really feel like plague form needs some serious overhauling.

ashleydoll.8563:

hackks.3687:

I’ve never understood the point of having attack skills that include a 100% defensive attribute. Melee attacks have always been about risk vs reward with only intelligent positioning and timing as means for mitigating that risk. A 100% defense on attack is doing dmg with impunity and removes the requirement of being thoughtful as to when and how you approach the target. It’s essentially removing a much needed skill requirement.

As for those Mesmers concerned about being a light armored class and having to jump into the fray to execute melee burst without the safety net of immunity being built into the skill, all I can say is: “Welcome to the club. Necros and Eles have been expecting you.”

Mesmer having a melee ability that roots them in place without that invulnerability would result in a lot of dead Mesmers. Even the most defensive Mesmer builds are pretty easy to kill, the class as a whole has little emphasis on true defense.

How so? Suddenly they lost their stun, daze, immobilize, leaps, blink, decoy, mirror images, portal, etc.? Gimme a break. If I drop an FB on someone they’re already CC’d, the invul just means their friends can’t do anything about it either.

There are two PvP playstyles for Mesmer, both of which utilize a similar burst damage philosophy. The only difference is one is more kite oriented and one is based around melee with the sword. You’re basically saying “Take away the one thing that makes a Mesmer in melee range viable”. It has nothing to do with timing or a skill requirement, a sword Mesmer outright needs that damage avoidance, the class lacks the escape abilities of other similarly weak classes. We can blink once a fairly long cooldown and we can swap to staff and use phase retreat, the latter takes the sword out of the equation so you are trading some offense for a quick evasion move. You’ve got Decoy in the mix, but frankly it is more for going invisible while people are chasing you, when you use it in close combat, you end up still taking damage while invisible because you don’t have much time to move anywhere, it’s more or less just used to generate a quick clone in close quarters.

When you compare the Mesmer’s evasion and escape abilities to other classes, you’ll find that, overall, the Mesmer is quite lacking. We can get caught and have our skull crushed in much easier than it can be done to a Thief or Ele. Honestly, the Thief is often a better “mesmer” than the Mesmer itself.

I’m almost convinced you’re trolling now. Mesmer, along with Thief and Ele, have the most escapability within the game atm. Blink, Portal, Decoy, Illusionary Leap, Phase Retreat, aoe Daze, stun, etc.. I mean the list of defensive/escape options are much longer for Mesmer than majority of the other classes, let alone their light armored brethren. Your argument is flimsy here at best and trolling at worst.

And if your idea is just “bring the Mesmer down to the same level of some other weak classes”, I think that is the wrong way to look at things. Nothing beneficial is going to come by further nerfing a class that is already difficult to play and dies easily. Elementalists, while currently build limited (just like the Mesmer), have an incredibly strong survivalist build for PvP which makes them slippery and able to soak up a lot of damage, the Mesmer is just the opposite, our viable PvP build is a burst damage build, we lack in the defensive options.

And I do feel bad for Necros and to some extent Engineers. But the solution is to fix these classes, not immediately nerf their few viable builds and leave them with nothing.

“Difficult to play” and “dies easily” are not phrases I associate with playing my Mesmer. Closer to the complete opposite. And my idea is not to bring the mesmer down to the same level of the “weak classes”. I don’t consider Necro, Ele, or even Engi (by your standards) to be weak. The idea is to actually make it require more skill than it currently does to make a risky maneuver such as jumping into melee range of your target.

I’ve never understood the point of having attack skills that include a 100% defensive attribute. Melee attacks have always been about risk vs reward with only intelligent positioning and timing as means for mitigating that risk. A 100% defense on attack is doing dmg with impunity and removes the requirement of being thoughtful as to when and how you approach the target. It’s essentially removing a much needed skill requirement.

As for those Mesmers concerned about being a light armored class and having to jump into the fray to execute melee burst without the safety net of immunity being built into the skill, all I can say is: “Welcome to the club. Necros and Eles have been expecting you.”

bah Plague form just turns you into a punching bag. all it’s good for is buying you time till help can arrive. Lich form can do some amazing dmg but you’ve basically built yourself into a billboard that says “kill me now, or else”. Flesh Golem, while being a minion (ew… minons) at least has a short CD making it more available and less of a one off adding some extra CC to your arsenal which can be helpful towards locking down a target or even a simple interrupt.

Staff+Dagger+DS benefits most from power based builds. The off hand dagger doesn’t measure up to focus (more dmg) or war horn (more utility) though in a power build though. You can go two routes with a straight Power build, either building for max dmg with crit and crit dmg (zerker) or a more sturdy build with power/tough/vitality (soldiers). Might and vulnerability stacking can pump up your dmg output considerably.

Traits and utilities will vary based on what you’re doing i.e. PvE, PvP, WvWvW

while I’ve definitely seen a lot of random rallies lately and most of them seem to involve Ele’s in mist form more often than not they are just as surprised by it as the rest of us. Fairly often they’ll ask in /say or /map “how did I just do that?”

I won’t go into PvP without the 30pt stability trait. The only stun break I use though is Spectral Walk since you not only get the two breaks, but the added mobility as well as the LF gain will actually help you avoid the CC chain by either out maneuvering it or allowing you to get into DS faster for the stability and Doom to get a little breathing room. Chain CC is a Necro’s worst nightmare and one of the few major aggravations for me regarding my Necro in PvP.

J Sharp mentioned in his interview the other day that more viable build options is something that’s being worked on across all classes. I would imagine this is something that will pop up on all the class boards at some point.

I have a feeling Necros need more bugs fixed and some further development in our meta before we’re really ready to assess trait changes. Sure there are some obvious ones but until we see how some things actually work (Gluttony, Vampiric scaling, etc.) I’m not sure we can get an accurate idea of what the class is missing or need of changing (outside of reanimator of course, that just needs to go :P )

removing LF gain from deaths really wouldn’t have much of an impact on filling your LF bar from killing mobs. the LF gain would have to be balanced to a more “front end” accrual, which would make sense since we’re supposed to use our mechanic during a fight, not after it. Necros would still be able to wander off to kill some mobs real quick to fill LF.

I’d gladly give up gaining LF from kills for more LF gain during an actual engagement. sign me up

Knote.2904:

Not to be cynical but…

Incoming nerfs to lifeforce gains on the skills themselves to balance it, or something. =p

Anyway if a red is still reading, any chance of having Life Force gains across skills being normalized, and having life force from death being removed. It’d be nice to have consistent life force gains for each weapon and only having it change through traits or utility skills.

Because as you’ve said before “Not having access to your skills sucks”.

given their tendency to make small incremental changes I don’t see them nerfing LF gain across the board to make up for the addition of a functioning Gluttony. They’ll certainly keep an eye on it though.

striker.3704:

hackks.3687:

UndeadPriest.8632:

hackks.3687:

Staff is an extremely powerful weapon. It is not meant to be used solely by itself though. Swapping weapons is a requirement for playing any class to its fullest. If you want to spam AAs to kill things I suggest you look into ranger short bow.

When did I ever suggest Spamming AA’s was a good thing?,
You need to actually read my post,
I frankly feel too much emphasis is being placed on the Auto-Attack.
I would rather be able to spend more time using other skills,
rather than having nothing but AutoAttacks while waiting for the other skills to come off their cooldowns.

when did I ever suggest spamming AAs was a good thing. You merely commented to the effect that you feel you are overly reliant on them. I merely suggested you look deeper into the class to find a way to expand your game play or opt for a simpler, less complicated class to play.

I’ll post what you said again so you can think about it some more

UndeadPriest.8632:

So as I stated before

I think the more import failure is with the Marks (staff skills 2-5) and their recharges (i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)
If the recharges on all the marks was decreased
say by like 30-40% (a very rough estimate) than this would make it so Staff wielding Necromancers were not spending so much time relying on their auto-attack
(Except Mark of Blood, I think it’s recharge is at a pretty good point where it is.)

The fact that you say “(i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)” suggests you are spamming AAs while you wait for your marks to come off CD rather than swapping weapons/swapping to DS/swapping to Elite/dropping wells/slinging corruptions/etc. There is more to the class than what you are suggesting here.

what he means is that for most necromancer’s the staff is pretty much:
-swap from whatever weapon you were currently using
-drop all marks on the enemy for the combo, chill, damage, weakness, and bleeding
-wait for 15 seconds to be able to go back to your other weapon

It makes sense too, mark of blood has a short cooldown so it gets spammed and chiblains is a simple chill+poison field so it’s a good one to use off cooldown.

putrid mark and reaper’s mark are the only two which have utility. Even then it’s a simple matter of reading your enemy to know what is best to do with them.
condition enemy? wait for a big stack of conditions then use it to send it back.
power based enemy? use it to activate the chiblains combo field for weakness.

for most fights you end up just hitting 2->3->4 right off the bat only leaving reaper’s mark. This means you will be auto attacking and occasionally dropping a mark of blood for about 10-12 seconds waiting on cooldown for weapon swap. That’s a long time, so I can see why he would like a shorter cooldown on marks.

besides, even if you open with the staff instead of your other set, as soon as you switch to the staff you’re back to square one.

I don’t understand the 15s wait on weapon swap. Weapon swap is a 10s cd, not 20. I’ll assume it’s a typo for now and should’ve read as 5s.

Dropping all marks would leave you with 5s till swap. #2 can be dropped again after dropping 2-3-4-5 if you were so inclined as it will be off CD at that point. As soon as all my marks are down, I’m out of staff and into DS, then out of DS into dagger/focus, then back to staff to drop 2-3-4 inside a well, then back to DS, then back to dagger/focus, so on and so forth.

If I need faster mark application the 20% cd reduction does a good job of it IMO. I actually avoid it though because it makes me too inclined to stay with staff rather than rotate through all my ability chains and use all the tools I so carefully chose to round out my build with.

I’m really just not having any problems with it. Easy bleeds and regen, poison and chill are awesome, big combo hitting combo with full condition clear, and an aoe Fear. With all that utility what’s not to love?

Anyways, this thread is about Gluttony getting a fix anyways. Can’t wait to see what they did to it. Should smooth out some kinks I think.

UndeadPriest.8632:

hackks.3687:

Staff is an extremely powerful weapon. It is not meant to be used solely by itself though. Swapping weapons is a requirement for playing any class to its fullest. If you want to spam AAs to kill things I suggest you look into ranger short bow.

When did I ever suggest Spamming AA’s was a good thing?,
You need to actually read my post,
I frankly feel too much emphasis is being placed on the Auto-Attack.
I would rather be able to spend more time using other skills,
rather than having nothing but AutoAttacks while waiting for the other skills to come off their cooldowns.

when did I ever suggest spamming AAs was a good thing. You merely commented to the effect that you feel you are overly reliant on them. I merely suggested you look deeper into the class to find a way to expand your game play or opt for a simpler, less complicated class to play.

I’ll post what you said again so you can think about it some more

UndeadPriest.8632:

So as I stated before

I think the more import failure is with the Marks (staff skills 2-5) and their recharges (i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)
If the recharges on all the marks was decreased
say by like 30-40% (a very rough estimate) than this would make it so Staff wielding Necromancers were not spending so much time relying on their auto-attack
(Except Mark of Blood, I think it’s recharge is at a pretty good point where it is.)

The fact that you say “(i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)” suggests you are spamming AAs while you wait for your marks to come off CD rather than swapping weapons/swapping to DS/swapping to Elite/dropping wells/slinging corruptions/etc. There is more to the class than what you are suggesting here.

You then go on to suggest CDs on marks be reduced by 30-40% when we already have a trait for 20% thus your suggestion seems to be asking for it to be made possible to have no need to swap weapons and just allow you to constantly roll through skills 2-5. So your suggestion seems to imply again that you don’t want to switch weapons/transform/DS/etc.

You finish the statement by saying “this would make it so Staff wielding Necromancers were not spending so much time relying on their auto-attack”. To which all I can say is, I am a staff wielding Necromancer and I don’t rely on my staff AA. I certainly make healthy use of it when the situation calls for it though.

I can only suggest you look into utilizing more of the class as there seem to be some things that are missing from your game play.

UndeadPriest.8632:

So as I stated before

I think the more import failure is with the Marks (staff skills 2-5) and their recharges (i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)
If the recharges on all the marks was decreased
say by like 30-40% (a very rough estimate) than this would make it so Staff wielding Necromancers were not spending so much time relying on their auto-attack
(Except Mark of Blood, I think it’s recharge is at a pretty good point where it is.)

Staff is an extremely powerful weapon. It is not meant to be used solely by itself though. Swapping weapons is a requirement for playing any class to its fullest. If you want to spam AAs to kill things I suggest you look into ranger short bow.

Mammoth.1975:

I chuckled a bit at people telling Payne he is having L2P issues.

Oh c’mon! How often do Necros get Thieves posting on the boards about how OP Necros are? We gotta jump on those! They’re few and far between!

He knows how good he is. He doesn’t need validation from forum-warriors. I, for one, thank him for his charity. <3

3 sec fear is still longer than any Necro fear, even with traits, runes, and + cond duration.

it makes no sense for them to steal something that wasn’t there to begin with.

AFAIK there are no stability granting stun breaks in the game on a CD shorter than 90 sec. And definitely none that include building a mechanic. Leaving Spectral Armor as is and merely adding 5-8s of stability would be within balance. Reducing the CD requires a trait, just like all others do. You’d also have to remember there’s a trait for gaining SA at 50% health as well giving the option to have 2x SAs within the 90 sec CD duration. This is all on par with Ele’s Armor of Earth though we don’t have near the mobility or near their healing and boon production they do, so I really feel like leaving the LF gain would still be appropriate and within balance. Causing fears on hit, or 25 sec CDs or that stuff would likely be waaaaayyy OP

Payneful.7934:

hackks.3687:

Payneful.7934:

How is the fact that a necro literally standing in one spot spamming aoes on a point able to kill an entire team by themselves in a matter of seconds not broken?

How is the fact that if that necro is not dealt with immediately, your team will lose the team fight 100% of the time not broken?

I wonder why every team is now running at least one necro……?

Also, I would much rather steal your off global cooldown, single target instant fear over this clunky AOE fear that can be easily interrupted and lost forever.

you don’t know how to not stand on wells or marks?

easy way to kill necros: chain CC. they’ll never get to cast a thing

Yes, let us all jump off the point while the other team caps it. Good strategy. I can really tell you know what you’re talking about.

PS: easy way to kill any class: chain CC. they’ll never get to cast a thing. Something a necro is very good at.

Last I checked wells only lasted 5 sec, capping a point took 10 sec…. but, hey what do I know, right?

PS: oh right, I forgot those 2 sec fears, the immobilize, and the daze are putting guardians, engis, and eles out of business in the heavy CC dept….

can we stop pretending like you know how necros work now? clearly you’re just having some L2P issues, no?

Payneful.7934:

How is the fact that a necro literally standing in one spot spamming aoes on a point able to kill an entire team by themselves in a matter of seconds not broken?

How is the fact that if that necro is not dealt with immediately, your team will lose the team fight 100% of the time not broken?

I wonder why every team is now running at least one necro……?

Also, I would much rather steal your off global cooldown, single target instant fear over this clunky AOE fear that can be easily interrupted and lost forever.

you don’t know how to not stand on wells or marks?

easy way to kill necros: chain CC. they’ll never get to cast a thing

Stiv.1820:

hackks.3687:

Stiv.1820:

Can I steal death shroud instead?

mmmm no. how about a 1.25 sec single-target fear?

Make that instant cast and you have a deal.

Gettin stuff done!

deal! let’s make it happen!

Schwahrheit.4203:

Because Necros are broken, and it’d be balanced if it only feared necros for 3 seconds and everyone else for interrupt utility only.

why would it be balanced for them to fear a necro for longer than a necro can fear them?

Stiv.1820:

Can I steal death shroud instead?

mmmm no. how about a 1.25 sec single-target fear?