Guild Wars 2

Tobias.8632:

I’ve never found death shroud to be any use, to the point where I literally forget to use it, every time I die I think like a minute later “Oh hey, I totally forgot about death shroud, that might have helped there” but I figure it actually wouldn’t have helped so much because death shroud has no damage. I might have been able to tickle off 1/8th of the enemies health bar with my DS attacks and then died all the same. I just don’t see how it’s supposed to be useful when it’s so weak compared to my normal minions + bleed damage attacks.

DS is actually incredibly strong once you’ve acquired enough LF to make efficient use of it.

As I see it though, because of this overlarge HP pool, many of the other class attributes require toning down for the sake of balance. Which seems to have narrowed the capabilities of the class given that the HP is always there and there’s no way to trade some of it for another attribute. Personally I’d give up a good chunk of that HP to be able to have access to more boons and an increase in dmg for daggers and axe.

As well, attrition is only a positive attribute for bunker classes. Dmg oriented builds live and die by their efficiency. Lasting longer in PvP just makes for more reinforcements to show up.

Not saying we need to be theives or warriors, but there should be a bit more flexibility to the potential builds of the class rather than settling for which flavor of face tank you’d like to be. This flexibility already exists in the other classes (possibly excluding thieves as they sit at the other end of the spectrum from us)

edit: DS tip – use it as an “oh kitten!” button. once you get used to that you should start noticing some of the other uses.

JonathanSharp.7094:

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

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

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

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

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the insight on the class philosophy. I’m rather curious though how you feel the current design is measuring up to that philosophy.

Personally I think it takes a whole lot of work to make the attrition aspect work for a Necro against high burst classes. I know you said burst needs toning down but I don’t think it’ll be reduced to the levels that short blinds, chills, and weakness will be enough to subvert the incoming dmg long enough for the attrition to start becoming a factor without impeccable positioning, timing, and use of CDs.

As well, the whole “cannot get away” seems to be nonexistent. Blinds, Chills, a cripple, and a single immobilize don’t stand up to classes with heavy burst and/or heavy CC. Not to mention our feature CC makes people run away. Classes that are forced to stay and fight it out are traditionally bunker specced and making constant use of stability, protection, regen, retaliation, vigor, aegis, and heavy CC. Almost none of which is available to Necro’s.

Don’t get me wrong. Necro is my favorite class by far. I love to jump in and out of the fight using my staff to soften people up before moving in for the kill with my daggers. Whether they want to get away or not is really entirely up to my opponent though.

huh. I thought everyone had the Dark Path combo worked out. That was probably one of the first things I figured out when I started playing my Necro regularly. maybe people really do need to L2DS :P

I kid, I kid…

I just wanted to say that I agree with the posters who feel Necro’s lack some escapability. It’s not that we don’t have ‘any’ per se, but not nearly enough to deal with the copious CC and chain stuns which are the biggest issue I have with the class. One Hammer Warrior or Guardian or those kitten Spirit Weapons, or a Shatter Mesmer with an OH pistol and they can hold you down far longer than it takes to plow through our stun breaks, HP, and DS.

It’s sort of part and parcel IMO with our lack of access to Boons. No vigor, no stability, no aegis, means we’re really forced to save DS for soaking up dmg which isn’t an answer to escaping a bad situation. A 30pt grandmaster trait is hardly worthwhile for 3 sec of stability IMO either.

I was actually thinking the same about how LF could be more player-manageable with interesting uses. Something along the lines of consuming Life Force as a short channel that gives healing instead of dmg+LF, a big dmg dump, a large aoe CC of some sort, etc.

Right now it’s just an extra HP pool for soaking up the rampant burst dmg that just so happens to provide some minor uses. Kind of a dull career mechanic when compared to most the others. Powerful. But dull.

Alekto.8297:

Sad thing bleeding is our only real source of DoT

ummm we’ve got a good deal of poison.

you guys are aware that conditions do more than just dmg right? blind? cripple? vulnerability, chill, weakness, etc? they’re all pretty useful. well maybe not weakness. but the others are pretty useful.

the only class that gives me trouble with cleansing is Staff Ele’s that are full into Water and Arcana, but they’ll be getting a nerf in that dept.

every other class has much longer downtime on their cleanses. Removing one condition every :10 isn’t all the impressive when you consider how many conditions can be applied and fully run their course within that space of time.

edit: the real question is, where the hell are all our boons?

So Anet hates necros because every class can both apply and remove conditions? lol

I don’t know what to tell you if you thought you could just jump into PvP, blindly splash around some conditions, and find success. Learn how the other classes/builds control conditions/boons and you won’t be countered so easily.

try out this build.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/tPvP-Staff-dagger-dagger-build-full-spectral-warrior/first#post376391

it’s easy enough to adjust to your play-style. I think it’s a nice change of pace to the conditionspecs when you want a little more fast paced action

I have to say I have not once seen anyone rally off of a Jagged Horror.

Does it keep me in combat till it dies? sometimes.
Does it die well before the next engagement? yes.
Does it aggro random mobs? of course. all pets do. they always have. this is not new.
Does it ever do anything useful? Only once and that was to eat a stomp interrupt from a downed player by sheer luck.

But provide a rally in PvP? I just haven’t seen it and I’ve got about 500 matches logged on my Necro alone.

anyone have a vid of this happening?

edit: I forgot to mention that I’d prefer this trait just plain removed and replaced as it’s 100% worthless even when it’s functioning properly

Increase in Dagger Dmg
Dagger 1 chain include a condition
Faster Staff AA
Faster DS #1
Faster DS #2
Faster Spectral Grab
Spectral Armor grants Stability and Vigor
Spectral Wall grants vigor in addition to the protection
More access to Boons
Mark of Blood be made a water combo field
50% Fear duration Increase for us, 50% Fear duration decrease for everyone else
Reworking of Death Magic and Blood Magic traits
Trait to cripple target on Fear
All bugs fixed

mmmm that’s all I got off the top of my head

personally, I blame the public education system for the failings of these ineloquent and inarticulate posters.

then I blame the parents for not teaching them patience, manners, and common courtesy.

then I blame George

DanH says, “with my build i have no worries about glass cannon thieves because:
1.i have 3.4k armor (check), and at 50% i get free protection buff, wohoo
2.i have evade on heal and is instant cast(check, also breaks any imobilise they can spawn)
3.i do a lot of conf dmg in return(check)
4.most targets watch the fight and stay still, just asking to get backstabbed (check)
5.most noobs like to complain a lot but 0 pvp skill (check)”

so build as a bunker and you won’t die fast. such an insightful observation. any other pearls of wisdom Captain Obvious?

kitten them! they took my money and sold me out to Thieves Mesmers and Guardians!!!

RAGE!!!!!11111!!11!

no seriously, what are you talking about? We love Devs! We hug them and squeeze them and name them George (even though we know they prefer “Chap”)

Rashagal.5867:

Well to be fair, a BS Thief will press at the very least 9 buttons in under 3-5 secs just to get one kill, assuming their target doesn’t move in a way to throw them off. Also, they can only do that once a minute.

Basilisk Venom -> Assassin’s Signet -> Cloak & Dagger -> Move behind you and Steal -> Backstab -> Heartseeker -> Heartseeker (You’re down, but not out.) -> Any stealth spell -> Stomp.

Please explain how this kill isn’t earned? The thief just used his only profession skill (that he trait-ed for to do damage), 2 (or 3 if his stealth is also one) of his “5-10” slot spells, and a large majority of his initiative. If any class uses this many spells and gets them off, you should be dead.

mmm I think that might be the issue. most other classes have to use more than that amount of skills to kill something and majority of those said skills aren’t taking them directly to their target. nor are they hidden in stealth and unable to be targeted negating some of those skills entirely, nor are they moving at a static +25% movement speed and resetting the fight constantly when those skills don’t happen to land. in fact most classes don’t have a set rotation that can almost guarantee a kill. most other classes require thoughtful use of skills and CDs in whichever order the fight demands…

but hey, it definitely takes a little bit of skill to google the build and rotation though. so kudos on that..

lol no one ever said gamers had to score high in Reading & Comprehension to post on the forums

OP is correct though. Premades have flooded back into free tourneys with greater numbers in the last couple of days. Pugging free’s you’re likely to face guild groups in the first round, and on top of which you’re likely to have to do so with a bunch of guys who are just trying out free tourneys for the first time…

blowing an elite just for a stability stomp? pffft

just skip the stomp and nuke him down with #1 Lich spam! then /flex

blinds are really all Necro’s got for stomping. WoD can be pretty kitten effective for that. Not only blinds the target but blinds everyone in the area trying to help him. Means you don’t get interrupted by anyone inside it while stomping. Pretty nice. Worth a slot skill? Not always.

#2 works fine though. Not guaranteed to hit, but then nothing should be.

Vengeance is the only downed skill I have any real issue with on my Necro. Only because they seem to get up immune to all CC even though there’s no stability boon. Then they haste>stun>HB>stomp while majority of my skills are still on CD. Any other class they’d just be dead and respawning. Stupid Vengeance....

I don’t know that the tournament system as is needs to be scrapped, but it certainly seems incomplete. I, for one, assumed that when paids were implemented they would include the daily/weekly/monthly/sponsored/something/anything tournaments that would give someone a reason to want to pay to actually take part. Instead paids just strike me as a way to “purchase” adequate competition for a select tier of player, which is absurd IMO as that’s something that the game should be offering to begin with.

But again, what do I know…

I don’t really see how adding ranking would increase the average skill level to produce more high end competition and reduce que times for that end of the ladder.

not that I’m against ranking. I just don’t see that as a fix for long ques where skill level determines the population.

I haven’t even done a paid tourney yet but I already saw this coming as elite groups are a distinct minority. My guess is custom tournaments based around events with an implemented spectator mode will be the only draw for high end competition.

but what do I know…

Immo.9217:

I’m confused why don’t any of you just grab 2-3 more people and join as a group? its not hard join a guild or 2 get some in game friends and your done.

we could easily ask the same of premade groups, “why don’t they simply take their group and go fight other groups instead of pugs?”

the fact is both populations exist in any PvP game for a variety of reasons and have little success in terms of enjoyment for either party when paired together. this isn’t a mystery or anything new to the PvP scene. You’d think ANet with all their “innovation” would have planned to accommodate this.

Immo.9217:

Have you tried talking? If no one talked you can’t blame them if you didn’t try. And glory ranks just show who followed the zerg longer in Spvp no skill involved I would rather have a rank 10 that got there from tpvp only then a rank 30 Spvper.

while I agree Glory rank is not a clear indication of skill level, it is however an indication of familiarity with the maps, formats, and classes. there is a clear difference between being grouped with <r10’s and >r30’s

after paids went live, up until yesterday, I was making it to 3rd round regularly in pugs. not sure what happened last night. paid que seemed like it was empty from what I was reading in the map chat in the mists. maybe they all ran out of tickets already? more likely they just got tired of getting roflstomped by the premier groups is my guess.

without the NPCs conquest matches would be extremely dull. it’s not like we lack for action and fighting because of them. if anything they’re just one more thing to fight over. winning strategies account for them. key word: strategy. surprisingly, there seems to be some opposition to the notion of strategy in a competition in this thread. pretty sure Anet will never regard these suggestions with any amount of seriousness.

last night was the first time since paid’s went live that I’ve seen any number of premades before the final round in free tourneys. last night was incessant though facing guild group after guild group after guild group, and primarily in the first round.

I was kinda curious as to why the sudden influx…

this thread is kind of surprising and seems rather knee-jerk to the fact that Ele’s aren’t a free stomp anymore once downed.

The only real issue with Mist Form when downed is it resetting the HP on the character. That just shouldn’t happen. That being said though, once they use it they’re done and it’s an easy stomp regardless.

- Thiefs require 3 stomps (3rd being the successful stomp)
- Mesmers can require 3 stomps if they play it correctly on top of continuing to dps with phantasms while downed – lol at iRogue spamming HS
- Warriors’ Vengeance is ridiculous and counterintuitive to the whole mechanic.

simple way to fix bunkers in PvP: change the point capture mechanic

currently it only takes one person standing on the node to completely stop the capping process. simple solution is to change that to one that scales by numbers of teammates. i.e. as soon as 2v1 the point will be conceded at half the rate of uncontested, 3v1 point will be conceded at 75% of uncontested rate, etc. numbers are whatever, you get the idea.

the whole issue is one guy in a particular build can hold out against 3 or 4 people long enough to let his teammates come from the other side of the map to assist (not the problem), meanwhile the team assaulting with greater numbers has made no progress on neutralizing the node because of a lone defender (the problem).

it frustrates me to no end how often people have no idea how to deal with preventing mob kill steals in tPvP. it’s really pretty simple:

1.) don’t engage the mob UNTIL the would-be gankers are dead. Which means don’t run straight up to him and think you’ll out-dps the ganker whenever he shows up. S/he’s counting on you thinking that. Just take a few seconds to wait and see who shows up. If no one’s there burn him down. If someone does come there’s nothing to gank because the boss is still at 100%. Just a pair of opponents waiting on him so they can claim their quick 5 points for their team and then kill the mob care free. super easy.

2.) don’t leave one person to take care of it by themselves. once a ganker shows up s/he’s then in a 2v1 situation which makes for uber easy steals. it also gets your home point stolen shortly after.

3.) you don’t have to kill it right away. go kill theirs instead. your home bunker can keep an eye out for anyone attempting to kill yours and easily create the situation in #2 above for his opponent.

that’s actually why I bailed on Scepter the first time (I’ve bailed on it twice). With the unforgiving attack radius your basically inviting opponents into melee range of you. not at all ideal for light armor casters.

I haven’t played with a scepter in more than a week but don’t recall having much problem with #1 missing. Could this be a recent development?

interesting. I haven’t noticed the trait not working – though I always notice when I don’t have it specced, the fears are just far to short. I’ll have to check it out tonight when I get home.

still waiting on Thief steal to get patched as well. Stealing a 3 sec fear from a class that can’t achieve that duration without mutilating their build is ridiculous.

Scepter is for pussies. Staff+D/D is where it’s at.

Go Power(r) or Go Home
--------^
(see what I did there)

In PVP, Necro Fears are worthless without the trait, honestly. Which is strange considering it’s our most reliable CC and intrinsic to class functionality. If I had my druthers I’d make the fears a static 2 sec, with a cap at 3 sec so you don’t get crazy long Fear stacking, and just remove the trait option all together. Requiring 20 points to make the skill function appropriately seems ridiculous.

/2 cents

I can’t really argue the point that Necro’s are a little short on Boons at the moment.

Mist Form though, while being effective, doesn’t hold a candle to DS which can be traited for Fury, Cleanse, Stability,etc on a 10 sec CD as opposed to a 3 sec invul on a 75sec CD (their CD reduction trait is still bugged I believe)

I’d personally prefer Spectral Armor be buffed up to Armor of Earth effectiveness.

What I use it for in PvP:
- absorb burst (and/or waste opponent’s CDs)
- absorb condtions/aoe till your heal comes of CD
- CC while stunned (DS and Doom can both activate while stunned)
- Doom is great for interrupting stomps/big casts/etc
- Chain Fear mark with Doom and walk someone right out of the treb tower (LS hits treb reasonably hard) or off a point so you can neutralize

it’s basically a one trick pony but it can be applied in a lot of different ways to a variety of effects. really just depends on the situation, your objective, and the opponent as to what’s the best way/time to use it. I’d say it’s a Necro’s primary source of staying power in fights.

no it wouldn’t. my power build relies on condition duration for chills, blinds, vulnerability, etc.

Donwed state has actually gotten a lot more balanced. Only issues left IMO are Thief and Mesmer requiring 3 stomp attempts for anyone who doesn’t have Haste, and Warrior’s vengeance which is counterintuitive to the whole mechanic.

other than that, it’s better than having to go back to bringing dedicated healers. /yawn

Josher.9612:

Dispari.3980:

Josher.9612:

“Now, now now” with meaningless bugs and tweaks is pushing it. Non working traits or fubar trait lines, or weapon skills that don’t do what they claim, SHOULD BE now, now, now….if ANET cared.

If only caring translated into manpower, the world would be a much better place.

Don’t make a MMO if you don’t have the manpower to fix essentially simple bugs within 2 months. They spent all their time lately on Halloween, which is essentially temporary content. You think people will care in December about what happened in Oct? But if I’m still looking at the same trait tree that seemed like it was put together by throwing darts at a board blindfolded, that’s incompetence, not a lack of manpower. Axe is mostly a useless weapon. How hard would it be to add X% of damage to make it more viable? A few lines of code to change a %.

It also doesn’t take much manpower to acknowledge the bugs as actual bugs or tell us we’re all crazy. It certainly took them NO TIME to say, “learn how to DS”, because apparently that solves everything=)

if I were a Dev I wouldn’t respond to you either. in fact, I might spend my coffee breaks deleting your posts and hacking your in game account just to mess with your traits/runes/dyes/whatnot. then I’d invest in Kleenex and be set for life because I’d be certain you’ll go through boxes of the stuff on a daily basis with all the crying you do.

seriously dude. there are a lot bugs. they are not always simple to fix. be patient, fixes will come.

I believe the answer is: Like a Boss!

it’s an interesting idea but a little overwrought IMO

Personally, I like DS in it’s current form ankittenotally happy with it. Yeah #1 could fire a little faster but all in all it’s a pretty powerful class mechanic.

I do like the idea of making it more build friendly. I would go about augmenting for particular builds through traits though. Lord Knows Death Magic and Blood Magic need a rework. DS should have a bit of customization available to it and there’s plenty of redundant/useless traits that could be reworked to that end.

Necro fix it thread #128943629871628

Mesmer is arguably the most well rounded class atm in PvP. It combines amazing dmg with incredible utility, mobility, survivability, and support. On top of which it’s not hard to play and only gets better the more comfortable the player becomes with it.

They’ll get nerfed. Hopefully not gutted though. I do like to play mine, but not in long intervals at present due to the lack of challenge it creates.

Agreed about the lack of boons. I can’t really see one long-ish utility skill (WoP) as being compensation for having virtually no other way to generate Boons. My Ele can keep Regen, Protection, Fury, Might, Swiftness up almost constantly through a fight. I don’t expect my Necro to be able to produce the same since we can corrupt boons so easily but I’m really kind of puzzled by the almost total absence of boons generating on my Necro.

edit: that being said I run a power build with berzerkers amulet/jewel and no, I don’t feel squishy. I don’t feel very elusive though either.

I’d assume the Thief fear steal will be patched at some point soon as well since the’ve done the same for the stolen Warrior ability this last patch.

Good news is DS Fear works while Stun’d or Fear’d so you can fear’em right back

Personally I find our fears + 50% trait to be more than enough to get the job done. I don’t see any reason for another class to have a longer version than ours though. We are the nightmare!!!

Regarding the PvP build: why wouldn’t you take Retaliation and Stability when entering DS? (spite V, soul reaping XI)

DS is a 2nd healthpool for absorbing dmg because we lack defensive CC and are uber susceptible to chain CC, not for condition removal – which half our skills can do anyways. Putting 30 points into Soul Reaping and not grabbing the stability trait? not a choice I would’ve made

Aga.8641:

hackks.3687:

anyway, is it really a big deal to keep a Tun Break + LF boost + Swiftness on your bar?

Yes, because you need the swiftness for roaming, whereas you need the stun break and LF in team fights, so you lose one of the skills functions. Not to mention how important the 3 utility slots for a necro, when I play other classes I feel comfortable changing up almost all the slots, but with necro it’s a very different situation…

Are you just complaining for the sake of complaining? Seems awfully silly to complain about something being fixed to work as intended. maybe don’t practice so hard at working broken mechanics into your game play? You know they’re going to get fixed.

Crafty-Cheating-Guardians 1 | Anet Devs 0

p.s. has anyone been past the guardian forums lately? you can hear the blubbering and crying by just rolling your mouse over the title. Don’t they know there’s no crying in Godmode?

… investing more time equates to more rewards… well that’s a new concept, huh…

Craiger.8579:

I think they are working on fixing Necros…. They can’t have missed how broken we are…. That’s probably why it’s not fixed yet, cause it’s a big fix that is needed….

Maybe we will see some fixing next patch, together with the Ranger…

every class is “broken” at the moment. My Corrupt Boon is no longer getting blocked by Aegis and I’m melting guardians again. that’s enough for me from this patch.

fixes will be coming in iterations. don’t expect a “big fix”

Aga.8641:

Spectral walk nerf has pretty much completely taken away necro’s ability to roam, I did call that this would get fixed before any of the negative bugs and I was of course right.

It also created a brand new bug for necros!! (hands up if anyone is surprised) If you remove the skill from your bar while it’s in the secondary activation stage it removes any effect you gained from it, swift/LF buff…this also removes any swiftness you had on you before, i cannot imagine this is intentional. Doubt it’ll ever get fixed.

that’s not a bug. that was a deliberate fix. says exactly that in the notes.

anyway, is it really a big deal to keep a Tun Break + LF boost + Swiftness on your bar?

this ain’t no welfare program

get your own glory

god kitten 47% always wantin meh stuff…

@ Katniss: copy paste the link

@ OP: there’s not really a whole lot of survivability in that build. none really. anyone worth their salt in PvP will dodge your obvious attacks (which are all of them) and turn around and destroy you.

I run a somewhat similar D/D build that does considerable dmg but has far more survivability for when one or more people show up to help their friend. The idea is focus on the boons you get from the auras and attunement swapping:

First, I take those 10 points out of fire (%dmg increase specific to attunement is a no-no IMO for stance dancing) and toss them into Earth V for the protection when applying auras. Then take 15 pts out of air and throw it into water for the cleansing wave and the minor trait that gives +2% dmg increase for each boon. Then swap your Scholar runes for Rune of Fire (grants fire aura when health reaches 90%) or go more defensive with Earth runes (magnetic aura at 20% health).

When you’re stance dancing in a fight there’s virtually 100% uptime on Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Regen, and Might. With GM minor trait in Water that’s virtually a static +10% dmg no matter the attunement, and you’ll also be able to take a punch.

I’m assuming that’s he’s trying to prioritize which skills to purchase as he levels

if he’s planning on heading to WvWvW at any point in the near future he’ll want them for certain.

All 3 Cantrips (Armor of earth, Mist Form, Lightning Flash), Earth Signet for immobilize, and maybe the Arcane Skills (Arcane Wave for sure). The rest are pretty worthless.

I suppose it makes sense in tPvP but does it really matter? the ranks don’t mean anything and the glory only buys cosmetic stuff. it’s not exactly hard to accrue either. certainly not worth competing against one’s teammates for…

if you need a grind PvE and WvWvW are that way —-———>