Guild Wars 2

sostronk.8167:

Yeah, I have been doing some research into this. It sounds like early on people exploited it and were just escorting them for the sake of getting the rewards. The distance travelled bit sux too, because basically I am playing zone defense between Rogues and WC, so if it goes further I would be leaving Rogues unprotected.

Yea, that’s exactly what happened. You had teams of 20 people, mostly bots, just following the dolyaks around because it was the most efficient way to get karma in the whole game. The reward should be brought back IMO, though it doesn’t have to be the same thing. Maybe some supply that doesn’t count toward your personal cap or something.

Royce.6835:

There’s a reason why naruto is so stronk. it’s cause he can make so many clones of himself. it’s a forbidden jutsu bro. and u fools spam that crap. rename mesmer to naruto and rename all your abilities to kage buunshin no jutsu and then we’ll talk seriously.

Hahaha! I almost laughed out loud at work after reading this! Cheers buddy :-D

Oozo.7856:

Krakah.3582:

Oozo.7856:

Krakah.3582:

Oozo.7856:

Most of those people do not care about the technical aspect of why things are worse they just know that THINGS ARE WORSE.

I’m not defending Anet, but uninformed votes can’t be taken seriously.

Knowing why their gameplay experience is worse is totally irrelevant to a player saying whether their gameplay experience is better or worse.

I don’t know a lot about cars but I can certainly tell when it’s not running right.

That mind set is equivalent to complaining about your engine when all you needed was air in your tires.

Alot the problem is on the user side. Poorly maintained/low spec’d/configured machines can cause all sorts of results no amount of server/client changes will ever make better.

Dude, people with highend machines are having problems with the new culling system when they had no significant culling issues with the old system on the same kitten machine.

Scientific method: look it up?

Not every high-end machine is having a problem though. I have a high-end machine and culling is performing better for me. i5-3570k at 4.6GHz, GTX 660 Ti, 8GB ram, GW2 is on my SSD. I saw that video you posted about the culling system and I noticed the same thing happening with the old system on this same machine.

With the new fallback models, machine performance shouldn’t affect the culling at all.

I can’t access that survey here at work but I’ll try to remember to vote when I get home.

Panhauramix.2784:

I wish it was true, but unfortunately some skills works better on a big norn than on my asura.

For example my norn can hit veteran archer on tower’s wall, but my small necro, on the same spot, get the obstructed message because of the starting point/angle of the projectile.

I think you’re right about hitbox in melee, but projectile have a existence of their own, and if it doesn’t pass through/near you, it doesn’t hit you.

What you are talking about has nothing to do with a race’s hitbox and everything to do with a race’s projectile origin. The Lich Form autoattack projectile starts from the same place no matter what race you are.

Panhauramix.2784:

Yeah, Rituals heals you whenever a well pulses, even if no enemies are in it (so Darkness and Power can be used too.)

Vampiric itself heals you anytime your skills (so each well’ ticks) hit someone.

Not quite. Vampiric Rituals will siphon health to you once per enemy in the well per pulse. Vampiric siphons health whenever you do direct damage. So only Power and Corruption will do Vampiric siphons, but all the wells will do Ritual Mastery siphons.

I don’t know what does anet about WwW since the begining. But maybe some other people know what does anet about WwW since the begining. For what solve culing problem? no cahnge for what solve culing problem.

All the races have the same hitbox. If you can’t hit asura right up close then you can’t hit any race up close.

Visionary.5681:

So its not an escape. It slightly increases how much of a beating we can take.

It’s not that hard to juke a 2v1 or 3v1 with it. I’ve escaped from many sticky situations where having more life force or more health steal wouldn’t have helped me. And not just by jumping off cliffs.

I disagree with this post for a couple of reasons.

First off, it’s pretty clear that SC2 is not a failure. Last I heard lots of teams and sponsorships in South Korea are beginning to make the switch to SC2, and this the country where BW is a national sport. SC2 is consistently in the top watched streams on Twitch, second only to LoL. Even the small tournaments get a couple thousand viewers and there are many players who pull in at least 1k when they stream.

Second, the person who made that reddit post isn’t wrong – SC2 is designed for a competitive community. But then for some reason he concludes that this is a bad thing. It’s not inherently bad or good, it’s all about what the purpose of the game is. Remember that BW was designed for a casual community because there was no such thing as a competitive video game community when it released. SC2 didn’t need to attract casual players to create a competitive community because the competitive community already existed. The OP has this idea in his head of what SC2 is “supposed” to be and then finds that it isn’t actually that way so therefore the game itself must be wrong. This is a very strange way to approach things in my opinion. And it’s still possible to join custom games and make custom maps so I’m not sure what he’s complaining about.

Third, sPvP is a different game compared to the rest of GW2. If you have a set of rules that defines a game, then you change some of the rules, you have a different game. Imagine chess without knights, or LoL without Flash, or DotA/HoN without Black King Bar/Shrunken Head. They would be similar games, but at the same time very, very different. Such changes would affect overall strategy, hero picks/bans, and even the individuals styles of play of each player. Same thing with GW2 sPvP. You can’t get the all the stat combinations you can get in the rest of the game, which weakens certain builds when players attempt to bring them into sPvP. There’s also a certain focus on control points that doesn’t exist in the rest of the game, which leads to different playstyles. Thus, different games.

Fourth, I don’t understand the complaint that there’s only 1 competitive game mode in GW2. Many games, like WoW, CS, LoL, HoN, BW, SC2, War3, etc. etc. etc. have only 1 competitive game mode and no one complains about that.

Lastly, GW2 sPvP has been out for less than half a year. WoW has had 8 years to refine its competitive PvP and tweak its ranking and leaderboard aspects. GW2 will become the competitive game that everyone wants it to be, and it’s kind of frustrating that it isn’t here yet, but it will come in time. GW2 has done nothing that prevents it from ever being a competitive game, as you suggest.

MeanMug.2630:

lettucemode.3789:

Psybunny.8906:

Sidenote: Is corrupt boon a bit buggy or am I missing something, because it seems to work reliably only with a 50% chance or so?

The area an enemy has to be in for it to work is a cone in front of your character. So if the person you are trying to cast it on is too far to the left or right of where your character is facing, it will miss. It can happen if you are circle-strafing around your opponent because your character is not necessarily facing the same way your camera is looking. This has been my experience with the spell. If you take the extra half a second to line your character up it won’t ever miss.

If this is accurate, then it is bugged. There is nothing in the skill description that specifies it as a conal attack.

Lots of skills work like this though. The Axe and Dagger channels will cancel early if you turn far enough to the left or right, and on other classes I’ve played if I use a skill with the target outside the cone it will go on the 3.5 second CD. I think I remember from my WoW days that if your target is in the 180 degree area that is in front of your character, spells would hit them. In GW2 they just tightened up the angles. Nothing wrong with that.

TheAgedGnome.7520:

In addition to the math in the wiki table that Panhauramix linked to, higher crit chance also adds value in the form of more “on crit” procs, such as Barbed Precision.

If you could rely on having fury up alot to supply extra crit chance, then crit damage on your gear makes more sense. But necros don’t have alot of fury sources.

They have one, and it gives either 50% or 100% fury uptime depending on if you trait for Near to Death or not (which I would argue you should in any crit damage build). Necros don’t need any other sources of fury.

@OP: That gear wasn’t out when I was making my build, it was added to the Orr vendors in the last patch IIRC. I have a bit over 50% crit chance before Fury because I use a few on-crit effects and I want to ensure that they proc regularly. I think that your gear choice makes sense given that your only benefit from crits is damage.

Psybunny.8906:

Sidenote: Is corrupt boon a bit buggy or am I missing something, because it seems to work reliably only with a 50% chance or so?

The area an enemy has to be in for it to work is a cone in front of your character. So if the person you are trying to cast it on is too far to the left or right of where your character is facing, it will miss. It can happen if you are circle-strafing around your opponent because your character is not necessarily facing the same way your camera is looking. This has been my experience with the spell. If you take the extra half a second to line your character up it won’t ever miss.

HiSaZuL.2843:

….. Yeah…. The day 15 points in reaping stops someone… will be the day. Please do show how it stops something. Go on… educate this ignorant person. Show me what those mighty 6 seconds of protection going to do for you. You can’t even swap to ds because you loose that trash on 60 sec cd.

You still keep the protection, just like if you go into DS with spectral walk on you keep the swiftness and ability to port to the original cast point. The only thing you lose is the buff that grants life force on being hit.

I would think that getting mass retaliation on your minions from Well of Blood + blast finisher (Putrid Mark or the bone minion guys) would help a lot against AoE, no?

DeathenShada.6397:

other times just attack everything in sight drawing unnecessary argro…

Fixed in the last patch, please don’t spread misinformation. Thanks.

Ojimaru.8970:

lettucemode.3789:

Kiriakulos.1690:

How much condition damage are you packing, because if it’s less then 400 I’d swap the staff for anything+focus.

Agree with this. The utility you get from staff is not worth the huge drop in DPS whenever you switch to it in a power build.

I disagree. A 10s drop in DPS is worth it for the range, AoE Regeneration, AoE Chill and Poison, AoE Condition Removal, Blast Finisher and bomb shell, and AoE Fear.

Hey, if it works for you, go for it. The only thing I missed when I replaced my staff was Putrid Mark for the mass condition removal, but I made up for that in other ways. My build simply doesn’t benefit from Staff as much as it does from Axe/Focus.

Kiriakulos.1690:

How much condition damage are you packing, because if it’s less then 400 I’d swap the staff for anything+focus.

Agree with this. The utility you get from staff is not worth the huge drop in DPS whenever you switch to it in a power build.

Dylninja.4216:

Soul Reaping:
Mark of Revival

When I have greater marks from the death magic trait line, the reaper’s mark is normal size. I figured since my Mark of Evasion is a “greater mark” the Mark of Revival would be “greater” as well. Don’t know if thats intended or bugged but i figured i bring it up.

Already on the list, buddy. But thanks for using this thread rather than the sticky

Xsorus.2507:

Oozo.7856:

Attacking won’t stop the rez unless you down the thief. Stealth house has counters. Not every class has those counters available to them.

I specifically take shield on my guardian to counter refuge. It’s a bit more balanced in a group versus group setting. If you are running solo with no counter to it, it’s going to suck for you for sure.

Have you thought about running duo, Xsorus? You can pair up with a class/build that covers some of your weaknesses.

i only run duo if i’m on the thief and guildies are on, i wont do it on the ranger

Attacking in a spot probably works better if you’re glass cannon build, for condition specs not so much..Maybe a Necro could pull it off.

I know that when I play my thief though I don’t have trouble getting my friend up if we’re house stealthed and 1 or 2 people are beating on us in an area, the only time it becomes difficult if there is 5+ people aoeing on the spot.

You’re a condition spec ranger. You have traps. Put the traps down in the shadow refuge. They will do more damage the longer he sits there reviving. Throw your torch down, spam sword 1.

Over 50% is good enough in my opinion. Unless you are using like 6 on-crit effects.

Kiriakulos.1690:

lettucemode.3789:

Andele.1306:

lettucemode.3789:

So why are you here, commenting on the relative value of a trait if you don’t even play the class or read notes to see what’s been fixed?

Its nice that people get to know the perspectives from other classes, it makes you able to make a more objective judgement (i check thief, hunter and mesmer forums almost as often as necro despite thief just being my farm alt and not playing the other 2).

I agree with you on principle, however that’s not what he’s doing. He’s parroting things he read around the forum and giving his opinion on how well something works when he has no direct experience with it. That would be like me going into the mesmer forum and talking about how greatsword needs to be buffed, or something (I have never touched a mesmer). It would be totally out of place and inappropriate.

Not to mention that two of his complaints are out of date (rallying and Lupi).

You used Ad Hominem instead of actually disagreeing with anything he posted.
That’s just being rude.

Also, he’s right, Jagged Horrors were supposedly fixed originally back in October I think? How did that turno out?
Even if they finally stopped people from rallying with it, it’s still a pretty much undesired trait.

The best purpose I can give for the trait is that some Dev loved Protection of the Horde so much that he insisted in making it a minor, unfortunately someone pointed out that would be completely useless if the player didn’t use minion.
Guess how they fixed that?

Well, you’re right, so I apologize. The way his argument as presented ignored some of the facts kitten me off.

To get back on topic: I don’t think this trait is worthless. From experience I’d say that each horror does about 600 damage before it dies (I do WvW roaming, so small fights or 1v1s). I’d welcome a buff or change to the minors, but I don’t want to call it worthless.

Andele.1306:

lettucemode.3789:

So why are you here, commenting on the relative value of a trait if you don’t even play the class or read notes to see what’s been fixed?

Its nice that people get to know the perspectives from other classes, it makes you able to make a more objective judgement (i check thief, hunter and mesmer forums almost as often as necro despite thief just being my farm alt and not playing the other 2).

I agree with you on principle, however that’s not what he’s doing. He’s parroting things he read around the forum and giving his opinion on how well something works when he has no direct experience with it. That would be like me going into the mesmer forum and talking about how greatsword needs to be buffed, or something (I have never touched a mesmer). It would be totally out of place and inappropriate.

Not to mention that two of his complaints are out of date (rallying and Lupi).

shedim.8504:

No need to be rude. I didn’t bother reading the necro stuff in the patchnotes because I don’t play one. As for the WvW thing, we got in a fight with a Necro yesterday and one ally right next to me rallied as soon as the little undead trait-rodent exploded and there was nothing else around. Maybe it was because of something different but I didn’t see anything else around.

I haven’t seen a Necro in Arah for ages, so I didn’t know if they fixed the bug, but the last time we had a Necro with us, he fed Lupi stacks every time we killed a grub or locust swarm because of a forced talent and that was no fun at all.

Doesn’t change the fact that this talent is worth jack, still.

So why are you here, commenting on the relative value of a trait if you don’t even play the class or read notes to see what’s been fixed?

boneduste.4023:

Corrupt Boon has the same issue. I believe if a target has an Aegis, the Corrupt Boon (and/or) Lich 5, get blocked. as the Aegis states it blocks the next incoming attack. Looks like a bug.

Fixed ages ago, it was in the patch notes

Sansarah.3076:

Art.9820:

I’ve been a soloer since betas, yet I find downed stated quite challenging and fun, let me tell you an advice if you want to suggest a mechaninc change do not generalize for every soloer out there pls :P, if you have an opinion share it but don’t make it any bigger than what it is oh and downed state is an obstacle for smalls grps AND zergs, just search on the forums and you will find a lot of complains

Well I’ll be, never thought I’d see the day of a solo’er enjoying the downed state mechanic. In that case, I’m sorry for speaking for you in general, I have never met a harcore solo’er who enjoys this mechanic in wvw.
I’ve been talking with quite a lot of players about it who plays solo and nobody so far has said anything different or even raised their voice that I was completly wrong with my views.

So do please enlighten me on your views about it. I’m quite intregued on hearing your side of it all.
What class etc do you play and setup do you use?
Who are your normal opponents?
Do you usually do 1vs1’s only or 1vsX?

I’ll answer this from my perspective. I play necromancer and use a power/crit build designed for small skirmishes.
-My normal opponents are thieves, mesmers, eles, and rangers. Warriors less often.
-Sometimes there is a group of 2 or 3 underleveled friends (or 1 80 and 1 underleveled) and they will chase me. If I think they are too much for me to handle and can juke them I will, otherwise I fight and do my best, and I am winning these more and more, but it depends on the opponents really. Recently I had a continuous string of 5 1v1’s in a row (someone else would show up as soon as I killed the last one) that I survived, that felt pretty kitten good.
-I look for 1v1s, but more often it is 1vX, or turns into a small-group skirmish since others from my server will wander by.

Sansarah.3076:

Can you describe the reason you enjoy it, does it add extra flavor or something for the competition?

I’ll repeat what I said earlier in the thread for the benefit of the discussion. I enjoy it because it adds a strategy to fights besides simply using abilities to counter your opponent’s. Someone going down creates a control point on the field that I must now deal with in addition to potentially fighting someone else. Add to that the fact that you are on a “timer” in most 1v2’s – you have to take them out before your reserves of healing/outlasting expire – and the downed state becomes a rather exhilarating mechanic. Can I stomp this person in time? Will he interrupt me? How can I prevent the revive? All important decisions that have to be made in a split-second. It’s a puzzle, it’s a problem, it’s a thrill.

Not many people I wander across are willing to play this game and attempt to interrupt me, but when it does happen it makes the fights even more interesting. A few days ago I went to Plague-Form-stomp someone (shifting into Plague Form doesn’t break the stomp animation, and comes with stability) and the enemy necromancer used Corrupt Boon to turn my stability into Fear. I was so shocked that I couldn’t react in time to stop the revive, and had to book it out of there. Even though my opponent’s play essentially defeated me I was shaking with excitement.

If there was no downed state, I’d be on my thief all the time. Burst the first enemy in the group of 2 or 3 down to dead, stealth, repeat, and move on. Since there’d be no control point minigame to play I’d have a huge advantage.

So from my solo play perspective, downed state is a great thing. It makes it harder for me to 1v2, sure, but I don’t care. I think it makes the game better.

If you are looking for a build to tab in and out of DS for the bonuses, then go 10/20/10/0/30. Bonuses you get for tabbing in and out: Spiteful Spirit in Spite will give you retaliation for 3s, Furious Demise in Curses gives you 5s of Fury, and Shrouded Removal in Death Magic will remove a condition. The 30 points in Soul Reaping is to take Near to Death for a 5s cooldown on all those bonuses.

You must be looking at a really, really outdated build calculator…Death Shiver isn’t in the spite line, Withering Precision is 30 points and so is Near to Death, you can’t get them with just 15 or 25 points in those lines.

As for the rest, Knight’s + Berserker’s is a good choice for the build, especially since you’re getting extra crit damage from the Soul Reaping line. Weapon set is good too.

So I use Spectral Grasp a lot and want to clear up a few misconceptions about how it works.

It doesn’t home in on the enemy, as you may have noticed, but behaves like a normal projectile. It will also lead an enemy who is moving, so if someone is moving, even perpendicular to you, you CAN hit them with grasp. If they are using a movement skill when you cast it though, like Ride the Lightning, it will fly way too far to the side because it leads them at the speed they are traveling when you cast it. So don’t cast it during those times.

Second, since it doesn’t home in, it’s possible for an enemy to change directions after you cast it, causing the grasp projectile to miss (again, because it doesn’t home in). At this point you will see the “Obstructed” error. It really should say “Missed” because the target moved out of the way, but all projectile skills in the game have this problem so whatever.

I haven’t noticed people getting stuck on terrain while being pulled, but I have noticed that sometimes Grasp will fly a bit farther than 1200 range to grab someone (like if your target is running away from you in a straight line, and you are running after them), and in these situations they will not be pulled all the way back to where you cast the spell. I think this is because it will only pull a max of 1200 distance. Of course, it could be that there are low rocks or something in the way, I haven’t paid enough attention to tell.

If you keep the projectile leading in mind you will hit people with Grasp much more reliably.

After a while facing other players he will learn to use his abilities at the right time. I used to faceroll my staff abilities too, then over time I slowly learned to save 4 and 5 for the right situation.

As for bleeds…your friend should find a good rotation that will help him keep bleeds up. Sigil of Earth procs bleeds on crit, that’s very useful for the necro condition build. Dark Path stacks 3 bleeds, dagger 5 stacks bleeds, Weakening Shroud trait stacks some extra bleed, as does staff 2 and the Mark of Blood trait. Not to mention scepter 1 and 2. So there are lots of good tools for bleeds, your friend just needs to work out cooldowns and things like that.

I don’t play conditionmancer myself, so hopefully other forum members can give you more answers.

Nice post, Morvian, good write up. I have a few comments…

Morvian.3270:

1.) Necromancer Traitlines: They’re bad. Really, really bad. Almost every line includes at least one minor trait that either contradicts the playstyle encouraged by the major traits or is of questionable use to begin with:

Spite – Death into Life, Siphoned Power
Curses – Target the Weak
Death – Arguably all of them, since the last one forces you to focus on power.
Blood – Vampiric. It doesn’t go against the theme of Blood Magic, but it’s a terrible trait.
Soul Reaping – This one actually has good minor traits.

Necros are encouraged by the trait lines to play more hybrid than the other classes are. This is a design decision I like, personally. And vampiric is pretty good if you think of it as extra toughness and don’t base a build around it (I’ve tried).

Morvian.3270:

Spite – Spiteful Talisman (bugged, last I heard), Signet Mastery (not strong enough, since it doesn’t let us keep passive effects), Signet Power (lackluster, especially since most of our active effects are situational anyway), Chill of Death (no boon removal, last I heard), Axe Training (inferior to Close to Death in almost every case).

Spiteful Talisman works in sPvP, and even in PvE and wvwvw it’s only the 4 skill that is bugged. Agree on signets. Chill of Death works fine. Axe training is good for hybrid condi/power builds, but it’d be nice if it was moved.

Morvian.3270:

Curses – Reaper’s Precision (LF gain is too low or chance on crit is too low), Banshee’s Wail (not quite strong enough, IMO. Also why is it in Curses?), Withering Precision (probably inferior to Lingering Curse for most people putting 30 points in Curses).

I’ve seen some high-level tPvP necros use Reaper’s Precision, it’s a decent crutch for life force generation if you’re not using the other options. Banshee’s Wail is great in WvW, I used to run it a lot and don’t regret it. Withering Precision is for power/crit builds, not condi builds.

Morvian.3270:

Death – Spiteful Vigor (not strong enough for a master trait, was probably great back when retaliation was stronger), Reaper’s Protection (cooldown is way too long, especially since half the time it doesn’t fear the opponent anyway), Death Nova (poison fields aren’t very good, even if minions worked), Necromantic Corruption (boon removing minion attacks?).

Spiteful Vigor would be good in a P/T/V build that focused on retaliation as a secondary mechanic, combined with Axe and Spiteful Spirit you could have insane retaliation uptime. I want to try it out sometime. Reaper’s Protection has never missed for me. Death Nova is good, removing boons from enemies is good.

Morvian.3270:

Blood – Vampiric Precision (siphon is too small), Bloodthirst (siphoning isn’t strong enough even with this trait)

Don’t base a build around these, use them as “backup” toughness if you aren’t willing to get it through gear.

Morvian.3270:

Soul Reaping – Fear of Death (bugged last I tried it, radius seems tiny, really long cooldown), Mark of Revival (fear duration too short to get a revive off), Decaying Swarm (in what way is a locus swarm helpful at 25% health?)

Pretty much agree. Decaying Swarm could help you run away :-D

Morvian.3270:

2.) Utility Skills: Some of them are really great. Others are questionable or just terrible. Corrosive Poison Cloud is fairly weak, all of the minions need better active skills (the AI is another matter entirely, but even if it worked the minion actives would be too weak), Signet of Spite is a waste of a slot, Signet of the Locust needs a stronger active or a shorter cooldown, Spectral Armor has a huge cooldown, and Spectral Wall is bugged and has a tiny combo field.

Signet of Locust is in a really good place right now. Over 800 heal per nearby enemy, base. Has uses both in and out of combat, fits necro theme of attrition. The combo field for Spectral Wall is bugged but I still use it frequently, it is a great skill.

Silver Brown Redmoon.4368:

I just feel underpowered. Elementalist: if the player is well known about the necromancer spells, he/she will use aoe spell/ lightning spell to knock me down and water spell for the healing. keep repeating that and the necromancer is chanceless.

Use spectral utilities instead of wells and you can outlast them with the crazy life force regeneration. Spectral Attunement is your friend.

Tateguy.7485:

is there a way to run a chill build with axe/focus and stafff? im not a big fan of condition dmg.

Ascii has a good one…https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Post-Your-Build-Thread/first#post275467

He made a thread too but I can’t find it right now.

Where is this expectation of 166 players per map coming from? Any source on this, like a quote from devs?

Rennoko.5731:

I was surprised that a condition/bunker P/D thief didnt make your list. I would think that would be hell for both Power and Condition. I know it is hell for condition, because of all the condition removal on stealth.

My power build uses Shrouded Removal, which drastically reduces P/D thief effectiveness. Without that trait, yes, they are hell.

No. 15 characters

I have a powerful PC and culling is performing better for me after the update. Thieves aren’t perma-invis anymore and I can see more enemies on screen than before. The 2 enemies turning into 30 happened before this update as well, it hasn’t changed that in my experience. Allies disappearing is sort of weird but I’d rather see the enemy.

i5-3570k, OC’d to 4.6 GHz
GW2 is on my SSD, takes less than 10s to load any zone
GTX 660 Ti
8GB RAM

I am half glass cannon (50% crit, but only 60% crit damage) and with the vulnerability from focus 4 my axe 2 channel did 4.5k to an 80 warrior in WvWvW yesterday. He wasn’t running rifle. Damage on Axe is fine.

I’ve been using axe as my secondary power weapon and it is fine overall IMO. Yea the autoattack seems kinda lame but it is vulnerability without spending any cooldowns – this is something people miss when comparing it to other skills, I think. The 3 is amazing and the 2, as I’ve shown, does good damage. It would be great if Axe got a buff because I’m already using it, but I don’t think it needs one.

I’m pretty sure it drops weapons and armor that Necros can use. So it won’t give you any weapons Necros can’t use and it won’t give you anything other than light armor. I think you can still get any stat combination that already exists.

February patch isn’t make-or-break for me. I have a good set of friends who I play with and I am still having fun with the game. Necro 4 lyfe

Sansarah.3076:

sPvP map? :P

The main thing I find annoying is that people don’t state why it should stay the same, what is so good about the current downed state?

Down state in general? I answered this question in my earlier post(s). It creates a small control point that must be fought over and that livens up the battlefield compared to other MMO’s.

Or are you asking about the “current” down state? The current implementation of down state (down state initial health, rez speed, etc.) can change, I would get used to any changes in time.

I’ve seen a few people mention that an ally can get someone up faster than you can stomp them…to my knowledge, that’s only the first time they go down. After they go down again, due to the downed state penalty, you have enough time to do the stomp even if their ally is reviving the whole time.

Daecollo.9578:

The funny thing is, all our healing traits are found in the +healing tree, but not even 3/4 of them are effected by healing power.

There are lots of traits in each line of every profession that aren’t affected by the stats that line gives. What’s your point?

Bas.7406:

When are we going to stop treating Minions like they are a core ability? Death shroud is our core ability. Small changes are all that are needed we don’t need things that change the UI or the ability to control them.

All that is needed is that they attack who I attack when I attack them. That’s it.

Bas spittin’ truth all day erry day

Sureshot.6725:

First and foremost, I’m not even agreeing that zerging needs to be fixed because to fix something you need to accurately define it.

Ask 10 people and get at least 5 different definitions on what constitutes a zerg. The only commonality I find among the various definitions for zerg is that one side was heavily outnumbered.

Second, I see a lot of comments stating that lifting the AoE cap will resolve zerging. In this context it seems to be defined as a smaller group could take out a larger group if the cap was lifted.

However, as the larger group would still be able to AoE and bring more AoE to bear being the larger group, I fail to see how this would fix so called ‘zerging’.

I must be missing something.

I agree with you. There are a lot of DAoC players around (which I’ve heard was an awesome game) who want GW2 to be more like DAoC. Even if the AoE cap was lifted, player stats are different, damage on skills is different, classes are different, etc. It’s not the same game in a million different ways. So even if the AoE cap was removed, I bet that these players would still find it harder to “destroy whole zergs with only 5 players” (something I doubt actually happened) because of all the different things, and come back to the forums complaining that the game still isn’t like DAoC.

Players run around in large groups because it is easy to do while still feeling like you are contributing, simple as that.

Astaroth.5146:

Here’s my opinion on the subject: I don’t think the downed state is a bad thing in WvW, not at all. It goes with the paste of the game, when a player gets downed, it require a quick response from his team mate to secure his position and revive him. Where I think is the problem is the ability to rez from defeated (completely dead). But then again, it’s not a simple matter of simply removing the ability to rez defeated players.

Right now it’s a shame that huge groups can’t even be dented by a small ambushing party. My original opinion was to completely removed the option to rez defeated. But after talking about it with a couple of people (some agreeing some disagreeing) I understand that it’s not that simple. I can’t see a simple solution.

A simple possible solution I like is that you can’t rez players who have been stomped (spiked, killed with the finishing animation, whatever you call it). Players who died due to taking damage while down can still be rez’d.

This would allow small groups to make a dent in larger zergs with smart play, good communication, and good skill use.

Bastion.2716:

Well, we could say that most of bugs are tooltips error, that would be convenient, ain’t it?:D I’ve already said, that there are good builds that could be made into something with the proper skill of a player, like Shoebix build, for example. The thing is we need to do quite a job to be able to be on par with other prof, who can still pretty much do it better with same skill\equip + they can change spec and still be better. Yes, we’re great that we can pull it off, we can kill ppl and stuff, but as for me it’s a bit unfair. As to the “strength” of necromancer, I can’t see a clear concept of our strength. Well, you guys don’t seem to understand what I’m trying to say, this saddens me a great deal( I’m not some kind of a necromancer who can’t kill a single foe and whining, I’ve used many builds, with a quite success, but then I started to try other profs, and guess what – they could do it better, without getting used to our play-style. Yes, I can kill 2-3 ppl with vit\tough\pow build, but it will require more dedication to do it as a necro, I like difficult classes, but at this point it’s unnecessarily tough to get good with necro, and necro good = other class average.

Still, I’m not saying necro’s are bad, I love this class, I’ve invested god-knows how much time and gold in it, but I still wish we had a better deal.

Ok, that is fair to say, I agree necros are harder to play than other classes.

I do knight’s armor and weapons. Some of my jewels are Knight’s and some are Berserker’s, but they all have the Berserker jewel in them. It depends on how much toughness you want, really. I like having more.

You should use the P/T/V weapons if you are willing to sacrifice crit chance and damage for more survivability.

The vulnerability from focus 4 does not improve your condition damage, so going a mix of condition damage and power would work best with that weapon set.

Rennoko.5731:

And I would agree lettuce that SOUNDS really impressive, but the tradeoff is you can’t use any skills, utilites, elites, and you have given up your all powerful food slot and have built specifically to get the crit heals (using knights gear).

Part of the “cool” factor with other classes when they run their channeled skills is they can use their instant skills during that time, (think shattering clones while channeling sword 2, or using staff 2 while casting staff 3 on a mesmer, or really anything channeled and blink).

You are by definition helpless while channeling dagger 2, and thats not only boring, but lacks any depth at all. How do you use dagger 2 any better than the next guy using dagger 2? What options do you have for improving how dagger 2 works? How do you combo into or off of dagger 2?

Really you get them to burn their dodge, and hopefully their stun, and then you channel it… that is very lackluster. Also the range on it is very easy to break if you have any leap skills.

In my opinion it should have worked more like troll urgent, and done a longer heal over time/siphon, but not required the channel. Obviously not that strong, but the same concept. You could have called it blood link, and made a cool graphic for it…. and it could have been instant cast, followed by the siphon over the next 5 seconds if they stay in range.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I designed my build around dagger 2. Someone asked how I got such a high number on it and I answered that question. Like I said I rarely put 20 points into Blood Magic anymore. I use the knight’s gear and siphon food anyway, I just noticed that I had some good synergy with dagger 2. I’ll answer your questions anyway since I like this discussion.

How do I use it better than the next guy? Maxing out its healing potential (which I proved in the post above, pretty sure no one’s done that before), making sure the enemy has used dodges or immobilizing them before channeling it (instead of complaining that it’s easily dodgeable), remembering to switch to it as often as possible to use it on every CD.

What options do I have for improving it? I don’t think it needs to be improved, it fits the necromancer theme of attrition and sustained damage.

How do I combo into it or off of it? Toggle DS for fury before using it, or use it when I know the opponent has dodges left because I actually want to use dagger 3 + well of suffering. Maybe that’s not the kind of answer you want to hear, but the necro power weapon channels are great for baiting opponents into dodging them so you can actually land other things, or vice versa. I like that.

nalenb.1425:

EnRohbi.2187:

The “majority of players” did not say it was worse.
People don’t seem to grasp that the people who make the effort to come post on the forums (especially in threads related to new features/technical stuff) are usually the ones who are dissatisfied. Most people who have had their culling experience improved with this patch are in WvW playing the game, not posting here.

What you read in the other thread were a vocal minority.

FYI, this patch helped culling a lot for me.
Everytime you see one of the fallback models, what you’re seeing is an instance where you would have seen nothing before this patch.

I agree that people with issues are far more likely to come to the forums and complain. and the December culling trial thread was full of people complaining. However, anet said
“Based on all the feedback we received, both during and after the trial, we will be transitioning to the updated culling system that we used in the trial. This update allows the culling system to handle allies and enemies separately so that being surrounded by a group of allies will not impact the culling of enemies (and vice-versa). The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW.”

If not from the forums, where did they collect this feedback? I don’t remember being asked in game (like they had in the beta). My guess is that they used their own feedback and disregarded the community feedback in that trial thread.

And the thread about the trial after they put it back was full of people saying they loved it and it should go back to the trial.

Forums (and the internet in general, actually) are a terrible way to gather player opinions because the majority of responses will always disagree with whatever just happened.

Sansarah.3076:

Vilkata.4725:

OP, I think one of the problems is that you’re viewing a downed player as “defeated” and being upset that the defeat is being taken away from you if they get up. A player isn’t dead until they’re dead, if all you do is get them to downed then you haven’t won yet. That’s like taking a thief down to 50% HP and then getting upset that they were able to use their utilities to escape the fight. Downed is part of the game and you need to plan for it if you expect to win in a tough fight.

Nah, what I’m upset about is how easy it is to get out of the downed state. While everyone agrees that you should use utilities to get the flag down. Even then they aren’t guaranteed to be gone from the fight as there is no release timer.

That’s what I got a problem with.

EDIT: Sorry if this post isn’t related to what I’m replying to. I went on a bit of a tangent.

You don’t have to use utilities, though I agree they are the best way to secure stomps or revives.

To help secure stomps: Mesmers can shatter their illusions for invulnerability. Necros, with enough boon duration, can toggle DS to gain enough stability to cover the stomp. If you place Blind on the downed opponent, which can come through weapon skills or combo fields, their interrupt will miss (works on necros, warriors, guardians, engineers, and rangers). There’s a trait where Eles can gain stability for a few seconds when attuning to earth, and attuning doesn’t break the stomp animation. Thieves can go invisible with dagger offhand. There may be more, I don’t know the classes too well.

To interrupt or stop revives: Necros have warhorn 4, an AoE daze, and staff 5, a fear mark. Mesmers can shatter their illusions to daze. Warriors can Hundred Blades right on top of the downed person. Guardians have lots of pushback skills. Thieves can burst the rezzer safely since they’re not moving. Eles have interrupts and pushbacks too. Engineers probably have some crazy cool things, I don’t know.

To help secure revives: lots of classes have on-revive or on-reviving traits they can take to create some sort of hinderance for the enemy who is stomping. All the interrupts I listed above work too.

Dee Jay.2460:

Then there’s the fact that people can resurrect defeated players, even in the middle of combat. That imo is a broken system and shouldn’t happen. There must be a state in which a player is defeated for good. Resurrecting while in combat should not be possible.

Agree.

Sansarah.3076:

Melkiah.2496:

If enemies are trying to ress a downed player just throw a random CC and start stomping right away, you’ll probably finish the enemy before his mate recovers.

If you are afraid of having your stomp interrupted just cast an invulnerability/stability/barrier/whatever right before (or during) the stomp and the enemy will be as good as dead.

If you don’t have any of the above on you skill/utility bar, or you just spam them mindlessly during the combat leaving you off guard when you have to finish of the enemy, you still have to learn how to play in WvW/PvP.

Enjoy

While this sounds good in practice, wasting a survival utility or cc to get a stomp off. Isn’t always ideal, as there is no forced release in WvW. The time it takes to rez someone even finished off, isn’t very high. When facing a larger number off opponents, timing and use of utilities is crucial to your own survival.

Using a survival utility to get a stomp off works fine in 1vs(1-3), 2vs(2-5) and so on. But as soon as the numbers increase even more, those survival utilities becomes so much more valuable. More so when facing good opponents, we shouldn’t be forced to use survival skills to get a stomp off. At least not without some kind of forced release. We have killed them once already after all, the game is to nice in pvp.

That’s only my own opinion of course.

In my opinion you are looking at this the wrong way. You are not “wasting” utility skills to get stomps, you are using them smartly. The thing I really like about the downed state is that it dynamically creates control points around the battlefield. Whichever side is better at controlling these small points will push forward and has an advantage in the battle. It makes the fields of battle seem much more alive and dynamic than in other MMOs.

Since you know ahead of time that these control points will be created, and you know that your enemies have methods of contesting the control points, it makes sense that you would incorporate tools into your build to help with controlling these points. I have always carried an interrupt or two on me, and stability when I can (necro here ) and I do not have the same complaints about down state as many other players seem to have. It is a fun mechanic, and when you have that clutch stability use or daze a rezzer so your ally can finish his stomp, it feels very rewarding.

Back to the original point: you are not “wasting” your utility skills, you are saving them for a situation you know is coming and using them at a smart time. When someone goes down, you have more than a fighting advantage – you have an informational advantage too. You know exactly what the enemy is going to do to help their friend up. You know exactly how each class can interrupt or avoid your stomp. Why in the world, when you KNOW this situation is going to occur, guaranteed, would you not plan for it?

I think that the two paragraphs of yours, below, contradict each other. You didn’t say them one after the other, but I put them together for this post. If a skilled group “play well together and use their utilities well”, then they will have an advantage over those who do not. Same thing with downed state, whichever side better uses their abilities to control the downed state of both themselves and their opponents will have an advantage. But then you say that using such utilities is wasting them. I don’t get it.

Sansarah.3076:

Well, yes? If a skilled group play well together and use their utility’s well. Why shouldn’t they be able to take out larger numbers? Do you prefer the zerg > skill mentality?

We’ve come back to my point exactly, enforcing a stomp shouldn’t be reliant on having to use an elite / utility skill when rezzing needs neither.

Last small point: Rezzing does need those things, I interrupt rezzers all the time, it has gotten me and my allies hundreds of kills.