Guild Wars 2

Alex.8630:

add me : silgagghiar

If you guys need an Arena, let me know.

Is there another off-hand that increases your DPS on targets that already have full Vuln?

Terror – now takes off two stacks of Stability.

Unholy Fervor – Axe skills do 1% more damage for every stack of Vulnerability on the target. (replaces flat 10% to Vulnerable foes).

I think both of those are reasonable. Terror becomes useful against the stability heavy meta. Axe damage wouldn’t change much for PvP, but becomes useful in PvE.

Sigmoid.7082:

Me Kill You.9035:

Honestly, I think Reaper seriously should get an evade or projectile destruction element to either RS #2 or 4 to make them more viable in WvW groups and even pve

Rs #2 already destroys projectiles while you charge.

And RS4 is high Poison + direct damage + whirl finisher that can be traited for 5k+ heals and teleports downed teammates. Give it Reflect and that skill will be loaded!

Dristig.9678:

meow one twenty.4376:

Soul Eater prevents enemies from respawning when killed by GS.

It LITERALLY eats their soul.

Glad you got it.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Salamander.2504:

Yeah, ANet did make 2 balanced elite specs: Reaper and Chronomancer. (Is zerker balanced now, or does it need more buffs?)

Considering that Robert Gee was the one in charge of Reaper and Chrono, it makes sense. He has balanced both classes pretty well.

I think he made Berserker underwhelming just to play a prank on Hugh.

Soul Eater prevents enemies from respawning when killed by GS.

Tzeh Pesh.9508:

spoj.9672:

edit: Necro condi damage is weaker than other classes. Or is it outrageous to state the truth as well? Cant win with you people. Also nice of you to twist what i said into something completely different. Weaker than other classes =/ terrible at condi damage.

Aren’t blanket statements like this somewhat the issue here though?

Isn’t this to say that the condition necromancer is weaker than other classes on paper, in spreadsheets, in theory? I know people are saying we’ve never claimed otherwise, but then on the other hand to go and simply call it the truth without any disclaimer or caveat to that could lead to perception issues, twisting of words, no?

I understand people wanting to use spreadsheets to find possible optimal rotations or make gear choices, but when you start to say class x is better than class y because of them, without any other variables or mechanics, those spreadsheets are going to potentially mislead for a percentage of encounters in the game.

I suppose my question really is, if the former is what people are actually using the calculations for, why feel the need to then go on to paint a class as weaker or inferior? Particular those with standing or influence in the community. How does this help?

Simply, sometimes the truth hurts. You can’t blame the truth for it.

Imo the problem is not spreadsheets or anything like that, it’s that there is so much more emphasis on builds than the skill if the player. That simple change in thought would change so much.

Dristig.9678:

meow one twenty.4376:

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Dristig.9678:

Why do some people say that Chill has a 5 stack cap and others say it has only duration? Is it split in each gamemode? I’ve never seen it stack at all so I’m sort of confused.

People say it because that’s the case. Check the wiki out. As well as the patch notes the wiki points to. They changed it in July for some reason. I think.

I think he was just confused about intensity stacking versus duration stacking.

Exactly that. I thought people were claiming to see a little 5 in the corner on some game modes.

It looks like you are Reaping the downsides of asking a question on the Internet. Sorry about all the responses.

Bhawb.7408:

meow one twenty.4376:

So, either be powerful or worthless is where we are at.

I guess I don’t see what’s wrong with a DoT ability requiring multiple stacks to be powerful (on a 100% uptime ability), but that clearly comes down to personal opinions.

You’re just trading one bad design for another. The change would make it useful in PvE group fights, but significantly worse in any situation with decent cleansing. You go from worthless one place and good another to good one place and worthless another, no real change.

It’s almost like…

meow one twenty.4376:

So, either be powerful or worthless is where we are at.

What about gaining a boon whenever you corrupt an enemy’s boon?

Bhawb.7408:

Maxzero.4032:

The simple way to do it:

‘The damage your conditions do on Chilled targets is increased by X%.’

No stacking issues, works well in large groups.

That doesn’t fix it. One of the strongest points of Deathly Chill (and burning pre-stacking) is that they provide a very high “base” level of damage for condition builds that can’t be matched otherwise. Each tick of chill always hits hard, whereas other conditions need to be stacked up, at least a bit, to mirror this. So that change wouldn’t at all fix it, it would still have the same issues as normal condi builds; being worthless if you can’t keep decent stacks on the enemy.

So, either be powerful or worthless is where we are at.

I guess I don’t see what’s wrong with a DoT ability requiring multiple stacks to be powerful (on a 100% uptime ability), but that clearly comes down to personal opinions.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Dristig.9678:

Why do some people say that Chill has a 5 stack cap and others say it has only duration? Is it split in each gamemode? I’ve never seen it stack at all so I’m sort of confused.

People say it because that’s the case. Check the wiki out. As well as the patch notes the wiki points to. They changed it in July for some reason. I think.

I think he was just confused about intensity stacking versus duration stacking.

Dristig.9678:

Why do some people say that Chill has a 5 stack cap and others say it has only duration? Is it split in each gamemode? I’ve never seen it stack at all so I’m sort of confused.

It stacks in duration up to five times. Since it stacks in duration instead of power if it doesn’t get a stacking number. Here are some examples:

5 people stack 1 second of Chill all at the same time. That will look like 1 stack for 5 seconds. 1+1+1+1+1=5

4 people stack 1 second Chill for 1 second, 1 person stacks 12 seconds at the same time. That would look like 1+1+1+1+12=16 seconds of one stack of Chill.

1 person stacks 12 seconds, 5 people stack 1 second immediately after the first person. The 12 second duration gets overwritten (5 stack limit). 1+1+1+1+1=5 seconds duration of one stack, even though someone stacked 12 seconds it only keeps track of the most recent 5 stacks.

No matter which one you choose it will only have 1 stack of potency, for various amounts of time. This becomes even worse when you add damage to the Chill. It’s just a mess.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Sabre.8627:

It is extremely strong, I fully expect it to get nerfed or changed next patch. With chilling darkness now, fear chaining is absolutely ridiculous. Condi reapers have endless ways to apply chill and they can do it without even trying. Around 700 damage per second, add that on to the cooldown recharge and movement impairing, it’s really strong.
I can’t lie though, I’m having tons of fun with it

700? Is that low? I can’t tell. I’ve only ever played with this one build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR4Ync0AF1gN2AWbC0biliBLuHOEXiUNhpwtKKA8tKAA-ThBBABA8kCcZ/hqV+5suHpV/RNlgkCAilVA-e

I’ve managed to get my burning with Dhuumfire upwards of 5k with no buffed food with the above build(basically). Idk how many stacks that was, but I usually don’t see double digits and Idk how it compares to that 700 number.

Would that be 700 per stack(feels like a dumb question lol)? If so, and if what others are saying(chill stack cap at 5) then wouldn’t that mean it has a maximum of only 3500? I guess that does sound good, but how does it compare to Burning damage?

Is it truly worth trying to build around if others can overwrite your chill stacks?

Chill stacks only in duration, so if you do 700 damage per tick with one stack you only do 700 damage per tick with 5 stacks. Overwriting Chill stacks is a large oversight for big scale fights, but in smaller fights and PvP it makes some good damage.

Oh My God.8423:

I have been wonder if the 5 stack cap for Chill is intentional or just an oversight.

Anyway, IF in a raid or any small pre-made team, your Chill Necro is the sole Chill contributor, I suppose choosing a Chill major would be a benefit. Otherwise, IF there is a real chance that your Chill will be overwritten, choose Dhuumfire instead.

But Chill and Dhuumfire are in different specializations, and you have to take Reaper to be a Reaper? I don’t understand.

Cynz.9437:

Just make DH traps as amazing as thief traps. Thief traps are so well balanced, developers put a lot of thought and effort in them! I am sure if DH traps were like thief traps, game would be very fun for everyone (including guards)!

I have enjoyed this every time I’ve seen it.

Dristig.9678:

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Really? That sounds like its kind of broken when compared to the other conditions.. :/

It is! It really needs to be changed so that Chill adds a second damaging condition that can stack and behave like other modern conditions.

I really don’t see any problem making it function like Poison.

For those curious, you can get them from PvP reward tracks at random.

Tao.1234:

meow one twenty.4376:

The answer to everything you wrote here is that I am talking specifically about Reaper.

Ooh, so that’s how it works.

It doesn’t matter that there is something more powerful and it’s actually okay.

Specifically we have to throw Reaper into trash bin aye?

Well, sir, you have just lost a beer.

I don’t need your beer. I prefer whiskey.

When I look at damage I look at what is happening for each class individually. What is happening with Ele’s or Guardians (past or present) is irrelevant while I’m discussing the effects of Chilled in a vacuum of Reaper. Saying X is okay because Y does X*1.5 damage isn’t my thing, they could both be super overpowered. In the case of Chilled versus the previous metas Burning you are taking one feature and comparing it to another overpowered feature, one does all damage and the other does damage + cooldown increase + movement impairment.

I’m anti-powercreep. Not anti-Reaper, especially since I only use Reaper. Maybe if you actually cared about posts other than Reaper you would see that I’ve said that other classes need nerfing too for the sake of preventing powercreep.

Some people are like that. Try to find a nice guild and enjoy the game without the idiots.

Cogbyrn.7283:

The argument before regarding high stacks of might and vuln was that people are trying to balance the Necromancer damage around automatically having high stacks of might and vuln. Does that happen for other classes? Perhaps it’s a sensitivity, because it seems Necromancer is constantly balanced around these crazy ideal scenarios where something could be insane. Without the might and vuln, I argue that the damage isn’t too bad. I don’t think 560 damage/second is too bad.

Also, I have a hard time thinking that fight only lasted 20 seconds. If you were clearing condis, how could Bleeding have 100% uptime? And how could Chill? The Necro you were fighting must have been the most hyper-aware player to anticipate your cleanses to re-apply chill/bleed almost instantly, and you didn’t dodge a single application of chill.

You say they potentially weren’t built around high condi damage. What amulet has 900 condi damage instead of 1200, and no power baked in? You took what appears to be 0 direct damage from the Necromancer, which I find odd because everything that applies conditions does some form of damage. If they were a hybrid focusing on both condi and power, wouldn’t you have something else in that log? And why did a Thief only land 3 hits on you in a 20 second fight?

Further, if the Necro didn’t have chill, you would have played the fight such that the Necro did 5000 damage to you in 20 seconds. Does that not strike you as odd and extremely tame? If your cleansing is as on-point as you say, should that make Condi Necro as impotent as it apparently does? Or should they have a mechanism to maintain some level of pressure, while well-timed cleanses just remove the peaks and reset them to buy more time in a fight.

It’s possible that the trait needs a damage reduction, or rescaling of some sort. But this log smells incredibly funny, like something else is going on. It is raising more questions than it is answering.

Also, I’m going to do a rough sketch to map some Chill durations out. Note that you had -53% chill duration outside of shroud, and with Grenth runes and the Reaper line, a Necro can get +50% chill duration. So in effect, you’re negating their benefit.

Here are the sources of chill, their durations, and their cooldowns:

Sigil of Hydromancy – 2 seconds – 9 second cd
Runes of Grenth on being hit – 3 seconds – 30 second cooldown
Runes of Grenth on heal – 3 seconds – 10 second cooldown
Chilling Nova (crit on chilled target, chills adjacent targets) – ~2.5 seconds – 10 second cd
Staff #3 – 4 seconds – 16 second cooldown
Staff #5 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 32 second cooldown
Focus #5 – 5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
Blinds like RS #2, Dagger #4 (if traited) – 2 seconds – 5 second ICD
Greatsword #5 – ~4.75 seconds – 30 second cooldown
RS #3 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
RS #5 – ~1.5 seconds – 30 second cooldown

I might have missed some sources (whirling in the ice field adding little stacks of duration, for example), and I know cooldowns can be reduced via traits. However, if you just go down the line and assume you are getting hit by all of those (which you can’t, because there are 3 weapon sets involved), you’re looking at about 34.75 seconds of chill on you. That’s also ignoring the 5 “stack” limit on durations that might effect total, especially if one of the Necro’s allies applies Chill.

Greatsword and Focus would be maybe taken in hybrid builds, but then you’d have a source of direct damage on you I’d imagine, so those must not be involved in your log. That would ~9.75 potential seconds of chill, bringing the above estimate down to 25.75 seconds of chill, assuming you are hit by 1 instance of each (though it’s possible for some to hit multiple times).

That’s a lot of chill duration, but that’s also a build devoting runes, sigils, and traits to maximizing chill uptime. If the Necro’s chill duration is unopposed by runes/traits, it goes up another 50%. The entire build focuses around chill up-time, and the net result of their effort in damage? 560 damage per second.

Yes, chill provides other useful effects, but based on your log, the amount of damage a condi necro can output in bleeds/poisons over 20 seconds isn’t even really enough to threaten you to lose any life you can’t heal back up in that time almost without even trying to do anything.

I just don’t see how it’s doing too much damage. And I don’t see how your log is accurate.

EDIT – The fact that you took 0 torment and burning damage supports your hybrid note, and might mean they went with Greatsword. But why are there no other instances of Necro direct damage? That doesn’t tickle you as odd?

Multiple Reapers. It wasn’t just one. A couple Chillblains, Marks of Blood, Reaper Marks, maybe even Terrify. There you have the Bleeding, Poison, Chilling with almost no direct damage and constant Chill/Bleeding even through Condi cleanse.

Tao.1234:

meow one twenty.4376:

Attrition doesn’t happen in a 20 second fight. That’s a huge part of the problem, in both long and short fights Chilled is the largest damage dealer. Some may argue that attrition does happen because it is constantly there, but look at the Bleeding, that was constantly there as well.

All the “only 560 damage per tick” means is that they weren’t built around high Condi damage or that they didn’t have high stacks of Might or Vuln on me. Wasn’t “High stacks of Might and Vuln” one of your arguments before (you or Tim)? Here’s an example where your argument doesn’t even come up and you somehow think that makes my argument weaker? What about the “access to Chill durarion negation,” I have Relentless Pursuit and Hoelbrak. Condi clear? Proven that I can clear other Condi’s just fine by how low my Poison and Bleed is.

Why don’t you take a look at the uptime of Terror versus Chill to think about how much a non-stacking Condi should do. Obviously it should do more damage over the duration of a fight than Terror, but should it dominate the damage in 20 second fight?

And Tim, “strongest damage dealer” is not subjective. It’s an absolute claim, which is not something I do very often.

Tao, no and no. It isn’t an obviously problem thanks to DH’s and Scrappers, but it is a problem.

20 seconds fight?
Takes a torch condi guardian to down you in less than 10 sec.
Takes TrapTorch Condi ranger to down you in less than 10 sec.
Takes BurnEngineer to down you in less than 10 sec.
For like half a year took Celeddele to down you in around 10 sec.

Burn hasn’t changed.

How come Chill is now the strongest damage dealer when it takes around 20 sec if not more to down someone?

Especially when you eagerly talk about might and vulnerability stacking while those Burn cases weren’t Might stacking dependent – except ele maybe?

Chill level is the same as Torment or Confusion.

The answer to everything you wrote here is that I am talking specifically about Reaper.

Firebird.8324:

Both power builds and GS are not run in high level pvp because YOU WILL DIE, and gravedigger WILL BE DODGED.

Literally the only option for a reaper is a Glass Carrion signet build that does chill damage. If you’re frustrated about this, take a DH and have him hit true shot on the reaper, again, again, and again, until dead.

Or hell, just run diamond skin and make fun of the carrion reaper as he cries in a corner.

I was hoping GS would at least be good at taking down revive parties. Nope. They are up by the end of the animation.

Also, can comfirm. Diamond skin Eles made me cry in the corner after they did /laugh while I was playing Carrion.

Cogbyrn.7283:

meow one twenty.4376:

How often is Chilled the main source of damage on a Chillmancer? Everytime. Typically by a significant margin. The screenshot was a short fight with multiple Reapers and the DD, and I use Relentless Pursuit and Hoelbrak. The problem is Chilled isn’t functioning as an attrition like it did before the buff, the damage was manageable and only really hurt when the person was close to losing. That was much more befitting.

Yes, Might makes things do more damage, thank you for pointing that out. I especially like Corrupting Might and Stability, but has less of an impact on the overall damage Chill will put out because of its continuous nature on the Reaper.

Meta? There isn’t even a real meta yet, it’s all a bunch of people complaining about DHs.

Revert Chill damage back to the way it was. Overall damage was around the same with a bigger snowball effect and it regains the attrition it was designed with.

That death breakdown strikes me as odd. First, as mentioned, Chill averaged 564 damage per tick. So over the course of 20 seconds, it did 10k damage. That’s attrition to me. It isn’t overly strong, but it’s consistent, and it adds up over time. You aren’t going to go burst someone down with your chill before they get any assistance. It’s a slow burn designed to make them feel the pressure.

Also, it says bleeding did 20 hits for 3000 damage. That’s 150 damage, on average, per tick. How does it add condition hits for condis that stack? I slapped a Carrion amulet on just now and put 2 stacks of bleeding on a golem, and it was ticking for 188. That means on average, this player you were fighting maintained fewer than 2 stacks of bleeding, and never applied torment or burning.

Also, the Thief hit you 3 times in what is at minimum, a 19 second fight.

It just sort of strikes me as odd, is all. And for a condition you can’t stack, 560 damage/sec doesn’t seem too bad to me.

Attrition doesn’t happen in a 20 second fight. That’s a huge part of the problem, in both long and short fights Chilled is the largest damage dealer. Some may argue that attrition does happen because it is constantly there, but look at the Bleeding, that was constantly there as well.

All the “only 560 damage per tick” means is that they weren’t built around high Condi damage or that they didn’t have high stacks of Might or Vuln on me. Wasn’t “High stacks of Might and Vuln” one of your arguments before (you or Tim)? Here’s an example where your argument doesn’t even come up and you somehow think that makes my argument weaker? What about the “access to Chill durarion negation,” I have Relentless Pursuit and Hoelbrak. Condi clear? Proven that I can clear other Condi’s just fine by how low my Poison and Bleed is.

Why don’t you take a look at the uptime of Terror versus Chill to think about how much a non-stacking Condi should do. Obviously it should do more damage over the duration of a fight than Terror, but should it dominate the damage in 20 second fight?

And Tim, “strongest damage dealer” is not subjective. It’s an absolute claim, which is not something I do very often.

Tao, no and no. It isn’t an obviously problem thanks to DH’s and Scrappers, but it is a problem.

Cogbyrn.7283:

meow one twenty.4376:

Tim.6450:

meow one twenty.4376:

I think it presents a problem when in a 20 second fight, Chill is the largest contributor to death in just damage (at a rate of 900 damage/second), that doesn’t even include how much of an impact it would have in a longer fight with the cooldown increase and movement impairment… you know, the previous primary reason for applying Chill.

Well, it’s a grandmaster on a condition with lots of counters, so it has to be strong. Another thing that has to be calculated is that the 900 damage a second is not all deathly chill only. Some of it is might, some of it is vulenrability and some of it is target the weak and maybe some other condition boosters (like sigil of bursting). So yeah if you invest that amount in it you should get some return. On its own in a rabid with nightmare runes it does only 615 damage/second.

First, as proven by many Grandmasters, a Granmaster doesn’t have to be strong. I think it should be, but it shouldn’t be a soft CC, cooldown increase, and strongest damage dealer all wrapped up in one.

Second, every condition and skill that does damage factors in Might, Vuln, and gear. What kind of a point are you trying to make?

Out of curiosity, how often is Chill the most damage with a Chillmancer? What % of the overall damage is it? It sort of seems like it being the “strongest damage dealer” is being taken as an objective fact, but it was sort of just anecdotally thrown into the mix. One of the main benefits that it has is that once Chill is on, it’s ticking nicely, as opposed to Burn and Bleed which need to build a few stacks to start rolling. However, I’d argue with all of the cleansing that can and does happen, a condi class like Chillmancer having access to a pressuring condition that can be applied while they build back up is one of the few ways to keep condi viable, outside of condi burst builds. Especially since building those stacks back up as a Necromancer can take some time.

Also, if the Chillmancer has his/her might stripped, odds are that chill is going to start ticking for much less. Like with any build, if you let the class get high stacks of might, the fight is going to become hard.

The idea that chill shouldn’t do damage also feels sort of arbitrary to me. It seems like a nice bridge for a condi spec to feel viable against cleansing, while also not allowing the Necro to spam up all of their Chill at once to stack 3600 damage/tick or anything crazy. It’s just steady, attrition-based play.

If they were to nerf the damage, what do you think would be an appropriate amount to nerf it by? The amount of damage it does against other players is going to depend a lot on cleanse timings and build. It just seems to me like there’s so much counter for chill in the game, if t’s that big of an issue that it’s destroying the meta, why not build against it? Is it bad if the meta has to be concerned about a chill-based condi spec?

How often is Chilled the main source of damage on a Chillmancer? Everytime. Typically by a significant margin. The screenshot was a short fight with multiple Reapers and the DD, and I use Relentless Pursuit and Hoelbrak. The problem is Chilled isn’t functioning as an attrition like it did before the buff, the damage was manageable and only really hurt when the person was close to losing. That was much more befitting.

Yes, Might makes things do more damage, thank you for pointing that out. I especially like Corrupting Might and Stability, but has less of an impact on the overall damage Chill will put out because of its continuous nature on the Reaper.

Meta? There isn’t even a real meta yet, it’s all a bunch of people complaining about DHs.

Revert Chill damage back to the way it was. Overall damage was around the same with a bigger snowball effect and it regains the attrition it was designed with.

Tim.6450:

meow one twenty.4376:

I think it presents a problem when in a 20 second fight, Chill is the largest contributor to death in just damage (at a rate of 900 damage/second), that doesn’t even include how much of an impact it would have in a longer fight with the cooldown increase and movement impairment… you know, the previous primary reason for applying Chill.

Well, it’s a grandmaster on a condition with lots of counters, so it has to be strong. Another thing that has to be calculated is that the 900 damage a second is not all deathly chill only. Some of it is might, some of it is vulenrability and some of it is target the weak and maybe some other condition boosters (like sigil of bursting). So yeah if you invest that amount in it you should get some return. On its own in a rabid with nightmare runes it does only 615 damage/second.

First, as proven by many Grandmasters, a Granmaster doesn’t have to be strong. I think it should be, but it shouldn’t be a soft CC, cooldown increase, and strongest damage dealer all wrapped up in one.

Second, every condition and skill that does damage factors in Might, Vuln, and gear. What kind of a point are you trying to make?

Goldenrevolver.4371:

this should be very easy to test on a pvp golem by dagger auto attacking without traits or armor except reaper on a target that has 25 stacks vuln from only other players. if you crit like 50% of the time it works if u only crit like 4% of the time its bugged…

Or go the opposite way and make your Crit chance 100% including Decimate Defenses, and if you don’t Crit then something is wrong.

Interpretor.3091:

Warriors only. Not op.

A warrior killed me today while I was playing condi. It kept popping up saying “immune” so I kept attacking it with the same things and it kill me pls nerf

Zetsumei.4975:

Yup just had the fatal crash on the 64 client sigh

:(

No Man.4180:

no not all mobile builds/classes have blink or teleport.

Well, Mesmers/Eles/Thieves have blinks. Rangers/Warriors/Engineers have leaps that ignore Chill, so I didn’t include them. Guardians aren’t mobile so they don’t count. Oh, and Revs are Revs.

Vydahr.4285:

meow one twenty.4376:

Vydahr.4285:

Muchacho.2390:

meow one twenty.4376:

Death Magic is a defensive line, but Shroud is our defense and Shroud is enhanced by Soul Reaping.

Shroud is practically enhanced in every line. Every line has something that specially effects shroud. So i dont really i understand your argument…

Shroud’s amount and a couple other things are affected by Soul Reaping. Everything else that can be done with it is in other lines. For instance, Death Magic. Gives you 180 extra toughness in shroud and gives you even more power in shroud. Blood Magic gives you siphons through shroud. Spite gives might in shroud. Reaper makes your shroud attack faster or boosts your defense against movement impeding condis. The list goes on

And to get much out of the defensive traits for Shroud you need Shroud uptime, which Soul Reaping gives.

Actually look at defensive Soul Reaping traits:

Gluttony – better LF generation
Soul Marks – LF generation
Speed of Shadows – Quicker access to Shroud
Last Gasp – LF generation, Protection, possible stunbreak
Spectral Mastery – Instant LF generation, longer lasting LF generators
Vital Persistence – LF degeneration halved
Foot in the Grave – Stunbreak on entering Shroud

Yes, DM does have defensive traits but Corruptors Fervor is the only non-Shroud trait that really increases survivability (Minions notwithstanding). Basically what I’m saying is that Shroud is so important that Soul Reaping overshadows Death Magic as a defensive tool by allowing you faster LF generation, faster re-entry to Shroud, and more ways of generating LF. 180 Toughness in Shroud only matter if you are in Shroud after all. Unholy Sanctuary need a good buff, it heals for 130 health/second on a 19000 health class… that’s about 0.7% of your health per second.

Unholy Sanctuary is actually worse than that, practically speaking, considering most builds don’t use Death Magic unless they’re building more HP and Toughness, which means it’s an even smaller fraction of a percent of healing per second

I even rounded up.

Naix.8156:

@Firebird

May I suggest a compromise and both you and PawPaw agree to delete Asurans from PvP as a show of good faith. Once we’ve removed the aids of near invisible Asuran animations, the world will be a better place and we can then negotiate which form of cancer to cure next. Loads to choose from in PvP right now.

Going that route… everyone has to play as Norn. They are the most tolerable of all the bookahs.

No Man.4180:

meow one twenty.4376:

No Man.4180:

so any ways, not only chill damage coupled with CC immensities, but there is also the Life force health bar separated from their main health bar. all three make any squishy think twice about even bothering to engage a class designed to sell HOT.

So what do you think Chill does to enhance Stability? I’m curious what connection there is.

Reaper Stability comes from two things, Chilled to the Bone and Reaper Shroud 3. If they are in Shroud you shouldn’t be near the Reaper due to all of their attacks being powerful upclose (and non-existent at range), and CttB is a 90 second cooldown Elite. Every other Stability is just designed to get the Necro back upright.

I agree with NeXeD, limit CC’s/Stability/whatever on classes that have access to Chill and it wouldn’t bother most of us. I’ve been a punching bag for long enough, it’ll be nice for everyone to be down to my level.

so chill stacks coupled with me life force and my CC immunities makes it very difficult for my targets to escape.

if they’re a speed build? chill slowed; CC build? stability; DPS build? tanked.
the only real counters come from the other HOT builds, I’m not bothered by any classic build for the most part unless I’m very out numbered.

Speed build? You mean a mobile class? They all have blinks/teleports.

CC builds are the opposite of skilled builds. The idea is to keep your target from activating skills while you knock their helpless body around and they just sit and take it. The CC in this game is too high. Besides, all you have to do is wait for the Reaper to get out of Shroud and you can CC to your hearts content.

My favorite build for taking down Reapers is a DPS hybrid build that does direct damage to their health and when they go into Shroud I load them with condi’s to watch them melt. A Reaper pm’d me after a 1v1 in Stronghold to ask wtf happened, they knew that Shroud had a 50% Damage Reduction but they didn’t know it only applied to direct damage.

Basically, I just don’t see the connection between Chill, Stability, and Shroud combining to be overpowered.

Vydahr.4285:

Muchacho.2390:

meow one twenty.4376:

Death Magic is a defensive line, but Shroud is our defense and Shroud is enhanced by Soul Reaping.

Shroud is practically enhanced in every line. Every line has something that specially effects shroud. So i dont really i understand your argument…

Shroud’s amount and a couple other things are affected by Soul Reaping. Everything else that can be done with it is in other lines. For instance, Death Magic. Gives you 180 extra toughness in shroud and gives you even more power in shroud. Blood Magic gives you siphons through shroud. Spite gives might in shroud. Reaper makes your shroud attack faster or boosts your defense against movement impeding condis. The list goes on

And to get much out of the defensive traits for Shroud you need Shroud uptime, which Soul Reaping gives.

Actually look at defensive Soul Reaping traits:

Gluttony – better LF generation
Soul Marks – LF generation
Speed of Shadows – Quicker access to Shroud
Last Gasp – LF generation, Protection, possible stunbreak
Spectral Mastery – Instant LF generation, longer lasting LF generators
Vital Persistence – LF degeneration halved
Foot in the Grave – Stunbreak on entering Shroud

Yes, DM does have defensive traits but Corruptors Fervor is the only non-Shroud trait that really increases survivability (Minions notwithstanding). Basically what I’m saying is that Shroud is so important that Soul Reaping overshadows Death Magic as a defensive tool by allowing you faster LF generation, faster re-entry to Shroud, and more ways of generating LF. 180 Toughness in Shroud only matter if you are in Shroud after all. Unholy Sanctuary need a good buff, it heals for 130 health/second on a 19000 health class… that’s about 0.7% of your health per second.

No Man.4180:

so any ways, not only chill damage coupled with CC immensities, but there is also the Life force health bar separated from their main health bar. all three make any squishy think twice about even bothering to engage a class designed to sell HOT.

So what do you think Chill does to enhance Stability? I’m curious what connection there is.

Reaper Stability comes from two things, Chilled to the Bone and Reaper Shroud 3. If they are in Shroud you shouldn’t be near the Reaper due to all of their attacks being powerful upclose (and non-existent at range), and CttB is a 90 second cooldown Elite. Every other Stability is just designed to get the Necro back upright.

I agree with NeXeD, limit CC’s/Stability/whatever on classes that have access to Chill and it wouldn’t bother most of us. I’ve been a punching bag for long enough, it’ll be nice for everyone to be down to my level.

Death Magic is a defensive line, but Shroud is our defense and Shroud is enhanced by Soul Reaping.

glaphen.5230:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I argued that Chill is perhaps the most counterable condition in the game, besides probably Fear. It looks like 7 classes have a trait that can reduce its duration by 33%. A few classes have abilities that remove Chilled specifically. Chilled can be removed with regular old condi removal, which is often prevalent in team fights and can be specced for as well. Additionally, there are two rune options which reduce condi duration by 20% (Hoelbrak) and 25% (Melandru).

All of that is ignoring the fact that you can dodge the Chilled application as well, as it is often fairly obvious in its animation (GS #5, Focus #5, Staff #5 when traited, RS #5, RS #2 when traited, Chilled to the Bone, Spectral Grasp). Staff #3 might be the most difficult version of Chill to dodge.

So given the plethora of ways to counter the Chilled condition, is it really OP? They might tune the damage, but I’m not sure. You can’t even stack it to burst with Chilled. It’s just another “slow demise” condition added into the Necromancer’s repertoire, which is part of the class’s design.

Can you tell me which class actually takes any of those traits, only one is Chronomancer guaranteed with its minor that no one has mentioned and Daredevil with the mobility dodge being nearly immune to it, maybe Elementalist. Warriors are better off taking http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Master . Engineers require the Inventions line which is only good for bunkers. Tempest needs either http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Imbued_Melodies or http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Bastion . Thief one is in Acrobatics and Daredevil gives a better one. Reaper has one but why would any of you use it over shout recharge or a nice power damage giving more chill. No Druids going to take it over http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Verdant_Etching . Either way it’s only 33% duration and it’s easy to stack up.

Unless Reaper becomes the CeleDDele of pre-HoT there is just little reason to trait for Chill. And even at that, how many non-Elite Specs are there that can reduce Chill duration more than Reaper increases Chill duration? Chill application on Reaper was designed around constant, low duration application.

I think it presents a problem when in a 20 second fight, Chill is the largest contributor to death in just damage (at a rate of 900 damage/second), that doesn’t even include how much of an impact it would have in a longer fight with the cooldown increase and movement impairment… you know, the previous primary reason for applying Chill.

No Man.4180:

Stuff

Hahaha. Like I said, go learn the game a bit and come back. I really would like you to have an actual discussion, maybe you can help my point that Chill damage needs to be nerfed.

And for those curious, I base this off of the culminated damage over the duration of a fight, and not off of damage per tick. A counterargument I’ve heard is that it is necessary to be effective due to how many classes have Chill reduction, but those traits come from Elites, which (imo) leads to a discussion on power creep.

No Man.4180:

We shouldn’t just Delete Reapers… having said that though:
The point is that Reapers attacks, shroud and weapon swap cause poison and chill passively. if those were Active skills i wouldn’t mind but they are not.
Its not about skill at that point.
further more, the lack of CC affects on the class IS annoying. Maybe Anet should review CC mechanics in earnest instead of just making them superfluous towards a specific class to sell HOT.
An lastly i see A LOT of contrived points premised around primed language to elicit an emotional response instead of pursuing the conversation rationally. Name calling and trolling proves to me that the player base exploiting these effects are aware of their power and don’t want to surrender their one hit I WIN button.

Proven that the only Passive Poison application comes from Sigils/Runes. Also proven that Chill comes from active play.

No Man.4180:

Sigmoid.7082:

“The point is that Reapers attacks, shroud and weapon swap cause poison and chill passively. if those were Active skills i wouldn’t mind but they are not.”
Sounds like you are moaning about sigils rather than the class. 99% of application is active.

Uh there is no poison sigil in pvp mate… stop using straw man attacks =/

You getting proven wrong, and then you later call “straw man” on them. Proof that you are using knowledge of logic in place of in-game knowledge.

No Man.4180:

Deathly chill, bitter chill, toxic chill, chilling nova, shivers of dread, cold shoulder and chilling darkness all cause chill…. not sure why everyone is using strawman to misconstrue the slew of chill effects available to reaper.

Not only is this wrong, you made up a skill/trait. This is fantastic. Everyone knows that Reaper has an abundance of Chill, but what does this have to do with your previous arguments? Previously you were talking about Stability and passive Chill/Poison.

No Man.4180:

Sigmoid.7082:

No Man.4180:

Deathly chill, bitter chill, toxic chill, chilling nova, shivers of dread, cold shoulder and chilling darkness all cause chill…. not sure why everyone is using strawman to misconstrue the slew of chill effects available to reaper.

• Deathly chill is the chill damage trait
• Bitter chill causes vulnerability when you cause chill
• Toxic chill….isnt even a thing?
• Chilling nova requires the target already be chilled and you to crit before it will work. Its hardly passive since you need to chill to continue chilling as well as either a trait, stat or sigil investment to crit.
• Shivers of dread means you have to fear your target, again unless you use a rune its all active play since all fear application is from active skills.
• Cold shoulder doesnt cause chill at all..it makes it last longer, again you need to apply chill to see any benefit same as chilling nova.
• Chilling dark means you have to blind someone. Again all blinds come from active skills.

There is no “passive” application. You’re saying that because you can trait something else you do to cause chill the chill is passive but by definition thats not passive at all because you still have to do something to get the chill just more things cause it.

How very confusing. Passive is more like adaptive armour or guardian virtues passive effects, signets, etc etc

i never said all of those were passive…. yet ANOTHER straw man to misconstrue what was stated.

i said “they all cause chill” which, you’re right, some of those don’t but rather buff chill.

try to stay off the straw man please. this is a discussion of interest not hate.

" The point is that Reapers attacks, shroud and weapon swap cause poison and chill passively. if those were Active skills i wouldn’t mind but they are not.
Its not about skill at that point. "

If these are active skills, then by your own admission, you wouldn’t mind them.

Do everyone a favor and either learn the game or be quiet so actual balance discussions can be done.

Morwath.9817:

Cynz.9437:

runeblade.7514:

This is how traps should work.

If you fall for a trap, you die. Simple as that.

where do thief traps fit into this logic, please explain~

…or Ranger traps.

Thieves and Rangers aren’t Guardians, so it’s okay.

Aomine.5012:

meow one twenty.4376:

MadCat.9172:

glaphen.5230:

No thanks, classes need nerfs to fix power creep.

L2P then. Or i suggest playing reaper, scraper, chrono, dragon hunter. They counter druid well.

Preventing power creep is more important.

Yeah, ofc only other classes can take the power creep not ranger.

Nice try. People still want ranger to be a free kill all along.

Pshh, I’m all for nerfing multiple specs. Go be kitten to someone else.

Zetsumei.4975:

meow one twenty.4376:

I have a friend who is having crashing problems, can you update us on whether it works or not?

I haven’t crashed so far but I do get lag in the form of violent stutters and this isn’t due to my computer, trust me I know lag and its many forms lol had a bad computer for three years and just built a new one. It’s not fps lag or skill lag, its more of a stuttering. Other than that it’s so far so good but I’m going to give it a few days before I make a comment on it.

Thank you! I’ll pass the information along!

Happened to me too. At least it wasn’t mid-game.

MadCat.9172:

glaphen.5230:

No thanks, classes need nerfs to fix power creep.

L2P then. Or i suggest playing reaper, scraper, chrono, dragon hunter. They counter druid well.

Preventing power creep is more important.

I have a friend who is having crashing problems, can you update us on whether it works or not?

My observation on DC is that it does a lock-on targetting. It locks-on to the spot directly in front of your target and will do damage to anything in between the target, or with a tiny hitbox at the targets location. The target can avoid almost all the damage by stepping backwards just slightly, and the charge will not follow the target at all. It also seems like if the target is not longer targetable, DC will continue through the previous lock-on.

Hammerguard.9834:

Clerics is too defensive and Crusaders is just trash. Where’s my middle ground? Oh right, Celestials. IT’S ALWAYS CELESTIALS.

But… Celestial is THE middleground.

glaphen.5230:

meow one twenty.4376:

glaphen.5230:

meow one twenty.4376:

glaphen.5230:

Rym.1469:

Sagat.3285:

Jekkt.6045:

shave 250 toughness off minstrel and add it as precision.

That ruins the point you don’t see zerker amulet with toughness…remove the boon duration and bring it back.

Well, the boon duration increase wasn’t even working while it was being used in tournies and it was problematic already in that state.

Link to videos where Minstrel’s was being used? Chaith only linked the finals of a tourney that had a single Minstrel’s Guardian and they lost like 150 to 500, Druids were using zerker and Celestial.

I’m pretty sure the Druids were using Minstrel, too. The second game had two bunkers autoattacking each other on a point for half the game. If I was a game developer and I saw that, I would have been embarrassed.

In my speculation, and nothing more, there’s an extremely high chance that the PvP team acted off of the Weekly EU Thursday cup.

Most notably, Vermillion vs. Car Crash finals.

I recommend you use the Re-Chat plug-in for twitch.

http://www.twitch.tv/jebrounity/v/23035369

3:17:00

That’s what Chaith posted in the Bunker Guard is Dead thread and the game at 3:17:00 only had 1 Minstrel’s on a Guardian, Druids were using Celestial and Berserker.

The zerk Druid switched before match start.

Alright so I actually watched the game and he did switch, but he also didn’t do much all game, sat home doing nothing half the match and his team was still winning, lost the fight at mid when he tried to participate anyways and nearly died but 2 ignored him and let him run. Died pretty quickly in a 1 vs 2 against a Necro and Engineer next at home. Then red team fought far for the other half of the match for some reason and failed to kill anyone with 2 druids and and a Engineers healing spam with 3 bruisers and a bunker, though I don’t know if Carrion Necromancer counts a bruiser in such a big team fight, ticklemancer maybe. He also never went below 5.5k health left besides when his Svanir runes activated to give him 5 seconds to wait for cooldowns and that was nerfed too so a Cleric’s could have done it better.

Yeah, pretty much. But what I said previously still stands. :P

glaphen.5230:

meow one twenty.4376:

glaphen.5230:

Rym.1469:

Sagat.3285:

Jekkt.6045:

shave 250 toughness off minstrel and add it as precision.

That ruins the point you don’t see zerker amulet with toughness…remove the boon duration and bring it back.

Well, the boon duration increase wasn’t even working while it was being used in tournies and it was problematic already in that state.

Link to videos where Minstrel’s was being used? Chaith only linked the finals of a tourney that had a single Minstrel’s Guardian and they lost like 150 to 500, Druids were using zerker and Celestial.

I’m pretty sure the Druids were using Minstrel, too. The second game had two bunkers autoattacking each other on a point for half the game. If I was a game developer and I saw that, I would have been embarrassed.

In my speculation, and nothing more, there’s an extremely high chance that the PvP team acted off of the Weekly EU Thursday cup.

Most notably, Vermillion vs. Car Crash finals.

I recommend you use the Re-Chat plug-in for twitch.

http://www.twitch.tv/jebrounity/v/23035369

3:17:00

That’s what Chaith posted in the Bunker Guard is Dead thread and the game at 3:17:00 only had 1 Minstrel’s on a Guardian, Druids were using Celestial and Berserker.

The zerk Druid switched before match start.