Guild Wars 2

Power necro inadvertently got a decent buff

Where are the new star combos for pvp listed online? I can’t find them anywhere and can’t log in right now.

Well based on the update notes: invigorating torrents.

We got the potential for the condition removal we wanted, and it could possibly open up shout support builds a little more than I had originally hoped since with cleansing water, and shouts and soldier runes, it will remove 2 condis per shout.

For PvP: If you want to be a more overpowered sort of hyrbid, hammer with celestial will might stack you into the skies.

I don’t think its that rangers stack well in soloqueue, but rather that good players stack well in soloqueue.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Bunker guard is about to die off thanks to ventari and druid. If you enjoy cleric guardian, pick one of those two. Entire landscape is changing anyways.

What?

Those two builds have generally poorer ways to give allies useful boons (stability especially) revive people or cleanse condis off of allies. Yeah they’re healing is way better, but support guards will still give the type of actual support people want and need (revives, stability, aegis, quickness, condition cleanses) that matter much more than heals alone.

With ventari/glint herald its arguable, but your rez/stability/condi cleanse cability for allies is still much much weaker than anything a guardian can put out. It might be seen slightly less if teamfight comps become less meta though, which would be due to better bruiser builds (reaper/scrapper) and more survivable burst builds (chronomancer/ glint/shiro herald/ trap DH) than druid or ventari outclassing guardians (which they don’t).

Personally I find bunker guard much easier to play than burn (although I take permeating wrath/supreme justice, so that could be wide). In fact its probably the first build I’d give to someone if I was teaching them how to play this game for the first time ever, since its survival is good, its support is easy, and you just need to learn what cooldowns to use and when.

I also like the lower couldown of wings of resolve and the better healing values, meaning I’ll probably use it a lot more than the base virtue.

Iohanna.4863:

How does a Glint/Shiro build reliably deal against condition spam builds?
- by playing Mallyx/Shiro (Heralds have Facet of Nature – they don’t need Glint ‘that’ much)

How does Glint/Shiro break combat and escape like a D/D Ele can do (with Fiery Great Sword and Lightning Flash)?
- Super Speed after breaking stun, and Shiro’s teleport spam.

How does Glint/Shiro maintain a Stability uptime/stun break that comes close to comparing to D/D Ele?
- Stun break spam on Shiro.

Mallyx / Shiro Herald does everything.

This is a much more compelling argument for your playstyle. By taking mallyx you gain a boost in 1v1s against condition classes (not necros though). However this comes at the cost of some of your CC and infuse light (active defense). Also the boon spam is a bit lower so in general it would be a more selfish build. We’d have to see how the meta settles, and I think your build could be viable, but your build is still extremely derivative of the strongest rev playstle, that is marauder amulet, shiro/x sword/shield etc, so its not as different as it may seem.

At any rate though, everyone focus on the topic I want to actually discuss (build diversity) instead of comparing counters/OPness for ele/rev.

Personally due to lack of character slots, for the time being I’m holding off on making a revenant until after appropriate balance patches bring their level of build diversity up, though I’ll be a bit sad that I won’t test out interseting builds like yours.

Cleric guardian is still really really strong, but lots of people I know don’t find playing the slow, point-holding, babysitter role to be all that fun. They want to be fast, mobile, and kill everything in sight, even though playing a support guard is logically a better choice for solo queue since most people don’t know how to outrotate it (which is pretty easy).

I know this is of unpopular opinion, but I think a support dragonhunterbuild could be more fun since you’d have way more CC over base support guardian (it has very little).

Iohanna.4863:

Jekkt.6045:

no stunbreak on mallyx and the condi pressure is also not that great. the heal is also inferior.

No need to use torment abilities just because they’re available to you. Just spam Pain Absorption – there’s no cool down on it.

You get Stun Breaks on Legend Swap, and Shiro has Stun Breaks on demand. Yes, you will be vulnerable to CC in the 10 seconds after you have just swapped to Mallyx – but I find that an acceptable price for going from virtually no condition removal to complete immunity to conditions.

BWE2 and before I’d say the mallyx was actually pretty viable (and the best 1v1 build for the class by a good margin), however its condition pressure took a huge hit when Roy gutted the condition copy mechanic, meaning it can’t condi bomb effectively in teamfights anymore, and unyielding anguish can no longer be used to stop stomps/rezzes, so why even both when your torment ticks will do so little compared to the utter lack of utility? Pain absorption’s energy cost is a tad high.

Mallyx builds can still remove boons fairly well, but various necromancer/reaper and mesmer/chronomancer builds can still provide better boon removal over time (and in AoE too).

Edit: your build seems odd. I think a power build (more example of bad build diversity) could take corruption traits (although its a bit inferior of a choice) but the mallyx utilities don’t do much for it at all compared to shiro. Even jalis feels better, though it still has its flaws.

Azure.8670:

didnt read

d/d has no counter
Reaper handles Rev quite well, so no.

Well at least you told me you didn’t read before you posted something completely irrelevant to what I was discussing.

I was comparing revenant to elementalist in terms of viable pvp build diversity.

Exciton.8942:

Triflux.8027:

The funny thing is, even with the burst combo, its been ages since I one shot anyone from 100 – 0, except for zerker thieves.

And most decent players can tell your burst coming from miles away, and will just dodge away. Which lead me to include Mantra of Distraction.

Which means, I have zero conditions cleanse aside from Sigil of Generosity.

So burn guards and D/D kill me all the time.. I don’t think that makes us OP when we have a hard counter.

You won’t be able to one-shot almost anyone because the abundunce of passive proc. Not even thief because they all wear vampirism runes.

At launch they’re reworking the mist form to be an AoE lifesteal prof instead, so you’re incorrect in your reasoning due to a lack of information.

The ironically, scrapper and herald will have the option to have a similar if not stronger proc that’s similar in design to the vamp must form.

Silverkey.2078:

I think they can do a similar thing for bun guards as they did for D/D ele: change purging flame so that you get the main burns when cast but then only 1 stack when crossing. This allows burn guard to still work somewhat in high tier PvP (where it is balanced) but allow low tier PvP not to get smashed as much.

I disagree. It would only serve to hamper build diversity within burn builds (by making shield a non viable option) and would be a huge loss in damage in teamfights where those burns need to stack kinda high before they’re AoE cleansed 2 seconds later. Burn guard sustain is also considerably lower than that of a D/D ele, so it’s more balanced that they can do so much potential AoE burn at the cost of being frail. This would also shift dps guard back towards power builds which as saiyan said, really have a ton of potential that most people don’t expect right now.

princode.2750:

Best 1v1….u must be joking. Play all new spec during beta. Best new 1v1 spec will be choro, engi and revent. Reaper is on the same level as warrior and ranget new spec. Even the improvment reaper will still consider average. People just want nerco to remain low tier. Also king of 1V1 will still bt d/d ele. So what if a.reaper can genrate so many might when the base damage sucks

If I enter a fight with 45K HP (or higher), (and actually good deathshroud skills with reaper) I have a significant advantage over the D/P thief with 11K HP. Have you not forgotten that condi/celestial/marauder necromancer has the most favorable matchup against D/D elementalist (usually considered to be the best 1v1 class) out of anything in the game? Part of this is because we have high debuff pressure and chill to kitten up water attune CDs, and part of it is because we can potentially enter the fight with much higher health than they have.

And yes, D/P thief could eventually win by resetting the fight repeatedly, but only if he was good enough to never make a single mistake, and by that point, it’d be worthless since a plus from either side should have entered the fight before it’d take that long.

You have to think of all of the variables in a 1v1, and a necromancer has the potential to be either the best or the worst 1v1er based on how much life force it has when that 1v1 starts. Watch any top tier pvper stream, they tend to avoid (unless absolutely necessary) 1v1ing necromancers after the first minute of the game unless they know they have a conditional advantage over the necro.

Just posting some food for thought, and this post’s argument probably isn’t the type you’d expect at first from the title.

Glint/Shiro herald with marauder, sw/shield and either staff or hammer is assured to be an extremely powerful build in conquest. It has solid damage, good support through boons, and most importantly, good access to active defenses through evades and crystalline hibernation. I’m not going to argue whether or not this set of skills makes revenant overpowered or not, since thats a waste of time. Instead I’m going to compare the build diversity of the class to that of the class that is among the lowest in viable pvp build diversity.

Now the crux of my argument, comparing it to D/D Elementalist is that I fear that every other legend besides glint and shiro pales in comparison to what the two of them bring to the table. Mallyx lost a lot of its niche and utility when it was rebalanced, and the supremacy of burn damage in this game makes it still a subpar condition spec in high tier pvp (condi rev also has limited weaponset choices and horrible active defense against focus fire). Jalis provides a tanky brawler/CC playstyle without the and without too much sustain and only some active defense against CC. Ventari provides sustain, but no useful active defense or ability to negate focus fire. Meanwhile glint provides every boon your team would want in most situations, a heal skill that doubles as an active defense, and shiro provides enough capture point rotation power, evade/stunbreak quickness and CC to hold it together. The only true weakness of the build is sustained condition pressure in a 1v1 (allies can cleanse you in teamfights), and even then, crystalline hibernation and the glint heal mitigate this weakness quite well to be quite managable and balanced.

Based on my testing, most of the condition/tank/healer builds with corresponding weapons and amulets and traits felt lackluster compared to marauder glint shiro. These builds had issues because of limited useful weaponsets for their overlyspecialized niches (such as mace/axe only viable weapons for condi) and generally poor access to stunbreaks and active defense. Ironically glint/shiro, being overly specialized towards direct damage felt the most useful and versatile in each different scenario, in part because of its high amounts of active defenses, stunbreaks and multitude of useful weaponsets (you can take any combination of sword, staff, hammer, or any offhand and make it work very well, other builds feel more limited in that regard).

Compare this to D/D elementalist. For years all they’ve had was water/arcane traits to spam heals and defenses and condition cleanses just to stay alive, and they later gained good damge/mightstacking last April and have been stuck that way ever since. Any build thats a major deviation from water/arcane/defensive cantrip utilities has been completely overshadowed by a much higher margin than the comparative meta and non-meta builds on other classes. You could run a decent burst build with fresh air, but it sucked compared to every other dps build in pvp. You could try a condition build almost viably after they reworked conditions, but it didn’t have the sustain to be worth using. D/P thief and contemporary theif build diversity in spvp is another case study that highlights the disparities i build diversity of the revenant.

So now, this is not a nerf-herald thread. Its simply a plea to critically think about the viability of other legends/builds/playstyles in comparision with the build that has emerged as the almost definite pvp meta build for the class based on the betas. The thing I want most of all in this game is viable build diversity, and thats somethingI will always advocate for.

Granted we don’t know if many other buffs have happened to mallyx/ventari/jalis for launch, but I think its something we should keep in mind moving forward as we figure out the full potential of the Revenant profession in spvp.

Anyways, discuss.

tl;dr- for those of you thinking I’m comparing them in terms of lack of counters or overpoweredness, thats not what I’m doing, I’m comparing their lack of viable build diversity.

The only thing even close to overpowered about reaper is the fast might ramp up time, which could easily be solved by splitting the might traits into other traitlines so we wouldn’t need spite/soulreaping/reaper in every single pvp build we make.

And like I’ve said before, reaper (and base necormancer) is conditionally the strongest 1v1 class, provided that you engage that 1v1 with full or mostly full life force, a condition that is dependent on you and your team being able to kill everyone else in an opening teamfight first, which can be a tall order against good teams since you don’t start with life force. Blighter’s boon and the right comp works around that weakness.

Yes it does, however you still have to leave air attunement in order to proc the trait, meaning you can only bypass the 20 second increased cooldown, not the 5 second pre-cooldown time when switching into air before the overload is available.

And yes, the most viable builds for Tempest use either fresh air or bunker with water/arcane.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Supcutie.2538:

Good post, I think it addresses a real concern in the community of the game.
I’ve cross-referenced a lot of people in blind questioning about which professions they perceive get the most flak, and overall it seems like Mesmer definitely gets disproportionately more complaints than other professions for a given level of balance.
Even during the cele meta over the past year I would get mes op complaints, despite only two Mesmers going to WTS, and Mesmer representation in ESL being relatively low.
I talked to Roy about this at the Pax Prime party and he acknowledged Mesmer has struggled. Fortunately they’ve listened to the stats and not the complaints this time and brought Mesmer up.

About the original post, for sPvP, dueling is not the strong suit of Mesmer in a higher end match. It’s actually too much of a liability with ganks. Much better to have a tanky/bruiser duelist who can survive ganks than a Mesmer. Mesmer does much better in smaller skirmishes and rotations with Portal. With Chrono, it looks like it will have a pretty strong team fight presence.

It’s possible Chrono does need to be toned down, but I would like everyone to understand that among the top players right now, Scrapper and Revenant are seen as even stronger than Chrono.
The way I like to put it is that the Mesmer base mechanics really exploit inexperienced players (which was mentioned in the original post). Mesmer is annoying, that’s what it’s supposed to be. However being annoying is mutually exclusive of being OP.
Once you understand Mesmer mechanics like being able to pick out which Mesmer is the real one, or counting cooldowns so you know when there are openings, the class becomes a lot less mysterious.
Also, there will always be professions that are better or worse than each other given any state of mmo balance; one class will always be on top. Maybe Mesmer is there or close this time? Is that really a bad thing? After years of struggling? The truth is, I’m along for the ride regardless, but people do need to chill out a bit with the complaining. Shift your complains over to Revenant, trust me the game will need it unless it gets nerfed before release.

What do you guys think?

Rev? Sure. But Scrapper in the right engie main hands? ….watch yourselves.

That’s what it really comes down to though. Having these classes (and elite specs) in the right hands. This ties back into the fact that skill truly does come into it. Those with more skill, those who understand their class better, they’re going to shine and put other players, particularly new ones and your general scrubs, into their place.

Thus they run to the forum and instead of l2thread, continue to face smash their keyboard like they do their toons

Agreed.

At least with Scrapper, whose sustain/damage as a bruiser is probably unmatched beyond anything we’ve ever seen in conquest, I can rest easy knowing that the amount of button pressing needed to make it work eludes most normal players (myself included, I=noobengisaurus).

Revenant in my mind seems to be almost more forgiving considering how powerful cycling active defenses and mobility skills of the glint/shiro syndrome. The thing is for revenant though, I feel as though they’ll have D/D ele syndrome, in which everything they try to run that isn’t a power glint/shiro build will fall flat on its face. Mallyx was nerfed into insipidity making it a second rate condi-tank, Jalis is a tank with no real active defense or sustain, and Ventari has too active defense for the decent sustain it brings. I fought a marauder glint/shiro herald last beta and couldn’t kill it or even get a decap in a 2v1 since he cycled his active defense cooldowns (evades, 2x soothing bastion, staff/sword evades, etc.) very well (and my partner was a condi-thief, so not too useful).

But still I doubt anet will nerf it until after league season 1 to help sell the game.

style.6173:

Burns are definitely broken. That’s obvious at this point. They were also broken during the last beta weekend so don’t expect anything to change with HoT. The issue with burns is that the burst is way too high given that you can build defensively and still have that burst.

Of course, there are those who defend burns and the argument goes like this:

1. Supporter: Run more condi clear
2. Burns are OP: but even if i run max condi clear, you can still apply more burns than I can clear
3. Supporter: Well, offense needs to be greater than defense
4. Burns are OP: So, basically you should always win?
5. Support: Exactly

Then it sounds like you won’t be happy until you take 0 damage from conditions at all. I mean condition builds are already so far removed from the meta that 1v1s are all they really can do with any degree of reliability when everyone AoE cleanses eachother in teamfights.

Way too busy with midterms to be starting an argument on the forums but:

As per mesmer, see link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-is-OP-Facts-vs-Fiction/first#post5633684

As per burning, bring more condition removal, if you play a trooper rune guardian/warrior your team will be immune to condis just from having you in a fight. Try playing burn guard or other condi builds on other classes if you think its really that broken so you can learn its strengths and limitations.

As per celestial, you need tons of easy mightstacking and tons of healing/damage mitigation to make it work, which is more of an issue of elementalist and scrapper mechanics being too strong in certain situations with a foundation of balanced stats.

Mesmerizing simply maintain the illusion of being overpowered to mentally debilitate and manipulate their opponent further, when in reality it’s one of the harder classes to play burst builds as due to the timing involved (since the nerfs to reasonable things I mean).

I think for launch at the very least we can expect changes to earthen proxy and latent stamina, since Karl indicated he was working on them.

If there’s a heat sync or air overload nerf though, I’m afraid Ill even lose rational thought for the good of the tempest, since those are the two best things about the spec.

posthumecaver.6473:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

nearlight.3064:

posthumecaver.6473:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

princode.2750:

We still have d/d ele spec to fall back of tempest wont workout fot us. D/e spec will still be the strongest even with the release of new spec

After 3 years of exactly the same spec a lot of people get bored though. That’s why I’m gonna change to Revenant main in HoT, so much new fun stuff.

Exactly my thoughts, every gear for my Revenant is ready, I will main Revenant until something relevant happens with Tempest. Reaper, Chrono, Revenant are so fun there is no need to play same old Ele.

Godly D/D is still there, if I miss him, I will comeback to it.

So basically you’ll only play a spec or class if it’s confirmed to be more or less overpowered by the majority of the game’s community? not trying to attack your position or anything, but it’s odd to me that people choose to play only the strongest and most meta things when we have such a large pool of possibilities that allow for a high degree of creativity, and the builds that we can create can be on par with those meta options.

You don’t have a choice if you want to play an ele in pvp because you enjoy the class. There is only d/d water+arcane+cantrips, there always only was. And after 3 years of playing that spec – 1 year where elementalists were so extremely bad you got flamed for bringing one into unranked pvp – things get boring.

Exactly, I play this class for 3 years, during none of this time there wasn’t two viables specs for two environment (D/D for PVP and Staff for PVE), what is cripple Ele most the developers fear to introduce anything in Ele that might make OP because it is such a tough profession to balance.

It is hard to believe people who are designing Reaper/Herald/Chrono is also designing Tempest which feels so dull.

With Revenant, there is so much to discover a new way to play, not in the same level but Reaper and Chrono also.

I guess my issue with revenant (and potential bandwagoning) is that glint/shiro builds have been made to be much stronger than all the others. Since the mallyx nerf, and the general lack of use in ventari/jalis, I feel as though the revenant’s build diversity isn’t as great as everyone thinks it is.

@Laraley, I wouldn’t say tempest is strictly worse than taking a base class trait line, it’s just different. The boonspam it brings is stronger than base ele for sure, and since fire was nerfed, I think it’s viable to drop fire for tempest to use come of its components.

@oneclick, I guess personally I like tempest more because I don’t always like the high apm style of base ele (necro main here and I like guardian so yeah).

In general though, since I multiclass, I don’t feel too bogged down by tempests relative inferiority, but I still plan to play it for fun, though maybe not competitively like I will for reaper, and potentially dragonhunter.

I agree that there should be a stunbreak trap, but it has to be one that clearly tries to be defensive… however none of those traps try to do that..

tichorum.2415:

This style would include, but is not limited to, a more new-player-friendly approach explaining basic decision making and more or less a less chaotic experience.

Does this mean less jokefully bashing of rangers and other various non-meta builds and choices?

Just saying, I mean I know its all in good fun, but you guys sounded really critical of certain builds (like the MM necro on monday, or the rabid condi necro a few weeks ago) which some players may take offense to.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

nearlight.3064:

posthumecaver.6473:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

princode.2750:

We still have d/d ele spec to fall back of tempest wont workout fot us. D/e spec will still be the strongest even with the release of new spec

After 3 years of exactly the same spec a lot of people get bored though. That’s why I’m gonna change to Revenant main in HoT, so much new fun stuff.

Exactly my thoughts, every gear for my Revenant is ready, I will main Revenant until something relevant happens with Tempest. Reaper, Chrono, Revenant are so fun there is no need to play same old Ele.

Godly D/D is still there, if I miss him, I will comeback to it.

So basically you’ll only play a spec or class if it’s confirmed to be more or less overpowered by the majority of the game’s community? not trying to attack your position or anything, but it’s odd to me that people choose to play only the strongest and most meta things when we have such a large pool of possibilities that allow for a high degree of creativity, and the builds that we can create can be on par with those meta options.

You don’t have a choice if you want to play an ele in pvp because you enjoy the class. There is only d/d water+arcane+cantrips, there always only was. And after 3 years of playing that spec – 1 year where elementalists were so extremely bad you got flamed for bringing one into unranked pvp – things get boring.

Hmmm… I guess that explains why I don’t play ele all the time 1000%. Its just boring. Tempest was different enough that I found it fun. But I’m a true multi-classer, so it doesn’t really have the same crippling meaning to me as it does to you guys.. but I also don’t feel the need to bandwagon to things like Herald that can easily a hold a point 1v2 in marauder.. so yeah.

Dadnir.5038:

Mobius.7041:

I disagree, especially because we already pretty much use Dagger only with every Necro PvE build, there’s no diversity. Why does Dagger have to be useful for Reaper in terms of raw dps? Can’t it be just a PvP Weapon or the best choice for every other Necro build? It’s like creating a Berserker Warrior and trying to play a Condition build with Torch, but Rifle with Condition Damage does more damage, so you have to use rifle most of the times because it’s better, overshadowing the unique aspect of the Torch. That was just a random example, but you get the idea. “But other weapon does not eclipse the Greatsword” Dagger does eclipse Greatsword in terms of dps on targets with more than 50% hp, you pretty much use Greatsword to spam Gravedigger after the 50% mark and that’s about it. Dagger is already a dominant weapon and I don’t want that for Reaper, it really dumbs down the experience of the specialization.

That’s no sense…
Reaper, if anything, is the master of chill not the master of DPS. Beside, you mainly use Dagger for LF generation and then play with RS.

Would you deny to the Berserker to use longbow or sword off hand because they are condi weapon and it step on the toes of the torch?

Would you deny the elementalist to use any other OH weapon than the War horn should be the best weapon to gain the aura that tempest support so much? (note that there is not even a skill that create an aura on the war horn)

Would you deny the possibility to the dragon hunter to be effective with any other weapon than the longbow?

If you see daredevil playing sword or dagger, will you say that they cheat or whatever?

etc.

The weapon that the elite spec gain don’t define these spec, they support the theme of these spec. And the theme of the Reaper is chill, which is supported by the chill on auto attack 3rd, the chill on grasping darkness and the possibility to add chill on blind on nightfall.

Just wanted to chime in and say that your idea is mostly right (new weapons are new options, not as defining as new traits and mechanics), but you failed to realize that they added an aura to earth 4 or tempest warhorn.

And in general I feel that most people are just too comfortable with their current weapons to really consider the elite spec weapons as fully fleshed out options since we haven’t had too much time to experiment with them, but many across all classes have been finetuned enough to be amazing weapons on a huge range of builds (ie chronomancer shield, DH bow on any dps build, scrapper hammer, etc.)

posthumecaver.6473:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

princode.2750:

We still have d/d ele spec to fall back of tempest wont workout fot us. D/e spec will still be the strongest even with the release of new spec

After 3 years of exactly the same spec a lot of people get bored though. That’s why I’m gonna change to Revenant main in HoT, so much new fun stuff.

Exactly my thoughts, every gear for my Revenant is ready, I will main Revenant until something relevant happens with Tempest. Reaper, Chrono, Revenant are so fun there is no need to play same old Ele.

Godly D/D is still there, if I miss him, I will comeback to it.

So basically you’ll only play a spec or class if it’s confirmed to be more or less overpowered by the majority of the game’s community? not trying to attack your position or anything, but it’s odd to me that people choose to play only the strongest and most meta things when we have such a large pool of possibilities that allow for a high degree of creativity, and the builds that we can create can be on par with those meta options.

I think sentinels would work quite well. And fragments of faith is the perfect trap for this build (or any build really, it’s that good).

Some other ideas to think about: maybe running receive the light or the heal trap over shelter, if you keep cleric, maybe running valor over virtues, and also consider running bulwark over the fragments of faith proc trait, since shield of courage is really strong.

I also think it would be feasible to drop virtues on a cleric build because the wonderful active functions of the dragonhunter virtues aren’t as dependent on virtue traits to not completely suck, unlike base guardian active virtues.

Edit: just clarifying, you wouldn’t want to drop virtues if you go sentinels since valor’s healing wouldn’t really be worth it in that case.

Ravezaar.4951:

“For PvP purposes, the only big improvement of Reaper over base necro is the sustain it has through Blighter’s Boon for its sustain build.”

This has very little to no effect in 1v1 situations tho, and in those base Necro has far better sustain.

Actually, if you run spite traits it will have a very significant effect on you in 1v1s, and even without that, your comparison is pointless considering necromancer (and reaper) is conditionally the strongest 1v1 build in the game, conditional on the variable that is the amount of life force you have before engaging in that 1v1.

Meanwhile you’re right about blighters boon in teamfights, it makes reaper work synergistically with most of the major teamfight builds on other classes.

vicious.5683:

Reaper doesn’t needs nerfs. Au contraire we need dps buffs to have a spot in raids.

Aren’t they taken anyway simply for boon removal? I don’t think chronomncer boon rip would be enough.

I’m pretty sure absolute resolution gives you the cleanse at the end of wings of resolution skill. I can’t comment on indomitable courage, but if tempest overloads can break stun than it should be able to, or else it’s a bug.

I’m also finding that virtues and dragonhunter don’t necessarily need to be played together unless you go for burn or support builds.

Just in general for condi people: condi bomb the necro and LoS like crazy so his transfers get obstructed and watch him melt.

Also @Vague Memory, 50% damage reduction, what? Thats not a thing for necromancers unless they run putrid defense and reaper and spectral mastery and somehow keep poison/chill up on you the whole time, and even then their protection uptime is only 48% uptime at best.

Hmmm on this note, what do you guys think of thief viability in stronghold?

Ravezaar.4951:

In what Area of the Game is the Reaper OP ?

In sPvP where the only semi-vaible Necro build is Cele-Signet and that will be reduced now after fix to Cele-Ele… so Reaper will come in with GS and and hit those 4year long cast-time Gravedigger on pro-tourney players ?

In WvW where Reaper in big Zerg fights will still base there Utility skills on Wells for Range Max AoE-Dps and Staff for the same reason ? If u wanna go Melee range Reaper in Zerg fights well then u have to adapt with less then Zerkiest Gear.. so thats where u wanna Nerf ?

In PvE those Reaper Gravediggers gonna edge out the crurrent Ele + Warrior + Guard buff-bots ? compete in dps with Sinsiter Engis that totally dominated the so called “first raid kills” ?

Where is the need for this OP Reaper in your opinion then ?

Long cast-time with big rewards is the key line you should base the Reaper on. So it comes down to the number of landed big hits on a Target and in any type of PvP situation the fight vs a high Evade class can be over before u even land 1 of those hits. The only thing that feels remotely to strong atm in Reaper is 12 stax of Posion on Soul Spiral… the only thing !!!

Bah, screw cele signets. The things reaper on many different various builds can do far outweighs that build. Cele signets is good at killing eles. Outside of that its lackluster. There are many reaper builds that can bring so much more to a teamfight while being harder to kill, even if the ele 1v1 isn’t as easy. Just being able to sustain versus them is enough imo.

I expect most people to complain about might stacking bruiser builds with loads of sustain that can sit at 25 might with a faster might ramp uptime than ever before. Some people will beg and scream for blighters boom to get an IcD.

Water/arcane tempest with cele works as a teamfight build and fire/water tempest with cele isn’t bad either.

Run earth instead of fire for your S/F build so you get earth cooldowns and written in stone to actually survive.

Shadowstep.6049:

nearlight.3064:

Shadowstep.6049:

I just wonder one thing: are devs even aware how heavily thieves rely on vamp runes?

Worst part is, mesmers (which are main reason why vamp rune is mandatory) getting buffed in HoT….

And thieves are getting extra dodges, extra stealth, and the ability to spam weakness. You need to adapt and realize how not using this tune will make you a better player.

- extra stealth? from what?

Leap finisher dodge through black powder.

Who knows, maybe we’ll see some crazy sentinel’s pointholding dodge-tank thief. It probably won’t happen, but it’d be interesting for sure.

Hunter.4783:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I can’t wait to get that Zealot amulet (assuming it happens), it’ll open up so many DPS/Support builds.

You pretty much leave yourself open to burst

I really don’t see how healing power will be able to give us enough sustain to face something scary like a reaper, scrapper or chrono.

Yeah I don’t think sinister/zealots will be that great for guardians simply because of the low health pool disadvantage. I think a trap build with carrion (or marauder for that matter) would still be viable though.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWncfC1oh1qBmpBEgilTjiMAWggqOaz2tFdMSqrA-TpwXAAw+DcZAA

Scepter and shatter skills scale very well with power, making the newly announced sinister amulet a likely viable choice for a condition build.

Basically wander around bursting people down with condis. The survivability will probably be horrid, but the damage will probably be insane. I’m quite sure that this build is the reason why perplexity runes are best left in PvEland.

You can replace domination with dueling (take DE and lost time), but if you do that, change the mantra to well of precog or decoy or something of that nature.

Note: this build link uses rampager, but it will be switched to sinister.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmQDbkjGKvxabwzG4vxSxgFvDHiJRqnwU4WFFAGAFAA-TJhHwACOCAh2fAwBBoZZAA

Just an idea I had since we’re getting Sinister amulet for pvp, and because it will be a PvE mirror set with 1200 condi damage, 900 power, and 900 precision, I honestly think only necromancer/reaper, chronomancer/mesmer, and berserker will be able to use it, since things like burn guardian/DH don’t have enough health to make it worthwhile (even though they’ll be able to stealth with traps).

So without further adieu I propose this build to you guys. My goal was to create a non-celestial hybrid build that didn’t rely on sigets and mightstacking. I know master of corruption isn’t a very popular choice for obvious reasons, but I like it a lot because it gives you a better balance of sustain and damage/boon rip without needing to trait signets.

Anyway, feel free to love it or hate it, but let me know what you guys think.

Shadowstep.6049:

I just wonder one thing: are devs even aware how heavily thieves rely on vamp runes?

Worst part is, mesmers (which are main reason why vamp rune is mandatory) getting buffed in HoT….

And thieves are getting extra dodges, extra stealth, and the ability to spam weakness. You need to adapt and realize how not using this tune will make you a better player.

Most likely zealots at the very least based on his eager response to my thread on the subject.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Well it’s also about how Guild Wars 2 is leaning towards too much stealth play. If this trapper rune is released we’ll now have Rangers and Guardians being added to the list of classes with viable stealth.

Classes with viable stealth after trapper is released:

• Thief
• Mesmer
• Ranger
• Engineer
• Guardian

Classes without viable stealth:

• Warrior
• Revenant
• Elementalist
• Necromancer

That’s going to be 5 classes with viable stealth opposed to 4 without. This is a problem because many attacks in the game require actual targeting to hit. When most of the classes in the game are able to stealth and deny the enemy of targeting, I believe it will create more balance issues than arena-net is anticipating.

I disagree that it will cause balance issues. People in stealth can’t cap a point, and the selfish nature of trap stealth keeps it from being used like a thief, mes, scrapper, or Druid can to Rez allies. It will only really be used to disengage, and I’m glad that two classes with poor disengage ability will get a tool to help correct their deficiency in this important component that’s holding dps guard and various ranger builds back from being truly greats

The only time stealth has ever been too strong was PU with 100% duration, and that was because it made Mesmer too easy to play due to the simplicity of the stealth skills. With trap runes you need to blow important offensive and defensive cool downs to gain the stealth, and using it offensively means you’ll easily get revealed. You won’t be able to use it to make easy stealth approaches or endlessly reset the fight simply because your resources to do that are limited compare to what a prenerf PU mes or shadow arts thief can do.

Also worth mentioning is that we don’t know how action camera mode will work with stealth, but it might make it easier to hit stealthier targets with projectiles.

And my previous argument still stands.. Trap Rangers will still struggle with a condition weakness and a CC weakness no matter how you look it at it, which will make all that stealth a lot less powerful as you think it could.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Do not bring this to spvp in it’s current form:

• (1): +25 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (2): The Condition Duration Duration of conditions you apply last 10% longer.
• (3): +50 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (4): When you use a trap skill, you gain 3 seconds of super speed.
• (5): +100 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (6): Gain 3 seconds of Currently invisible. Ends if you deal damage. Stealth when using a trap skill.

Even as a Ranger main I have to call bullkitten on this one. I’m telling you, this is exactly what is going to happen:

• Ranger with as much stealth as a Thief – This further takes away from the role of the Thief and his purpose. This is not good as the Thief seems to be losing his role anyway.
• Super Speed on every trap proc – This mixed with Quickening Zephyr + Stealth will create Ranger specs that will be literally uncatchable/unkillable. No, I’m not joking around about this, ask any of the other avid Ranger players on this forum and they’ll agree.
• No one will use Druid trait line. The Druid trait line will become useless because everyone will be running pure DPS AoE nuke builds on the Ranger. Builds that are uncatchable and unkillable at that.

This rune simply offers too much disengage for the Ranger. If you insist on releasing this rune in spvp, it needs to be reworked immediately and it should look morel like this:

• (1): +25 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (2): The Condition Duration Duration of conditions you apply last 10% longer.
• (3): +50 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (4): When you use a trap skill, you gain 3 seconds of PROTECTON.
• (5): +100 Condition Damage Condition Damage
• (6): When you use a trap skill, you gain 3 seconds of STABILITY.

Or whatever it is that you decide on. Either way, do not add the current trapper rune in it’s current form. If you do, I will personally fraps up a great video on day 1 release of this rune and show you why this is an incredibly bad idea.

Trap builds on ranger will still be weak because they have poor condition cleanse and poor ability to handle CC and focus fire, partially because none of the traps have a stunbreak, plus they all have cast times. Also, I’d wager that the current weakness of ranger builds, especially condition ranger builds, is that they have poor disenegage compared to other classes. I do see them being potentially a bit overtuned in 1v1s, but thats more due to the condition output of the traps themselves rather than anything the runeset gives them. For power ranger builds, I find it balanced because you’re forced to take +condition damage on your runeset so your power damage is lower in exchange for all the stealth you get, AND the traps themselves don’t seem to be particularly useful for a power builds in terms of damage.

Dragonhunter trap builds will end up being a bit more balanced since they will have better stunbreak and cleansing, can work for either power or condi, and they actually require these runes to not feel completely kitten for not using meditations, so personally I’d suggest looking at the larger picture of builds on other classes before you suggest changes that would kitten other builds on other professions.

And once we adequately test it, if it proves to be too strong, we can always suggest that they shave the stealth duration down to 2 seconds. Your suggestions would actually make condition rangers even more overtuned in holding a point in 1v1, which may be good for them in those 1v1s. The current beauty of these runes in conquest pvp is that its a trade-off between disengage and pointholding power, you can’t do both at the same time, and I’d rather we keep that duality to trap builds instead of pigeonholing them into a sidenode bunker build, because those builds aren’t very viable in higher tier matches because they’re inflexible and can’t adapt very well to different scenarios, they can’t teamfight or hold a point in a teamfight, and stealth runes would give them tools to not be completely focus fired out of existence in a teamfight.

Don’t forget that the almost assuredly meta builds for herald and scrapper (and even dragonhunter) will have extremely high access to revealed, so stealth won’t be as godmode as you think it will be.

tl:dr- Trapper runes will probably be fine as is.

Why isn’t procession of blades a whirl finisher?

Ross Biddle.2367:

Who cares what we’ll be running. I’ll just be glad not to have to wait 4 extra seconds to knock that last lick of life off an already done and dusted target -_-u

Honestly, I just wasted you. What makes you think you deserve to continue breathing?

Godkitten vampires.

While I’m glad they ended up basically using my suggestion of the AoE lifesteal for the replacement proc, I wish they went with your idea instead and allowed the runes to forcibly turn the user into a vampire that instadies in daytime maps.

Dirame.8521:

Heh….heheh….. hehehehehehehehehehehehehe.

There are a few issues with the Trapper runes. Stealth lasts 2 seconds, you have to use valuable cooldowns to activate them and if someone steps into your trap…. well bye bye stealth.

That being said there might still be a way to use it effectively. I just need to test if I’m correct first.

I guess my thought process is that the stealth is more of disengage and repositioning tool rather than something you rely on to engage the enemy like a PU carried bandwagon mes prenerf. And to be honest I think the most important part of the stealth is losing target from the enemy (especially when focused in teamfights), and the super speed carries you from there. Also the wiki says its 3 seconds, which doesn’t matter too much. Although the new targetting system could render that part moot though. I’ll PM you the build idea I have since you’d probably be able to help me tweak it better than most people could.

Not really that into raids, but a poster here discussed a condition tempest build that she did quite well with for the content. It was D/WH rabid/sinister and used earthen proxy to ensure it had enough damage mitigation with all of its toughness that the signet heal could sustain the attacks that weren’t wholly dodgeable, and apparently the burn output and boonshare skills with such a build ended up being quite high. I’d imagine you’d start out in earth to stack protection with earth overload, then camp fire to burn everything forever.