Guild Wars 2

Leeto.1570:

So my idea would be: Make life force regenerate out of combat and cut the base life force pool by 50%
Remove life force gains from deaths but other ways of gaining life force are fine to maintain it in combat.
This would basicly make necros have 50% life force at all times when going into combat and from there it would depend on necros ability to manage life force, it really feels that current 50% is where its balanced.
This would open up alot of build variety too cause atm every necro is forced to go 4 pts in soul reaping just to have some life force in PVP or take minions.
Out of combat life force probobly should regenerate over like 15-20 seconds so it cant be abused.

That’s not the same. There is a big difference between 15%(spectral grasp) LF from 10000 LF and 15% from 5000 LF.

Hammer: control/support weapon
nr 1: weakness, nr 2: AoE blind, … … …
Axe (off hand): movement control weapon
nr 4: Pull, …

Axe (main hand): 900 range
Dagger (main hand): Cleave

I’m against bows, guns and shiled.

Rhizo.5089:

Yes, if you are going to move FiTG to the adept level then something will have to give to provide balance. Making a class OP’d is bad for the game. You do want the game to succeed in keeping n active population no?

I dont like the whole idea not only the ICD part.

Rhizo.5089:

=
That is why when I suggested FiTG at adept level, I qualified that suggestion with: " If cooldowns or whatever needs to be adjusted do so."

Are you kidding me ? ICD on FiTG ?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Spinal Shivers with Spiteful Talisman, a proc of Chill of Death (more Spinal Shivers), Unholy Feast crippling (all three of those have been boon removal abilities as well), Doom while they are mid-mobility skill, Dark Path to catch up and chill more (which isn’t boon removal for me, but could be), Well of Darkness traited to tick chill, Dark Pact immob, Tainted Shackles immob, and if I happen to have it, Corrupt Boon.

One well timed teleport and you can forget about most of your skills.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Yes, you apply 14k damage over 14 seconds. You calculated it wrong, it’s 14k total if moving, not 21k.

To one target. In a zerg. In a zerg that is spamming aoe condition removals nonstop.

….

Not sure what else to say.

under 25 kill stacks and 25 stacks of might

Rangerdeity.5847:

under 25 kill stacks and 25 stacks of might neither of which are horribly hard in a zerg scepter 2 will deal 21k damage over 14 seconds.

Thats why torment is useless. Standing still is not a option.

A gap closer is a mechanic related to control and refers to any skill or effect that decreases the distance between the player and the target. Leaps, teleports, and shadow steps are skill mechanics that can be considered gap closers.

Necro (mobility) gap closer skills:

Dark Pact: Teleport your target to you. Your next attack Immobilize.
Range: 900, Teleport Range: 600, Activation Time: 1 s, Recharge time: 25 s

Spectral Grasp: Teleport your target to you. Chill, daze them and gain life force.
Range: 1500, Teleport Range: 1000, Daze: 1 s, Activation Time: 3/4 s, Recharge Time: 30 s

Bhawb.7408:

pierwola.9602:

We need this “dude you CANNOT get away from”.

Yes, by landing chill/cripple as conditions, not just by pressing one button and going “lul i so skilled”. There is nothing balanced about being guaranteed to always keep your opponent in combat, and it isn’t good gameplay.

Retains a decent dodgeable animation

LastDay.3524:

pierwola.9602:

We need this “dude you CANNOT get away from”.

I get what you are saying, but what I think Anet meant by that was things like Cripple, Immob, Chill and Pulls… Not all Necros being fast to catch others.

They visioned Necro as a really slow guy who prevents others from running because they get so many movement reducing conditions and pulls on them.
Torment, too, was meant to make escaping harder.

The problem is that we are the old scholl class in new generation MMO. We have something (chill,cripple,immob) that worked few years ago, in the decade where the only way to move was running from point to point.

Now we have this Gap closer

LastDay.3524:

I’m one of the people who thinks Necro needs options for mobility, but buffing Dark Path would give more mobility to every single build out there.

We need this “dude you CANNOT get away from”.

CratZ.6270:

Having done an arah run and fighting lupicus recently, it occurred to me. You know that shadow step attack thingy he does? That is how Dark path should work sort of.

- Retains a decent dodgeable animation
- Require a target (range: 0-1200)
- Do the teleporting even if target goes out of range or dodges.
- Do NOT apply bleeds, chill and boon corrupt if dodged.

Suddenly necro is a class one does not simply run away from (unless stealthed).

I don’t see anything wrong in something like that.

CratZ.6270:

Having done an arah run and fighting lupicus recently, it occurred to me. You know that shadow step attack thingy he does? That is how Dark path should work sort of.

- Retains a decent dodgeable animation
- Require a target
- Do the teleporting even if target goes out of range or dodges.
- Do NOT apply bleeds, chill and boon corrupt if dodged.

Suddenly necro is a class one does not simply run away from (unless stealthed).

I like it.

Dark Path is good. Really good. With Path of Corruption, one of the best skills in the game.

The only thing it needs is improved tracking range.

It’s good but only in close range fights.

PandaOp.8017:

Necromancer’s do have access to several movement hindering abilities though, Unholy Feast, Dark Pact, Chilblains, Grasping Dead, Spinal Shivers, Locust Swarm, every weapon aside from off-hand dagger. Let’s not forget that every Necromancer build has access to Dark Path and Tainted Shackles as well.

and they still run away from us.

ManaCraft.5630:

The longer the fight lasts, the larger your disadvantage. If the fight lasts long enough, you eventually run out of resources. Plus you share the same vulnerability to focus fire. Any half-decent roaming group will call a necro as their first target.

Are we talking about condi meta build or attrition build ?

Where necros in WvW stand out is in terms of offensive output – primarily due to PvP-only bleed nerfs, 40% duration food, and the still slightly ridiculous perplexity runes. That, and condi necros also have decent sustain in zerg fights (ironically where you need it the least) because of Parasitic Contagion ramping up significantly in effectiveness under those circumstances.

In WvW we have way more space for our fights and that’s a big difference.

for me everything is fine
59,58,57,56,….,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0

Personally i don’t see a point in adding stability to LS. We have no other boons to hide it and thx to the passive everybody will know to safe at least 1 condi removal for necro.

amiavamp.9785:

I happened to notice recently that, when using the Near to Death trait, the tooltip for Death Shroud reports it as having a 6 second cooldown.

6,59sec, it was always like that.

I love this trait.

“dude you CANNOT get away from”

• Spectral Grasp: Teleport your foe to you, chill them, and gain life force.
  (no projectile, activation range: 1200, teleport range: 2400, RT: 30, AT: 3/4)
• Dark Path: If this attack hits a foe, you teleport to that foe, bleeding it and chilling nearby foes.
  (no projectile, activation range: 1200, teleport range: 2400, RT: 15, AT: 3/4)
• Torment: Torment is a condition that inflicts damage every time you use gap closer skill.
  (1stack = 1 gap closer, (0.50 * Condition Damage) + 656 damage per gap closer)

Andele.1306:

Stop balancing for wvwvw, its a worthless format that should not be taken into account for balance

And stop balancing game around sPvP (few maps and one game mode).

Carighan.6758:

Honestly I’d rather want more things to be cyclic. Otherwise you end up frontloading too many things if all traits and all abilities work that way.

Problem is that those skills works even if you don’t have the condi on you.
I don’t know about you but i don’t use healing skills when i have full HP.

oZii.2864:

Seems fair since right now if you’re not in combat they could remove a condition at the start or 10 seconds later since it is always cycling. This way it feels a bit more like a solid choice and more reliable.

Right now even in combat you can miss the 10sec or 3sec(necro) intervals if you dont have the condi on you in the right moment.

Signet of Resolve (Guardian) – Cures a condition every ten seconds.
Signet of Renewal (Ranger) – Cures a condition every ten seconds.
Signet of Water (Elementalist) – Cures a condition every ten seconds.
Plague Signet (Necromancer) – Transfers conditions from nearby allies to yourself (1 every 3sec).

Replace the 10/3-second intervals with a normal 10/3 second ICD.

Narkodx.1472:

Getting focused? Deathshroud, eat some hits then ground target to a safe area via dark path, heal, re-position, rejoin the fight – in gw2 PvP – THAT is the definition of sustain.

The problem with the necro is that you can’t regen your LF/HP when you are out of the fight.

Mark of Blood – Inscribe a mark that bleeds foes when they trigger it, and grants regeneration to allies.
Signet of Vampirism – Heal when struck by a foe.
Spectral Armor – Gain life force as you take damage. Also applies protection.
Last Gasp – Spectral Armor
Spectral Walk – Create a shadowy tether and become spectral, gaining life force when struck. You may return to your initial position by using Spectral Recall.
Vampiric – Siphon health whenever you hit a foe.
Summon Blood Fiend – Summon a blood fiend that transfers health to you on each attack.
Deathly Swarm – Unleash an insect swarm, blinding multiple foes. Transfer three conditions to your target on a successful attack.
Unholy Feast – Cripple nearby foes and remove a boon. Gain retaliation for each foe you strike.
Putrid Mark – Inscribe a mark that transfers 3 conditions from yourself to foes when they trigger it.
Plague Signet – Active: Send your conditions to a foe.
Basically the whole necro is balanced around “when hit or when struck by the foe”.

And now the funny thing " Necro is the easiest profession to get away from" .

Yamsandjams.3267:

Maybe you don’t know but this is the Design Philosophy of the Necromancer

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

Terrahero.9358:

Dont actually put much value in what devs say they think professions should do, shouldnt do, or what they design is. They are often laughable.

At least i don’t ask for mobility.

Carighan.6758:

Current Spectral Wall sends people off the opposite direction. As far as getting/keeping distance goes, that’s stronger than just stopping them.

Not always. The " fear" direction depends on the Necromancer position, thats why you can’t block enemy castle door(portal) with SW.
I don’t want to stop them i want to fear them in the opposite direction to Spectral Wall (not to necromancer).

Carighan.6758:

pierwola.9602:

Spectral Wall - Create a wall of fear that foes cannot cross.

That actually sounds much weaker than the current version.

Can you tell me why ?

JonathanSharp.7094:

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

So we don’t want that attrition class to also have great ways to escape. This used to be the case, and we felt the Necro was just too strong if it was great at attrition as well as movement/escape. We wanted the Necro to be more about attrition, and for other classes (Thief, Ele, Mes) to be more about escaping and mobility.
- – - – - – - – - – -
The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.

For me (build) the main problem with necro right now is that the more you go it to “attrition” aspect of the class the more problem you have with escaping people and without them you can forget about necromancer “attrition” style.
After 5 months with my current “roaming” build i know one thing about chasing down enemies, chill/cripple is useless (same as “attrition” necro) when the foe is out of range. The best (only) way to stop your opponent as a necro right now is to kill him fast after he decided to run and do to that you need “brutal power” not “attrition” gameplay.

Few suggestion how to change it :

Spectral Grasp - Teleport your foe to you, chill them, and gain life force.

For me this is the easiest way to “fix” that skill (no projectile, no invisible walls, full range).
—- —- —-
Tainted Shackles - Bind nearby enemies with your life force, “Tainted” them repeatedly. If enemies move out of range of this ability, the bind will break prematurely.
Taint - You’ve been “Tainted” causing Torment to be applied to you. Work only when the distance between you and the necromancer is bigger than … .
Shackle - Damage and immobilizes nearby foes.

Something like warriors “impale” but the main goal should be stopping the opponents from runing away.
—- —- —-
Dark Path - Send out a claw. If this attack hits a target, you teleport to that foe, bleeding it and chilling nearby foes. Decrease the activation time.

By “target” i mean my target not the 1st foe on they way between me and my actually target. Something like Ride the Lightning, from what i know it don’t stop on the 1st foe.
—- —- —-
Spectral Wall - Fear foes away from the wall not away from me.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

There were dozens of ideas (from siphoning endurance or health, to a burst if the condition was cleansed early), but the one thing most of us agreed on was that Death Shroud #5 needed to be a skill that prevented enemies from escaping us so easily, or at least punish them for it. The current functionality of Torment was one of the many ideas.

One of the worst ideas. Personally i don’t see any difference between bleed and torment.

“Losing is Part of the game”

I guess it’s time to reverse the Putrid Mark nerf.

• Grasping Dead- Replace AoE with crippling wave: “Summon skeletal hands to cripple/torment foes in front of you”. Something similar to warrior Whirlwind Attack, choose the direction and send the grasping wave.
  Here you have the video of new(old) Grasping Dead.

• Epidemic - Decreas the activation time to 1/4sec from 1sec. Spread conditions at the end of the Epidemic animation (duration 3/4sec).
  Make use of that “black smoke” animation. Right now it’s rather pointless to have it there, you see it but you can’t dodge it.

• Enfeebling Blood - Decreas the “true” activation time to 3/4 sec from 1.3 sec. By true i mean activation time (3/4sec) and time before the Enfeebling Blood hit the ground/foes.
  Enfeebling Blood animation should appear at the beginning of casting skill not at the end.

• Signet of Spite - Signets icon over the target head during the casting time.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

By “full anti-condi” i mean taking EVERYTHING you can to counter conditions – traits, runes, sigils, food. everything.

And what are you doing to counter the condi necromancer ?

If you only have bleeding – you are not a condi necro.

hmm …

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem being that the removals are NO where near that of the application. So in the end the result doesnt change. You having Condition removal doesn’t change the fight. Unless you are FULL anti-condi and in most situations it will just be a draw and not a win.

By Full anti-condi you mean “conditon cleans” ?

If you are condi ele with only Burning and Bleeding as your damaging conditions then you are going to struggle. So yes if you actually want to be able to kill people with condition removal then you need to have others.

I think that i won, i have only bleed on my necro.

Asato.5479:

Well, it will cancel each other. Logically, if you get hit by a stun and your passive is to send back that stun to it’s launcher, if it’s launcher has a passive against stun too, it will trigger it; neither you and the Warrior will get stunned; so the Warrior at the end would have wasted a stun! Reaper’s Protection/Mirror of Anguish are working… As do Last Stand.
Maybe we need some clear icons that will show that the player has the passive or used it.

You are wrong. Necro/Mesmer will still receive the 1st CC.

Asato.5479:

Why would we pick “Last Stand” if that gives stability after we already got controlled?
In sPvP, we have to be reactive. If we get fully controlled by “the 1st” CC, then that means that the ennemy has done what he wanted. And this would make this trait completely useless. If you have done some PvP, you would know that 1 CC can be decisive. And 90s is kinda long for a major trait and isn’t really attractive when there’s far more interesting major traits in Defense. Maybe, make it trigger after 0.1s and it would be like as if we “broke stun” by ourselves and it would be enough interrupt the action, which is nice (like for exemple, interrupting a stomp).

What about Reaper’s Protection/Mirror of Anguish vs Last Stand ?

Harper.4173:

The only reason HS was implemented the way it is now was because they wanted to give “damage dealer” ( aka non-bunker) warriors passive sustain and means to survive without them having to spec as bunker.

And here is the problem, AFK player can’t do any dmg and the signet still works.

Olba.5376:

The problem with that approach is that nerfing Healing Signet’s passive significantly will bring it to a point where the other healing skills are simply superior. For example, currently Healing Surge maxes out at 327 hp/s. And not many use Mending because the healing on it is too low for the gain of removing 3 conditions.

If you are good you should have no problem with keep up the perma regeneration.

Olba.5376:

The issue with Healing Signet is not that the passive is too strong, it’s that there is literally no reason to use the active, this is something even the developers acknowledge. So please, shut up about Healing Signet until they change the active.

There is no reason to use the active because the passive is too strong (perma rege no matter what). I use the Signet of Vampirism active because i can’t benefit from passive anymore (i can"t take more hit so the passive is useless for me), the same goes with other Signets, you use the active not because it’s good you use it because you stopped benefits from the passive and you need heal. Warriors don’t have that problem with the passive (perma rege, no matters what).

Crovax.7854:

Thieves have stealth (you can’t attack while in stealth), high blind uptime (and from my time as thief in wvw i remember a high vigor (you can’t attack while you dodge) uptime; guess that came from a trait).
Eles have pretty low survivability overall, at least before the patch but with healingpower, waterblasts are extremely potent.
Mesmers have stealth while their clones and phants (Signet of the Ether: heal based on the number of active illusions you control)just bash you down and load you full of condis.
Necros have high hp plus a second hp (Signet of Vampirism does not work while in DS) bar that generates individually from their first.

Crovax.7854:

Warrior sustain is a combination of facetanking and enduring incoming damage through cooldowns to allow for the passive regen to heal them back up. Anet even stated that they want the warrior to have regen based defense.

Thats necromancer with Signet of Vampirism. Warrior looks more like “avoiding the fight with gap closer skills and regen heal without doing anything”. I don’t have anything agains Healing Signet when the warrior actually want to fight with me.
3sec or maybe 4sec “Healing Signet” regeneration every time you hit the target is more than enough to keep perma regeneration during the normal fight and to combo it with the Shield block (3sec).

Olba.5376:

The thing is, all professions have a trait that is triggered when you are disabled. For Warriors, it wouldn’t really make much sense to trigger anything else except a Stance. All Stances, except Berserker Stance, are stun breakers and Berserker Stance wouldn’t really make any sense for that trait.

And who said to remove Balanced Stance from that trait ? Just add to Last Stand 1sec (space for 1st CC) delay between disabled and activating Balanced Stance and everything will be fine. It will still be the best “disabled” trait in the game.

Olba.5376:

So cut Healing Signet from 370 hp/s to … 130 hp/s?

In case you missed it, the point with a Warrior is to have defenses without having defensive boons. Warriors instead get the best access to offensive boons like Might and Fury.

You can argue all day that “every other profession is making due without 370 hp/s passive healing”, but if you look into what every other profession gets, you’ll see plenty of Regeneration, Protection, Aegis, Blind, Evade or… Stealth. Warrior won’t be getting the first three because those are for Guardians and I doubt anyone wants Warriors to have ample access to Blinds, Evade or Stealth.

Olba.5376:

If that was his point, he would have suggested that the Signet grant its healing effect while in combat. Instead he changed it to Regeneration, which is 130 hp/s instead of 370 hp/s and can be ripped, stolen or converted to a condition. That is a massively inferior situation.

Grants regeneration. Even in game you have Grants regeneration. !!!

Olba.5376:

Seriously? People actually think Last Stand is OP? Did you, like, actually look at what it’s competing against? Defense is absolutely full of traits better than Last Stand. Out of the four Master traits, two are far, far more popular and useful than Last Stand.

And that’s your argument ? Leave necro/ranger alone we have at least two/three more popular class.
For me the only reason why Last Stand negated 1st CC is because Anet is too lazy to change the copy/patse (and forget) work style. Stun break

“The Line”

Signet of Restoration: Grants health every time you cast a spell.
Signet of Vampirism: Heal when struck by a foe.
Signet of Malice: Heals when you attack.
Signet of the Ether: Gain Health every few seconds, based on the number of active illusions you control.

Warriors

Healing Signet: Grants regeneration.
Suggestion: Grants 4sec regeneration when you attack. Stack up to 3 sec.
—- —- —-
“The Line”

Reaper’s Protection: Inflicts AoE fear on foes when disabled.
Hide in Plain Sight: Gain Camouflage.
Hard to Catch: Shadowstep away and gain swiftness when disabled.
Mirror of Anguish: Copy the same effect back at your foe.
Autodefense Bomb Dispenser: Drops a Smoke Bomb when disabled.

Warriors

Last Stand: Negates the control effect and activates Balanced Stance.
Suggestion: Activates Balanced Stance after the 1st CC disappear.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Have you played Ele?
Scepter is a Power/burst weapon. The Earth Auto is useless in such builds. You wont be using. You may go in for the Toughness and the Line AoE Blind but then you will jump out. You dont waste time using the Auto attack because Air is MUCH better.

26 days old post

Kyskythyn.6471:

Hello all, I am a long time solo and small group roamer. Currently I am running a s/f condi ele. This build has been pretty successful for roaming, but I’d like to see if the ele community has any suggestions for changes and improvements.

Kyskythyn.6471:

As you said, I mostly use earth auto attack which proc’s the obsidian focus trait.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

pierwola.9602:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Why are you assuming they have no stability?

Because they don’t. I can count: 70-30(burn)-20(terror)= 20 free trait points

As i have said Not everyone runs the same builds. I know that i didn’t run with Terror on my old Condition build. So no. Not everyone runs with them specific traits.

I can say the same about earth/scepter on elm.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Why are you assuming they have no stability?

Because they don’t. I can count: 70-30(burn)-20(terror)= 20 free trait points

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Why are you assuming they have no stability?

and why are you assuming elm dont use specter or earth on dagger? maybe im the same expert as you when it comes to necromancer

No one goes into Earth Dagger to use Auto attack anyway. The same can be said for the Scepter with with its better auto attack, it isn’t used for its conditions but for the toughness and blind as people use Scepter as a Burst weapon with Air.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Ignoring the Burning? The Bleeding?(from what i know elm have it too) The Poison up time is VERY annoying as well (same as easy access to healing skills/regeneration) a. Scepter/Focus offers – Bleeding(2×4seconds) (elm scepter offer 2sec burn every 1.25 sec) and Poison(4seconds) on Auto attack every 1.5seconds. Cripple(5seconds) and Bleeding(2 stacks 7 seconds) every 10 seconds. 12stacks of Vul every 18 seconds (dodge it ) Though the regen helps (to gain the regeneration on necromancer you have to decrease the distance between you and foe and its not easy when you have only 2 dodge and no access to stability) them as well and Chill + Boon removal every 20 seconds (1,25 sec cast time). This is based ONLY on the skills. No traits. No added stats.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Look what Condi Necro and Engineer can do compared to Condi Ele. Any build that is built for Anti conditions won’t have a problem with Ele because Ele can not spam numerous conditions over and over again. That is how ALL condition builds should be.

and this is the only thing that they can do right now.
chill/cripple(mobility), weakness(vigor), poison(healing abilities), chill/weakness(immunity)

put it(6) on full icd when the foe have stability/aegis

BlackBeard.2873:

Now rather than counting possible builds, let’s look at the most frequent builds you come across roaming (a good 50-70% depending on the server you are fighting):

the difference between condi and power is much smaller when you count only the good roaming players

CastIron.7364:

Curses: Path of Corruption – Dark Path now additionally converts 2 boons into conditions.

AoE ?

Death Magic: Unholy Sanctuary - Regenerate health while you are in death shroud (this is the only method currently to physically regen your HP while in death shroud – it is same as healing from regen, will scale with your healing power)

Blood Magic: Unholy Martyr – Draw 1 condition from allies every 3 seconds while in death shroud. Each time you draw a condition, gain 5% life force.

merge it, signet passive (plague signet, signet of vampirism) works while you are under the effect of Death Shroud.