P/D is really powerful in some situations, but it’s really weak in others since bunkers can just walk away from you most of the time, and anything with mobility can run from you. To get the most out of it you need to be able to 1vX, since enemies wont run as often feeling secure in a group, but unless they are bad it takes some skill to squeeze out kills in such a situation.
Id like to see a short duration condition that ticks a % of the damage potential of existing conditions on the target (say your bleeds/poisons can do 4000 damage their remaining duration, applying the new condition it would tick for 1000 if it’s 25% for example).
Reason I like this is because it has flexibility across all classes (condition or not) and a place in all game modes, and lets condition characters pull out a burst from their conditions.
If you go into the full 30pts in the honor line with the staff you can use it effectively as a ranged tagger by taking the symbols trait that makes them last longer and be larger. Symbol of swiftness isn’t just for a speedbuff you know It’s surprising how effective it can be in zerg (and ppl complain about the guardians ranged options.. though I admit screpter does suck outside of PVE, staff is good though).
Agony would be useful in WvW open world 1v1 arena type areas, to keep fights from lasting too long or for two players to troll an arena by not fighting (agony would hit after a few min and the first player to die loses).
I’ve had some success with a Longbow BM power cleric set.
30/0/10/0/30
Full clerics with feline pets, taking the traits that increase a pets condition damage and duration. Sigils of Hydromancy on the weapons to help keep the pet on your enemy.
You can buy a set of green armor to test it for under a gold.
if you go 30/x/30 I would consider going 100% condition duration (take the appropriate runes, and a giver weapon with Rare Veggie Pizza) while focusing on power/crit. I would also move the 10 points in trickery into critical strikes, and run S/D as your second set.
Jaguar should share its F2 stealth with the Ranger (in the case of the Ranger though, hitting an attack would break stealth as usual, unlike the Jaguars crit-stealth). This would fix a giant chunk of Rangers issues WvW. I dont think it would be particularly OP either.
What issues u talking about?
Ranger has limited options once he gets outnumbered or jumped. Not to say he doesn’t have any (GS swoop, 1h sword #2, some stability), but it’s kind of restrictive when you have to take those + lightning reflexes to achieve max potential, which combined is still less than say, what a Warrior is potentially capable of.
Jaguar should share its F2 stealth with the Ranger (in the case of the Ranger though, hitting an attack would break stealth as usual, unlike the Jaguars crit-stealth). This would fix a giant chunk of Rangers issues WvW. I dont think it would be particularly OP either.
It is too powerful when combined with Melandru runes. However, I dont think a huge nerf is in order. Either cap condition duration reductions to 50% or change the calculation so that +condition duration counters -condition duration better (i.e. a fix where -65% reduction vs someone with 100% duration would still net a +35% duration instead of a flat reduction that results in -30% off the base duration).
What necro needs most at the moment, other than addressing summon AI/condition cap (which affect all professions), is better access to stability and some immunity to cripple/chill/immob, since DS by itself doesn’t counter weigh necros complete lack of combat mobility.
I say remove stacking altogether on confusion and have it stack duration, make it start from the basic 1 stack damage and double each time it triggers (damage resets when the conditions runs out or is cleansed)
Make pets utility first, damage second (basically completely redo the F2s, make them insta-cast, lower cooldowns with interesting effects such as combofields, heals, multiple boons), and bring up the Rangers damage to compensate for diminished pets.
Gives pets endurance or link them to your endurance/dodges.
That downed skill that teleports the pet to you to heal you? Instead make it teleport to you and you gain full control of your pet, so you can do what you want with it while your body lays there, inc healing yourself reliably if you want.
Thats similar to the build I use, only instead it is 30/30/10 with 2x Lyssa and 4x Nightmare. In zergs, since I have an Asura I like to combo up Radiation Field + Corrosive Poison Cloud, both of which tick for some damage in addition to their condition effects. Outside of zergs I use pain inverter + corrupt boon. Never was a huge fan of Epidemic outside of PVE so I usually take the speed signet.
The main thing that needs to be done with Shadowstep is a bugfix (you visually lose your stealth when you Shadowstep while stealthed, how could Anet let an annoying bug like that last so long?)
Elementalists, despite the mobility nerf their sustain (because of healing) is still about as good as a Guardians when combined with the mobility they still have left. In a zerg? Swap to staff when OOC. Mesmers can be pretty OP in 1v1s but those aren’t too common (or even significant) in WvW. But the confusion nerf hit them hard so it would probably go like this:
Simple steps to make venoms amazing:
After their initial cast time, venom strikes can be “loaded” (instantly) one at a time, after depletion the skill goes on cooldown. (Similar to mesmer mantras)
Grandmaster trait gets this addition : “When a venom skill goes on cooldown, blinding powder is cast”.
Leeching venoms changed to (also) leech health from nearby foes upon initial cast.
The trait that gives might on venom use now gives one stack of might every load, and 5s of swiftness.
I think conditions are balanced really well in terms of strict pvp. The main issues for conditions and builds around them are isolated to WvW/PVE mainly (melandru runes + lemongrass food is OP in WvW and condition cap creates problems in dungeons/pve content, also condition builds are useless against objects/siege)
IMO, given the Necro’s complete lack of mobility, it’s less of an issue of stunbreaks and more of stability. I’m of the opinion that Necro should have access to stability waay easier than that crappy 30pt trait.
Eles are still OP.
Thieves good roamers as always, but (still) contribute nothing to zergs.
Even though glam mesmers are dead, mesmers overall are still the best zerg utility class (veil/portal)
Warriors/Guardians are rock solid in their respective roles.
Necros are still the not-Ranger class.
Engineers almost had their breakout moment but Anet crushed it fast, back to the niche box they go..
Rangers are still trash.
The best way to fix it from this point I think is for for confusion to get a 10%-15% damage boost every time it ticks, reset when the condition is fully cleansed, up to a 50-60% boost. Maybe with a cap on stacks (10 or so)?
Traits are fine, melandu runes + food is OP as kitten. Ideally you should be able to effectively counter it with +condition duration on your end but that doesn’t pan out well enough since the majority of conditions are only 1-5s.
Ranger still sucks outside of a few select builds in sPvP and overworld node farming. The way these tiny, incremental (and some pointless) changes are going, it’s going to take what, another 8 months of updates?
A dot that ticks a % of the damage potential of currently applied damage conditions (burning/bleed/poison, maybe confusion). So after applying a bunch of conditions, you know they’ll be cleansed soon enough, but applying this dot frontloads some of that potential damage in a small burst. (Example: your applied bleeds have 4000 damage potential left if they run their full duration, and the new condition applies 25% potential, it’ll tick for 1k).
The nice thing is that almost any condition-based class can make use of such a condition, and it has utility in every aspect (pvp, pve, wvw). The numbers I listed are an example though, up to Anet to come up with the actual numbers.
It’s amazing, really. People still don’t understand that the reason confusion damage was increased in WvW in the first place was to balance it for the slower-hitting PvE MOBs. It was never intended to do that much damage against players but ANet handcuffed themselves by tying the PvE and WvW rulesets together.
Come to grips with that FACT and get over it.
If confusion is so amazing against other players (with the 50% reduction), why are confusion builds pretty much non existent in sPvP? And even with the 50% buff in PvE, confusion builds are still non existent there also. (I’m mainly talking about Mesmers here). I do think it was OP in WvW, but there were other options they could have taken instead of gutting it, and at the very least condition-based mesmers should have been compensated somehow.
A dot based on movement would be fun, but just another generic dot would be pretty boring since necros have bleed/poison already (confusion/burn would be nice to have from what already exists).
A condition that augments or other conditions could have some utility. I.E. A 15s condition that can only be cleared once it is the only condition remaining, while applied condition duration reductions are cancelled and condition removals have a 15% chance at failing.
Or connect the dot damage to the damage of other conditions: New mysterious condition ticks for 25% of the damage potential of applied poisons/bleeds (so say your currently applied bleeds have a potential to do 5000 damage over their entire duration, the new condition will look at that potential and tick for 1250 for something like 3/4s)
Highly mobile classes/builds aren’t really an issue. The issue is combining mobility with sustain/healing. There should be a tradeoff, you shouldn’t be able to (excel) at both at the same time.
I believe roamzero was suggesting the reduction and duration bonuses be applied as follows:
4 + 4 * (100% – 65%) = 5.4
His formula is wrong and it makes no sense.
Like I said my first post was worded poorly. Im not suggesting the other way because I think the way it currently is is somehow wrong in the math sense, but in the balance sense (65% flat reduction is just OP, particularly considering damaging conditions are always rounded down on their ticks). The reductions should be flat out nerfed, or the calculation changed, or damage conditions should be rounded differently.
I probably worded it badly, but runes + food is a 65% duration reduction, which cannot be effectively countered even if you spec into 100% condition duration (going to an 8s bleed on the 4s base example is still 8 *0.35, or 2.8 s).
What I’m saying is that the behavior should be factored against the duration buff % (-65% duration against a 100% duration boost will make it a +35% duration boost on your end, or 5.4s)
Melandu runes + lemongrass food = OP against conditions.
Why? The condition reductions are applied before duration boosts. So even if you had 100% condition duration (lets say your 4s bleed becomes 8s, against someone with the combo that 8s becomes a whopping 2.8, or 1.4 without any condition duration boosts)
Anet should at least fix it to apply post-duration buffs.
The problem with DS is that it doesn’t enable the class to meet Anets vision of it enough, in their words:
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.
Attrition fights? Maybe 1v1 but when it comes to attrition when compared to other classes Necro is third rate (clones/stealth/mobility/healing all beat DS, Thiefs/Mesmers/Eles, and maybe Guards basically are the top dogs in the attrition department)
I think the biggest design flaw of the SAB is that it came across as a demo for a bigger game, which would be fine but the other aspect of it is that the encourages farming/grinding. The path of least resistance it just running to the boss chests as fast as possible on alts, which after a while just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth for such otherwise amazing content.
The rewards should have been tied to achievements instead, to flesh out what you can do with the limited content. 1 skin for beating SAB, another for 50% achievements and 2 more for 100%. You might think, What about using baubles outside of SAB though, and alternate ways to get the rewards for alts? – Crafting recipes involving baubles would solve this, only instead of ludicrous amounts of baubles make it something like 5 bbs + lodestones/ectos/eldritch scroll/etc, and make bbs sellable on the TP (this way just getting to 100% completion would net you enough bbs to craft some skins for your alts if you want, if not you could just sell them)
If anything, confusion in PVE needs a huge buff, while keeping it as-is in WvW is fine given the ease at which zergs can cleanse conditions and players can simply disengage from an objective and take their time (unlike s/tPvP which point capping/holding is do or die so I can see the confusion reduction in that area).
I would say Eles are head and shoulders above the rest since they can do everything. Borderline OP might be thieves (deadly in roaming groups but they dont bring anything to zerg battles, solo they aren’t as good as they were prior to the nerf train) and damage burst/utility mesmers, the other classes seem about on par with eachother, minus ranger which is at the bottom (but still viable),
Body Shot for pistol should remove boons or poison.
Shadow Strike in the P/D set should be reworked to function similar to infiltrators strike, with the ability to shadow return (maybe with a small aoe burn on return or poison on the intitial stab)
I know the obvious response is to look at sPVP and the features being implemented for that, but have the devs ever considered implementing arenas and meshing them with WvW gameplay? Something like cap points, but for example an arena could only be held by one person, and only a single person can challenge the arena champ (extending out to larger arenas for things like 2v2 or 5v5).
If you know that the obvious scenario is to go look for something like this in sPvP why do you bring it up here anyway??? It doesn’t make a stupid suggestion smart just because you first admit it’s stupid.
I dont think its a stupid suggestion, something to bring some flavor to WvW, because spvp isnt everyones cup of tea.
I know the obvious response is to look at sPVP and the features being implemented for that, but have the devs ever considered implementing arenas and meshing them with WvW gameplay? Something like cap points, but for example an arena could only be held by one person, and only a single person can challenge the arena champ (extending out to larger arenas for things like 2v2 or 5v5).
If stealth was made into a boon then it could be coded to have 0 duration but stack intensity at 1s intervals (5s of stealth = 5 stacks that count down every second). However I think its something that should have been considered before the other nerfs. A decent idea but a little too late.
When orbs were around in WvW thieves could sneak in and take them (via some exploit I think). That got patched pretty fast though, even before orbs were removed outright. Probably the closest the class ever got to actual thievery.
They should just come up with some new maps that would cater better to smaller fights. For example a map with cap points/keeps that are bubbled off with some asuran technology that only allow even numbers of enemies (i.e. a single player holding a point can only be challenged by a single opposing player, a group of 3 you’d have to gather 3 players, etc)
I want Sneak Attacks to be available outside Stealth as long as the attack is coming from the sides or back, then they can nerf stealth to the ground for all I care.
They should change shadow strike to have a sneak-attack-like shot at the end, maybe alternation between conditions (Bleed/Poison/Bleed/Poison/Bleed for example). And lower the damage. Or do people actually run P/D in direct damage/hybrid specs?
It’s surprising how effective it can be in zerg (and ppl complain about the guardians ranged options.. though I admit screpter does suck outside of PVE, staff is good though).