Guild Wars 2

To be frank as a PvP necro MM, I’d rather have something entirely different. I hate “on kill” traits with a passion, especially for PvP.

^ This may be true, and I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if it was to avoid any visible amounts of class favoritism.

jalmari.3906:

i put on full soldier gear and 0/0/30/30/10 wells traited with reapers protection, all wells equipped except suffering, plague elite and signet it was working “ok”.

I don’t think it works without wells, d/d and staff, toughness runes or other traitlines though. And you’re still ping ponged if it comes to that, but you can hold out pretty long compared to other builds I’ve tried.

I have no idea why it worked I didn’t even read skill desc properly hehe.. Probably protection + blindness/weakness spam

I can assure you it wasn’t the signet keeping you alive. Blood fiend would likely keep you alive better than this silly thing :P Not to mention CC.

I’m just waiting for the day Necros get a trait that says over 90% hp they’re immune to all Power damage. Just so people fully understand what it’s like to have that kind of hard counter thrown at you.

If everyone just blew off the stupid kitten ANet did and called it a meta shift the game wouldn’t get any better. (Which is isn’t so maybe you’re right, giving a kitten doesn’t matter)

BlackBeard.2873:

Requiem.8769:

If you had any power, you would have been fine. You didn’t. If you’d been in a teamfight, he would have lost that 10% immediately. You’re running headfirst into a brick wall – that is one foot wide. Step 6 inches either direction and you’ll be fine. You can try to argue “oh I shouldn’t have to” and keep running into that wall, but please don’t complain about the immobility of the wall when you’re choosing to run into it.

Quoted again for truth! Necro building for 100% pure condi with a tanky amulet gets upset b/c something would require him to not be tanky with hella damage? Carrion fixes your issues. Teamfighting (which a necro should be doing anyway) fixes your problem.

People have complained that condi-builds could have glass-damage with non-glass survivability. Take a non-tank amulet and enjoy the life that power-builds have had to deal with forever (giving up some survivability for their high damage).

So; okay with this carrion thing.
“Just take carrion and adapt to meta qqqqqqqqqq!”

Condi necros lost 1 bleed to their staff 2 (the main source of condi damage on the staff, 33% nerf)

Lost 1 bleed on a (Scepter?) attack. Another decent sized nerf.

Weakening shroud got obliterated to 2 sec of weakness and a tiny bleed when used (WAY less than half its old effectiveness)

Carrion removes the bleed from proc portion from curses because it has no crit.

Then they do this. Yeah that’s not trying to fix a meta, that’s saying kitten you to necromancers.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

ronpierce.2760:

You people are insane. No “so much this” anything. 100% immunities to any build is absolutely terrible design, especially when Condi necros are about the only thing anyone runs competitively. Stop covering up their kittenty kitten design just because someone ELSE can kill an ele. >_>:

You make it sound like they’re 100% immune to conditions all the time. Eles now have a chance to be viable and obviously counter certain builds (like every other class) and this buff somewhat offsets their pathetic weakness to physical damage.

I’m not saying its a perfect fix, but it’s not nearly as horribly gamebreaking/terrible design as people are trying to hype it to be. If you put all your eggs into one condition-infused basket like that then it’s not the Ele’s fault you’re inflexible.

With soothing mists+regen, yes it is 100% immunity on a basic standoff. No amount of immunity is good in a game, Eles DO need fixes, but this is not how they needed fixed.

Qaelyn.7612:

ronpierce.2760:

…Condi necros are about the only thing anyone runs competitively…

Exactly why this is a good change.

No… Wait what? You think its a good change because it pushes an entire class out of competitive pvp? Power necro isn’t very good that’s why it’s not in high ranked tpvp. Even condi necros started not being so potent in tpvp before this patch hit, PLUS they took 3 decently large nerfs on top of this trait. They didn’t need this. (For the record, I’m not a condi necro) besides, you’re a brand new noob telling high ranked players what the hell the meta is about, you’re wrong, simple as that.

You people are insane. No “so much this” anything. 100% immunities to any build is absolutely terrible design, especially when Condi necros are about the only thing anyone runs competitively. Stop covering up their kittenty kitten design just because someone ELSE can kill an ele. >_>:

Qaelyn.7612:

I think that’s awesome. The meta has shifted, and it will take some time for people to adjust.

Diamond counters (Harder than hard counters) are not meta shifts. They’re terrible designer flags.

How many pages of warnings does it take for the devs to get a clue. I can’t believe they didn’t fix it.

Kiriakulos.1690:

You are not optimizing.
If you took the new healing skill you’d be able to die at least 5 seconds faster.

Lmfao +1 to this.

Heartlust.6140:

They even bumped the CD up by 10. Depressing.

15* seconds iirc

shimmerless.4560:

You’re always quite welcome to put some Power into your weaksauce autos, OP.

I don’t even think Carrion would breakt hrough regen/soothing mists with a staff/scepter dude. o.O

LMFAO. Smh… I can’t even… I don’t even play condi necro and I… I just can’t even. xD

I cannot believe they kittening let this go.

mini.6018:

Fungalfoot.7213:

The issue, as always, is just that warriors play in an entirely different league.

That is very true actually and since this evening that league happens to be two tiers below the league necro is curently at.

Warriors are 2 leagues below power necromancers? O.O

Scoobaniec.9561:

Delete warrior, problem solved..

My axe 2 has crappy damage and 4 stacks of vul so nerf dark pack, i don’t think its should have any sort of immo instead it should do 4 stacks of vul bc its ranged it doesnt deserve for more

See how easy it is to compare single abilities op?

Yeah, abilities that are nothing alike, like a kitten . Also, I agree axe 2 is terrible, I never said it wasn’t. I’d love if they moved some of the damage from Axe1 to axe 2 considering I main Warrior in PvE, the fact that axe’s damage is so high and cleave is disturbing. It’s no wonder people only want warriors in pve. x.X

Mightymealworm.8409:

Any room for a scepter guard to get in on the qq fest here?…

Yep! Hop on in! :} I can sympathize with a dps guard any day.

Oblivion.8307:

If they were to make it 900 range they’d probably need to reduce the immobilize by a second.

Not really. It’s not even that great as it is. If you want to go with the whole “don’t compare classes with other classes” you have to realize this spell is supposed to help keep the necromancer in combat with the enemy, and especially if you run dagger you have basically 0 mobility and have to still hit with melee. The only thing we have as a real gap closer is dark path which has a dodgeable projectile and requires you to already have life force to use. The whole idea behind necromancer’s sheer lack of mobility is that they can keep an enemy from fleeing but this just certainly isn’t cutting it. There’s absolutely nothing a necromancer can realistically do to keep enemies from fleeing if they want (Thieves/Mesmer/Warrior/Ranger/Engi/Ele) if they want to disengage, they’re going to hands down, unless they choke and wait too long or aren’t proficient with their escapes… Making it 900 range wouldn’t make it any more powerful when used in melee range but it would mean that dagger might have a some-what reliable gap closer. And just think; if a necromancer is using it to ensure they’re keeping someone from fleeing/using it to close a gap, that means they’re not using it in melee range to get free hits. The ONLY thing dagger has going for it is a decently high auto attack, but it doesn’t cleave, has poor mobility/gap closing and dagger 2 is pretty weak/easy target for interrupts. Hence why you don’t see many Necromancers who use dagger in pvp ever, despite the fact that there aren’t many power necromancers in general for the same reasons.

Erwin.5603:

Don’t compare single abilities of different professions…

Okay, Pin down is too powerful as it is for warrior abilities.

Dark pact is a bit underwhelming for necros due to the close ranged/no cleave nature of dagger. Is that better?

6 The irony is, in that first screen shot, the guy who said they nerfed hammer was using a hammer. :P js

I’m positive that this skill will suck unless changed.

mtpelion.4562:

From what I can tell, the new healing skill is not actually a healing skill at all, but rather a spike damage setup skill with the cost of making the Necro very susceptible to being spiked himself.

It seems very PvP oriented.

Believe me, it’s not PvP oriented neither. Spike damage is bad in pvp as well, on top of how dodgable a 1.25 cast heal is, they could dodge the mark then if that DOES land, just dodgeroll around and kite until the 5 second debuff falls off, easily wasting at LEAST half of it without even trying. And after that 1.25 sec cast you’d have only gotten 4k heal. Believe me, it’s not pvp oriented neither :S

Darnis.4056:

Good try; if Team que means nothing solo que means less then nothing and any player playing soloque will tell you it’s 99% luck 1% skill.
Great excuses; team que / solo que wait times are about the same.

I didn’t mean to embarrass you, just pointing out that if you’re calling me a braindead monkey you should look in the mirror because you’re not even close to braindead monkey level.

Did I imply I was a pro? or that Ranking meant a lot in regards to skill?
No. No.

If you can’t however even get on the leaderboards while saying that the people that are up there who could wipe the floor with you all day are bad and don’t know how balance works then what does that say about your player skill? If Leader board members have zero skill you have less then zero.

Also in regards to skill required; go look up the teams that are up there please tell me how low skill the top 100 players are..

Well. While there is truth to this because you have to face some incredible teams to get to top 100, just don’t rule out that there are great players who aren’t top 100! For example (not saying I’m great) but I was rank 12 and going strong, but I stopped pvping cause I just get bored with tpvp, and went from rank 12 to 150 in a week or so, but yes, team pvp is pretty obviously much higher skill-based than solo que.

A lot of loses are directly related to having a poor team member or a drop out… Team que often has coordination and teamspeak. If you can’t see how that affects “skill” versus soloque you have issues. Yes there is a smaller number in tpvp, but solo que still has more luck to it than skill.

Avigrus.2871:

Move to the Necro forum, where no Dev visits ever.

Sweep it under the carpet and hope it goes away.

Eventually “it” (being necros in general) will go away. :P But even then, I doubt anyone would notice. xD

Reevz.2617:

ronpierce.2760:

Dark Pact:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dark_Pact
1 full second cast for: 3 second Immob, a small amount of damage, 600 range (for an attrition class that’s meant to keep people from running), 25 second Cooldown.

Pin Down:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pin_Down
1/4 second cast for: 3 second Immob, damage and 6 stacks of bleeds for 12 seconds, 1000 range as a finisher on a 25 second cooldown.

Seems a little off centered, especially given the purpose of the dagger/necro class in general, wouldn’t you be able to agree?

My suggestions would be:

Remove 1 bleed from Pin Down.

Make Dark Pact 1/2 cast time, and 1200 range (so it’s a viable gap closer), and that’s it.

Can anyone back me up on this?

1/2 second cast is too fast for something that isn’t a projectile, but then again hardly anything on necro has travel time making the class overall lack counter-play. pin down is kittened though, so is hammer 4.

Yeah in the comments I suggested maybe 3/4 instead or even leaving it if Pin Down got a deserving nerf, but I whole-heartedly believe Dark Pact needs a range increase, because while it doesn’t have a projectile it’s very well telegraphed. Look for someone holding their arm up and slitting their wrist (hand) and you’ll know you’re about to be immobilized.

Ashanor.5319:

Different classes have different skills, which are balanced differently.

NEWS AT 11!

I can tell you, pindown is not a balanced skill even within the warrior’s kit. >_> People make more stupid comments NEWS AT 12!

vicious.5683:

Maybe if they add a 5 sec chill procs after immobilize is gone, that would be interesting.

I’d be nervous to give necro more chill, I honestly just think a range boost would do just fine :S maybe a bit of a cast time cut that’s it.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

Stand The Wall.6987:

why all the complaints about no healing in ds? we get an extra health bar for free

Gah I hate how people use the “extra health bar” to justify why Necro is good.

It’s not an extra health bar, it’s a number of seconds of damage mitigation where we are locked out of all our skills.

When it ends we go back to the low health we were on before.

Most other classes have have an ‘invincible’ move – except they can heal and use mobility skills and set themselves up to get back into the fight.

You sound a lot like me. x.X Just saying. Sometimes I read your comment and think I’m reading my own. It’s very confusing.

I love the “2 health bars” comments. You realize Life force starts at 0 and if 1 or 2 abilities gets dodged gaining life force is slow and frustrating and if you don’t have at leat 10% you’re locked out of 5 abilities, and death shroud is a finite block where block skills and evades absorb any incoming amount for the duration. There’s a pretty specific reason people focus the Necro in PvP, its because they’re an easy target, and I didn’t even ask for that to be changed. >_>:

BlackBeard.2873:

Pin down needs a nerf more than anything. It is way too strong given its cast-time and skill recharge. It’s really hard to dodge (if its not random-dodged, its probably not dodged), and hits SO hard for what it does.

Not playing necro, its hard to say if dark pact should be buffed, especially since it isn’t a projectile that can be dodged.

In general, don’t compare your class to a warrior – it will always come out on bottom.

I’d agree with the projectile portion but the animation at least is VERY unique and obvious. Maybe not 1/2 cast but a 3/4 would be better than the full second cast, but due to the niche of the dagger, it really does need more range on the Dark pact. Dagger is a single target only (no cleave) melee weapon on a light armor class with the least amount of evades/defenses and a niche that’s supposed to keep enemies from fleeing. I just feel it needs a range buff at the very least. I don’t need it to do much damage or anything just close gaps a little better.

Acandis.3250:

I think you’re thinking the wrong way. We shouldn’t be looking to buff other classes to power creep level. Pin down needs to be nerfed heavily.

No, I agree. But I can assure you, you’re not in danger of “overbuffing” dagger (1-3) for necromancer haha. At least not dark pact. It really does need a longer range considering the necromancer’s niche of keeping enemies from escaping (600 range isn’t doing anything and barely works as a gap closer).

Oblivion.8307:

You should also be comparing these abilities to shockwave. I’d say pin down was really strong as opposed to dark pact being weak.

While I sympathize, I agree Eles get shafted often, the major difference here is that many Elementalist abilities have long cooldowns/lower effects on purpose because they essentially have 4 weapons worth of abilities. Not that it’s the best design, but that’s why it is that way.

My point with Dark Pact is that it’s a gab closer for a VERY weak mobility class and it has a terrible range and cast time. Playing with dagger can be a chore sometimes because unless you have other means of keeping on your target, by itself it’s not that self sufficient.

Dark Pact:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dark_Pact
1 full second cast for: 3 second Immob, a small amount of damage, 600 range (for an attrition class that’s meant to keep people from running), 25 second Cooldown.

Pin Down:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pin_Down
1/4 second cast for: 3 second Immob, damage and 6 stacks of bleeds for 12 seconds, 1000 range as a finisher on a 25 second cooldown.

Seems a little off centered, especially given the purpose of the dagger/necro class in general, wouldn’t you be able to agree?

My suggestions would be:

Remove 1 bleed from Pin Down and increase it’s cast to 3/4 and make it noticeable which attack is being casted. (For those wanting to know why I request moving a bleed stack, simply because with a condi build and some might stacks it’s a 4 sec imob with a fast cast that does 10,000 damage. Yes it can be cleansed but it’s too much for one skill.)

Make Dark Pact 1/2 3/4 cast time, and 1200 1000 range so that it’s a more viable gap closer, which is the niche of a necromancer, keeping enemies from fleeing, and add a 2 second chill after the immobilize wears off.

Edited/updated the suggestion a bit based on feedback.

Can anyone back me up on this?

Bhawb.7408:

Tenderly.7019:

Gee, thanks.

<3, sorry, Zombify’s biceps are bigger.

Zenith.7301:

You can’t be serious. In PvE, in high level fractals and some dungeons like a Arah, you can get 1-2 shot.

This signet will be the least viable in PvE where something like the Ascalonian mages in fractals can autoattack you for 8-9k damage each.

The concept of a heal that requires getting hit is just dumb. If anything, it should have been necromancers who got that warrior heal as “vampirism”.

Not all of PvE is hard, at all. A good portion of dungeons (the easier ones) have teams just LoS the boss and stack up in melee and roll their faces over the keyboard repeatedly (or just twice if you’re a warrior) until its dead. In those situations, I’ve often found myself barely even needing a heal at all, and it is possible that in certain very niche builds that activating this signet will increase how quickly the boss is killed by like 0.1%. (I’m sure you’re aware of all that)

I didn’t say it would be good. I said it would be passable in a few niche builds/situations. Very different concepts.

I think we can all agree though that instead of trying to build a PvE niche necro to make this heal kinda work, you’d be better off taking another guardian or warrior.

Generally speaking; its meant for Team Que pvp, at least it should be because that’s all that we used to really look at (before Solo Ques and custom arenas allowing standardized 1v1 and 2v2s). So these should be based on a 5v5 match up. However you will get a lot of 1 on 1 trickle biases thrown in the mix too sometimes.

Well I can vouch that MM can be taken to high tier. Before I stopped doing conquest a week ago I made it to 12 in Team Que.

Bhawb.7408:

Burjis.3087:

Didn’t the passive on the datamined version have an ICD?

No.

At least, it didn’t STATE that it did, where as the current one does; which leads to the assumption that it did not. (It may have internally) Which, would have been a rude awakening :/

Well I personally don’t hate healing signet, I just don’t like that the regen is so high and use so weak/bland that it’s never used. Other than that its fine.

jimmyimo.2089:

Stx.4857:

Moa killing all minions makes me want to mail a burning bag of feces to A-Nets doorstep. Such BS.

Why would minions listen to a bird?

I guess the same reason that a Ranger can summon spirits via communing and turn into a bird and they still stick around. Hell it makes less sense for spirits to stick around when Zombies don’t even listen to the master as it is. They’re brainless monstrosities that aren’t controlled, the better question is why do they need the necromancer in a specific state to want to eat brains. O.O

Meglobob.8620:

Isn’t it silly and pointless rating the classes before the balance patch and the effect of 8 new healing skills?

The meta’s going to be mixed up quite a bit and probably only after a week will we have a good idea which classes are the winners and which are the losers.

Not really, most players are good enough at theory crafting to have a good enough idea at this point having seen a chunk of changes and seeing the heals demonstrated. The only thing that really keeps us in the total dark is not knowing how much the patch notes may have changed, and how many things will change that just weren’t mentioned. But even still unless its huge, we can have a pretty good idea. Several players have already tested “post-patch” builds on some classes, specifically the warrior.

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

Blood fiend doesn’t deal as much, and doesn’t deal spike damage. And people still use it. This skill can provide over 5k armor ignoring damage in a short period of time.

Over 28 seconds blood fiend can provide 1800 damage, or 2300 over 35 seconds (in case of the signet not being traited). Plus the amount of personal dps lost just to use the 1.25 second cast, you’re looking at pretty substantial dps drop in full berserkers and a decent damage build, and using your heal just to dps, meaning you’re losing any spot healing you might need.

We’ve explained this Kyubi. It specifies “PLAYER allies”, it doesn’t benefit minions.

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

You guys are ignoring the fact that it is a healing skill which provides damage.

So does blood fiend. How many necros actually use that. :P Just remember the old saying; “A dead dps is no dps.” That can hold true with a bad heal, if you can’t sustain yourself, you’re going to die and if you die you’re lowing the whole teams DPS.

Unfortunately you can’t really compare classes so black and white. And not to mention, I doubt you’ll be convincing anyone any time soon that warriors are too low on Dps.

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

I love this skill, a lot. It is one of my favorites from the new batch. Please, please don’t change/remove it. Not that they will

xD Good luck with your new heal.

jmatb.6307:

Is that how you were dropped into downed state at least 5 times per match in the 2v2 tourney? Logic?

Also economists are some of the most irritating people on the planet and S/D thief is carried by sword 2 and evades, just like how Spirit Ranger is carried by the elite spirit. Once you know how to use sword 2 well you can be borderline kittened and play S/D as well as the “good thieves”

Obviously my decisions were working if I can spend most of my time in downed state and still make it to 4rd place versus many of the best players in the game. Just saying.

Also; we would have been in second if not for the loser bracket and joking on Caed and Tany on our second encounter. So… Yeah, like I said. most outcome with the smallest effort. Economic Logic ftw! (And little tip, I wasn’t down very often, the only fight that was super problematic was the shatter Mesmer who ran Moa. If you can’t see how that could lead to me biting the dust a lot, that’s on you. We even won when I got moa’d at the start as an MM. Pro lyfe!)

We already knew we weren’t killing the Hambow Ranger comp. That comp hard counters us pretty badly, we’ve been struggling with it for over a week now.

I never got why Mantras had long cast times. They need 1.5 cast times like any pre-castable long-duration casts (Minions/pets/spirits/etc), and just keep a short cooldown. The fun in mantras is being able to use them a few times before enduring the cooldown, but they’re generally not super powerful and they still have cooldowns. I think the SUPER long cast time for mantras needs some revisiting. :/

You can tell many people who PvP in this game would make terrible economists :P Economic law says people will always try to get the most benefit for the least amount of effort. This is true and there’s nothing wrong with this because its a natural human response. That said; because of this you will never kill effective easy builds because someone will always find a way to be effective, and amongst the effective builds, one will always be the easiest, and that’s where smart people will gravitate!

LOGIC!