Guild Wars 2

This trait has a lot of potential and can make spending points into Blood Magic worth something… but, why the heal is so laughable?

I think it should heal for at least 2k base, considering that Death Shroud is on 10s cooldown and because of the extremely high health pool of Necros.

This would be an very good and needed boost to Necromancer’s survivability, which is what he’s lacking, right?

Also, why you can’t be healed in Death Shroud?
It really hampers the whole Blood Magic traitline, because it collides with the main defensive mechanic of the Necro.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Power Necro can:

Set up Ghastly Claws with up to 3s duration DS#3 Fear

Immobilize a target with Dagger #3, and drop unblockable wells on their face, then drop DS#5.

Depending on the build set up a powermancer actually can cover their Fears and immobilizes extremely effectively. For instance, Barbed Precision (on a Dagger MH build) makes single condi cleanses almost completely useless by itself.

Hop on a Guardian and try to block a powermancers wells. Have fun on your back.

A good powermancer can already use Fear extremely effectively for its value as CC. If you give them damage with it, then you will just shift the QQ from Terror to Powermancer.

I didn’t see any well bomber in both WvWvW and sPvP from a while. That’s probably because well bombing is extremely predictible and easy to counter and necromancers investing everything in well bombing are extremely squishy. It’s pretty much the same concept of Hundred Blades, except that animations are extremely more visible and Necromancers are way more squishy.

I keep failing to understand how dealing ~3k damage critical (not ticking each second and defended by toughness) when applying fear on an enemy in full glass cannon can be imbalanced in some way.

It won’t shift the QQ from conditionmancers to powermancers simply because powemancers are way more squishy than conditionmancers and because their damage can be mitigater more easily compared to conditions.

Shatter Mersmers deal higher and more reliable damage while having greating survivability compared to powermancers but none complains about them.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Powermancers can kill the bejeezus out of stuff now. It takes much more skill to play than the Terrormancers that are running rampant right now, but it is ceratinly viable and far from lackluster. It is just a higher skill floor build than the GC Terror builds.

Powermancers are extremely slow.
Most of their high damage skills are either channeled (Ghastly Claws) or with slow casting time (Life Blast), that’s their main problems.
You hardly manage to make an entire Ghastly Claws channel to land and you hardly manage to cast more than two life blasts once you go into death shroud and those life blasts are either evaded or blocked with ease.

Giving Powermancers another reliable way to deal damage is needed imho.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

I don’t think this works to do what you want to do. Giving a power based burster the ability to CC for upwards of 7s while hitting for 1200 white damage per Fear would actually be stronger than the current implementation. Do you know how much damage a Zerker (or even Valkyrie) Necro can do to a CC’d target in 7s? They could easily burst through a Guardian Elite full heal and still have time to call in a teammate to stomp (since they can’t stomp worth a kitten ).

I think there are a few ways you could tweak Terrormancers to be less irritating without totally reconfiguring the core concept.

That isn’t true, mainly because powermancers doesn’t have the same access to conditions as conditionmancers do. That means that you won’t be feared for 7+ seconds because fear is a condition, which can be easily cleansed by any istant-cast condition removal (like swapping in water, for instance). This doesn’t apply to conditionmancers, since the Fear is easily covered with any of the condition conditionmancers have.

Also, while you’re chain feared from a conditionmancer, you take all the damage from the conditions you have on, while when you’re feared from a powermancer, you can still block any of the high damaging skills necromancer will use. You’ll just need a single aegis to block a Life Blast.

Another interesting change is to make Terror work pretty much like Mug before the nerf. You deal damage once per application which can crit and is mitigated by toughness. It makes much more sense if it scales with power.
It is much more interesting if the base damage is increased and the coefficient is lowered (making it scaling less with power but dealing higher base damage).

In conclusion, chain-fear is much much easier to counter on powermancers than on conditionmancers.

Rym.1469:

Terror shouldn’t scale with Power instead of Condition Damage. Powermancers lack sustain damage more than spike atm, which comes from Life Blasts, Wells etc. after patch. 2k more damage on spike wouldn’t make big difference since they can hit much harder with Life Blasts now. Conditionmancers, on the other hand, after Dhuumfire will be balanced/deleted/moves/whatsoever will be in same position as before patch. We need that Terror damage for professions and situations when you only have small acessible window to do serious damage and put counterpressure before foe stealths/cures conditions/runs away/gets boons etc. For example, let’s take a look on Conditionmancer with no Burning or small access to that condition (it gets cleansed by “Hide in Shadows” anyway) vs. S/D normal meta thief. They cure conditions very fast, via #2, heal and so on, they have great mobility so you won’t kite them easily, they shift places so it’s hard to land AoEs and they stealth often. With normal bleeding, chilling etc. they’ll constantly cure them as you don’t apply 2-3 different conditions per second or two so you’re off with your main source of damage. The way is to CC-lock them and quickly burst down before they’ll be ready to reset. As Condi mainly, We simply need it, Powermancers need more defense and LF generation. Simple as that, we don’t need uber-mega changes. Look at my topic about slight improvements, we should be balanced step by step or we’ll get Nerf Hammer, even harder than you offer here

Well, Terror damage can be hardly be considered burst.
It is 2k damage over 2 seconds, which isn’t that much of a burst.

Right now, the changes I proposed were made to make conditionmancers choose between burning + condition duration + raw damage (30/30/10/0/0) or terror + better life force generation/stability (0/30/10/0/30).

The merging with Terror and Master of Terror will make the new trait worthy even if you don’t do the maximum damage. Also, the new torment trait I proposed will overcome the loss of damage due to the cut of either burn or terror.

So, at the end of the day, conditionmancers will have their overall pressure slightly reduced, gaining better build diversity and defensive capability while powermancers gain better sustained damage, better defensive CCs and a solid alternative to Deathly Perception.

ProxyDamage.9826:

They don’t. Your topic falls flat. Tada.

This is your opinion.
You don’t agree with the assumption? Then join the topics where everyone is arguing whether condimancers are OP or not. This isn’t your topic.

ProxyDamage.9826:

While I don’t agree with every balance decision made by the devs, most of them have some logic and sense behind them. They have proved that, while sometimes they have no idea what to do to a class (Rangercoughcoughcough) they’re not incompetent to the point of balancing based on popular opinion.

When most of the high-level PvPers and community agrees that conditionmancers are OP, then it is a feedback they can’t ignore. There is an high chance that a change is coming.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Or not. Quite a lot of things have been mentioned in SotG, some over and over, that have never been done.

And especially if it isn’t right the answer is most definitely not to compound the problem by assuming it is.

You also start your own topic by saying “they ARE, no chance for discussion, OP!” (paraphrasing). Which is incorrect.

But also a lot of things have been mentioned in SotG and they were done, like Necromancer and Warrior buffs. So what?

The fact that it isn’t right it’s your opinion (how many times do I have to say that?). Your opinion isn’t an overall truth. Face the possibility that you’re wrong, maybe?

As I said multiple times, I’m not sure if they’re OP or not, but in case they are, these are the changes I would do if I was balancing this game.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Did you at least read what everyone is complaining about?
They are complaining about the synergy between Terror and all the conditions, not terror itself. In fact, before the patch, none complained once about Terror while the complaints started after the patch, despite the fact Terror was left unchanged (even nerfed, we can say).

Why the hell do you think that I want terror for my “favourite” build? That assumption is stupid and ignorant.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Let me answer you in your own tone:

WE DON’T CARE!

This topic is nothing but “ME TOO!!” bullkitten poorly masked as a balance suggestion based on flawed principals.

Nice try. You don’t get power-fear for insta-gib burst builds. Move on.

Why are you that scared if someone even propose an hypothetical change to conditionmancer build?
If you understand nothing about what I proposed and you don’t even want to do constructive criticism, just gtfo.

Palmski.6419:

Because I disagree whether the Necro is OP or not. In small scale PVP then yes I can see how it is OP in the hands of a skilled player. However in WvW it certainly is not. I run in an organised guild and our raid leader asks for (and I quote) “8 guards, 6 warriors, 2 spots for other melee like ranger/gs or d/d ele, 3 staff ele’s, 2 mesmers, 4 necro’s/rangers/engi’s/extra ele”. If we were OP then surely he wouldn’t be putting us in the afterthought category? I certainly don’t feel OP when playing, I do better when on my Staff ele and I don’t hear anyone calling them OP or asking for nerfs?

In PvE we now have access to a damaging condition that stacks duration so we don’t have to worry about the bleed cap quite so much. Why is this so bad?

So then it’s an sPVP problem, so solve it in sPVP by doing to Terror what they did to Confusion and halving its damage. No need to mess it up for everyone else who finally feel as though they are finally in a good place.

I DON’T CARE!
This topic isn’t intended to discuss about if the Necro is OP or not, but still each post you make you keep bringing the discussion in.
Is it that hard to understand?

I don’t even think the Necro is OP, but people and top grade players do. So get used to it and face the eventuality of a nerf.

Palmski.6419:

If it’s an sPVP problem then nerf it in sPVP, if that’s where these elite players complaining of OPness exist. The rest of us mere mortals who have struggled with underpowered and poorly synergised builds for months finally have some toys to play with, don’t take them away again please.

Frenzy/Bull’s Charge/100 Blades does a ton more damage. Backstab/Cloak and Dagger/Heartseeker does a ton more damage. Mind Wrack/Blurred Frenzy does a ton more damage. Are you going to nerf those too?

Why people keep arguing about if condimancers are OP or not?
Don’t do in this topic.
It’s 99% sure that the nerf is coming, it doesn’t matter if it is needed or not. I made this topic just to suggest a way to fix the problem without putting necromancers again in the lowest grade of the food chain.

Terrahero.9358:

Considering a Thief can still pop up out of nowhere and inflict a virtually unavoidable burst in the excess of 12k+ in half the time Horror lasts. I dont see a problem with Necro’s have a burst build aswell.

I’d rather see glasscannon builds across the board get toned down. But thats just not happening (its been over 10months since release…) so why should only Mesmer and Thief get glasscannon burst builds that work?

In fact, in my change list I aimed to give burst builds more viability, taking from conditionmancer build one of their features.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Of course it does. Your entire “fix” is based on whether Necros are broken or not. If they aren’t your entire point falls flat. Which it did.

That said, the top players quite don’t quite agreed, as evidenced by the fact that most professional teams run one necromancer, if anything.

And who cares about “average players”? The average player is godkitten horrendous. They know about as much about the game as I know about aeronautic engineering. Their opinion is about as valid as my dog’s. Read the forums, according to them, every class is OP and every class sucks.

It doesn’t.
There are several topics about the issue, this isn’t a topic about that.
This topic is based on the assuption, whatever it is right or wrong, that conditionmancers needs a change.

Top players are posting all over the sPvP forum saying how broken OP the Necro is and how a Necro player can wipe an entire team just bashing his head on the keyboard, while most of the average forum frequenters agree with that.

It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong. Fact is that in the next SotG, whoever top players will be invited, someone will surely say to JSharp that Necro needs to be toned down. They will check the forums and then they will see that an huge portion of players agrees that Necros are OP.
The possibility that a nerf is coming is huge, you should face that.

So, since the chances are high, I proposed a change which will tone down the power of conditionmancers while making powermancers more viable and increasing build diversity.

That’s why it doesn’t make sense to argue about whether Necros are OP or not.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Not really. Stun breakers.

If you compare the terror damage with how much damage any other class can do off a stun you realize that it’s pretty level.

In addition, to get the max fear AND burn Necros need to invest 30 points in a class that otherwise offers very little, and end up quite squishy.

I think it makes no sense to argue whether terrormancers are OP or not in this topic.

Most of the community and an huge portion of high-level PvPers think it is.
I don’t know if it is OP or not, but, still, we all should expect a nerf coming in the next patch.

I made this topic to suggest what, imho, is the best solution to some of the crucial problem of Necromancers at the moment without making it weak as kitten as it was before the patch.

sas.6483:

I do not understand for the life of me why people are going on about this. At this point it’s just a straight troll by people who know better.

1) If terror + burn + torment is OP, then there needs to be a statement about why, and that statement needs to include some hard numbers. The numbers that have been posted are all pretty consistent; about 2.5k – 3.5k damage per second on a 3 second fear chain. As far as I can tell, that is not any more OP than any other burst build. Furthermore, burn is a minor contributor to that damage.
2) If terror + burn + torment is OP because of two necros coordinating epidemics (as Rennoko suggested), then it’s probably a torment stacking issue that could be dealt with by reducing torment durations on DS 5 substantially. Things like torment on spectral wall will only make matters worse. But, you know, I’m not totally sure why it is the same thing couldn’t be done pre-patch with bleeds.
3) Speaking of spectral wall, spectral wall fears are fine.
4) If you really want a “fix” for PvP then the right thing to do is up Melandru to -40% duration (-20% for 2 and 4 piece, then the additional -20% on the six piece), and then reduce food to -25% duration so as not to break WvW.

Read the OP, perhaps?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Absolutely not. Fear being the Necro’s unique damaging condition (other professions have fear, no one else’s deals damage) is what makes condi Necros somewhat viable and scary. That should not be changed.

If Terrormancers are too good, just revert the change to Spectral Wall and they should be fine again.

It’s not Spectral Wall.
Spectrall Wall is fine and it should remain as it should. Pre-patch, Spectral Wall was pretty much worthless, now it is a strong utility without being too good.

It isn’t even chain fearing through Spectral Wall that makes it that strong, it’s just the damage you take while feared.

Terror will be still a Necromancer exclusive and Necromancer can still build condition with Terror (will be 0/30/10/0/30 for Condi+Terror), but it won’t deal the same insane damage with condition builds (compensated with the highest access to Torment via trait and the increased fear duration) and, most important, can’t be combined with burning.
It will just make conditionmancers more balanced and varied.

Rym.1469:

Np. It’d totally wreck pre-patch builds and make me, included, quit necromancer in any form of pvp. I agree you can switch places for traits Master of Terror and Terror, that’s okay and enough. Moving terror to GM tree or spite is just….joke.

I didn’t say to switch Master of Terror and Terror. Neither to move it to the Spite trait.
I’ve said to merge Master of Terror and Terror and move it to the GM of the Soul Reaping traitline, make it scale with power and move Foot in the Grave to Master tier.
Then make a trait into the Curses traitline which inflicts Torment.

How can these changes make you quit Necromancer?
These changes actually encourage build diversity and only hurts Conditionmancers builds with both Terror and Dhuumfire.

FearSeven.6357:

No, just no.

Fear is much more in sync with Conditionmancers. We need the control to win with damage over time.

We still have control. Fear is still there.
It just forces the Condimancers to chose between Dhuumfire and Terror.
Either pick the power traitline for Dhuumfire for increased raw damage and condition duration, or pick the Soul Reaping traitline for Terror (but at lower damage, compensated by the increased Torment stacks) and increased defensive capabilities.
It opens two different conditionmancers build, splitting the high-CC and high-damage in two different builds.

It’s just the combination of both Terror and Dhuumfire that makes condimancers too strong.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Interesting idea, but it’d just make us overpowered in a different way. Most of our problems lie in traits/trait distribution, but making it scale with power would be a bit wrong. Power works, and works quite well, it doesn’t need a buff, however, Vampires/Minionmancers are simply jokes in tPvP. While I dislike Minions considerably, I cannot be biased in the fact that they need a buff.

This is a solution to conditionmancers and powermancers problem in PvP.
I do think that Blood Magic needs to be looked at, and I actually like your ideas but this topic is aimed to fix Terror in particular.

Powermancers need some love, they don’t work as good as other profession’s power build. They lack the innate defensive capabilities of other profession and also cheap bursty damage.

Making Terror a power trait will:
- Makes staff more viable as a power weapon (Reaper Mark will deal sweet damage)
- Gives Powermancers more viable option instead of only Deathly Perception and Life Blast spamming
- Gives Powermancers increased defensive capabilities due to Deatly Perception and Foot in the Grave being no more mutually exclusive.
- Opens to new high-CC power builds which can actually find a place in the meta.
- Takes away from Conditionmancers the Terror trait, since they no more needs it because of Torment and Burning.
- Gives Necro better sustained when combined with Dhuumfire.

It is pretty hard to argue against terrormancers now.
They are definitely too strong.
They were strong even before the patch, in fact it was the only build viable for Necros and probably the only one which didn’t need a buff.

Powermancers, on the other hand, are still lackluster and tied to high casting time damaging skills and low defensive capabilities, making them underwhelming compared to other burst build of other profession.

My solution to both the problems is this: make Terror a powermancer trait.

- Merge Terror with Master of Terror: those two traits are pretty much complementary. Moving Terror to the Soul Reaping traitline makes quite harder for conditionmancers to have access to it.
- Make Foot in the Grave a Master Trait and Master of Terror a Grandmaster trait: pretty much a needed change. Necromancers need easier access to stability, while the new Master of Terror will be definitely too strong to be a master trait.
- Make Terror scale with Power instead of Condition damage: this is the core change. Giving the ability to Powermancer to deal damage while CCing your enemy is needed. I think this will definitely help with their scarce capability to mitigate damage and will add some burst to their build. While Conditionmancers will still have access to it, the damage will be definitely lower. If they want to deal the same damage of before, conditionmancers are forced to bring Carrion amulet, which makes Dhuumfire trigger less and makes them more squishy. Also, the increased Terror damage will be mutually exclusive with Deathly Perception, making the Shroudmancers not excessively strong.
- Add a new Curses trait which inflicts Torment: the new torment is nice, but the access Necromancers have to it is laughable. I think a trait which inflicts Torment on crit/fear will be a good change to not put condimancers again in a worse spot compared to HGH engies.

Sorry if I made grammar mistakes, since English isn’t my main language.
What do you guys think?

The best solution, imho, is to merge Terror with Master of Terror, bring it to the Soul Reaping traitline, make it scale with Power instead of Condition Damage buff the damage and remove the damage bonus with conditions.

Now that Necros have burning, Terror is too much bursty and they don’t need them in order to have enough pressure.
Power Necros, on the other hand, are still a bit lacking and Terror being a Power trait will be an huge improvement to their capabilities (both offensive and defensive).

If I’m not wrong, raven acolytes are all Necros, so yes, Norn Necro makes sense.

There is a topic in the Necro forum which predicted the burning QQ to Necros.
In my opinion, Necro did not need a buff to condition spec. He just needed improved LF generation to condition specs to allow them to properly build LF to defend themselves.

I actually dislike Dhuumfire, because it forces you to spend 30 points into the power traitline you don’t want to take.

Anyhow, I don’t think that this will stop the QQ. Once Dhuumfire is gone, people will start complaining again about Terror (as they are doing right now), which bring us again to the start.

Purie.9046:

Purie.9046:

What we can easily say is that burning works alot better in PvP enviroment than bleeding. If we just compare the 2 conditions. Why necros atm have an edge over engineers is due to being able to self provide the burning and also transfer the conditions given to necro. But on top of that still maintain the way to create bleeds which is how it used to be. What I considered condition priority is Burning > Poison > Stacking bleeds. Which result in alot higher DMG than engineers could provide due to necros way of putting the bleeds. When u add fear dmg and torment. Necro becomes superior in condition pressure.

Also new buffed weakness counters power classes and gives necromancers more sustain in fights. A way to survive to the next heal without having vigor or regen or protection.

Actually, having burning has its cost.
You have no reliable source of LF generation, which exposes the Necro to any form of damage and CC, since Death Shroud is the only real defensive mechanic.
Prior to the introduction of Dhuumfire, Necros were not forced to spend 30 points into the power traitline to have the damage output increased, they usually spend the 30 leftover points on Staff Mastery and Soul Marks, which gave them a nice source of survivability.

While I agree that weakness is nice, it doesn’t work exactly like a direct damage mitigation ability like blocking or evading, expecially when you consider that it can be cleansed just like any other condition.

What I’m trying to say is that a Necro with burning is an incredibly squishy Necro with its Life Force pool always to zero or near-zero, which means you are actually facing an enemy who can’t evade, can’t teleport, can’t block, can’t go invulnerable and in most cases can’t even stunbreak.
Pretty much an easy kill.
Of course they can do a lot of damage over time, but they die faster than how they are capable to survive to someone with enough condition cleansing.

When I’m running S/P Steal thief, I really have no problem at all even against multiple Necros. Spam Pistol Whip on them, interrupt their heal and BAM, dead.
Even with Bull Rush -> Hundred Blades you can easily kill a dhuumfire Necro.

Rising Dusk.2408:

emon.1863:

How did you came up with 5-6 seconds ?

He used the trait that adds 50% fear duration, among other condition duration boosts (like the Spite traitline and runes).

How can someone have Dhuumfire, Greater Marks, Master of Terror and Terror on the same bar?

I really want to know which is the specific change which turned the Necro from laughable at best to extremely strong condition profession melting people from 100 to 0.

- Terror was not buffed. It was, in fact, nerfed because it shifted tier in its traitline.
- Bleed application is still the same
- The amount of fear is pretty much the same. The only difference is half (HALF) a second to DS fear and Spectral Wall, which can be still easily avoided.
- Torment deals laughable damage at best

The only real change is burning, which is deep into the power traitline, forcing Necros to give up either on Master of Terror or Greater Marks in order to have a little more dps.

So, is burning what made Necro that insanely OP all of a sudden?

Seriously, saying that 80% of thieves pre-LS nerf played S/D isn’t an exaggeration.
D/P thieves, in comparison, are a rare sight in EU.
I have no idea, though, on how is the NA meta, but prior the nerf, there were only S/D thieves.

Now the situation is a little more variegated. I see pretty much any kind of thief. Bleed thief too. That leads to the obvious conclusion that S/D nerf was healthy for the game variety.

My idea of a solution isn’t nerfing all best set. My idea is to nerf the set which is clearly overperforming in order to keep the set decision an hard choice, not forced.

Also, you guys are talking assuming that other thief sets are bad.
They are not.
All weapon sets, with the notable exception of P/D and maybe P/P in some environments, are equally viable and good. S/D was overshadowing other sets because it was cheap, effective and accessible (read OP). Plain and simple.

According to you guys, shortbow was weak even before the nerf at 900+ range. But, still, you are making a cut of range of a skill which was anyway not effective a tragedy.
If it was just a matter of “partecipating”, why on this world there are all those cries if they cut out a feature which wasn’t even worthy?
Really. It looks like you are complaining just for complaining’s sake.

Also, why you think that thieves SHOULD have a 1200 range weapon? What made you think that ANet wants all professions to have a long range weapon?

Daeqar.8965:

You are making a strawman. Thief players are identifying the CB range change as being poorly justified and having a negative impact on the game with well reasoned arguments. No one is asking for huge buffs to the class; you are arguing against yourself.

Really? It looks like that people here think that Thief is weak and needs serious buffs to be put on par with other professions.

As I said, the only logical reason behind shortbow nerf is for design.
ANet probably doesn’t want thieves to blast people down the wall in WvWvW. Neither they want shortbow to be a long-range weapon.

sorrow.2364:

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

Again, this is a clear example of you either not reading or not comprehending what all these other people were taking a lot of time to explain. Just declaring a real impact doesn’t make it true.

Also, D/P was generally regarded as the best weapon set even before the patch. S/D was quite good as well, but even then wasn’t getting more than probably ~25% use by thief players.

Nerfing CB range doesn’t make poor weapon sets suddenly better and competitive against other classes. It’s just going to drive players even more into playing melee burst specs that opposing players hate because participating in ranged tactics is even less of an option now than it was before.

I actually was seeing about 80% of thieves running S/D in tournaments, hotjoins and WvWvW before the patch. I don’t know in which region do you play in, but in EU S/D thieves were popular as kitten.

Nerfing SB doesn’t make other weapon sets better, but nerfing S/D does. It is no more a must go for every thief who wants to be at maximum effectiveness.
SB nerf, as I said, was probably because of design choices.

Today I was playing with my Necro.
I got chain CC-ed by an hammer warrior. Used my stunbreaker when the cooldown allowed me (Well of Power).

My HP bar melted in about 4-5 seconds, I wasn’t even able to build enough life force to fear them away.
Do I have to start complaining about hammer warriors being OP and that they should be nerfed?

What if I met a Mesmer and I got bursted down while I was a Moa?

Xeph.4513:

If guardians were an unkillable monster, then I would be inclined to agree with you; but as it is right now, guardians fulfil their role of a node holder without being over the top; any two competent dps are able to kill a guardian very easily, by no means is guardian a broken class, its just a fail safe for teams, so that no matter what happens in a match their guardian will always be able to buy them time.

The problem with necro is the amount of conditions they can put up instantly makes team fights trivial; in most instances people are only considering the necro as a single class, but coupled with any power class condition necro’s are unstoppable, I know for a fact there is nothing easier for me to kill then an enemy who the necro has pumped full of conditions and is spam fearing, its just like shooting fish in a barrel, I just target and kill target and kill, and its not by any merit of mine, but solely due to the fact that necro’s can spread these conditions at lightning speed.

If that is viewed as balance by people, then there is some serious self deception going on here.

Each time someone talks about Necro condition, I think about Engineers.
They are capable to stack the same amount of conditions as Necros (with the only exception of Torment, easily balanced with the access to Confusion) while also having blocking and some damage mitigation tools Necro does not have access to.

I wonder why Necro is imbalanced to your eyes while Engineer is not, since all you said about Necros can be easily said about Engineer too.

Daeqar.8965:

Your problem is your arguments are not based in reality. Most of the buffs you tout (while ignoring the nerf list) have negligible impact on the strength of the class. The most common reason for this is because they are changes to traits and abilities that were not used before the patch and will continue to not be used after the patch – and for good reason. Several others have taken the time to explain this to you, perhaps not with the best tact, but clearly and point by point. You refuse to acknowledge the truth.

The real question is whether a thief playing best possible builds before the patch is better or worse than a thief playing best possible builds after the patch.

There are a couple genuine improvements, primarily to steal mechanics and D/D weapon set, however at best the improvements simply make these realistically competitive build options compared to prior best possible builds. They do not result in stronger thieves after the patch, just different thieves.

Meanwhile, certain common elements in best possible builds have clearly lost effectiveness. S/D as a set is not as effective as it was. Shortbow is not as effective as it was. Lotus Poison is not as effective as it was overall, even with weakness being “better.” Bizarrely, Last Refuge is a leading culprit of death in a lot of top builds, and it got “buffed” such that it will result in even more deaths. All of these things tamp down the effectiveness of the class’s best builds, and of all the buffs only the Steal changes likely hold some promise for net improvement in top builds.

Overall, I do not see the patch as a huge deal either way except for the Cluster Bomb range nerf. That one thing cuts down the types of situations that thief can even participate in and makes the class even more one-dimensional. It drives thief players even further into the playstyles that opposing players hate and complain about.

Thief was strong even before the patch.
They don’t need an huge buff in order to be put on par.

Most of the buffs they made had a real impact on Thief.
Before the patch, you were forced to run S/D + Shortbow just because they were the best sets. Running S/P, D/D or D/P was not a good choice just because you were able to run S/D and be more effective, despite the fact that other sets aren’t overall uneffective.

You can’t just buff-buff over and over every set to put them on par on the strongest set without having a power creep, which looks like it is what you guys want.

Nemiros.3590:

I dont understand why its fine for teams to stack eles, mesmers and engies, but necros get a buff and all of a sudden meta is broken when you see 2 in a tournament. Necros took back their role as condition masters, which was stolen by the HGH engie a while back. It IS a little on the overpowered side (so has been the mesmer since release, people have just had to learn to counter them). I just hope Anet doesnt nerf us to the ground after a week and we’re back to being lesser engies with no access to burning (condi burst)

This.
Mesmers, Eles and Engis were always over-represented in tournaments and they still are over-represented, even after the Necro buff.

Saying that Necro is OP just because it is now worth to have in a team for his support makes no sense at all to me.

Travlane.5948:

i dont mind if u wanna troll or hate on thieves or say that the new QQers on nerfs are wrong . but when u say something just like elaborate a lil.

thief is effective you say? go on explain? how and where? to what effect? keep in mind the goals/point of each mode (PVE TPVP SPVP and WVW) basically id like to hear this explaination outside of a roaming sense.

my thoughts: thief are VERY ineffective. we had a role as bunker busters but now that init cost is higher on LS….which i guess i cant totally argue with…although i think its kitten backwards bc FS is 3 which does little and LS is 2 which does ALOT more effect. and also lost stun break so even tho thats major we can still function in a 1 on 1 …not as well but soon as 3+ come that s/d build is in trouble.

Do I have to link you some twitch channels of effective Thieves?

Shemsu.8721:

So either have fun playing the class who’s style you like or be effective? Is it really so wrong to actually want all classes to be effective, so we can play the ones we like? I have to disagree with you both, i want to have fun and be effective, not choose one or the other

Point is that thief is effective.
People still fear thieves and they still have tough times against.
There are also some people left who still think that thief is still OP.

What is your source to saying thief is not effective?

Your experience?
What people say in the forums?

I’m narrow minded? Who’s the one saying that thief should not be allowed to have a 1200 range weapon because it is not specified in the class description. I simply pointed out that those class descriptions are not an accurate state for any class. You started that line of logic, its too bad it goes against your argument

Well, if it isn’t said in the description, then probably ANet designed the thief not to be a long-range profession. It’s the most logical conclusion to the SB range nerf.
Or you actually believe that ANet hating thief and nerfing things randomly makes more sense..?

Phantom.8130:

i’m not the one with the history of making things up to support a flawed argument, then switching around what i say, and say the complete opposite to support another flawed argument in a blatant personal war against something as ridiculous as a class in a video game. you, however…..: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/showposts/sorrow-2364/1

it’s all there in black and white. i don’t even need to say a word, you’ve done all the arguing on both sides of pretty much every topic already. you’re a troll, and not even a very good one at that. i’m just trying to save you further embarrassment. if you want to keep making a fool of yourself on an internet forum, be my guest.

I did switch what I say only if fact changes.
In 7 months, there was 7 different patch full of changes to the game.
Do I have to keep saying that instagib build is still too strong after the nerfs? Do I have to keep saying that Stealth is still OP after the Revealed nerf? Do I have to keep saying that condi thieves are cheap due to caltrops after its duration nerf?

Last time I said that something was too cheap about thief, was about Flanking Strike which was, in fact, nerfed in the 25 june patch with increased initiative.

I don’t think anymore that Thief is OP as I don’t agree with the huge amount of people in these forums who like to cry for buffs for the Thief class.

I don’t know what’s your purpose. But it’s YOUR OPINION that my arguments are flawed. And, honestly, I don’t feel the urge to dig in your post history to prove my points as you do. In a game forum.

The “you are an internet troll”, also, is a nice touch of stupidity. Congrats.

Phantom.8130:

sorrow, stop. seriously. 2 seconds of looking at your post history is enough to utterly destroy anything you have to say about thieves. why? in this thread, you argue that a thief shouldn’t be a clusterbomb spamming blast finisher turret, and that they have viable support builds. yet…… in this thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Still-absolutely-abysmal/first#post2300952 you state that a thief should be a clusterbomb spamming blast finisher turrent, and that venom sharing is “the only viable support build”. you are literally contradicting yourself just to argue with people who play thieves. honestly, no one needs to debate anything with you, since you’re already contradicting yourself in the span of mere minutes.

looking quite a bit further back into your post history, in this thread from 7 months ago, you stated that you were fighting a personal war to nerf thieves: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Still-absolutely-abysmal/first#post2300952 and just like back then, you’re arguing just for the sake of arguing.

and here’s the kicker. you’re the same as you were all those months ago. you don’t like the thief class because it has stealth, so you say whatever you need to to argue with any point that’s brought up. in fact, taking an in depth look at your posting history, you’re arguing about how OP pretty much every single class except the necro(which you play) is, by using arguments that other people presented against you.

honestly, i would be humiliated by the clear hypocrisy on my part if i were to do such a thing. dignity and integrity will do that.

oh….. right…. here: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dignity?s=t and http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integrity?s=t

So, is taking the post history of someone, pick some sentences out of their contest and time setting and use them against you an effective tactic to discredit someone?
Yeah, just like if in 7 months nothing happened. No patch were released.
There wasn’t any change to stealth mechanic (Revealed, uh?) or instagib builds (CnD and Mug?), right?

Is responding to my reasoning that hard that people feels forced to dig in my whole post history to find some straw to grasp at? You aren’t the first one to do so.

I don’t know if it’s you lack comprehension or I can’t write in english properly (if so, I’m sorry).
Cluster Bomb turret = someone who stand on walls in WvWvW using cluster bomb against people who are down or someone who is down and uses Cluster Bomb against people who are up on the walls.
Just in case you didn’t undestood.
How is this related to Blast Finishing?

Also, if you read my whole posts in the topic you linked with your brain set to “on” mode, you’ll realize that there is a difference between support and full support builds.

It all goes down to the easier access of blast finishers of thieves.

Elementalists can’t blast finish as much as thieves does. They can mantain 25 stacks of might on the team only if they invest everything into boon duration and use all of their blast finishers into their fire fields.

If we compare Thief to Elementalist without any boon duration bonus, Thief is more effective at stacking might and blast finisher bonuses.

The point I’m trying to make is that we’re talking about team environments. In team environments, you’re playing with other professions who are using their combo fields ready to be finished.
If we were talking about solo stacking AoE might, then yes, Elementalist is way better. But why on the earth do you want to AoE stack might alone?

A thief which is using all of its initiative on Cluster Bombing is still using its best AoE damaging skill. Damage and team support. Why do you need any other initiative?

Shemsu.8721:

So we are using the class outline as gospel now? according to the outline thieves are masters of mobility, so why are our shadowsteps nerfed to the ground but mesmer can teleport through walls, up/down any obstacle, while we fail on a pebble or 1 degree slope, even NECRO retains an infinite range teleport

According to the outline mesmers have low health when you get past clones, yet we have lower health then mesmers, should they nerf mesmer health to bottom tier too? because the outline says so?

Thieves are masters of single target damage, yet killshot can do the same damage as backstab to an entire group at 1500 range (despite outline saying they are not strong at range, and are intended for melee)

Should i continue?

It looks like that you’re incredibly narrow-minded according to what you wrote.

Are you trying to say that Mesmer has better mobility compared to Thief?
Are you trying to say that Warrior’s single target burst damage is better than Thief’s?

If so, I think you should play the game more.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Anything is better than a shortbow thief now. If you like to be an useless clusterbomb-bot for ur team while doing nothing in the teamfights go ahead

Shortbow got only a 300 range nerf to Cluster Bomb.
I guess that, to you, shortbow was useful only because you were capable to hit people on the walls in WvWvW.

Towren.1745:

CUT

Thief is capable to blast finishing in any combo field on the environment.
So, with just the use of Cluster Bomb, which is cheap on initative, you can potentially give AoE Might, Frost Armor, Retaliation, Swiftness, Weakness, Stealth, Healing, Chaos Armor and Blind, combining it with any of the combo fields your teammates are using, regardless of their builds. Only thief is capable to exploit combo fields that much.

If you also spec into support (Venom Share, which is actually the only viable support build), you still have those support capabilies coming from the no-cooldown Blast Finisher, plus all the support from Venom Sharing (AoE might, Life steal and conditions).

So, yes, a Thief needs another profession to be used to its full potential, but aren’t you playing anyway with another profession?
Your Ele teammate is using its fire fields anyway, regardless if he’s built around might stacking or damage.
Your Ranger buddy is using its healing spring anyway.
Combo finishing effects scales according to the finisher’s stat, that means that your teammates doesn’t need to build around support for you to be effective.

It is a different way to support your team, but it’s not less effective.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

S/D Ele:
Ring of fire -> Dragons Tooth + Phoenix -> Earth -> Earthquake + Arcane Wave
There you go, easily obtainable 12 aoe might stacks for the team, which is what every good ele does on a rotation.

Those ability have a cooldown.
Earthquake and Arcane Wave, also, have a pretty high cooldown.
I know that S/D Ele has a quite high amount of finishers, but it is still inferior to Cluster Bomb on 3 initiative.

Towren.1745:

Actually that’s simply not true. Sorry to jump in here – I was just browsing the thief forums for some giggles – but I play a support Elly in PvE. With 30 points in the Arcane Tree, Runes of Water x 2, Runes of Monk x 2, Runes of Strength x 2 + Boon Duration food an Elementalist can keep a stack of 25 might on a team Solo… With the latest patch if we trait for it we can give the team perminant might and fury. And I can do that with two different weapon set combinations (haven’t tested others)…

Argue all you want about Guardians vs Thieves, but you’re wrong about the elementalist :p

That is a fringe case.
If you build completely to stack might on your team, of course you’re better at it compared to a Thief with no specific build.
That doesn’t invalidate my point.

Tulisin.6945:

They do have to outline it, but they should do it internally, like most dev teams. Releasing profession definitions has never not been a terrible idea in the long term.

That is your opinion.
People needs to know what they are playing and what they should expect from future changes.
If they didn’t, it would happen that people start playing Thief hoping to be a different profession and rage on each patch because he expects changes that won’t come because they don’t match the developers’ design of the Thief profession. Pretty much like the OP, who doesn’t looks like he has read the devs’ descripiton of Thief.

Tulisin.6945:

This is why most MMO devs refuse to release class definitions. Professions are dynamic, and the goalposts for success in their balance are constantly changing. The second you release an actual statement that statement is used as gospel forever. Anything within that statement must be adhered to strictly, and anything outside that statement is clearly unintentional and should be changed.

They just outlined what they wanted the Thief to be.
If they want to make every profession feel different, they HAVE to outline the feature of each profession and focus to archieve balance around those guidelines.
If you don’t, you’ll end to have every profession to feel the same. Of course there will be balance, but then it will feel extremely boring.

Bigglesworth.8249:

No, you just have to depend on someone else laying down a field for you! Meaning that other person is the one providing group support, not the thief. I’m pretty sure every profession has access to a blast finisher, meaning the Thief is not necessary anywhere in that equation. And I know for a fact people would much rather have a Guardian than a Thief in a group for pretty much anything. So I’ll ask again: Where’s our fire field? Or even water? Light?

The Thief profession has abysmal group support, full stop. You will not succeed in convincing anyone who has played the profession otherwise (It’s like we’re 2/3s of a complete class. Damage / Survivability / ?? Support ??).

Thieves have an huge amount of finishers compared to other professions.
A field isn’t enough if you don’t have finishers to take advantage from.
Take elementalists, for instance. They have an huge amount of fields, while not so many combo finishers. Same applies to Necromancers. They have a low amount of unreliable finishers while they have a lot of fields.

They just have a different roles in support. An Elementalist alone isn’t capable to stack 12 might on your team. They need a thief to blast finishing into his fire fields. Both combined are way stronger than a single guardian stacking a poor amount of mights alone.
That’s the whole point of cross-profession combos.

jcbroe.4329:

I’m playing a ranger, it isn’t as though I have much on demand condi removal outside of my heal and Signet of Renewal,

So yes, while I agree that the bleeds contributed to my death, losing control of my character for 10s back to back probably didn’t help when I was trying to use my heals and weapon evades.

Fear is also a condition other than a CC.
If your time your Sig of Renewal when you’re feared you get cleansed and you also break stun.

Staying in you Healing Spring, also is a big damage mitigation. It can also work as a fearbreaker if you’re lucky enough.

Also, keep in mind that if you were running conditions too, it is pretty hard to win a Necro in a long fight.

ArenaNet said that they wanted the Necro to be stronger the longer the fight lasts. They finally archieved their goal.

frans.8092:

Not as strong as it looks, the boons are fairly useless if traiting them to Steal – and reducing it’s cooldown(!) – cost you too much damage. Without a power/crit build, for instance, Fury is pointless.

I’m running 10/30/0/0/30 with S/P and I find the Daze on steal, plus the reduced cooldown and all the goodies when stealing amazing.
Pistol Whip, also, synergize well with Daze on steal because it benefits too from sigil of paralyzation.
Check this build out!

Yeah, i’m thinking of getting condition gear to try it out, with Shortbow blown up we can now look at P/D D/D

Shortbow still has amazing utilities and mobility. It isn’t blown up.

It’s main problem is the uselessness of the condition it applies.

With P/P, 10 stacks of vuln might be useful. Have to check it out extensively, tho.

Interesting skill, too bad teleport and shadowstepping are so unreliable.

Actually, Shadow Trap looks fairly reliable. It is now a fixed utility in my bar in tPvP/sPvP.
Check this skill out by yourself too.

2, even 3, seconds of stealth are not all that useful for a rez, unless something/someone else pulls aggro away.

The extra stealth stacks with other stealth you might apply with Blinding Powder.
3s of stealth when ressing are absolutely not bad, tbh.

Removal of the stun breaker from sword makes that weapon somewhat inferior to plain D/D, at least for PvE.

It was expected.
Stunbreaker on initiative was quite too strong to be true. Shadow Return still saves your kitten from stun → burst.

Kyrion.2749:

First, no one wants free badges, thieves work as hard as everyone else to get them.

Second, dont confuse efectiveness with mechanics. A necro may not have the same roaming efectiveness as a thief but they certainly can roam. However, a thief may not fire at 1200 range, while every other class in the game can do it (regardless of efectiveness).

Do you think that roaming as a Necro is different from a suicide?
I don’t know if you ever roamed as a Necro and you met an enemy zerg.

I guess that a Necro is also capable to stealth a mesmer in an enemy castle.

Bigglesworth.8249:

Greatsword 3rd Auto-attack: Just for attacking something you and all nearby allies will have a constant 5 stacks
Staff #4: Channelled heal gives 12 stacks
Trait: Empowering Might – Base 5 seconds of Might whenever you crit
Fields: Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames + Blast Finisher (say… Hammer 2) – Area Might

Please tell me, what fire fields does Thief have access to?

1. Greatsword applies might only to you. It isn’t an AoE might as far I know.
2. Those might stacks lasts for about 10 seconds. AoE blast finishing lasts 15 seconds and are 3 stacks per blast.
3. 1 stack of might for 5 seconds each time you critically hit. Yeah, really worthy.
4. Is the Hammer 2 on 3 initative?

Do you know what cross professions combo mean? Are we talking about team settings or solo environments? Because if we are talking about solo environment, thief still wins (Hidden Assassin, Power of Inertia, Signets of Power, Venomous Strength).

It looks like that for you 4 consecutive blast finishers in a fire field (12 stacks of might for 15 seconds each) are worse than 1 stack of might for 5 seconds for each critical hit and 12 stack of might for 10 seconds channeled while not moving for 2+ seconds.

And you don’t even need to spend any traitpoint or utility slot to do so!

“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

Design concept of thieves according to ANet. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post999247)

I can’t see where ArenaNet said that Thief is supposed to be good at long range.
In that topic there are also listed which professions are supposed to be effective at long range but, as you can see, thief is not one of those.

They aren’t supposed to be a Cluster Bomb turrets. If you want to get free badges when attacking or defending a castle, either build and use an Arrowcart, or change profession to another which is supposed to do the WvWvW turret, like Elementalist, Ranger, Necro or Engineer.
If all the professions should have all the same capabilities, why can’t I roam with my Necro as I do with my Thief?

Arkham Creed.7358:

To Sorrow: I wasn’t demanding anything. I was merely making a polite exit, and attempting to say goodbye to a subsection of the Guild Wars 2 community I’ve been with since beta, and who have given me tons of advice and words of encouragement over the last several months. But by your posts I can see the subtleties of tact, diplomacy, and manners are beyond you.

Well, to me, your topic sounds more like another rant than a goodbye.
If you wanted it to look like a goodbye, you should have wrote a different OP.

I don’t really think that the 10k damage from fear is the damage which killed you.
I think that the 40k damage from bleeds is the issue you should look at.

Necro isn’t capable to stack and keep a lot of bleeds on the target as engis or rangers can.
You probably did not cleansed it at all during the whole fight, eating all the bleeds you took.

Now Necros are definitely OP.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

CUT

Why did I bothered to read this wall of no-sense?
You just said false, false, false without giving any reasoning backing up what you say.
Do you want to have a discussion or your only purpose is to annoy people?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

^^^You obviously know nothing on what you’re talking about — calling FS and LS the same skill — ROFLMAO — excuse me, it’s just too funny.

Well, if you’re done with your godly advice, I’m done watching this comedy show also.

facepalm

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Then exercise that brain and L2P, right?

Said the one who is complaining about the patch and he feels weak in dungeons.

Don’t worry, you surely don’t need to L2P.
Just spam the forum saying how weak the thief is, how bad nerfs are and wait and hope for buffs, because thief is unplayable without them, right?

Travlane.5948:

if ur hitting 12 backstabs you will die fast. id own you in wvw and even more so in pvp with that build. guardians give might better and usually running with several so your might isnt needed. plus they heal better and protect dmg better so you are just trying to tag along on their coattails. thieves really have no place in the game other than roaming and now it keeps getting the nerf bat so be realistic. im on dragonbrand if u wanna challenge with you 12k burst build!

Can you please tell me how can a guardian better stacks might compared to thief’s combo finishing into fire fields?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

1. What? Flanking Strike is too expensive for what it does AND I’m talking about LARCENOUS STRIKE here.

Oh and don’t get me started about the pathing.

2. Wow. And here you are saying that we should embrace the buffs.

I’m sorry but you’re full of….<enter whatever is appropriate here>.

Thank you for your time. It seems that your thoughts are worth a penny after all.

1. Flanking Strike and Larcenous Strike are essentialy the same skill. Actually, LS is the one who steal boons. Which was at 1 initiative. 2 boons stolen on 1 initiative. It definitely needed a ini cost increase.

2. What?

Oblivion.8307:

Greenfish.1270:

Symbolic.7910:

necros are op yes, many people are just in denial.

Your claim is not very believable without any evidence proving they are op, which makes this just a troll post

i keep posting on my na account for some reason, here’s my thoughts on the patch anyways

http://www.twitch.tv/symbollix/c/2480658

I didn’t watched the entire stream, to be honest. 1hr is too much.
The only thing I’ve got is that you think that Terror+Dhuumfire is too strong.
Honestly, I don’t know how can it be considered stronger than any HGH engineer.

Why don’t you complain about thieves being weak in some of the other 1028743847 topics in this forum instead of creating a new one?