Guild Wars 2

One word:
Conditions.
Unleash your super duper Thief power spamming your Death Blossom and Stealth skills and no Guardian can stop you, neither a Thief.

Judas.5432

Ok, I’ll take a stab at it. How about…..
…..because most people can’t be bothered to improve their own gameplay and Thieves take particular advantage of people like that?
Seriously, if Mario Bros. was just coming out for the first time, today’s gamers would just ask the developers to make it easier rather than getting better at playing it. The reason why there are so many Thieves right now is because everyone just comes here and posts about how OP they are instead of going to their own class forum and learning how the pro community deal with them….which is knowledge the pros are generally very happy to share.

So… You have just admitted that thieves are overpowered.
Every professions has to get better to deal with thieves BUT thieves do not need to get better to deal with other professions. So, as most of the players have noticed, there is no point to put huge amount of efforts into getting better with your profession when you can enjoy easy kills and winning with a thief and, you know, people like easy winning. This is the explanation to the amount of thieves running in sPvP.

I’ve played thieves and I just refuse to play them anymore because of its exaggerated effectiveness and ease of use, but I would enjoy playing them if this profession actually requires weeks of practice and training to get nice results, like other professions such as Necromancers or Elementalists do.

Shooopa.5632:

At this point why not just remove the class entirely? Because obviously the only way anyone will ever be satisfied is if no one ever plays as a thief.

I have zero faith in AreaNet to balance the classes at this point. May as well just remove all of them except warrior and mesmer.

Right now thieves are far from underplayed… Guess why so many people play thief?

Guys, come on. The fact that you consider Epidemic as a must and a great spell means so much.

Yes, Necromancers need a buff to many other skills and build, but this doesn’t mean that Epidemic at that cooldown isn’t too effective. Just couple it with a profession which spams condition very quicky and at high duration like Thief’s Death Blossom or Warrior’s Sword and with just one Epidemic you have all this amout of condition spread around all the enemies in an huge area. Necromancer right now is only that skill and this isn’t the profession I want to play. I want that all skills are equally effective, useful and strong.

Don’t let your point of view to get biased and watch the things objectively.

gaspara.4079:

sorrow.2364:

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

Hearseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Shadow Shot, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadow Assault, Infiltrator’s Strike
You mean skill like those?

No, he means offensive as in closes the gap or puts you in a position to deal more damage. Only Heartseeker and Flanking strike really accomplish this. Mug traited steal also would count. You could maybe consider Death Blossom.

The rest you listed would be defensive because while they do damage they are designed to get you out of harms way rather than closer to it. Or they do no damage at all and they way they work seems more defensive.

I don’t get what do you mean. You have bunch of mobility skills and you are saying you need more.. I can’t get the point.

Each weapon set you have has at least one gap closer plus you have one gap closer which doesn’t depends on weapon set (Steal).

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow I was talking more about offensive mobility like flanking strike

Hearseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike, Disabling Shot, Shadow Shot, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadow Assault, Infiltrator’s Strike
You mean skill like those?

Ashanor.5319:

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Really? I have played pretty much all classes in this game and I would say that Warrior (hammer/axe/mace) and Guardian (burn or triple med) were just as easy as Thief, and all Ranger does is auto attack and burst with quickness.

The point is that Warrior, Guardian and Rangers do not have the damage output the thief has at the same cheap cost. Probably you haven’t played them enough.
I can faceroll people with just a chain of skills, you can’t do this with Guardians, Warriors or Ranger. Of course there are some builds that needs to be toned down, but it is another topic.

gaspara.4079:

Stealth doesn’t remove conditions at all, Hide in Shadows the healing skill does but that is the skill not stealth.

Also the good thieves do this yes, but good players of their class can do a lot of things. They aren’t the ones people are complaining about though because the good players should win. They all seem to be complaining about the lone thieves who just follow the step by step to gank other loners.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow%27s_Embrace

Combine this trait with Hide in Shadows and you have almost all conditions removed plus huge amount of healing in just one skill.

Posibabis.5932:

Hit three times and just vanish sounds like no fun. I would prefer higher mobility so the gameplay would be more interesting! I also wouldn’t mind a parry skill in exchange to burst!

Let’s admit at least one thing. Big part of the fun comes from high damage output. I thinkIit would be good to buff counter measures rather than decreasing damage.

What do you want to have more mobility? You have a shortbow skill which teleports you when you want in a 900 radius, you have a shadowstep available to all builds (steal) plus other available as utility and other as weapon skills, you are the only profession with a signet which grants you 25% increased movement speed as passive bonus, you have a trait which grants you 33% movement speed when in stealth and another which grants you swiftness on dodge… Do you want a skill which teleports you when you want on the map to have enough mobility?

High damage of thief is mostly related to its opness and probably you think it is fun because you have easy kill and you feel invincible.
Less damage and more durable less effective stealth will for sure make the thief way funnier.

Ashanor.5319:

Want some suggestions?

- Backstab should get a maximum of 6k damage critical on a squishy glass cannon build.
- Heartseeker should have the leap removed.
- Stealth debuff should last longer.
- Stealth should last way longer if traited, less if untraited.
- There should be given some clue of where the thief is if you succed to hit him while stealthed (like a sparkle or a sound).
- Mug should have reduced damage.
- Hide in Shadows should have less stealth duration compared to other skills
- Basilisk Venom should have 2 seconds stone duration
- Cloak and Dagger should cost 2 more initiative.
- Death Blossom should have removed (or reduced to 3-4 seconds) bleeding effect and increased damage
- Fear from Necromancer Steal should last 1 and 1/2 seconds and cast faster.
- Unload should inflict bleeding
- The dagger autoattack damage should be decreased

Sounds more like you just want to destroy the class. lol

I don’t want to destroy the class, I just want thieves be funny and challenging to play as they should be. Right now, they are the easiest to play profession which also the worse player out of this game could have nice results at playing it.

Posibabis.5932:

@sorrow you crash down thief’s damage, reducing mobility, making even harder the already tricky initiative mechanic but I don’t see anywhere defensive suggestions.

Also you don’t suggest what to play when combo ends and I am vulnerable.

Dude, I’ve suggested to increase stealth duration to 5-6 seconds… What do you want more to be defensive? Unlimited invulnerability till your next burst?

When you have landed your combo, vanish in stealth and try to avoid enemy attacks. He won’t have any clue of where you are if you are good at it, BUT, if you are bad, you will probably get spotted really fast and dead.
Right now any bad player can vanish in stealth and being really hard to spot to most the players.

Chrysalis.3142:

Your reasoning to nerf epidemic is hilarious, “this skill is outstanding when compared to the other Necromancer utilities”. That’s like saying nerf the channeled axe skill because it’s better than the auto attack lol. Also, all they need to do for plague form is buff the other 2 skills. rather than nerfing the only good one.

Epidemic is on a 12s cooldown when traited, this is too low considering what it does. 20s cooldown when untraited and 15-16 when traited is just fine considering the power of the skill.

You are right about Plague, I haven’t said that they should remove blindness from plague, I’ve said that offensive and defensive capability of Plague should be balanced. Right now there is no point to use Plague offensively because it just sucks. This is why I’ve put Plague in both nerf and buff section.

Alekto.8297:

A lot of people is whining about Plague perma blind? Are you guys aware that you can just … RUN ? Plague is all ok, if yours foes are dumb enought to stay in plague aoe range then they will just RiP… haha Don’t call a nerf on something which is actually working very well
Regards

Please, Plague is way too strong when defending a node and it is quite obvious. If you go out of AoE range you are probably not in the range for capping that node, so…

Archmagel.1350:

More Death Shroud variety: I agree, but I don’t know what would need to be changed. :/

I mean, the first skill can be linked to the MH weapon and the second skill to the OH.

I’ll give you some examples:
- Dagger MH: 1 skill of Death Shroud inflict more damage based on how much Life you have and steals some.
- Dagger OH: 2 skill which transfer all your conditions to the target or apply some.
- Axe: 1 skill which deal high damage and inflict vulnerability
- Scepter: 1 skill which stack bleeding on hit
- Warhorn: 2 skill which is a gap closer and grants swiftness

Obviously those are just example and probably bad examples, but they show the concept behind.

Archmagel.1350:

Epidemic: Oh dear Grenth, no! It was bad enough when they took away the infinite range! The skill is only useful when there is more than 1 person, it makes you vulnerable, and it is a gamble. Let’s say it was increased to a 30sec cooldown. You place conditions on a target and another enemy (or the zerg) arrive and you see that as a prime time to spread those conditions. At that same time, the enemy decides to cleanse himself. Now what? You are stuck with a cool down with no effect. What if you are about to blast it off of an enemy and your team mate decides to burst him as you cast it and puts the enemy down. Now what? All conditions cleanse when downed, another waste. The skill is a gamble as is, and I feel like the recharge is fair for the gamble.

I’m not getting your point… The good timing of Epidemic is just a requirement, not a gamble.
Keep in mind that Epidemic recharge is lowered by a Curse trait, right now I’m running with Epidemic at 12s recharge, which is way too low considering what it does.

Because of the incredible developer attention these days, I propose to sum up a thread discussing on what needs a buff and what needs a nerf in your opinion only related to Necromancers.

Who knows better which things performs way better than expected and which performs just bad about a profession than who plays this profession everyday?

So let’s get started.

Buff —-——————————————————————————————
- Axe damage: it is way too low than expected and the 3 second channeling of Ghastly Claws isn’t that rewarding when speaking about raw numbers. Right now I think that most Necromancer feels that Axe is lackluster.
- Vampiric heals, traits and damage: the heals vampiric skills grant are way too low to consider them as viable, nor when considering them about damage. Life Siphon is just like Ghasly Claws but it last longer for less damage. It can use a buff in both the base heal amount that the raw damage. Traits also heals for really a low amount to be considered enough.
- Plague condition application: some people complained about Necromancers spamming blindness when in Plague form. It is true in my opinion, because there is no point to spread other conditions. In my opinion Plague should have a better bleeding stacking capability.
- Wells duration: wells are powerful, yes, but they last way too short. 2 seconds more on their duration feel perfect to me.
- Death Magic traitline rework: as stated many times, Death Magic traitline needs a serious rework in minor trait redistribution.
- More Death Shroud variety: Death Shroud, right now, feels too much useless to some builds. In my opinion at least 1 skill (Life Blast or Dark Path maybe?) should change their effects depending on weapon set.

Nerf —-——————————————————————————————
Epidemic: this skill is outstanding when compared to the other Necromancer utilities. It needs an increased recharge time in my opinion.
Plague blindness: it is true, Plague grants Necromancer too much defensive capabilities that fell into the overpowered category in my opinion. There should be a sort of balance in the Plague skill around offensive and defensive capability.

Please, keep this thread polite and constructive, remember to reason every buff/nerf you propose.

Shinjo.6092:

I really don’t know what your definition of “spamming” is but clearly, it’s different from mine if you believe that doing something twice, with 3 seconds in between, while having to do dodges within that time, is considered “spamming”.

I like where you’re headed though. Never mind that those moves are ranged, AOE’s, and/or gains Life Force. We should just have all the moves output the exact same amount of damage. Thieves should have to stealth and get behind the guy just to do the same single target damage as an ele casting AOE from afar. That is just…brilliance.

I’m not saying that you should do the same damage dude, I’m just saying that right now dealing that damage is easy, it is instant and can be done every 3-4 seconds.
The effectiveness/effort ratio is way too high. If you add to the equation heartseeker, mug and CnD to burst, you realize that there shouldn’t be that damage in that time and with that effort.

Just look at Hundred Blades, it channels for 3 seconds and an half and roots you on the ground to deal a bit more of the Backstab damage. Eviscerate, also, has to be charged for at least 10 seconds (if you are hitting very fast), has a cooldown of 10 seconds and hits for less damage than backstab.
They are also close ranged, just to say.

If you want the damage as it is right now it should be way harder to land and should have some sort of cooldown attached.

Shinjo.6092:

One whine at a time, pleeeaasse. Otherwise, we might run out of stuff to nerf next week.

Read: I have no valid arguments against.

dat bunny.5074:

@sorrow.2364 sounds like you play a necro

awesome that you have 30k hp and can send back every one of our status effects onto ourselfs with just one skill. your skills just have a cool down while ours have a set amount of skill we can use in a battle and if we run out guess what? we are dead

30K hp when fully specced but, unfortunately, we have no Stealth which removes condition when traited and apply regeneration and we have no Shadow Refuge which grants you 10+ seconds of invisibility + heals.

Plus, the skills which transfers conditions requires a target and usually can’t hit evading players, because, you know, death blossom also let you evade attacks…

The only chance you have is to hope that the thief is that noob to step on your putrid mark, but anyway it just transfer the conditions one time every 25 seconds, while thieves can easily apply 10+ stacks of bleeding every 8 seconds.

Shinjo.6092:

That’s what you consider spammable? Cause you can do 2 in 3 seconds?

Do you think that it isn’t enough?
Some skills like Dragon’s Tooth float on the enemy’s head for 1-2 seconds to less damage of backstab and than go on cooldown for 6 seconds.
Ghastly Claws channels for 3 seconds and than go on cooldown for 8 seconds to deal less than half of the backstab damage, same as Life Siphon, which channels one second more, deal less damage and recharges in 12 seconds.
Those are only few examples.

When we are talking about over 6k damage in a hit, 3-4 seconds are too low to be able to do it another time.

Shinjo.6092:

Do you know why they called it backstab instead of frontstab, or sideways face stab? It’s because you actually have to get BEHIND the guy to do full damage. And if you’re using your heals and gettaway moves for backstab, then you’re NOT using your heals and gettaway moves to…well…heal and gettaway, making it THAT much easier to take down the glass cannon thief.

Well, in most cases, your getaway skill is Hide in Shadows and it is more than enough.
You can also use the trait that stealths you on steal, to save some initiative to land another backstab.

Also you have some traits which stealth you automatically when it is time to get away…

Shinjo.6092:

Are you talking about burst damage or sustained damage? Are you surprised that not every other profession has burst damage? Or, if you’re talking about sustained damage, what do you think happens to a thief’s damage when their initiative runs out?

Oh well, thieves are great as sustained and burst damage.
Burst damage is ridiculous, sustained damage over time is much more ridiculous. I’ve met some thieves in tPvP which spammed Death Blossom while popping in and out of stealth and running with high toughness/vitality, they were nearly impossible to kill.

Shinjo.6092:

How is it spammable? CnD costs 6 ini so you can get 2 in before you run out, there’s a 4 second revealed time in between stealths, and his venoms will be gone during the 2nd one, making it that much harder to get behind you.

1) Revealed lasts 3 seconds, I think thieves with just a dodge can survive 3 seconds
2) Backstab requires no initiative use other than CnD
3) You usually have other stealth skills in your bar, like Smoke Bomb, Shadow Refuge or Hide in Shadows. Tecnically, each time you are stealthed is a potential backstab landed
4) Oh wait, you actually need a venom to land backstab? You just have to press 1 untill you hit…

Shinjo.6092:

Also, change the class name to “kitten Warrior” because without burst, there’s no role for thieves.

“Experts at stealth and surprise, kitten Warriors can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, then break into a dance because you know he’s not going to be doing any damage after the weekly nerfs.”

You have no idea on how’s the damage on other professions. Also if ANet cut off thieves’ damage by 50% you still have pretty good damage.

I’d happily trade blindness for better bleed stacking, but right now there is no reason to use other plague other than blindness ’couse they totally suck.

Anyway more noob friendly than Moa sounds like a blasphemy to me.

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

sorrow.2364:

I just want to know which profession except thief can pop out that damage in that time without the use of quickness.
Sorry guys, but backstab feel ridiculous to me. All high damage skills are channeled, have massive casting time or easy to evade.
Backstab deal at least 4k damage and a maximum of 10k, is almost instant and give the victim no clue when the backstab will come..
I don’t care that you have low health and you are squishy and blah blah blah. You have stealth to compensate which is the most powerful defensive mechanic in the game.

Thieves are not the only ones who can deal massive damage, take warriors and Eviscerate, I first tested using methods too maximize the damage at first using For great justice and signet of fury to give me 8 might, and on the thief I took the signets of might trait for 5 stacks of might along with assassins signet for an extra 15%.

Then I tested without any buffs but only traits to see what was more damaging
Thief Traits:
25 Deadly 9 (could of gone to 30 but 50 power and the chance to have 1 more strike with venom and 4 seconds of immobilize isn’t going to do much)
30 Crit 2,3,11
15 trick
Warrior traits
30 Strength 10, 5
30 Discipline 9,12

Now this was not tested in a fair way(could of used executioners extra 20%, or I did not use the empower for more damage per boon) , but it sufficient to prove to you that not all massive damage is done by “channeled skills”.

And just for the “lols” a screenshot of an 11k hit in spvp on a glassy ele ( not useing this setup but as a shout warrior no less)

I didn’t test this fairly but if someone was to you would find the numbers to be similar.

Eviscerate fall in the category “easy to evade”. Warriors have to build up adrenaline for at least 5-6 seconds to land a full damage eviscerate and, also if they fully build up the adrenaline, it is still easy to figure out when a warrior is landing an eviscerate because of the obvious animation.
Of course I think that when eviscerate fails the adrenaline should be unloaded, but this is another topic.

Anyway, the numbers of eviscerate are still lower than the numbers of backstab and, most important, eviscerate is not spammable like backstab is in combination with CnD.

Shizzlenit.7648:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Shizzlenit.7648:

No it’s not. You can still be hit in stealth.

You can be randomly hit while in stealth, but chances are, if you are good, you won’t, unless you’re crazy and decide to teleport right at the middle of a zerg’s aoe. More often than not, your opponent is going to waste their time creating fields around them or hitting the air in hopes of hitting a thief.

Stealth is an amazingly defensive mechanic. It requires a little bit of skill, it’s not an invulnerability button, but it’s extremely strong.

Im not saying it is a bad one, its a very good one indeed. But it’s definetly not “the best in the game” like someone stated.

It is the best in the game in my opinion. No defensive mechanic allow you to take potentially no damage at all and is as cheap as stealth is.

Shizzlenit.7648:

sorrow.2364:

I just want to know which profession except thief can pop out that damage in that time without the use of quickness.
Sorry guys, but backstab feel ridiculous to me. All high damage skills are channeled, have massive casting time or easy to evade.
Backstab deal at least 4k damage and a maximum of 10k, is almost instant and give the victim no clue when the backstab will come..
I don’t care that you have low health and you are squishy and blah blah blah. You have stealth to compensate which is the most powerful defensive mechanic in the game.

No it’s not. You can still be hit in stealth.

Oh, yes, of course. Bad thing that the enemy has no clue where you are most the times. If the situation goes bad all you have to do is stealth and dodge away and you are safe, there is no chance your enemy know where you are if you stay away enough. This is an amazing defensive mechanic.

I just want to know which profession except thief can pop out that damage in that time without the use of quickness.
Sorry guys, but backstab feel ridiculous to me. All high damage skills are channeled, have massive casting time or easy to evade.
Backstab deal at least 4k damage and a maximum of 10k, is almost instant and give the victim no clue when the backstab will come..
I don’t care that you have low health and you are squishy and blah blah blah. You have stealth to compensate which is the most powerful defensive mechanic in the game.

Runcore.5107:

What about make new topic called: “Crying kids time to perma ban”. Its better and more interesting theme on forum. If all crying kids are banned we have here only 50% of players.

And all of those players are thieves!

People who are saying that thieves do not need a nerf are people who always played only thief and have no idea of what is needed to other profession to archieve a kill.
Try every profession out, than come here to say thieves don’t need a nerf in D/D build.

ryan.5106:

sorrow.2364:

XxCoOkyxX.8042:

sorrow.2364 “useless daggers” ?
Did you read that he wants to use a power build, and dagger melee is the stronges dmg weapon for necro atm? lol

Wrong. The strongest damage “weapon” for necromancer is Death Shroud’s Life Blast and it is also ranged! Unless you want to get in close range and dump all the snares Necromancer has (chills and cripple), than you should use ranged skills. Also Life Blast frees you a weapon slot you can use for a more defensive weapon like Scepter or Axe.

You can still use daggers, but I really don’t want to get in close range to spam autoattack, expecially when there are such an overpowered melee builds running around.

I find it impossible for someone to convince me that they are right about something when they obviously don’t know the difference between “than” and “then”. Show me that you’re competent enough to proof read your work, then present your argument. If you can prove a basic level of literacy, it will be easier to take what you say seriously.

English isn’t my mother language. I write in English, also quite in a rush to be honest, only when writing in this forum and rarely when playing Guild Wars 2. If you think that my argument is completely invalid only because I wrote a letter instead of another which doesn’t compromise the understanding of the post, I don’t think that your contribution would be so helpful to the matter.
I think that grammar nazi aren’t helpful in any way.

The point is that people who actually love the game and want it to get better are complaining on the forum with constructive criticism, maybe in wrong manners sometimes.

People who don’t give a kitten about the game have already rerolled thief.

That’s because there are more thieves than whiners.

Shroud stomp and Plague form are a sort of bug abusing since I think they aren’t intended by the developers, so I don’t want to talk about it.

Regarding stability stomp, don’t forget you are putting 30 trait points into Soul Reaping and using your Death Shroud that will go on cooldown. All this for a 3 seconds stability which other professions have free access to it.

@milo:
so what’s balance in your opinion? Giving some professions hell effective downed anti-stomping skills and easy stomp ability while some other just nothing? Downed state is a feature of every profession and all professions should have the same capability in stomping and prevent stomping.
Just look at Elementalists. Their downed state was just bad and now it is buffed (probably overbuffed) because their anti-stomping capability were subpar.

@Hanzo:
Are you trying to say that everyone is bad except you as a Necromancer?
Every profession need the same skill level to perform equally good and this is not the case of Guild Wars 2.
You can’t say that you need the same skill level to play as a Necromancer and as a Thief.

All your argument is invalid because you don’t consider the damage output of Necromancers, which is in most the case not enough to kill a Thief when he pops in and out of stealth and, if you build on damage, you probably don’t have enough defenses to survive the first burst.

Also you said that minion masters are nearly impossible to kill… You clearly haven’t played Necromancer. Minions are the most awful pets in the game with a really awful AI, that’s why none runs minion and you don’t see many minion masters in sPvP/tPvP. I really want to see a video of you kicking kitten as minion master and with your minions actually attacking people instead of staring the void.

I’ve played all the PvE story with Necromancer and made almost 75% of sPvP/tPvP games with my Necromancer (enough to reach rank 23) and, still, I perform way better when I’m on my Thief than on my Necromancer. Does it means that I’m negated into playing Necromancer or that, probably, thieves are too good and too easy to play and probably need a nerf?

@Auesis:

1. Backstab is an almost instant skill, don’t forget about that. A damage a skill can do on that low casting time is at maximum 6k when you are running with full power and 30% critical damage against a player with base toughness. The point is that right now, thieves can get more of the damage I proposed against player with 1700-1800 toughness.

2. The leap effect is what makes Heartseeker overpowered. It almost cancels all snares effect to thieves because of its spammability and also deal a quite decent damage. With no leap effect it will looks more like a final stab than a cheap leap.

3. By 2-3 seconds. And make it apply also when stealth ends, not just when it is ended by the player but with less time.

4. I mean 6-7 seconds. Anyway you will make spotting a stealthed thief way easier than it is now. Thieves can get this Stealth duration with Shadow Refuge, so it is already broken, right?

5. No every weapon set has an autoattack chain and no every weapon set has an autoattack chain which doesn’t require a target. Dots don’t display btw. When you hit the thief you see his silhouette (like how you see stealthed friendly players) for a short period of time. In this way, thieves should also avoid attacks other than just vanish. To compensate this, they’ll have increased stealth duration.

6. //

7. I mean compared to other stealthing skills. If other skills, like I said, get 6-7 seconds of stealth, Hide in Shadows should stay as it is now.

8. Basilisk Venom is an useless elite right now. Devoreour Venom is better. There should be something which let thieves choose this Venom instead of others.

9. You can. Initiative regenerates quite fast and right now it can be used to spam backstab. There also should be a leap backward effect. It should be more an escape than a fuel for backstab.

10. D/D is a damage set. Bleeding on Death Blossom makes absolutely no sense.

11. //

12. //

13. I don’t know if what you said will work, but right now spamming autoattack with dagger is way too much effective.

Mammoth.1975:

I think you can do a lot more with 30s of stability than one stomp. Lich>cancel is potentially our strongest elite, despite the fact that it can be stripped.

It just look stupid to use your Elite skill just to get stability. Guardians have stability on a 30 sec cooldown, thieves have stealth and blindness at almost no cooldown.

It looks much more like a bug to me that an intended feature.

stof.9341:

sorrow.2364:

Blindness stomp is the most uneffective stomp around. Well of darkness pulses 1 time per second, once you missed the first downed autoattack, you can still prevent stomping.

You know most anti stomp downed skills actually have cast times right? Blind anti stomp works very well. In my experience, it works better than Stealth stomp btw.

Yes, and this links to the second point of my topic. Unbalance around anti-stomp skills.
By the way, you can still have luck and get your stomp prevented if you have a good timing and, also, Well of Darkness is on a 60s cooldown. You probably find blind stomp working better ’cause your blindess field has no cooldown.

stof.9341:

You could do a blind stomp. You got Well of Darkness that can work for that.

Blindness stomp is the most uneffective stomp around. Well of darkness pulses 1 time per second, once you missed the first downed autoattack, you can still prevent stomping.

Mammoth.1975:

You can cancel lich for 30s+ stability.

Well, it doesn’t look like an efficient idea wasting your elite on a 180s cooldown and your only decent damage source in order to get one stomp, don’t you think?

By the way, you focused on just a part of the topic.
Stomping prevention should be reworked. Some professions can escape to any stomp (Thieves, Elementalists, Mesmers), some can escape most stomps (Guardians and Rangers) and some can escape just direct stomps (Necromancers, Engineer and Warriors).

This isn’t a situation of balance.

Setima.8741:

People won’t stop crying about Thieves and their skills until the Thief is nerfed so badly nobody plays them anymore and the whiny kittenes move on to a new class to whine about. It’s this generation of gimme, gimme, gimme, easy, easy, easy children that play games these days. It’s a lot in part of course to WoW due to Blizzard dumbing their own game down so badly that even a petrified stick could play the game.

What ever happened to people showing some balls and learning some strategies? I remember not too long ago if I was playing in an arcade on lets say, Street Fighter 2 and this dude walks in and kicks my kitten with Guile, I didn’t just cry about how to nerf Guile, I put another gd quarter in and played against that guy until I WON. I learned his patterns, I learned his weaknesses, then I used that knowledge to exploit his mistakes and patterns and beat him.

Obviously this could go back and forth, but eventually the games would be about even on every match until the matches always came down to that last little hit. That was FUN. That was competition. That was what PvP is, not this nerf, nerf, nerf, whine, whine, whine, bullkitten. And that’s the problem with 90% of the people crying about the Thief. They don’t want to put that virtual quarter in and go back and learn to beat their kitten Hell, if they even TRIED to learn how to beat their kitten I’d help them out in any way I could. kitten, I’d probably even let them win a few times against me just to make them feel better. In the end, none of this even matters, Anet isn’t going to listen to crybabies, they listen to their computer models that feed them all the data they use to buff and nerf. They don’t play their own game and they don’t care what we have to say unless it’s an exploit or a bug. Sorry for the rant, but these topics are really getting old.

I just want to destroy all your argument in one question:
How much time and/or efforts did you took, as a Thief, to learn how to counter a Necromancer?

You mean stomp when you are a Plague or in Lich Form? Well, you can’t.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

I hear a lot of complaining about a specific type of thief build, backstab, but I never see any logical ways to fix it mentioned besides “nerf it.” Nerfing something doesn’t fix everything. One change to that will change how thieves play, their gear, and tactics.

Right now you’re upset that thieves have crazy burst dmg and almost “perma-stealth” due to rendering issues and your lack of attention on the battlefield. Thieves don’t have perma-stealth, they just caught you when you weren’t looking. Enough said.

So Skudder has an 80 thief. How would you fix the thief class? What does a thief bring to the tabble if not his burst dps/cond dps? Surely you won’t say venoms or then I would have to really believe you don’t know your class.

p.s. Anyone can have a level 80.

Want some suggestions?

- Backstab should get a maximum of 6k damage critical on a squishy glass cannon build.
- Heartseeker should have the leap removed.
- Stealth debuff should last longer.
- Stealth should last way longer if traited, less if untraited.
- There should be given some clue of where the thief is if you succed to hit him while stealthed (like a sparkle or a sound).
- Mug should have reduced damage.
- Hide in Shadows should have less stealth duration compared to other skills
- Basilisk Venom should have 2 seconds stone duration
- Cloak and Dagger should cost 2 more initiative.
- Death Blossom should have removed (or reduced to 3-4 seconds) bleeding effect and increased damage
- Fear from Necromancer Steal should last 1 and 1/2 seconds and cast faster.
- Unload should inflict bleeding
- The dagger autoattack damage should be decreased

Than you guys can enjoy mastering your profession without getting easy wins.
I would reroll thief if those changes are applied, right now I feel playing a thief like cheating.

In my opinion those mechanic are absolutely broken, at least in the point of view of a Necromancer.

Necromancers have no access to stability, unless a Grandmaster trait in Soul Reaping traitline, which grants stability when entering Death Shroud (fun thing you can’t stomp while in DS), no access to stealth and no access to quickness.

Also, their downed anti-stomp skill is the counter of nothing.
Fear is a targeted skill (can’t counter stealth stompers), with an high casting time (can’t counter quickness stompers) and is actually a CC skill (can’t counter stability stompers).

I’d like to know why Necromancers are this bad regarding stomping and stomping prevention.

In my opinion, they just need to totally remove that skill and give mesmers something other, like an Elite signet or an Elite Phantasm buff.

10 seconds cc has no place in this game in any form.

danni.1824:

To clarify about the daggers being useless:

Your main attack (auto attack) generates 3% life force per hit. Meaning, you’re quickly generating life force to go into death shroud. Couple this with the undeath sig if you’d like, or spectral walk, since you’re getting hit anyways, you will get into DS near immediately after engaging into combat.

As I mentioned in the first post, this is a Death Shroud-centric build. Meaning you are generating life force through dagger’s quick attack to get into DS.
(yay bold lettering)

Next I’d like to reiterate yet again that this is not a conditionmancer build. do not expect to apply conditions (except vuln from DS and wells), as the stats required for this build specifically do not stack condition damage.

You generates 3% life force per hit, true, but at the cost of being in close range. 3% Life Force per mark does the same job. If you need Life Force, just switch at staff and EVERY skill generates life force and also at 1200 range. You can also picking daggers for fast life force building but it is way too risky and you should also take staff as life force building weapon.

Well, it is a matter of probabilities. It is better to do a big single damage than a chain of little damage when talking about crits. A full dagger chain takes the same time that a single Life Blast but it is way harder to make all crits on a full chain.

You have 1/16 chances to make a chain of all crits with daggers with a 50% crit chance and a 1/2 chances to crit a Life Blast, so Life Blast is the best pick if you hate gambling.

XxCoOkyxX.8042:

sorrow.2364 “useless daggers” ?
Did you read that he wants to use a power build, and dagger melee is the stronges dmg weapon for necro atm? lol

Wrong. The strongest damage “weapon” for necromancer is Death Shroud’s Life Blast and it is also ranged! Unless you want to get in close range and dump all the snares Necromancer has (chills and cripple), than you should use ranged skills. Also Life Blast frees you a weapon slot you can use for a more defensive weapon like Scepter or Axe.

You can still use daggers, but I really don’t want to get in close range to spam autoattack, expecially when there are such an overpowered melee builds running around.

Siphon health is a total trash, I’ve tried a build focusing on heavy health siphoning with heavy healing power, but the healing isn’t enough. You should better get the +20% damage on <50% health.

You don’t need useless daggers for this DS build. Just throw away all the Blood Magic traitline and put something in Curses (Furious Demise is freaking awesome with Near To Death) and put something else in Death Magic for Greater Marks.

Use also the trait which regenerates 3% life force each mark triggered and you don’t need Daggers to build LF anymore.

So, is this topic about how to make an useless trait much more useless?

A little piece of heaven – Avenged Sevenfold

It is hell fitting with Necromancers!

I would like if you guys can give me an opinion to build a cool looking armor combo. Right now, this is the best thing I can do with my money.

Head: Winged
Coat: Human Tier 2
Pants: Winged

Any advice?

I know it isn’t directly about Necromancer, but it is worth it:
Moa Morph: Now correctely instantly kills the target Necromancer as intended.

Reanimator: This trait no longer summons a Jagged Horror. Now it revives your enemies whenever you kill them.

Necrotic Grasp: Changed functionality to “Bleed yourself. Your staff becomes a Scythe for a short period of time. Deals no damage.”

Complaining about getting better skins through paying is just plain stupid.

Do the guys who spend hell lots of money to buy fancy weapons ruin your gameplay? Uh? No? So what are you complaining about?

Right now, Necromancers are quite weak compared to other 2 scholars for some reasons:

1. Lack of direct damage output. Traits are awful if you want to build on high damage and the only weapon you can use is the MH Dagger spamming your autoattack. The 2 skill isn’t even worth using…
2. Death Magic traitline. Really, it is a real mess and really needs a full rework.
3. Lack of real defensive mechanic excluding DS. Right now, DS if not traited and built around it, it is quite weak as defensive mechanic and, without it, we really lack of any protection/invulnerability/stability.
4. Signets. They are the most awful thing I’ve ever seen.
5. Minions. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve played Necro for at least 2 hours.
6. Boon control is subpar compared to Mesmers.
7. Awful trait distribution. Every build you want to make, you have to do a real mess with traits because useful major traits are split around many traitlines.
8. Fear duration.

And more, but it doesn’t come in my mind right now.

Voice over is quite good in my opinion, there are also some secondary characters who are really amazingly nice voice acted but… Trahearne? Why is Trahearne, one of the main character of all the storylines which all players should hear for at least half the story, acted so bad? Really, it looks like a robot! All the most intense moments were spoilt by the total lack of feelings of Trahearne, it looked like everything happens doesn’t matter to him and it is quite disappointing since the storyline is fantastic.

If only he had a better interpretation, I think I would have enjoyed the story way more.

Schwahrheit.4203:

@Sorrow

I’ll just simply conclude you are unskilled and leave it at that. The fact that you also complain about quickness further shows your lack of player skill has lead to clouded judgement. You don’t ask for Mace to possibly get over-buffed just because you can’t bring its potential out since you clearly lack player skill or the ability to progress. A slight buff should be enough for Mace such as a 10% attack speed increase in its 1 attack. To me it sounds like you want Mace to overshadow GS instead of complimenting it, and that’s pretty bad judgement right there. And guess what? Mace already compliments Axe and GS pretty well.

P.S Bet my life if I did a Mace + GS guide for dummies, Warrior will suddenly become from at least “non-viable” to below average. And at this community’s standards, below average is kinda fine considering the skill level of the majority lacks so much that it hurts.

I just feel I’m wasting my time trying to arguing about balance with such a rampant kitten like you. If you feel your opinion is the only and absolute truth out of this world, that everyone else is just unskilled if they think differently from you, just don’t argue with somebody else and hole up in your dumb elitism.

@Schwahrheit: each weapon set I was talking about are weapons that I’ve tried out. You can see that when I didn’t try a specific weapon set/profession enough, I just didn’t say anything about.
Your “experience” is absolutely nothing because it isn’t measurable in any form. You could have made your “experience” running the same build over and over, with just some changes in utility skills, assuming that you have an actual experience you are talking about.
I’ve tried Mace both offhand and mainhand and I’ve figured out that there isn’t absolutely no reason to prefer mace over an hammer or any weapon and most the playerbase agrees with me. Than you came here, saying your opinion, which is fine, but in an horrible manner and stating that who doesn’t agree with you is either a casual or has no decency. You, dear sir, should not argue at all if this is your way to do that, because there is no argument if you start with the assumption that you are right and everyone else’s opinions don’t matter.