I see your point. Its definitely an issue though. Not being able to blast small fields like black powder because of the awkward blast position is infuriating. Maybe increasing the blast effect radius would solve issues like that.
Why would it be a nerf?
Theres another solution to the combo issue though. Make the blast effect centered on your target or yourself instead of the minion.
Which is exactly why i said make it a blood magic master trait. :P
I know but we dont have a transfer above water without taking high cooldown weapon/utility skills.
Its clearly not damage thats the issue that is causing the burrows to fail so….
No because you can only refresh the f5 channel after returning to regular time. It has a secondary skill to reset manually. So signet of Illusions needs to be cast between F5’s not during a time phase. If it worked inside then you would be able to get infinite time warps. :>
F5 > Time Warp > Return > Signet of Illusions > F5 > TW > return > TW
Im assuming you were thinking of casting TW before F5. But that would mean it would always be on cooldown. If something is on cooldown when you F5 it will be on cooldown when you reset.
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I cannot imagine anyone failing since the scaling rework. Unless they literally afk’d and left one person to fail at soloing.
lifeblast transfer conditions should be a master trait in blood magic. So you can have synergy with unholy martyr. :>
Other than mesmers(which was improved a lot with the specialization changes)
For PVP maybe, but Mesmers in PVE are still worthless. Mesmer damage is balanced around the assumption that you’ll have three phantasms out all the time (i.e. you never shatter), and even then you’re still the lowest DPS because armor runes don’t affect illusions, and there are barely any damage multiplier traits.
With all the on-shatter traits, it’s just a spit in the face of PVE Mesmers who can’t ever make any use of them.
If they actually want to fix Mesmers, they need to decouple the Mesmer’s damage from phantasms.
Necros are far worse in pve than mesmers, mesmers bring reflects, condition cleanse, stability if necessary, invis for skipping, the best boon stripping, aoe pulls, and portal for absolute maximum speed runs. The damage might not be the greatest, but many record speed runs bring mesmers simply for their incredible utility and portal skipping. The class is certainly not worthless in any sense of the word.
I couldn’t care less about skipping. It affects a miniscule proportion of the population.
Also most of our reflects are being moved to are most useless specialization line (Inspiration). The reflect skill is literally the only worthwhile one I can see in that line.
It doesnt matter what you personally care about. Mesmers are in one of the best positions for PvE. They are integral to organised groups and have a lot to give. Their only fault is their poor damage in PvE due to phantasm reliance. But with the chrono it looks like that issue will be somewhat resolved allowing phantasm/shatter hybrids while also keeping all the utility.
And it isnt just skipping they are good for. Its defensive utility. And yes its increased by specing into inspiration. But with the trait rework that is less necessary (glamour mastery becoming baseline).
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Should reduce the aftercast or the precast time slightly. That would fix most of the reliability/clunky problems without overbuffing it.
Another idea.
Deal bonus damage to chilled foes and whenever chill applied runs out. Target recieves damage based on the total duration. If cleansed no damage is dealt.
This would basically incentivize stacking chill for bonus damage. And maxing out duration for large burst when it runs out. But there is also the risk of the more you stack the greater the chance it will be cleansed and you will lose the damage. It has counterplay to avoid the burst on end. But isnt completely negated because there is a small damage bonus while the foe is chilled. Maybe also add some way of forcing the chill to end to get the damage before a cleanse.
I think the new spiteful spirit could be build defining if it was a blast and had no ICD. I mean DS flash builds are a thing. But we dont really have a grandmaster trait for them. And a flash trait with a blast is the perfect match for that.
I also think we should have some kind of defensive DS trait. We have deathly perception for pure damage. Why not something which grants reflect while channeling in DS. Or 2 seconds of reflect in DS but if you leave DS early the reflect stops so you cant abuse it in flash builds.
Good build defining traits are ones which work well with class mechanics and use active play to reap the benefits. Fresh is probably my favourite one for that. Im also a big fan of traits which give extra effects on blasts like persisting flames. But we dont have blasts to really benefit from traits like that (fix please).
More traits to play with DS is probably the best way to go. As you pointed out most of our build defining traits are the newish DS traits like deathly perception, dhuumfire and unholy sanctuary (if it was a bit better or other traits supported and synergised with it).
And yes I want more chill traits. Im also surprised we dont have a bonus damage on chilled targets trait. I know its a boring type of trait but give us that and more stuff to do with chill please. I actually had an idea for a chill trait the other day. Chill does damage but uses power instead of condition damage to calculate damage. Or for every second your target is chilled they recieve periodic direct damage (basically the same just a different way of doing it).
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Seems rather redundant to me to argue about damage reduction and sustain in DS when we dont even have active defence. If you have damage avoidance then you do not need as much lifeforce and you do not need it to scale as much.
The ideal way for anet to fix our sustain and defence problems is to actually give us traits that make DS work as a form of defence. And by that i dont just mean give us more damage reduction. I mean actually tie in some damage avoidance negation to it. Currently we only have the base functionally and ways to add a little more toughness or lifeforce generation. But that doesnt solve the issue especially in PvE or in outnumbered fights.
Without avoidance we cant negate big hits. And in PvE you often need to avoid more than a few big hits in succession. No amount of extra sustain or damage reduction will allow you survive in those encounters. Unless you gear full nomads. But last time i checked all gear was supposed to be viable. The base dodges and double energy sigils is simply not enough.
The only way sustain and reduction would be enough is if you buffed it so much it would make us immortal in PvP. But thats clearly not an option and far too difficult to balance. So just give us some active defence in traits please.
The thing is. You dont need active defence for group stuff. You can be carried by guards. But having the option to trait for active defence in death magic is a big step forward. It allows solo plays. And with no stats on traits its less of a big deal to go death magic for it in PvE. If we had reflect on DS in deathmagic it would actually be a dps increase to go into death magic for fights like lupi since the auto attack change. :>
DS is a problem. But it can be left in tact and our problems solved. We have no extra active defence. And we are forced to use DS as an alternative. Which doesnt work in a lot of situations. Theres a simple solution. Give us traits that tie active defence to DS. So you enter DS and you get an aegis. Or you enter DS and you get 2 seconds of reflect/evade.
Yeah for the inexperienced players its pretty easy to mistake animations. So even if the auto didnt hit in melee it would atleast cause players to watch carefully or maybe even waste a dodge. For experienced players its not something that would make them screw up. But atleast the boss doesnt look like its afking while you are fighting it. I really want to be able to solo lupi on necro again. So this bug/change is very frustrating for me.
Mesmers are already taken in organised groups.
http://gw2dungeons.net/Records
Look at all those double mesmer groups. And they often have a utility slot or two free.
Chrono looks like it will give more damage and AOE to mesmer. Which means they will be even better in these runs. Currently they are primarily used for portals. Chrono looks like their damage and team buffing will make them even more favourable. Or atleast less of a dps loss when swapping another class for one. The f5 could be enough to make a mesmer wanted even without portals (double/triple icestorm and timewarp).
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They did before they were dead. So im gonna say yes. :P
Fields are pretty balanced in PvE. Only light, ethereal, ice, poison and dark are underused currently. However with HoT we could see more usage of ethereal for confusion stacking and dark for defiance bar destruction. Fire is obviously the only one really used all the time in combat. Water sometimes used. Lightning and smoke are both used heavily for running sections. Thats 4/9 fields used currently. With 2 more maybe getting more useage with the expansion. Thats not bad considering how simple encounters are currently.
I will never understand what people find useless about necromancer in PvE. Running power wells plays out excellently in all circumstances, including PvP and WvW. I’ve never had any of the issues most of you appear to be running into in the past two years, and generally tend to be fairly capable of doing better than most by simply playing intelligently.
that’s the meta for you, most think it’s useless so they assume it’s bad.
necro’s are far from useless, it’s just that only a select few know how to use them properly.
Maybe if you left your little bubble you would understand the problem.
You can time warp thrice. Signet of illusions to refresh that f5. :>
I clearly didnt say anything about CCing downed enemies.
Hehe you got me. :>
I know and i wouldnt have most of the alts i have if it werent for that. The skillpoint system and unlock system is being separated from levels. And it effects me quite a lot aswell. Especially with the amount of gold i wasted. But i can accept it. Mainly because realistically there is no solution other than giving us gold and skill point refunds. But that doesnt solve the unlock issue for characters that havent done those skill challenges. So you just have to accept it.
If you already have the skill challenges done you wont have to do anything. They arent resetting anyones map completion. The people complaining are those that literally just scroll leveled and unlocked everything.
Yeah well ive never worried about time on that fractal. So thats just what we have always done. If you do it right its pretty fast. The eles can hit the source while the guard/others are reflecting and killing the elementals by the fire.
Im sure you know of this already. But when using icebow, meteor shower and glyph of storms. Cast it on the very tip of the top of the source. All the aoes should land on the top. Not a single wasted impact. :>
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I dont believe a utility should require another utility or a cleanse to be effective. Thats a major fault with CPC. You cannot leave the weakness on you because it tanks your damage. Besides weakness stacks duration. And casting CPC will already apply loads of weakness in AOE. So a transfer does nothing but cleanse you.
The cooldowns and shear amount of effects on the mesmers wells makes me really jealous. Anet were always so reluctant to reduce necro well cooldowns. But when you look at these ones im thinking lets have some major buffs to wells maybe.
The exact same amount of eles spawns every 25% hp. So yes you can get 3 eles perfectly stacked inside each other.
The common old strat was to run round the outside to a bonfire marked on your minimap to avoid aggro. Then only aggro the elementals close to that. So you only ever kill 1 or 2 elementals each wave. Sometimes people spawn right next to them which causes annoying aggro though.
Yeah i went back and did some PvP recently. Never once stomped. Was better to kill normally and CC any allies or just leave them to bleed out.
Cant you go DS mid stomp without interrupting now?
Do you use all those characters in WvW? Thats the only way i see it being an issue. If they are PvP you get everything. If they just sit in cities you dont need anything. If you do dungeons and guildmissions i suspect you have waypoints to get the skillpoints pretty fast. And i honestly cant imagine you have a need for 17 alts for anything other than cosmetic purposes. So surely it doesnt matter for most of them?
I know its annoying. But i dont really see a way round it. Blame anet for introducing an abundance of skillpoints to the game. I think you are just going to have to suck it up. The system afterwards will be better anyway. People are just too used to getting everything unlocked through scrolls.
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Agree. Putrid explosion should use the players stats.
In addition to that i would like the blast location to change to blast on your target and when you have no target it should blast on the players location. Basically change putrid explosion to work the same way as arcane brilliance. Doing this will allow us to more reliably use the blast finisher in small fields like black powder.
Or just make it always blast on the necros location and add a new tooltip and visual effect to make it aesthetically correct. Another solution is to make putrid explosion ground targeted. Which would mean one of the bone minions would run to that location and then detonate.
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If you played since release surely you have some skill challenges done in the maps while you were leveling? Which means you will be fine.
As for giving all current 80’s everything. That wont work. Hero points are supposed to be a finite number. So if you havent done all the skillpoints already and you get everything unlocked for free then you are going to have more hero points than any new characters. Which breaks the idea of a fixed amount of hero points per character.
Honestly i dont get the complaint. It would take about an hour at best to get those 65 extra skill challenges for one character. Suck it up its not the end of the world.
My main has world completion, my 17 alts do not.17 * 3 hours (possibly more, to unlock elite specializations) = 51 hours: more than a full-time work week. That I would have to spend to unlock what I had already unlocked, spending lots and lots of hours in PvP.
51+ hours of repetitive grind to catch up = not cool.
Do you really not have any skill challenges done on all those alts? And do you really need to go through that on every one of them? You certainly dont need to rush. And you can do them now 30 mins a day. Issue solved before it even becomes an issue. It shouldnt take more than 3 hours to rush to 65 skill points. And im confident it can be a lot faster.
Im going to have to do skill challenges on about 6 of my alts. But i dont see that as a cause for complaint. My concern is the huge amounts of gold i spent last month on buying the rest of my traits for those less used classes. :P
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I suppose you could say its losing its place as its gone from 8th to 9th place. Then again last place to last place isnt really a change. :>
Chronomancer has brought me back to pink butterflies. :>
Yeah ok now you are making sense. :>
I highly doubt they will add that many stat points though. They said your stats now should be about the same after the change. Which means we probably wont be gaining 1252 points in gear. Id expect them to balance on the extremes. Meaning 900 extra stat points maximum. But we shall see.
That said most builds are losing a few modifiers here and there and currently some classes have a major stat advantage from traits. So even with a small stat power creep the gap between classes should be less. Ele and thief will only have modifier advantages and wont have raw stat advantages anymore which is good. And the overall damage increase should be pretty minor if at all. Plus with icebow getting a nerf the stat power creep seems pointless to worry about. Chances are things will slow down slightly even if non icebow damage is higher.
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Mesmers already had permanent reflect uptime. Now its even easier.
Im not sure how you can lose a place you dont have. ;>
It depends on the line. Generally for meta builds its 700. Because you cant redistribute condi duration and boon duration. The exceptions are ele and thief which have 900 direct damage offensive stats in traits just by going 6/6. And im ignoring condition damage because that has little effect on direct damage builds.
Anyway you were talking about 500 points. No idea where you got that number from. The minimum number of stats in a build is 700 if you ignore the odd sub stats like condi duration.
All you need to know is we will lose damage unless they overcompensate with the gear. Which is unlikely.
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How do you kill him without passing the top of the stairs? Use a blink from underneath?
Dont worry the Dungeon/Fractal specialist submitted (or will submit) a good report on necro for PvE.
PvP has everything unlocked with the new change so if you are a PvP player you have even less cause for complaint.
Assassins is slightly better than berserker for non DS builds. But this could all change with the new trait stuff. Either way they both work and theres only a small difference.
CPC should destroy projectiles and the the self weaken should be changed to self poison. Or something that doesnt require an immediate cleanse. To be honest its one corruption skill that i think should have no self condi.
If you played since release surely you have some skill challenges done in the maps while you were leveling? Which means you will be fine.
As for giving all current 80’s everything. That wont work. Hero points are supposed to be a finite number. So if you havent done all the skillpoints already and you get everything unlocked for free then you are going to have more hero points than any new characters. Which breaks the idea of a fixed amount of hero points per character.
Honestly i dont get the complaint. It would take about an hour at best to get those 65 extra skill challenges for one character. Suck it up its not the end of the world.
I dunno. Its pretty hard to top time manipulation ideas for fun new mechanics.
Agreed. I know my standards have dropped.
We never had enough channel skills for it to be useful. It would be a terrible trait even if it was 1000 toughness. Noone used it.
If we could spam evades and then attack with only channelled abilities then it could be a nice idea. So you would be taking advantage of its uptime and avoiding damage the rest of the time. But necro doesnt have any options to avoid stuff between channels. Completely valid choice for them to delete it.
Besides im hoping for some channel time reductions. Those would be buffs that would make that god awful trait even worse.