Guild Wars 2

They said they will implement the basic break bar mechanic to all old content. But they wont go back to each individual encounter and add specific break bar mechanics.

We dont have clear confirmation of how the base break bar will work. Its strongly suggested that breaking the bar will just give a predefined stun. So if thats how all old bosses turn out then the old content will suffer. As currently we can choose to use CC to position bosses and not just disable them. With a predefined effect we lose that choice and it really devalues the use of CC in older content.

For example. We wont be able to use taunt on old bosses that use the basic break bar. Using it to finish breaking the bar will just cause a predefined stun for a set duration. Im sure you can see why this might be very unfavourable for old content. Maybe they will atleast go over fractal bosses. But I wouldnt hold my breath over it.

I really hope i am wrong and that the last CC used to break the break bar defines what CC takes effect. But it has been strongly hinted otherwise. :<

Wheres the anomaly hounds of balth pic? :<

Ooze was funny. Shield goes up and hounds almost put it to 20 stacks. Also hounds better at dps than drunks.

In a group you dont need energy sigils for lupi unless you expect your group to wipe and make you solo. Although i admit its not recommend to go without unless you are experienced and running with experienced players.

Most meta builds involve two sets of melee dps weapons. Staying normal necro means i wont get to use the new utility. If GS is good its auto probably wont be better than dagger. So we would want a d/f + gs rotation. And like i said before, how am i going to get energy procs if i dont have a second decent mainhand to switch to? Switching to staff for an energy proc in combat is beyond moronic in PvE (staff has absolutely no use mid combat). If we do lose dagger the specialisation is probably going to end up having a greatsword on each weapon set for the meta build. Which is kind of stupid as you can imagine.

Roe.3679:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Axe-Focus-and-related-traits/first#post4807203

This should about cover it.

Thats a PvP only perspective. Focus 5 is bad. Focus 4 is very good in pve. Besides if we do lose a weapon it will only be one. So we would probably lose axe and not focus.

@Shiki
If we lose dagger on the specialisation im going to be seriously disappointed. What am i supposed to run on my offhand set alongside greatsword if they do that? How am i going to proc energy sigils without going onto a completely useless weapon? Currently we can just swap offhands. If we lose dagger we lose so much. And also if greatsword turns out to be bad then we lose even more. Dagger 3 is actually pretty good in pve aswell. There are times when immob is really strong.

Why would you want them to remove focus? Its our best pve weapon. Id be ok with scepter/staff/axe going. And for utilities either signets or spectral skills. Even corruption skills would be acceptible imo.

I believe it was confirmed you lose a weapon. Basically everything you gain from specialising replaces something else. I could be wrong though. However that would make the most sense for balance reasons. Otherwise specialisations are going to have more choice than base classes.

You can backpeddle and max melee bosses when they are perma crippled/chilled. Its also very helpful if they have 600 range leaps (first arch diviner). And if you immob them you can stand behind them and they wont be able to turn to hit you. Also helps if someone just needs to get away to recover or res in slightly more casual groups. Soft CC on mossman and archdiviner are the best examples. Both very difficult melee fights even for experienced players. So using soft CC will often save your bacon more times than you can count. Chill is also just good to increase the cooldown of attacks so you dont have to dodge big attacks as frequently.

http://youtu.be/iKAQ4fvPIkw

In terms of hard CC its usually to set up deep freeze safe bursts or to freeze to res someone. But for fights like Mai Trin its used to pull her into the electric fields faster.

Yeah well to be honest they dont need to balance around dark field blinds much. Because those blinds are really short duration. And most groups are going to have sufficient CC without it. And would rather keep a fire field down for might stacking and damage.

But for open world it might actually a pretty nice thing necros can do. Force the group to break that bar by placing a dark field under all those spammed blasts. At the moment blinds are so easily available, dark fields are kind of useless for just blinding stuff. But to break defiance you dont need to worry about overstacking blinds. In fact it might be better to do so. Plus a field isnt limited to 5 players. The entire zerg can blast it if theres no other fields interfering with it. So i can actually see dark field + blast spam as an interesting way to break defiance. But i think its fair and should definitely be left alone in my opinion.

Theres two ways to answer this. One would be to mention the things necro already has which is desirable but explain why its not enough. The other would be to explain what would be the bare minimum you would want to justify taking a necro.

Ill start from a PvE perspective.

For the first. We currently have well of darkness and plague for high radius blinds. The problem is these dont pulse as fast as old dark powder. Or they are on far too high cooldowns and are completely outclassed by glyph of storms. Our range of control conditions is definitely nice but not really any better than any other class and a lot of it is single target. We lack the finishers to contribute to group stealth/swiftness/might stacking. We have some on minions but they are clunky and slow to use. Blasts on weapons are vastly superior due to stacking out of combat.

Dark fields are nice. Unfortunately there arent enough encounters that make them worth while. Any boss with low hp and invuln phases would make dark fields favourable (jade maw). Increasing the effectiveness of combo lifesteal could be another approach to fixing this. Our base durability makes us very resilient in a group which means you dont have to worry about a squishy player getting down constantly. But we arent very good at surviving on our own in more difficult encounters thanks to the lack of damage avoidance. And ofcourse we have some decent boonhate but its not much better than some other classes and there isnt enough reason for it in PvE.

Overall the only reason i would want a necro in my group is for the 20 second blind pulse on plague (but there are very few situations where the superior sandstorm isnt enough) or for dark fields on jade maw. The other things are just minor contributions but they dont really compete with alternatives well enough.

For the second approach. The bare minimum to get me to not feel guilty about playing necro in PvE would be to give us more finishers, a projectile defence skill and more AOE control conditions such as chill and immobilise.

@Vox

Soft CC’s are incredibly useful and important in high level fractals. Its another case of most players dont realise the benefits of using it so they think it has no value. Because all they see is the dps meta and think theres nothing else to it. Organised groups use it all (hard CC and soft CC) and for good reasons. Maybe new content in HoT will educate players a little better with their uses. Especially if certain break bar mechanics force it.

It would save time though. Fully stacked beserker builds do not do that much less condi damage than a condi build. And the whole idea of doing it all together is you can do it all at the same time. You can burn, run kegs, fill dye containers while clearing the mobs. Because an optimised group is going to do those things fast and most likely pull them all onto the wurm for the burn phase (you save time by not waiting around, you literally go prep and burn+clear as soon as possible). They are going to melt fast. Trust me.

But yeah this is going off topic. And thats only my ideas of how it would work in an organised group. We cant actually test it properly currently. So its kind of pointless speculation. x)

And yes the new defiance opens up better possibilities with encounters for future content. Its nothing to do with necro though. And for old content we are probably going to see a drop in content quality and less value for CC than currently. Which is a shame.

Balekai.6083:

Edit: Except you still need condi teams since husks only take like 40-50 damage from power. It would be a pain to kill them even with a zerg, since it would be like trying to kill mobs with a Vampiric trait when time is not exactly on your side. 5 condi users > entire zerg focus that needs to be focusing on other things.

Just stacking might and using bleeds on berserker builds is enough to kill them fast. As i imagine it we would be managing everything as a single group. Whereas in open world people split the roles into groups. If players can efficiencly multi task everything that is needed then it becomes more efficient to clear mobs, prepare for burn and block grub spawns together. And trust me with 20 full optimised glass players working together with full buffs and proper rotations. The mobs are doing to die so fast that having a dedicated condi team is going to be rather pointless. It would be easy to clear mobs inbetween preping burns and even while in the middle of a burn phase.

Im not expecting it to be better than other classes. Im hoping the specialisation to actually give us projectile defence and some blast finishers. Or other utility alternatives that make the clkitten selfish. That way we can atleast contribute to the team effort even if suboptimal. That is my hope not my expectation. I wouldnt be surprised if anet completely misses the mark and the specialisation doesnt give us what we need.

I already explained the picking reasons. Its open world. Necros arent picked at all in dungeons and fractals because the instances are controlled environments. Plus if suboptimal condi clearers is enough to clear husks, why take the superior classes from the main dps zerg? Its not like everyone fully contributes on Triple trouble anyway. I honestly dont know why we are argueing about a classes viability in an open world zerg fest which is more about numbers and really basic communication than anything else.

Ive kind of always wanted to try triple trouble with only members from speedclear guilds with optimised strategies and as small a player count as possible. Unfortunately we dont have that freedom. So we cant show just how much of a joke we can make that content look when you put only the best and most strategically keen players together. Probably wouldnt even use condi teams for it by the way.

If you do it fast on 50 you have to clear the irukandji’s because they dont despawn. So as soon as you get to phase 2, jade maw will still have plenty of health. Simply because you dont have as much freedom to throw crystals. You need to be pulling and clearing irukandji’s and colossi as fast as possible. When it gets to phase 2 a single SR with 4 icebows doesnt quite do enough. You need atleast 2 dark fields unless you managed to do a decent amount of damage in phase 1.

Plus plague is really good for helping your group with clearing the irukandji’s in big LoS pulls due to its duration and blind radius. You can also just place well of darkness on top of the tentacle under jade maws head in phase 2 so it gets blinded while you icebow 2. In casual runs people usually kill the tentacle before lifestealing jade maw. But if its perma blinded then theres no need. Another class can perma blind it though so kind of an irrelevant tip. x)

Should note that if revenant only gets that one dark field then necro will probably still be better for absolute best composition. But a revenant would be better for your regular runs due to the fields low cooldown and the inevitable abundance of team support the class is going to get with it.

I would assume it would be the same as chill and cripple. Or atleast i hope so. I dont want to see soft cc conditions becoming useless other than for removing the break bar. Chaining immob is one of the more coordinated and rewarding tactics for certain bosses. I dont want to see that go as its not particularly easy for all team compositions to pull off as it is.

Many conditions are reduced by unshakeable simply to balance them for boss fights. If blinds worked without fail on bosses they would be overpowered. However in unshakeables current form blind is still completely useless. The other conditions only have reduced duration. Blind is different to movement impairing conditions as Drarnor mentioned. Its a form of hard CC for trash mobs but doesnt work on bosses because it would be too strong. Now it will atleast have a use. Chill, cripple and weakness already work fine on bosses. And frankly it would be over the top if they reduced the break bar. Chill only increases cooldown time. It has no effect on the skill when it is cast.

I dont even know how you could come to the conclusion that they would count towards it in the first place. The unshakeable buff hardly makes for a convincing reason.

The reason necro isnt popular now is exactly because people judge by alternatives. It doesnt matter if you think its wrong, thats the way it is.

The dark fields thing is relevant. Necro is meta for jade maw currently. It might not be once revenant comes along.

Seems have to make it even more obvious so you understand what im saying. Triple trouble is open world. You cannot control what everyone brings even on an organised map. If you could create completely private maps and fully organise it then some guilds would definitely use fully optimised compositions for those attempts. And i can tell you now that necro would not be used. It would be engis and warriors for condi teams because they are better for it. Plus they contribute more to the group during the burn phases.

Your well of corruption example is a very cherry picked situation. I highly doubt we will see anything like that. And if we do it wont be in enough places to justify taking necro over other classes.

Sorry i just dont see how you can completely ignore alternatives and go full on head in the clouds mode at a few changes to PvE overall. Theres a reason necro isnt popular now despite some content actually encouraging CC and boon removal (yes it does exist). Its because the base class is simply bad for PvE. Specialisation is the only real hope. And you can quote me on that. Unless they rework the base class im calling it now, the default necro will still be unwanted even in HoT.

I understand you are probably hyped for HoT. I am too. But you are fooling yourself if you think anything will change with the base class. You are only setting yourself up for disappointment.

Yes it is difficult to see how what has been announced (ignoring necro specialisation) will improve the necro in PvE. Its all to do with alternatives. If you have an alternative that does it better and provides other stuff at the same time then why would you use the less effective method? None of the announcements have said “heres this new mechanic which only necros can deal with”. There was one unique speciality necros had in PvE and that was melting Jade maw with dark field lifesteal. Revenant is now getting a dark field and projectile finisher on hammer so weve just been replaced in our single niche role.

Also like i said. Necros are picked for triple trouble because its open world and they cant exclude classes in open world. Many players build their necros as condi so it makes sense to ask for them for the condi teams. That way you actually get geared condi players. Even though engi, warrior and its not all single target. Ill repeat epidemic is overestimated. In an organised triple trouble there arent enough mobs alive for epidemic to have much effect. And you clear them plenty fast enough just by focusing one at a time with higher pressure classes.

No they dont. Bad players ignore defiance. Good players use it in every encounter. :P

It really urks me when people bring up triple trouble. You do realise necro is actually one of the poorest condi classes for that role? Epidemic is almost redundant when the mobs are dealt with properly and necro has far lower condi dmg output than other classes. But its open world so you cant blacklist certain classes. May aswell funnel them into a role where they can atleast feel special about themselves. However in reality they are still one of the poorer choices.

Also boon hate you are overlooking a few things.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mind_Spike
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Searing_Flames
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Larcenous_Strike

Theres plenty more.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

Our best sustainable aoe boon removal is unholy feast. Unfortunately thats on a god awful weapon and has a 15 second cooldown. Wheres the examples i gave above are spammable, lower cooldown or both frequent and cleaves.

A mesmer can permanently remove fast pulsing boons on its own. Old CoE golem tactic took advantage of this instead of destroying the prot/retal turrets. Thief and guardian have enough boon removal to deal with less spammable boons. And necro’s only advantage is a reasonable amount of aoe boon removal. However its no better than null field. So why would a necro suddenly become more desirable? Im not seeing it.

And saying boon corrupt will be better than flat removal is pretty wishful thinking. Condition application in meta builds is very easy to come by. We definitely wont need fears and blinds from corruption to have enough CC to break the bar with ease. You are also assuming all mobs and bosses are going to have huge amounts of boons and powerful boons such as stability and fury. I think encounters with plenty of those boons will be pretty rare even if there is an overall increase in enemies with boons.

I will say that if the specialisation lets us keep our boonhate and also gives us a bit more utility and team support. Then yes we might be a more desirable pick for more boon heavy encounters. Because we then cover other areas and not just a role that a mesmer can already do perfectly while at the same time providing ridiculous utility. But thats just going back to my original point. The specialisation is our only hope.

Balekai.6083:

Really it comes down to a couple things in PvE for Necros to be more desirable:

1. Constant melee, range and area pressure from many sources (lots of spread out enemies using lots of different skills) that makes DS more ideal for surviving encounters and more ideal for skirmishing/DPS.
2. Encounters that are made considerably easier through lots of spread out condition damage.
3. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area soft/hard cc.
4. Encounters that are made considerably easier with area boon hate/conversion.

If encounter design in addition to the new defiance mechanics create conditions that require most of the above, then Necros will obviously become more desirable. It’s fairly easy for us to fill those multiple roles due to class design, without much tinkering to optimal Necro builds.

Im afraid this isnt the case. These requirements can all be met with current meta compositions. And they are somewhat true already in high level fractals. Necro isnt the only class with boonhate. In fact necro has pretty poor boonhate compared to other classes. Eles provide so much of everything that they can cover every single requirement except for boonhate. Which a mesmer, thief or guardian can do plenty. And on lower cooldowns.

Specialisation is the only chance for necros.

Actually nemesis’s stuff was completely false in that video. He ignored several inaccuracies that were pointed out repeatedly. He picked situations which favoured the necro and played the warrior poorly. His calculations and assumptions were also pretty terrible.

It is true that necros have more burst at the start of a fight thanks to wells. But the longer the fight goes the more a warrior will take the lead. Really doesnt matter though as warriors are not taken for damage. They are taken for banners. Their dps is mediocre and only slightly higher than necro.

Other classes have chills and cripples aswell. Also im 99.99% sure that chill, cripple and immobilise wont effect the defiance bar.

CC is already currently highly used in organised groups to setup icebow deep freezes. So the whole arguement of dps loss for taking CC’s doesnt really hold up. Organised groups are already using CC (with no sacrifice) and they arent taking necros. Defiance bar wont change anything. The only hope necros have is with the specialisation. Seems ive had to point that out for every new feature they announce. x)

Yeah its really not going to make a difference. Necro doesnt have any advantage with CC.

Doesnt matter where its located if you always dodge when you see the tell it will never hit you.

The only time its a problem is when it gets reflected in your face at point blank range. Its impossible to react to that.

Doom is techniquely always a dps increase as its instant cast and you can do it while flashing DS (it has a small direct damage component). Obviously i dont recommend using it in dps rotations simply because of the potential for fear screw ups in pug groups. Plus the damage gain is negligible and difficult to pull off perfectly. So its generally not worth it for most players or most of the time. But as a free defiant stack stripper its one of the best in the game.

Blind isnt used on bosses anyway. Its for trash clearing. Now it will atleast have some use on bosses.

Yeah if they are about 2k or below then you can assume they are new. Anything above is completely random and its like playing a lottery.

I was primarily talking about its implementation in old content. I have no doubt it will be a better system for new encounters which are designed with it in mind and have unique break bar mechanics.

But for old content its going to be a big step back unless we can at least still decide what CC gets applied.

VodCom.6924:

spoj.9672:

NoTrigger.8396:

spoj.9672:

This bar is more pug friendly now. But it looks like it might be possible for organised groups to completely stunlock bosses with even greater ease (chain icebow 5’s).

And it is essentially the same system. Defiant stacks and defiant bar works the same way in that you have to strip it down to land a CC. The difference is each CC now contributes different amounts to the bar and the bar now regens. So solo players can no longer whittle down defiant stacks ready for an interrupt. So it makes it almost impossible to use effectively in solos but makes it easier for groups. Not really sure how i feel about this.

it isnt essentially the same system. its completely different.
its the wildstar IA system with a few small differences.

its also not easier for groups now. taking off stacks one by one and using deep freeze is easier than coordinating stuns, especially with larger groups.
they can build mechanics around the system like wildstar phageborn convergence hammer:
http://youtu.be/5Q5CiO90mmY?t=7m27s

and good instanced group content should be so hard that it is impossible to solo anything in the instance to begin with.

By the looks of it it is going to require less CC to disable a boss. Which means it will be easier. Not to mention the massive visual queue to give even pugs with no communication a big hint at when to CC. When me and my friends do fractal 50 without ts we often end up using 2 icebow 5’s at the same time mid fight. So we are already doing exactly what this system wants us to do without any communication. There is really nothing remotely complicated about using a few CC’s at the same time. And if the type of stun is predetermined then it makes it even easier. Because you dont have to worry about who’s CC hits last when the bar is low or at zero.

And it is essentially the same system. You are CCing to remove strips/bar so you can CC. Its changing a lot but it still has a lot of similarities. The differences are in the details. Although if even basic champions and bosses get a predetermined stun instead of the choice of players CC then we are getting a very simplified and pointless use of CC in old content. It will be better for openworld stuff i wont deny that. But it looks like its providing less options to organised groups.

I’m sure organised groups will find a way to adapt.

2 icebow #5 will probably deplete a large chunk of defiance bar by themselves. Add something like thief pistol #4 spam or the mesmer dazing shatter and you can call it a day.

Thats what im saying. Its going to be easier. But it might also be completely useless if breaking the bar always gives a predetermined stun. Ofcourse we will adapt. Doesnt mean we should embrace a system which reduces options and makes things easier.

For the record i think the new system is a really good improvement. Especially for future encounters which are designed with it in mind. But im really concerned about how limiting its going to be for older content and standard champions.

NoTrigger.8396:

spoj.9672:

This bar is more pug friendly now. But it looks like it might be possible for organised groups to completely stunlock bosses with even greater ease (chain icebow 5’s).

And it is essentially the same system. Defiant stacks and defiant bar works the same way in that you have to strip it down to land a CC. The difference is each CC now contributes different amounts to the bar and the bar now regens. So solo players can no longer whittle down defiant stacks ready for an interrupt. So it makes it almost impossible to use effectively in solos but makes it easier for groups. Not really sure how i feel about this.

it isnt essentially the same system. its completely different.
its the wildstar IA system with a few small differences.

its also not easier for groups now. taking off stacks one by one and using deep freeze is easier than coordinating stuns, especially with larger groups.
they can build mechanics around the system like wildstar phageborn convergence hammer:
http://youtu.be/5Q5CiO90mmY?t=7m27s

and good instanced group content should be so hard that it is impossible to solo anything in the instance to begin with.

By the looks of it it is going to require less CC to disable a boss. Which means it will be easier. Not to mention the massive visual queue to give even pugs with no communication a big hint at when to CC. When me and my friends do fractal 50 without ts we often end up using 2 icebow 5’s at the same time mid fight. So we are already doing exactly what this system wants us to do without any communication. There is really nothing remotely complicated about using a few CC’s at the same time. And if the type of stun is predetermined then it makes it even easier. Because you dont have to worry about who’s CC hits last when the bar is low or at zero.

And it is essentially the same system. You are CCing to remove strips/bar so you can CC. Its changing a lot but it still has a lot of similarities. The differences are in the details. Although if even basic champions and bosses get a predetermined stun instead of the choice of players CC then we are getting a very simplified and pointless use of CC in old content. It will be better for openworld stuff i wont deny that. But it looks like its providing less options to organised groups.

Most people use a thief in casual runs these days anyway.

hybrid.5027:

Rising Dusk.2408:

It’s entirely plausible that ripping off Defiant to score a DF is still going to be a thing, and it might be even easier since a 3 second stun hurts the Defiant bar a lot more than a 1 second stun. It’s hard to say without better information. How long will the Defiant bar be “down” when you strip it completely, for instance? Maybe this will remove permanent Stability from some bosses so that we can interrupt everyone equally (ie. Korga)?

They confirmed on Reddit that when the boss’ bar is gone there will be a predetermined effect regardless of what CC pushes it. So if the bar is gone and you blind the boss it will have the same effect as if you Deep Freeze.

Well that wasnt confirmed for the basic version. And if that is for the basic version then thats seriously messed up. It means all unique types of CC are completely useless. We can no longer pull, push, launch or fear bosses.

They stated in the article they wanted to give us more options. If we cant choose how we CC bosses then thats doing the opposite.

Its just in the rules to cover all bases. Not sure who decided on mentioning jumping and turning though.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

spoj.9672:

This bar is more pug friendly now. But it looks like it might be possible for organised groups to completely stunlock bosses with even greater ease (chain icebow 5’s).

well I don’t think the bar is permanently visible on the enemies, the Wyvern for example has a phase when it attempts to fly – and in this window the bar appears (as I understand it) and you’ll be able to use your CCs to deplete the bar. Once the Wyvern is in the air, the bar can’t be drained / isn’t visible (?).

correct me if I’m wrong

They explicitly stated that the Wyvern has special mechanics tied to it. Im referring to old bosses and champions that will use the baseline defiant bar as a replacement for the current defiant stacks. They said they dont have the time go back and individually tweak each old boss to have special break mechanics so they will just implement the simple baseline defiant bar for those enemies.

The auto stun was for wyvern. They said nothing about that for the baseline defiant bar which will be added to champions and old bosses.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

You know you could blind bosses right? Even for a 10% chance to miss but still..

Yeah and play a 10% RNG game. Blind removing some of the bar is better than having it work based on RNG. This might also mean that unshakeable wont reduce blind proc chance anymore.

This bar is more pug friendly now. But it looks like it might be possible for organised groups to completely stunlock bosses with even greater ease (chain icebow 5’s).

And it is essentially the same system. Defiant stacks and defiant bar works the same way in that you have to strip it down to land a CC. The difference is each CC now contributes different amounts to the bar and the bar now regens. So solo players can no longer whittle down defiant stacks ready for an interrupt. So it makes it almost impossible to use effectively in solos but makes it easier for groups. Not really sure how i feel about this.

Its fine. They didnt trigger anything or move from the start location until the timer started.

They changed it when weakness was changed to work on crits. They thought it would be too strong so they locked it behind an icd. What they should of done is just reduced the proc chance or the duration. And left it as no icd.

Nope necros are severely neglected when it comes to finishers. Its one of the reasons they are so unwanted in casual groups.

If you use valk your dmg drops when you use dagger to refill lifeforce. Also you want to be at 100% crit chance ideally. This is why the dagger build uses assassins gear. Not all groups stack fury and banners and even if they do you still want to go as high as you can. Vitality doesnt really do anything for you.

Spectral skills have very little use in PvE as lifeforce is easy to come by. The only reason to use them is if you need swiftness from spectral walk or a stunbreak.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2JHNNiquptZLNnNspJtB7NmoWoguODgZIqTg62YOqWA-ThRBABXt/o8DP9D5dSAA4JAQp6PmpEUUARE-e

You dont need to worry about lifeforce that much in PvE. Video showing the fully repeatable damage rotation:

http://youtu.be/zVUs752OFmc

He must have some serious computer security issues. Even if hes being targeted theres no way its not due to something on his end. >.>

Ropechef.6192:

Purple Miku.7032:

Azrael.4960:

3. Attacks elementals instead of shaman, while he has his shield up

There’s nothing wrong with this as long as you have shaman selected as a target.

If you have him selected as a target then each successive skill used will remove a stack off of his shield.

This is why I, for example, will aim my ice storms/meteor showers in the areas with the biggest concentration of elementals.

I will just assume the team you had was really bad either way and probably didn’t have shaman selected. Pugs blow.

wait what….

you dont actually have to “hit” the shaman, just have him targeted????

Yes this is why casting your heal with him targeted removes a stack.

I personally dont really care for filters, the description should be good enough. Unfortunately people ignore it or dont read it (blame people). Im more concerned about LFG griefing than anything. I admit check boxes for certain filters could be nice. So opt in checkboxes for experienced players. This way players that dont read wouldnt notice the checkbox and they would only see the regular entries by default.

Id prefer to see better group security and management before we tackle filters. But im certainly not against LFG improvements.

Theres a separate ruleset for solo. And its mostly restricted. Except you can use certain consumables. Most solo’ers wont submit records because of that. Learn to play issues dont even come into it. If the only people that do solos dont submit because they dont like the rules then its a problem with the rules.

Goku is one of the only players that actively posts solo records. And he has told me he prefers the unrestricted ruleset. Honestly solo records are a very small part of the community. I dont believe its a good idea to reduce the size even further. Most people who solo do whatever they can to progress and just do it for fun. They dont care about consumable use or minor exploits. They dont even care about proper attempts at records (atleast not with the current rules). But if we have too many rules then those players cant even submit their casual smooth solos as records. In fact the rules right now prevent a lot of submissions. I wasnt at the meeting but it seems it was mostly non solo’ers who voted on it.

Depending on the necro specialisation in HoT i have considered actually doing some necro solos. But i certainly wont be hindering an already weak class just to fit overly restrictive rules. My personal enjoyment for the solo is more important. To put this into perspective. If i was going to do a dungeon solo on necro right now i would most likely use the exec axe for skips despite it being against the rules. Using that item would still provide necro absolutely no advantage over another class but it would close the gap between them. Not using it just makes the gap huge. I have no desire to post a slower record when there is no competition. Also for something like TA FW on a necro its almost impossible to kill the knight with another aggroed mob with burst. Its so rng based that i would be forced to abuse flux matrix consumables if i was doing it in a record.

Also i doubt we would see any major complaints if we allowed the belka bug. Most people probably wouldnt even understand whats being done or notice it.

Necros blasts are a pain to hit the field unless its a huge circle. I give them 0/10 and 0/10.