AGH that totally explains fire grab, the ele flame and frost breaths, and this skill! I KNEW it was following my camera direction (and yeah it royally screws me up)
I personally think a 90 second cd with a 1 second cast time sounds pretty reasonable. That would put it just outside the time frame of being used twice in a fight (with the cd trait). But yeah a cast time as long as the stun you’re working towards is awful. It’s like stunning YOURSELF for 2 seconds
I had the same problem, and I think its because the projectile went in whatever direction the camera or player was facing, and was not locked onto the target like most projectiles/gap closers are. Made it very strange to use
In my honest opinion, I think that the great-sword damage should be buffed and dagger nerfed to be under it. Here’s why:
Currently dagger has too much going for it. Its our main source of LF, Damage, AND skirmish sustain. I think it would fit the playstyle of the dagger much better to be our life steal weapon. The high aa rate and lf generation would make it an excellent choice for that “attrition” style gameplay, especially if the 2nd skill’s cast time was reduced. And to echo those who have posted above me, a slow greatsword should have very heavy hitting attacks.
I would do this for HOURS at a time. Infinitely repeatable challenging and rewarding content? Where do I sign???
Log onto the forums and see 3 new posts all with replies from the necro developer, GG our prayers have been answered and the tide is turning. Praise Grenth!
The calculations for damage can be found on the gw2 wiki. There you can see how much of an effect toughness has.
As for which to take, it depends what kind of damage you want to mitigate. Toughness only deals with direct damage, and vitality increases you health pool. Typically on warrior because our hp is naturally high toughness is a little more useful.
I made this build today, and I can’t decide how effective it is. The runes are definitely up for change ( I would use perplexity but this is pvp). Its essentially a hybrid damage build that plays like the old HamBow build, but with a condition damage twist. I typically try to get off the Burning shot, blast, switch to hammer and use that burst skill too for might stack, and then bulls rush for another cc and a fire aura. Like I said, its…weird.
So I’ve actually tried doing a side by side comparison of soldiers to knights by auto attacking a golem to death. What I found was that both amulets killed the golem in roughly 12 seconds, which means that with knights you are losing out on your vitality for really no good reason (except for critical hit procs, which we don’t have many of in our traits). So IMO stick with soldiers.
I’m just surprised that there’s this much enthusiasm for a fishing mechanic. I’m curious – apart from being able to virtually fish, what would this add to the game? Personally I think it would be better implemented if they eventually fix underwater combat, and you could hunt down your fishy game and there could me “fish nodes” that you set traps at or something. But that’s just me!
I would LOVE to see this implemented! I get that the skill bar area is already pretty crouded with boons, conditions, buffs, and temporary trait bonuses. But sometimes on necro I have 2 passive signets that proc and two additional skills that activate upon entering death shroud- I can’t keep those CDs in my head!
I personally want them to remove the decay of Jagged Horror hp. That way you could actually build up a horde of minions, who’s drawback would be weakness to aoe damage and are not commandable.
Also, second idea: why don’t we have a minion we can command to be a meat shield and block projectiles???
The problem is that this could be exploitable. Just continually join matches and resign them for reward track progress. It would be a great feature if it couldn’t be used for gimmicky things like that, but there’s not really away to impliment that.
I’m gonna go ahead and say that I LOVE the fall damage traits. Just couple them with the snowfall runes and you can have rediculous troll builds in wvw/eotm. Not to mention creating immortal portal mesmer for jumping puzzles
In my opinion the specialization system is an unquestionable step in the right direction. The combining of many ok traits into one good one is much more efficient. Ultimately this improves the trait system to make more sense and in the future will allow for a huge amount of customization.
The PROBLEM is that we dont have enough traits or skills to choose from. We got an increase to the number of traits we can slot but a decrease to the number we can choose from. Of course its going to seem like there are fewer combinations to choose from: mathematically there are. Its three years into the game and we have not had an increase in traits, we have FEWER than we started with. A step in the right direction for sure, but we really need at least 6 traits at each tier to choose from in order to feel like a truly customizable game.
Condi necro does not need buffs. Its extremely powerful now. Its just that all the other classes have stupidly OP condi builds now. Condis are out of control right now. They need to be brought down below necro, necro doesnt need to be buffed above them. Last thing we need is more condi spam. Power builds are generally useless on every class now because condi is just superior in every way after its been overbuffed to godlike levels. I’d rather they nerf the hell out of condis on everyone else so power builds actually have a place again. Right now power is only useful in pve.
For the record, I was mainly referring to PvE scenarios, thats where I mostly spend my time although I dabble in pvp. And in pve as well, other classes can just stack bleeds and burns so much faster than necros that they even work against trash mobs.
So by now we’ve all kind of realized that guardians, engis and eles all leave the “king of condis” behind in the dust as far as damage output goes. So my question: what tools do we need to fix this problem?
Our problem as I see it is this: our biggest way to apply conditions quickly is to transfer them off of ourselves. An ordinary reaction is to think we need our skills buffed, but that simply won’t do: a great number of our skills are reactionary in nature and do not promote proactive aggressive gameplay. One change I’d like to see is our profession get more out of using poison. Maybe a trait that increases poison damage like the one rangers used to have? Decreasing the interval that CPC pulses at could give us some nice stacks of poison. I don’t know I’m just spit balling here. Maybe change the corruption trait to “reduces recharge by 20% and applies additional conditions to the target”? Either that or we need more/more consistent ways of transferring conditions.
I’m just sad sitting here with my sinister gear and looking at my LONG windup times as other classes get zerker-sized numbers for their condis every second.
Yeah this idea is actually awesome. A really cool way to buff a weapon without changing all of its skills or straight buffing it’s damage!
Since the patch I’ve been playing around with dual axes (who hasnt) and I noticed I literally never weapon swapped because it just wasn’t needed. Who’s going to swap out of a 300 increase in ferocity? So I had a thought. What if I ran a build with FOUR axes – simply for the on-swap effects in the discipline line. Thoughts?
(For clarification, I know the two sets would share cds, but they’re pretty low on axes anyway)
Dungeons rely on max dps so lifesteal itself isn’t that useful.
With traits no longer being tied to stats, which three trees give you max dps? Which skills?
Is not two wells a primary source of PvE dps, which mean you want blood magic… Which pretty much force you into full life siphoning?
Yes, that is true. However I would not advertise it as a “lifesteal build” it just so happens that life stealing is a biproduct of what you choose.
Depends what you’re doing and what your goal is. Dungeons rely on max dps so lifesteal itself isn’t that useful. In open pve maps trying to survive large groups of mobs? Maybe. I made a vampire necro using zealots armor and weapons and ascended zerker trinkets and it works very well. I am running a full signets build, the lifesteal works really well with healing power on the signets
You know I can’t honestly remember where I saw that, so that specific part may not be true, but I believe I heard mention that ANET frowned upon that behavior in the TP guides that I have read.
I think the weird thing here is that ANET is also including the base game for people who dont have it yet. Which leaves the value they’ve placed this xpac at in question. If the base game+xpac costs 50 dollars, why does buying only the xpac also only cost 50 dollars? Does this mean that the value of the product is somehow flexible person to person?
I would also like to point out how this pales in comparison with the expansions for gw1, which also cost 50 bucks. Currently we’re getting guild halls, one more specialization, (maybe) 5 more skills, a new profession, and a couple more areas in Maguuma. When they released an expansion for gw1, they added two classes, doubled the amount of skills for each existing class, created completely new story lines (literally entire story arks that could be freestanding next to the other ones), new pvp arenas (not just one map mushed in with the standard map circuit), and an entire continent.
My opinion is this: you can have two kinds of player bases: one that will buy your continuous stream of gemstore items at a steady low price, or one that will buy your major expansions for a relatively high price. Attempting to do both has (much like celestial is rumored to become on Tuesday) left you overextended and good at neither.
I know this problem was (for the most part) addressed with the reintroduction of Celestial with the fateful Zephyrite visit, but there are some recipes that are outrageously expensive, in particular Zealot’s. With the trait overhauls coming on Tuesday there is a surge in interest in build diversity, and someone had the foresight at 2:00pm today (et) to buy every single Gossamer and Orichalcum recipe and relist them 30g more expensive. There were only 25 of each of them to begin with so I can’t imagine it was that hard or ridiculously expensive to do. But the fact that the two recipes together cost 110g is fairly unacceptable. Isnt manipulating the market in this way against the supposed “code of conduct” anyway? You can see for yourself here:
https://www.gw2tp.com/item/49734-recipe-zealots-orichalcum-imbued-inscription
https://www.gw2tp.com/item/49735-recipe-zealots-intricate-gossamer-insignia
Aw man I didnt even notice they were deleting renewing blast. They should definitely somehow work that into the Blood Magic Line, maybe give it an ICD? I can see it being a little TOO good with the Reaper aa.
And yeah if we just had a command button to tell minions when and when not to attack that would make life a lot easier. Right now I feel less like a minion “master” and more like a father of 6 trying to shuffle his kids through Disney World.
That is true, I forgot to mention that although the multiple procs of lifestealing will help, I believe that the base amount for the two Blood Magic Traits needs to be increased to at least 100, and the scaling with power and healing power needs to be increased substantially as well.
Minion Master
I saved this one for last because this is the build I am least sure about. Looking at the core specializations, Death Magic is now the ONLY specialization with traits pertaining to Minions, leaving the MM with a huge amount of options when it comes to making a build. This leaves you with a choice: do you think “Rise!” has a place on your skillbar? I think the answer is yes. The potential to keep the jagged horrors alive with support traits from Blood Magic so that you have two “Rise!”s worth of the little buggers running around could be quite powerful. Not to mention that each Jagged Horror is a ticking time-bomb when combined with Death Nova, and could be a pain in the kitten when combined with Necromantic Corruption. This is the only build I can say I dont really know if you NEED to become a Reaper, but is up to you to decide.
In summary: Power Necro, Terror/Condimancer, and Vampire builds are all improved by taking the new Elite Specialization as one of your three specializations, regardless if you use the shouts and greatsword or not (no one is making you!). Anet has successfully improved on and introduced the possibility of multiple builds. I personally am interested in combining Putrid Defense with Cold Shoulder and the Protection boon for a total 53% damage reduction (combine with weakness for a whopping 62.5% reduction in direct damage). However they are all (MM as a possible exception) contingent upon becoming the new specialization, The Reaper.
Hi all. Today I am going to talk about the base necro class and how it compares/benefits from being augmented by the new specialization, The Reaper. I know there are plenty of posts analyzing the Reaper itself, so I am going to try to focus my discussion on whether or not the base class is viable without utilizing the new elite specialization. I think the most useful way to to this is to analyze various potential builds and how they would best be constructed using the upcoming traits. For those who have not seen these traits, here is the link: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Necromancer
And for those of you without information on the new specialization, here is a good summarization of the information (thanks to The Gates Assassin) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Follow-Up-Forum-Specialist-Feedback/first
A couple disclaimers before we get started, I am just starting to write this but I sense I will have a bit to say, so I will leave a summarization at the bottom (please read it though, Im putting a lot of thought into this!). Secondly, I have only played roughly 400 pvp matches, so I consider myself a slightly below average pvp player. I will therefore be analyzing this mostly from a pve perspective, although I hope my observations will be applicable to a pvp setting.
So there are a couple of builds I see as having potential going into these future changes:
- Power necro
- condition/terrormancer
- attrition lifesteal tank
- Minion Master
Power Necro
As trait lines no longer provide stats, trait specializations will be chosen based purely on the traits themselves. Power necro of course focusses on dealing the highest amount of direct damage possible. With that in mind I only see three specializations as contributing to direct damage output: Spite, Soul Reaping, and the new Reaper line. Curses has potential, but there is currently no GrandMaster trait that benefits a direct damage build. Therefore the current power necro build which focusses on Spite and Soul Reaping will also rely on those specializations and generally use the same traits residing in those lines, and pick up the added damage benefits of becoming a Reaper. There are many traits in the reaper line that, when combined with the current DS cannon build, could result in a ridiculous amount of self might and vulnerability on opponents (Reapers Onslaught+ Reapers Might and Chilling Force/ Decimate Defenses looks amazing to me). Strength Runes will be a MUST
Terrormancer/Condimancer
This too, I see benefiting from taking on the Reaper name, although there are some tradeoffs. Losing the torment and bleed stacks from deathshroud will hurt, but the reworks to Dhuumfire I believe make up for it. With the increased attack speed of the 1 skill in the new DS, you can maintain much higher burning stacks than you otherwise could manage with regular DS (1 per every 1.4 seconds, resulting roughly in a base 2 stacks of burning, not runed for condi duration). Dhuumfire with the attack speed aside, a condimancer OR terrormancer will benefit much more from chill also dealing condition damage and gaining might while attacking a chilled foe than they would going into the Spite, Blood Magic, or Death Magic traitlines, not to mention causing chill whenever you fear an opponent.
Vampire/Lifesteal
This is a new area for our community, as up until this point lifesteal has been laughably unviable. However with lifesteal now working through DS, combined with the additional greatsword lifesteal traits, this COULD become a viable thing. I also believe (you may be noticing a trend) that this build would benefit from becoming a Reaper as well. Not only can you trait for lifestealing with the greatsword, but the added whirl finishers that are accessable to the reaper creating leaching bolts increases the survivability that much more. As a baseline, I believe the Vampire build will rely on the Blood Magic and Reaper lines, and then whatever the third specialization is will be based on preference (more tanky builds could choose Death Magic, more offensive/hybrid ones Spite or Soul Reaping).
Whats the best infusion to put in my amulet? I sense not karma or experience, so that leaves gold find or magic find. My gut tells me to go with MF but I was just wondering if anyone uses anything else and why?
As always: pvp or pve?
I prefer quality of life purchases as opposed to cosmetic ones. There are many armor and weapon skins in-game to choose from. However character and bank tab slots are helpful, infinite gathering and salvaging tools are A-MAZING (only purchases I dont regret), and that upgrade which increases the amount your material storage can hold. Some people swear by the home gathering nodes. Transmutation charges are just so easy to come by by exploring cities and doing some casual pvp every day that I wouldnt bother.
To save your wallet, dont buy the equivalent of scratch tickets (BL keys/mini chests/ dye packs). Chances are youd be better off exchanging the gems for gold and buying the thing you REALLY wanted off of the TP.
Disclaimer: I am philosophically opposed to the gem store kitten they are doing (mainly all the cosmetic stuff) so that is why Im not recommending outfits or weapon skins. All shall bow down to Gem Store Tuesday
confirmed
I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
This
Short answer: no
Long answer: The axe has some niche uses, mainly with a Death Perception DS build with the 10% axe damage trait because that %damage increase applies to the Life Blast. Also Axe 2 is good at refilling your LF and deals decent spike damage. As a main tool in a build however, it is vastly subpar (the auto attack is awful) and the vulnerability it causes does not make up for your lack of dps, despite your party benefiting from it.
I hope for you Guardians’ sake that they look better than the weird balls of mud the rangers throw that magically turn into spike traps… that one I never understood.
Its ok guys theres another gem store item today, its everything we’ve been asking for
Reason 3. PVP/WVW AXE 5 is 15X5 which means it hits 5 enemys 75 TIMES that means you will kill yourself if you AXE 5 into a zerg who has RETALIATION or if you are inflicted with CONFUSION. While doing NO DAMAGE.
THAT IS WHY AXE 5 IS BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
Well confusion wouldnt hurt you per hit. But youre spot on with retaliation.
Offhand axe probably doesnt have too much synergy with sword, but I have fun with Axe/Axe. Being able to burst, instantly refill your adrenaline bar and swap to your other set and use your burst is pretty incredible, and its pretty useful for hitting stealthed opponents who are fleeing you when youre right on top of them. Its also really good against opponents who blind spam. Also useful for ruining shatter mesmers clones before they can burst you (dont do this against a condi mesmer though you WILL die). And never use axe 4. But yeah you CAN use offhand axe, as long as you accept that the skills do NOT increase your dps and use axe 5 based on the situation.
Out of curiousity, what if Death shourd changed such that instead of replacing your skills, they added effects to your auto attacks OR granted one off boons / debuffs.
So the boon / debuff traits stay the same (FITG simply gives u one stack of stability, etc)
but the skills like dhumm fire change such that: for the next (X) seconds, auto attack additionally inflict burning.
or reapers might: auto attacks grant might.
These arnt party buffs, so they dont break the class by making it too op. 7 seconds of burning or 7 stacks of might isnt too strong.
You then change DS to just be a buff or set of buffs that last up to 10 seconds. Using DS eats some y% of your death shroud (removing the second HP pool, removing the “dilema” that prevents us from needing blocks).
Unholy sanctuary could change such that: while in DS, if you were to have taken a leathel hit, your HP resets, 1 minute ICD.
Skills could change as such, so then we are not replacing our weapons, we still get to use our dagger build or scepter condi, with added bonus instead of replacing them entirely. Dagger, for example, is already higher DPS than dropping into DS in pve, giving little incentive to actually use DS. THe change would stack damage ONTOP OF dagger DPS instead of trying to REPLACE it.
I actually really like this idea. The only problem I see with removing the second health bar is that its our ONLY form of defense. So we’d need some serious love in the form of evades/blinds/blocks. However Thats the only problem I see. Having DS just augment your abilities to give new effects is a really cool idea. We also wouldnt have to worry as much about LF generation because being hit by attacks wouldnt decrease our LF pool, so it would just be a ticking timer of how long we retain the buffs. Might need to be reworked to decay faster to make up for the lack of damage reducing its duration, but this is a really cool idea.
1. Field use
2. Scaling 1vX defenses
3. Group Support
4. Minion AI
5. Healing (particularly life siphons)
6. Condition Damage
7. Counters
Like spoj said I’m not really sure what “counters” refers to. But I put field use first because, as an imaginary karate master once said “in order to combo with your party you must first combo with yourself”. Besides if we could actually participate in out own and other’s fields we will actually start working on group support anyway. Getting a cc focused melee range weapon means we need improved 1vX defenses, and the rest of my choices I just ordered because I want more viable build options.
They’re rats and they must be exterminated like rats. My biggest motivation for wanting faction/race wars in this game is so that the Iron Legion and I can mow down your smug little faces and end your egocentric blabbing, and rest a new Black Citadel on the ashes of Rata Sum! (I dont like asura)
That’d be a huge step backwards. Rata Sum has a nice, logical layout with crafting stations radiating around the bank and TP. The Black Citadel is a confusing mess of a ground plan. Kinda odd given their Roman inspiration and how methodically Roman military camps were laid out.
Actually it would be a step forwards, because all of the Asura would be dead.
WHAT IF we don’t get shouts. Suppose the revenant specialization gives them access to those. What do you think our new utilities would be then? My guess is…
TOUCH SKILLS. Thats right baby, touch necro is coming back. They seemed to think the life siphoning traits were strong enough as is, especially the 20% siphoning one (which should be merged with vampiric precision anyway). So what if to go with our new melee range weapon we get a set of Physical skills that steal chunks of life? That would A) address the complaints that life stealing is not a viable build and B ) actually go towards making necro into an attrition class by making us be able to whittle down our opponents over time while keeping our HP high.
Would you like life stealing physical skills (if they stole decent chunks of health that is)?
This is an extremely effective and well argued write-up. The Mesmer’s abilities to out-survive and dish out consistent high damage far outclasses what we can currently do.
They’re rats and they must be exterminated like rats. My biggest motivation for wanting faction/race wars in this game is so that the Iron Legion and I can mow down your smug little faces and end your egocentric blabbing, and rest a new Black Citadel on the ashes of Rata Sum! (I dont like asura)
Ele getting the biggest buff in the game out of all of the classes from the new trait system the 10 sec swap being a base line effect. It opens up every build that you could images for and ele and the quality of life alone is out right a dream come true. If you can only see one trait at a time yes it will seem like a nerf but your not playing ele as a one trait class after the update (though ele IS a one trait class now before the update 5/3/15). Stop getting lost on the lose of one leaf when you have a full tree to work with.
this.
No.
I can do one word answers as well.
Apparently not, actually…. XD
All I really want is to be able to remotely detonate marks and to direct where the bone minions explode (aoe cast indicator) so we can blast in our own fields without needing an enemy to help us. This and removing the internal cd between minion explosions would provide a good burst damage spike and allow us to ACTUALLY combo with other people in our parties. I feel like this is such an easy fix?
This works well for me. I like it.
Merging BM and BP would be the most OP thing ever. This whole post (and any post talking about trait changes) is a little irrelevant though based on the HoT changes that are going to happen anyway.
Correct me if Im wrong, but I believe Poison and Burning are being changed into stacking conditions. So the decrease in damage on both of those is to account for that. I for one am happy I finished my sinister gear and grabbed the ascended sinister trinkets for some revamped Dhuumfire
Yeah I think Cloack in Shadow is a good GM trait, the problem here is Shadow Rejuvenation in the wrong spot. Anet pls remove this trait and move executioner again in the CS line and thief will be balanced
Remove Shadow’s Rejuvination?
Move executioner back ? No thanks
Shadow’s rejuvenation is my favorite thief trait and makes what I do and actually have fun with in Guild Wars 2 possible. Solo roaming Xv1s. Without shadow’s rejuvenation, so much sustain is gone and you can not survive in the 2v1s and 3v1s if the players are good.
The fact that you’re commonly winning Xv1s is probably a sign that its a little overpowered.
For me, the traits that bother me the most are the fact that Corruption skills are now tied to falling damage (and now when you take falling damage you get weakness? ok?), that vampiric precision is still a trait and has not been tied into dagger mastery, and that not only has Reaper’s Precision not been deleted, it has been moved up to master tier so its now taking up even more IMPORTANT space than it was before.
I didn’t realize that v1 was literally the exact same trait/utility skill setup as hambow. Now I feel very unoriginal.
So essentially longbow is favored for the aoe burst which is a very reliable way of clearing condis, and does large aoe attrition? So if am essentially swapping longbow for axe shield, and I should think about what that gets me vs what I lose by giving up longbow. Ok ty.