Guild Wars 2

OlliX.1705:

To be honest, I never really got the impression that my necro was dealing low damage. I’ve not done the maths though, but from personal experience I’m quite satisfied with the amount of damage I deal.

I’m sorry, but feelings mean literally nothing in the face of evidence. Mathematically, necros are the worst class in pve. They have average dps, and can only improve group dps through vulnerability.

Against rangers, or mesmers it is essential that you hit your soft cc skills regardless of what build you are playing. Dark pact, Chillblains, Dark Path, Tainted Shackles, Unholy Feast, and Grasping Dead will limit their movement giving you the chance to get in range and deal some damage.

I don’t take axe because a good player will avoid all of your damage when using axe. The 2 skill is so easy to avoid. Back up, or walk through them and all that damage is mitigated. Once you realize that, the weapon becomes terrible. The auto is one of the worst in the game. Sure you can get a decent amount of vuln, but the build up time is huge (If you play a mesmer you understand the difference between quickly stacking vuln and slowly stacking it). The 3 skill is amazing, no doubts about it, cripple boon removal and retal yes please. Having said that it doesn’t justify taking the weapon.

One could make a compelling argument that it is worth taking axe to get warhorn because warhorn 4 and 5 are really really good for power necros, but in general staff>>axe. Your potential damage output is lower, but looking at just skills 1-3 on both weapons and you realize why it is better. Staff auto is bigger range and grants life force. Mark of blood is bigger range, aoe, puts bleeds on your opponent, is on a lower cooldown, and grants regen. Chillblains applies chill, which is stronger than cripple, and poison. That is a lot of debuffing, and it’s at 1200 range.

Axe would be compelling if the auto stacked vuln faster, the 2 skill hit harder, and it was 900 range. Currently, you have to sit at 600 range which is not good for a class that is vulnerable to cc (600 is close enough to melee range that any good melee class will easily be able to close the gap cc and burst you). IMO, axe is just inferior against players that know what they are doing.

Advent.6193:

We have a Mimic skill?
Seriously, ANet really screwed the pooch on this one. I frigging wish the coder in question had have went with: “Duplicate the last ‘ability’ used by (target).”
Would’ve been “different,” and at least functional.

Don’t blame the coder, he is just doing is job. You want to blame the designer.

So your basically asking how often I’m in hotjoin or wvw then, … at least half the time.

Yes I would miss weakness if it went away, necros would have even weaker defense then they have now, and many many traits and skills would have to be changed. In fact, many of the skills/traits that apply weakness could do with a buff.

flow.6043:

coglin.1867:

The problem your going to run into, is changes to DS after the fact are going to be out of balance if your in a large group, or solo, one or the other. I say this, because which ever end of the spectrum they balance for, will hose the other.

I disagree.

First of all, any kind of self healing like vamp traits or Parasitic Contagion is currently too weak. If healing through DS would be possible they would still not be able to sustain a necro properly, and taking these traits would mean a significant damage loss.
Many people who argue against DS healing seem to be under the impression that necros could play the same builds as they do today and get a big chunk of healing in addition to that for free. Both is not true. Builds would be significantly weaker in exchange for a slight sustain increase.

Secondly, the scaling in team fights will always be worse than in 1v1s, nothing will change that. The extra siphoning could never be strong enough to compensate the damage loss of being attacked by 2 or more players.
Also, some extra hp can never be the equivalent of blocks or invulnerability, so I’m actually rather offended when people suggest necros shouldn’t get the same healing from allies in team fights as other classes who also have access to those far superior defensive mechanics.

Hit the nail on the head with this one, there is absolutely no reason ally healing shouldn’t heal necros at all times. Necros defensive mechanic is at best on par with other classes defensive mechanics, yet necros are punished for being in Death Shroud. All healing should be allowed in DS, and then they should balance after that.

Lopez.7369:

Even with all those tools, mesmers require much better positioning. The fact they have to go into melee range sometimes (similar to necromancer) only reinforces their needs for good positioning.

Condition necromancers are fine as they are right now in PvP. Power needs some love, but it has little to do with survivability — it needs better utility and sustained damage.

The reason I disagree on mesmers is that they simply have more tools to escape once they get caught in bad position as compared to necros, and have more ways to avoid damage in the first place due to perma vigor. As far as necros in general, we will just have to agree to disagree, or just disagree if you don’t want that.

Pelopidas.2140:

We have beautiful DS sustain with some spectral investment. And that’s also where the recent nerf hit the hardest.

Then why haven’t I ever seen a tanky necro tpvp streaming?

Lopez.7369:

That’s not true. Mesmer requires even better positioning, and it also picks two of three utility skills for mobility.

It’s also good design — different classes are different, and that’s a good thing. Elementalists and engineers require more muscle memory for combos and cooldowns. Thief demands a much bigger need for disengagement and map awareness for easy-to-gank targets. Guardian requires better awareness of ability range and teammate positioning for support purposes. Ranger and warrior require a sturdier face for the amount of rolling necessary on a keyboard. That’s just how class-based games work.

Mesmers have decoy, blink, portal, mass invis, phase retreat, and distortion to help them disengage as opposed to wurm, walk, and plague in our meta build. They also can and do frequently go into melee range to shatter.

I’m not trying to make all the classes the same, I have 7 of them at 80 to experience the diversity of the classes and builds in this game. The problem is that in this game they removed the traditional idea of being tanky, which was to lower incoming damage and get healed a lot, and replaced that with dodging, blocks, self healing, invulns, and spacing. Instead of giving necros the best of those mechanics, they gave necros DS which is basically a second health bar and energy source. The problem with DS is that you either need your DS generation to increase by number of opponents for it to be balanced (this is why necros are strong 1vs1 and weak 5vs5). Currently it doesn’t, so that leaves two options. Either one you make necros DS scale by the number of opponents, which would be a lot of work because many skills would need to be changed, or you give us other ways to deal with multiple opponents in team fights (I vote mobility and buffing siphons) and make DS even more into an energy type resource.

I apologize for not being clear, with this change spectral recall would just be removed. Spectral Wurm would be a port and a summon to function similarly to other classes ports. Basically a instant port and a minion on a 40 second cooldown. If comparing to lightning flash from an ele (same cooldown), they get instantaneous damage, we get sustained damage through a minion.

Lopez.7369:

We don’t at all. Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm are enough, and giving necromancers any more would make us overpowered. The problem is a lot of people just have no idea that positioning is even a concept, so they constantly get killed and then blame the game.

The fact is necros are the only class that require the level of positioning your talking about because every other class can go invuln or disengage easily. That is terrible design. Furthermore, there are specs on the class, aka any dagger or axe spec, that won’t be able to mitigate the vast majority of damage with proper positioning because they need to be in range to deal damage. I don’t care how good you, or anyone else is at positioning, until necros get some kind of mobility, stability, and/or invulns necros will not be on par with eles, engies, thieves, guards, warriors, or mesmers in general.

The current meta build (I’ve only seen one on tpvp streams recently) relies on necros choosing all their traits, and 2/3 utilities to generate space. Meanwhile, other classes either get blocks, or space creators on weapon skills. The class is and has been in sore need of changes in pvp, and pve for a long time, and just because you are good enough to do well on the class doesn’t mean it is balanced (Power builds are still terrible, if you think I’m wrong get good at a shatter mesmer, fresh air ele, thief, ranger, medi guard, and you’ll see just how outclassed power necros are). I’m not saying I want the class to be buffed into godmode, but currently necros have to sacrifice too much just to get even remotely close to the disengage ability that thieves, mesmers, and eles have by default, and can’t ever get to the sustain level of a guard, engi, or warrior.

I don’t want to see all d/d eles gone forever because this one build is really strong and needs a few nerfs. To counteract this, simply nerf d/d celestial 0/0/2/6/6 ele as phantaram suggested in the other thread and then buff some of the traits in fire, earth, and air so that other builds can gain some traction. I know it is easier said than done, but for me that is the only logical process of steps.

Yep that weapons sounds awesome, make it happen Anet.

Dark Path: Now a leap skill 900 range. Chills and damage all enemies within 240 radius, 3 bleeds apply to target or person closest to explosion. The leap would be similar to burning speed on elementalists, but longer range and with no evade frames.

Path of Corruption would be the same as the bleeds or you could change it to corrupt one boon on all foes hit.

Spectral Wurm: Shadowstep to targeted area summoning a Spectral Wurm wear you stood, 1200 range instant cast. 40 second cooldown. Remove spectral recall to compensate.

I think this would go a long way to fixing the necromancers mobility problems.

spoj.9672:

Why are people talking about LOTR lore in this thread? :P

Id like to see a hammer or a greatsword for necro. Whatever happens I just want to see a proper aoe close range dps weapon. Hammer could fit that role even if it was more control based.

Also, hopefully with some things to help us in dungeons. I’m talking blind on auto attack, mini well of power, mini well of suffering, reflects, straight up aoe boons, super high dps.

Necros healing in DS isn’t something that should be done for balance. It is something that should be done because it doesn’t make sense for one classes profession mechanic to isolate that class from all group healing. Any nerfs that need to happen afterwords to balance the class are fine, but it currently doesn’t make sense that there is no healing in DS.

I’m confused are you saying the d/d cele ele spec shouldn’t be nerfed? Are you saying that celestial stats should be nerfed? Are you saying might stacking should be nerfed? Are you saying nothing should happen at all?

It is pretty evident d/d ele needs some nerfs. Many are calling for a reduction of stats on the celestial amulet, but that amulet isn’t even strong on 5/8 professions. Many are also calling for nerfs to might stacking, but the only builds that are really too strong are celestial engi, and celestial ele. That tells me that eles and engis need to be nerfed a bit. There other specs might not be OP, but that has never stopped nerfs from happening before, and it shouldn’t now.

The people saying necro are hilarious, if necros had the highest damage over 5 or 6 seconds they would be meta in dungeons. Also, are we talking pve where stuff stands still or against people where they move about. If pve then eles win out due to icebow. In pvp, over five seconds probably fresh air ele, d/d theif, or some engi build.

Phantaram.1265:

Might – change it to 25 condition damage per stack instead of 35.

I like some of the other changes, maybe pick 3 or 4 to actually apply, but most of those are good. This one on the other hand is terrible. There are condition builds that stack might believe it or not, and it isn’t fair to give a blatant bias to power builds for the sake of nerfing eles.

Muchacho.2390:

zapv.8051:

It would be nice if it granted like 3-4 seconds of protection on activation of a channeled skill.

Yepp especailly when it is in a trait line that buffs boon duration.

Yeah I never really understood why there where only 2 traits in our boon duration tree that actually grant boons.

Here is the problem,
things necrors lack:
in combat mobility on par with any other class
burst damage
invulnerabilities
vigor
dodge skills
blocks
sustain through traits
stability
the amount of combos fields and finishers other classes have

Yes, necros have a lot of bad traits, but the real problem is that necros forgo all the mechanics that make other classes what they are. Necros don’t have an identity in this game that makes sense. Right now the class focuses around using conditions for defense, offense, and utility which doesn’t work unless you dedicate to it fully because of how conditions work. No other class is as dependent on conditions in every single build as necros. Even necro power builds are extremely dependent on soft cc conditions, which doesn’t work when the enemy has cleansing. The class needs to get either some serious mobility, and some vigor, or some stability and improved sustain. Currently necros are simply too much of a sitting duck because of their inability to avoid cc.

It would be nice if it granted like 3-4 seconds of protection on activation of a channeled skill.

killahmayne.9518:

I don’t think Necro Axe is that weak. Ghastly claws is a decent attack, I consider it just a worse version of Rapid Fire (can’t be that bad). People are guaranteed to blow dodges plus it gives you lifeforce and it has a low cooldown. What more utility do you want from Axe when it has Unholy Feast. It AoE cripples, removes boons and gives you retaliation. The auto attack isn’t amazing but I would use axe just for these two skills alone. Plus with dagger autos you got to be in melee range. It isn’t bad in a power necro dagger/warhorn + axe/dagger build.

A worse version of rapid fire, that is a gigantic understatement. Far lower damage (Granted that is somewhat offset by lifeblast), 600-900 less range, and can be cancelled if your opponent walks through you. Unholy Feast is an awesome skill, only reason I would take axe. The auto attack is terrible. Low damage and it doesn’t stack vulnerability quick enough to get good stacks on anyone with cleansing (If it stacked 2 stacks per hit for half the duration it would be better, but still weak). The auto attack is objectively bad, and the 2 skill is only really good at building life force.

This is the hybrid build I’ve been running, the idea is too deal good sustained damage with bleeds and dagger, then abuse fear to relieve pressure.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4Yjc0UdbtNG3wfjighSyV4DgqLjsBCAK/ioA-TJxHwADeCAa2fAwFBoYZAA

If anything, Rangers entangle and krait runes are far stronger. AOE 6 stacks of bleed, poison, torment and immobilize is quite strong.

Necro: Axe should be a 900 range weapon, and the damage needs buff (compare to other single target range weapons like ranger longbow, or mesmer greatsword and you realize how bad it is). Focus needs to have a lower cast time on the 5 skill. Dagger 2 skill needs to have its cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds at most.

Thief: P/P is very meh, it either needs to be a condition set or a power set, currently it is neither. D/D needs to have 3 and 4 skills reworked to be power skills.

Engineer: Pistol, and rifle auto should be buffed and IP should be removed.

Ranger: Honestly the only good weapons are sword, dagger, longbow, and torch. Everything else is kind of weak.

Mesmer: Scepter isn’t designed well, it isn’t really op or up, but clunky due to auto and 3 skill.

Guardian: Shield is very poor.

Elementalist: Focus and Scepter could use some small changes for non pve combat.

Warrior: Rifle seems pretty bad, mace mainhand is kind of weak as well although people make it work with the burst skill.

That’s actually one of if not the very best roaming gear set. Here is a build that will help you get accustomed to the necromancer, the build is good when starting because it allows you to simply overload your opponents with conditions. If you can’t afford perplexity runes, nightmare, undead, or krait are good options.
6/6/2/0/0

Tadsoul.6951:

is the heal suppose to be a spectral skill or just a skill?
if it spectral skill yea 25 second cd is need

if it is just a skill i would suggest instead of 25 second cd make it either 20% or 25% lifeforce return
these provide similar amount of healing (if you count restoring deathshroud as healing) per second to healing signet

idk the balanced (actually) healing figure that necromancer should be allowed however since your heal includes both restoring deathshroud and healing it may be allowed more total healing per second than the maximum actually healing

also i didnt take into account for spectral attunement in curse that would give you an additional 15% lf
quick solution for this make lf gain instant set to 25% lf

It would be a spectral skill, so ya 25 seconds is probably more appropriate. I don’t think you should directly equate DS to health though. I also think this would skill would give a compelling reason to take spectral attunement thus why it gives you life force over the duration. Remember this skill has to compete with consume conditions. That isn’t easy to do and it therefore needs to be strong. 4.5k health plus 40% DS every 20 seconds traited competes well with consume conditions.

Reaper’s protection is an incredible trait, just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it bad. How is it that you consider a 3 second aoe fear bad? I can understand wanting to take greater marks over RP, but saying RP is bad is just not true.

Sors Immani.8429:

You’ve got good starting ideas, here’s my take on the skills:

zapv.8051:

Spectral Regeneration (heal): Gain 4.5k health (1.0 scaling) and gain Death Shroud every second for 5 seconds (5% DS per second 30% total) 20 second cooldown.

WAY too strong, imo. Either recharge would need to be increased to 35-45 sec or LF gain reduced from 5% per second to 2-3%.

35 seconds would be absurd, maybe 25 at most look at a skill like withdraw on thief.

Sors Immani.8429:

zapv.8051:

Well of the kitten ed: Applies 4 seconds of one stack of torment per pulse, increases duration of conditions applied to enemies within the well by 33%. 32 second cooldown.

Recharge seems a little short on this one, too. I like the condi duration increase and lol’d at the name, would change from Torment to Cripple or Chill. Possible rename to Well of the Profane as an homage to GW1 (like so many skills are).

Sounds good I guess

Sors Immani.8429:

zapv.8051:

Shambling Horror: Create a Shambling Horror that applies torment on it’s attacks. As per GW1 this minion is melee and should probably have similar armor and health as a bone fiend. The torment could last 6 seconds and it should attack every 3 seconds. When the shambling horror dies a jagged horror is spawned in it’s place (still triggers Death Nova). Cooldown of 30 seconds.

Interesting concept. For balance purposes, I’d have it serve as a melee-counterpart to Bone Fiend, with the Torment application as it’s “activated” ability (something along the lines of 2-3 stacks for 8-12 sec).

That sounds good as well

Sors Immani.8429:

zapv.8051:

Spectral Block: Sacrifice all remaining Death Shroud and become invulnerable depending on how much you sacrificed. Less than 25% 0 seconds (0). 25-50% 1 second (2). 50-75% 2 seconds (3). Greater than 75% 3 seconds (5). Parenthesis indicate duration with spectral attunement. Prevents capture point contribution 80 second cooldown.

Sounds good, albeit a little strong. I suggest changing to "For the next 5 seconds, block all attacks. Each attack blocked consumes 10% LF (Spectral Attunement: 6-2/3%): 10 blocks with 100% LF untraited, 15 blocks traited.

I think necros should have a true invuln.

Sors Immani.8429:

zapv.8051:

Sacrifice: Sacrifice 25% health, target takes 10% (5?) more damage for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

Fairly spot-on here. Consider renaming to Blood Bond (again, GW1 homage) and increasing damage taken to 15-20% with the additional cost of 1% base HP per attack received to the necromancer.

I like the references to GW1, 15-20% damage would be too much I think. 6k or so life blasts easily.

Sors Immani.8429:

zapv.8051:

Order of the Vampire: Grant nearby allies and yourself vampiric aura for 5 seconds (dark red aura). 90 second cooldown. Vampiric aura makes every attack siphon 200 health from enemy target. 200 damage and 200 health. Note: 2 attacks per second from 5 people is 10k damage.

Suggest including “unrestrained” text to dispel any internal cooldown issues. Additionally, Vamp Aura should also siphon from attackers as well (sorta like SoV).

Yea no internal cooldown for sure. I thought about making it on getting hit as well as on hit, but that might be too strong.

Sinzaku.2980:

Dont forgot we got trait, chill from blind > wall of darkness
Something like cripple / stun would be a better option.

well of <unknow> : 50 sec cooldown, 5 sec duration, 1 sec cast time
Effects : 1 sec stun per pulse, cripple 2 sec per pulse, unblockable

Also the trait for wells cooldown reduce, an upgrade with +30 (60?) radius increas would be amazing.

That well would be way op, I put torment on a well to give necros better condition pressure with wells. I think with this necros could have a damaging condition well. It might be cool to make vampiric rituals add 60 radius, so that wells would cover a full point. It would be too strong on ritual mastery for sure.

Tadsoul.6951:

I like the heal idea

thanks me too.

Longbow rangers…

Mazdan.2071:

I would like to see something that grants stability. Some have proposed stability should be added to Signet of Locust. Either this or a new skill that grant stability like warrior’s Balanced Stance (8 sec). This is really the only area Necros lack IMO.

As much as I like the idea of us having a nice 60 second cooldown stability that seemingly every other class except mesmers, and necros have. Anet has said they don’t want us to have more stability. While they do change their minds, it wasn’t worth it for me to present skill ideas that Anet won’t even consider (I like to pretend they read this forum).

I’d like to see a new heal, 4 new utilities (1 for each utility type), and a new elite for every class. For the necromancer, these are the skills I came up with.

Spectral Regeneration (heal): Gain 4.5k health (1.0 scaling) and gain Death Shroud every second for 5 seconds (5% DS per second 30% total) 20 second cooldown.

Well of the kitten ed: Applies 4 seconds of one stack of torment per pulse, increases duration of conditions applied to enemies within the well by 33%. 32 second cooldown.

Shambling Horror: Create a Shambling Horror that applies torment on it’s attacks. As per GW1 this minion is melee and should probably have similar armor and health as a bone fiend. The torment could last 6 seconds and it should attack every 3 seconds. When the shambling horror dies a jagged horror is spawned in it’s place (still triggers Death Nova). Cooldown of 30 seconds.

Spectral Block: Sacrifice all remaining Death Shroud and become invulnerable depending on how much you sacrificed. Less than 25% 0 seconds (0). 25-50% 1 second (2). 50-75% 2 seconds (3). Greater than 75% 3 seconds (5). Parenthesis indicate duration with spectral attunement. Prevents capture point contribution 80 second cooldown.

Sacrifice: Sacrifice 25% health, target takes 10% (5?) more damage for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

Order of the Vampire: Grant nearby allies and yourself vampiric aura for 5 seconds (dark red aura). 90 second cooldown. Vampiric aura makes every attack siphon 200 health from enemy target. 200 damage and 200 health. Note: 2 attacks per second from 5 people is 10k damage.

Not really sure on the skill sacrifice, I was having a hard time coming up with a good corruption skill. Anyway, I’d love to hear opinions on these skills or your own ideas as well.

Ravenhunt.2735:

Will try it too.

Maybe i have it today ready to test.

But i think this set will be the new “Meta” for PvE Condimancer. (For fights like Liadri)

Glasscannoncondimancer… or… Glacacoma XD

I believe the term is Glassomancer

Anyone have a shatter build with sinister stats for wvw? I’d love to play some hybrid shatter.

It’d probably be to strong. Burning, bleeding, poison, vulnerability, weakness and cripple are all really easy to maintain, and you could also get chill, confusion, blind, torment, and immobilize in sparse amounts, so an average of about 14% damage increase would be incredible. Maybe if it was 1% per condition it would be more reasonable, but then your lowing necros dps.

Hey there, putting torment on scepter is probably a good idea. Other than that it really is different in pve vs wvw. In wvw I like to have at least one sigil of energy for that extra dodge, and maybe a sigil of doom to make my poison uptime even higher. You could also run sigil of bursting or the 10% condition duration. In pve, I believe geomancy actually deals more damage than earth as long as you are switching weapons, and again I would take sigil of bursting or the 10% condition duration over agony.

Lily.1935:

I’m anticipating something in January or February. I don’t expect anything to show up sooner then that. Although an announcement might be made regardless. Perhaps we will see other weapons on other professions as well. More professions using Mace, Longbow, Shortbow, hammer and shield perhaps?

Yeah I’m thinking January or February as well, maybe right when we get through this section of living story. Maybe powering up with new weapons to beat the final boss or something. I would really love it if engis got hammer or at least mace, and more professions definitely need all the weapons you listed.

Falcon.8713:

Indeed. I think this might be a hint of Anet to us.
1. Marjory is a full human necromancer (no sylvari that got the right to wear a special sword like trahearne)
2. The greatsword gets infused with ghostly belinda sparkles (very nerco-ish)
3. Creating an new animation for a necromancer using a greatsword with the green and black slash stuff instead of adding old regular animations like the trahearne sword.

Brace yourselves. Greatsword might be coming

YES, really glad I bought the skin already for my mesmer, woot.

Mikau.6920:

zapv.8051:

You can craft trinkets as well. Sadly, very one takes 5 charged quartz T.T I’ll need a whole week of grinding to make 2 earrings.

What trinket do you get as reward on the achievement? (and which one, I’m not a big fan of the LS)

Awesome Trinket

That is the trinket

Guide to Achievements

That’s the guide. Based on the other living stories, the next 3 living stories will probably give out another accessory and two rings. The trinket is worth the extra hour you spend finishing those achievements.

spoj.9672:

Nah go d/w + d/d 6/6 with bleed duration etc. You can maintain a fair amount of bleeds with dagger auto + enfeebling blood + dark path. Epidemic to spread when dealing with trash. I wouldnt bother with the scepter on a hybrid. Would only use it for pure condi builds.

Just wondering what traits you take at the 6 in curses? Since it is pve I would assume you wouldn’t take terror or poc, so that leaves master of corruption, and banshee’s wail to increase damage. Also, I just don’t get the massive investment in condition damage, but then not putting more into your bleeds.

For a true hybrid in fractals something like 6/2/0/0/6 with dagger warhorn and scepter dagger would work great. The dagger warhorn pairing would probably be better off being zerker. Everything else could potentially be sinister, but I don’t think they have trinkets that are sinister other than the one that is a reward for completing the achievements (I got it so it is awesome). In that case rampagers, celestial, zerker, or maybe carrion for trinkets.

Your necro changes would put the class in bottom tier pvp, and show your lack of knowledge on the class. The passive fear proc from nightmare runes could definitely be removed, but Reaper’s Protection has counterplay. You as a player should know it has a 60 second cooldown and activates on cc. That means the only time you as a player might now be prepared to stun break the 3 second fear is when you first attack the necro. The rest of the time you should know what will happen and have stability or stunbreak ready.

Furthermore, what is currently keeping necros in the meta is not those fear procs. It is the boon corruption and ability to really hurt eles and guardians. You couldn’t even name the trait right, the trait is called Path of Corruption and corrupts 2 boons on hitting dark path. That certainly isn’t any stronger than other grandmasters, and requires you to hit dark path, which can be easily dodged or even outrun at range. I don’t know how you think 2 boons corrupted will turn an entire fight. As far as corrupt boon goes, sure it could use a more visible animation, but necros aren’t that strong of a class outside of this one build your asking to nerf.

Last point on necros, reducing fear damage is absurd. You want to remove half of the fears than nerf the damage? The damage that has already been nerfed by 17%? You would be effectively removing half of the theoretical maximum damage from necro fears already and then reducing it even more.

As far as eles and engis go, the problem is clearly with the incredible amount of might duration people can attain. With 15 might stacks, your power and condition damage are similar to that of a main stat on a rabid or zerker amulet on celestial. That is the problem, not the regen, not the protection, and not the fury. It is the fact that you can effectively get the main stats of a full zerker and full condition build with might.

The thing is it looked like they had at least one animation for it. It had the traditional green/black after effect when she swung it and that could have been the first part of an auto attack chain.

As a necromancer main with 6 other 80s, I would gladly take feline grace over any other necro grandmasters. Having said that, I don’t think it makes thieves overpowered because it fits into their class dynamic. Also, RP is easily counterable, you know exactly when it will proc (on cc) and it has a 60 second cooldown. My only problem with thieves is I think they have too many ports, but they would need substantial other buffs if you took even one of those away.

Wouldn’t you want to dodge all of those? I personally don’t want any of those skills to hit me, so I’d just dodge either way.

Straegen.2938:

All players power and condi should have to choose between offensive power and defensive capability.

They already do have to choose, soldiers does the same damage as dire with 50% condition duration. Same defensive stats and everything.

Nova Stiker.8396:

zapv.8051:

Exedore.6320:

Mostly agree with the OP.

Having targeted duration increases – only increasing a specific condition or boon duration – is fine. What’s a problem for balance is the duration increase to all conditions or all boons. In particular, condition duration causes balance problems because both damaging and CC condition durations are increased simultaneously.

@zapv.8051
PvP build diversity about the same as it’s always been. While you can play a lot of stuff, very few is actually good at the highest level. WvW roaming in a joke with the condi duration increase food and PvE-only runes; you just don’t see it because it’s easy to avoid these unstoppable solo roamers without even trying.

Your one of these players who actually thinks condition builds are overpowered lol. If you think it is op that condition duration effects both damaging conditions and cc conditions why is it fair that boon duration effects swiftness, and stability which are the counter to cc conditions, while also effecting might and fury which are the equivalent to damaging conditions. It is balanced because you can invest in boon duration to make you deal more damage, and survive better, or you can invest in condition duration to do the same. Removing either would dumb this game down, and considering how easy some of the builds already are to set up and play, that isn’t at all needed.

There are more high level viable tpvp builds then their has been in the history of this game, teams are bringing multiple different ele, engineer, and guard builds, and every class is viable. That hasn’t ever happened before. I don’t really get why people think condition builds are that op for wvw. I roam perfectly fine on a s/d thief, d/p thief, d/d ele, and shatter mes all with no -condition food winning 2vs1s consistently. Furthermore, there is other food that gives pretty much the same damage boost as +condition duration food. Also, WvW roaming is way more serious than anything except gvg in wvw, and the fact that you are trying to avoid these, “unstoppable solo roamers,” shows YOU can’t kill them. That says something not about the roamer, their build, or their buffs, but your skill level (you can get all the same buffs). Honestly you sound like someone who doesn’t bring good condition removal and doesn’t want to learn the animations that inflict conditions.

Don’t brag about beating people in WvW 2v1 or whatever, WvW is not real PvP. Period.

The game is balanced around PvP. Which is good for e-sports.

The game IS NOT balanced for PvE and WvW. Which is bad for everything else.

How do you balance PvE and WvW? Start by changing the mechanics of boons and conditions entirely.

It isn’t about my ability to 2vs1, you aren’t understanding the point. I’m saying the classes in wvw are balanced, and that is evident by my ability to 2vs1 effectively on the 6 I have geared. I realize the game isn’t balanced around PVE and WvW, but even then it is pretty balanced in both of those places right now. Then at the end you pose a question and answer it without giving any evidence, or countering the actual points I made. All you have done this whole thread is say that your opinion is that boon and condition duration should be removed forcing a rebalance of a game that is currently making huge strides in balance without giving any valid evidence as to why that should happen or acknowledging the counterarguments that have been posed.

It might seem like I’m fairly kitteny about my skills in wvw, which btw I realize doesn’t translate to pvp, but your stating your opinion as fact without any support, or a willingness to back up your arguments when people poke holes in them.

Exedore.6320:

Mostly agree with the OP.

Having targeted duration increases – only increasing a specific condition or boon duration – is fine. What’s a problem for balance is the duration increase to all conditions or all boons. In particular, condition duration causes balance problems because both damaging and CC condition durations are increased simultaneously.

@zapv.8051
PvP build diversity about the same as it’s always been. While you can play a lot of stuff, very few is actually good at the highest level. WvW roaming in a joke with the condi duration increase food and PvE-only runes; you just don’t see it because it’s easy to avoid these unstoppable solo roamers without even trying.

Your one of these players who actually thinks condition builds are overpowered lol. If you think it is op that condition duration effects both damaging conditions and cc conditions why is it fair that boon duration effects swiftness, and stability which are the counter to cc conditions, while also effecting might and fury which are the equivalent to damaging conditions. It is balanced because you can invest in boon duration to make you deal more damage, and survive better, or you can invest in condition duration to do the same. Removing either would dumb this game down, and considering how easy some of the builds already are to set up and play, that isn’t at all needed.

There are more high level viable tpvp builds then their has been in the history of this game, teams are bringing multiple different ele, engineer, and guard builds, and every class is viable. That hasn’t ever happened before. I don’t really get why people think condition builds are that op for wvw. I roam perfectly fine on a s/d thief, d/p thief, d/d ele, and shatter mes all with no -condition food winning 2vs1s consistently. Furthermore, there is other food that gives pretty much the same damage boost as +condition duration food. Also, WvW roaming is way more serious than anything except gvg in wvw, and the fact that you are trying to avoid these, “unstoppable solo roamers,” shows YOU can’t kill them. That says something not about the roamer, their build, or their buffs, but your skill level (you can get all the same buffs). Honestly you sound like someone who doesn’t bring good condition removal and doesn’t want to learn the animations that inflict conditions.

Forestgreen.7981:

Vikkela.7261:

Yeah that’s one of their strengths while other classes that lack “easy” access to boons have their own strengths. Btw try using boons around a Mesmer or Necro and you’ll see them gone in a second and replaced with some nasty red stuff instead

My point exactly, mesmer/necro. What if I don’t play those classes? I’m not looking to abolish these strength, I’m suggesting counterplay on them, something which is just impossible at the moment due to how irregular boon strip is and limited. Also, you will notice that unless you get every single boon strip ability, stripping the 25 might stacks on someone is impossible because they always have multiple boons and the lesser effects are the ones which are removed (ele, engineer, warrior).

If every other class gets boon strips even close to the level of mesmers and necros, why would you run mesmers and necros? Furthermore, what is to stop necros and mesmers from saying, “they got the boon strip we have, why don’t we have the boon application they have?” Keeping boonstripping to just a few classes gives a unique reason to take those classes in a team.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

oxtred.7658:

Please stop saying necro dps is the lowest, for god’s sake. How can you make a rant post about people not understanding the game and still say necro’s flaws are in its dps is beyond me.

It’s a fact that necro’s dps is the lowest in game. Necros also do not have any unique buffs they can bring to the group. Sadly enough GW2 dungeons can be played in such a way that most dungeon mechanics do not come to play. When stacking together in one tiny spot and burst dps’ing everything is viable, there are going to be classes left out.

I don’t think the devs meant for this to happen when they designed the dungeons, but none wants to spend 2 hours killing trash mobs before reaching a boss.

So yes, sadly enough, in the current “meta” dungeon runs, a necromancer keeps the group behind.

That actually isn’t true, I believe necros dps is ranked 4th or 5th with 25 might stacks, fury, banners, frost spirit, empowered allies, and spotter. The problem is the only things they bring to the group are aoe poison, weakness, blinds, and vulnerability. Poison isn’t needed, and other classes can do everything else while also buffing the group. Even if you went through a dungeon and killed everything, necros still wouldn’t be wanted. There is nothing they can do in a dungeon that other classes can’t do while still bringing other things to the table.

Nova Stiker.8396:

zapv.8051:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I don’t really see a balancing issue in this really. To get the longer duration, you have to give up something else.

This.

To get 100% duration, the player gives up a lot especially for boon duration. The only arguable point is (WvW wise) that +% condi duration food gives a lot more than other +% condi duration items, making higher (not 100%) condi duration achievable with little investment. You can get +50% condi duration just with consumables.

It’s not about giving up something else, it’s about hindering game mechanics.
Boon and Condition Durations are NOT a big problem right now, because the game is designed for them not to be a problem, everything is balanced with condition and boon duration in mind.

But that hurts more than it helps. This is why condition builds focus on spamming multiple conditions, rather than 1 powerful one. Conditions are designed to have low durations. Design wise, you can NEVER have a build that uses only one or two conditions because of Condition Duration. The game is designed with the thought of players will carry as many different conditions as possible, so you make condition removal very frequent and more accessible.

The same applies to boons, at this rate new boon types will probably never exist. It’s fine for classes to get a bunch of different boons but it breaks the game when they can have so much for so long. Boon duration affects everything you apply, EVERYTHING. Making boon duration very useless to some classes but very powerful to others.

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That is why it’s a problem, adding new gameplay elements becomes extremely hard to balance because of condition and boon duration.

So, what I’m getting is that you want them to redesign a majority of the skills in this game because you think boon duration and condition duration don’t make sense. Whether or not your point is valid, the concept of changing every single skill that applies a boon or a condition as well as 2 trait lines is absurd.

Absurd?
It’s necessary.

For Guild Wars 2 combat to grow and become better,
It’s necessary.

There are so many mechanics made worthless. Conditions in PvE is absolutely worthless, CC abilitys are absolutely worthless. Some bosses are immune to critical hits, making precision and ferocity worthless.

There are many problems with Guild Wars 2 mechanics, the hard part is identifying exactly what is wrong.

It is absurd. This post of yours is also absurd. Do you know what the word necessary means? You probably didn’t intend this, but what your words actually mean is that you think it is literally impossible for this game to “grow and become better” without the removal of boon and condition duration. Even if that was true, which it isn’t because you would effectively just be removing depth, there are a myriad of other things that would allow GW2 combat to get better.

Furthermore, boon and condition duration are not the reason conditions in pve are worthless, that is because of the stack limit, and no optimal dps condition gear. CC has very little if anything to do with boon or condition duration. Once again, how do precision and ferocity have anything to do with boon and condition duration.

Objectively, there can be no problems with GW2 mechanics unless the devs say so. It is their game they can implement it how they want. Subjectively, my opinion is that this game is implemented very well, and with some buffs to underused traits and skills the diversity would be incredible. Heck pvp build diversity is at an all time high, any class can roam in wvw, and 7/8 classes are great for pve speedruns.

In addressing your original post claiming that it is impossible to balance something that can be between 5 and 10 seconds. That simply isn’t true. You do exactly what they did with this game and make the build give up something to get to 10 seconds or get something else for keeping it at 5 seconds. I know for a fact that these things can be balanced because many of them are balanced. For instance, people complain about eles might stacking, but I’ve never once heard someone say that Soothing Disruption, which grants regen and vigor on cantrip use, is overpowered or underpowered. That would mean that it is balanced in the eyes of everyone immediately contradicting your original post.

1) Elementalist (I would argue anyone who doesn’t put ele here doesn’t understand dungeons)
2) Guardian (can do reflects, stability if you need it, and good dps)
3) Warrior (unique banner buffs and might stacking if you want it)
4) Engineer (can do a lot of different things in a dungeon)
5) Thief (improv ice bow op)
6) Mesmer (time warp and portal skips)
7) Ranger (spotter… un nerf frost spirit please)
8) Necro (The only thing necros really bring is weakness and blinds, but other classes can bring that. Necros need a new dps weapon, and a unique party buff to be in the meta)