Nerfing ps war won’t make the meta any broader. It will just remove the ps war and replace it with the scepter ele. Ele already has it good enough in pve.
You know what you should advocate? Giving necro a trait similar but slightly weaker than ps. That would open some options up.
If a few other classes could stack might for a group better, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Necros are already half way there, blood is power needs to have the might tuned so you can get 100% uptime out of it. Then necros need another way to give aoe might, possibly sacrificing current might generation (hopefully replacing it with damage modifiers the class lacks). For instance, if blood magic had a trait that made siphons grant aoe might, or wells grant aoe might that would be great.
1) Says necro gameplay is too passive
2) Lists skills that have to be landed on opponents to work
3) Lists how to counter the skills with things like blinds, blocks, and invulns which necros largely don’t have.
Also, marks all have different animations (seriously look for the glowy hand). Now, I think plague sending and is really cheap and needs to be attached to a skill, or made avoidable (chill of death needs to be removed). However, I don’t know how your arguing necros are passive when literally all of their defense requires you to get hit or to hit someone, while literally every other class just gets free passive regen, and sustain while also having invulns, blocks, and evades that pretty much always work.
1) Get this through your head, “BURN IS SUPPOSED TO BE BURST LEVELS OF DAMAGE WHEN YOU HAVE A LOT OF STACKS.”
2) d/d ele needs a slight nerf to a few different things.
3) Rampage is completely fine
4) Mesmers are fine
5) I actually agree about necro down state, but that’s just because I want a better minor trait than 25% down state damage and vuln below 33% health not cause it is OP. I also want to see necros down state fear skill apply in aoe.
Also, to the thief complainer. Your class is not in an ideal position right now I agree, but the burst difference between mes and thief is not big. Also, the setup is relatively similar, and it is often easier to dodge a mes burst than a thief burst imo.
Dagger main hand is good, dagger off hand is fine for condition builds.
Staff has plenty of utility, best ranged option for a soul reaping build.
Axe and scepter are being looked into.
Focus offhand honestly isn’t bad for PvP, it will pair well with reaper.Honestly, only scepter and axe are truly hurting and we already know they’re being looked into.
Yeah, I think I’m more in mind with Zap here. Dagger is only great because it has crazy auto damage and massive life force not tied to a cooldown. 2 is okay (kinda long) and 3 really isn’t great compared to just about any other immobilize skill in the game.
As for the rest, Staff is passable mostly because we have no other 1200 options and its the only way to get LF from afar, other than that its pretty “meh” after the years of nerfs.
Dagger offhand needs #4 to move faster and be unblockable so it’s at least ALMOST as reliable as putrid mark, and #5 needs to cast faster due to the animation delay, and needs some sort of Life Force generation.
Axe/Scepter needs large changes.
Focus would be fine if regeneration was basically ANY other boon on #4 and #5 was a faster cast (likely 3/4).
Warhorn is fine, at least. :P
Yeah, I think it is important to remember the reason we run dagger/warhorn staff on pretty much everything is because scepter/dagger and axe/focus have massive problems. Not necessarily because dagger/warhorn and staff are perfect.
I said disengage, not escape. It isn’t a traditional port, it is a minion skill first and a defensive port second. Also no other port skill gives life force and attacks your enemies for you.
See you say that, but everyone here is saying you should place it where people can’t attack it, which generally means it isn’t getting much functionality as a minion. Also, I would take instant cast over 10% LF every single second of the week. They shouldn’t have lowered the cd either, now it’s hard to work in the buffs the skill needs to be competitive.
Okay, so you just got a free 3 seconds of taking no damage and a burst build just wasted their entire burst, and that isn’t worth a utility slot? That ends up having the same effect as a 3s invuln to their damage or 10k damage from them you didn’t take, on a 36s CD; absolutely worth the slot. If you can’t win the fight with that kind of free lack of pressure from the enemy, you would have lost with anything.
Spending 3 seconds to blow someones 32 second CD util that they will not be able to get off again if the fight lasts that long because of its huge cast time is most definitely worth it. Specially when burst skills, not combos, from burst classes are on 5-10 second cds. It does not at all have the same effect as an invuln, only takes one person to kill wurm. Absolutely not worth the slot over something like spectral armor, which will buy me more time than that, and not require ridiculous setup. I’d also rather have plague signet, far more reliable, and let’s me get rid of a immob in combat.
The things you guys are saying that are nice about wurm are nice, but your ignoring all the negatives to justify your position. Wurm isn’t a bad skill, but it isn’t as good as our other utils and certainly is a tier behind other ports. Which despite it being a minion skill has always been it’s main use in any meta build outside of MM (and even arguable for MM).
Dagger main hand is good, dagger off hand is fine for condition builds.
Staff has plenty of utility, best ranged option for a soul reaping build.
Axe and scepter are being looked into.
Focus offhand honestly isn’t bad for PvP, it will pair well with reaper.Honestly, only scepter and axe are truly hurting and we already know they’re being looked into.
Dagger 2 and 3 are unarguably weak for their cast times and cds. Dagger off hand doesn’t have any LF gain. Staff does bad direct damage, and should bring more support, so necros have a support weapon. Focus is terrible, it will never be good in its current state because the skills are way too easy to avoid.
“flesh wurm provides a disengage” Really? you think this skill is going to get you away from a competent ele, thief or war? Also, 10k damage to kill it is like 3 seconds at most for burst classes, which leaves you -1 utility. That’s totally worth it in most fights.
It isn’t even about if this skill is good or not for me (which it isn’t). If your placing it where it can still attack, it can be killed easily, if you don’t it’s inferior to other ports because of the cast. That’s just a fact, and one I would like to see remedied by lowering the cast time significantly.
The problem with feedback in this game is that most of the community has no idea how to remove themselves from their perspective when considering opposing views. That and much of the community doesn’t actually realize that holding points wins matches, not attacking them.0 It’s the same in pve where 90% of players are always several steps behind the best players. In all gamemodes the overwhelming majority isn’t using all their defense correctly, and that skews viewpoints of balance right their.
Many players think about balance in too limited a scope. Even just in 1v1 pvp, there are so many variables it’s extremely hard to pinpoint what made you lose a given fight. For instance, many players rage about burn guardians and how much damage they do, but it is very easy to counter. I’d wager most players complaining about dieing from burn guards are the same ones blowing all their cds on the guards blocks and invulns. When so much of the population comes from an uninformed background it is hard to sift through all the information that is biased and what is not.
I can’t be that judgemental of Anet because at the end of the day appealing to the masses is important. What I do think they need to do is bring in a lot of really high level players from all gamemodes and ask what they think. In general, the people who are best at this game spend the most time on it and have the best ideas about overall balance. Looking to those players who have already played the game extensively for knowledge would pave the way for other players to enjoy this game.
Completely agree, dagger would be infinitely better for pve and pvp if life siphon wasn’t a channel, but instead a single target big hitting siphon that did great damage. This skill sucks, if the healing or damage was actually good people would interrupt it. Since, people rarely blow interrupts on it, that says something.
Also, it might heal for 5k with healing power, but people deal 5k damage easily in that time. Before you say, “it is 600 range though,” realize every class has good 600+ range options except maybe war, and all of them can close the gap and deal more than 5k damage in the 4 seconds it takes the skill to channel. That means you need to setup this skill to land the full channel and get a lot of benefit, which is absolutely ridiculous considering it is the #2 skill on a weapon.
Spectral armor needs changes cause it is mandatory on most builds, and kind of broken. There was a short period of time where it granted LF per hit with an icd per target. I’d like to see it return to that, and have them add stab to it. Armor would be much better if it was:
Spectral Armor: Grant 3% LF every time you are struck by a foe with a 1 second icd per foe struck. Also gain stability and protection for 6 seconds. 6 second duration, 50 or 60 second cd.
This would be much more balanced, and help our scaling in teamfights. As for retal, I think it would be nice as well, maybe they could just make that part of the spectral trait. All spectral skills granting retal would be cool.
Why is it so much more “fun” to stand apart and press 2 on your longbow than stand closer to each other and share boons, cleanse conditions, have common projectile defense?
….Cause I want to see something of the game or at least the enemy. Instead I can only see the butts of my team in my face and bang my head on the keyboard … this is fun, indeed -.-
That’s fine, but other people want to stack. You are trying to force everyone to stop playing the way they want, and play how you want through forced game mechanics. You can play how you want know, but don’t expect your way to be optimal.
snip
I think my changes would at least make it better in pve with condi removal, and better aoe condis. I’m not against it getting pve buffs, but it’s already good in pvp, and that is where they balance so that has to be kept in mind.
Another good improvement for Plague would be to remove it from the Corruption category entirely, remove the self-inflicted conditions completely. This would be an amazing buff, balanced by it no longer being affected by Master of Corruption.
It’d need a new tool-tip tho. Something like;
“hey ANET. If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fecking fix it!”
Another skill that could be greatly improved by this style of fix would be Consume Conditions.
I disagree, plague functions really well currently as a corruption. 120 second cd is super nice, and it definitely fits the them of a plague. The bleed and poison is minor in consideration of how strong it is.
As for consume conditions, they could keep it as a corruption and it would be fine. It just needs something other than blind, maybe poison. Then lower the base cd back to 25 seconds, and change the trait to grant resistance or drop the trait to adept tier.
The fact of the matter, to all those that support and run burn builds, is that it’s simply overpowered. 2 stacks is equal to almost 1.4k DPS. Any other condition at 2 stacks is simply not as strong. There is no skill in applying the burning condition what so ever in my opinion. So, for anyone to support this claim is bonkers xD a
Burn damage from high burn stacks is a low tier problem.
One trick pony builds (high burn stack builds) don’t sustain well in more advanced matches PLUS almost everyone has cleansing. Exception is dd ele but I consider that a medium burn stack build
So all the fuss about burn damage are from people that are big on whining and small on pvp acumen.
I support it because it makes pvp a bit more challenging and forces boneheads to equip cleansing or pay the price. A lot pay the price then start kittentt threads about burning and why it should get nerfed.
lol at eles being medium burn stack.
Burns are easy mode right now. Also try to understand how condition clear works. It is way easier to apply conditions on shorter cool down than it is to cleanse them.
If you don’t get that burn stacking is broken, then you either don’t PvP or you play a burn stacking build.
I play power and cele signet necro.
Marauder 2kit hgh amr engie
Marauder survival ranger
shout guardian and warrior
d/d eles could do considerable burn damage but they cannot condi burst like guardians, engies
condi mesmers with their torment/confusion burst that’s often mixed in with bleeds and burns are a bigger threat than burn givers.
I don’t play a burn class because of how easy they are to counter.
Yeah, this is how I feel. Pretty much every condi build feels way better to me with a cele amulet because I’m not as kitten against anyone good at managing condi removal. Maybe burning does a little, and I mean a little too much damage, but it has a ton of counterplay. It certainly isn’t comparable in effectiveness to a lot of burst builds.
Also, most of the other condis need damage buffs, can’t remember the last time I saw a condi build based around something other than burn.
It’s always felt like our worst elite to me, a turtling form meant to delay the inevitable death that is coming.
Plague should be a dangerous area denial tool, not some tickling inconvenience that periodically applies a few conditions.
The plague should apply all the conditions and have meaningful pulsing damage. Increase the duration of the conditions, 2 seconds of 2 stacks bleeding is pitiful.
Basically, it needs bite, instead of currently being used only for the blind spam.
The thing is though, delaying the inevitable for 20 seconds is really really good in conquest. Also, blinds, weakness and poison can turn a teamfight without anyone even noticing.
Alright, here is a nice list of the commonly complained about problems with all of our weapons skills right now (this is just off the top of my head):
Death shroud:
Staff
Dagger
Scepter
Realistically some of the trait duration needs to be baseline.
Axe:
Focus:
Warhorn
(edited by zapv.8051)
I like the idea of adding condi manipulation and more pressure to plague as an elite, but the current plague is good already. Don’t know why people hate, it applies aoe weakness, cripple, blind, and poison while also giving stab and a bunch of hp and toughness. Maybe they could just add a few of your ideas as the 4 and 5 skills on plague to give it more variety.
Also, complete reworks are rare, and your better off changing around or buffing just a few things. For instance, you could implement a lot of your ideas like this:
Plague: Pulsing Stab as it is now. Pulses out 3 seconds of poison, 3 seconds of bleed, and 2 seconds of cripple by default. 1 stack of poison is applied to you for 3 seconds every second
Withering Plague: Add 3 stacks of bleeding and 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds to your plague.
Plague of Darkness: Apply blind to enemies for 3 seconds and apply 2 stacks of vuln for 3 seconds.
Plague of Pestilence: Apply weakness for 3 seconds and 2 stacks of torment for 3 seconds.
Plague of Suffering: Remove 1 condition every second from yourself and apply that condition to nearby foes. Apply 1 bleed for 3 seconds to yourself.
Plague of Corruption: Corrupt a Boon from enemies. Copy 3 conditions from enemies.
Basically, I tried to take some of your ideas, and implement them into the current functionality of pulsing stuff basing their balance around the fact that plague is a corruption and hurts you. Since you have 40k ish health it might be okay, and this would definitely give a lot of play to it. The problem with your regen and condis from allies ideas is that a plague won’t ever really help anyone. Plagues are mostly about hurt.
The problem with flesh wurm is that if you really want to use it as an escape it isn’t going to be hitting much at which point it is inferior to other escapes because of the cast time (also that it can bug out). If they made it a much quicker cast it would work better as an escape, and if used as a minion to actually attack it will still have the same counterplay. Necros need a skill that just quickly ports them away, so making this happen would be good.
The other option is to increase its range a bunch, effectively giving necros an auto disengage like portal, but single person. It would be effective for the home defense role. Despite this, I think instant ports are really entertaining and add depth because they can be combo’d with skills. I imagine a day where focus and dagger 2 get burst buffs and necros could be doing things similar to guards now. Of course with the necro theme attached to it. They could also give us a ported target like Judges intervention through spectral walk.
(edited by zapv.8051)
Spite is going to be a fairly mandatory line for reapers.
Only if you want to use blighters boon. I would guess a condition necro would take the damage on chll over bb.
Though i dont see why you would want to run condi over cele signet…
I think “Condi Reapers” will be reapers who take the cele amulet and either terror (curses) or Dhuumfire (Soul Reaping).
Pure condition necromancers are dead until the weapons get buffed or condition scaling on necromancer conditions improves.
The chill damage trait is terrible.
(1) Damage isn’t high enough
(2) your damage it will get overwritten by allied chills
(3) Chills are too short
Did you try terror+dhummfire+chill trait reaper over beta because I thought the damage was pretty good. With some scepter and curses changes it would be super strong. The other problem is that the condi amulets have no variety.
Chill isn’t that common on other classes, and no one comes close to the amount reaper gets. Sometimes it will get overwritten, but it’s probably pretty rare. Also, you could get your team to work around you so this happens even less.
I don’t really think the chill application needs any buffs honestly. As long as you spec for enough of it the application is fine. Many people are acting like it needs to be perma application in aoe to be useful. If your talking about removal in big group situations, that needs to be addressed everywhere, and isn’t specific to necro.
Also, the reapers you are talking about are hybrids regardless of what we call them. Unless your emphasizing condi damage you aren’t a condi build. Saying otherwise is just false.
snip the stuff I’m not responding to.
Greatsword: Will be okay. The changes help a bit with useability but my main concern with this weapon is that i dont feel dangerous at all unless an enemy has to fight me on a point. I cant generate good pressure against kiting enemys or ranged enemys at all compared to similar weapons in the game our chills and pulls dont give us an reliable benefit like a leap would.
Shouts: Are getting decent for the most part. Suffer is still bad for what it does. Conditional scaling condi clear that can be blocked on a long cooldown. Unless similar condi clears this feels really bad when you need a condi clear and no enemys are in range, or when fighting against a single target that is specced for conditions this skill is still more then useless. The skill is even then only “okay” when fighting multiple targets.
Random other notes:
Shivers of Dread feels so wasted, as reaper only has 1 native fear skill on its skillset. Staff and Spectral Wall could benefit as well, but why should i pick Spectral Wall as utility skill? Now if Spectral Wall would block projectiles i could at least defend myself against ranged attacks but…. Could we give this trait a little bit love? Maybe like “Your healskill also Chills nearby foes for 2 seconds” or “Gain protection when a chilled foe hits you 3s 15s icd” Its a master minor after all…
Please make darkfields and whirlfinishers work with shroud. So much wasted potential here that makes my brain bleed.
I think GS would be OK, being extremely slow if dagger 3 got changed to a port, they buffed walk to be a port, and/or they lowered the cast on wurm a lot. Basically, it would be okay if we had other mobility options.
I agree, suffer really needs to remove a condi or two by default, and then add condi transfers per target hit.
Remember, there are a ton of ways necros can get fear, boon corruption, reaper’s protection, and nightmare runes are a few you forgot. Also, spectral wall isn’t bad with reaper shroud. You get a leap for chaos armor, and you can get a lot of confusion with a whirl. It could still use a lower CD or something else, but it isn’t bad.
Reaper interaction with fields is my main complaint at this point. Leaping through dark to get a blind that we already get with the leap. Siphoning bolts that don’t siphon cause they don’t work in shroud. Having well of darkness which is just an inferior nightfall. They should change well of darkness to well of ice, that would be way cooler, and give us another aoe chill option to be less dependent on staff.
(edited by zapv.8051)
Condi reaper is super strong, what really needs to happen is the corruption rework, scepter/dagger buffs to damage and LF gen, and the corruption trait and POC need to not be in the same tier. They should replace the GM minor in curses with POC. Then swap the corruption trait and plague sending. Then you could get corrupt boon on a 26 second cd, terror, poc, and weakining shroud. At that point, terrormancer might be viable again.
Also, chilling force seems good enough to not take spite for might gen. You won’t get quite as much, but enough to not worry about it. The real strength of spite is chill of death, and the vuln on chill, which makes chillblains, and dark path super strong.
(edited by zapv.8051)
These are very very good changes. The only problems I see now are that reaper and necro are still too dependent on Soul Reaping (weapon sets need to generate more LF, vital persistance baseline), Dark fields still have combos that don’t do anything for you (leap through dark field for blind with a skill that blinds), and that suffer needs to remove 1 condition by default.
Well, base class changes aren’t going to be until a little later. Our dependencies on SR is more of a base issue, so if it gets addressed at all (which I very much do), it won’t be until then. :S
Yeah, that’s definitely okay, but since it effects reaper too no harm mentioning it.
These are very very good changes. The only problems I see now are that reaper and necro are still too dependent on Soul Reaping (weapon sets need to generate more LF, vital persistance baseline), Dark fields still have combos that don’t do anything for you (leap through dark field for blind with a skill that blinds), and that suffer needs to remove 1 condition by default.
Ok I just never see any other ranger in WvW with so much swiftness. I’ve seen like up to 30 sec stacks and all, but a constant 2 min upkeep was making me scratch my head.
That ranger is probably over invested in swiftness, his/her build would be better off with less swiftness uptime and other stuff.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it reset the dagger auto, but it doesn’t. Shroud in general needs to just function as a weapon swap that also swaps your HP bar.
The problem is that the thief animation takes 3 seconds to go through the whole thing meaning you only get an advantage over a normal stomp if you down them with the first 2 parts of the skill. If executioners scythe killed downed foes automatically, it would be way way better than stomping.
Similar to what others have said
Reaper’s Touch – give an offensive boon, projectile finisher, cast time or travel time reduction, even a damage boost would be nice (compare to mirror blade and you’ll see why I say that)
Spinal Shivers – I want them to make this instant or at least 1/2 second cast and remove chill of death because auto proc 5k damage is cheap.
What about just removing the ICD and adjusting the percentage till it plays right.
If you think condi ranger, condi mes, condi engi, condi guard, condi war, condi necro, or condi ele are a problem you need to l2p. No one good runs any of those builds with the possible exception of condi guard, and even that is at best balanced and realistically still pretty easy to counter.
I wouldn’t say I’m the best but I’m definitely good and I play condi ranger. Saying that no one good plays those builds is kind of extreme since I frequently encounter burn guards, condi mes and condi engi.
I apologize for insulting you. Let me rephrase my original statement. No one really really good plays any of the condi builds except condi guard in a competitive environment.
It would be okay if staff was as it is now in pve, if we actually had a ranged dps option.
They should just give us a second 1200 range weapon and then make staff condition focused and the other power focused (a bow perhaps?). A lack of alternatives shouldn’t mean a weapon is ‘good enough’ design wise.
In any case I agree that something needs to be done to make it a bit more usable.
Marks
- Trigger after 5 seconds if left alone
- Can be recast to trigger
Cooldowns and effects could also be looked at, they’re a touch underwhelming right now.Auto-Attack
- Increase the damage but make it deal 10% less damage for each consecutive enemy struck
This makes the pierce effect more of a secondary bonus instead of a focal balancing point.
Your idea would gut marks. 1.5 second total cast to get them off, no longer useful at all against thieves or mesmers in stealth, no longer useful for zoning, or forcing dodge rolls. Those along with the uncounterable lifeforce gen are the reason I take the weapon.
The auto needs utility, not damage. It is a utility weapon. A cover condition would be much more useful.
If they want to make staff better, they should add the allied condi removal back to putrid mark (1 condition from allies). Maybe make reaper’s mark give 3 stacks of stab or 5 seconds of protection. Then we would have a real support weapon and they could buff up axe and scepter to be better damage oriented weapons.
Thanks jerus, for reading the whole thread.
Zenith, my original post was not only directed at you. You responded to me responding to gavyne, sorry if I was misclear. Also, gavynes og post made it sound like he wanted the freebie run speed.
(edited by zapv.8051)
Having a default run speed boost for a weapon, especially on necro will never happen. Also, either have your party stack swiftness, or swap out utils to signet of locust ooc. No point in traiting for something you can get by swapping weapons or utils ooc. As spoj said, we need to be reducing the amount of these traits necros have, not increasing it. The one in soul reaping should grant swiftness on entering DS and then it would be good.
Too late, the default run speed already exists for the dagger in blood magic, so it did happen.
Having played my chronomancer I can say not having to equip a suboptimal and largely useless signet in combat such as locust is quite a boon in Verdant Brink. Basically if I want a run speed I need to kitten myself in combat in Verdant brink by equipping Signet of the Locust.
An obvious answer would be to give the signet a good active in combat but by this point I’m really doubtful that’s gonna happen. The scepter and axe changes alone had to be delayed because of the dev workload.
EITHER WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, RELENTLESS PURSUIT AS WELL AS THE OTHER ADEPT TRAITS ARE WEAK/USELESS IN PVE. SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE TO MAKE THEM ATTRACTIVE TO MORE GAME FORMATS.
Default does not mean what you think it means. Having to do something to get 25% run speed is the opposite of default (if you have to equip a trait it isn’t default). 25% base run speed on GS as gavyne suggested won’t ever happen.
LOL, learn to equip a new util before combat then, it isn’t hard I promise.
Your asking for a 4th way to get 25% run speed. Sorry no one feels bad that you don’t want to take the other 3 ways. Also, relentless pursuit is a super strong adept trait, and while it isn’t strong in pve it doesn’t need any buffs. If they want to buff the adept tier for pve, it would be to chilling nova, making it proc more or deal more damage.
Having a default run speed boost for a weapon, especially on necro will never happen. Also, either have your party stack swiftness, or swap out utils to signet of locust ooc. No point in traiting for something you can get by swapping weapons or utils ooc. As spoj said, we need to be reducing the amount of these traits necros have, not increasing it. The one in soul reaping should grant swiftness on entering DS and then it would be good.
Burning is a burst condition, but it still isn’t burst relative to actual burst builds. The only build that applies burning that is even remotely OP is d/d ele, which is not running a pure condi amulet. At most, burning needs a small 5-10% shave, all the real nerfs should be on d/d eles fire traitline, and drakes breath/ring of fire. Anything over that would kill burn guard, burn engi, and burn ranger, none of which is remotely OP.
Bleed, poison, torment, and confusion all need damage buffs. The only build where burning is a problem is d/d ele because they get too much condi damage for the amulet they are in. The solution to this is to lower the amount of stacks eles can output on that one build, not to nerf burning in general (maybe a tiny little nerf, but nothing excessive like 1/3 of it’s damage like many suggest). If your dying to condi builds, your either not running enough condi clear, or are not using your defense well enough.
If you think condi ranger, condi mes, condi engi, condi guard, condi war, condi necro, or condi ele are a problem you need to l2p. No one good runs any of those builds with the possible exception of condi guard, and even that is at best balanced and realistically still pretty easy to counter.
Also, I want to iterate this again, burning burst is not even close to power burst in a 1 second timeframe (As in, you can never apply enough burning in 1 second to keep up with what thieves and mesmers can do in 1 second). Anything beyond that and you can react to it, so it isn’t really burst it’s just more damage in a shorter time than it used to be when burning would take 30+seconds to kill someone.
@Traw condition builds already require 4 stats to keep up with zerker damage. Those four stats are power/precision/condition damage/condi duration. In pvp, there isn’t even an option to take all those stats (outside cele I guess). Someone with just condition damage or even condi damage+precision or condi damage+power does not keep up with zerker damage at all currently.
I would love it if they made this, and soul marks baseline. I’d be willing to give up any amount of health or DS amount, chill of death, some of our might stacking, or plague sending for it. Similarly, I’d be willing to give up any of those things for the ability to use utilities in shroud, swap weapons in shroud, and get 100% healing in shroud. On a related side note, I think spectral walk and armor need to be changed to function better at surviving in teamfights. Something like:
Spectral Armor: become invulnerable, turning all damage taken into LF for 3(5) seconds. 60(48) second cd.
Spectral Walk: Begin a spectral walk with a 6(9) second duration, breaking stun and becoming immune to movement impairing conditions while gaining vigor for 15(22.5) seconds, and swiftness for 20(30) seconds. 60(48) second cd
Spectral Recall: Teleport back to the beginning of the Spectral Walk, breaking stun.
Or make it a targeted port
Spectral Walk: Teleport to your target, gaining swiftness 30(45), breaking stun, and starting a spectral walk (1200 range).
Spectral Recall: Teleport back to the beginning of the walk.
Really enjoyed reaper obviously, hoping they can take some of the useful combos and add something similar to base necro. A few blast/whirl finishers would go a long way to fixing some of the weak necro weapons. This also applies to quite a few other classes. Fighting against them just makes me wish the class had 10k-15k less Life force plus health, and better invuln and sustain traitlines. Most of the time it’s like hitting a wall of HP, and while they do die pretty easily it never feels rewarding on either end.
Revenant was awesome. I don’t actually think heralds was that op, sword 3 needs a change, but otherwise rev was fun. Some of the weapons are still a little wonky though. Fighting against them wasn’t too bad, it is good that they have a good amount of defenses to force you to blow through.
Didn’t get to play chrono much, but it seems really good. Some of the traits make it okay to not take deceptive evasion and still have good clone gen, which is big. Wells also give them a bigger teamfight presence, and a few of them are quite useful with good cds. Fighting them is interesting because you really have to use your defenses effectively even more.
Didn’t see too many berserkers, so I don’t want to comment.
Daredevil was cool, but they need to smoothen out the new dodge rolls. Most of the physical skills aren’t amazing, and I hope they give that some attention as thieves already have weak utilities. Other wise I think it improves their diversity a lot, but might force at least a small rework of acrobatics. Fought against some pretty good daredevils and I’m happy to say the s/d build is probably back.
Hopefully tempest will teach Anet what necros have been saying for years, big channeled skills are hard to use in pvp, and need too imbalanced of a payoff to exist without rage. See warrior rifle, necro axe 2, necro dagger 2, necro DS 4, ele earth dagger 5, mesmer scepter 2 block, mesmer scepter 3, and mesmer sword 4 block (channel block + cast time is dumb, needs to be instant).
The current TTK in 1vs1s is fine for the meta builds when the players are of equal skill. Even in like the worst realistic situation (3vs1 opening from stealth), you can survive on all classes for a decent amount of time or disengage. 1vs1 TTK times are great for all builds that bring a decent amount of defense. The only time you’ll ever die too quickly is when you are buildcrafting or playing a pve build. That’s probably okay, and while there are certainly weapons, utilities, mechanics, and traits that need work most of the meta builds are well balanced.
Make the auto apply torment, or deal more damage. Bring back the allied condi transfer from putrid mark(just 1 condi). Maybe make chillblains or reaper’s mark do something for allies. I’d love if they made the 3% lf baseline. Scepter/dagger and axe/focus need buffs first though. They will probably never make marks player activated, you could essentially lay down all your marks and blow them all up with no counterplay unless the detonate had a cast time (at which point the way they work currently would be way better).
(edited by zapv.8051)
They could lower the cast time on flesh wurm, and make spectral walk a targeted port. Thus giving mobility options, while keeping the slow gs feel.
Scepter/dagger and especially axe/focus need the reaper Gs buff treatment. They don’t do enough damage and can’t stand on their own. Scepter/dagger needs more damage (preferably through torment on auto, or scepter 3 and another bleed on enfeebling blood), and more lf gen (on dagger 4 or 5). Axe needs a rework on the auto, 900 range, and a damage buff. Focus 4 needs a travel time reduction, and focus 5 needs a big cast time reduction. Buffing some of these weapons will give necros more options at range to go with the new melee weapons.
Currently, there are several problems with reaper and dark field interaction. Death’s charge blinds at the end of it’s animation, but the leap just adds another blind at close to the same time. Either replace it with a dark aura or leeching hit (500 at least). Blasting dark fields gives blind, but 2 of necros dark fields already blind (again replace it with an aura or aoe lifesteal). Finally, soul spiral in a dark field creates leeching bolts, but the healing part doesn’t work in RS.
Reaper also illustrates one of the problems with base necromancer in that most of the weapons lack finishers. Adding a blast to axe 3, a projectile to dagger and focus 4, and a whirl to axe 2 would help those weapons viability.
Basically what the title says. If you delete all your beta characters than the bank should recopy when you create your next one. Maybe not for this BWE cause Anet doesn’t have time, but definitely for the next one. Also, I realize there are other threads on this topic, but I think this solution works for everyone as it wouldn’t reset masteries.
^, I actually love this skill, but it isn’t competitive currently. Needs a few small buffs.
With more than 3 burning stacks you have spike damage, not condi damage. This breaks the intial design for conditions. Not other condis in the game can reach the burning damage with only 3+ stacks (luckily)
With 3 burning stacks a condi build can deal more than 850 damage, is more than the old value (with the old unique stack) with 1000 condi damage.
If you want to do more damage in 1-2 sec with a single spell, use a power build, not burning build.
First 2 sentences, false assumption. They’ve never stated the design of conditions isn’t supposed to be bursty. In fact, ability to apply conditions from multiple sources to eventually get to high dps means they want conditions to be bursty if speced for it.
Yes, it deals more damage. That was the actual point of the changes they made and enforces my point above ^.
The last sentence is the kind of bias towards condition builds people who play conditions builds hate, while also being outright false in that no condition build can use 1 skill to do comparable damage to a power build in the first 1-2 seconds. Multiple skills are needed for high stacks of conditions in the overwhelming majority of scenarios.
We are talking about burning.
No other condis can deal the same burning damage with few stacks.
It’s not a damage over time, you receive a really high spike damage for few sec.. And after the burning application is all passive damage. And with some build the burning application is constant during the fight
Ofc multiple condis on u deal high damage, but we are talking about only 1 condi Who doesn’t scale well with stacks and damage in relation to other condis.
It’s a problem and needs a solution.
Op suggestion is good if you want an easy fix or you need to correct many burning stacks application of some builds or change the burning value.
It is damage over time, no skill applies 20 stacks of burning for 1 second. That’s damage over time, just because plebs can’t remove or avoid the condition application does not make it instant burst. Every condition build has build up time, since you don’t know this your knowledge on the subject comes into question.
It takes multiple skills applying just burning to deal high damage per second, giving you multiple opportunities to use condi removal to mitigate any kind of burst that would be attained from multiple stacks. 3 stacks of burning is not burst, 1k damage ticks aren’t burst, 10k mesmer combos in an instant, 20 stacks of burning on you at once, that is burst. Difference is, you have an instant to avoid the mesmer burst, but the burn burst had to be built up over time.
REAPER GS BUFFS=GLORY
With more than 3 burning stacks you have spike damage, not condi damage. This breaks the intial design for conditions. Not other condis in the game can reach the burning damage with only 3+ stacks (luckily)
With 3 burning stacks a condi build can deal more than 850 damage, is more than the old value (with the old unique stack) with 1000 condi damage.
If you want to do more damage in 1-2 sec with a single spell, use a power build, not burning build.
First 2 sentences, false assumption. They’ve never stated the design of conditions isn’t supposed to be bursty. In fact, ability to apply conditions from multiple sources to eventually get to high dps means they want conditions to be bursty if speced for it.
Yes, it deals more damage. That was the actual point of the changes they made and enforces my point above ^.
The last sentence is the kind of bias towards condition builds people who play conditions builds hate, while also being outright false in that no condition build can use 1 skill to do comparable damage to a power build in the first 1-2 seconds. Multiple skills are needed for high stacks of conditions in the overwhelming majority of scenarios.
(edited by zapv.8051)
So gg to condi engi, condi ranger, and condi guard. Do you really not see the ramifications of this, or do you just not care about balance as long as you don’t have to run condi clear? Genuinely curious.
All of those things that you mentioned can be done in various forms in builds that aren’t celestial. Make your own builds instead of blindly following Nos. he’s a great player, but he could honestly play any necro spec he wanted and still win because his teams rotations carry them each time despite the fact that their their team fight mechanics are quite weak compared to the few teams running team fight comps that have managed to take maps from them.
That’s why in recent tournaments against radioactive, he’s been running variants of his build with flesh wurm and even the bugged Rez signet. And that’s because even he realizes that the meta version of his build lacks support and disengage ability, so you have to change things up for it to work.
Anyway I hope you understand my point. I merely believe that while celestial necro is a good build, it fails when you aren’t 1v1ing. You can change this by changing your utilities and traits to remedy the issue, but that also means that cele loses viability because if you drop any of those 3 lines, the build fails, meaning that another amulet is better if you try to make a similar build that doesn’t rely on curses.
The amount of roles cele necro fills cannot be matched by any other necro build, you might do other individual things better, but as a whole you won’t be as good. Also, I was playing cele necro months before the june 23rd patch and I was playing cele sig on the day of the june 23rd patch (as in, I had figured out the build existed before it was widely posted everywhere). That whole part about nos is just ad hominem illogical bs, and if your argument had more real merit you wouldn’t be resorting to that.
Yes, people change things up constantly, doesn’t mean cele is any less powerful. You say the build lacks support and disengage, but people aren’t running necros for their support or their disengage because other classes do that far far better.
My point is that outside of that build, necros are still outclassed by other classes at the roles you seem to want. Why take a necro for burst, mobility, support, or tankiness? Other classes still do those things better.
I don’t really see how you getting 100-0’d by conditions over 5-10 seconds is any different than getting killed by straight burst? I mean… there are quite a few proactive and reactive skills in the game to help mitigate condition burst but very FEW reactive ways to not die to a huge burst spike.
You miss the main point. In a normal burst, people need to spec with zerker or marauder. That gives them minimal sustain. In condi, they can spec way more defensively and still do insane damage.
Implementation of burn stacking was the single worst decision that ANET has made. That and hiring a balance team that doesn’t balance.
This argument keeps popping it’s false there is ramp up time,cleansing,CC,blind and everything that GW2 combat has. Burn and sometimes confusion are the only good conditions. You didn’t build to counter to conditions did you?? You speced to play your way.
Please read again. You also missed the point. The point is getting spiked by direct damage vs condi damage. Your point is invalid because someone can also avoid direct damage by aegis or dodging. This is just a straight comparison of direct vs condi.
Trying to argue that it isn’t easier to spec defensively with a condi build is also just silly.
The point you don’t see is that getting spiked by direct damage means you lose that much hp instantly, while being spiked by condition damage can mean you only lose 100 health if you cleanse right. Any advantage condition builds have/don’t have is mitigated by the fact that all that damage can be mitigated after its application. It isn’t really easier to spec defensively for most builds either. If anything a lot of condi specs want less defense and more offense (gimme sinister version of maruaders in pvp please).
Also, the fact that barely any condition builds have ever been run in competitive play should tell you something about yourself or at least your opinions. If these builds were “meta” or “OP” they would be taken in all the tournies, but I don’t see many.
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