Guild Wars 2

Jason Segel.2908:

thejoshknight.4697:

Wow, egotistic much? “Bad necro’s commence to lecture me!” You had a good post up until that point, seeing as you stated your opinion and backed it up with hard numbers.

However, I use plague form for a few reason. Firstly, doubling the already high health pool of the necromancer is a nice buffer when I get caught on a point against 2 or more players. This health, combined with the blind spam that you can get from plague form makes it a valuable tool when you need to hold out until support arrives.

In regards to your numbers, I don’t think any necromancer has ever claimed that plague form is better in regards to damage than not being in plague form… Secondly, when you take into account the amount of blinds you counted, deathly swarm applies to the next attack, so the duration of the blind is not as applicable as how often that blind can be APPLIED, because most classes attack more than once every 3 seconds. Next you have well of darkness, which I believe lasts 5 seconds and ticks once a second, applying a total of 5 blinds in 5 seconds. This is actually an efficient blinding tool, but at most, you’re getting a combined 6 blinds out of these two skills. Where you run into issues is that most classes attack at least once every second, meaning you’ll get at most 6 seconds of blind. Then taking into account that plague form is used as more of a defensive rather than offensive tool, and that you get around 20 blinds in 20 seconds when you need it, plus a doubled health pool, you can reach the conclusion that plague form is not, in fact, useless, but serves a respectable purpose in tpvp.

thejoshknight.4697:

Wow, egotistic much? “Bad necro’s commence to lecture me!” You had a good post up until that point, seeing as you stated your opinion and backed it up with hard numbers.

However, I use plague form for a few reason. Firstly, doubling the already high health pool of the necromancer is a nice buffer when I get caught on a point against 2 or more players. This health, combined with the blind spam that you can get from plague form makes it a valuable tool when you need to hold out until support arrives.

In regards to your numbers, I don’t think any necromancer has ever claimed that plague form is better in regards to damage than not being in plague form… Secondly, when you take into account the amount of blinds you counted, deathly swarm applies to the next attack, so the duration of the blind is not as applicable as how often that blind can be APPLIED, because most classes attack more than once every 3 seconds. Next you have well of darkness, which I believe lasts 5 seconds and ticks once a second, applying a total of 5 blinds in 5 seconds. This is actually an efficient blinding tool, but at most, you’re getting a combined 6 blinds out of these two skills. Where you run into issues is that most classes attack at least once every second, meaning you’ll get at most 6 seconds of blind. Then taking into account that plague form is used as more of a defensive rather than offensive tool, and that you get around 20 blinds in 20 seconds when you need it, plus a doubled health pool, you can reach the conclusion that plague form is not, in fact, useless, but serves a respectable purpose in tpvp.

Deathly Swarm and Well of Darkness blind better over a 180 second period than plague form does. I showed the math. I said over 180 seconds which is the cooldown on the plague form. in the 20 seconds u were wasting time in plague form dealing 231 DPS with poison = 4,620 total damage. you could have done 37,000 without using plague form.

its up to you. blow an elite cooldown and wait for ur 20 seconds of blindness to be reuseable every 180 seconds. or have well of darkness + deathly swarm blind for 25 seconds out of every 180 seconds while dealing 37,000 damage.

makes no sense.

You disregard my entire point, I never refuted your point that over a period of time it wasn’t better to use well of darkness and deathly swarm (btw, not everyone uses well of darkness, I prefer a corruption build…), I stated that plague form serves it function well as a emergency button when needed, which it does. A doubled health pool and 20 seconds of reduction is a very nice elite in my opinion, but to each their own.

Wow, egotistic much? “Bad necro’s commence to lecture me!” You had a good post up until that point, seeing as you stated your opinion and backed it up with hard numbers.

However, I use plague form for a few reason. Firstly, doubling the already high health pool of the necromancer is a nice buffer when I get caught on a point against 2 or more players. This health, combined with the blind spam that you can get from plague form makes it a valuable tool when you need to hold out until support arrives.

In regards to your numbers, I don’t think any necromancer has ever claimed that plague form is better in regards to damage than not being in plague form… Secondly, when you take into account the amount of blinds you counted, deathly swarm applies to the next attack, so the duration of the blind is not as applicable as how often that blind can be APPLIED, because most classes attack more than once every 3 seconds. Next you have well of darkness, which I believe lasts 5 seconds and ticks once a second, applying a total of 5 blinds in 5 seconds. This is actually an efficient blinding tool, but at most, you’re getting a combined 6 blinds out of these two skills. Where you run into issues is that most classes attack at least once every second, meaning you’ll get at most 6 seconds of blind. Then taking into account that plague form is used as more of a defensive rather than offensive tool, and that you get around 20 blinds in 20 seconds when you need it, plus a doubled health pool, you can reach the conclusion that plague form is not, in fact, useless, but serves a respectable purpose in tpvp.

Oh, and this would be better served in the necromancer sub-forum by the way…

The reason it was changed is that things like damaging effects and boon applications apply to only 5 people, so in a massive zerg in wvw, the enemy’s aoe will only be hitting 5 people, while heals from within the zerg are healing everyone in the area, not just 5 people. So, they changed it for the sake of balancing healing and damage. (At least, to the extent of my knowledge).

To be honest, if your teamate is down and you need to rez him using plague form, things have probably alreadly gone south, and chances are you’d probably be popping plague form pretty soon anyway… It is a good tip to know, only wish death shroud worked like this too, would make foot in the grave a much better trait.

Zyrusticae.7245:

thejoshknight.4697:

Because this is a gaming forum, which has always contained, and always will contain, the vocal minority of said game’s population. The majority of players most likely don’t care to read, or even go to, the forums, which is why you most often see more negative threads than positive threads on gaming forums, the people who enjoy the game are playing it!

Also… there are people that came into the game expecting something different than what the game is, personally, I’m happy with the game and enjoy all of it, but every person is entitled to their opinion.

If the people who enjoy the game are playing it, and there are only 300-ish players in hot-join servers during prime time…

I’d say they have plenty of reason to be scared right now.

And of course, if the forum-going population is a minority, you have to consider that many players will just outright quit without saying a word. This is already being borne out in-game with the player concurrency numbers.

It’s a sad, sad state of affairs right now.

Yet, when I play in american prime time, I never have any issues finding games in que (specifically tournies) and I know many players that have been playing pvp since day 1 and loving it, just as many people say they know players that have quit. There are always people that leave games after a month or two, and you also have to realize this time of year is the primetime for xbox and ps3, meaning that games such as Halo 4 and COD:BO2 are drawing players away for the time being.

Also.. as I’ve learned in time, you don’t really change others opinions on a forum, arguing about liking a game or the success of a game is like arguing about politics or religion, people don’t move from their corners.

Ember.4326:

Arheundel.6451:

Ember.4326:

The patch was actually pretty good. The philosophy behind the nerfing is slow nerfs so that they don’t overdo it. It actually works really well

Lol, well if that was the aim, they missed it with the ele changes. Instead of slightly nerfing staff builds, they removed them from tpvp. Didn’t seem to happen to backstab.

Ele have not been removed from tPvP..pls stop with crap, like every ele in this game has always used a staff and exploit a bug while in water attunement…give me a break

I’m sure it was difficult to read the whole 2 lines of text and miss the point where I said staff builds, not all eles. I’m perfectly aware several d/d and s/d builds function, but show me one viable staff build left.

Also don’t get what you mean with abusing a bug while in water element? Evasive Arcana had nothing to do with being in water element, blast finishers fired off every dodge, you didn’t need to be in water to detonate water fields. Sigh, another counter complainer who doesn’t even have a clue about things.

Although I’ve played a staff ele, and the evasive arcana change saddens me, you had to assume it was coming. Nowhere in the trait evasive arcana does it state that the dodge roll should cause a blast finisher, as a matter of fact, the only attunement that would make sense to have a blast finisher is earth, seeing as it uses churning earth, while all the other skills fired off in all attunements aren’t blast finishers. A bug fix is independent of a buff or nerf due to the fact that even if the bug was helping a build (and the blast finishers helped a lot, gave you most of your blast finishers in staff) a bug is a bug.

Because this is a gaming forum, which has always contained, and always will contain, the vocal minority of said game’s population. The majority of players most likely don’t care to read, or even go to, the forums, which is why you most often see more negative threads than positive threads on gaming forums, the people who enjoy the game are playing it!

Also… there are people that came into the game expecting something different than what the game is, personally, I’m happy with the game and enjoy all of it, but every person is entitled to their opinion.

Firstly, I don’t mind down state in the slightest, I personally feel it adds another level of depth to the game, in regards to how your team and you handle when a player drops into downed state, and vice versa. Also, it limits the ability of extremely glass cannon builds, even if some guy bursts you in a few seconds, he probably can’t pull that stomp himself, and your teamates can bail you out. On the healing thing, I really don’t think that would help the state of pvp in this game… imagine a bunker guardian with a dedicated healer on a point. Even if (most likely when) they add other game modes I don’t believe healing is a way to go for a succesful, interesting, pvp game. I’ve seen too many examples of games with dedicated healers where pvp turns into 20-30 minute heal fests until someone dies, which I don’t feel is interesting for the players, or in the case of GW2’s aim, the audience of an Esport.

In regards to the removal of the holy trinity “dumbing down” classes, I don’t believe that. In all honesty, I believe it does the exact opposite. It forces you to tune your builds to have more versitility, you can’t just build for max damage while having a tank and healer to bail you out, you have to find ways to mix damage into a build that can survive some hits. Also, the role of support changed in GW2 from what I’ve seen, no longer is a class just being a buffbot; a support player is adding boons, yes, but also contributing damage, dropping and detonating combo fields, and controlling the enemy. That’s what I love about the system of GW2, instead of my class being stuck in one role for hours on end, I’m able to control my enemy in pvp as well as pve, dropping and detonating combos that can help my teamates, adding damage, and all the while not being scared of a single stray aoe that’ll kill me.

Also, when refering to a lack of support, I can point you to an arcana/water & valk amulet ele build that puts out amazing levels of aoe support, from large might stacks to aoe healing…

tldr: I think healing would slow down the game too much in pvp, down state functions to add new levels of strategy to pvp (for example, if to carry, and when to use, the stability buffs that classes can get) and the holy trinity wasn’t so much as removed as it was altered to function differently, and in a much more flexible manner.

disclaimer Seeing as this is the internet, I’ll state here that all of this is just my opinion.

As Chuiu said, it doesn’t update your tooltips, but you’ll generally see an extra bleed tick per stack, depending on the base bleed time. I also believe that things like bleed duration from rune sets also don’t actually appear on the tooltips, don’t ask me why, they just… don’t.

Shoot me if I just haven’t noticed this before, but plague form is giving me 23ish seconds of stability every time I activate it now. I didn’t see anything about this in the patch notes, so I’m not sure if I just missed it, or if it’s a pleasant little surprise for us. Also, on that note, lich form gives like 35 seconds of stability, and I’ve never noticed this one before as well, though I rarely, if ever, ran lich form. So, just wondering if other people are seeing this, or if I just missed the memo. Thanks!

First off, he has been putting thought into his posts, at least, everything I’ve seen him say has had thought put into it. Anyway, the class isn’t effectively played at the moment by sitting in one attunement, and I don’t see how changing the grandmaster trait in each line would make this style viable. Secondly, the elementalist really thrives on creating and benefiting from various combo fields, which require quick attunement swaping to detonate. Even if you had a 3 second cd for attunement swaps overall, it still would be too slow to allow for continued use of combo fields that you see may elementalists use in pvp. Also, you completely kill combo field use for those who don’t trait into arcane, which severaly damages the group utility the elementalist brings. Enough thought for you?

I always find this topic interesting, people insist that bunkers are OP. However, nerf the bunkers and see what happens. I think it’s really a choice, if you nerf the bunkers, you open up only a high dps meta game, if you don’t, bunkers will still be the driving force in capture point tpvp. One interesting note, is how little people seem to understand about bunkering elementalists. The thing is, it’s one of our view viable tpvp builds, and relies heavily on the skill of the player, due to the amount of combo fields, and the management of blast detonations there-in, that are required to effectively heal the damage we take. All in all, it’s a situation where if you nerf the bunkers, high dps will be OP, and if you don’t, bunkers will continue to control the tpvp scene (just saying.. it is a point capture and hold based game, so defensive builds will always be present in one incarnation or the other).

Erebus.7568:

thejoshknight.4697:

Erebus.7568:

-_- of guildwars ever got to a point of pro gaming esport elementalist would never ever be in ANY team… they simply suck at every corner compared to other classes.

and anet isnt acknowledging this even though its said since release and by now those of us which kept fighting for this have given up and only rarely check up to see if anything changed and else just leave gw2 to boil in its own hot kitten ..

Which.. as someone has already said in this post, some of the top tpvp teams that you can see play carry at least 1 bunker/support ele on their team, so of course they simply suck at every corner compared to other classes :P. Also, a bit off topic, but I think a guild full of kittens would be kinda cool, they’d all be so cuddly, even though voice chat would be kinda awkward , and you’d need a ton of milk.

if i wanted too and played enough i could get my ele on the team of my friends as well. doesnt mean that its the best at it.

if there is money involved AKA Esport ele would NEVER be on a team since the best teams (the winners) would never risk having a lesser class on their team just to humor a good player and a friend

I guess we’ll just have to see when paid tournaments release soon, seeing as there are gems (pretty much real money) on the line at that point, and if I still see teams like TP still carrying their eles like phantaram, then we know who’s right. Personally, I’d stake my bet on the elementalist staying with the teams, because watching players like phantaram, and other players of his caliber, the way they factor into matches, it seems to me they’re doing the elementalist justice. If the elementalist takes a higher skill cap to perform well with, well then, maybe the class isn’t for everyone? I’m not great, but I still feel extremely useful for my team when I get in a team fight, drop a ton of heals, and then proceed to contribute dps and continued heals to my team.

Erebus.7568:

-_- of guildwars ever got to a point of pro gaming esport elementalist would never ever be in ANY team… they simply suck at every corner compared to other classes.

and anet isnt acknowledging this even though its said since release and by now those of us which kept fighting for this have given up and only rarely check up to see if anything changed and else just leave gw2 to boil in its own hot kitten ..

Right, that’s why, as others have already stated, many of the top tpvp teams carry at least 1 support/bunker elementalist on their rosters, so of course they suck at every corner compared to other classes, right….
Off topic, I think a guild full of kittens would be kinda cool, they’d all be so cuddly, though voice chat may get awkward, and you would need a lot of milk.

Upon further review, I really do love this word filter, major props to Arena Net for making kitten the new curse word

I really, truly, don’t understand the hate against backstab thieves. There are a few things that probably should be tweaked, like assassin’s signet, but backstab thieves make a lot of sacrifices to get that one big hit, and if you know what to look for, you can make them pay. I personally main a necro, and I don’t think I have lost to a backstab thief since I took the time to learn what to look for unless I was 1. Almost dead already. 2. Not paying a lick of attention 3. Completely out of life force, and my fear on cd. You really just have to recognize what a backstab thief is gonna do, if you see a dagger thief running towards you, get a defensive cd ready, or be ready to dodge, it’ll throw off the entire sequence of combat for the thief.

My advice for anyone having issues with a class or build? Play it for a while. I used to have issues with thieves on my necro, so I made a thief, and played the most popular builds. I learned what a thief is generally gonna do first, what animations to look for, and how other skilled players (in my case necros) were countering what I was trying to do, so I could replicate it on my own necro.

As far as I know, mist walker and mist warrior are pvp only armor, I’m personally wearing some of the mist walker for my thief, and I’d have to assume mist warrior would be the heavy armor equal.

Ah, thank you for the correction Konig. Also, Karast, I felt there was something with that area, but I never thought to kneel before the statue lol.

Thanks for the quick answer, yeah, I knew the connection between Saul and the Mursaat, but I’ve never directly played GW1, so didn’t know what Demetra was, but that makes sense.

Was just wondering, has anyone else noticed his tomb in the Harathi Hinterlands?
The tomb’s located at the Ruins of Holy Demetra in the area, and inside there’s an open tomb that reads " Here lies the empty tomb of Saul D’ Alessio. The markings on the side of it are ornate but worn with time." Also, a bit further in to the structure there is a old, worn statue of Dwayna. There’s really one thing that strikes me as odd, and it’s the fact that the tomb is empty. Now, not in the sense of no body, seeing as that’s explained in GW1 lore, but the fact that the tomb is cracked open. Secondly, it makes me wonder why in the world his tomb was put in the Harathi Hinterlands, and what Holy Demetra is…
So, does anyone know why his tomb would be located in such a random place?

Sprawl, I completely disagree with your assessment on how necros play. If a necro is solo roaming, he’s doing himself and his team a diservice. In my experience from tpvp, a necro’s greatest strength is in team fights, where he can help spread and control conditions, tipping the fight into his team’s favor. Also, I find that my guardian and my necro seem to get fairly similar point totals in tpvp, since as a necro I’m generally assisting at points rather then completely roaming and capping points.

More on topic, this is a good start Krozzy, though there are a few things that other people have already hit on to improve the accuracy of the data, it’s still a fairly decent representation, and I applaud you for the time you invested.

I’d have to say, I’ve never been kicked for being a necro, and for the record, people don’t complain about the necro because it’s a horrid class. The issue is there are many bugged traits atm, and ergo, very few builds that are optimal for tourney play. However, as others have suggested, I really wouldn’t play with these folk, an epidemic necro, as with several other builds, can be hilariously effective if not focused down in a team fight.

Now, to get it out of the way, I consistantly play a guardian in pvp, however, I tend to agree on several points raised by the OP regarding the guardian in particular.

On the guardian, I have to agree with a few points raised on both sides. Firstly, there is a difference between a class being overpowered and other classes being underpowered in their respective roles. Coming into the game, I did research on GW1 and classes in GW2, and decided I wanted that tough support character, so I chose the guardian. I came into the game knowing that the guardian would perform the best in the role I wanted, a tough, point holding machine. Even though the holy trinity is gone, for the most part, some classes will always, always, perform better then others in a given role. However, with this stated, I think other classes should get more efficient options to fill the role the guardian does. I do think though, that the reason that guardians are complained about so often is that since they have the lowest base hp pool in the game (shared with elementalists), they are given many abilites that will help them survive. Would I advocate an overall guardian nerf? No. Would I advocate other classes becoming more competent in filling the role of the guardian? Yes.

By the way, the reason I wouldn’t advocate a guardian nerf overall is I’m not sure what you could change without messing up how the class plays, because changes for the cause of pvp affect pve as well. For instance, you can’t really drop the vitality pool anymore, and the only reason a guardian can survive in melee in pve, specifically dungeons, is due to the defensive abilities of the class. Cut these defensive abilites out from pve, and a guardian can’t really melee at that point, and our ranged ability is limited to the scepter, which only serves as a gap filler in pve at the moment for when you need to heal up out of melee.