Dadnir.5038

I can see why you would want that but not the need to basically sacrifice the GM traits to this end. In my opinion the change would do more harm than good.

@"Curennos.9307" The issue is anet's design of the necromancer's defensive system. What you suggest isn't wrong but your suggestion mean that ressources are precious, while ANet's concept lean toward ressources being cheap. The thing you suggest mean that the necromancer want to stay as much as possible in shroud, while ANet's objective is that it shouldn't exceed 50% uptime. It's 2 different philosophies. One lead to imbalance and plenty of complains within the sPvP subforum (it should be clear after the february patch and the hate core necro received), the other strive for a theoric balance point that don't quite satify players even now.

> @"steki.1478" said: > None of the ele traits are passive procs, they are just regular traits that trigger on other actions. Passive procs are the ones that trigger on low hp, getting disabled or getting hit, like frost aura traits from water/tempest, which for some reason have higher cooldown than all the traits you mentioned. _Woven stride_? 5s CD for a trait that proc on taking a "soft" CC. _Elemental bastion_ proc on a 75% health treshold which is probably enough to justify the 40s ICD. _Which is, what, 10s higher than the engi trait that proc on being hard CC? Granting you frost aura, health and every single "on applying aura" proc that you've traited (which can be a lot)._ I understand what you mean, but it's a narrow point of view. There is objectively no reason for elementalist to envy other professions' similar traits.

Removing immobilize? Come on, isn't it obvious that immobilize will be at the center of the next necromancer e-spec after chill and cripple? They certainly can't remove this condition before droping the necro e-spec bomb.

> @"Kodama.6453" said: > Also I wouldn't call 100 seconds cd for 3 seconds of protection (Elixir E) "low cooldown". I think Steki talk about _Protection injection_ 30s CD. But his sentence is a double edge sword, since elementalist do have quite a few procs of protection on "low cool down with other benefits added" (_elemental shielding_, _elemental attunment_ or _elemental lockdown_). Funnily enough, prot procs on "low CD" are also true for Ranger (_Protective ward_/_companion's defense_), Necromancer (_dark defiance_/_corruptor's fervor_), guardian (_steadfast courage_), mesmer (_illusory membrane_) or even revenant (_eye for an eye_/_spirit boon_). Even thief can boast nigh perma 33% damage reduction (equivalent to protection) through _flickering shadow_.

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said: > Cmc stated in a stream that they are unfortunately there to stay do to the effort required to change them. Clear indicator that the current anet devs do not have the resources for a game the size of gw2. lol, is it really hard for them to add some minor passive effect like "take 5-10% less incoming damage from weakened foes" on top of the once every 300s effect? If they can fix 4 tooltips once every month, they could at least be able to do this much and "fix" all problematic traits within 6 months.

> @"Curennos.9307" said: > If anet really is going to hold to the gist of scourge being the support/maybe condi dps spec, I would rather avoid shoving more support stuff into reaper's GM traits. - why not just give it a durability GM trait option, a condi option (haven't the foggiest idea about the current state of condi reaper, never liked it, Deathly Chill/the whole playstyle could probably use love) and then do...something with Onslaught that involves removing the quickness and buffing accordingly. > > People who want support-necro stuff can just go scourge It's a bit more complicated than that. For sPvP/WvW purpose, the reaper is tanky enough thanks to core traits and GS trait to make BB an irrelevant option. BB support a tanky playstyle but have abysmal impact for the necromancer in this playstyle, this is the main "sin" of this trait. The main barriers for the reaper to "tank" is it's poor ability to handle hard CC and it's lack of complementary support (because where tanking matter, in PvE, being able to add support while tanking is somehow requiered to be competitive on this slot). BB in it's current form heavily rely on the necromancer's uncanny ability to generate might for himself. Number-wise there is no problem with the trait, coupled with spite's minor traits it's even close to be OP. The issue come mainly from the fact that what it does isn't interesting by itself, it doesn't cover any of the things that the necromancer lack that prevent him from being a competitive tank. As for _Deathly Chill_, the trait is also "good", it's only issue is that there is little room for this trait to "breath" since ANet nerfed the reaper's sources of chill and conditions in general in favor of power damage. Personally I think it's efficiency is currently balanced for sPvP/WvW and that if ANet buff this trait it shouldn't be something that "bleed" into sPvP/WvW. As for PvE, it's just to weak, it need more source of chill there because there is no mob/boss that come with the convenient stability, resistance and alacrity to corrupt into chill (fear -> chill) just like there is no vigor to corrupt into bleed and barely any regen or aegis to corrupt into poison/burn unlike when you fight players in PvP content. All while _chilling darkness_ can simply be ignored due to it's very bothersome 3s ICD. It's not that we want "support-necro stuff", it's that we want the support of the necromancer (boon conversion/condition management) to work as well in PvE than it work in sPvP/WvW. And simply adding more boons on mobs won't fix this when there is this big elephant in the middle of the room called _defiance_.

If you want to make _Blighter boon_ and _Deathly chill_ appaeling, you need to make the gameplay they represent appaeling. Powercreeping the traits isn't really the way to do so. - _Blighter boon_ is a sustain trait on a profession overloaded with sustain yet lacking the tools and incentive to truly make this sustain work. - _Deathly chill_ is a condition trait on an e-spec that's been pushed toward being a "power" spec. From a PvE point of view, both traits would become more attractive if the necromancer support tools had more value within the gamemode. Which mean that _defiance_ and the environment's condition output need to be seriously looked at (I'll be honest and say that we probably won't see that happen). If ANet had reduced _Chilling darkness_ ICD to 1s in PvE instead of overbuffing well of darkness in all gamemode, DC and condi reaper would probably be dominant in PvE today and we would have pleas all over the necromancer's subforum to buff power reaper. From a sPvP/WvW point of view the only thing that could make those 2 traits attractive would be a hard nerf of _Reaper's onslaught_. RO is currently so overloaded with strong effects that taking it is a no brainer (From a competitive point of view, it's litterally worth 3 traits concentrated into a single one). BB might also be slightly more attractive if the reaper/necromancer was less vulnerable to hard CC (but, well, we all know that's not gonna happen...).

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > Berserker's problem is they hurt it's defense so that it cannot live long enough to use its own DPS. Get rid of extra drawback and you'd see it perform better in competitive play. It needs more than that certainly, but it would be the first step. I might be wrong but I don't think the drawback is the main factor holding back _berserker_. It might contribute but even without this drawback berserker don't get especially impressive performances. The whole berserker mechanism is to cluncky and, ironically, unnecessarily complicated for what it does. Going back on the subject of support, The warrior's support being "offensive" blurr the lines (in term of personal performances) between DPS builds and support builds leading to warrior's support builds being superior in a group setup (since they give "more" to their allies) to dps builds (and that's true for all e-specs). My argument was that it would be exceedingly difficult for ANet to move out of this statu quo (it would also deeply hurt the warrior's dynamic and I doubt players would be happy with the result).

> @"Kodama.6453" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > > Engineer have few weapons because they do have kit if I remember properly. Fortunately kits work just as well with e-spec than they work with core. Having a main-hand, an off-hand or a 2 handed weapon won't change this fact. I believe that engi getting an off-hand isn't necessarily a bad option, sure you'll get "less" new skill, but that's all. > > > > I don't really consider that a fair treatment for the engineer, to be honest. > > Engineer literally has just 1 single mainhand weapon, meaning that if you want to use the new offhand weapon of the elite spec, you **have** to use it together with a mainhand pistol. > > That is not true for any other class. Berserker can use the torch with 3 mainhand weapons, allowing way more build diversity that way: mace, axe, sword. > Even elementalist, another class with alot of extra skills through the attunement system, can pair their warhorn with 2 other weapons, dagger and scepter, but they get more skills from an offhand weapon on top of that anyway, since a new mainhand weapon means 8 new skills for them instead of just 2. > > If even elementalist has more options to pair an offhand weapon, on top of them getting 4 times the amount of weapons skills than engineer, then I think it is not really fair to give engineer an offhand weapon with legit just 1 possible combination.... > > If e-specs weapons were matter of "fairness", Any weapon the elementalist would get would end up into an unfair advantage for the elementalist since he got 4 attunments making him effectivelly getting 4 weapons skillsets each time he got a weapon. That's not the case, the elementalist get it's 4 weapon skillset as a part of the way it work. The engineer work with the possibility to use kit in any builds, that's why whether he got a main hand, an off hand or a 2 hand weapon, it's not "unfair". Other professions could see it as "unfair" that the engineer can always switch between 6 weaponkits with basically no CD (actual weaponset + 5 Kits) having potentially access to the widest variety of range and effects out of all professions. It's always a matter of point of view, we all tend to be focused on our limits and ignore the depth within our limits. Engineer having an off-hand on an e-spec isn't that unfair when you consider that the engineer's gameplay involve kits and you can have as far as 5 of them sloted on top of your weapons skillset.

> @"Kodama.6453" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > Engineer -> Junky: An elixir specialist using some _implants_ diffusing their effects over time (like signets does for other professions) as utility skills. Weapon: focus. Special mechanism: F5 grant endurance over time and a burst of endurance when used. > > ....You literally want to call our elite spec "drug addicts"? Well, yes. > > Edit: Also as I pointed out in some other threads already: using an offhand weapon for the next elite spec is the worst thing you could possibly do. Not does this just give us 2 new skills for the engineer, but it also has extremely limited build options, since engineer just has 1 mainhand weapon to pair it with, pistol. > Other classes like tempest or berserker getting an offhand weapon was fine, since they have way more mainhand weapons to combine it with, but engineer lacks that variety. Engineer have few weapons because they do have kit if I remember properly. Fortunately kits work just as well with e-spec than they work with core. Having a main-hand, an off-hand or a 2 handed weapon won't change this fact. I believe that engi getting an off-hand isn't necessarily a bad option, sure you'll get "less" new skill, but that's all. > > Engineer should get a mainhand weapon at least, better would be a 2handed weapon or the ability to dual wield a weapon like maces/axes/daggers.

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > > @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > > @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > > > > Are we forgetting Berzerker and Spellbreaker? Im not sure if im missing something, especially with Berzerker being high DPS > > > > > > We aren't, both e-spec are favored as support. Berzerker isn't especially high on the DPS side. It's the curse of the warrior, it's support often feel mandatory while it's DPS side is average at best even if the e-specs look and sound like asskickers. > > > > Possibly Berserker DPS increase is needed instead of another full DPS spec? > > They just need to get rid of the -300 toughness and add on damage to CCs via a trait. Some other changes are needed, but those two would go a long way. I don't want to be mean but freeing the warrior from it's support image is a lot more complicated than that. Fact is that warrior isn't better if he don't grant support to it's team (sometime he is even worse) and changing this fact is what is difficult because the warrior's support directly increase it's own power.

> @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > Are we forgetting Berzerker and Spellbreaker? Im not sure if im missing something, especially with Berzerker being high DPS We aren't, both e-spec are favored as support. Berzerker isn't especially high on the DPS side. It's the curse of the warrior, it's support often feel mandatory while it's DPS side is average at best even if the e-specs look and sound like asskickers.

Elementalist -> Oracle: Sacrifice access to an attunment while in combat but gain this attunment as a "lingering attunment". Utilities: Consecrations (those consecrations have a mediocre base effect when no attunment is sacrificed and additional effects that depend on the attunment sacrificed). Weapon: Longbow. Engineer -> Junky: An elixir specialist using some _implants_ diffusing their effects over time (like signets does for other professions) as utility skills. Weapon: focus. Special mechanism: F5 grant endurance over time and a burst of endurance when used. Guardian -> Martyr: Heavy focus on passive condition damage reduction, gain access to the ability to draw conditions from allies and send them back. Weapon: dagger off-hand. Mesmer -> Beggar: The beggar's clones are attached to himself not to the beggar's foes and _shatters_ become _absorptions_, the beggar consuming it's clones to gain positive effects on self instead of exploding them onto it's foes. Utilities: corruptions. Weapon: mace. Necromancer -> Host: The host is a necromancer that chose to host an insect queen within it's body, feeding it life force and blood to gain some of it's abilities or/and simply summon swarms of insects to harass it's foes (a 2nd shroudless spec). Utilities: commands. Weapon: Axe off-hand. Ranger -> Shaman: The shaman forsake it's access to common familiars and instead gain access to few spirits that can only be controled by ennemies but can only deal clone amount of damage. These spirit's F2 act like a signet whose passive can be traited to be shared to the shaman and it's allies. Utilities: Focus on producing effects where the spirit stand. Weapon: scepter or focus. Revenant -> Scavenger: A spec that focus heavily on gathering bundles and strengthening the effects of those bundles. Legend: a legendary skriit, each of it's associated skills work like a mantra, giving bundles charge instead. Legend catch phrase: "Shiiiinyyyyy!". Weapon: riffle. Thief -> Shadowguard: Bodyguards specialized in revealing stealthed foes taking advantage of being revealed. Utilities: corruptions (using them reveal the user). Weapon: Torch. Warrior -> Standard: The standard can only equip a single weaponset because it's second weaponset is set as a banner weaponkit (No change to the burst mechanism, the spec just add a banner burst and a pistol burst). Utilities: commands. Weapon: main hand pistol.

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > What Dadnir and a few others are missing is that what is needed is a support oriented MH/2H weapon set to complete the package. Banners as they are now aren't really support, they're just laziness. Real banner support would be for them to have an active flipover to pulse a boon/healing with a CD. Shouts are meh. They are only working now because damage across the board got cut and its the last bastion of hope in organized PvP/WvW play rather than be obsolete. No, no, what I'm saying is that there shouldn't be more "healing burst" packed outside utility skills otherwise tactic is gonna make warrior heal imbalanced. In a full heal setup shouts already heal your allies for 3.6k in PvE and 2.4k in competitive, which is good granted that they are instant and on a relatively low CD (20s per ammunition). On the topic of banner being "laziness", I'd say that they are less "lazy" than the different professions aura that grant raw stats. Raw stat support is probably more significative in the game than boon support or healing support because not every profession can provide such thing. Do not undervalue banner/ extra raw stat points, they allow warrior to break through the limit of support that boons provide and that's invaluable. (Which is mostly why warriors are relegated to being bannerslaves in PvE, it's just to much of an advantage to be ignored) Thematically I don't see a weapon that would have a "support" skill set (outside of the warhorn) fiting the warrior's thematic. It's not that I don't see possibilities for the warrior to get a "support" e-spec, but is this what players really want? Do players just want the next e-spec to give the warrior yet another way to be taken as a support when it's already what the warrior is relegated to? Personnally, when I think "warrior", I picture a DPS or a tank but I don't picture a "support". GW2 is the only game I can think of where the "warrior" is relegated to the support role as the primary option.

> @"felix.2386" said: > ? why would you ask for support spec when warrior right now is support in all game mode? > healbreaker in pvp > boon support in wvw > banner buffer in pve My thoughts, word for word. I can see why people would want a warrior e-spec with a special mechanism that's support oriented but right now one must admit that support is already the main job of the warrior in every gamemode so maybe a support e-spec might lead to a bit to much support. > @"MatyrGustav.6210" said: > For aoe Healing. Just what i would personally want "Healbreaker" already do that, capitalizing on traited shouts. The viciousness of the core of the support of this build is that it come directly from core warriors which mean that the prospect of adding more on top of the current healing potential is bound to "break" balance (not that the healing support potential is overwhelming, below 1000 HP/s in PvE while around 700 HP/s in competitive, but it come in the form of significant "instant" bursts making it pretty well adapted to GW2 gameplay).

> @"JohnWater.5760" said: > Every class has an OP condi build. What matters is the gear and difficult. Difficulty is always subjective. Furthermore, there are "OP" builds that just aren't used because it doesn't fit the image a player have of how the profession should be played. I'd say that there is no specific profession that stand out in term of condition builds, especially in PvE. What matter isn't the "difficulty" or "gear", what matter is whether the gameplay match the player taste or not. And that's something that someone can only find by himself, not through other opinions. @"Nephalem.8921" Scourge is just as difficult as any other spec, it's the spec whose dps depend the most on invisible traits ICD and yet won't achieve impressive dps on single target anyway reaching the ceiling at, what, 29k? I believe that it's just wrong to label a spec as easier or harder, all come with their own burden.

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > > Shield > Imagine being bound to crappy mainhand weapons like dagger and scepter. > > With the current state of these two weapons a shield would be a horrible elite spec weapon. Only a really well designed shroud (not the buttonmashing fail scourge is) could save such a spec. > > I would vote for a hammer, but think this would be too close to what reaper already does (the scythe is even coded as a hammer). Still better than being bound to focus, warhorn and dagger off-hand... Well, necromancer's weaponsets in a nutshell... It's sad when our best option is to hope for a 2H e-spec weapon because all our 1H core weapon options are bound to let us unsatisfied.

> @"Flumek.9043" said: > MAIN HAND is a 200% must for necro. > > Dont forget it the class with least weapons, with pseudo 0 choices: 2 power + 2 condi baseline. > > Offhands you can tweak a skill and you reworked half it, like focus became viable after 7 years.... > Mainhands just give you so much juice. The issue is that since ANet "reworked" focus and warhorn, the necromancer's off-hand weapon are hardly relevant (It's even worse than the necromancer's main hand which feel heavenly good in comparison... or at least it's my opinion).

For me the issue with shield is that from my point of view it's a tool to "block" attack and the necromancer's defensive design is to take most if not all damage. It's not that thematically the tombstone wouldn't be great but I feel like the necromancer's shield skills design would be bound to be a source of frustration for the players. Personally, I'd prefer Axe off-hand. Axe really feel like a "vicious" weapon which fit the necromancer's thematic. Mace/club could also fit the fantasy of a spellcaster for me. On another hand, I'm not thrilled by the idea of a hammer or a sword for the necromancer (Hammer basically give me a reaper 2.0 feel and sword a dagger 2.0 feel). I wouldn't be against longbow as a weapon, thought, on a "bone magic" e-spec if we think about Diablo 2 necromancer. Afterall, I can very well see _Teeth_, _Bone spear_, _Bone spirit_, _Bone prison_ and _Bone wall_ as a longbow skillkit (The kit wouldn't be very far from ranger's and guardian's longbow skillkits). Anyway, granted the LS schedule they gave us, we don't get any x-pac until august/september next year minimum so it's still far away.

**Minion return:** I don't think it's needed, if anything the lack of such thing feed the fantasy of a dire undead creature that the necromancer unleash onto it's foe. **Minion attack speed:** It sure is bad but, objectively, if it was faster it would generate issue elsewhere, notably onto the necromancer's sustain. **Minion stats:** I have to say no there. Minion are as passive a mechanism as can be, giving them more "staying power" isn't a thing that ANet should do. Heck! They already give to much staying power through death magic that I'd be glad if we could to get rid off. Minion should just be expandables, No super minions please! **Minion interaction with scourge and staff user:** Objectively there is already more than enough interactions between scourge, staff and minions. **Manifest sand shade:** Unless you're not aware of it, F2, F3 and F4 proc _manifest sand shade_ and thus all "shrd#1" traits. Having it slightly bothersome to put on the ground is a very little cost for it's potential. **My own opinion on minions:** The necromancer's minions have way to much staying power, their active skills tend to be irrelevant (except rare case like _Necrotic traversal_) and aren't supported by any of the 4 traits that are more or less dedicated to minions (which is funny granted that no longer have any trait for _Wells_ and _Spectrals_ skills, yet we are still stuck with 4 trait that barely work unless you got minions while not having an inbuilt way to summon minions. Certainly the biggest nonsense of the necromancer's design). Like I said, the _minions_ should be "consumable/expendable", a design that some of their active skills try to create. Yet the weakness of those active skills and the overwhelming amount of work put into making _minions_ passively usable make this inefficient. For me, the _minions_ need to all be sacrificed on active skill use and traits that involve _minions_ should proc their effects on "active skill use" not passively (The worst is that they did that for the ranger's spirit while it was a bad choice to do so for this profession while they kept the necromancer's minion in the current way when they need this treatment). If ANet really want to keep all those passive minions traits they need to give us a way to generate minions that doesn't require us to take a major trait nor take a specific kind of utility skill.

For a short time mesmer's _chaos armor_ was blinding when hit and the mesmer had a trait that applied confusion on blind... It used to be epic, thiefs were killing themselves so fast... I loved this trait, not for the WvW combo thought, it had synergy with the glamor trait that made glamor blind on use. > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > necro plague form (never forgive) > necro life blast heal gm trait that lasted a month (never forgive) I wouldn't say that those were "OP". _Spectral armor_ and _Spectral walk_ when struck LF gen without ICD while in and out of shroud, thought... That was worth a good laugh!

> @"archmagus.7249" said: > Here's an idea: make stealth a boon and revealed a condition. Stealth gets corrupted to revealed. Let's keep corruption out of this mess, the necromancer don't really need more hate for this mechanism that ANet keep on forcing onto them as the divine solution to all of the necromancer's issues.

The issue is probably less the damage part than the mechanic of applying an unavoidable CC when struck.

> @"felix.2386" said: > what they need to do is shave damage and give better mechanics, which anet refuses to do since 2012 > all they do is buff number and hope it works I would say that they are pretty good at crippling mechanics, but very lacking when it come to improve them. I can't recall anything that ANet's devs made great just by making it enjoyable to use, on another hand I've seen plenty of things made artificially great by inflating numbers and effects (or just flat nerf their counter) and to many things made horrendous to play. Let's not forget that there are still stunbreaks with a cast time that ANet's tried to make playable by adding a stability stack. [The very definition of a poorly thought solution]