Shroud.2307

> @"Bristingr.5034" said: > > @"LetoII.3782" said: > > > @"Bristingr.5034" said: > > > They're free to come play on the BLs if they want fights. > > > > You'd go hide on a different map. > > > > > their link is dragging them up to T1, so they get what they deserve. > > > > Jelly xD > > Nah, they're just not fun to fight. And EVERY other server can attest to that. I'm in a JQ Server as well and they were complaining about having to fight them last week. FC asked to not push them up to T1 so they didn't have to fight them (which I don't think they expected to drop to T2... lol), and so forth. Face it, when your server is nothing but SMC-humping kittens who love to spawn camp and play ONLY on EBG, no server wants to fight you. No one likes to fight Mag because most servers don't understand how reliant they really are on having greater numbers. People are so used to having a blob to fall back on when they down or get pressured to heal or revive them, they don't know how to deal with groups that don't give them that breathing room and can actually cleave out downs without communicating. I've been on almost every server NA and quite a few EU. I just recently moved to BP for nearly a month, and I can say from experience that only a handful of servers have actual competent pugs that can read fights, communicate information, and work together to do something without a commander. And no I am absolutely not saying Mag is always outnumbered. It's quite the opposite, but it's for a different reason. Mag overwhelms groups all the time because 20 people will fail to kill 5 Mag pugs, and chase them around for 20 minutes until they get reinforcements and realize they're overwhelmed. It is the literal definition of don't chase the squirrels. BG dodges the EBG cloud because Mag's pugs won't feed in to the map Q sustain blob and it's boring for BG because they can only pull 5 kills an hour. So they go to BL's or map Q off hours to maintain a lead. It's got nothing to do with Mag "hugging SMC" and everything to do with BG getting angry they can't farm pugs that literally never have a Commander. _Every_ server hugs SMC when they have it, but every other server does it from inside the walls with a metric ton of siege, and that can be countered with a map Q sustain blob and several shield gens so no one cares. **EDIT** Let me rephrase that last bit actually. BG dodges because they bring an organized map Q to fight squadless pugs without a tag, and doing that to most other servers means they get to farm _("fight")._ But Mag is used to playing without any organization, so when against them BG can't steamroll everything and they get mad they have to actually fight for a change.

> @"Zhou Yu.5619" said: > Yeah they will justify barrage with real life arrow logic but ignore grenades and how bullets in the game magically stop at 900 rng Exactly this. Because ANet apparently changed this intentionally, there's no reason to argue that it shouldn't be doing what it does. But people trying to defend it with IRL logic are also being ridiculous. Half the skills in the game should be able to hit behind walls if we're going for complete realism, since it's a freaking fantasy game I'm sure magical skills would be able to ignore walls, no? Again though, the vast majority of Rangers aren't smart enough to take advantage of it anyway so most times it's not a problem. And when it is, maybe it's time people get more familiar with what their skills do rather than what Siege does. > @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > ** Gray.6029Gaile Gray.6029 > May 8, 2018 > Late Notes: May 8, 2018 > > 05/08/2018—May 8 Release Notes > > Profession Skills > > Ranger > > Barrage: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being targeted in certain areas blocked by line of sight. > Fanged Iboga—Consuming Bite: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from increasing its damage based on the number of conditions on the target. > Canine—Crippling Leap (Soulbeast): Fixed a bug in which the displayed range of this skill was lower than intended. > Canine—Brutal Charge (Soulbeast): Fixed a bug in which the displayed range of this skill was higher than intended.**

**Bugs** * Dolyaks desync as soon as they're culled. * Various locations Obstruct Projectiles despite no terrain interference _(south east camp Alpine BL, Pangloss Rise EBG, etc.)._ * Hylek and Ogre Mercenary NPC's reset to their respective camps if they exit combat. * Supply Camps briefly contest while capturing. * A Stonemist Castle Archer NPC sometimes aggro's on Dredge Turret at the west side of the castle. * A Wildcreek Run Archer NPC sometimes aggro's on the Veteran Bog Skale. * Players frequently desync while Mounted appearing in one location when they are often no where near. * Battle Maul goes on full recharge if the target goes behind the Mount. * There are extra NPC's in Green Keep _(Veteran Orb Magus x2)._ * Neutral Doe mobs can rally players * It is impossible to enter Danelon Passage in EBG without being Marked if Langor Sentry is alive and Quentin Lake has Watch Tower. This is the only camp like this. * Green Keep Watergates scale their health based on the tier of the Keep when they used to always remain Tier 1 due to siege not being buildable there _(unconfirmed)._ * Blue Keep patrolling NPC's have an extra long leash and can chase nearly to Stonemist _(possibly share a leash with Anzalias NPC's which have a very long patrol route)._ I'm sure there are others I'm missing. There are also a lot of exploits, probably double that of bugs, but I'm not going to list them here so as not to encourage people to abuse things that they don't need to know about.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > > @"Shroud.2307" said: > > snips > > none of those are auto attacks on a class that can self buff with might and quickness. your entire argument is moot. Yes none of those are elite skills either meaning they don't have 120 seconds of down time. But it's nice to see you casually ignored all the other points I made in the other comment. Again, I do think Lich is pretty stupid as is. But if we're just going to cry for nerfs because something does a lot of damage easily, there are a lot of other things that fit the bill. How about we start with this one? Taken just a month ago. 

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > this high of a coefficient exists no where else https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Photonic_Blasting_Module 5.0 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tidal_Wave 4.6 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rocket 2.25 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault 2.25 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gun_Flame 2.2 EDIT Also, I'd like to cite Rampage. "Damage reduction has been increased from 25% to 50%." 90 second recharge by the way. Also grants mobility which Lich Form does not. Has multiple sources of CC and on auto attacks of which Lich has only one. And similarly high damage, granted not _as_ high and also at the cost of being melee. I understand it's unfair to compare skills across professions, but I've always found the disparity between these two elites to be a bit strange. Also I now realize that some of the above coefficients are different in PvP/WvW, but I stand by what I'd said in my previous comment. High coefficient or not, I feel it deserves to have it perhaps at the cost of some defensive nerfs if ANet ever gets around to changing it.

I'm very conflicted with Lich because I agree with those that say it's too strong, but at the same time I feel like it deserves to be. Necro needs some buffs on other elites before Lich can be nerfed again IMO. Although they're all strong in their own right, none are as reliable as Lich.- "Chilled to the Bone!" has a long cast time even with Quickness, coupled with a very obvious tell. Plaguelands is a stationary AOE again with a lengthy cast time, very long recharge, and that isn't particularly lethal until a few ticks in. Flesh Golem is unreliable at best and easily killed without Death Magic _(even with, it isn't incredibly durable)._ And Ghastly Breach is again like Plaguelands in that it is stationary, although it benefits from a much lower recharge and more immediate effects. Lich on the other hand, you transform and blast people with damage. Although there are many ways to negate it, it is much more reliable than other elites in that it isn't stationary or reliant on AI, and the damage is immediate. It also has a kit that provides it with more versatility than fire and forget. I think the nerfs should instead be directed at other skills and functionality. Lich's Gaze should have the ammo cost removed, the recharge fixed at 5 seconds, and instead should fire an attack in multiple directions. As is it is too easy to spam it to remove Blind, which should be a counter to Lich. Stability could also be removed since it only grants one stack anyway, and should instead grant pulsing Retaliation during and Swiftness on ending. Lich is already very easy to counter, but it is also dependent on whether or not you have the resources to do so. If you're in an open area and don't have any mobility available, you're pretty much toast. You could argue _"well then the Necro played well and deserves to be rewarded",_ but not necessarily. It's a bit like saying a Ranger deserves to be rewarded for using Rapid Fire. It has plenty of counters but some situations are so favorable that it isn't about how well they play. **Counters to Lich should be more _reliable_ not necessarily more abundant.** Why I think Lich deserves to do as much damage as it does- it's slow and vulnerable. It fits the theme of Necro having poor scaling defenses but having a devastating amount of offense to make up for that. You're taking a risk transforming because you're making yourself a giant beacon as well as removing your Shroud and any mobility you might have slotted _(Spectral Walk, Flesh Wurm, Sand Swell, Death's Charge)_ in exchange for consistent high damage. If it became easier to Blind or CC the Lich while still being a game changing Elite, it would require more intelligent usage while still having high reward for proper game play.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said: > You can't have 25 might because you pressed F1 on a 17-20 second cooldown while targeting someone who generated the 25 might. Stripping the might is enough. if you want that DPS you're going to need to take a glass amulet and a damage line. Literally this ^ Also, it is never good to make a trait _(or entire tree, which is unfortunately already the case with Trickery)_ too strong/desirable because it limits build diversity. Reaper's Onslaught is a great example of that. It is a near mandatory trait and it works with any Reaper build. Why take anything else when the other options are so much weaker and less versatile? If Bountiful Theft were to be buffed in the way OP suggests it would just make it a mandatory pick and make almost the entire Trickery tree a static selection across every build. Remember when Warrior was like that with Defense? It wasn't fun.

I don't have any strong feelings about this, but I do have to say as a Necro, it is a colossal pain fighting anything without terrain to abuse when they have even one source of Super Speed. I'm not going to turn this in to a _"waah, my main class is weak"_ type of discussion, but I do have to say that over time it has become a whole lot harder to survive in small scale or 1v1/X as a Necro. Soft CC used to be something Necro had a lot of to keep people away from it and cover for it's lack of scaling defenses, but with things like Super Speed and Sigil of Cleansing _(and cleanses in general)_ becoming so prevalent, moderate-high access to Chill, Cripple and Fear has become a nearly irrelevant option. I think if Super Speed were to be changed it should just become something that is strictly a personal buff with only a few exceptions. Scrapper should have like, Speed of Synergy and that's _all._ Tempest could also keep "Eye of the Storm!" but maybe at a reduced duration. Say, 3 seconds instead. Otherwise, nothing else should be granting group Super Speed so if they want to have it, they'll need to slot it for themselves.

I don't recall ever seeing it in any patch notes that Barrage is intended to ignore LOS. Correct me if I'm wrong. It isn't the first thing to do so and later be fixed though. Coalescence Of Ruin used to go straight through gates and that was fixed, Oppressive Collapse used to be able to hit on walls, and that was fixed. This may be an unintentional change that ANet doesn't feel needs to be immediately fixed and will be addressed in a later patch. Whether it is or isn't intentional, 99% of Rangers are too simple to capitalize on it anyway.

> @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > -snip- I don't think it's entirely fair to be so defensive about this. OP has made it clear they have no problem with GoB having a Wvw requirement, and they're making an effort to understand the best course of action for obtaining it. I agree with much of what you're saying, but there's no reason to guilt trip. As for OP, activity is very dependent on time zones and what server you're on _(linked with)._ Different servers are active at different times of the day, and some have more Commanders than others. You may need to try entering WvW at different times to find out when it's most active, or just relegate your GW2 time to being entirely WvW for a while rather than only entering every now and then. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but with some Boosters and a solid zerg, much of the work can be done in only a few hours, it's just about finding that activity. As others have suggested, reflipping Supply Camps regularly, especially while Outnumbered, is a good way to keep up your Participation and increase your Pip gain, but can be very boring if it's all you're doing unless you're okay with AFKing for periods of time. I'd also like to warn you _not_ to ask someone to Tag up or for a Commander to do something for you, because often times people will get very upset with that. It is pretty common for someone to come in to WvW with no intent on helping or returning to WvW, but ask/demand for something to be captured or for people to do something. So, people don't tend to like it when someone comes in saying they need GoB. Just keep that in mind so as not to attract any negative attention, and instead do your part by Scouting- eg. You see a Tower has a weakened wall, call that out in /map "_Example Tower_ wall 30%". This will usually get people to come to you or continue to attack it until it opens so you have people to help you capture it when it opens.

> @"Chips.7968" said: > > @"Shroud.2307" said: > >  > > > > Ah, good times. > > Got that number with guild group only a few months ago - it's still possible. > > I think they're all useful, in their circumstances. Throw gunk is under valued, the amount of condi spam if you do a daggerstorm (without even being a condi build) is great (though I play core S/D so no condi dmg). > > The one I possibly find least useful is whirling axe... but only because while it's a free reflect against warriors thrown axe/sword, as a source of just doing dmg, it's borderline useless. The reason? You're in melee range - easy for warrior to stun/rush and pretty much 1shot you. If I use it in a fight with warrior it's as a reflect or have to cancel if used aggressively within a fraction of a second to avoid the inevitable opening they're about to exploit. > > With offhand pistol to whirl the smoke field I may rank it differently, but I don't play D/P. > > Sad plasma gives only 1s stab now though - it's so short that its gone before the animation really finishes. Wow, I'm surprised to hear it's still possible. Although I don't play Thief anymore, most times I only see it hitting 3 - 4k tops from watching streamers or when I'm hit by it myself. It was nerfed quite hard so I imagine getting numbers as high as the screen cap _(which I took very shortly before it was nerfed in late 2020)_ you'd need the stars to align. I definitely still think it's a good skill though, and still my favorite of the Stolen skills just because it's so fast to throw, does good damage, and 3sec Slow can be brutal at times.

Siege isn't supposed to be built at the spawn in the first place. If you see anything built inside the spawn, like this, that's an exploit. If it is being built _outside_ the spawn, that's okay. As for Green spawn specifically, siege can be built around it as it can be with the other two spawns, but also like the other two spawns, you need to be able to defend that siege. And if you're trapped at your spawn in the first place, that's probably not going to happen. There's a difference between something that cannot be countered and something that you're incapable of countering. Siege being built inside the spawn cannot be countered because you can't stop people from doing it, and in some cases cannot reach it. Siege being built inside your keep while you're trapped at your spawn is something you're incapable of countering because you lack numbers _(or in most cases brain power)._ You _could_ stop it, but the effort it would require is too much for most to bother.

 Ah, good times.

> @"Kovu.7560" said: > I was doing dailies on my mag alt running a power druid build from 2014 the other night, joined in on a 10v10(ish) against some FA pugs just for the heck of it between SMC and Lowlands Keep. I got downed in the enemy group at one point, and two mag players (an engi and a thief repping different guilds) came in, blasted like 15s of stealth on my downed body, revived me, then kitten off. 50% of FA militia don't even know _how_ to revive a downed ally, let alone blast a stealth field. Second worst pugs in the game, beat out only by dragonbrand. > > Mag players are absolute cancer to interact with at times, I wouldn't want to live with them, but they care about their kdr and will make absolute certain you won't ruin it for them. And if you do, you (or whichever mag's link server is at the time, at this moment nsppt) will be cussed out for it in team chat. > > ~ Kovu Accurate. Mag has its share of bad players, as does any, but pugs are generally good. Having experience on just about every NA server and various EU, there is a noticeable difference between Mag and most others. People who hate it/call it garbage do so because it's not fun to fight them. I know because I used to hate Mag with a passion until I first moved to it 4(ish) years ago because I figured what's the best place to be if I don't want to fight them? And I've called it my home ever since, although I take vacations every now and then. Most times people will revive you pretty quick, work with randoms using combo fields, or co-operate for bursts, and know well enough how to read a zerg to drop bombs without needing it called. You can depend on people to know what they're doing and that's not something you can say about most servers. Mind you, the quality take a sharp turn in the early AM EST. I don't know what it is about that time zone but Mag pugs are suddenly awful around then. **tldr;** Mag pugs are mostly good and know how to co-operate with each other without needing to communicate, which is uncommon for most servers. No one likes to fight them because they swarm very quickly _(AKA gank),_ and trolls are innumerable.

> @"Vallun.2071" said: > I can definitely see that trade off working, because in a lot of situations you have too much shroud or not enough damage, and having zerk and curses will give you much more aggressive potential. However, its going to be much more situational. The best part of core necro is that it can always survive most situations, and just surviving in PvP is giving your team presence (because if you die then they will also die) and because necros tend to be focused and dont have the mobility to create advantageous situations like other classes (maybe you can fight a thief, but a thief will never fight you unless it knows it can kill you outnumbered) it means that the situations where your damage matters can be played around easily, and in the situations where your survivability matters cant be played around if you arent building into blood magic and vitality. So in other words there is more play potential and role independence as you said for 1v1/x whereas if youre in ideal situations always, then your variant is better. That makes sense. I have started doing PvP again recently, and I'm seeing what you mean. Although I have a lot of presence in some fights, and am able to literally 3 shot some people from range, there are also numerous fights where I simply cannot survive long enough to be of value. That said, I also know how to kite quite well having played Necro for so long, so often times I don't die, but I still have to disengage which can be equally bad if I have to leave my teammates when they need me. I think it's something that a better player could take greater advantage of, but as you'd said, it is still less versatile. On the subject of this build and PvP though, I spanked some poor soul for a 13.2k Lich auto tonight, lol. I wish I could have screen capped it, but I was in a team fight. Hopefully I can get some more of those to add to my crit folder :D.

Here's my one trick pony build. No, it is not good in actual 1v1 fights. Yes, it can kill very easily and is very easy to use. You're going to have a hard time in actual 1v1's unless you play like a giant pest repeatedly Stealthing and camping, playing it like a Shadow Arts Deadeye. But if you're +1ing or playing with a small group it is quite good. Because of the very high armor, you can take a lot of punishment that often comes with jumping in on small group fights, but will still spike very hard. With Ferocity as high as it is, guaranteed criticals from Stealth, and relatively high Power _(higher with Bloodlust),_ you can quite easily get 10 - 15k Backstabs while still having over 3k armor. Don't @ me Thief mains, I'm aware of the shortcomings of this build, but it's good at what I designed it to do- handle a beating in group fights while still having high spike damage.

> @"Chaba.5410" said: > > @"Shroud.2307" said: > > > @"Cael.3960" said: > > > Mag is reaping the rewards of a 2v1 alliance to see them out of T4 right now. Will they achieve the same success in higher tiers? Maybe, if NSP can PPT everything that's not EBG. It's always been a challenge for Mag to play outside of mother's watchful gaze, so let's hope NSP can keep it up > > > > I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand that Mag DOES NOT CARE about PPT. They live in EBG because it's high action and fastest to traverse to get to a fight. All the server does is call where zergs/groups are, everyone congregates in that area to fight it off, rinse and repeat. If there's a group to fight somewhere that isn't moving but constantly regrouping _(common places for this to occur are at Ogrewatch, SMC side of Green Keep, and at the ruins choke of Blue Keep),_ they will stay there and fight endlessly until action dries up. > > > > No one cares if they lose the match, and no one cares if an objective flips. A "2v1 alliance", which right now it isn't, would be something Mag would enjoy because it means they don't have to go anywhere for action. > > The only way to annoy the server is to do what BG does and dodge the cloud by staying off EBG. > > Doesn't CTH still run on the borderlands though? True, yes. I'm not sure about [boB], but they were very PPT focused as well. So Mag isn't completely absent of guilds that work the BL's, just that there aren't many.

> @"Cael.3960" said: > Mag is reaping the rewards of a 2v1 alliance to see them out of T4 right now. Will they achieve the same success in higher tiers? Maybe, if NSP can PPT everything that's not EBG. It's always been a challenge for Mag to play outside of mother's watchful gaze, so let's hope NSP can keep it up I don't know why it's so hard for some people to understand that Mag DOES NOT CARE about PPT. They live in EBG because it's high action and fastest to traverse to get to a fight. All the server does is call where zergs/groups are, everyone congregates in that area to fight it off, rinse and repeat. If there's a group to fight somewhere that isn't moving but constantly regrouping _(common places for this to occur are at Ogrewatch, SMC side of Green Keep, and at the ruins choke of Blue Keep),_ they will stay there and fight endlessly until action dries up. No one cares if they lose the match, and no one cares if an objective flips. A "2v1 alliance", which right now it isn't, would be something Mag would enjoy because it means they don't have to go anywhere for action. The only way to annoy the server is to do what BG does and dodge the cloud by staying off EBG.

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said: > Most of the time, there is reason why people throw siege, they don't do it because you have ugly weapon skin. No, there's really not. I'm perceptive enough to know when I'm doing/have done something that deserves being corpse jumped/siege buried. I often play Engi and yank people with Magnet in zergs. If someone kills me later and bm's me for doing that, I understand. I'm usually pretty annoying on my Engi. Most times I get bm'd just for existing though, so I can totally believe Yama saying that he gets sieged for no reason. Again, I think a lot of the time it's about how hard you are to kill. Some people get mad when you give them a hard time and want to celebrate if they manage to kill you by rubbing salt in the wound. > @"ArchonWing.9480" said: > WvW is pretty chill and tbh I've seen more toxicity in pve-- Gw2 overall is quite peaceful compared to say Blizzard games. GW2 and DC Universe Online are the only MMO's I've played, so I can't really speak for other games. I know GW2 is generally pretty tame, but I also have a folder of angry whispers, and get at least one near daily. I do think WvW is better than PvP in terms of salt, but I also think it's because most people are too lazy to whisper. If it was as easy as typing something in /say, I'll bet it'd be _worse_ than PvP.

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said: > just take a 10 minute break and grab a snack; most of their ilk doesn't have the attention span and they'll be yelling into a wall. This is the correct answer. I get corpse jumped and siege buried 95% of my deaths and I very seldom do it to others. Once upon a time when I was younger, I did. My point is that even if you almost never bm people, you're still going to have it done to you. And often times the harder you are to kill, the more likely that bm. > The only correct answer is to throw siege on them back. Or you can ignore what they've done to you, and either they lay off seeing that it isn't bothering you, or it aggravates them further because they're not getting attention. Some people can't be reasoned with once they're mad. If they're sending angry whispers and you can't talk it out, block. If they're literally stalking you between servers because they have guildys/friends on both servers like mentioned in the OP, I don't really have a suggestion for that other than taking a break. Unfortunately, unless you have friends of your own willing to fight back and to turn a salty loser in to a someone with a grudge, your only option is to step away for a while. In my experience, the best way to deal with someone who's mad is to talk it out with them. If they don't message me, the best way is to show them I'm not upset with their siege burial/corpse jumping by not doing it to them if I kill them.

> @"Justine.6351" said: > It is the safest and easiest camp to approach and it always has a waypoint nearby which is also the map starting point for the home server. You don't even need some fancy high mobility elite roaming build to defend it. You just walk north past the waypoint while invulnerable and boom, there you are, north camp. Any home defender can defend it on pretty much any build. Also because its so easy to get to its a camp you don't have to win to defend just by yourself as you can count on more allies showing up to defend it, just stall. Another item is that its super far away from enemy spawns so if you kill them they are gone for a measurable amount of time. They arn't just graveyarding it and in fact you can graveyard defend it yourself as a home defender. Having the two little doorways for entrances and even walkways above them is just icing on the cake. > > Truly a superb home defender favored camp and a testament to the original alpine borderland developer's rvr experience. This ^ It's a camp with a waypoint. People just defend it aggressively because there's nothing to obstruct them on the way to the camp and it's a 30 second walk back if they die. You can capture it from behind objects as long as you're still in the ring. Personally, if I'm alone when I go for this camp, I hide behind something while waiting for the cap, and if I see anyone coming I make a run for it. It never feels worth it to fight people there to me unless with a group.

As someone who has been playing core power Necro for a very long time, I want to say a few things regarding your version of it. First of all, I stopped doing PvP shortly after HoT, and I've been a WvW main basically since day 1, so I understand this will influence my opinion. I also understand that you're something like PvP rank 2k+(?) between your accounts, and although rank does not equal skill, it does mean you have a lot of experience. So I don't doubt that your reasons for crafting the build the way you did are correct. Still, I want to add some thoughts. To me, core power Necro is about spike damage, not DPS, which is why I prefer Berserker amulet and Curses over Blood Magic. I had said you should try Berserker amulet on your stream, but you said Marauder is better because it allows for more DPS. While true, I think this build is to be played more like a Thief or Revenant instead of like a Reaper. Not necessarily +1ing, but spiking pressured targets or forcing defensive cooldowns. Life Blast is where that spike damage comes from and it hits a lot harder with more Power and Ferocity. Although yes, your damage will fall off while out of Shroud, Curses will ensure you maintain your crit chance through Target The Weak _(increase critical hit chance per condition on the target)_ as well as giving you Path Of Corruption for more Corrupts to further improve your spike. Because it's Necro you're going to be very vulnerable to getting spiked yourself. This is again why I feel it's better to go more offensive and focus on spike damage rather than DPS. Blood Magic is great support with Vampiric Aura, Ritual Of Life, and Unholy Martyr, but you can't afford to be supporting people in that way while being so squishy. Instead I think you should be supporting by spiking targets and Corrupting, as well as applying Weakness which Weakening Shroud will provide. All your DPS in Marauder kind of goes to waste because much of your time will be spent hard kiting and playing defensive waiting for good openings to deal damage which Berserker + Curses could better capitalize on. I know that Blood Magic is tremendously helpful in team fights as well as giving you a very potent cleanse, and that Marauder gives you a lot of Vitality which in turn means more Shroud. I also understand that you're not much use if you're dead, and Berserker + Curses is extremely risky. Still, if you're experienced enough to know how to handle fights, I think a more offensive approach can be a good choice assuming you have the proper team for it. Despite all of this, I don't think Marauder + Blood Magic is worse, nor am I criticizing your advice. I just think there is an alternative way to play core power Necro that can be equally beneficial to your team, and recommend using. I've been playing this for years. I'm sure it could be better optimized, like losing some crit chance because while in Shroud I often overcap, but I don't mind it as is. It has a lot of losing match ups and it is horrendously weak in an open field, but there are also a lot of match ups it does extremely well in, and is a killing machine in small scale fights. I've tried more defensive builds, as well as Marauder with Speed runes, but again don't feel the loss in damage is worth it much of the time. I feel like it loses its purpose as a spike build and just becomes a weaker ranged Reaper, albeit better in some 1v1/X because of the higher Vitality. Anyway, I apologize for the novel. I just love core power Necro dearly, and because I like... Literally _never_ see anyone playing it, or talking about it, I wanted to take this chance to write out my thoughts. At _best_ I'm a Platinum 2 player, so I know some of my feelings are objectively wrong, but I don't think that means all of this is without merit either.

> 1. Frequently has skilled commanders that enjoy leading PUG groups There are only a handful of tags I'd consider genuinely skilled that aren't reliant on; having a map Q to back them, only playing aggressive during off hours, or parking alts to tag watch. Most of the good pug tags don't tag often either. They roll with their guilds, roam, or join other tags instead. > 2. Players are generally skilled enough so that fights are often enjoyable, come on voice chat, and follow commands instead of scattering like a swarm of pewpewing locusts. Anvil Rock, Fort Aspenwood, Blackgate, and Maguuma are the only NA servers with consistently positive KDR and pugs capable of handling themselves without a tag. I don't know about voice comms, but all of these servers often work better individually/as a cloud. Meaning, if you're looking for a server with players that will follow a tag, join Discord, and are generally competent fighters, there isn't one. All the servers with good fighters tend to play tagless more so than with. > 3. I'm most after the fights but I don't want an extreme imbalance between PPT/fights Again, probably won't find it. Servers that like fights tend to focus heavily on that, and servers that like PPT often wipe to half their numbers depending on who they're up against. NA isn't completely absent of skilled players and guilds, but you're unlikely to find what you're looking for here. EU is a lot more "serious" in regard to comps and pugs willing to follow a commander, where as NA is a free-for-all.

> @"lodjur.1284" said: > > @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said: > > > @"lodjur.1284" said: > > > Herald is the issue. > > > > > > Not condi rev. Not torment runes. Not trailblazer. > > > > > > Dragon heal and True Nature - Demon (and to a lesser degree the defensive weapons) are the issues. > > Dragon heal isn't that much of a problem in long run, but I do agree with True Nature - Demon being pepe design which need changes. > > Dragon heal is the strongest healing skill in the game. > > > > Although I still believe that Trailblazer, Dire and many others sets need to be deleted, since they promote no effort builds with low risk-high reward gameplay. > > The opposite. Torment runes are specifically only good in high risk situations. If people can't outdmg them when you're in melee that's not the rune being broken. > > Id go as far as to say that there's barely any viable melee builds without a torment rune style effect for group fights. Such as impact savant, ps, ip, se etc. Because there has to be a reward for going melee, or there's no reason to not just play ranged. > > Trailblazer is needed for condi to be a thing and condi rev burst is predictable and slow and leaves the option to clear. True nature doesn't. > > > Torment runes and other runes need an icd that's for sure. > > Let's get rid of a root problems instead of just trimming branches of the most problematic stuff. > > These things aren't even issues. Condi rev/ren can reasonably be focused down in group fights (and torment ja obviously mediocre in 1v1). > > The parts that make herald low risk aren't trailblazer, it isn't tormenting runes. > > It's having a 3 sec invuln with big upside for a heal together with multiple blocks and resistance. These are very mechanics, torment runes are one of the games few actual high risk high reward mechanics. > > > @"KrHome.1920" said: > > It is tormenting rune. I have no issuses countering condi revs that dont use the rune - neither 1v1 and nor smallscale. > > If the rune does anything against you 1v1,you were already losing.... > > 1v1 it's probably not even the best option that condi rev has... > > > It's also a no brainer that it is preferable to rework a rune that causes problems on one single class and damage type (and that is even sub par for other classes) in a way that it does not break this specific class anymore. Why on earth would you touch the class itself, if all you need to do to get things in line is doing a tweak on a rune? > > Cause the rune is a lot more interesting and leads to healthy gameplay as opposed to the mess that is a bunch of invulns to press when you play poorly to never get punished? > > > If you want to abuse this thread for infuse light nerf demands: you are missing the point. > > Nah, we just know how the class works. > > Tell me though, why should infuse light be so many times better than even the second best healing skill? > > Rev gets 2 healing skills cause they're supposed to be worse than other healing skills. > > Compared Infuse Light to Defiant stance (same duration (now that the stance trait isn't popular), same cd, same casttime). > > Now compare Soothing Stone to Mending. (roughly same heal, 30 vs 16 sec cd (always traited). > > Now note that defiant stance is in group fights generally considered stronger than mending. > > Compare Mallyx heal to consume conditions or bear stance or whatever and it will look similar. Rev heals are supposed to be weak in comparison. > > It's hardly like it's difficult to guess that infuse light has always been beyond broken (and a carry skill) just by some easy comparisons. > > Now think then that a very very vast majority of condi revs pick up herald. A traitline that gives you exactly 3 things. > > A mediocre dmg skill > > A super broken transfer > > A hilariously broken heal > > The later 2 is exactly what makes heralds horrible to fight and what makes it easy mode. If herald got nuked, I'd reckon we'd not even see a fifth of the people playing it swapping to core or ren, because these are actually hard builds. Nerf staff/Shield and the numbers would be even lower. Ah, always refreshing to see some actual logic on these forums. Although I don't fully agree with your thoughts on Tormenting runes, I definitely do agree that they're much less of an issue than some people think. I don't think it is entirely okay to be able to heal such large amounts just from a rune, because depending on the build _(not strictly talking Rev here)_ you can become astoundingly tanky with enough targets to hit. I have a Scourge build that is 100% offensive with nothing invested in Corrupts or Barrier, but I can facetank a lot of people at once if I play aggressive because of Parasitic Contagion and Torment runes. The two together give me a huge amount of sustain. I feel reducing the healing per Torment applied would be good enough. An ICD seems to limiting to me because only a couple things can take advantage of such rapid Torment application while the others will struggle. And it isn't the runes that should be targeted, but the traits/skills instead. Also I just want to add, as far as I can recall, Defiant Stance is effected by Poison. You will get reduced healing on incoming damage if you're Poisoned. Infuse Light does not do that.

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > It is tormenting rune. I have no issuses countering condi revs that dont use the rune - neither 1v1 and nor smallscale. > > It's also a no brainer that it is preferable to rework a rune that causes problems on one single class and damage type (and that is even sub par for other classes) in a way that it does not break this specific class anymore. Why on earth would you touch the class itself, if all you need to do to get things in line is doing a tweak on a rune? > > If you want to abuse this thread for infuse light nerf demands: you are missing the point. Your experience doesn't dictate the balance of the game. Though it is telling how you come to your conclusions. Tormenting rune exacerbates the issue, it is not the source of the problem. Given everyone who uses these forums is in a constant state of resentful abandonment abhorring how their suggestions are never to be heard by ANet, I don't see why some like yourself find it so threatening to discuss things you disagree with. I think devs do stop by to review threads more often than people think, and I think it's worth it to be constructive.