Shroud.2307

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > > Shield > Imagine being bound to the crappy dagger as the only mainhand melee weapon for your elite spec. Core necro's biggest issue would transform right to the next elite spec. > > With the current state of dagger a shield would be a horrible elite spec weapon. Only a really well designed shroud (a classic F1 transform with great melee skills and 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). Hadn't thought of it that way, but very true. I'm really hoping we don't get another Barrier spec, or even a Shroudless spec, because personally I love Shroud. Scourge is still a huge insult to me with Necro being limited in defensive options and citing Shroud as the reason _(because "lots of health"),_ then they introduce Barrier to replace Shroud and give numerous other classes access to it with two of them having better self-application than Scourge _(Scrapper, Weaver)_ and still having stronger defenses... I don't hate it as much as I used to, but the whole design and philosophy of Scourge still irritates me, and I hope they don't make another abomination like it. Don't get me wrong though, I understand people like Scourge and that's cool. I actually enjoy playing it sometimes unlike the first year or so of it's existence. But the design is insulting to me and I hope the next spec can redeem that.

This thread might be the biggest meme on this entire forum right now.

I'm very adamantly hoping that Sword will be the elite spec weapon. Necro is the only class that cannot use Sword with any spec right now, so it would make sense to me. My second guess is Shortbow, but that one might be a little off the mark. Since they're likely to be Canthan themed Shortbow makes the most sense to me, but I also don't know much about Canthan lore or the story of GW1. Shield would be cool, I'd be okay with that. Hammer would also be nice. I do _not_ want; Rifle, Pistol, or Longbow however.

I would really love for NPCs to get a make over. Obviously there are lots of things they could do to improve WvW, but in general I'm content with it how it is. I still have fun with it daily and I'm more bothered by certain zerg comps and roaming builds than I am with objectives, upgrades, or anything to do with the actual game mode. But giving the NPCs a new appearance would be a really nice way of refreshing the feel of maps. Of course I don't think it's a _needed_ change, but it would be one of the easiest ones they could do and would do a great deal to reduce the monotony of what WvW has become. There are so many possibilities for changing them too.

> @"Justine.6351" said: > > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said: > > > @"Widmo.3186" said: > > > Basically all PoF specs used to be, still are, or became after certain patch - broken. ANet has no idea how to balance it, and I dont even want to imagine whats gonna happen after next expansion > > > > Maybe Mesmer gets an elite spec that stacks 3 seconds of Invulnerability every time they dodge and refills Endurance when Invulnerability ends. > > > > Or maybe Warrior gets a trait that increases their attack speed and movement speed by 100% every time they crit. > > > > Seem like things ANet might do. > > Or maybe Necro gets more fat aoe skills to blanket the screen. > > Seem like things ANet might do. And nerf Rev hammer more \o/

> @"Widmo.3186" said: > Basically all PoF specs used to be, still are, or became after certain patch - broken. ANet has no idea how to balance it, and I dont even want to imagine whats gonna happen after next expansion Maybe Mesmer gets an elite spec that stacks 3 seconds of Invulnerability every time they dodge and refills Endurance when Invulnerability ends. Or maybe Warrior gets a trait that increases their attack speed and movement speed by 100% every time they crit. Seem like things ANet might do.

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > The Mesmer fall damage trait that was broken and one shorting people until it got fixed. > > Wish I could find the videos... That reminds me about Warrior's falling trait too. I enjoyed single handedly wiping small zergs in EOTM repeatedly spamming it at one of the tower gates, lmao.

I use this. You can drop Grenade Kit and replace it with Elixir B, then swap out Grenadier for Short Fuse. Or you can use Elixir C or what ever really, but I find B to be the best choice for the Boons it grants. It's extremely durable, has very good sustained Condition cleanse, good resustain, good damage and high burst potential. It has very low mobility, it is very weak to pre-combat burst or when Protection is not active, it struggles with high Condition pressure and is hard countered by pretty much any Necro build. I've been using that build for quite some time and have had a lot of success with it. I made it a while back but only recently started using Grenade Kit and have found it to be the missing piece to the puzzle because it adds the extra bit of damage I needed for the build to have proper killing power. Anyway if you give it a try, let me know.

> @"Hannelore.8153" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > > @"Hannelore.8153" said: > > > This is kind of like saying "I instantly die if a whole guild uses Battle Maul on me at once". In small group fights, the rune isn't a threat since the golem can't heal, unlike players and Ranger pets, and will be dead in a few seconds. > > > > Skills have target caps. Large groups rely on distributing damage across multiple targets, thus reducing individual damage and allowing for both more offensive movement as well as support to members. > > > > Having golems, or any type of "pet" run alongside you is like buffering the entire group by this golems life. As such a group of 20 players all running this rune are buffering their effective hit points by 20 x 50,000 = 1,000,000 life. Or expressed in a different way, if we assume a players average hit point pool in WvW is around 25k, having these golems tripples the initial EHP of the squad. That's pretty strong for a rune set. > > > > The fact the golems can't be healed is trivial, given their internal cooldown of 1 minute. Damage soaked by a golem is not damage taken by a player which is almost equivalent to damage healed (or rather similar to barrier). Or again simply put: the rune provides a 50,000 value barrier every 1 minute, per player, on a persisting moving entity which also attacks. > > > > Even worse, the target cap on control conditions and hard crowd control, and the priority of cleanses to players, means these golems will soak up a ton of enemy cc while not being initial targets for cleanses, which all go to players. > > > > Not sure how your comment addresses any of these issues. This rune becomes an issue because it scales with number of players and messes with the target cap. In small scale all of these things are non issues because you likely are not hitting the target cap to begin with. > > Its a complaint about a rune in a broken game mode that needs at least dozens of other changes, and instead of listening and implementing any of those changes, the devs look at threads like this and just nerf one thing severely and time marches on. > > Players may think they're helping the game like that, but its really just slowly making it worse. I mean, I agree and disagree. The problem with this is that it's a boonball guild that rolls with 70/30 support/dps and further inflates their durability with the summons from the runes that act as meat shields while also CCing. It's true that they don't generally live long, but because they're summoned on combat entry it cushions their pushes quite a lot. Sigil Of Demons used to be Sigil Of Summoning. At 25 stacks it would summon a Fleshreaver which did pretty decent damage and had very high health. For a while this sigil was meta for almost the exact same reason. It was a pseudo-buff that soaked AOEs to make groups tankier. Rune Of The Privateer also used to be more popular when the bird it summons did more damage and had more health, although it wasn't so much favored by zergs, it was pretty popular among roamers because the bird frigging _hurt._ I don't think nerfing these runes should be top priority or anything, but I do agree with the OP that ANet might want to change them. Boonballs are obnoxious enough as it is without adding a flock of minions on combat entry to soak damage and mass CC.

I don't know why people are disagreeing with this. Does no one remember the Fleshreaver meta? That got nerfed for a reason. This is the same thing, lol.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said: > > Beast Master Ranger is surprisingly strong as well, but only particularly so in smaller fights and if you're good at managing your pet. Because the Ranger itself has extremely high armor and mobility you can focus entirely on buffing your pet, Vulnerability stacking and locking down your targets, and managing your pets for bursts. Felines with this build can _easily_ do 6 - 8k **auto attacks** and 10k+ F2's. It's stronger than it looks. > Ignoring the build, didnt soulbeast kind of make that particular type of base ranger obsolete? Last I checked soulbeast pets was still immortal ie no need to manage, just flip it back to 100% life. Yes and no. You would have to sacrifice Wilderness Survival to play this build. You could also give up Nature Magic, but I think it has more value to buffing your pet and giving yourself more durability. If you drop WS you give up almost all of your condition cleanse and would have to swap out all your utilities for Stances. Although Dolyak Stance is busted OP and Bear Stance is a very good heal, it would still make you a lot more vulnerable to Conditions. I think this build works with Soulbeast as well, particularly for the reason you stated, you can just merge and unmerge with your pet to bring it back if it dies, and Soulbeast itself does provide some benefits that core doesn't. Unstoppable Union is a good example of that. But because merging means your pet is gone it also means your damage is because this build is entirely reliant on the pet for that. I suppose you could just merge and unmerge when necessary for trait benefits and to refresh your pet health, but I still think this build works better with core. A similar concept that isn't _entirely_ reliant on the pet for damage, taking something more like Commander/Diviner/Marauder stats, would certainly work better with Soulbeast though. The build I shared is a more trolly variant.

> @"Smoosh.2718" said: > I'm going to come in and play devils advocate and say that Lich form is broken and 100% deserves a nerf/rework. And I'm going to remind you that Rampage exists which does equally ridiculous damage but also comes with the benefit of CC's, mobility, and damage reduction. Lich is slow, has a shorter duration, one CC _(Fear),_ most of its attacks are projectiles which means they can be destroyed or reflected, it doesn't reduce incoming damage, and pulses less Stability. I absolutely do not disagree that the damage is insane, and I understand why a lot of people dislike it. If a Necro pops Lich on you it can 2 shot you pretty easy. With that said, it ain't hard to counter. Literally run away for 10 seconds and hide behind a wall or something and there isn't much they can do.

I have a "yolo" Condition build I use for roaming in WvW that takes Harbinger Shroud. I say yolo in quotations because it's Trailblazer with Death Magic, but I'm not using Soul Reaping and have very few Corrupts or Barriers, so it has poor Life Force gen and poor Shroud uptime, but a ton of damage. I like Harbinger because it's a larger Barrier and applies more Torment, and the idea of this build is to be as overwhelming as possible. I think it's a good trait and I enjoy it, though I don't play Scourge much and don't enjoy Punishments anyway.

Is your squad of 70/30 supports having trouble with this? Have you considered learning to position and co-ordinate rather than having a boonball that tries to bulldoze everything? Please go back to EU. They miss you.

Mix Dire and Trailblazer until you have 80 - 100% duration on the Condition you apply most/your most valuable Condition. If for example that's Confusion, use Trailblazer until you have 80 - 100% duration on it then start mixing in Dire. That way you can maximize the duration/damage of your most valuable Condition while also giving other Conditions more damage despite sacrificing their duration. Another example would be this; I use Balthazar runes + Smoldering Sigil and enough Trailblazer to get 100% Burn Duration on condi Engi. I can then mix in a Dire Amulet and 2 Rings because any more Trailblazer and I'm overcapping my Burn Duration. Although other Conditions like Bleed, Poison, etc. will not be overcapped, I'm more concerned with using them as cover Conditions to bury Burns on people while said cover Conditions are also dealing more damage per-tick. If they're cleansed early on that's okay because they'll hit harder while my Burns will last longer.