Dread sucks. Rework?

I know it's a new trait. But... It's a badly implemented good idea.

The only case where dread makes any sense is for reaper. Because you can pre-cast your 5, then detonate the 3 just before it hits.

In every other case it's difficult to burst anything in the 1-2 sec fears we have.

• Core? Shroud 3's fear is over before the auto is done channeling.
• reaper? The one case above. To buff the damage of one move. Assuming you specifically pull off the combo.
• scourge? It can f4 into f5 I suppose... But that will be one tick before the fear falls off.

Simple rework? (renamed trait)

Dreaded Horror: add 10 stacks of vulnerability on fear. Apply dread to yourself when you apply fear, 1 stack per .5 second of fear cast.

Dread: your next attack gains +15% bonus damage and 500 ferocity. (does not apply to auto attacks)

Now a terrormancer gets better returns due to fear duration. And condi builds will have longer duration... But power builds get more out of it. Seems to solve the problem that dread presents while keeping the trait's theme.

@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:The only case where dread makes any sense is for reaper. Because you can pre-cast your 5, then detonate the 3 just before it hits.

Terrify has a 1/2 second cast, you cannot "detonate" it while casting Executioner's Scythe without interrupting Executioner's Scythe.

Well... Dread main feature are the vuln stacks, don't be blinded by the 20% damage increase. I agree that the trait is beyond bad in PvE but anyway it's not designed for this gamemode. Like most of necromancer's tools, it's designed to harm players and objectively dread is another nasty trait that make use of the necromancer's boon corruption.

Yes this is objectively a good way to create some synergy and we are almost forced to admit that the necromancer have tons of synergy in it's traits due to that. But honestly the necromancer would be better if anet refrained from piling up conditions on top of conditions.

Come on potentially a reaper can apply 10 vuln, chill, bleed and torment each time he fear a foe or corrupt it's stability. Mobs don't use stability so that isn't an issue for them but against players (you know those same players that are tired to be overloaded with conditions and complain about it) it's incredibly effective.

Now, if a boon corruption effect could apply a 1s fear on foes with break bar... That trait might become awesome you know?

I have posted it before; they should make Dread into a unique debuff on the enemy: While within 600 range, enemy takes 15% damage from all sources. A raid desirable debuff I would think. And maybe they keep buffing power reaper...O.O

Well they just implemented it. So i guess they wont rework it. Maybe they change it a little bit, and make it, that its still useless

Dread is not a DPS increase trait. Awaken the Pain is designed for that purpose. Dread is a burst setup trait like:

• RS3 double tap -> RS4 or
• CS3 -> CS4 or
• Staff5 -> Staff4.
• ...

But is has a problem: It's much weaker than Chill of Death.

You are looking at the trait wrong. it isn't designed for US to take advantage of. They take that increased damage from all sources, not just us...thus it is assumed you will fear the enemy into your allies attacks for them to get crushed under the bombardment.

Not saying you aren't wrong about it feeling lackluster for us, I just see it as a trait designed to set up an enemy to take hits from others.

@"Runiir.6425" said:You are looking at the trait wrong. it isn't designed for US to take advantage of. They take that increased damage from all sources, not just us...thus it is assumed you will fear the enemy into your allies attacks for them to get crushed under the bombardment.

Not saying you aren't wrong about it feeling lackluster for us, I just see it as a trait designed to set up an enemy to take hits from others.

This is incorrect, it only applies to the necro.

If it did apply to the raid at large, that could be cool. But 1 sec of increased damage, even 20% increased damage... Is pretty marginal. Especially compared with Frost Spirit, or Spotter.

I understand the synergy with boon corruption. But let's take a quick look at necro's pallette of avaliable fear.

• shroud skill 3, or f4 on scourge.
• staff 5.
• spectral wall.
• boon corrupting stability on core or reaper. (scourge is more likely to turn that stability into torment and cripple.)

So... That's more fear than anyone else to be sure.

But the burst they can set up, is pathetic.

• staff 5 then 4. Most direct damage builds don't use staff.
• spectral wall into well of suffering. (legit combo here... But you need to "waste" a utility slot on spectral wall. If you try to make this work with fear from shroud, you run out of time. You could use staff... But see above again on being bad for power builds.)
• waiting for the rare moment that you and corrupt stability, then using the highest damage shortest cast time ranged spell you've got. (cause we got virtually no mobility, and fear makes them run away...)

The first option is OK... But not worth a master trait.The second option is actually good. Except that fear is too short, and setting up the cast is annoying, and there are other utilities I'd rather take.The third option is purely something to counter guardians and rangers in pvp.... And even then the duration is SO KITTEN SHORT that it's near impossible to use in the heat of the moment.

So... If this trait is about the vulnerability.... Then give me 15 stacks and reduce the red herring nature of the trait text. OR: make the trait do what it pretends to do, in a usable way.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@"Runiir.6425" said:You are looking at the trait wrong. it isn't designed for US to take advantage of. They take that increased damage from all sources, not just us...thus it is assumed you will fear the enemy into your allies attacks for them to get crushed under the bombardment.

Not saying you aren't wrong about it feeling lackluster for us, I just see it as a trait designed to set up an enemy to take hits from others.

• shroud skill 3, or f4 on scourge.
• staff 5.
• spectral wall.
• boon corrupting stability on core or reaper. (scourge is more likely to turn that stability into torment and cripple.)

• staff 5 then 4. Most direct damage builds don't use staff.
• spectral wall into well of suffering. (legit combo here... But you need to "waste" a utility slot on spectral wall. If you try to make this work with fear from shroud, you run out of time. You could use staff... But see above again on being bad for power builds.)
• waiting for the rare moment that you and corrupt stability, then using the highest damage shortest cast time
  ranged
  spell you've got. (cause we got virtually no mobility, and fear makes them run away...)

Not to mention the boon/condition conversion table. They want to adjust it. So i guess with the next balance patch, stabi wont be converted into fear anymore.Just a prediction and i can be wrong.

I said it in another post before. We have very little accesse to fear. So it would be reasonable if at least the fear- traits would syngergyse better together. But they dont. To top that off, you need like 4 traitlines to get that fear game going. Im not asking for a perma-fear build for necro. But at least a tiny bit of more synergy:

On fear we can trait:

1. 50%longer duration
2. 2seconds fear when getting hard ccd
3. Fear does condition dmg
4. Fear applies vulnerability ang lets you do 10% more dmg
5. And with reaper: fear also applies chill (passive doe)

But all of them are in different traitlines, so basically they are useless. Especially because the other traits are like 100times better than the fear trait

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:It's a badly implemented good idea.That's the GW2 motto - at least in terms of class design.

@Nimon.7840 said:Not to mention the boon/condition conversion table. They want to adjust it. So i guess with the next balance patch, stabi wont be converted into fear anymore.Just a prediction and i can be wrong.I vote for Might into Fear. That would be cool. ;-) (Dread = Meta)

Seriously:I hope they just adress durations like shorten the 10 seconds of might > weakness to 5 or so.

If they really change the table itself I think they change it to:Might > VulnerabilityProtection > Weakness

Would even make sense thematically...

Maybe they remove fear from the conversion completely? I mean we already have an uneven amount of conditions to boons (14 vs 11).

@Lahmia.2193 said:Maybe they remove fear from the conversion completely? I mean we already have an uneven amount of conditions to boons (14 vs 11).

Why would they... Oh wait... That make sense, scourge to strong against players so nerf fear gen... Look like something anet might come up with...