Otto.6495

Every few months I think about relapsing back into GW2, so I check on this thread and the wiki page for signets of suffering to see if they fixed my favorite LI, chill, open world roaming build, and it's a bummer to see that they still haven't. At this point, I guess I should make peace with the probable truth that they won't 'fix' it, they probably don't see it as 'broken' or an issue. Whatever metrics they use to keep track of player happiness or trait and skill usage probably indicate that those of us that loved signets of suffering builds were a small minority. Or maybe they don't track any such metrics. Or was the previous version of this trait considered to be overpowered? I can't really imagine it was, I don't think any S tier builds used it, from my perspective it seemed like it was just enough to make some low intensity/low apm/'chill' builds be able to perform at maybe a B+ or A tier? It did not make me feel like a god, it just made the build much more fun and smooth to play, and strong enough to let me easily handle most open world situations. I'm not gonna imply something so dramatic like that I'll NEVER PLAY GW2 AGAIN until this revert the change to this one trait... but it really did reduce a good chunk of my enjoyment in the game for my favorite chill build on my favorite class.

I know it's kinda weird to have a sword be long range (like mesmer greatsword), but honestly a solid long range weapon (especially if it's power) is the thing we're missing the most, staff being the only 1200 range option we have, and it's more condi/support than anything. I'd also be interested in some of the other options people suggested, make sword something that specifially supports a play style that is lacking an elite spec, like minions or something. I know some players will always hate minions and anything related to them, but it is a core aspect of the Necromancer concept that has always been kinda lacking in viability in this game, only arguably viable for some solo tanky/unkillable builds. So like if sword had some minion buffs built into it's attacks, or attacks that specifically controlled the minions in some way, like sicking them on a specific target.

I always come and go from GW2, taking breaks for other games. When i heard they were doing another expansion or whatever, i got hyped up and started playing again, and was excited to preorder. But some of these necro changes just make the game less fun, like they weren't even changes where i was like "yeah, honestly that's fair". Scourge was very powerful, i had been anticipating some balancing at some point, but what's the deal with balancing be nerfing 10 different aspects of a build into the ground at the same time? That's not balance, that's hitting the pendulum with a baseball bat as far in the other direction as you can. I'm not quite as pessimistic towards the devs as some folks on the forums, i do think they care about the game and might listen to feedback, BUT I also know that sometimes, even if they listen to feedback and know how the community feels, sometimes they leave certain things in a bad (or too good) state for waaaaay too long. So I guess I'm waiting on the preorder until I see the next round of balance changes, see if they address things a bit. Honestly, for me I really enjoyed a harb signet build that let me stay in shroud most of the time, and staying pretty buffed for the 10 seconds i was out before i could get back in. And that was pretty harshly impacted by the Signet change, which is the one nerf i have the least faith that they'll fix in good time. I expect a few adjustments to numbers/coefficients for scourge, but probably nothing for the signets.

I totally understand this sentiment, and you're not wrong in general, but it's kinda the wrong advice in this particular case, for the person asking. He's specifically describing his situation and his limitations. He's not likely to strive to be an end game raider who will annoy you with his bad habits, he'll probably just play the game modes that he enjoys, most likely solo PVE roaming type stuff. And for that, it's totally fine if he leans on trailblazers for simplicity and comfort, and in his situation he's unlikely to even notice much of the DPS loss from going trailblazers instead of vipers. One thing I will say to the OP, while some of the popular condi scourge builds can be pretty dang easy and have very high self-sustain and durability, it is not a 1 or 2 button build with passive durability. You have to play pretty actively and use all your buttons, but the reason why many people call it so easy is that you can pretty much mash the buttons in any order, and have it work out pretty well. Obviously when you are playing optimally, you're using the abilities in an intentional order and at intentional times, and that does make a difference. But just mashing buttons in any order can get you further than that would get you on most other classes/specs.

This is actually a really good point, and something i was feeling but didn't quite put my finger on. I honestly kinda liked the original intent of Blight being a 'high risk, high reward', but just wanted a bit more reward or interaction for the risk... I don't think i really wanted so many blight dumps... or if they were adding blight dumps, they should be outside of shroud. While you're staying in shroud, the whole point of it felt like a squishy high risk situation, but where you also got high dps. It's funny how they removed the out of shroud regen, saying it didn't make any sense with the spec, and at the same time rebalanced the spec all around dumping blight when blight build up was the original intent. P.S. i do not wanna be as negative as some are being, i don't think the spec is LITERAL GARBAGE, LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE, and i honestly do have a fair bit of faith in the Anet team. I just hope they can land in the right spot with these specs. I know that they're getting feedback from different players that are completely opposed to the feedback that the next player gives. There's another thread right next to this one on the forums right now that is asking for Harb to be changed into something that removes everything i like about the current and previous versions of the spec. So i recognize that the devs are in a nearly unwinnable position.

In the big official thread that detailed the changes for the various classes elite specs, they generally broke down and explained their reasoning for most changes for most classes, including both buffs and nerfs. For the Harbinger shrouds two mobility skills, they didn't explain anything, just slipped it into the big list of changes near the bottom of the Harb section. I'm curious why this reduction was needed? It was one of my favorite aspects of the Harbinger builds I played in the first Beta, and it didn't feel like it was super overpowered when compared some mobility options that other classes already had or were getting in their new Elite specs. And mobility was one of the things i felt most lacking in most of the Necro builds i enjoy today, so i was really excited to get some good mobility added. I'm not gonna be too dramatic and say it's literally unplayable in it's current state in todays Beta, but the reduction is noticeable, both the the CD reductions and the range reductions. In the first beta, I felt like i could really easily move from one target to the next, between the shroud 3 and shroud 4, and shroud 3's lower CD made it available pretty often. In this Beta, i'm using the 2 dashes to get a bit closer to the next target, but it's usually not enough to get me all the way there, just kinda halfway and then i run the rest. And with the increased CD on shroud 3 dash, i am finding myself having to wait a of time just slowly running between mobs. Again, it's not like this is unplayable, i just miss it, and i'm curious why it needed to be taken away. I don't do much ranked PVP, didn't try that at all in the first beta, but was this mobility really OP in that setting? If that's the case, why couldn't the reduction just be a PVP only change? I don't think it broke anything in Open World roaming and other PVE content.

I don't know if there was a way to summon EXTRA minions, but you could swap specs on traits that impact minions, while mounted (like going from a death magic build that had +minion health and + minion damage, over to a different build that didn't include those but still included base minions), and have the changes automatically update on your minions after dismounting, without having to resummon them. That would kinda make sense, i used to do this, not really thinking of it as an exploit, didn't really realize i was doing anything wrong, as it was all out of combat anyways. It's possible that when i was doing this, the minions were retaining the best of both, and i just didn't notice. It's harder to parse out things like minion damage or health pool totals. If this WAS the case, that i was inadvertently giving myself buffed HP/DPS minions when i was NOT using a death magic build, i could understand the short term bandaid of deactivating minion persistence while mounting. I just hope if that's the case that they fix it quickly. I'm 1000% fine with minions being unsummoned when i change specs. It was mildly convenient to get around that with mounts, but if there's any chance that this was having unintended side effects to minion strength, i understand. I just hope they can put their finger on it and fix it soon, so that you can retain minions while mounting and dismounting, as long as you remain the same build.

Is this what the exploit was that caused them to turn this off? or does anyone know what the issue was? even tiny scraps of info like why we're having to deal with this might help calm frustrations, if only a little bit. Not knowing why this was hotfix-nerfed on the fly, not knowing when it will be fixed, or even if it is going to be fixed (was this just an intentional nerf? who knows!! all we know is that it's happening!), is all very very frustrating. I'm playing with other specs and with other classes, I'm getting by fine, but the minion master specs were some of my favorite in this game. Whether they are considered to be 'meme' specs by the general GW2 population doesn't matter, it was just fun for me. This change pretty thoroughly breaks those builds. Even before the update that fixed mounts unsummoning pets, it was better in that state than it was now, as the unsummoning was intermittent, and most people were able to work with it. This is not intermittent, this is just straight up killing the pets every time a mount is summoned, and putting them on full cooldown.

I just checked after updating, and no luck, minions are still unsummoning and going on full cooldown after mounting and dismounting. It didn't mention anything about this in the game update notes, but i still wanted to check just to be sure, and sure enough, this is still broken in game.

My feedback on Harbinger is influenced by my own preferences in how i like to play the game. I'll play 'meta' builds when needed for certain game modes, but i mostly just enjoy open world roaming, with my own builds that fit what i want for a given situation. My 2 favorite builds in game are Minion builds on Necro and dual pistol deadeye on thief. Overall, I enjoy the Necro class the most, but always feel slightly lacking in a quick killing open world roaming build (I know Reaper is usually suggested for that, but something about the reaper playstyle just doesn't vibe with me very much), and Harbinger felt pretty good at filling that role for me. It's not quite as juicy as the dual pistol Deadeye, but i wasn't expecting it to full match or exceed that. Harbinger shroud itself is probably the most i've enjoyed going into shroud in any necro build i've tried. The 2 gap closer/mobility skills are probably a big reason, but both 1 and 2 also feel like they have really nice power. While in Harbinger shroud (with the right 2 other skill tree's to support it) felt the closest to that rapid fire, quick killing experience of the pistol deadeye, so i really enjoyed it. Pistol skills on their own felt a bit underwhelming at first, but once i found the right synergies, they were good enough. I will agree with many others that the blight mechanic felt a bit "meh", only giving 25% increased damage for it's rather hefty downsides, but that paired with a good stack of might from harbinger shroud 1 skill (thanks to spite trait) allowed pistol to pack enough punch to feel ok until i got back into shroud. The big things the spec felt like it was missing, relative to some of my other favorite builds, is break bar damage. The stun on pistol 3 and the float on shroud 5 both did a bit of break bar damage, but it takes a lot more than that to get through most break bars. But this isn't a huge criticism, and is perhaps a fair trade off for the mobility and quick damage in the build. I can always quickly swap to a scourge build with tons of break bar damage if i know i'm coming up to a target that needs it, or i could probably swap around my 6-10 skills to find more break bar damage. I don't expect one build to be the best at everything, i don't expect harbinger to be the most survivable, highest damage, highest break, highest mobility, highest CC build all in one. I know a lot of folks had valid criticisms on the build, and a lot of it depends on what game modes you enjoy and what you're expecting, but i was pretty happy with the role that Harbinger filled for me in the game modes i enjoy. I would agree that blight could have a bit more interesting upsides to pair with it's downsides, it'd be nice if it had a base upside whether or not you chose the first or third trait in the first line. If you choose the middle trait, cooldown reduction on elixirs, you get no bonus from blight whatsoever. But i'm also aware that if blight bonuses inflate too much, other aspects of the build would need to be taken down, and i'm not sure if i'd like that. I ESPECIALLY don't want pistol skills to need to be taken down anymore, they already feel a bit "meh" at their base level. I also echo others comments that Harbinger doesn't interact very well with many other skill tree's traits that impact lifeforce generation, but this was a bit hard for me to be sure of, just something i thought i was noticing.

This one's pretty rough, i hope it is just a temporary fix that gets resolved quickly. I can't imagine what sort of a bug or exploit is so bad that it is worth breaking pet builds, but it really does pretty much break pet builds in the current game. It's basically unsafe to use a mount between battles, and use the mounts attack to charge into the next battle, as you then are stuck for 15-40 seconds waiting on CD's to resummon pets, and if the build is centered around that, you're pretty weak during that period. And this happens constantly while you roam around on mount from battle to battle. I've moved to a non minion build for open world PVE roaming, but it's less survivable and less fun for me. (I know there are viable and survivable builds, like many Reaper builds, i just don't enjoy them as much)