Asum.4960

Ofc when players find a skill interaction which brings at least a bit of fun and skill expression in bad theme over fun an function design it gets patched within a single patch cycle, but when things are broken, bad and unfun, we have to wait 5+ years for a fix/change.

Minions unfortunately just aren't any good, except niche uses for their largely non-minion uses (Golem CC, Fleshwurm projectile block/teleport, Shadow Fiend LF management). If you want to make them work as much as possible in OW solo play though, your big problem is going to be damage (as well as the constant annoyance of Minions keeping you locked in combat). Even with a full skillbar invested into all Minion skills (and even with all Traits dedicated to them), you need to be aware of the fact that you still do 99% of your damage while the minions are just roleplay - so almost everything you invest into your minions, and therefor not into you, will drastically make you weaker/worse. And not just a bit less damage, but halving and quartering your Damage or more with every concession to Minions that you make (as well as Utility/QoL). One big trap for Minions is actually especially Death Magic. While Necromantic Corruption is nice defensively (and about the only good thing about minions in that regard - although countering incoming conditions to this degree is generally less important in PvE), the 25% damage increase on it for minions for example is entirely useless. 25% increase of nothing is nothing. So if anything, I'd go into Blood Magic - which with Life Siphons at least almost doubles your minions damage (to still near nothing, but hey), while also providing you and them with more staying power through sustain than what Flash of the Master in DM offers. Blood has always been the better Minion line over DM. That said, Reaper does okay in solo play because (along with easy self Quickness in RO) it has both Spite and Soul Reaping providing 25 Might and Vuln solo via Reaper's Might in Spite and Unyielding Blast in SR - plus all their other various damage multipliers. Giving up either of them, for Minions of all things, is going to plummet your DPS massively. Without "Chilled to the Bone" and Dread in Spite you won't have a Fury source to Crit Cap either, further sinking your damage. Nor do you have extra Utility like Well of Darkness for trash Blinds and Damage, Spectral Grasp for trash Pulls, etc., which also help with Chill uptime for Cold Shoulder for another big damage boost (or loss in this case) as well as being extra CC.. Anyway, Tl;DR: I'm not sure which out of Spite and SR hurts less to sacrifice currently, but if you do, then it's probably better you do so for BM rather than DM - which will at least also give you some sustain to make up for fights being much longer now with so much DPS lost. DM (Necromantic Corruption) + Minions can have niche use in super high Condi pressure instances though. Overall though, I'd rate Minions so poorly that they aren't even worth using for Roleplay - Minions are just that bad and annoying, but if it's so fun for you that it's worth it, then I hope this helps in any way.

For one, I personally quite enjoy using mobility skills on the tail end of combat before combat break gets through to get going already, and secondly, there are plenty areas where mounts are not available - esp. in PvP and most of instanced PvE. Other times you may wish to use a mobility skill to break out of combat, and quickly mount before something else puts you back into it. Using a mobility to range out of combat, just for the mobility skill to briefly put you into combat, just for that to be enough time for another trash mob to flick a pebble at you, locking you back in a combat state, isn't a fun experience. I don't really see a reason to uniquely hamper Necromancer with this awkward ~2 second in combat time every time they whish to use their mobility skill. It's a tiny but constant annoyance, just so a skill can cost 2300 HP for some arbitrary "thematic" reason, while also healing 2400 HP!? Just pointlessly bloated design while lacking actual depth.

You guys really need more Devs in the Skills & Balance Team, or whatever it is called now. Power Harbinger being completely useless, dead on arrival - as well as being boring to play with no gameplay distinction whatsoever between it and the universally superior Condi version, was Feedback you received in the Beta events leading up to EoD, in late 2021. Now, two and a half years later - you tease bringing power Harbinger into the Meta as headline feature of the patch on your blog, and these two lines are the extend of the changes. Three numbers got tweaked. And this might even be enough to give it okay-ish golem DPS so it looks fine in a vacuum, but man.. really? So then we copy the exact Power Reaper Build we've been playing since 2015, just switching out Reaper for Harbinger and Shouts for clunkier Elixir's, so we can do ~the same DPS, except with max health reduction rather than a damage soaking Shroud and Damage reduction as well as still being melee due to Cascading Corruption's design, just with far less overall cleave than Reaper, while doing the literal exact same gameplay as Condi Harb which we've been playing since 2022, which really is the exact same build as cScourge which we've been playing since 2017. The excitement is immeasurable.

While they are pretty decent fun to use now, I do have some complaints about them. Individually they aren't very grave, but collectively they form a pretty bad picture. The most minor complaints are little things like still not being a fan of the odd and disjointed AA pacing/rhythm, 2 lacking impact, and 4 feeling too slow. E: Also Gorge, the Sword 3 flipover mobility skill sacrificing a little bit of health and therefor putting the user in combat, slowing you down as well as preventing mount follow up will never feel good for general ooc traversal. It's so unnecessary. The next bigger complaints are about how the Life gain and Cost gimmick are just a pointless distraction from the lack of mechanical depth of the kit. As well as the Flip over gimmick, which doesn't lead to any situational Utility or interesting decision making, but really just means double the buttons to spam for damage. Both are just shiny confetti thrown on a bland cake, meant to distract from it's mediocre taste - which ends up making things worse, because now you are also eating even blander confetti on your already bland cake. Lastly, my biggest complaint: The few good ideas that are in Sword/Sword would have been better put into the other, since over a decade underperforming and boring, weapons of Necromancer as slight reworks, instead of further pushing those into obscurity while only creating something mediocre new. The Sword Mainhand AA, giving Necro some ranged DPS with cleave, would have served better on either both Staff or Axe as AA replacement (Axe is too single target focused, Staff too slow, and both way too low damage - this has been a problem since literally over a decade). Sword 3's mobility/gap closer is pretty much exactly what I've been asking for as a Dagger 3 rework since over half a decade, actually making sense on that melee kit, and giving that weapon a proper identity as fast mobile melee which comes to you and resustains vs. GS's slow heavy hitting melee which pulls you to it and area controls. Sword OH ideas as a whole could have been a Focus rework - actually making intelligent use of the flipover design, rather than making it just a spammy gimmick, by using it to give the weapon relevancy in both PvE and PvP (plus better telegraphing). Making Hungering Maelstrom an AoE Damage Nuke (with a very high power coefficient in PvE, and low in PvP), and then the Gormandize Flipover be essentially Spinal Shiver's, removing boons for a bigger nuke per boon removed, being especially effective in PvP instead - with being hit by Maelstrom acting as Telegraph for the skill there. Devouring Visage could instead be a Binding Blade like ticking Strike Damage effect put on targets hit by the Orb, useful as Shroud pre-cast for PvE power builds and especially Reaper (for Death's Perception and Reaper's Onslaught synergy), while Consume could be the Fear still - acting as an interesting strategic tool and mind game for PvP especially, about when to Consume the Visage for the Fear. No Life Siphon/health cost gimmick needed on either. I'd would have preferred that over another largely gimmicky skill kit, while all the old skill kits still rot away. As is, beyond the excitement of finally getting anything at all new to play with, I appreciate Sword 3's mobility (but as mentioned would prefer it on Dagger 3), and that's kind of about it.

Dude, you don't understand - Necro Sword Skills Cost Life to use and have Flipover skills - so it's like getting double the skills! So thematic and crazy, right? I mean, do the weapons do more damage than other's without Life cost? No. Do the Flipover's have any interesting new Utility or decision making to situationally use? Well not really. Are they mostly just more buttons to spam for damage? Yes. Could both new weapons been better as just a slight Dagger and Focus Rework instead, without the flipover- or healthcost gimmicks? Probably. Oh.. who would have thought.

It would be the same build as Power Reaper - just switch the Reaper line out for Harbinger, and pick it's clearly designated Strike Damage Traits (top line). For solo play, you'll probably want to run Deathly Haste instead. Swap the Shouts for Elixir's to build Blight, and that's that - you are done. Buildcraft.

That's exactly what I've been doing though? That's my very point. I've pretty much quit the game for the last few months with SotO and just came back a bit to check out the new weapons with this patch. I don't mind sticking to other games - what I do mind is you trying to reframe the fact that players have nothing reasonable to do and go for in the game and therefor quitting as some sort of win and great retention strategy by Anet, out of some petty vengefulness. If you just want to gloat about having been catered to with this expansion because you still feel slighted by HoT (by other players, somehow), as you admitted, then enjoy that for whatever that does for you - but don't pretend it's anything more virtuous or deeper than that. Nobody cares that you don't like 9 year old content either, and that's not relevant commentary to people giving feedback about having nothing reasonable to go for right now. Enjoy!

Again, you seem to be too busy projecting your issue back then to see the point. This is not about people not wanting to play the content - this is people pleading for a reasonable incentive to play the content. Getting to pay thousands of Gold for something I already own, earned and paid for, just to get some okay skins along with it which I'm not planning to use on any of my characters, just for completions sake, is not a reward or incentive for me to play and grind out this expansion's content for. There will be cooler skins on the Cashshop for 1/20 of the converted Gold price any day anyway, as there usually is. That's not the issue. The issue is the game not giving me any reasonable incentive to actually play it. So you can be petty and gloat all you want, for all the good that does, but you are missing the point - so it's really not landing anywhere. But I already regret engaging back with this community again, so have a good one.

Why you are making this an us versus them if everybody could be served, to the benefit of not just all the different types players, but also the game and it's bottom line? People go all gatekeeper and tribal over the weirdest things, even when there are simple win/win situations instead. Extremely unlikely, yes. That doesn't change my confusion about the people battling against that feedback. To put it differently, most people are not going to want to buy a whole new (already massively overpriced) phone - of the exact same type which they've already bought and own, just because it now comes with a new phone case colour. Just let them buy/earn the different phone case separately for their existing phone. That seems smarter business than getting nothing but slightly disgruntled/disappointed customers, who otherwise would have went for that case. But regardless, poorly designed (esp. longterm) reward structures are unfortunately by far not even the biggest issues the game has - even when they encompass an entire expansions reward scheme... which tbf, is pretty bad. /E: And I get that people think if more others can get the Skin they just earned as part of their new Legendary Armor package, then theirs is going to be less special. But the harsh truth is, nobody cares to begin with - people just want their characters to look cool. And again, these skins have no prestige anyway - nobody is going "oh wow, look at that guy, he grinded/swiped to get another 600 T6 Mats and did Map Comp, OW events and Rifts!". Legendary functionality aside, which is crucial for those who already have it, there are more impressive and far cheaper cosmetics on the store - which is a problem if essentially the entire Expansion's content reward structure is build around getting just this, which for those with already filled Armory is just a skin.

This is what I don't understand. But let me preface this by saying I'm glad you got your Armor, and I'm all in favour of Anet adding new avenues for different types of players to earn those things. That's not my issue. But they imo also should think about those players who already earned those things. Imagine being a GW2 player over the last couple of years of content rewards who a) already had a Legendary Amulet, b) doesn't need Legendary Weapons anymore and c) already has Legendary Armor. I don't have to imagine that - it's been years and years of the game asking me to either grind for things that are almost completely pointless/redundant to me, or having nothing to do/quit the game. That's not incentivising. That's not making players like me play more. You say, now that you have Legendary Armor, ofc the next expansion definitely needs to offer something significant else, but you still can't empathize with players who've already been in that situation, for years now, if it does not? What if next expansion would be again, every map completion, meta event, etc. is useless unless you want to make yet another armor, the masteries are just "learn how to make yet another Armor Set". And the expansion after that too. Fun. Now if the game at least told me, don't worry, if you already have Legendary Armor, there is still a reason to complete and repeatedly play this content, as the things like Map Completion, Meta Event rewards and such can still be used to unlock the Skins, without having to do the whole 1000g+ grind for Legendary functionality/QoL again - that would be incentivising players. Instead, I logged in and played like 3-5 times over the last half a year (really just for the new Weapons and Betas, which is why I'm back rn too - something actually new for me ingame), because frankly, there are too many good games with wholly new and fresh content and gameplay out there, for me to sit down and grind out thousands of gold and such in GW2, again, for a skin that is absolutely indistinguishable from a Cash Shop purchase (and since you can convert gems to gold, might as well be), nor carries any ingame accomplishment or prestige with it. Now for the record, I don't particularly care for the skins anyway - most of my characters have set looks since over half a decade, but I'd still go for earning them just because - if it wasn't quite so ridiculous as paying the Legendary Price Tag all over, I already did that and no skin unlock for completions sake alone is worth that to me. Which is a problem if that's all there is for a whole Expansion, or two, or three.

The problem is basing an entire Expansion's reward structure around something redundant for a lot of players, which seems like a terrible idea for retention. A lot of players would likely be fine with earning the skins to a degree, but expecting players to make entirely redundant set/s of Legendaries just for a skin seems excessive. And while that does hold true to some extend for the game mode specific previous Legendary Armors (PvE, WvW and sPvP), earning this new expansion armor, as mentioned, is highly the focus of the expansion as a whole - similar as with EoD and it's Legendary Weapons. If you are already geared or don't care about that one singular reward, pretty much all expansion content is basically dead on arrival in terms of rewards and long term goals. Even more so considering that Legendaries don't even have any form of prestige/skill requirement associated with them (it's mostly just grinding/swiping), except for maybe the Legendary HoT PvE Armors, although to ever lesser degrees as powercreep goes rampant. Therefor I personally don't see anything wrong with providing a middle ground for players to earn the skins of such high value items for partial costs, since they are so high in cost primarily due to the Quality of Life they provide - which said players have already earned and unlocked for their account through other, similarly priced, avenues. It's probably better than losing those players because you've given them pretty much nothing to work for across entire expansions/years, unless they are willing to grind for something they to 95% already own, just for a different cherry skin on top.

I haven't cared about the Story in a long, long time at this point. PoF really was the last serviceable story expansion (and even before that, Story was imo one of the weakest parts of this sequel). EoD was forgettable at best, and now in SotO I honestly don't even know what they/we are trying to do anymore, or even where we are really. The fact that "View three Vistas", "Do this press F on x things Collection (which then without any flair or bravado also unlocks the new Weapons account wide.. why even gate this if you are not going to do anything remotely interesting or entertaining with it?)" and "Complete x amount of Open World Events" is the state of expansion main story quests, just baffling. That's far beyond poor pacing - This isn't even a Story anymore, it's a Plot connected by chores on a worksheet.

We know where it's going to land though - exactly where it's been since EoD Beta 1 in August 2021, in the trash. Sword/Sword would have to be ridiculously over-buffed since it's Beta to compensate for Power Harb being so lacklustre - to a point where it would then make S/S Power Reaper utterly OP. So that is not happening. /E: Cascading Corruption especially needs a rework, Swords or not. Which again, is multiple years old common Beta feedback at this point. And looking at the usability improvements for Mesmer Mantra's, why are Harbinger Elixir's still 240 radius? Why are these things taking literally years for the most minor iterations?

I've been playing with Post-Processing Off for almost a decade (through all content) and never had a problem with it. If anything you'll see mechanics much better because they are not covered by blinding glares, blooms, distracting player outlines, way too bright colours, skill effects - including Shroud's screen tinting, etc. - mechanics/ground AoE's aren't telegraphed through shaders/blooms. What you do miss out on though with Post-Processing Off are some effects in the realm of environmental storytelling, most notably being drugged/drunk/hallucinating, and so on. I'd still highly recommend it OFF, along with enabling Effect LOD. What you cannot get rid off is the Green Screen Border/Outline for Core and Reaper Shroud, which I believe symbolises Shroud/LF protecting Health - as Harbinger (and Scourge obv.) don't have this problem (although, let's be honest, most likely they just forgot to add it to Harbinger, with how last second cobbled together that spec was, and in large parts still is). This is obviously somewhat problematic with many mechanics being telegraphed with screen border effects, but the only solution to that on Necro is playing Harbinger or Scourge I'm afraid. Likewise the sound muffling, which can be pretty annoying for especially Story playthroughs and Ambient dialoge, but potentially also some audio cues, can't be disabled to my knowledge. Disabling "Post-Processing" should remove the gradual screen tinting for Shrouds though. If all else fails, Scourge is the way to go if you want to stick with Necro despite all it's problems. Scourge has the least.

How it works is if you have Blight equal to or greater than the threshold listed on the Elixir, that amount of Blight gets removed, and the effects of that Elixir are increased as listed - so for example for Promise, if you have >=5 Blight upon casting it, it becomes a 10 second Poison rather than 5 seconds, and it's 0.8 coefficient Strike Damage hit deals double damage. Then, if it was thrown at your own feet, the skill re-applies 10 Blight to you, leaving you with a net 5 Blight gain in melee. If you don't meet the Blight Threshold upon cast, you just apply the base condition duration and damage of the skill, but gain 10 Blight if thrown at your own feet, without Blight consumption. There are no lingering effects beyond the +Blight in that case, nothing to stack. It just affects that skill. It's a quite relevant mechanic for Elixir of Ambition due to the volume of, esp. damaging, conditions - so you generally want to always cast at least one other Elixir before it (or have been in Shroud) to generate it's 10 Blight threshold - beyond that it doesn't really matter too much though. That's why for example in PvE for cHarb the order is Anguish (since doubling it's Cripple duration is worthless anyway it's the Blight starter) to generate 10 Blight (10) -> Promise, consuming 5 of that Blight to double it's Poison duration, generating 10 Blight (15) -> Ambition, consuming 10 Blight to double the Bleed, Poison, Confusion, Burn and Torment, generate 15 Blight (20).

My point exactly. I had >1-2k hours on Reaper before EoD even came out, and performed better on pVindicator the first time I benched it (which was after a round of Vindi buffs some timer after EoD release I believe), as well as the first time taking it for a spin in actual content (mainly Strikes for me then), and about every time since - having an easier, and frankly more fun time with it than on Reaper. I've updated my original post though to include a mention of cleave DPS, which is what you or they may be looking at, rather than just boss dps. Better boon uptimes due to lacking support and/or add cleave (with RS 4 esp) is really the only way I can explain you seeing Reapers consistently pull ahead, especially of a Vindicator in, as you describe, more capable hands. While Reaper does bench pretty high on the Golem these days, it needs to due to poor DPS uptime in any fight with mechanics. I don't have up to date benchmarks on Vindicator, but it at least until very recently used to have both higher burst (70k vs. 60k on Reaper) and higher sustained DPS (43k vs .41.5k). Even if you GS camp on Vindi for an incredibly relaxed time/rotation, it should be pretty close/about even. In any case, it's a shame your brother got so razor focused on those numbers that it's been ruining the game for him. While I get wanting to top the charts and being competitive about DPS, despite GW2's content really not having kept up any sort of need for that, it's sounds like a pretty unhealthy way to channel that if he's just comparing himself constantly, rather than focusing on his performance, and improving that. Maybe a break is what he needs though, especially as I doubt this being the sole reason - in my experience, including personal, (hardcore)players get hyper focused on things like performance, clear times, speed and efficiency, when they otherwise start to get bored of the content due to lack of game updates and really have nothing else to go for and focus on/challenge themselves with. And GW2 has been pretty awful on providing updates for group endgame. He might simply be burned out on the current (and largely final, esp. for Raids) offering.

Considering pVindicator is not only quite a bit easier to play than even Reaper (Vindicator is imo probably one of the easiest DPS out there) but also does the same if not more DPS than Reaper, last I checked, this a strange thread necro. They both also share the same weakness of lacking ranged DPS/have poor DPS uptime, but Vindicator is far stickier through Phantom's Onslaught and Nomad's Advance as extremely short CD mobility being part of the DPS rotation, as well as having superior avoidance with the Vindi Dodge (which also is part of the rota, rather than a DPS loss) as well as Imperial Guard (plus has optional group support with swapping in Jalis for group Stab with road for a minor DPS loss) - where as Reaper can get royally screwed with boss movement out of Nightfall+Wells Shroud precast, can get screwed with phase timings with Shroud and the mentioned precast, and can lose DPS when damaged in Shroud (while being entirely selfish). pVindi is imo pretty much flat out superior to pReaper (ease of play and performance) - unless the Boon Support is really bad in terms of Might and Quickness uptime especially, which Reaper supplies a high amount of uptime to itself. E: You/they may also be looking at cleave DPS with ads, rather than boss DPS - which may inflate numbers for Reaper with Shroud 4 esp.

This has been the fundamental problem with Necromancer design for almost a decade now, imo (and it's not even unique to GW2 unfortunately). And it's not just that "this is thematic" has priority over "why would anyone want to use this" - but more crucially that "this isn't thematic" comes over "what does this class need and what would be fun". There are so many crucial and maybe most importantly just simply fun and engaging mechanics Necromancer simply never can have, because it was largely arbitrarily decided that they all aren't thematic to the class. Ofc there are balance concerns with giving Necromancer for example active defenses out of Shroud, coupled with Shroud existing on some Specs to bounce between - but it is pretty frustrating that all those positive things like Blocks, Evades, Boons, Combos, Stealth, Clones, Shadowsteps, really what have you (all positives) apparently aren't part of the "Necromancer fantasy" (despite about all of them easily being able to be wrapped in a Necromancer-/adjacent thematic way) - and then all that's left for class theme is being slow, self inflicting conditions, health sacrifices, maximum health reduction, etc., which are all negative. Sword/Sword in many ways is a continuation of the (imo failure of) Harbinger design. You are asked to sacrifice something (HP Shielding Shroud, Max HP, Health, etc.), to open up some room to then give Necromancer some tools that they usually can't have otherwise.. but then they just don't. Why ask players to pay 5.000 HP for an AoE Fear on Consume (Sword 5), which can be countered by projectile hate (on top of being the Necro themed hard CC with the most counters ingame already, being cleansable on top of stunbreaks), when Reaper's Mark on Staff exists - doing more damage and the same effect, at a lower Cooldown, as a single skill use without dealing with flipovers, with less counters due not being a projectile, with far easier and faster targeting, optional alterations such as making it unblockable, etc. Making Necro (even-) more vulnerable out of Shroud with Health Sacrifices on Weapon skills, or by taking the Shroud away entirely as with Harbinger, are the opportunities and design spaces to give Necromancer new and fun tools to play with. Taking Sword 5 as example, just a higher Fear base duration, especially on a Power Kit, can't be the only gain here for that price. As is, it's mostly just "here, have more of what you already have, but kind of worse, and with a big thematic downside". The only good exception is the mobility on Sword 3, and that's ironically the one skill that feels like it doesn't belong on that weapon/skill kit (but rather on something like Dagger 3). Sacrifice health to do damage again to targets hit, but only on targets below 50% HP, or sacrifice health to do damage again to targets hit as well as a bit of Chill and Vuln, is so boring and uninspired as sacrificial flipovers - and that this "extra damage for health sacrifices" is far below what other kits like GS do just simply baseline, without sacrificial shenanigans, doesn't help ofc - although coefficients at least are most likely subject to change. It being more boring and uninspired "Necromancer thematic" design though likely isn't. E: Now if Sword 5's Orb would instead travel from you to a ground targeted location where it would then linger for a few seconds, pulsing it's Damage, and then during, for a Health cost, could be flipped over into a Feedback/Sanctuary type of skill, creating a projectile reflecting Dome pulsing Fear within for a few seconds - that could be a skill worth paying a good chunk of health for. Some actual Utility Necromancer usually doesn't have, worth the risk of rendering yourself more vulnerable if used properly. If these flipovers aren't situationally powerful but risky choices, then why bother with the mechanic at all. Spam click skill for "extra damage" at health cost (aka, balanced around doing that damage, so just pay health to do the usual because you are Necro) isn't interesting.

I never understood why Beta Characters don't just come with a full legendary armory - shouldn't be difficult to just make some basic skin items with Legendary functionality and to make that the default gear of any Beta Character. It doesn't really affect me since I'm mostly there on my account - but it just makes so much more sense than all these clunky outdated boxes of exotics, limited selection Sigils, etc. They would get much more valuable feedback if players could actually test these weapons with proper and different setups. Then again, true - it's just for personal testing around anyway.

Has there been any word on the missing Boon for Symbol of Ignition? Or is it intended to not have one - which seems like quite the break from Guardian design conventions, which I'm not exactly a fan of. Symbols pulsing a Boon is a key feature of that skill type. Other than that, if a Boon is added to the Symbol, I do like the general concept of placing it at your feet, and then standing in it to gain said boon and empower your attacks/shots through it - although the mechanics of it are maybe a tad needlessly complicated (pulsing Strike Damage baseline, so you still want it in melee/on target, triggering burns only on attacks on target also in Symbol, but then also applying Burns to ranged projectiles shot through it - I feel like there is a much simpler, clearer way of setting this skill concept up). The AA is boring, but that's in line with it being a Pistol. Is what it is. The Bleed rather than Burning on it does feel odd and unthematic to me, but I suppose it's good in terms of Relic of the Fractal purposes for solo play or w/e. The 2, Peacekeeper is a pretty simple albeit functional and fun skill - although it is a really strange decision to not make this work with the Symbol at range as it's not a projectile traveling through it - essentially forcing melee or the use off the Off-Hand Pistol for Hail of Justice to make use of Symbol of Ignition. So especially Pistol MH doesn't feel like a cohesive kit. Maybe Hail of Justice as a skill concept should have been the 2, and Peacekeeper in a form the OH 4. Hail of Justice, the OH 4, seems alright. Pretty generic "Unload" (or rather Thief Pistol Sneak Attack), but I don't really have too many thoughts on it, besides it's positioning issue kit-cohesiveness wise mentioned above. Also Bleed being somewhat strange, but same notes as AA on that. Jurisdiction, the OH 5, is probably the only part of these that I genuinely just don't like. The charging is fine - although quite counterintuitive to a Guardian Condition Damage weapon (which relies on quick attacks for Justice Procs), but the different charge levels having different targeting/projectile behaviors is just clunky - especially having to manually detonate the longest charge level, lest the projectile just flies past the target, doing less than Charge Level 1 or 2 compared to it's opportunity cost. Double tap spamming it isn't fun - not having to do that on Condi Guards anymore with this hopefully providing an alternative to Torch OH 4 was my biggest hope for this kit. Imo a (quickly and little thought out but possibly) better implementation with the same skill concepts would be: MH: 1. AA as is I suppose 2. Hail of Justice - a volley of Projectiles to be used in conjunction with 3. Symbol of Ignition, with an added pulsing boon and clearer design over when and what trigger's it's Strike Damage and Burns (maybe just boon pulse passively, but triggering extra strike damage and burns on each projectile shot in or through it) OH: 4. Peacekeeper, burning beam of light, increased CD and effect to reflect it's new positioning 5. Jurisdiction, probably better as just a 1-2 second charge big nuke, Detonating on Target Hit as with current charge level 2, getting rid of charges. Also probably would be better as an implosion with a pull. Condi Guard is all about cleaving Targets, getting as many hits out for Justice procs, Permeating Wrath AoE Burns - even the Pistol is all about piercing tightly stacked targets. Scattering Enemies all over the place with this is very counter productive. E: Visually, the very pronounced muzzle flashes and smoke effects out of the gun barrel firing upwards into the sky, triggering after the weapon fired and has recoiled up is pretty strange. The muzzle flash staying attached to the pistol as it recoils is an issue with all Pistols I think, but with an effect this big and bright it's extremely noticeable. I'm guessing the Symbol visual is a placeholder.

My expectations were fairly low/cautious for these, but I have to say, my first impression was quite the disappointment nonetheless. Largely PvE perspective: The weapon(s) imo feels quite slow and clunky. Damage feels quite low. Lifeforce feels quite low. The whole health sacrifice mechanic, as expected, imo feels like an annoying tacked on Necromancer theme tax at best. The mobility, while quite nice to finally have on a weapon, feels misplaced on this one - this is what Dagger 3 should have always been, not on this ranged kit. More specifically: 1. The AA: I just simply don't like AA's with harsh cadence breaks in them. Much like with Guard Hammer AA (which at least has a significant pay-off on the final Hit) this immediately makes a Weapon feel clunky to me. I much prefer AA's to distinguish themselves in visual, icon and audio design (see Necro Scepter) than feeling like a stutter to play. Also too much visual noise around character. 2. Just feels pretty floaty and boring - but while Ravenous Wave is fine, the flip over isn't. Satiate doing less damage than the (already lacking) AA, unless the target is below 50% health (do we need more of this after Gravedigger, Unholy Feast, Close to Death and co.?) - at which point it just does Ravenous Wave's damage again, except with a higher cast time and no LF gain, while also chunking your health.. what, why? 3. Path of Gluttony is Mobility on a Necromancer Weapon, so obviously amazing. Also has decent healing, very nice. The flip over is just the same again but with Boon Corrupt, so, cool. But the Life Cost negates all the healing of both uses and then some, just because Necromancer apparently always needs some arbitrary downside to get what others get for free. Meh. It's still easily the best thing about this weapon by far - but as mentioned above, this weapon doesn't feel like the place for it. The health cost, and the fact that it puts you into combat for a moment when used for mobility (and the inherent speed debuff of that) is just counterintuitive, unnecessary and feels bad, across the kit, but especially here. Could also be an evade or at the very least leap finisher. 4. Hungering Maelstrom feels incredibly slow and I don't really see the payoff. This feels like someone just looked at Focus 4&5 and decided to make it one skill - and it somehow feels worse than both of these, which both are already lacking and underwhelming. The only upside is it's AoE and has a cool Skill Effect - making good use of that nice Axe 3 crunch. 4k HP cost though? For what? These extra Life sacrifices are just not justified for what the kit does (or rather, doesn't). 5. Devouring Visage is.. fine, I guess? Could use more damage over a longer duration and then be a nice Shroud-Entry pre-cast along with Wells to benefit from Death Perception and Reaper's Onslaught. But as is, somewhat underwhelming - although arguably the least clunky skill of the kit, flip over notwithstanding. A Fear on Consume is nice, but not so much at an almost 5k HP cost. LF gain seems too low, along with just Ravenous Wave. Get's hard deleted by any projectile mitigation. All in all just a far worse Reaper's Mark with extra steps, counters and a steep life cost. Generally, once again no Boons, Evades/Blocks, Combo Interactions (Fields/Finishers), Projectile Mitigation, etc. is disappointing. Especially with how niche the weapons as Power Kit already are to just Reaper. Power Harb is still awful, and even if it wasn't, the health sacrifice mechanic would be even much more punishing there. The healing here and there on the Weapon would be fine, if the sacrifices wouldn't take away as much multiple times over. The Kit doesn't really have any satisfying builder/spender loop, rather than it just takes, without payoff. Outside of Path of Gluttony, I'm not particularly looking forward to using these for anything in this state (and I likely will always wish that had just been a Dagger 3 rework instead). Other's having observed pathing errors/terrain clipping on some of the skills, which knowing Skills like GS5, RS2, etc., likely won't be fixed for a decade to come, is even more concerning. P.s.: And after Harbinger's Elixir's, I hope these Placeholders really don't stay as the final Skill Icons for Necro this time 😉

Rather than changing Traits on a per Elite Spec basis, ensuring that every elite spec always wants to use the exact same meta Traitlines and Traits (and often "Utility" Skills and Weapons), playing largely the same way with the exception of just the Elite Specialisation Mechanic - I'd much rather see different Elite Specs synergise with different Traitlines, making them feel much less samey. Harbinger getting nothing out of some Traits in Soul Reaping, which has been a must pick on every PvE Necro build for eternity, would be completely fine if Harbinger, which is more focused around fast multihits than Core, Reaper and Scourge, would have had for example a Blood Magic Damage line available (in place of all it's dead traits), which it could take instead. Alchemic Vigor or one of the top line Power Traits could have been a trait multiplying the damage component only of Life Siphon's by ~4x (to avoid a situation like pre-nerf Battlescars Rev, which had such high Life Siphons both in damage and healing that Dance of Death became both the best DPS and Sustain Trait) - and the whole E-Spec would have had a different, more Vampiric, theme setting it apart from the other specs, while also solving it's increased need for sustain due to lack of Shroud and Barrier through BM, as well as the synergy struggles of SR, as well as providing Power Harb off-hand options with Focus and Warhorn becoming much more attractive, which are currently rather dead due to their Life Siphon mechanic massively underperforming. Likewise, cHarb could have been much more focused around Poison, and been synergising with Death Magic, with some buffs to Putrid Defense, as well as the finally upcoming change to Deadly Strength also granting Condition Damage (and ideally changing DM to grant percentage based DR, rather than Toughness). I personally find the lack of creativity on Anet's part in that regard fairly disappointing, where we end up just slotting different Elite Specs into the otherwise pretty much exact same cookie cutter Power or Condi build.

And while that does sound cool on paper, my point of contention is that then would compete with existing incredibly high powered, virtually immortal, Condi/Hybrid solo builds which can solo T4 Fractals and the like without ever dropping below 95% Health, while blasting their damage at 100% of their potential all of the time. Can I see this potentially being more fun, especially with the mobility aspect of the kit (if the skills are not movement locked/more fluid than they look a bit in the preview)? Certainly, at least for a time. Granted, they will probably be great for very casual play in OW content, where there is basically zero pressure, and that is the target audience - I'm sure we will see a flood of Sword/Sword camping Necro's there. And in PvP it's an auto include for Necromancer on likely every single build that will ever be made if the mobility skill is decent. If it's DPS is also good in group endgame PvE content with the flip over spam with a healer - I suppose that really all it needs to and can be. We'll see.

I'm cautiously optimistic about these, emphasis cautiously. On one hand, I've thought I'd never see the day Necromancer would get any mechanic beyond Boon Corrupt/Removal on weapons - so even just a single mobility skill (although granted, we don't know the extend of it yet, and it might get nerfed before ever seeing the light of release like Harbinger Shroud's mobility) is in a way revolutionary for Necromancer. On the other hand - while I don't think Swords as weapons would have been a fitting place for it, seeing how almost every profession got support elements on their new Weapons, it is pretty strange to see Necro, the one class with essentially close to absolute zero group support/interaction on their weapons (literally just some Regen and Condi removal on Staff), be one of the few exceptions here yet again. Additionally, it's a bit odd that they chose Strike Damage for these. If Sword/Sword turns out to be good, it essentially invalidates Axe, Dagger MH, Greatsword, Staff, Focus and Warhorn as weapons, in PvE at least, in my book, which never offered much compelling benefits to begin with, since Necro weapons largely have just been damage with little to no mechanics, like mobility, evades, blocks, boon support, projectile mitigation, cleanses, combo interactions, stealth, etc. With Scepter now also disappearing behind Pistol, and Dagger OH having been replaced by Torch in the Condi Landscape - we'll likely see just Pistol/Torch (Condi) and Sword/Sword (Power) as only proper "options" (with Scepter and Greatword on swap at most), with still zero dedicated Support options, and a graveyard of obsolete weapon kits. Now I've seen some people being optimistic here about potentially Dagger MH and Warhorn, or maybe even Staff, becoming proper Support Weapons now. About Axe reworks, Focus overhauls, and what have you. But I've been waiting for those for almost 11 years already, and nothing prevented a say proper Dagger, Warhorn and Focus overhaul up to this point either. Sword/Sword existing doesn't really make this more likely - unless old Weapon, Utility and Trait reworks will be the focus/"feature" of the next expansion or something. As for the Sword's themselves - I don't really share the excitement of some others about things like Health Sacrifice as a mechanic. Mechanics like that are usually either too punishing, too weak or obsolete/non-mechanics. It's not like they can give Sword/Sword crazy damage for the cost of health, as the kit would then overperform in group content where they can be freely used with a healer. So more likely, Necro will have to sacrifice health to do just as much damage as every other class does without that downside - which will then just screw the kit in solo play and such, without that dedicated healer by your side. Either that, or they make the cost and/or benefit so low that it doesn't really matter in either setting. It's like Dagger MH 3 self Bleed, or Corruption's self conditions, Blight, or comparing Signet of Mercy res vs. Signet of Undeath res, etc. - it's not like having to punish yourself makes these kits do anything fantastical above what weapon kits or Utilities of other classes can do without that downside, quite the opposite, they are often even weaker in effect despite of their downsides. You just have to pay an extra price because it's "thematic" to Necro, without any actual unique benefit or mechanical complexity. So this isn't exactly a selling point of Swords to me - but at least a straight health sacrifice won't be a Dagger 3 "screw yourself in solo play by making you stuck in combat with a self Bleed for little to no benefit" kind of deal. But who knows, with them being advertised as "stealing life" as well, maybe they got the balance right and it will make for a fun little life juggling gameplay loop - let's just hope it doesn't include any Life Siphon as mechanic though, dooming the weapon kit like Focus 4 and Warhorn 5 due to not benefitting from any Damage modifiers and lack of ability to Crit. Last but not least, I do think these Weapons need to come with a complete overhaul or massive buff to Power Harbinger and it's top line - otherwise, from what we know so far, this is literally just for Reaper, which between >50% Shroud uptime, Nightfall and Well pre-casts into Shroud, and Gravedigger Spam below 50% (which imo does need to change as well), barely spends any time using any weapon skills. Or potentially even Sand Savant, Feed from Corruption and Nourishing Ashes making room for a Scourge Power line, idk. Strike Damage weapon kits are pretty much the one thing Necro 1. already had in abundance (just bad and in need of reworks since a decade), 2. really has only one single Elite Spec as use case as of now, which 3. barely spends any time on actually using Weapon skills.