Dadnir.5038

I'm not sure giving race more impact would be a good idea. It would sure add flavor but it could also add "discrimination" which is not welcome. ANet already try hard to make racial skills irrelevant, adding a racial traitline bound to be irrelevant feel just like a waste of their time.

Probably possible. Nope, this would create a mess. Probably possible, however after the release of full e-spec, I guess the player base would be disappointed. Traitlines are to closely tied to the different core mechanism of the professions to make this suggestion viable. There would be a huge waste of traits for each traitline you take. Take elementalist's traitlines, there are so tightly tied to being attuned to a specific element that they would be almost useless for all other professions. Necromancer's traitline? Too bad, you don't have shroud. Mesmer? Where are your clones?... etc. ANd I'm not even taking into account the specific utility skill traits for utilities like: corruption, banner, spirit, consecration, venom... etc. that seem to be specific to each professions. I think this would be something possible, however, would it really have a relevant impact? It would increase the builds possibilities but, either some trait are busted and the traitline will become meta or the traitline will stay mostly irrelevant. It won't change greatly the state of the game and will certainly not fix the underlying core issue of each profession.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Beast Coupled with it's closest GW2 beast https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skelk This?

You'd have PvPers complaining all over the forum if it was the case. Imagine a low health pool profession with unblockable minus 150 vitality and drained every second by 1k damage life steal effect... This would create a riot. The vitality that the wiki refere to is the health point from the life stealing effect.

What I'm saying is that grimspecter don't impact your foes vitality. It just drain life from it and give you a stack of vitality each time you drain life which isn't stealing stat. Unless you are talking about leeching life but in this case you could also say that the scourge's trait feed from corruption is what you're looking for.

Do his foes have vulnerability? He is cleaving 3 players amongst whom there is one with clearly a tanky build (the sea of sorrow gold general). There is possibility that they are all under the effect of protection and that he got it's might corrupted into weakness if he had might... etc.

Well technically this isn't "stat steal", this is closer to a temporary stat buff on hit. But I'd find it interesting as well if we could reduce our foes stats and gain an equivalent stat buff with some utility skills.

At least reaper can have it... But yeah I also was disappointed that they introduced dark aura without giving the core necromancer the mean to get it. Maybe next necromancer e-spec is all about dark aura with a few leaps finishers on weapon, shroud or even utilities.

? "most balanced" scourge is so good it has been a part of every team in pvp since its release. Every good team in rPvP has a discussion at the beginning of the match where they're like, "focus the necro or were screwed". Every game. It dominates any and every team fight. There shouldn't be only one profession that can fill a role, that runs counter to the game's design. Both elite specs for necro are amazing (not buying that reaper shroud is a "trade off" it's just a straight buff) The only reason scourge is this dominant in PvP is because ANet stack boon hate on the necromancer and barely give any to the other professions while at the same time making boons extremly cheap and easy to get. Scourge was Anet's silly answer to the rampant boon meta that plague PvP and WvW. The fact is that it's a lazy answer that do little to balance the game. People are thus warry of the necromancer but also know very well that a necromancer is easy to kill especially, which in itself isn't an issue. That said, ANet showed that they are willing to give boon hate tools to other profession (Spellbreaker) and there is historically another profession that also have boon hate tools albeit unexploited by the PvP players (Mesmer). NB.: Reaper shroud is a tradeoff in thee sense that this shroud have a higher LF decay than death shroud and a loss of range, justifying higher offensive abilities. Isn't it natural for something that cost more to utimately "do" more? Beside, ANet tend to favor melee damages over range damage due to the "higher" risk involved in taking on a foe in melee range. The only real advantage of reaper shroud is that it's mostly less frustrating to use than death shroud due to it's attack speed yet again this come at the expense of both range and LF sustain, which is a fair trade.

So much about the relevance of PvE damage. I'll try to break it down to you one last time for you: It doesn't matter if 35k damage is only possible in PvE. If Anet decided to bring this number to 20 it'd obviously affect damage everywhere including PvP (because it'd affect the base damage and scaling of numerous weapon skills/traits that are used everywhere). I'm suggesting to shoot for a lower PvE benchmark to create an all around healthy combat system.The main flaw in your reasoning is that PvE don't chase after the "burst" that bother you but mainly a sustain amount of damage. PvP issue is burst not the 35k sustained dps in PvE. If you nerf the 35k sustained dps in PvE it will do nothing to your issue. However, this "burst" is also needed in PvP because players have damage mitigation tools and if the burst is to low you fall into a bunker meta that nobody like in PvP. No I'm implying that whether you buff or nerf PvE damages, PvP players will complain about either bunker meta or condi-cancer meta or whatever. If the burst is lower PvP players will complain that they can't kill bunkers. The worst point is that they already complain about it which mean the amount of "damage" (burst) that you complain about is already a necessity in the current PvP game. It could technically be possible for ANet to increase PvE DPS to 300k without affecting PvP in anyway, throught food, PvE mastery and teamplay. The issue is that you focus to much on PvE numbers that are meaningless in PvP. Nobody in it's right mind would use a PvE meta build in PvP because a meta dps build in PvE is entirely dependent on the other meta support to be effective. You just can't align the "stars" in PvP like you do in PvE. Like I said, your issue is "solo burst" and that's what you need to address not PvE numbers on which a "solo burst" nerf would have little to no impact.

Like I said before, you are wrong in your basic hypothesis that damages in PvP are balanced around PvE. First, PvE benchmark can't be achieved in PvP due to amulets giving less stat than a PvE full end game gear and the use of food on which this benchmark is dependant. All in all just this probably already shave 5k to the 35k dps you point out. If you add the fact that this dps is achieved with heavy boons, unique buffs and condition requirement, achieving such dps in PvP is just unlikely. The second point is that the PvP subforum constantly ask for buff and nerf dependent of the PvP meta. The reality is that the current level of damage in PvP were wildly asked. People wanted power damage to outdo condition damage and that's what they got. At this point if ANet were to nerf the damage like you suggest, condition damage would outdo power damage again and we would enter again in a condi-cancer era which would make the PvP player base highly unsatisfied. The last point is that the game have defensive mechanisms that affect PvP infinitely more than it affect PvE where those mechanism are mostly nullified: weakness, cripple, chill, protection... etc. These condition and boons are extremly powerful against players to the point that a player that would otherwise hit you with a 35k hit wouldn't even reach 10k if he is under the effect of weakness alone. If you add protection these 10k are even more reduced by 30% and the reductions goes on and on. The real issue of PvP and the game in general isn't the PvE benchmark being at 35k. This number don't have the slightest bit of effect in PvP. The real issue is how easy it is for a dps build to quickly provide himself with offensive and defensive boons while being at the same time able to build vulnerability on it's foe. Never forget that PvE factor in the fact that 10 men are required to maintain the required boons and conditions to achieve these 35k dps. It's when you don't need teamwork to achieve a balance of high damage and survivability that something is wrong. This is the case in PvP for some professions but it is not due to PvE, it's entirely due to the contant whinning in this subforum for buff and nerfs which led ANet to give away boons and non damaging conditions for cheap.

It really depend on what playstyle I want to have but, usually, I'm using a bunch of shouts and locust signet (for the movement speed QoL) in PvE.

My main issue is the lack of reliable option to make the thief able to take a beating. Somehow it cruelly lack a reliable access to protection and/or way to increase it's toughness. I know that there is a bunch of damage reduction traits but they feel unreliable. Otherwise: "Bursty" stealth attacks aren't good design. It's fun to use but unfun to play against and I got the feeling that the whole profession's damage is nerfed to take into account the potential burst of these stealth attacks. Dagger and riffle stealth attacks should be reworked to give an advantage which isn't "burst". I believe that a daze and maybe some vuln stacks, even with medium to low damage, would create an healthier gameplay.The exhaustion thing need to go. Replace it by weakness if needed, but this debuff that cannot be cleansed should not even exist in this game.The shape of the traps make them difficult to use in combat unlike all other traps in this game.The ambush trap is not a bad idea in itself but the thief it summon is neither strong enough nor resilient enough to justify a 35 second CD. Reduce base CD to 25 seconds in order to allow a gameplay where you sustain the thief.

Well they are kitten wrong if they think hp can make necromancers tanky anywhere except open world. It's been the case since core release and there have been plenty of players complaining about how necromancers and their "2nd health pool" are tanky. And in fact using HP to tank is more effective in PvP/WvW than it will ever be in PvE open world or not. Mobs design isn't kind for players that let themselve being hitten and the scaling in group event make it worst in open world. The only saving grace of this system in PvE is that with no ally around outside of your minions you can outsustain most of the non-scaled things you'll encounter there. So all in all tanking with HP is like that: Non-scaled Open world PvE: Top defense.Scaled Open world PvE: Below average defense.Dungeon/fractal: Slightly above average defense.Raid: Slightly above average defense.PvP (teamfight): Above average defense.Solo PvP/WvW: Low defense.WvW (large scale fight): Below average defense.WvW (smale scale fight): Above average defense.

Honnestly, I would probably just recenter the berserker thematic around "being on fire" instead of "going berserk". Torch change: add fire aura to both skills. (honnestly with how weak auras are, it's a minor change that don't threaten in any way the balance of the game)Berserk: Give you an attack speed boost, fire aura and access to primal burst. You no longer need 3 full pip of adrenaline to enter berserk, instead berserk duration is set at 5s per pip used/consumed when entering berserk mode.Last blaze: Changed to: primal bursts grant fire aura.Smash brawler: reduce berserk mode CD by 5 seconds instead of increasing it's duration.King of fire: increase burn duration. Using a rage skill burn foes around you, if you are under the effect of fire aura detonate the aura for more damage and burn.Burst of aggression: Gain quickness (2s) and swiftness (4s) whenever you gain fire aura.Fatal frenzy: When under the effect of fire aura gain 120 power/condition damage. Bonus stat doubled when in berserk mode.

Topic is: "balance of adrenaline gain/decay is wrong." My answer was: "there are already core traits that help with that." It trigger you for no real reason and you say: "traits don't count" while you shamelessly take into account a trait and a skill into your maths. I point it out and your telling me that I'm not on topic? So let's be clear, if you're gonna complain about adrenaline generation on warrior you have to take into account every warrior abilities that build adrenaline into your "maths" not just a few. By your own definition, both versatile rage and signet of rage shouldn't be taken into account into your "maths" because those are simply optionnal, those are thing that you take when you make your build. Your whole premise is that the warrior take discipline as a traitline, somehow swap weapon every 5 seconds and equip signet of rage, which mean there is already the skeleton of a build. So if I'm not on topic when I say that you can build for it, your thread isn't on topic either which would be a stupid concept since the thread is the topic.

I would have said that understanding ANet is a pain in itself.

Did you not read the post? The post clearly references the passive adrenaline gain Vs Adrenaline depletion. The mathematical proof shows that the rate adrenaline depletes while out of combat is much much greater than the rate at which you gain it. I even calculated the RATE of adrenaline gain and depletion for comparison. Why don't people ever read the posts, it is as if they just want to start an argument just to troll.I even took the time to include fast hands passive adrenaline gain and this is how you pay me? with a straw man fallacy? With traits and skills that grant adrenaline, adrenaline depletion is not that big of a problem, HOWEVER, it is still a problem for builds that do not have adrenaline gain because as you know once adrenaline depletes, it is depleted fast at an approximate rate of -2.3 adr/sec. If you're gonna take into account adrenaline coming from skills, it's a given that you should take into account adrenaline from trait. Versatile rage being a trait after all and not so passive, since it require weapon swap, I'm thinking that I "pay you" just right. It's not "a problem", it's anyone choice to either build for adrenaline or not, there are plenty of trait and abilities on the warrior that don't require adrenaline to work.

While I get your point I'd still rather see "Thief GS" threads spammed all day every day rather then wake up one time and find out Thief got Focus/Warhorn/Torch for next Elite. Torch fit a lot better thief than GS thought. How do you expect a thief to do it's thieveries while wielding a huge shunk of metal. Torch is a lot better, you can use it's light to create shadows in which you can hide, use it's fire smoke as smoke field or simply burn the house you just rob. This works both ways, how do you expect Thief to do its Thieveries when its revealing itself by bright flame and shedding light to places where there otherwise would be darkness and shadows =D"There is no shadow without light, the brighter the light the darker the shadow!"But all in all, it's just like what derd said, blinding your foe which is already close to be a thief specialty and e-spec tend to expand on specialties. Honnestly as much as i can picture a sneaky profession with a torch, I just can't picture it with a greatsword. What are the options? Bandit?

Using a traited axe increase tremendously your rage gen. Traiting furious into arms also benefit adrenaline generation. It's obvious that there are in game options for this "issue" that don't seem to be taken into consideration in this "mathematic proof". Fortunately, going into arms also improve critical chance.

While I get your point I'd still rather see "Thief GS" threads spammed all day every day rather then wake up one time and find out Thief got Focus/Warhorn/Torch for next Elite. Torch fit a lot better thief than GS thought. How do you expect a thief to do it's thieveries while wielding a huge shunk of metal. Torch is a lot better, you can use it's light to create shadows in which you can hide, use it's fire smoke as smoke field or simply burn the house you just rob.

Main issue isn't the damage, but the fact that in a recent patch they changed skills that destroy/reflect projectile to be counted as block. This made unstoppable union effectively overperforming. Unstoppable union, as a minor trait should affect a single hit, no more, no less. When the devs released the preview of the april 23rd, 2019 balance patch it was already said in the feedback by the players, this change should have long been done as a hotfix.

This is because it was the case in GW1 that devs choose to avoid it in GW2. Lifesteal in GW1 was considered as too strong a mechanism, the devs didn't want a second "ranger touch".

the main thing about that though is: because 212(base) x 5 targets = 1000 a tick sure, but that's also accounting for what is effectively an "enemy that doesn't have eyes" and if the enemy does more than 1000 per second, which is nothing unusual, then that doesn't help, especially since to heal for that 1k a tick (5k per well) you need 5 enemies, all of which have to do between 0-200 damage to get ANY benefit, otherwise you're just "reducing damage you take" at the end, since you have to stand inside the well and they have to stand inside the well. If you are ina well, 5 enemies and you, you heal for 1000, if each enemy does 1000 a hit, that's 4k you take as opposed to 5k, if you have 4k health left before this, you die, If you have 5k you survive on 1k and won't survive another. Lifesteal as it is now Heals for basically nothing except the most specific of specific circumstances, and IN those specific circumstances you have to be RIGHT in the line of fire to even be healed. Heal from shouts? you need 5 targets, Heal from well? 5 targets, any less and you aren't even being healed enough to warrant using any lifesteal. now that the focus and warhorn reworks gutted the entire thing, focus 4 hitting ONE target heals for basically nothing, warhorn with such a low duration, PBAoE and a large visual effect basically heals for nothing- At the BEST Possible outcome, Warhorn heals for 1850, this is less than dagger 2, which has - more range, shorter cast, but can be interrupted by looking away, Dagger 2 at BEST heals for: 4050, this will heal even if you are blocked, but not if you miss, so the warhorn in BEST POSSIBLE SCENARIO heals Less than dagger 2. And Dagger isn't even that strong because it has no mobility and no way to counter anything, ( made a post about weapon rework yada yada), Sorry if this started to rant on a bit - but they need to focus more on "average" than "best outcome", and even then their best outcome is worse than a skill that is easier to use. I constantly feel like they nerf necromancer and don't take anything players say into consideration, yeah some people complained about focus 4, but I think the unanimous idea was make it Home like dagger 4, instead it's now worse as it doesn't home, does less damage, Less healing because regeneration lasted longer less vulnerability, but more life force which we don't even need because when things die we get life force. They also certainly didn't balance it for Pvp/WvW as it doesn't pierce, and can be blocked etc. I understand how you feel, but you can't rule out the maximum potential of something with arguments like: ennemies will avoid it. It's like saying that an invuln skill do nothing because players don't hit you when you use it. The defensive mechanism of the necromancer is flawed at it's core but the whole necromancer is balanced around it. Modifying the lifestealing effects the way you suggest would shatter the balance and give to much potential sustain to dps spec like I've said before. Each time ANet add a bunch of lifesteal effects on the necromancer they do it very carefully, truth be told I think the GS trait was them being very daring but considering all the previous nerfs to reaper's sustain (shroud uptime and spectral skills nerf) they had some margin to do it.

While I can't and won't disagree with what was said about focus and warhorn. The fact is that the current way necromancer's lifesteal effects work favor a tanky gameplay that might have been envisionned before release of the game. To put it simply, a cleric necromancer that focus on life steal is "metrically OP" with high sustain and above average (amongst cleric builds) damage that ignore defense. It's a relic of the past that don't fit the view that modern players have of the game but produce a level of sustain and associated damage that can be qualified as "OP" when all the stars align. For example, you have to take into account that traited, each well have the potential to heal you for 6k to 7.5k without healing power. Which mean that you can litterally fill your utility bar with pseudo heal skills that also deal a similar amount of damage. Moreover, if ANet were to allow lifesteal to crit and proc things it would favor DPS builds, which mean that you wouldn't give up offense for defense and this would lead tanky build to be less tanky than offensive build... In other words, a balance mess (even if gw2 isn't a tank-friendly game since it's well known that in this game the best defense remain offense). The necromancer's defense is all about health points and lifesteal, as it is designed, is part of this original defensive system of the necromancer. ANet showed with the scourge that they aren't willing to change this philosophy of defending through health point, instead they are more than ready to expand on it and share it with other professions.