Agrippa.1693

It's really interesting how you can look at the top line numbers there and conclude that Scourge is trash DPS.Who says that I'm concluding that, where do I exactly say that? I never said that they're trash. I think I actually literally said that they're viable, just the bottom of the barrel! A lackey of the real Condi Kings! And that they are! Though I do know something that you were exactly saying, though! Let me quote it for you: But hey let's just do what you ask: We're going to have a look at the Mirage here then: which is dealing 21.1K dps here, whereas the Scourge is only doing 14.6K. That's a difference of 6.5K dps. So the Mirage is doing 44.5% more DPS than a Scourge here! But the Mirage is quite fight dependant, as you said,So Firebrand then: 17.6K dps: which is 20,5% better than the Scourge! Still not 15% right? Or are there excuses for that one as well? Renegade then? 35,6% better. Condi Holo (I wouldn't draw too much conclusions from it, though, cause the 'n' is quite small but still:), 39% better! Etc.Really ... just admit that your math (15% ... which imo is STILL quite a lot, but ok, as you can see, it's not even that) is faulty. And if, even after you've seen the real numbers, keep on spreading false information like that, you're blatantly spreading lies (on purpose)! And I really wonder why you do that? Do you have a grudge against Necro's?

Cool, now apply that same standard to how fast you can kill a golem!Sure, no problem there, I'm not talking about Golem here anyway: btw, Firebrand, Weaver, Ren would be doing more than 30% than the condi Scourge on a Golem, but hey, like you said, Golem should imo never be a standard to balance to! 15% was generous. Scourge overperforms vis-a-vis other condi classes in actual raid fights, despite much lower golem benchmarks. It turns out that an easy to play and durable character with a lot of incidental power makes a big difference in uncontrolled environments. Outside the silliness of the Largos Twins, 15% is about right for the gap between a condi Scourge and a Mirage or Firebrand. That puts it on par with condi soulbeast and condi berserker - builds that I suspect you would also consider unplayable trash?Please stop it! You're really fueling people with wrong information: let's take a look at Cairn with REAL statistics this time: https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-17194As you can see the best Scourges (99th percentile) do about 24K dps there, whereas the best Weavers and Mirages do about 32K, that's about 33% more dps than the Scourge puts out. I hear you thinking, but those are the best of the best, speedclearers, etc. Ok, let's compare the 50th percentiles then: the more mediocre raiders! It's even worse there: Weavers and Mirages do about 45% more DPS there! So your whole "easy to play and durable character" theory is a bit opposite in this case, don't you think?But why stop at looking at Cairn: let's take Dhuum, our ultimate PvE endgame content: https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-19450Here in the 50th Percentile, the cRenegade (11.7K) does exactly 30% more DPS than the cScourge (9K)VG: https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-15438 Scourge (9K); Weaver (14K) = 55%Gorseval: https://gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-15429 Scourge (11K); Weaver (16.8) = 52% (fun sidefact, on this Powerboss, Reaper is doing 11.7K whereas Weaver, DH and Daredevil are all doing 14K+ .... still 20% more as the BEST DPS build the Necro has to offer!!!)Sabetha ... well, you get the jist! there's litterally not one boss, where Scourge is in the top regions or very close to it, not even where they're META: Soulles Horror, where they're about 32% behind! You mean raid speed clears. You don't mean fractals obviously. No one is going to be surprised to hear that condi specs are not particularly good against Arkk, but that's not a reason to say that Mirage is trash. That would also be conveniently overlooking how strong power Reaper is against Arkk. No, you mean raid speed clears.See above: all my examples are 50th percentile: so, casual to veteran raiders, NOT the pro's ...and you're right! Necromancers are not a top tier class for speed clearing raids! Now explain to the audience why speed clearing raids is the thing to judge balance by in this game, and not just another very niche self-constructed challenge that says nothing about...well, anything actually!Well, for instance, speedclearing raids is something that's done on a weekly basis by FAR more guilds, statics, etc. compared to solo-ing Arkk CM! I mean, that might be 20 to 30 people IN TOTAL. And like I said, there are several classes that has already broken the Scourges record, so even in that very niche challenge, the Scourge is not THAT great! Lastly, I'm not even talking about speedclearing. Look above: I'm talking about raiding in general! As statistics clearly shows: the supposed to be condi king in this game is nothing more than a lackey hardly good enough for polishing shoes for the real kings: mirages/weavers/renegades/firebrands/etc.

It was, by a wide margin, the easiest class to solo hard content on, for instance Arkk CM. Chrono had a higher peak potential, but soloing on a chrono required near-perfect play, while merely very good play would get the job done on a Scourge.It's funny because I have a complete different experience with Arkk CM. And most have, btw. You just give anecdotal proof here. And if you look at real statistics it's only one thing that really makes Arkk CM incredibly easy (and fast): DAMAGE, and a lot of it! You can skip a lot of mechanics that way. And you know which class is actually your worst pick in that matter .... indeed, the Necro (and all its specializations)!!! EDIT: sorry, my bad, I see you were referring to solo-ing Arkk CM: well, it's been done better by other classes already (just do a search), but let's assume you're on the right track here, and Scourge would be the absolute record holder in this very niched self-constructed (read: player-constructed) challenge, it still says nothing about ... well anything really! I mean, I think thief holds the record of highest critter damage .... what should we do with this info??? Or the fastest solo for Lupicus that has been recorded is now set by a Firebrand ... again, what should we, or better yet: ANet, do with this info? But most important: these are all very anecdotal references of people that created their own challenges, which is mostly not even widely competed at as well. We're not talking about speed clearing raids here, which has pretty much fully supported competitions out there (btw: where Necro is generally again considered as your worst pick!)

I'm actually one of those that find it even kind of fair that the Scourge got nerfed in PvP and was supposed to receive nerfs in WvW (although ANet failed again, by the looks of it). They have been a staple in those gamemodes for a long time now! I hope its place is going to be covered by new blood now, they deserve it! I still have to come across the first Mesmer or Ranger main that wishes themselves completely out of the PvE endgame META which they've been dominating since HoT, so that it can be replaced by new blood, i.e. by Necro's??!!! they definitely deserve it!

I kinda agree with your situational sketch here, and I'm sure absolutely everyone agrees with your last two tiers. But you forgot to compare it to other classes: like the Warrior which is pretty much a god in all your tiers! But forget about the Warrior (imo the most OP class in whole of PvE atm), everyone seems to also forget you don't HAVE to run full Berserker/Assassin or Viper gear. I mean, I can tell by own experience that even Ele is absolutely god tier in the hands of every beginner if you give it full Celestial, but no-one does that! Or slap on Harriers in combination with Magi's and It also carries much better in raids than any Necro can! Everyone tends to forget these kind of builds which pretty much any other class has examples of. But that's understandable, cause all these other classes also have several META (read: in your PvE Legendary and Platinum tiers) builds at their disposal. So it's completely understandable that even lower tier players are mostly focussing on these META builds (btw, also because of sites like snowcrows, etc.), and I would even recommend it as well, cause it's the best way to simply get good and stay useful once you get in these higher tiers. The only reason why these beginner tier builds are widely known for Necro only, is simply because they don't have real higher tier builds (like you also acknowledged yourself).

The point is that the necromancer is a "condi king", it's designed to be one afterall. The issue there is not the necromancer, it's PvE.And again, that's the issue! They can balance gamemodes separately, but they just don't. At least not for the Necromancer (or not enough). I really don't care that much if they nerf the Necro in PvP and/or WvW as long as they really deserve it. I don't consider myself a veteran WvW or PvP player but considering my previous experience, I'm also not a casual, and according to my own experience, they are (were) in the top tier if it comes to usefulness, so it's fine they receive nerfs there, it's only fair.But again, in PvE, it's all but fair! They're not in a good spot at all, and ANet should fix that. Sure you can make it incredibly complex: i.e. by doing an advanced makeover in encounter design, or by changing the whole design of the Necromancer itself, or adding an elite spec that solves all of the before-mentioned issues of the Necro, or changing the way how conditions behave in PvE, etc., etc. And IMO that would actually be the right things to do, but after so many years and also considering the announcements lately AND don't forget the latest patch (I mean: the Death Magic redesign was absolutely laughable), I've got a feeling they will never do that!So please ANet: and throw us a bone here and just give us some simple buffs the Necromancer so much needs in PvE only. Merely tweaking some numbers as you always do with split changes: i.e. some higher condi stacks and/or durations in PvE only; some power DPS enhancements in PvE only; augmenting some shareable buffs (like Vampiric Presence) in PvE only; etc.If we can't have the real deal, at least give us that!

I know the solution to this .... Give the Necro Toughness ... surely that's what they need! ANet's issue is that they made the necromancer self sufficient in might generation and quickness. They also made it so the necromancer have huge gain of raw stats from few traits. This was made to make the necromancer's dps competitive against other profession's dps. However, by doing this they forgot why other profession weren't self sufficient in might stacking and quickness, making the necromancer overperforming in PvP/WvW. Obviously, now, a majority of profession can self sustain their might generation, yet the necromancer still do it faster (usually) with relatively low risks, low complexity involved. The vocal majority being the one having an accute conscience of how effective thing are against their own character, the necromancer is viewed as having more than enough dps. The fact that it's lackluster in PvE don't really affect this vocal majority, while the necromancer having more dps would affect them and they would be pretty angry. The necromancer is a bit to unique in it's concept, in the context of GW2 he stand out like a sore point. It's gameplay and tools pretty much sum up most the things that the vocal majority want to see removed from the game. A seemingly passive gameplay, low reliance on active defense, heavy spam of conditions, high number of area denial skills... etc. Every single point of the necromancer's design is an eyesore for the players that seek what they label as "skillfull gameplay". Which is, all in all PvP/WvW concern. What ANet did since launch is basically enforcing patch after patch their design of the necromancer. But that's the real issue, they're not really! You can't stay true to one part and dare I say it, the most negative part of their design (passive play/defences etc.), but completely forget about the other part of it: because it's also supposed to be a Condi King to be reckoned with (like you said yourself: "heavy spam of conditions")! In PvE, it already was the worst Condi class you could choose, benchmarking lower than any other class out there. And after the latest patch, it's probably even worse now (definitely if it comes to moving targets).It's just unfair to the Necro community!

I know the solution to this .... Give the Necro Toughness ... surely that's what they need!

This is a very interesting point you make, but I always wonder what you and anyone else reading this would rather choose (if you HAVE to choose):A meta where all 9 classes have a spot in the 10-man squad with a quite specific/pigeon-holed role they performORAn almost perfect balance where there is almost no real diversity between classes, so it doesn't really matter which class you take, they all do the job as fine as the other I know they're both outer bounds of the spectrum, but what should ANet according to you (and anyone else) balance towards, because I've got a feeling they're not really sure themselves. You indeed give the examples of unique class buffs: Banners and Spirits (changed from 5 to 10 players), but ANet did quite the opposite with Alacrity being a unique mesmer buff before, and making it more available across the board now. Why not take it 1 step further mix the 9 classes down to 1 class and be done with it? I know they're both really outer-bound, but it's not called 'balancing' for nothing. You will never achieve perfect balance (and you probably don't even want to) because of numerous reasons: the sheer complexity of it being one of them. But I do think you should have at least a direction in mind: i.e. your goal should never be actively unbalancing the game. And I also know the spectrum is never this 2 dimensional. But if you HAVE to choose between those two simplified balanced states, which one would you choose and why?(but if I read your sarcasm correctly you would rather go towards the first state than the latter, right? Why?)Edit: to add to my last question for: @Linken.6345: The latter was actually the design philosophy which ANet aimed for when they launched GW2 back in 2012: Every class is capable to heal, deal damage, tank, etc.: the specific role design came more or less with the launch of HoT after a lot of feedback from the community (so they said) steering towards that direction. Yes every class should be self suffiecent thats not the same as making them balanced in a group composition at all tho.Right now every class can survive by their own 10 skills just fine in the game anet nailed it down perfectly. In groups or raids (dubble groups) thats not going to be the same beast at all. ( not the way they have been churning em out and I dont know if you can make em were 10 people do 10 diffrent things on 150 diffrent traitline compositions and be equaly good at everything tbh) First clearly you dont remember the 1 mesmer 4 warrior meta in dungeons before hot release it was even worse then now.I definitely can (or with thief for skips), I never said ANet did a good job at it, I actually think they did a terrible job at it, but it was their design philosophy. And my sarcasm was towards option 2 not option 1oops, misread you there! Since we dont have option 1 now all 9 classes dont have a pigoned holed hole to fit in.Were in the pve meta do necromancer or any of it elite specs fit in mate?I agree wholeheartedly: again, ANet isnt that great at balancing imho, I mean: the Necro is literally a meme in the PvE endgame and has been since launch! I'm a big advocate of starting to fix that issue urgently (being the fact that it's my primary since launch). But what makes it even worse, is that ANet doesnt even have a philosophy and/or general direction anymore, by the looks of it! I mean, take the Death Magic rework: it couldn't be more useless regarding the PvE endgame ... what were they thinking: what's their direction? What's their philosophy behind it? Where would it fit in a PvE endgame scenario? Just an example of course, since you mentioned the Necro!If wer going by meta we would have nothing but what power chrono dps, power dhs, condi 40k weavers and mirrages. ( only fight I seen mirrages prefered is twins other then that you look for cdps or dps)Tanks only chrono and healers 1 druid +1 healer if needed. If you want anet to buff more people to 10 man buffs like spotter (ranger), assassins presence (revenant) . life leech (necro buff that one damage vise obviously) pinpoint (engi)Empower allies (war)Elementalist could give 10 wide crit chance boost maybeMesmer 10 man chance to dubble strike your weapon get a mirror image.Guardian will need something else their buffs toughness.Thief I really have no idea.Yea, could be a solution, you are a bit pigeon holed of course, if you want to raid with a certain class, you have to take that unique buff, but it's not like it's a very severe change from the builds you can choose from now (they are by design quite pigeon holed as well). So all in all, I think you got at least my vote there! Wondering what others think, though! If thats what you want then advocate for more 10 wide buffs so you only need 1 of each class. ( and Im all for that to happen but it wont unless the buffs are significant) Then you get the oh I want to play x class, check lfg all the groups in looking for group already have x class anet please buff my class since I cant play it.Well, and there you mention indeed another issue that you'll probably see happening then! Might still be better than the alternative where you sometimes see where certain classes are literally kicked in advance or at least frowned upon, cause they're just not good enough! But its not going to change that some classes do better at some bosses then others.If you want balance cut 8 out of 9 classes thats the only way to get balanceSure, that's the absolute extreme, you can still go for 9 different classes, they do the same (same numbers, same statistics, etc.), their look and feel just differ. Again, not really what anyone want, but you could at least go towards a more fully self-sufficient: every class can fulfil every role kind of balance (which is more towards the original second option I was proposing ... not really my favourite ... I think)

I thinks that's more or less reality as well at the moment (save for some odd ones out), and maybe we should be happy with what we have at the moment. But it's also a bit of a weird "balance" as well, don't you think? Why are there only a few classes (or 2-3 like you mentioned) allowed to do real good support/heal/other specific roles and (almost) all classes should be good at dealing DPS?

This is a very interesting point you make, but I always wonder what you and anyone else reading this would rather choose (if you HAVE to choose):A meta where all 9 classes have a spot in the 10-man squad with a quite specific/pigeon-holed role they performORAn almost perfect balance where there is almost no real diversity between classes, so it doesn't really matter which class you take, they all do the job as fine as the other I know they're both outer bounds of the spectrum, but what should ANet according to you (and anyone else) balance towards, because I've got a feeling they're not really sure themselves. You indeed give the examples of unique class buffs: Banners and Spirits (changed from 5 to 10 players), but ANet did quite the opposite with Alacrity being a unique mesmer buff before, and making it more available across the board now. Why not take it 1 step further mix the 9 classes down to 1 class and be done with it?I know they're both really outer-bound, but it's not called 'balancing' for nothing. You will never achieve perfect balance (and you probably don't even want to) because of numerous reasons: the sheer complexity of it being one of them. But I do think you should have at least a direction in mind: i.e. your goal should never be actively unbalancing the game. And I also know the spectrum is never this 2 dimensional. But if you HAVE to choose between those two simplified balanced states, which one would you choose and why?(but if I read your sarcasm correctly you would rather go towards the first state than the latter, right? Why?)Edit: to add to my last question for: @Linken.6345: The latter was actually the design philosophy which ANet aimed for when they launched GW2 back in 2012: Every class is capable to heal, deal damage, tank, etc.: the specific role design came more or less with the launch of HoT after a lot of feedback from the community (so they said) steering towards that direction.

This is a very interesting point you make, but I always wonder what you and anyone else reading this would rather choose (if you HAVE to choose): A meta where all 9 classes have a spot in the 10-man squad with a quite specific/pigeon-holed role they performORAn almost perfect balance where there is almost no real diversity between classes, so it doesn't really matter which class you take, they all do the job as fine as the otherI know they're both outer bounds of the spectrum, but what should ANet according to you (and anyone else) balance towards, because I've got a feeling they're not really sure themselves. You indeed give the examples of unique class buffs: Banners and Spirits (changed from 5 to 10 players), but ANet did quite the opposite with Alacrity being a unique mesmer buff before, and making it more available across the board now.

What I hate the most, is that ANet is trying to fix (read: nerf) the Necro in WvW and PvP, but they're again tagging it along in PvE, where this class is considerably the worst pick in the game (especially the PvE endgame), and has been for so long now. And again, making it even worse! Also, I can't help to feel they tried to make the Necro more interesting in all gamemodes (including PvE) with the new Death Magic, but couldn't be more wrong with the changes they implemented. In PvE Toughness is THE most worthless stat you can build around, and exactly that one stat the Necro needed the least: it's literally the worst damage dealer in the game: let's give it toughnessit's the most selfish class in the game: let's give it solely applying to self: toughnessit's the one and only class in the game with terrible active defences: let's give it the most passive defence in the game: toughnessI really don't get it!!!

How is it nerf in pve ? In raids, where I really enjoy playing scourge, it's ability to land shade abilities is going to be awful on bosses that move a lot. If a boss moves out of your shades all your shade abilities become completely useless now there will be no pulsing AoE around your character. If a boss moves too much you will have to just not use sand shades at all to be able to use your shade abilities on the boss which would be a over dps loss for a class that's already underperforming. This is going to be painful on bosses like soulless horror. I think Shade is still doing fine even the nerf comes. It has lower cd compared to the WvW version and also you have Alacrity which makes the cd even lower.I dont think Scourge will have any problems to keep the Shade up on bosses, Just a bit harder to land skills properly.It will get a lot harder. Dps might go up a bit on golem, but overall it will still be below 30k.How would dps go up a bit on golem? Am I missing a buff here? More dmg from poison and the poison Nova's will get stronger when selecting deathmagic But you are going to give up curses or soul reaping for death magic which would result in an immediate dps loss in itself what are you thinking?Or did you forget you need the scepter trait from curses and dhuum fire from soul reaping??? You would be surprised how little Soul Reaping adds for Scourge, but just the extra Toughness you get from DM makes it pretty unplayable in endgame group content for tanking reasons. Don't think any tank is want to go that high just so someone can play a subpar DPS like Necro. Only use of Scourge (or Necro in general), with or without DM, in all of PvE from what I see will be Soulless Horror, where you can tank with Trailblazer and maybe now taking DM while being the Epi bot.Aside from that, just don't even bother playing Necro. It was already so far behind everything else and now it's even worse. Hmmm, I was actually thinking about this, and this is theorycrafting to the max of course, but might there be a new role in store for the Necro (mostly Scourge probably)? A full DPS tank!? You can go full viper (or berserker if you want) and still have the most toughness. That way the rest could go base toughness entirely.No Support tanks needed anymore, we could now raid with DPS tanks! And what better job for the Necro to fulfil that role than anyone else, for their DPS was already poor BUT viable (as everyone always says), and with no real loss to their "viable" DPS, they can now fulfil an important role.Please react (of course I'm overlooking something really obvious here :), orso) Chrono already does the tanking as hybrid DPS though, except it also brings group buffs and buff extension to the table, as well as being able to block a wide variety of mechanics, which at times is really important, see Deimos etc.I know, but Chrono can then just go full Berserker/Diviner instead of needing Knight/Commander pieces. Which adds to overall DPS output, right?

How is it nerf in pve ? In raids, where I really enjoy playing scourge, it's ability to land shade abilities is going to be awful on bosses that move a lot. If a boss moves out of your shades all your shade abilities become completely useless now there will be no pulsing AoE around your character. If a boss moves too much you will have to just not use sand shades at all to be able to use your shade abilities on the boss which would be a over dps loss for a class that's already underperforming. This is going to be painful on bosses like soulless horror. I think Shade is still doing fine even the nerf comes. It has lower cd compared to the WvW version and also you have Alacrity which makes the cd even lower.I dont think Scourge will have any problems to keep the Shade up on bosses, Just a bit harder to land skills properly.It will get a lot harder. Dps might go up a bit on golem, but overall it will still be below 30k.How would dps go up a bit on golem? Am I missing a buff here? More dmg from poison and the poison Nova's will get stronger when selecting deathmagic But you are going to give up curses or soul reaping for death magic which would result in an immediate dps loss in itself what are you thinking?Or did you forget you need the scepter trait from curses and dhuum fire from soul reaping??? You would be surprised how little Soul Reaping adds for Scourge, but just the extra Toughness you get from DM makes it pretty unplayable in endgame group content for tanking reasons. Don't think any tank is want to go that high just so someone can play a subpar DPS like Necro. Only use of Scourge (or Necro in general), with or without DM, in all of PvE from what I see will be Soulless Horror, where you can tank with Trailblazer and maybe now taking DM while being the Epi bot.Aside from that, just don't even bother playing Necro. It was already so far behind everything else and now it's even worse.Hmmm, I was actually thinking about this, and this is theorycrafting to the max of course, but might there be a new role in store for the Necro (mostly Scourge probably)? A full DPS tank!? You can go full viper (or berserker if you want) and still have the most toughness. That way the rest could go base toughness entirely.No Support tanks needed anymore, we could now raid with DPS tanks! And what better job for the Necro to fulfil that role than anyone else, for their DPS was already poor BUT viable (as everyone always says), and with no real loss to their "viable" DPS, they can now fulfil an important role.Please react (of course I'm overlooking something really obvious here :), orso)

How is it nerf in pve ? In raids, where I really enjoy playing scourge, it's ability to land shade abilities is going to be awful on bosses that move a lot. If a boss moves out of your shades all your shade abilities become completely useless now there will be no pulsing AoE around your character. If a boss moves too much you will have to just not use sand shades at all to be able to use your shade abilities on the boss which would be a over dps loss for a class that's already underperforming. This is going to be painful on bosses like soulless horror. I think Shade is still doing fine even the nerf comes. It has lower cd compared to the WvW version and also you have Alacrity which makes the cd even lower.I dont think Scourge will have any problems to keep the Shade up on bosses, Just a bit harder to land skills properly.It will get a lot harder. Dps might go up a bit on golem, but overall it will still be below 30k.How would dps go up a bit on golem? Am I missing a buff here? More dmg from poison and the poison Nova's will get stronger when selecting deathmagic But you are going to give up curses or soul reaping for death magic which would result in an immediate dps loss in itself what are you thinking?Or did you forget you need the scepter trait from curses and dhuum fire from soul reaping???Hmmm, you're obviously never gonna give up curses, but Soul Reaping ... We'll have to test how that pans out: I guess the new Death Magic is still not gonna outperform Dhuumfire though.It is a buff for core Necro though, but core DPS was SOOOOOOOOOO far behind of Reaper and Scourge, I doubt if these changes will make core more competitive (DPS-wise) So, to conclude, I'm afraid these are all straight up nerfs again for Necro if we look at it from a PvE endgame perspective. And there I thought we couldn't sink any deeper (being the bottom of the barrel, for a long time already) ...

How is it nerf in pve ? In raids, where I really enjoy playing scourge, it's ability to land shade abilities is going to be awful on bosses that move a lot. If a boss moves out of your shades all your shade abilities become completely useless now there will be no pulsing AoE around your character. If a boss moves too much you will have to just not use sand shades at all to be able to use your shade abilities on the boss which would be a over dps loss for a class that's already underperforming. This is going to be painful on bosses like soulless horror. I think Shade is still doing fine even the nerf comes. It has lower cd compared to the WvW version and also you have Alacrity which makes the cd even lower.I dont think Scourge will have any problems to keep the Shade up on bosses, Just a bit harder to land skills properly.It will get a lot harder. Dps might go up a bit on golem, but overall it will still be below 30k.How would dps go up a bit on golem? Am I missing a buff here?

I disagree, having raid focused on dps like they are right now is already mechanical discrimination since it rule out low damage parties. You just can't defend the current system with it's enrage timer and at the same time say that encounters focused on survivability would be mechanical discrimination, This very timer is already a mechanical discrimination. Why would it be more acceptable than another mechanical discrimination? What I argue for is more variety in the encounter design. Having encounters that favor survivability should be as valid as the very common encounter that only favor damage. GW2's devs already proved with guild missions that they are able to create encounter that aren't purely based on dps why should raids be so single minded? The issue isn't the commanders/raid community alone, the issue is also in the encounters design which are all unimaginatively singlemindely focused toward dealing the most damage possible in the shortest time possible. If you give room for inate survivability to become a strength then the professions that can exploit it the best will become meta in these encounters. The issue is that no encounter leave room for this. No, like I said, ANet continue to assume that all 4 aspects equal, which isn't wrong in PvP environment but totally wrong in PvE environment. Buffing/nerfing numbers create an illusion of balance that can only satisfy players for a short time. There will always be a highest dps and there will always be a lowest dps. If you don't vary encounters focus like it's the case right now, only the highest dps will be favored while the lowest dps will always cry. You can try to balance number for years, rotate between profession for the highest numbers, yet you'll never achieve balance and will always be at risk of creating a powercreep cycle. It's a matter of priority, fixing encounter design and mechanic "hole" should have priority over fixing numbers in PvE. For numbers value, PvP should be where numbers are the priority. Your argumentation is absolutely spot on, although there are more solutions to this issue imo:I mentioned it before, but a far more dynamic approach to balancing would definitely help imo. At the very moment, balance patches are: rare: at best every 3 months, but sometimes not eveninsignificant: it doesn't change anything if you look at the bigger picture(subjectively) not fun/engaging at all: all the patches come across as that dreadful quarterly meeting that the devs must attend to while they were much rather doing something else.Make the patches more fun and wild, more engaging, more dynamic and hit more often: every 2 months orso. Stir up the playing field and community, cause it's been quite static for years now. Always the same complaints on the forums and reddit: (let me get my glass sphere) I can tell that next patch, the Mesmer mains are going to complain about another nerf to their profession, can't they just leave Chrono alone .... While all other mains (mostly Guardian and Revenant) complain about how Chrono is still the most optimal support out there ... Necro mains will always complain (me including :) ) because they're still the lowest DPS out there, Engies will complain because their rotation is o so hard, but they're not the highest DPS out there ... how is that even fair, right? ... And I could go on like that ... it's always the same old song. I believe that significantly changing numbers, but also the functionality of skills/traits/etc. in far lesser time-frames than what we're used to right now, really helps in changing the community as well. Any wild composition/build might well be the next optimal comp, right?! And if I see speedclearing guilds like SnowCrows taking already quite a lot of time to benchmark and theorycraft optimal comps after a patch hits, imagine how much longer it takes if patches really changes things significantly. People are going to try new AND old builds again, instead of always going for that same old familiar comp. every single time. It's boring as hell! Big disclaimer: I'm talking about PvE only here. I haven't really given it much thought how such an approach would impact WvW and PvP, although shaking up the pirate ship (WvW) and the Scourge-FB-babysit-comp (PvP) a little bit (read: significantly :) ) wouldn't hurt imo!

I wouldn't mind some clarity in this myself. On the engineer forum, I remarked that with the recent holosmith buffs that Necromancers are meant to be the lowest DPS class, since as soon as any other class (except power rev) gets lower than them, they immediately get buffs. Technically, this makes necromancers a unit of measurement, since they're supposed to be the lowest of all other classes. Biggest problem here is that Anet is colliding against the social hurdle to raiding. If we just went with objective requirements you could complete most raids with snowflake builds, assuming the player was competent. 28k peak DPS is more than enough to beat everything in the game with flying colors. Anything more is vanity. However, the community doesn't see it like that. The end-game is full of wannabe speed runners. This puts Anet into a catch-22 like scenario. See, they still balance DPS around non-DPS factors. Stuff like effective health, ease of use, boons, attack range, etc. In a certain way, they're right to do so if you consider the individual player experience in a box. If you were to make it so scourges and reapers did 39k DPS tomorrow, Anet would be flooded with complaints from Thieves and Elementalists. "It's not fair that they do so much damage while having so much health!" they'll say. "I don't get rewarded for playing a frail profession that's harder to play! There's no reason to take an Elementalist over a Necromancer!" It doesn't matter if these buffs are PVE only. Anet will still get complaints. Keep in mind, the amount of players actually concerned with maintaining maximum DPS that won't switch classes to get it is very small. I can understand their desire to keep Necromancer low because of this. However, all of this is speculation, since Anet won't say a word on their PVE balance philosophy. To be frank, I suspect they don't actually have one, given what recently happened with the engineer. So, it is easier to give each profession enough DPS, and let the players sort out their interpersonal problems personally. I think this post is key to understand why some classes are balanced this way in PvE. There HAS to be a lowest and highest damage class. However class balance is not pure damage, this poster breaks it down a bit but I generally just categorize them into defense and utility. Power reaper for example has one of the best passive defense in PvE. It has strong utility with very good CC, remember utility is not just boons. CC is an incredibly important aspect of raiding since many different fights has it in spades. Hell when my group did Qadim 2.0 CM, I was the solo breaker for the spawning adds. So with the two categories being high, the damage has to be lower. The closest comparison to power reaper at this moment is power holo, they have decent defense and very strong CC. So their damage is on the lower range but still higher than reaper because their defense is weaker. The real discussion is not that "omg anet hates necros I'm gonna kms". The real discussion is how big the damage gap should be and how important the other factors such as defense, utility and difficulty to play should be. For example right now Power reaper benches around 31.5k. The highest is around 39k as condi weaver. The current gap is a bit too big although that's more condi weaver benching too high. So ideally where do you want it to be? If is up me, probably around 32k-35kish. Where the lowest should be necros and highest for eles and thieves. The difference between the lowest and highest dps by about 10%. Of course burst damage starts to muddle things a bit as well due to phasing and mechanic skipping but that's another can of worms. I'd happily allow every class to be 16k health baseline if the damage of each profession was closer together (difficulty and how much support it gives taken into account). On that note I just looked at condi weaver rotation and I'm not surprised it can do so much. It's condi engi levels of rotation there. This is the price we pay to have variation in theme. There ARE games out there where the differences are in name only ... and you know, they are boring as hell. Sure, everyone is balanced because the difference in name doesn't affect function. It's a real trade off and at this point, I don't see how Anet could fix that if their path it to continually offer more and more variation.I agree that you don't want a perfect balance that way (or at least, I don't) ... but I've also seen games that put the factor time into their balancing equation, where the best DPS is (completely) different every 3 months or so, as well as the worst DPS of course (and support, healing, etc.). Diablo 3 was an example of that, I really liked that philosophy. And because it would change regularly anyway, PUGs weren't to snappy too try new builds and accept a lot more diversity in their teams, etc. Or at least, that was my experience. Now it looks like their game is in an automatic support state orso (not much difference with GW2, btw), I think Diablo 4 might be in the making ... ?!??? (also similarities with GW there, maybe???) Sure, there is lots of flavour out there. If GW2 isn't a flavour people like because of 'balance', it's pretty silly for them to complain about it. It would be hard to make this a selling point of the game but ... ... the fact is that lack of traditional balance in this game is an attractive feature for the philosophy this game is designed around. Basically, people can play like a scrub and still succeed and have fun. That doesn't require balance. Therein is the trade off ANY player that commits to playing this game makes. But that's exactly why I like the ever changing balance philosophy even better, it really accommodates to the casual AND veteran players. Casuals get a free ride on the uncertainty that's always there (and they won't care or even know about it). Veterans can theorycraft and try/experience different flavours on regular intervals. Right and we get that all time ... Anet is always flipping things over. Almost every balance patch is a random set of changes that give people the ability to try and experience different things. The introduction of more especs as well. This game is well suited to anyone that DOESN'T like repetitive and stale play. The class changes we get are ACTUALLY causing people to rethink how they play all the time. Wellll ...... NOT merely enough though.Here have a look at this patch of Diablo 3: https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22863534As you can see, you see a lot of changes of double, triple or even quadruple the impact on what it did before. And they're not on meaningless objects/skills/mechanics/etc. either, we're talking about set bonus changes for example, which are one of the most important aspects in that game. Look it doesn't have to be THAT crazy, but the 5% axe dmg bonus :) pales in comparison of course! The changes ANet normally is pushing through are not really changing anything in the grand scheme of things, really.

I wouldn't mind some clarity in this myself. On the engineer forum, I remarked that with the recent holosmith buffs that Necromancers are meant to be the lowest DPS class, since as soon as any other class (except power rev) gets lower than them, they immediately get buffs. Technically, this makes necromancers a unit of measurement, since they're supposed to be the lowest of all other classes. Biggest problem here is that Anet is colliding against the social hurdle to raiding. If we just went with objective requirements you could complete most raids with snowflake builds, assuming the player was competent. 28k peak DPS is more than enough to beat everything in the game with flying colors. Anything more is vanity. However, the community doesn't see it like that. The end-game is full of wannabe speed runners. This puts Anet into a catch-22 like scenario. See, they still balance DPS around non-DPS factors. Stuff like effective health, ease of use, boons, attack range, etc. In a certain way, they're right to do so if you consider the individual player experience in a box. If you were to make it so scourges and reapers did 39k DPS tomorrow, Anet would be flooded with complaints from Thieves and Elementalists. "It's not fair that they do so much damage while having so much health!" they'll say. "I don't get rewarded for playing a frail profession that's harder to play! There's no reason to take an Elementalist over a Necromancer!" It doesn't matter if these buffs are PVE only. Anet will still get complaints. Keep in mind, the amount of players actually concerned with maintaining maximum DPS that won't switch classes to get it is very small. I can understand their desire to keep Necromancer low because of this. However, all of this is speculation, since Anet won't say a word on their PVE balance philosophy. To be frank, I suspect they don't actually have one, given what recently happened with the engineer. So, it is easier to give each profession enough DPS, and let the players sort out their interpersonal problems personally. I think this post is key to understand why some classes are balanced this way in PvE. There HAS to be a lowest and highest damage class. However class balance is not pure damage, this poster breaks it down a bit but I generally just categorize them into defense and utility. Power reaper for example has one of the best passive defense in PvE. It has strong utility with very good CC, remember utility is not just boons. CC is an incredibly important aspect of raiding since many different fights has it in spades. Hell when my group did Qadim 2.0 CM, I was the solo breaker for the spawning adds. So with the two categories being high, the damage has to be lower. The closest comparison to power reaper at this moment is power holo, they have decent defense and very strong CC. So their damage is on the lower range but still higher than reaper because their defense is weaker. The real discussion is not that "omg anet hates necros I'm gonna kms". The real discussion is how big the damage gap should be and how important the other factors such as defense, utility and difficulty to play should be. For example right now Power reaper benches around 31.5k. The highest is around 39k as condi weaver. The current gap is a bit too big although that's more condi weaver benching too high. So ideally where do you want it to be? If is up me, probably around 32k-35kish. Where the lowest should be necros and highest for eles and thieves. The difference between the lowest and highest dps by about 10%. Of course burst damage starts to muddle things a bit as well due to phasing and mechanic skipping but that's another can of worms. I'd happily allow every class to be 16k health baseline if the damage of each profession was closer together (difficulty and how much support it gives taken into account). On that note I just looked at condi weaver rotation and I'm not surprised it can do so much. It's condi engi levels of rotation there. This is the price we pay to have variation in theme. There ARE games out there where the differences are in name only ... and you know, they are boring as hell. Sure, everyone is balanced because the difference in name doesn't affect function. It's a real trade off and at this point, I don't see how Anet could fix that if their path it to continually offer more and more variation.I agree that you don't want a perfect balance that way (or at least, I don't) ... but I've also seen games that put the factor time into their balancing equation, where the best DPS is (completely) different every 3 months or so, as well as the worst DPS of course (and support, healing, etc.). Diablo 3 was an example of that, I really liked that philosophy. And because it would change regularly anyway, PUGs weren't to snappy too try new builds and accept a lot more diversity in their teams, etc. Or at least, that was my experience. Now it looks like their game is in an automatic support state orso (not much difference with GW2, btw), I think Diablo 4 might be in the making ... ?!??? (also similarities with GW there, maybe???) Sure, there is lots of flavour out there. If GW2 isn't a flavour people like because of 'balance', it's pretty silly for them to complain about it. It would be hard to make this a selling point of the game but ... ... the fact is that lack of traditional balance in this game is an attractive feature for the philosophy this game is designed around. Basically, people can play like a scrub and still succeed and have fun. That doesn't require balance. Therein is the trade off ANY player that commits to playing this game makes. But that's exactly why I like the ever changing balance philosophy even better, it really accommodates to the casual AND veteran players. Casuals get a free ride on the uncertainty that's always there (and they won't care or even know about it). Veterans can theorycraft and try/experience different flavours on regular intervals.

I wouldn't mind some clarity in this myself. On the engineer forum, I remarked that with the recent holosmith buffs that Necromancers are meant to be the lowest DPS class, since as soon as any other class (except power rev) gets lower than them, they immediately get buffs. Technically, this makes necromancers a unit of measurement, since they're supposed to be the lowest of all other classes. Biggest problem here is that Anet is colliding against the social hurdle to raiding. If we just went with objective requirements you could complete most raids with snowflake builds, assuming the player was competent. 28k peak DPS is more than enough to beat everything in the game with flying colors. Anything more is vanity. However, the community doesn't see it like that. The end-game is full of wannabe speed runners. This puts Anet into a catch-22 like scenario. See, they still balance DPS around non-DPS factors. Stuff like effective health, ease of use, boons, attack range, etc. In a certain way, they're right to do so if you consider the individual player experience in a box. If you were to make it so scourges and reapers did 39k DPS tomorrow, Anet would be flooded with complaints from Thieves and Elementalists. "It's not fair that they do so much damage while having so much health!" they'll say. "I don't get rewarded for playing a frail profession that's harder to play! There's no reason to take an Elementalist over a Necromancer!" It doesn't matter if these buffs are PVE only. Anet will still get complaints. Keep in mind, the amount of players actually concerned with maintaining maximum DPS that won't switch classes to get it is very small. I can understand their desire to keep Necromancer low because of this. However, all of this is speculation, since Anet won't say a word on their PVE balance philosophy. To be frank, I suspect they don't actually have one, given what recently happened with the engineer. So, it is easier to give each profession enough DPS, and let the players sort out their interpersonal problems personally. I think this post is key to understand why some classes are balanced this way in PvE. There HAS to be a lowest and highest damage class. However class balance is not pure damage, this poster breaks it down a bit but I generally just categorize them into defense and utility. Power reaper for example has one of the best passive defense in PvE. It has strong utility with very good CC, remember utility is not just boons. CC is an incredibly important aspect of raiding since many different fights has it in spades. Hell when my group did Qadim 2.0 CM, I was the solo breaker for the spawning adds. So with the two categories being high, the damage has to be lower. The closest comparison to power reaper at this moment is power holo, they have decent defense and very strong CC. So their damage is on the lower range but still higher than reaper because their defense is weaker. The real discussion is not that "omg anet hates necros I'm gonna kms". The real discussion is how big the damage gap should be and how important the other factors such as defense, utility and difficulty to play should be. For example right now Power reaper benches around 31.5k. The highest is around 39k as condi weaver. The current gap is a bit too big although that's more condi weaver benching too high. So ideally where do you want it to be? If is up me, probably around 32k-35kish. Where the lowest should be necros and highest for eles and thieves. The difference between the lowest and highest dps by about 10%. Of course burst damage starts to muddle things a bit as well due to phasing and mechanic skipping but that's another can of worms. I'd happily allow every class to be 16k health baseline if the damage of each profession was closer together (difficulty and how much support it gives taken into account). On that note I just looked at condi weaver rotation and I'm not surprised it can do so much. It's condi engi levels of rotation there. This is the price we pay to have variation in theme. There ARE games out there where the differences are in name only ... and you know, they are boring as hell. Sure, everyone is balanced because the difference in name doesn't affect function. It's a real trade off and at this point, I don't see how Anet could fix that if their path it to continually offer more and more variation.I agree that you don't want a perfect balance that way (or at least, I don't) ... but I've also seen games that put the factor time into their balancing equation, where the best DPS is (completely) different every 3 months or so, as well as the worst DPS of course (and support, healing, etc.). Diablo 3 was an example of that, I really liked that philosophy. And because it would change regularly anyway, PUGs weren't to snappy too try new builds and accept a lot more diversity in their teams, etc. Or at least, that was my experience. Now it looks like their game is in an automatic support state orso (not much difference with GW2, btw), I think Diablo 4 might be in the making ... ?!??? (also similarities with GW there, maybe???)

I wouldn't mind some clarity in this myself. On the engineer forum, I remarked that with the recent holosmith buffs that Necromancers are meant to be the lowest DPS class, since as soon as any other class (except power rev) gets lower than them, they immediately get buffs. Technically, this makes necromancers a unit of measurement, since they're supposed to be the lowest of all other classes. Biggest problem here is that Anet is colliding against the social hurdle to raiding. If we just went with objective requirements you could complete most raids with snowflake builds, assuming the player was competent. 28k peak DPS is more than enough to beat everything in the game with flying colors. Anything more is vanity. However, the community doesn't see it like that. The end-game is full of wannabe speed runners. Well. Faster kill= less mechanics to do = less likelier to fail the encounter Which would mean, that that doesn't count for warrior?Has high health as wellDoes slightly more dps with two support skills equipped while boosting everyone's dmg with them?Or does a lot more dps on a DPS role? Don't bother arguing Nimon, this person is in a complete different world than the rest of us are: he lives in his own truth bubble and won't get out of that. I mean, if he comes up with the Warrior's weak ranged game: while its strongest DPS build (the condi berserker currently benching 36k) has a big 1200 range longbow rotation part .... Wait. Where did I say, that warrior has weak ranged game or that warrior is weak? I was saying the opposite. LulAh, interpunction ... :) I meant:Don't bother arguing, Nimon. This person (Blood Red Arachnid) is in a complete different world ... cause he/she is the one coming with arguments like that (not you).I think he/she is playing a different game or something. I didnt want to put even more energy in this, but another example: it's almost laughable how this person thinks almost all mechanics being health interval based ... I mean, I literally don't know ANY endgame encounter where there aren't timed interval mechanics: from green circles up to telegraphed boss attacks .... pfffff

I wouldn't mind some clarity in this myself. On the engineer forum, I remarked that with the recent holosmith buffs that Necromancers are meant to be the lowest DPS class, since as soon as any other class (except power rev) gets lower than them, they immediately get buffs. Technically, this makes necromancers a unit of measurement, since they're supposed to be the lowest of all other classes. Biggest problem here is that Anet is colliding against the social hurdle to raiding. If we just went with objective requirements you could complete most raids with snowflake builds, assuming the player was competent. 28k peak DPS is more than enough to beat everything in the game with flying colors. Anything more is vanity. However, the community doesn't see it like that. The end-game is full of wannabe speed runners. Well. Faster kill= less mechanics to do = less likelier to fail the encounter Which would mean, that that doesn't count for warrior?Has high health as wellDoes slightly more dps with two support skills equipped while boosting everyone's dmg with them?Or does a lot more dps on a DPS role?Don't bother arguing Nimon, this person is in a complete different world than the rest of us are: he lives in his own truth bubble and won't get out of that. I mean, if he comes up with the Warrior's weak ranged game: while its strongest DPS build (the condi berserker currently benching 36k) has a big 1200 range longbow rotation part ....

So because of that, I would actually not care at all if they would completely delete the skill from the game. I had fun with it, enjoyed it, but I also like exciting new things. Give the Necro an exciting new skill in return, go wild ANet :-) (not too wild though, before you have to nerf it again), and pump up those condi dmg numbers for the (core) Necro while you're at it!

I've played all classes except ranger in t4, as well as spent many, many hours benchmarking on a test golem. Hmm, that explains it, probably more golem hours than T4/raids hours, right? Don't get me wrong, you have to start somewhere, and Golem is a good start, but after a while, you'll have enough experience with rotations, they're all somewhat similar to each other at least for me they are: word of advice: think of your most important skills (in every build, doesn't matter which class), and at least make sure that that they won't be interrupted and will be cast on recharge. Imo, that way it's much easier to adapt to the encounters, instead of knowing exactly which buttons you need to press in which order. Cause you then also know which skills to drop when you or your team makes a mistake. I actually found the most difficult multiple kits engineer/holo rotations really easy that way, and I was ALWAYS top dps in raids!Anyway, let me go through your quite distorted view of the Necro (Reaper) with the reasons you listed, which clearly is from hearsay (or playing it casually only) instead of real experience ... love to debunk them once again: (1): Low resource management. You have life force and weapon swap. This is less than any other profession in the game.At least they have a (dynamic) resource management system: there are many classes out there, that simply doesn't have it: just (static) recharges, or even easier (read: less prone to dynamic influences) resource systems, like thief's or warrior's. Which by your logic means that the Reaper is one of most difficult classes to play. And then about the weapon swap, I don't really know what you mean with that, but the Reaper virtually has 3 weapon sets, whereas there are multiple classes out there that just have 2 of which some just require camping in 1 (Daredevil, Deadeye, Power Berserker)! (2): Low punishment for mistakes. There's nothing that is super clutch, requiring split second timing. The auto attack is solid, too.And this is actually a 180, really: you couldn't be more wrong: the punishment might be even the most severe one: missing a shroud, or using it to soak up damage, or even worse: popping it in the middle of a knock down (I've seen them, I've really seen them!) plummets your dps to almost support chrono levels, definitely when you have to stay in Axe afterwards as well. You more useless than a downed player that way!About your second part: I don't know how you go in Shroud, but you need to learn how to cancel aftercasts, definitely for Reaper, otherwise your DPS will be even lower (and it's already the lowest of the pack)!And lastly: the auto attack is solid??? Maybe for shroud. But Greatsword requires Quickness ... from other sources, otherwise it's one of the slowest hitting weapons in the game (so not THAT solid). Well, and that leaves Axe ... I think there might be no weapon for any class out there that has worse auto-attack than the Axe for the Necro ... (3): Skill simplicity. There's only a small number of skills you need to keep track of, and most of them keep track of themselves.True, but may I point you in the direction of: Berserker (power is even only one weapon set!!!), Dragonhunter, Thief (Daredevil AND Deadeye), Soulbeast, Mirage, etc. (4): All the DPS is focused into Shroud 4, making it easy to "burst" with.But this is also its major flaw: see point 2. (5): There's plenty of self-buffing on the reaper, filling boon caps that would be on other professions.Except it misses THE most important boons in the game: Alacrity, Fury (which for the Necro is even more important because of the Ferocity bonus from Grandmaster trait: Death Perception) and (100%) Quickness. Only Might is not a problem, but the Reaper is hardly the only class out there that has that privilege! The difficulty of a profession's rotation is much less subjective than what you're implying. You can boil the difficulty to the rotations down into how many resources you need to keep track of, how many skills you need to keep track of, whether the order of those skills is simple or complex, how fast you need to press each button, how strict the timing is on each skill, how punishing it is to mess up, and the ease of use of each of these techniques. Almost all of these factors are objective, and the hardest rotations in the game (engineer, mesmer, renegade) have them in the worst degree.You forget one of the worst ones, being the Ele, nut hey, I'll let that one slip. And btw, mesmer these days (not even the Chrono) isnt that hard according to your logic. But all this in the end is just a trick, like I said, after you know how to do all general rotations, and you know the mechanics of the encounters, it's all a trick, just that. It's not like we're playing dark souls here or where the endgame is all about being lucky and a lot of randomness happens. And I'm actually quite happy that's the case in this game, but that also means that the PvE endgame is completely DPS oriented (dps builds are ALL berserker/assassin or viper stats), leaving no room for optional defences, because you simply don't need them. And like I said before, then it all boils down to what every build is capped at: and Necro is in a really poor spot, and always has been in that regard. And imo, they just don't deserve that. Let any other class take that spot from now on (and for all I care, let it rotate every 3 months or something), not the Necro please!