Can we actually do something about Necromancers in PvP?

[arazoth.7290]

1 hour ago, Mythras.2091 said:

I think new ppl get on the spb train to be a god and go far all day, but sometimes they get some really mean opponent and crumble 😛 I also made an spb and bunnythumper ranger cry, just with good timed corrupts and then chills, ohh and dont forget the poison (with 50% healing reduction). My life is to make boony specs die die DIEEE 😄 

Power harbringer is doing recently really well on 1v1 as long it doesn't gets too much kited. Because zakiros relic, blood life steal, sword lifesteal and the thing that really does make it work Because of the trait "Bloodbank".

It still has some weaknesses though vs certain builds and is pretty bad in 1v1 allthough good at 1v1 because no real defensive mitigations. (Or atleast not something that has been build yet that we have seen).

 

Eitherway I don't like passive resustain that's directly linked by how much damage you do. They are trying the same with renegade, and I don't like it neither 😅. I guess this zakiros relic works on willbender too because of its mechanical design of offense giving resustain HP.

[Hotride.2187]

3 hours ago, Mythras.2091 said:

I think new ppl get on the spb train to be a god and go far all day, but sometimes they get some really mean opponent and crumble 😛 I also made an spb and bunnythumper ranger cry, just with good timed corrupts and then chills, ohh and dont forget the poison (with 50% healing reduction). My life is to make boony specs die die DIEEE 😄 

Since the war defense rework, I've been fighting all kinds of spbs (skill-wise). Before that it was very rare to fight a spb who wasn't as good or better than me.

Staff made it so that most spbs I fight are worse.

Edited August 7 by Hotride.2187

[Mythras.2091]

2 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

Power harbringer is doing recently really well on 1v1 as long it doesn't gets too much kited. Because zakiros relic, blood life steal, sword lifesteal and the thing that really does make it work Because of the trait "Bloodbank".

It still has some weaknesses though vs certain builds and is pretty bad in 1v1 allthough good at 1v1 because no real defensive mitigations. (Or atleast not something that has been build yet that we have seen).

 

Eitherway I don't like passive resustain that's directly linked by how much damage you do. They are trying the same with renegade, and I don't like it neither 😅. I guess this zakiros relic works on willbender too because of its mechanical design of offense giving resustain HP.

I played that as well, works very nice and i liked the mobility it gives. Also blood + zakiros + blight can heal a lot (even in shroud, as harb has no shroud health, thus can be healed unlike reaper). But in the other hand, its more susceptible to teleport gank and cant hold 2v1 too long: if it has no time to heal, well its going to be dead very soon so you need to be a kite master in cc rain. Also less boon corrupt, so boony specs live freely and thats unhealthy for you 😄

[Mythras.2091]

33 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Since the war defense rework, I've been fighting all kinds of spbs (skill-wise). Before that it was very rare to fight a spb who wasn't as good or better than me.

Staff made it so that most spbs I fight are worse.

Staff is a very good supportive weapon: block, pull, heal, moblity and everything but obviously lacks damage. Perfect for holding a point and make the enemy cry if played well, but new ppl tend to forget to kite and run the hell away when a reaper pops shroud 😄

[arazoth.7290]

46 minutes ago, Mythras.2091 said:

I played that as well, works very nice and i liked the mobility it gives. Also blood + zakiros + blight can heal a lot (even in shroud, as harb has no shroud health, thus can be healed unlike reaper). But in the other hand, its more susceptible to teleport gank and cant hold 2v1 too long: if it has no time to heal, well its going to be dead very soon so you need to be a kite master in cc rain. Also less boon corrupt, so boony specs live freely and thats unhealthy for you 😄

Yea but it's just tilo it works because of some build or buffs/changes somewhere else appears that it can uphold even against that.

An Immortal harbringer staying 100% offensive keeping hp up because of barriers and that...

If Renegade is also ever going to be meta because of such, aint playing it myself till it would be nerfed 😂.

For example why I think it's also bad, because it gives the player no sense of learning experience. Yesterday I had someone with this build who my condi pressure did noting because of it and them staying on me entire time. Then I switched with power vindi, the variant with invo/deva traitline, the less duelist version but more roaming team dps version. I obviously had to escape a few times but he litarly kept tanking big obvious damage like greatsword 5 and didn't even try to dodge a 1 second long shiro elite cc. That last one was a death sentence because I have sunless relic traited, instant death. 

Just to say, they don't even try to dodge air with these builds because of that... 

It's only a matter of time 😁

[arazoth.7290]

51 minutes ago, Mythras.2091 said:

Staff is a very good supportive weapon: block, pull, heal, moblity and everything but obviously lacks damage. Perfect for holding a point and make the enemy cry if played well, but new ppl tend to forget to kite and run the hell away when a reaper pops shroud 😄

When you have used these few skills, they have weapon swap back if traited because 5 second cd instead. Not really a downside even because of it

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

Wanna solve necro problem? Stop allowing class stacking in teams. That's it.

Although, I agree condi reaper is right now very strong due to the use of pistol/torch and chill spam, a single reaper per team is manageble and easily focused. (and the other weaker necro specs even power ones are even easier to deal with 1 each per team)

This would also solve ridicolous burst combination like double vindi, or unkillable couples like double spellbreaker or untamed/druid, and every possible iteration of the current and future class/spec that at the time is overtuned.

5 player->5 different classes, no swap of characters only swap of builds before the game start. Most of pvp complains would disappear

Once this work is done, you can start carefully tuning each single overperforming spec on every class, doing that before addressing class stacking is uneffective

Edited August 7 by NecroSummonsMors.7816
clarification

[arazoth.7290]

3 minutes ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

Wanna solve necro problem? Stop allowing class stacking in teams. That's it.

Although, I agree condi reaper is right now very strong due to the use of pistol/torch and chill spam, a single reaper per team is manageble and easily focused. (and the other weaker necro specs even power ones are even easier to deal with 1 each per team)

This would also solve ridicolous burst combination like double vindi, or unkillable couples like double spellbreaker or untamed/druid, and every possible iteration of the current and future class/spec that at the time is overtuned.

5 player->5 different classes, no swap of characters only swap of builds before the game start. Most of pvp complains would disappear

Well that's what I said the same some time ago too

[maxwelgm.4315]

22 minutes ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

Wanna solve necro problem? Stop allowing class stacking in teams. That's it.

Although, I agree condi reaper is right now very strong due to the use of pistol/torch and chill spam, a single reaper per team is manageble and easily focused. (and the other weaker necro specs even power ones are even easier to deal with 1 each per team)

This would also solve ridicolous burst combination like double vindi, or unkillable couples like double spellbreaker or untamed/druid, and every possible iteration of the current and future class/spec that at the time is overtuned.

5 player->5 different classes, no swap of characters only swap of builds before the game start. Most of pvp complains would disappear

Once this work is done, you can start carefully tuning each single overperforming spec on every class, doing that before addressing class stacking is uneffective

This is a very good idea in isolation but easily exploitable with the low population (especially in off-hours), and even more so especially to the other idea that only sounds good on paper and is already implemented, which is trying to match teams where the enemy has mirrored classes to yours. It's already common for me to see matches with 3 or 4 top players stacked on the same team in off hours with god knows who alt accounts or lower ranked players in the other team, all because it's prioritizing things other than the actual MMR/rank - and introducing more class restrictions to matchmaking will unfortunately lower, not improve the match quality (to everyone mind you, farming someone 500-0 is just as much of a non-match).

[TheQuickFox.3826]

I just would like more potent condi cleanses for use against necromancer players who dump a gazillion conditions on me and when I cleanse all of them they come back .1 second later.

Edited August 7 by TheQuickFox.3826

[Arheundel.6451]

On 8/7/2024 at 7:42 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

I just would like more potent condi cleanses for use against necromancer players who dump a gazillion conditions on me and when I cleanse all of them they come back .1 second later.

But adding more condi clear would kill the non-overperforming condi specs, it's easier and quicker to deal with necro, give them nerfs where needed

[Hotride.2187]

1 hour ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

But adding more condi clear would kill the non-overperforming condi specs, it's easier and quicker to deal with necro, give them nerfs where needed

Who will really miss fighting condi bunkers?

[Arheundel.6451]

3 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Who will really miss fighting condi bunkers?

Surely not thieves or any other spec who can literally nullify power damage. 

[calva.2914]

What is all this “kitten” stuff about?  I’m so confused. 

Edited August 11 by calva.2914

[Flowki.7194]

On 8/7/2024 at 7:42 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

I just would like more potent condi cleanses for use against necromancer players who dump a gazillion conditions on me and when I cleanse all of them they come back .1 second later.

Ive been on the other end of that many many times, vs bloated power builds, and some condi builds like druid, who have way too much condi cleanse/easy resolotion uptime. They can eat endless amounts of CC/condi application, and still win/stalemate.. despite me dodging/mitigating a lot more of their attacks.

 

The problematic condi builds are bassically spaming confusion and poison for low effort. Mesmers, akeem zerker, thief, and ranger. Reaper condi is not as bad as those, it is more the combination of range application, stab corruption, and cc, which basically makes the condi app brainded unless you have multible stab access and/or ability to kite shroud when it gets to it. Still, I think reaper is one of the more healthier types of condi spec, but toning down its CC or w/e the issue may be, will probably just kill the spec.

 

As somebody else said, a spec limit would really fix most of reaper issues, and also a lot of other issues like 2x warrior/dh on one team.. leading to brainded high effective team HPs even at lower skill levels. Also double thief, which is a horror show to see when you are on a group fight/support build, almost every group fight you are going to be -1 since many thieves simply can't get involved within high cleave/aoe fights.

Edited August 11 by Flowki.7194

[WingSwipe.3084]

On 8/7/2024 at 4:12 PM, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

Wanna solve necro problem? Stop allowing class stacking in teams. That's it.

Although, I agree condi reaper is right now very strong due to the use of pistol/torch and chill spam, a single reaper per team is manageble and easily focused. (and the other weaker necro specs even power ones are even easier to deal with 1 each per team)

This would also solve ridicolous burst combination like double vindi, or unkillable couples like double spellbreaker or untamed/druid, and every possible iteration of the current and future class/spec that at the time is overtuned.

5 player->5 different classes, no swap of characters only swap of builds before the game start. Most of pvp complains would disappear

Once this work is done, you can start carefully tuning each single overperforming spec on every class, doing that before addressing class stacking is uneffective

Reaper is currently absurdly strong as a team fighter and holds its own really well in 1v1. Its only overshadowed by other professions having equally disgusting things that need to be tuned down heavily.

Not allowing class stacking isnt fixing the core problem that the current iteration of necro in PvP creates, most professions need their over-the-top bloated builds nerfed down so we actually can have some build diversity in PvP.

Although necro and guardian seems to be the only ones with all elite specs and core being viable in PvP.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

10 hours ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

Reaper is currently absurdly strong as a team fighter and holds its own really well in 1v1. Its only overshadowed by other professions having equally disgusting things that need to be tuned down heavily.

Not allowing class stacking isnt fixing the core problem that the current iteration of necro in PvP creates, most professions need their over-the-top bloated builds nerfed down so we actually can have some build diversity in PvP.

Although necro and guardian seems to be the only ones with all elite specs and core being viable in PvP.

I guess you didn't read the last part I wrote. Remove class stacking first, then proceed with tuning down anything that overperforms

[Etaoin.4362]

1 hour ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

Remove class stacking first, then proceed with tuning down anything that overperforms

Hoo boy. I generally I agree with this sentiment; I don't want to take that away. I think that the problem @WingSwipe.3084 and others are raising, though, is that certain specs and mechanics are inherently problematic in their current state regardless of team compositions. 

Spellbreaker is a great example of this: despite being so-so in PvE and functionally neutered in WvW (just look at the Attacker's Insight split for example), it excels in PvP due not only to the game's node-holding mechanic, but also its ability to either hold most 1v1/2s indefinitely or out-duel many specs. Even without the relatively new staff, it's the mechanics of the spec that allow it to function as well as it does. Class stacking or not, it's going to present problems by the nature of its design.

Necromancer, condi-reaper in particular, also poses this sort of problem. The issue isn't simply that it's valuable in teamfights or 1v1; plenty of specs can lay claim to these credits. Rather, the mechanics specific to the spec arguably make it outright oppressive in either role. The sheer number of boon corrupts, conditions, easy procs, and hard and soft CC, much of which is AoE and/or unblockable (or can be made unblockable) means that the spec has pretty much every tool it needs to shut down most builds. Even against ranged burst specs, it's fairly easy to be lethal (or at least sustain through the burst). 

Again, not trying to take away the point that class stacking, and other structural issues of PvP, aren't significant for the purposes of balance. I just think (seemingly along with others) that there are certain things that could be tuned down (emphasis on "tuning," not "gutting") while we keep pushing the devs to make these even bigger changes.

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

10 hours ago, Etaoin.4362 said:

Hoo boy. I generally I agree with this sentiment; I don't want to take that away. I think that the problem @WingSwipe.3084 and others are raising, though, is that certain specs and mechanics are inherently problematic in their current state regardless of team compositions. 

Spellbreaker is a great example of this: despite being so-so in PvE and functionally neutered in WvW (just look at the Attacker's Insight split for example), it excels in PvP due not only to the game's node-holding mechanic, but also its ability to either hold most 1v1/2s indefinitely or out-duel many specs. Even without the relatively new staff, it's the mechanics of the spec that allow it to function as well as it does. Class stacking or not, it's going to present problems by the nature of its design.

Necromancer, condi-reaper in particular, also poses this sort of problem. The issue isn't simply that it's valuable in teamfights or 1v1; plenty of specs can lay claim to these credits. Rather, the mechanics specific to the spec arguably make it outright oppressive in either role. The sheer number of boon corrupts, conditions, easy procs, and hard and soft CC, much of which is AoE and/or unblockable (or can be made unblockable) means that the spec has pretty much every tool it needs to shut down most builds. Even against ranged burst specs, it's fairly easy to be lethal (or at least sustain through the burst). 

Again, not trying to take away the point that class stacking, and other structural issues of PvP, aren't significant for the purposes of balance. I just think (seemingly along with others) that there are certain things that could be tuned down (emphasis on "tuning," not "gutting") while we keep pushing the devs to make these even bigger changes.

Sure you can start tuning down specs even before removing class stacking but you have to keep in mind that the effects you see might be biased by class stacking. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to argue condi reaper is ok, it needs nerfs, just like any other overtuned spec right now. What i'm trying to argue is, considering the history of the game, specs generally go from overpresent to non existent that's the wrong approach to balancing because it is always a kneejerk reaction to complains. To truly balance pvp, in my opinion, remove class stacking helps to see the real effects of changes without any bias

[WingSwipe.3084]

13 hours ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

I guess you didn't read the last part I wrote. Remove class stacking first, then proceed with tuning down anything that overperforms

I read that and am still a bit conflicted, is class stacking going to get turned back off afterwards?

[NecroSummonsMors.7816]

24 minutes ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

I read that and am still a bit conflicted, is class stacking going to get turned back off afterwards?

Yes no more class stacking ever, balance for 1 single class per team. It might be unpopular but it would simplify the problem a lot

Edited August 15 by NecroSummonsMors.7816

[WingSwipe.3084]

29 minutes ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

Yes no more class stacking ever, balance for 1 single class per team. It might be unpopular but it would simplify the problem a lot

Id say to stop people from switching professions after loading in to a match would do a lot more here.

Respectfully disagree that this would be a good solution to the current situation we have. Profession stacking should be allowed in my opinion.

[notamain.2839]

26 minutes ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

Profession stacking should be allowed in my opinion

So something like the Winx Club can happen again? 🙂 

[Etaoin.4362]

3 hours ago, NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:

What i'm trying to argue is, considering the history of the game, specs generally go from overpresent to non existent that's the wrong approach to balancing because it is always a kneejerk reaction to complains. To truly balance pvp, in my opinion, remove class stacking helps to see the real effects of changes without any bias

I sympathize on this point. Despite statements to the contrary, the devs have historically shown a tendency to "overcorrect" in patches without consideration of how broader structural issues (e.g., profession stacking, matchmaking, general map design, etc.) might be more problematic than profession mechanics themselves in PvP.