Raids are not balanced when there is a 9-10k Difference between professions.

[Agrippa.1693]

@"Ganathar.4956" said:I feel like I have to point out that buffing something like reaper to the dps level of other professions would be a complete disaster balance wise. The other tools that a build brings absolutely matter, but many people like to ignore this whenever it's not convenient. If reaper had top tier damage potential we would enter the least diverse and most stale meta that this game has ever seen. The meta comp would probably look something like 7x reaper, 1x dps FB, 1x alacrigade, and maybe 1x druid. You could easily afford to have only 1 dps FB to provide a bit of quickness, because reapers already give themselves tons of free might and quickness for no effort whatsoever. Then you also have the high HP pool and shroud hp covering for your mistakes way better than any other class can, which makes reaper a safe choice as well. So you end up with even casuals able to make groups with mostly reapers and doing all the content. You'd end up with most groups doing even more dps than before and with less risk. There would be no reason to take any other class ever.

Reaper is already the go to noob choice because of how easy it is to not be a burden to your group, and because it can function well even with bad supports. Let's not make it the top choice for every skill level while making the game into easymode. There needs to be a reward for actually taking a risk with squishier classes, or with classes that actually require your supports to know what they are doing.

You're probably right that you'll see (a lot) more Reapers in Raids, etc. when dps is buffed to competitive levels, but that's not for the reasons you're giving, it's because of the theme. It's a theme that is always chosen a lot in every single (MMO)RPG ... And when it's finally on the level of every other class in this PvE endgame, it will see a lot more play, obviously.

Furthermore, about your safety and lesser risk claim: people always tend to forget, that every other single class can be given Marauder gear and is safer to play and will still do more DPS than a Reaper. But thinking out of the Berserker box is absolutely blasphemy here!

Lastly, the buffing advantage of a Reaper is imo exaggerated. Take might for instance: it can be found across the board, it's far from a Reaper only thing. What is pretty much Reaper only about that though, is the fact that it's purely selfish buffing, whereas quite a few other classes at least have the ability to buff teammates with it as well. Even the self quickness isnt THAT great, cause it's never going to be 100% uptime, so you always need an external supplier. What is worrying though is Reapers abundant access to Fury ... A widely available buff across most classes, except for that one class .... the Necro (except when you go into curses, which you wont as a power Reaper).Look, don't get me wrong, the Reaper (or Necro in general) IS self sufficient up to a certain point, not 100%, but no class is. But every other class is self-sufficient as well, the only big difference is that with every other class you have to look at other builds/gear/etc. than Meta, to make the game as you said it: more "easymode". The Necro or more specifically the Reaper only has its meta build!

In other words, for every other class you're able to take off your training wheels and dish out some serious damage when you're ready for it (OR NOT, whatever you prefer). The Necro simply doesn't have that option!And it's even worse, if you make use of your training wheels as a Reaper (shroud), your DPS drops a lot further than pretty much any other class with there training wheels on!

[Noodle Ant.1605]

Reaper/necro’s design has little do with the current disparity between classes.

In case it slipped anyone’s mind, a number of the specs in question are carried by ‘attack of opportunity’ or similar interactions which function as intended in PvP, but translate poorly throughout PvE - quite literally making up the entire difference between reaper-level dps and the supposed 38k standard, due to their supposed difficulty to satisfy (but can be achieved in organised raid conditions). If it weren’t for these interactions, the playing field in terms of dps would be much more level, since other professions wouldn’t have felt the need to buffed to the same bloated state.

But instead of raising the fact that these conditions were naturally difficult to satisfy, we decided to completely warp the concept of ‘realistic’ conditions in order to facilitate these broken interactions. Instead of asking for an appropriate fix, we decided to list these as proper, ‘this is how X ultimately performs’ benchmarks. And instead of questioning this decision, we accepted it as the new standard and disregarded opinions that argued otherwise.

And so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Anet decided to follow through with this design and standard. And reaper is left behind because it lacks such interaction.

That being said, reaper is currently in a fairly ideal state if it were in a less volatile environment - an acceptable >30k dps, naturally hardy and reasonably self sufficient, has a variety of important tools e.g. decent amount cc, stab (all of which could’ve been another balance direction for other classes to achieve instead of randomly pushing dmg numbers around). It would be a shame to see reaper ruined by ‘that one janky interaction’ which plague the other professions, because that’s actually what’s missing between current reaper and 38k.

[Josiah.2967]

@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:Reaper/necro’s design has little do with the current disparity between classes.

In case it slipped anyone’s mind, a number of the specs in question are carried by ‘attack of opportunity’ or similar interactions which function as intended in PvP, but translate poorly throughout PvE - quite literally making up the entire difference between reaper-level dps and the supposed 38k standard, due to their supposed difficulty to satisfy (but can be achieved in organised raid conditions). If it weren’t for these interactions, the playing field in terms of dps would be much more level, since other professions wouldn’t have felt the need to buffed to the same bloated state.

But instead of raising the fact that these conditions were naturally difficult to satisfy, we decided to completely warp the concept of ‘realistic’ conditions in order to facilitate these broken interactions. Instead of asking for an appropriate fix, we decided to list these as proper, ‘this is how X ultimately performs’ benchmarks. And instead of questioning this decision, we accepted it as the new standard and disregarded opinions that argued otherwise.

And so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Anet decided to follow through with this design and standard. And reaper is left behind because it lacks such interaction.

That being said, reaper is currently in a fairly ideal state if it were in a less volatile environment - an acceptable >30k dps, naturally hardy and reasonably self sufficient, has a variety of important tools e.g. decent amount cc, stab (all of which could’ve been another balance direction for other classes to achieve instead of randomly pushing dmg numbers around). It would be a shame to see reaper ruined by ‘that one janky interaction’ which plague the other professions, because that’s actually what’s missing between current reaper and 38k.

Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

I also completely disagree with you, give me a gimmick that allows me to meet that DPS with Necro so I can be competitive with the profession "theme" I enjoy... Instead of playing the Guardian and Mesmer I raid with now.

BTW: I honestly do not see the gimmick with Guardian. Just insane DPS with multiple specs that are easy to master.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

Some classes need to have a clear DPS gap in order to be Viable, if it is within 1-2k dps ahead then it wont be a viable pick

[Josiah.2967]

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:Some classes need to have a clear DPS gap in order to be Viable, if it is within 1-2k dps ahead then it wont be a viable pick

Why not? I see people changing DPS specs for 3% gains all the time in other MMO's. Even if it's a harder class to play. Some people also prefer playing harder classes. Some people prefer twitch gameplay, some prefer difficult/complex rotations, etc... There is no difference in this particular instance. 2K is still a significant gap. Those that want to Min/Max will choose that.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:Some classes need to have a clear DPS gap in order to be Viable, if it is within 1-2k dps ahead then it wont be a viable pick

This might be true, but for the wrong reasons. Again, Necromancy, Dark classes, etc. are popular themes in games like these. Should other professions have a clear performance gap to raise their play count? Should dark classes be punished in performance because they have a cool(er) theme? I think that's the wrong kind of balancing! (just my opinion, of course)

[Noodle Ant.1605]

@Josiah.2967 said:

@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:Reaper/necro’s design has little do with the current disparity between classes.

In case it slipped anyone’s mind, a number of the specs in question are carried by ‘attack of opportunity’ or similar interactions which function as intended in PvP, but translate poorly throughout PvE - quite literally making up the entire difference between reaper-level dps and the supposed 38k standard, due to their supposed difficulty to satisfy (but can be achieved in organised raid conditions). If it weren’t for these interactions, the playing field in terms of dps would be much more level, since other professions wouldn’t have felt the need to buffed to the same bloated state.

But instead of raising the fact that these conditions were naturally difficult to satisfy, we decided to completely warp the concept of ‘realistic’ conditions in order to facilitate these broken interactions. Instead of asking for an appropriate fix, we decided to list these as proper, ‘this is how X ultimately performs’ benchmarks. And instead of questioning this decision, we accepted it as the new standard and disregarded opinions that argued otherwise.

And so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Anet decided to follow through with this design and standard. And reaper is left behind because it lacks such interaction.

That being said, reaper is currently in a fairly ideal state if it were in a less volatile environment - an acceptable >30k dps, naturally hardy and reasonably self sufficient, has a variety of important tools e.g. decent amount cc, stab (all of which could’ve been another balance direction for other classes to achieve instead of randomly pushing dmg numbers around). It would be a shame to see reaper ruined by ‘that one janky interaction’ which plague the other professions, because

that’s

actually what’s missing between current reaper and 38k.

Why are you focused on 38K whhen the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Am I focused on 38k or are you too focused on 40k when it happens to belong to a said gimmicky spec? And the next one down barely gets over 39k?

I also completely disagree with you, give me a gimmick that allows me to meet that DPS with Necro so I can be competitive with the profession "theme" I enjoy... Instead of playing the Guardian and Mesmer I raid with now.

That’s not hard. I’ve even mentioned multiple times by now: Dread reaper, instantly gets you to 38k+, loss of awaken the pain already accounted for. Only need to ask Anet for one thing: more fear sources.

So yeah, this is your one-way ticket to get closer your ‘40k’ dreamland.

BTW: I honestly do not see the gimmick with Guardian. Just insane DPS with multiple specs that are easy to master.

If you have a 5k difference between guard and reaper in a practical sense, either you’re playing virtues guard whose gimmick is never to get hit at all, or you’re not as experienced at reaper as you think you are. And if you think virtues guard is ok, then dread reaper is certainly within your sights, how did the idea pass by you?

You missed my point anyway. I don’t see anything wrong about reaper. I don’t want to introduce something wrong when things that are wrong with other professions can be fixed instead.

Played pchrono pre danger time buff, didn’t like it when it happened.Played condi weaver pre fire traitline buff, knew it was because of broken pchrono. Didn’t like it when it happened.Now I play a spec that has the conundrum of supposedly being top dps in raids, yet shares being in low tier with reaper everywhere else. How is this balance?

But if you disagree that’s fine. Not many seem to understand to what I mean more than half the time anyway, which is more or less disappointing.

[Josiah.2967]

@Noodle Ant.1605

Let us just agree to disagree. I can easily look at benchmarks by fight to prove my point. Your also comparing a spec that can do insane damage by not taking damage to a spec that does less damage by taking damage?

The difference between top and average for Reaper is also a bigger gap than most other "harder specs" that have a significant DPS advantage. Because you can not take damage to do their maximum DPS...which just starts significantly lower.

We are also focusing to much on Necro...they aren't they only ones on the low end. Even if they may be one of the more obvious examples.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Josiah.2967 said:BTW: I honestly do not see the gimmick with Guardian. Just insane DPS with multiple specs that are easy to master.

He simply mean that it's as unrealistic to expect virtue guard to maintain aegis (unscathed contender: 20% damage while under the effect of aegis) through an actual fight as it is to expect the necromancer to maintain fear (dread: 33% damage on feared foes). Which might not be a good excuse due to the fact that the guardian build specifically target large foes leading to a probably better dps than gained on golem while the necromancer's tools (with or without dread) have poor value against such foes.

The necromancer just don't have tools with a design fitting for PvE group content, well, except epidemic but it's already been nerfed.

• Shroud have an arguably broken design even if some players think it doesn't.
• Boon corruption don't have much power against raid boss simply because bosses don't make much use of boons, they disregard a lot of conditions, the rare boon they got don't lead to any increase in dps for the necromancer and, in the context of a 10 man raid it's up to luck to actually convert a boon.
• Life siphons don't add much to a game mode ruled by damage modifier and crit chance.
• Conditions are also seldom encountered making condition manipulation not really valuable.
• The mostly selfish nature of the necromancer when it come to boon generation.
• ... etc.

Honnestly, there are plenty of way to bring the necromancer into a better place than it is right now. Making boon corruption proc on the defiance bar as if it were interacting with vigor would help. Replacing some traits that give might by trait that give a flat amount of power instead would help increase the damage potential at the cost of it's solo performance (which wouldn't be a bad thing from my point of view). Replacing some Boss arena field power damage by long lasting conditions building slowly could help as well. Reducing a few abusive ICD on some traits in PvE that were introduced due to PvP/WvW would go a long way to improve the necromancer's dps competitiveness... etc.

[Nimon.7840]

Well I expect a necro buff in next balance patch. And I'd really like to see it doing comparable dps.But the big problem:Necro gets taken away something for it.That's always been the case.

While a lot of times other classes that are only underperforming a bit, do get a buff without a nerf behind it.

But just to point out some weaknesses:

• Opening burst is way too low. Just compare reaper to soulbeast. That's around 30k dps difference in opening burst. Reaper being at 40-44k, soulbeast at 70-76k. So while this only makes a smaller difference in longer fights, this makes a huge difference in shorter fights. And let me tell you something: with the latest patches, classes get more and more damage, making fights shorter. Just look at the latest mursaat overseer speedkill. The fight was so short, that the soulbeast, that were used in the kill, did around 45k dps. Shouldn't be possible if you just look at the dmg numbers shown on the snowcrows website. So please don't tell me that golem fights and real raid fights are different. Yes they are setting necro even further behind on lots of bosses. Cause area tick dmg reduces lifeforce which makes shroud deplete faster, which makes you loose dps. Yes power soulbeast looses dps as well when taking damage, but this dmg has to bring the soulbeast below 90% health which normally gets instant healed by your healer or just by regeneration. Shroud can't be refilled by your healer (and that would make reaper mega overpowered in wvw/pvp, I'm not asking for that)

• no reliable Critchance. While technically you could choose decimate defenses, you loose damage if you don't choose the souleater trait. so even if you are using an assassin's greatsword, you are still missing 9% Critchance out of shroud, which is huge if you know how the reaper rotation works. Especially after the bosses health drops below 50%, this has even more impact than you might think. It's a long casttime skill, that usually crits for ~33k but if if doesn't crit, and there's a chance it doesn't, it's a bad skill to use. And if you're truly unlucky, your gravediggers don't crit a lot of the times.

Also decimate defenses isn't used in any builds anymore.On power reaper and pve condi reapers you'd take souleaterOn tanky condi builds in wvw for example you'd use chilling victory. So while decimate defenses used to be a good trait, it gets overshadowed by the new souleater trait.

Necro doesn't need a lot to be at least on comparable level to other classes. Honestly, maybe just some speed ups of animations, lowering of casttimes and the a small 10% Critchance buff somewhere might be just enough. To make it at least look like it's on par with other classes while in reality, the burst would still not be as high as the burst of other classes. Which would still set it behind other classes on bursty fights. And honestly, there aren't a lot of fights that aren't bursty favoured.

Even if you look at the condo classes, there's some that do insane burst dmg (main offender being firebrand) that even get their most dmg skills resetted on certain fights (where previously people were qq-ing about epibounce) while firebrand might be even stronger, especially because it doesn't need any coordination.While necro has the slowest of all classes dmg ramp ups, if played on condi.

Honestly I think without a rework of the whole necro kit, there won't change anything. But I don't think there will be a rework coming.So we just gotta keep our hopes up, that with the announced third expansion there will be a elitespec, that once again has some unintended interactions to exploit, until they get fixed/nerfed. Or maybe we finally get an intended dps spec?

[Noodle Ant.1605]

@Josiah.2967 said:Your also comparing a spec that can do insane damage by not taking damage to a spec that does less damage by taking damage?

But then if can manage to not get hit on virtues guard, then why can't you not get hit on reaper?

But that wasn't the point. If this supposedly hard-to-satisfy condition was nerfed to a 5-10% increase only in PvE (because we know its possible to maintain), virtues guard would find itself @ 33-35k instead of 38k (but fortunately they have a 35k radiance guard regardless). Then you wouldn't need a drastic measure to buff reaper to this more achiveable standard.

You can then apply this to the other classes in question (slb & hunter's tactics, DE damage dif when kneeling, temp damage dif vs large hitbox, chrono & danger time/slow in general, etc). The other specs which were buffed to meet this level would then simply need to get unbuffed/nerfed (condi weaver, holo, condi ren; warr & condi fb also pretty much meet this criteria)

The difference between top and average for Reaper

The average for reaper can probably be reached by playing a safer signets of suffering + signet of undeath build, which has a further advantage of losing less dmg for being hit/boss aura. I suppose no one bothered to consider this, because we're too focused on the highest perfoming scenario? And then because we changed the meaning of 'realistic' conditions, we can assume there is some source of barrier which negates these drawbacks in the first place.

We are also focusing to much on Necro...they aren't they only ones on the low end.

And hence why I prefer addressing the gimmicks which allow some classes to reach higher numbers instead of trying to raise everything else up (dps SB, w/e form of power rev, w/e form of condi thief, dps scrapper, etc.). Additionally, the specs who fail to abuse their gimmick invariably land near reaper level anyway, so why don't we balance around this lower standard instead?

But then again, this is just simply how I view the current situation.

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

@Josiah.2967 said:Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Its one build at 40k DPS. A build that will not be able to reach this on most encounters because Focus 5 is stupid. On a class that will have really good damage in some phases and bad damage in other phases. I really dont understand why so many people in this thread look at benchmarks. Yeah, they are nice for comparisson but often dont even come close to what is good on actual bosses. The spread is not at an all time high. We have one class pulling 40k. And except for Necro every other class is at about 38k.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Boon corruption don't have much power against raid boss simply because bosses don't make much use of boons, they disregard a lot of conditions, the rare boon they

This is very valuable for fractals. Problem is that you cant corrupt while in shroud, corrupts are single target or on a ridiculous cd. 40sec well cd.Compare this to spellbreaker or ren. Some of the fractals have so insane boon spam that removing them becomes pointless. TO with no pain no gain. Prot reapplied every 5-10sec. why even bothering with it when you can go cfb.My point is that reaper boon corrupt is lacking. Even if there would be more boons like on qadim you would just play renegade or spb instead of reaper. probably not even scourge.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Boon corruption don't have much power against raid boss simply because bosses don't make much use of boons, they disregard a lot of conditions, the rare boon they

This is very valuable for fractals. Problem is that you cant corrupt while in shroud, corrupts are single target or on a ridiculous cd. 40sec well cd.Compare this to spellbreaker or ren. Some of the fractals have so insane boon spam that removing them becomes pointless. TO with no pain no gain. Prot reapplied every 5-10sec. why even bothering with it when you can go cfb.My point is that reaper boon corrupt is lacking. Even if there would be more boons like on qadim you would just play renegade or spb instead of reaper. probably not even scourge.

My point is more that there is to much competition over boon ripping/corrupting and conditions that you can get out of boon corruption in PvE don't have much value. Renegade, spell breaker or mesmer don't capitalize much on boon ripping/corrupting, it's just some minor effect to their skills, on the opposite, the necromancer have skills that are basically just boon corruption, heavily relying on this specific effect.

It's not that reaper's boon corrupt is lacking or not, it's that there is no room in boss fight for this mechanism to really shine. The ripping effect sure is important but the corrupting effect itself have no value and a single mesmer auto attacking with sword main hand will just do the job of getting rid of the boons way more efficiently than a necromancer trying to time it's corruption.

[Cyninja.2954]

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Its one build at 40k DPS. A build that will not be able to reach this on most encounters because Focus 5 is stupid. On a class that will have really good damage in some phases and bad damage in other phases. I really dont understand why so many people in this thread look at benchmarks. Yeah, they are nice for comparisson but often dont even come close to what is good on actual bosses. The spread is not at an all time high. We have one class pulling 40k. And except for Necro every other class is at about 38k.

Just to answer this:because half the people arguing in favor of necromancer buffs in this thread don't actually raid or participate in challenging content and lack actual experience which damage modifiers are realistically possible.

The discussion in this thread has been had many times over. Necro was far closer in power dps to other damage classes a few patches back (and it's ease of use still is) and immediately everyone was running only power reapers because of the innate tank the class has. Reaper was shortly after nerfed down again.

Most other high burst classes rely on multiple damage ability stacking effects for absolute top tier performance (guardians multi symbol rotations, ele precasts, Holo preheating, etc.). Necro just doesn't have as much access to such effects.

Just an FYI, most of the necro mains asking for necro buffs in this thread were either strangely absent when the outcry for necro balance in pvp and wvw was strong last patch. Or they didn't see any issue with their favorite class being op.

Me personally, I've always enjoyed power Reaper. It's an absolutely viable spec in all pve game modes for 99.9% of all players. For anyone who is actually on the level of Lucky Noobs, Snow Crows or other absolute 0.1% high end pve guilds (basically not one of the necro mains here), yes it sucks that you can't play this ONE class all the time. Then again, players of that caliber will optimize and play the absolute best in slot class anyway, and you will never have 1 class be top tier for ever.

As to the argument that dark themed classes see more play, I had a good chuckle there. Nice try, but last I checked, and this is actually supported by gw2efficiency stats, the most favorite classes played once again are paladin types (guardian), warriors and rangers.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

sadly I don't think necro will ever be allowed to have high end dps cuz their rotations are too easy. this means necro needs design changes not just modifier buffs. I think a 32k dps baseline for all classes isn't out of the question tho.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Cyninja.2954 said:The discussion in this thread has been had many times over. Necro was far closer in power dps to other damage classes a few patches back (and it's ease of use still is) and immediately everyone was running only power reapers because of the innate tank the class has. Reaper was shortly after nerfed down again.

I think you misunderstood something back then. It was only played for a short period of time because it became playable and wasn't complete meme anymore. Not because it was good or tanky.In fact reapers shroud damage mod is far harder to keep than modifiers of other profession + hard time keeping scholar.Reaper is even unplayable if there is a bit pressure or unavoidable stuff like boneskinner or vale guardian. Dh or fb just yolo through everything with their invincibility heal or 3 million blocks. Even power renegade has more dps than reaper now. Also ip DD has more dps than reaper and is almost unkillable aswell. Shroud is a handycap in raids or strikes, not something usefull.And i dont make this up. Data is also backing this since the average condi weaver performed way better than the top performing reaper when raidar was online. Necro needs a pve dps buff since beta.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The discussion in this thread has been had many times over. Necro was far closer in power dps to other damage classes a few patches back (and it's ease of use still is) and immediately everyone was running only power reapers because of the innate tank the class has. Reaper was shortly after nerfed down again.

I think you misunderstood something back then. It was only played for a short period of time because it became playable and wasn't complete meme anymore. Not because it was good or tanky.In fact reapers shroud damage mod is far harder to keep than modifiers of other profession + hard time keeping scholar.Reaper is even unplayable if there is a bit pressure or unavoidable stuff like boneskinner or vale guardian. Dh or fb just yolo through everything with their invincibility heal or 3 million blocks. Even power renegade has more dps than reaper now. Also ip DD has more dps than reaper and is almost unkillable aswell. Shroud is a handycap in raids or strikes, not something usefull.And i dont make this up. Data is also backing this since the average condi weaver performed way better than the top performing reaper when raidar was online. Necro needs a pve dps buff since beta.

All true for the top end. Not true for the 99% of the player base below.

Yes, necro is more tanky for average players. The only time where necro will receive a buff again is if it has to sacrifice baseline survival not only for the top end players, but across the board.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Its one build at 40k DPS. A build that will not be able to reach this on most encounters because Focus 5 is stupid. On a class that will have really good damage in some phases and bad damage in other phases. I really dont understand why so many people in this thread look at benchmarks. Yeah, they are nice for comparisson but often dont even come close to what is good on actual bosses. The spread is not at an all time high. We have one class pulling 40k. And except for Necro every other class is at about 38k.

As to the argument that dark themed classes see more play, I had a good chuckle there. Nice try, but last I checked, and this is actually supported by gw2efficiency stats, the most favorite classes played once again are paladin types (guardian), warriors and rangers.

You just proved my point :) ... you know that gw2efficiency account owners are mostly veteran players, right? You also know that new (newbies) and casual players mostly don't do raids, right? Do I have to explain further, or can you see the 1+1=2 ?

@Cyninja.2954 said:because half the people arguing in favor of necromancer buffs in this thread don't actually raid or participate in challenging content and lack actual experience which damage modifiers are realistically possible.Your accusations about other people on this forum are just rude, really ... i know quite a few of these people do raid, and if you raid yourself (not saying that you don't, I don't want to be rude), you KNOW it's easy to pull off higher DPS numbers with ANY other class than the Necro. I can't really imagine how you would not be able to. And I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, you must either be really bad at playing those other classes or very new at it (again, not an accusation, just a mere fact!)

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:All true for the top end. Not true for the 99% of the player base below.

So in short, sPvP need to be balanced around top players and PvE around average players?

Truth be told, you point out that the necromancer was dominant when it had competitive dps, but isn't the meta always ending up with a dominant profession? I mean, it's used to be elementalist, necromancer shined each time a gimmick was exploited, nowaday it might be gardians...

I totally agree with you that the necromancer have broken mechanisms that justify it's lower dps potential, but I also understand the point of view of those that are frustrated by a 25% difference in potential damage. With such a difference made public, it's hard for the average player to take a necromancer wanting to be dps seriously.

How something is perceived is as important as how something perform. The necromancer is perceived as a noob profession very forgiving with easy rotation and a subpar dps that provide nothing interesting to the group. Do you really think that's a good selling point? Who do you think will be pointed out if the average raid group don't manage to reach the dps check on the raid boss? Will it be the noob profession with subpar dps potential or the pro profession with high dps potential?

Ideally, there should be for each and every profession both "noob builds" and "pro builds" and that's what balance should strive for. The necromancer being stuck with only "noob build" sure is a problem but the lack of advertissement about other profession's "noob builds" is just as much of an issue. People are only advertised pro performance, you can't expect them to want any less for themself.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The discussion in this thread has been had many times over. Necro was far closer in power dps to other damage classes a few patches back (and it's ease of use still is) and immediately everyone was running only power reapers because of the innate tank the class has. Reaper was shortly after nerfed down again.

I think you misunderstood something back then. It was only played for a short period of time because it became playable and wasn't complete meme anymore. Not because it was good or tanky.In fact reapers shroud damage mod is far harder to keep than modifiers of other profession + hard time keeping scholar.Reaper is even unplayable if there is a bit pressure or unavoidable stuff like boneskinner or vale guardian. Dh or fb just yolo through everything with their invincibility heal or 3 million blocks. Even power renegade has more dps than reaper now. Also ip DD has more dps than reaper and is almost unkillable aswell. Shroud is a handycap in raids or strikes, not something usefull.And i dont make this up. Data is also backing this since the average condi weaver performed way better than the top performing reaper when raidar was online. Necro needs a pve dps buff since beta.

All true for the top end. Not true for the 99% of the player base below.

Yes, necro is more tanky for average players. The only time where necro will receive a buff again is if it has to sacrifice baseline survival not only for the top end players, but across the board.

And again: MARAUDER is the key word here ... you can slap it on any other power class and still have more dps than a Necro with Berserker gear on, and I'm not even going to mention traits like invigorating precision and/or full traitlines like the warriors tactics line, which will just make you straight up invincible ... AND STILL DO MORE DPS THAN A NECRO!!!! (with easier rotations as well, btw)And let me explain it once more: if you actively use that tankiness of the Necro (read popping shroud for defence), your DPS drops far below those said marauder players!

All true for the top end. Not true for the 99% of the player base below.Ow and btw, not even THIS is true! Like Nephalem already mentioned: it's proven with statistics on gw2raidar that even mediocre condi Weavers (50th percentile) out-dps the 99th percentile Necro's out there: or in other words the top 1% Necro's in real raid scenarios!

[Agrippa.1693]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:sadly I don't think necro will ever be allowed to have high end dps cuz their rotations are too easy. this means necro needs design changes not just modifier buffs. I think a 32k dps baseline for all classes isn't out of the question tho.

Hmmmmmm, Bersekers Axe/Axe rotation is indeed very difficult ... Or that of the Daredevil? Or the D/D Deadeye? Or the Dragonhunter? Or condi Soulbeast? Or even the sword Holo? Really .....Yet they ALL do (significantly) more DPS than a power Reaper!

[Cyninja.2954]

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:

@"Josiah.2967" said:Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Its one build at 40k DPS. A build that will not be able to reach this on most encounters because Focus 5 is stupid. On a class that will have really good damage in some phases and bad damage in other phases. I really dont understand why so many people in this thread look at benchmarks. Yeah, they are nice for comparisson but often dont even come close to what is good on actual bosses. The spread is not at an all time high. We have one class pulling 40k. And except for Necro every other class is at about 38k.

As to the argument that dark themed classes see more play, I had a good chuckle there. Nice try, but last I checked, and this is actually supported by gw2efficiency stats, the most favorite classes played once again are paladin types (guardian), warriors and rangers.

You just proved my point :) ... you know that gw2efficiency account owners are mostly veteran players, right? You also know that new (newbies) and casual players mostly don't do raids, right? Do I have to explain further, or can you see the 1+1=2 ?

I know that gw2eff suggests that the most played classes are not necro. I also know that this metric might have flaws, but it is by far the most reliable one which we have as to class popularity and distribution. Everything else is baseless speculation.

You can do as much math as you like. I'll wait on actual data or any metric which supports your claim. It can even be as flawed as gw2efficiency if you like. Until then, your claim remains a personal theory.

EDIT: you know what, I'll do you one even better:https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/662a4v/current_class_distribution/Source: https://twitter.com/Shazbawt/status/854250546340872195

In short, from 2 years ago: Warrior 14%, Ranger 13%, Guardian 12%, Necro 12%. There, another source which shows that necro is by far not the most created class and is only tied for 3rd with paladin (I mean guardian).

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

because half the people arguing in favor of necromancer buffs in this thread don't actually raid or participate in challenging content and lack actual experience which damage modifiers are realistically possible.

Your accusations about other people on this forum are just rude, really ... i know quite a few of these people

do

raid, and if you raid yourself (not saying that you don't, I

don't

want to be rude), you KNOW it's easy to pull off higher DPS numbers with

ANY

other class than the Necro. I can't really imagine how you would

not

be able to. And I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, you must either be really bad at playing those other classes or very new at it (again, not an accusation, just a mere fact!)

2.5k LI/LD, compared to your close to 0. The thing I've learned in all that time: you can raid on any class in the 99% bracket of players, on nearly any damage build, and outperform nearly any 80th percentile player. Which is more than sufficient to clear EVERYTHING in this game, even CMs and be nearly always top dps in PUG groups and semi casual raids guilds.

The only players affected by necro not being viable are the top 1%, IF they optimize. Get there first, then complain. If you are not in the top 1%, necro being slightly weaker as power dps will not be the reason why you are having issues on this class, in this content, or your group, or guild.

Also, how is stating a fact an accusation? Some posters in this thread have openly admitted to not participate in raids or challenging group content, yourself included. I was not accusing, I was stating a fact based on past information posted on these very forums by members.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:All true for the top end. Not true for the 99% of the player base below.

So in short, sPvP need to be balanced around top players and PvE around average players?

Truth be told, you point out that the necromancer was dominant when it had competitive dps, but isn't the meta always ending up with a dominant profession? I mean, it's used to be elementalist, necromancer shined each time a gimmick was exploited, nowaday it might be gardians...

I totally agree with you that the necromancer have broken mechanisms that justify it's lower dps potential, but I also understand the point of view of those that are frustrated by a 25% difference in potential damage. With such a difference made public, it's hard for the average player to take a necromancer wanting to be dps seriously.

How something is perceived is as important as how something perform. The necromancer is perceived as a noob profession very forgiving with easy rotation and a subpar dps that provide nothing interesting to the group. Do you really think that's a good selling point? Who do you think will be pointed out if the average raid group don't manage to reach the dps check on the raid boss? Will it be the noob profession with subpar dps potential or the pro profession with high dps potential?

Ideally, there should be for each and every profession both "noob builds" and "pro builds" and that's what balance should strive for. The necromancer being stuck with only "noob build" sure is a problem but the lack of advertissement about other profession's "noob builds" is just as much of an issue. People are only advertised pro performance, you can't expect them to want any less for themself.

Watch the recent Teapot chat with an Anet dev. Balance is done across the board to all areas, not just the top tier. Sure, this can be put up to discussion if it should be done this way. As of right now, that's how classes get balanced. Thus necro has strengths which, while not that impactful in specific content like fractals and raids, are vastly beneficial in other content and/or across the board.

Ideally, each class should be able to participate and clear content. That is the case right now. Given 9 classes, it will be impossible to reach an equal distribution for each boss, for each game mode, for each player skill level.

Necro is very strong in some areas. So strong that it recently was re-tuned and yet still remains meta in WvW and pvp. It has drawbacks in pve damage, it is an insane carry as pve heal.

You want to re-balance necro power damage? Sure, but as I keep telling people: you might not like the end result because changes never come with buffs only.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:Why are you focused on 38K when the top is now 40+ K? The spread is at an all time high. It is unhealthy for Raiding/Strike Missions.

Its one build at 40k DPS. A build that will not be able to reach this on most encounters because Focus 5 is stupid. On a class that will have really good damage in some phases and bad damage in other phases. I really dont understand why so many people in this thread look at benchmarks. Yeah, they are nice for comparisson but often dont even come close to what is good on actual bosses. The spread is not at an all time high. We have one class pulling 40k. And except for Necro every other class is at about 38k.

As to the argument that dark themed classes see more play, I had a good chuckle there. Nice try, but last I checked, and this is actually supported by gw2efficiency stats, the most favorite classes played once again are paladin types (guardian), warriors and rangers.

You just proved my point :) ... you know that gw2efficiency account owners are mostly veteran players, right? You also know that new (newbies) and casual players mostly don't do raids, right? Do I have to explain further, or can you see the 1+1=2 ?

I know that gw2eff suggests that the most played classes are not necro. I also know that this metric might have flaws, but it is by far the most reliable one which we have as to class popularity and distribution. Everything else is baseless speculation.

@Agrippa Oculus.3726 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

because half the people arguing in favor of necromancer buffs in this thread don't actually raid or participate in challenging content and lack actual experience which damage modifiers are realistically possible.

Your accusations about other people on this forum are just rude, really ... i know quite a few of these people

do

raid, and if you raid yourself (not saying that you don't, I

don't

want to be rude), you KNOW it's easy to pull off higher DPS numbers with

ANY

other class than the Necro. I can't really imagine how you would

not

be able to. And I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, you must either be really bad at playing those other classes or very new at it (again, not an accusation, just a mere fact!)

2.5k LI/LD, compared to your close to 0. The thing I've learned in all that time: you can raid on any class in the 99% bracket of players, on nearly any damage build, and outperform nearly any 80th percentile player. Which is more than sufficient to clear EVERYTHING in this game, even CMs.

The only players affected by necro not being viable are the top 1%, IF they optimize. Get there first, then complain. Or just start at all, then make comments about a game mode you have no understanding of.

Also, how is stating a fact an accusation? Some posters in this thread have openly admitted to not participate in raids or challenging group content, yourself included. I was not accusing, I was stating a fact based on past information posted on these very forums by members.

Myself included? ...Assumptions on assumptions again! Those 90th to 99th percentiles, that's where I actually used to raid! But you got one thing right, I don't raid anymore (as of recently), because of the balance issues! I hate to see that one of my favourite games is putting almost no effort into balancing it's game compared to other games I play. Not just for the Necro, but generally! I.e.: it took them almost 8 years to finally trying to fix PvP (where I btw, complained about the Necro's performance as being to high). Imo it's just really insane. Balance wise, ANet is REALLY bad!

But more importantly if you really are on 2.5k LI, you KNOW I'm speaking the truth: it's literally impossible to get to those numbers Guardians, Engineers, Thieves, Eles, Warriors, Mesmers can get to with a Necro.