Curse

Scaphism · Apr 25, 2005, 11:53 PM // 23:53

Keep your private conversations contained to PMs.
If there isn't going to be civil discussion, there wont be discussion. If I see it getting out of line again, the thread will close. Fair warning.

Xellos · Apr 26, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Just a note on the necromancer thing: Seems to be that Necromancers are like, well, AOE-based really. Faintheartedness, Deathly Swarm, whatever. The point being, AOE currently isn't that effective because of how the formation is layed out. 8 players is never going to get crammed enough for those moves to matter I think.

Maybe I'm on crack. But the way I see it, Mesmers primarily shove hexes and such onto one target, whereas Necros do it to multiple people. Things such as Faintheartedness and Life siphon can be applied on over 3 different people while they all are still going off because of the long duration.

Yeah, I'm on crack. Someone flame me with logic right now.

tektonik · Apr 26, 2005, 01:15 AM // 01:15

Necro's do have aoe debuffs but the ones that are really good mainly effect warrior which in PvP are a secondary target at best. IMO if you want to nerf War damage you should just throw sympathetic visage on the monk thats being focused as it will take a lot longer to recover than just weakness.(Purge is 1/4 cast)

Scaphism · Apr 26, 2005, 08:20 AM // 08:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ander Deathblade

That's great. I read the advice with interest and take note of it. That's why I like this site. Much knowledge, little messing about with trivial crap. I never said you cats knew nothing, I wouldn't post here if I thought that.

We appreciate all the interest these boards generate, and anyone who takes the time to be thoughtful with their questions and suggestions here.

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Yes, they are not sharing their builds with you, you being the key word.

Who brought me into it? I never asked KOR to share their builds with me. I don't know exactly what you're getting at with this, really. I'm not hurt that they didn't share- I don't expect things to be given to me when I don't even ask for them.

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Why do you think the devs haven't given Necros a sizable boost?

If I knew the answer to that, you can bet I'd be here to share it with all of you.

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well, if not for swordsmanship (which I need maxed with runes), I would pretty much feel the same way about Warrior. Strength is awful. but it adds to damage, aka the optimal use.

I think you've really missed the point here- are you comparing a necro primary with a warrior primary? Warrior armor and runes are two of the major reasons to become a warrior primary in the first place- if you want to pump your swordsmanship as high as it can possibly go, you have to be a warrior primary. And for high damage builds, that's exactly what you want. A warrior can take a -75 HP hit from a superior rune because no one bothers to attack them til the rest of their team is wiped out. Explot the opportunity that's given to you.
The exact opposite is true for necromancers, and this is where your argument really falls apart. I can't think of a single necromancer build where I'd like 16 in the attribute- except for Death Necromancers, but I wont play those competetively either. Curses? 8 or 9 is perfectly acceptable, 3-5 if all you're taking is Rend and SOF.
Blood? The best skills in the line are Offering of Blood and Blood is Power- you want them somewhere in the 7-9 range.
There are 2 reasons to want your Blood Magic above 9- Life Siphon gets it's third pip at 12 blood magic, and if you are spamming Order of the Vampire/Pain, then you want to jack up Blood as high as you can get it. I've designed an OOV spam character, if and when I actually play it, I'd push blood magic up to 14 or so.
Until then, necromancers are the complete opposite of warriors- Necro attributes are good in the 7-9 range, easy to do on a secondary necro. Four attribute builds in particular fit well. Warriors can get away with jacking their weapon attributes to astronomical levels because of their terrific armor.
As for Strength- it ranks near the bottom of the list of primary attributes, but it's not bad. When tactics was trash it was a no brainer- at the very least you'd dump some points in because of the passive boost and the improved sprint. The buff to tactics makes strength look worse by contrast, but by no means is it anywhere in the realm of soul reaping.
No, the ranking of primary attributes goes something like this:
1st tier: Expertise
2nd tier: Energy Storage and Divine Favor
3rd tier: Fast Casting and Strength
Dead Last: Soul Reaping.

Expertise is the runaway winner- it has the most powerful effect as well as some very good linked skills. You always want to crank this to 13 or 14.
Energy Storage and Divine Favor are good around 10, which is perfect with 3 attribute builds. They have some good, if unspectacular linked skills.
Fast Casting and Strength: You have points in these because they are useful effects, but not game changing. Fast Casting would be stellar with a few more linked skills, and strength has a ton of linked skills, plus the passive armor penetration, plus a shield. You could certainly make an argument for tactics instead of strength, but strength still has a vaild case.
Soul Reaping, as usual is bringing up the rear, all by itself.

To compare a necro to a warrior, to compare blood to swords, is comparing a D student to a B+. One is acceptable at moderate levels, the other you crank as high as you can get. Cranked through the roof is only available to primaries- if you remove that mechanic, you're playing a different game entirely. This is exactly why there aren't necro primaries- you don't need 14, or 16 blood. If you did, we'd stop ragging on them.

Finally:

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unrelenting obstinacy? where did you find that?

I see unrelenting obstinacy every day. I am here, as a moderator, to try and help people learn, but there are always more people with questions that have been asked and answered before. I am here, as is the rest of the staff, and others who give their time.

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I did not insult you, Ensign, Nash, or "others", I merely said you are not omniscient. Truth hurts? Am I supposed to say "oh, Nash said Soul Barbs is a terrible skill, so it must be true". If so, I'm sure your "not claiming to be omniscient" statement was a bit of a stretch.

Insulted? I could care less. In fact those are my words- I said we're not omniscient, so what's your point?
We don't expect our readers to be either- otherwise they wouldn't be here, asking question. Nor do we expect you to roll over and agree with everything we say. But when you come to our boards, and ask our advice, we expect to be listened to with courtesy. We want to help people learn- not have our own opinons parroted back to us. If people are coming here and learning, they they in turn can help another, so that the flood of uniformed questions slows to a river, perhaps a stream, and maybe one day, a trickle.

At the same time, this is exactly what irks me so much about people throwing out KOR in an offand manner, like whatever they do is gospel. We're not here to parrot, we're here to learn, and providing bad information about the characters they ran- which is exactly what you said, KOR did not run a necro(primary)- hurts us all. Furthermore, when you say "they ran a necro, so necros don't suck" is the worst kind of sophistry. Any time we spend thinking about it is time that could be spent analyzing other topics, or helping the other posters.

If and when a team designs a good necro build that the rest of us can use, please bring it back and share with the community here. Until then, vague references to a mythical "good necro build" will continue to be debunked.

Studio Ghibli · Apr 26, 2005, 09:22 AM // 09:22

.. for what it's worth, I play a necromancer because of STYLE.

I mean, not 'style' as in manner of acting or whatever.

I mean STYLE as in DAYUM.

I'm more than willing to sacrifice power for STYLE.

After all, that's what a necromancer is all about: sacrifice.

four20life · Apr 26, 2005, 10:01 AM // 10:01

amen to the sacrifice

*gives standing o'vation*
i to am willing sacrifice what ever it take to just look cool

Jackell · Apr 26, 2005, 10:21 AM // 10:21

This is based off the info given on the "Necro as a secondary" post, but it fit here.

It seems the problem with a necro is that anything it can be handy for, someone else can be just as good with with necro as a secondary. So, my question is, is it worth two or maybe three of your guildmates giving up their secondaries to free that one open slot as compared to having a Johnny on the Spot with debuffs and curses?

Sure, you won't have a lead role, but that just may be the necro's place.

Greentongue · Apr 26, 2005, 12:06 PM // 12:06

The thing I find funny about that is it is almost word for word what was said about the Ranger last year.

Sting · Apr 26, 2005, 12:50 PM // 12:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by FightingHamster

I'm pretty new to the game, and wasn't able to try anything out during the beta weekends, so please bear with me here. First up, I have pretty much decided to go N/W; this thread isn't designed to discuss the efficiency/fun of the N/W, but specific builds.

Anyway, the two builds that I am currently looking at are:

Well if this build is what you want then 1 is probly as good as another and the great thing about this game is your not locked into either so you can tweak it as you develop your style.

Now my 2 cents about having the warrior as the secondary. Your giving up the biggest bonus doing it this way and thats the armor. So for your grps healers sake dont think you can be the primary tank. Try and let any other grp members who have armor get the agro B4 you jump in (this advice is comming from not playing this type combo but grouping with this combo once. And I probly wont do it again (flame if you must but this combo gets the whole group killed because many think they can be the primary tank just because their build says warrior)).

Ensign · Apr 26, 2005, 07:07 PM // 19:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jackell

So, my question is, is it worth two or maybe three of your guildmates giving up their secondaries to free that one open slot as compared to having a Johnny on the Spot with debuffs and curses?

It's more like one, maybe two - you only need one guy with Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood to shut down physical, and adding more guys with that is just redundant.

To answer the question - yes, absolutely, it's a no-brainer tradeoff. Warrior shutdown is not worth devoting an entire character to - shutdown plus some incidental Necro goodness is worth maybe half a character. Do you want eight strong primaries with support secondaries, or seven strong primaries with an extra secondary? Because that's what a Necromancer really amounts to - a character with two secondary professions.

The only times I'd take a Necro primary is if I wanted a very specific function, like Order of the Vampire spam, or if they leaned heavily upon their secondary for a 'primary'-type role and could do so effectively - in practice, that excludes everything but Protection Monk.

Peace,
-CxE

Ander Deathblade · Apr 29, 2005, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by tektonik

This alone to me has made all other points you made invalid. Armor Pentration is what makes KOR's build work as well as every other war centric team build. YOu seem to lack the insight of same basic information to ackowledge this tho.

Look at what I typed. Armor penetration is damage augmentation. It does not make any build work, it does not provide any tactics other than "hit the enemy". Which, to be honest, is the tactics, or should I say, lack of tactics, that people use right now. Of course, avoiding all tactics to make the build that provides the easiest execution (look at 4W, 4Mo. = Healing + damage. Pure execution, simplest tactics possible). when people figure out conditional damage is not necessarily worse, and when people figure out DPS is completely inane in a well-made build well-executed, then we might evolve. Look at battles, they started out as large groups of people with primitive weapons charging ahead at the enemy. That is where we are right now. Don't worry, necros have their use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Who brought me into it? I never asked KOR to share their builds with me. I don't know exactly what you're getting at with this, really. I'm not hurt that they didn't share- I don't expect things to be given to me when I don't even ask for them.

I never said "not" was the key word. Learn to read a sentence properly.

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If I knew the answer to that, you can bet I'd be here to share it with all of you.

Well I'll give it to you: They have no idea how to further balance them. If you give Deathly Swarm a 1 second cast time, I can give you one hell of a powerful skill. A Necro isn't also a damage class, is it? And a Necromancer with a bit more where he's receiving a bit less now, would totally ruin the premise of the mesmer and what he stands for, because quite frankly, they'd be better at it.

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I think you've really missed the point here- are you comparing a necro primary with a warrior primary? Warrior armor and runes are two of the major reasons to become a warrior primary in the first place- if you want to pump your swordsmanship as high as it can possibly go, you have to be a warrior primary. And for high damage builds, that's exactly what you want. A warrior can take a -75 HP hit from a superior rune because no one bothers to attack them til the rest of their team is wiped out. Explot the opportunity that's given to you.
The exact opposite is true for necromancers, and this is where your argument really falls apart. I can't think of a single necromancer build where I'd like 16 in the attribute- except for Death Necromancers, but I wont play those competetively either. Curses? 8 or 9 is perfectly acceptable, 3-5 if all you're taking is Rend and SOF.
Blood? The best skills in the line are Offering of Blood and Blood is Power- you want them somewhere in the 7-9 range.
There are 2 reasons to want your Blood Magic above 9- Life Siphon gets it's third pip at 12 blood magic, and if you are spamming Order of the Vampire/Pain, then you want to jack up Blood as high as you can get it. I've designed an OOV spam character, if and when I actually play it, I'd push blood magic up to 14 or so.
Until then, necromancers are the complete opposite of warriors- Necro attributes are good in the 7-9 range, easy to do on a secondary necro. Four attribute builds in particular fit well. Warriors can get away with jacking their weapon attributes to astronomical levels because of their terrific armor.
As for Strength- it ranks near the bottom of the list of primary attributes, but it's not bad. When tactics was trash it was a no brainer- at the very least you'd dump some points in because of the passive boost and the improved sprint. The buff to tactics makes strength look worse by contrast, but by no means is it anywhere in the realm of soul reaping.
No, the ranking of primary attributes goes something like this:
1st tier: Expertise
2nd tier: Energy Storage and Divine Favor
3rd tier: Fast Casting and Strength
Dead Last: Soul Reaping.

Blah. This whole part is a whole lot of rambling about which I said nothing. A lot of it is common knowledge, but I would like to say Expertise right now is why I wouldn't go Ranger at the moment. The fact is, to be a not totally sucky ranger, you NEED high expertise. It's an absolute requirement. Marksmanship is the worst attribute in the game without expertise, and being a ranger secondary for marksmanship is ridiculous - 25 energy for concussion shot? Down with expertise, up with Ranger.

Quote:

Expertise is the runaway winner- it has the most powerful effect as well as some very good linked skills. You always want to crank this to 13 or 14.
Energy Storage and Divine Favor are good around 10, which is perfect with 3 attribute builds. They have some good, if unspectacular linked skills.
Fast Casting and Strength: You have points in these because they are useful effects, but not game changing. Fast Casting would be stellar with a few more linked skills, and strength has a ton of linked skills, plus the passive armor penetration, plus a shield. You could certainly make an argument for tactics instead of strength, but strength still has a vaild case.
Soul Reaping, as usual is bringing up the rear, all by itself.

Firstly, put Soul Reaping FAR above Strength - - Mantra of Recovery is easily one of the most powerful skills in the game, and it beats any elite Strength can pitch against it, yes I mean Battle Rage. Also, when you learn something about tactics, I think you'll look at Soul Reaping a bit differently. Just like all the people saying: "God Mantra of Recall is a horrible elite". It's moot, it's simple, and it's only like that because everyone playing the game still sucks at it. I'd say it's funny how extremely underused Mantra of Resolve is. This will change, and I'm sure they'll end up giving it a nerf.

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To compare a necro to a warrior, to compare blood to swords, is comparing a D student to a B+. One is acceptable at moderate levels, the other you crank as high as you can get. Cranked through the roof is only available to primaries- if you remove that mechanic, you're playing a different game entirely. This is exactly why there aren't necro primaries- you don't need 14, or 16 blood. If you did, we'd stop ragging on them.

that is also why Necromancer has the key to this game down pat - diversity. The Warrior has nothing- absolutely nothing - going for it except doing damage. And only that if he goes unattended. This is what the Necromancer is good at - it is extremely diverse, has a wide radius of choice in skills - and it pays a penalty for that, granted. Right now, because people don't understand Guild Wars yet - and 4 warriors / 4 monks on a team are actually able to go top ranking, the Necro seems to get the shaft on all fronts. But it's not that shaft you should be looking at, it's the "all fronts". 'cause that is what is unique about the Necro.

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Finally:

I see unrelenting obstinacy every day. I am here, as a moderator, to try and help people learn, but there are always more people with questions that have been asked and answered before. I am here, as is the rest of the staff, and others who give their time.

I've been a moderator, even administrator of many, even successful, forums. I never felt any form of respect was owed me, and I don't think a moderator should be respected any more than a regular member. He does not have any privileges, he has duties. When those duties become privileges, the moderator becomes a bad moderator.Some people can handle power, some don't. Sure, help people, but don't do it "as a moderator". Do it as a site member, with no interest in deletion and editing of posts, and save censor for when it's necessary.

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Insulted? I could care less. In fact those are my words- I said we're not omniscient, so what's your point?
We don't expect our readers to be either- otherwise they wouldn't be here, asking question. Nor do we expect you to roll over and agree with everything we say. But when you come to our boards, and ask our advice, we expect to be listened to with courtesy. We want to help people learn- not have our own opinons parroted back to us. If people are coming here and learning, they they in turn can help another, so that the flood of uniformed questions slows to a river, perhaps a stream, and maybe one day, a trickle.

You said you're not omniscient, but you need to put your feet on the ground and defloat your head. Not your fault, perhaps, but you're touchy for no reason. You've been getting the yesman treatment for too long, and then I come along shattering your balloons of absolution, and that makes you angry. I understand. It's not something I am doing wrong though.

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At the same time, this is exactly what irks me so much about people throwing out KOR in an offand manner, like whatever they do is gospel. We're not here to parrot, we're here to learn, and providing bad information about the characters they ran- which is exactly what you said, KOR did not run a necro(primary)- hurts us all. Furthermore, when you say "they ran a necro, so necros don't suck" is the worst kind of sophistry. Any time we spend thinking about it is time that could be spent analyzing other topics, or helping the other posters.

Your info is out of date. And yes, claiming a necro doesn't suck because KOR uses one is as stupid as claiming a necro sucks because guildwarsguru staff says he does. Someone once told me "before you pick the splinter out of someone's eye, remove the branch out of yours". It'd be best to heed that advice.

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If and when a team designs a good necro build that the rest of us can use, please bring it back and share with the community here. Until then, vague references to a mythical "good necro build" will continue to be debunked.

great necro builds are bad necro builds now, because this needs a team build, not a regular build. And before anyone asks me to make one: do your own work.

I stress again: the most important part is execution at the moment. If you can make a build with any decent tactics at all, and train it to perfect execution, you cannot lose. But very few people have good execution for now.

Apr 29, 2005, 11:18 PM // 23:18

heh, this topic is just laughable