Necromancer!!

so, gw2 anounced the 4th class today - necromancers!

They are definitely a little different that the necros of old. I think some of us will find this very attractive.

For starters, they have a thing called life force, and once it reaches a certain point it gives you a very tasty advantage. When you die, you dont die!! You activate death shroud and become a ghoul that can keep attacking. When you run out of life force, you die, but if you get a kill whilst in this death shroud state - you re-enter your body... BAM!

OK, so onto some clips. This first one highlights a new condition that only necros can inflict. It's called "fear". Fear causes the bad guy to run directly away from the nerco for a short period of time. In this clip below we see the necro making some sort of well, and then using doom (the fear inflicting skill, he makes the bad guy run straight back into the well! Imagine using this with mark of pain, or combining with other classes - running into a wall of fire, a barrage or a meteor shower!!

Minions, i think will be a bit different kettle of fish. Each type of minions activates an extra skill, that when you use it, kills the minion(s) but does something awesome. So, by the looks of things - bone minions and putrid explosion are linked. So basically they attack for a while and then explode! Bombs on legs, yeah baby! Here's that clip.

Although there are a couple more clips on the site, the coolest in my opinion is grasping death. Where skeleton hands come up from the earth and grab at the bad guys! Just check this clip its funky!

Thinking, one of use might join the dark side with this sweet selection of skills and options. Thoughts???

first 5 skills

so, rereading some stuff...

you know how i said the first 5 skills are determined by weapons that are being held... well eles have some flexibility on that one. they can choose one of the 4 atunements (fire, earth, water, air, dur)... and that will change their skill set! awesome flexibility.

It also looks like a warrior (or anyone really) could change weapons between fights (or even during if they have the right traits), and change their skills too! nice to see some flex!

an example of this for rangers can be seen in the clip below for spread shot - she first holds a sword and torch, and then runs back and uses a bow.

10 out of 10 Australia!

does anyone else remember that ad?

anyways...

10 skills slots in GW2!

you got it 10

5 - based on your weapons

1 - elite

1 - self heal

3 - others

check it here

mark of pain and why i love it

tonight i pulled out an old build that revolves around curses
and yes... spiteful spirit is the elite - it is an amazing skill and i love it too
but
mark of pain, is just awesome
if you want to see those damge numbers fly, use it, and use it well and your screen will be full of minuses!! so good
target a central foe, get everything else to attack it (minions included) and man, it's amazing
so copland
give it a burl big fella
i love it
team it up with barbs, ss, and parisitic bond (as a self heal) - just some of my faves there

asuran scan and why you need it

as i mentioned in a previous comment, i received 6 skills today.
one of them is asuran scan
it will add a percentage onto every attack you do on target foe. Particularly useful for warriors i imagine

the guild wars/black crowes connection

check this out

to receive this guitar Rich Robinson casts this

Expertise - and why I invest so many points into it

I guess the main point of this post is to share some thoughts on my ranger builds, and what it is I'm working towards.
That... and to say Mick... try this...

Firstly, something I have noticed with my Ranger, is that I have very little energy management problems. Given that I have a bow that makes me lose 5 energy, cutting my base energy down to just 20, that seems mental. But, expertise, with its bonuses for energy helps like nobodies business. With Ex at 10, i save 40% on all my skills, cutting a 10 down to just 6, which is very managable. I even use some 15s from time to time - at the moment I use broad head arrow a bit.

Now sure... there are some pretty bizarre builds out there, that cleverly play up the positives of experise. Like Ritualist secondaries for cheap sprits, Necro secondaries for the classic "touch ranger/necro" and also some other variations including dervishes and warriors.

What I'm most interested in personally, is to keep the rangerness (how platonic) and just make use of some clever heals (obviously with a monk secondary) that will be significantly cheaper due to expertise. It might be worthwhile trying these out too guys (I know you all have lvl 20 rangers). The skills I'm working towards at this point in time are a straight heal (healing touch) and a condition remover (mending touch) - both of these reducing from 5, down to 3 with expertise at 10. The thing about a skill like healing breeze, is that you dont get any points off from expertise.

For a list of all touch skills look here. I even noticed you could make a nice Ranger/Warrior with some stances and a cheap headbutt!

one last note... upon checking out the article on expertise, i notice that the the reduction is rounded up not down... so a 5 energy skill only costs 3 when expertise is at 8. Its all on the article.

this post contains nornographic material

hows that for a pun?

so, the norn are like the rugby league players of guild wars - they're meat heads.

you have a skill and weapon both entitled club of a thousand bears but the real beauty lies in the shouts they offer.
my faves are
I am the Strongest
I am Unstoppable
You are all weaklings
Dodge this
and i think the best
You move like a dwarf

from looking at the skill aligned with the new titles it is pretty clear that some favour certain classes more than others - norn skills really work best for mellee, while the asura are more caster oriented. Mind you, Mick, if you're ever interested in putting together a ranger/necro touch build "you move like a dwarf" would really kick (also nice for assassins).

you obtain some of these thru quests - ymlad for example comes from worthy deeds (done dirt cheap)

all these skills change their attributes based on your title in norn allegiance (like sunspear skills).

Great skill name...

This skill is named after the MC Hammer song U Can't Touch This. Note the icon for the skill appears to be wearing Parachute Pants, which MC Hammer notably wore in the music video.

interest rates up...

means more money required to pay the bills...
hang on! we've got the skills to pay those bills

check out a listing of known GW:EN skills here
there's some gold there - i mainly checked out domination and curses
there's also a new condition - cracked armor

Clumsiness

One skill I generally equip if I have any attributes in Illusion Magic is Clumsiness. It's a terrific spike for pretty much any of the non casters and is also effective with casters at times - unless they are smart.

I was quite surprised when I discovered the orgin of this skill.

for more crazy gw parody cartoons check out healbot blues

sunspear skills

cant go on about these enough... they rock
check em out here
the best bit, is that tehy motvate you to gain a higher sunspear rank!
woooo!

goin' down the hard mode

so yes, the pun does have a point... a few interelated thoughts

1 - i finished nightfall, hence unlocking hard mode in said elona

2 - have you guys check out the sunspear skills? you get them from the hero skill trainer at the sunspear great hall (and elsewhere, but they are all the same and thats all i can remember right now)... the thing with these skills is the dont rely on putting attribute points into a certain area, but are determined by your rank in sunspear - and thus giving you a good reason to want to get to higher sunspear levels. Check out the skills anyways... You cant use them with heroes, but they are still useful... i bought 3 (mes, necro, ranger)

3 - so... ive been alternating my lightbringer farming with sunspear farming. hopefully i will get to the 7,500 required for castellan some time. that would be cool!

4 - i havent been buying keys lately, so im actually saving a little. I'm back over 5k anyways, which is an achievement for me!

my favourite skill

been doing a little research tonight on builds involving me and 3 heroes, for a kickin use of fragility.
i will have to get some of the skills specifically for this excercise... but hey, its all part of the game.
my other option is to work out some creative way to equip 8 elites in the one skill bar. hmmm...
actually... there are some areas (like perdition rock), if you get blessed with good spawning you can actually cap 3 skills for each of your professions. So, you go in with 2 elites equipped, and 6 signets of capture, and bob's your uncle. Mind you... it only works if you dont have any of the skills already. sob sob
and yes, i've had a lapse in my recovery from nerdiness

Disrupting skills

The bonus to Dragon's Lair is a real bus-turd. It's so annoying to work your way through all 6 bosses, only to get SMACKED at the end. I need to check out some good interrupt skills. Now that I can change my secondary fairly easily, what is a good interrupt skill (besides distracting shot which i have but never seems to work)???

Tahlkora: some secondary options with Copland's available elites

So, here are some thoughts, based around your elites, that may be useful for a Tahlkora build. All the builds I’ve listed revolve around a simple healing build, with some secondary specialisation. If you want a protection build, the first 4 skills will need to change (at least I will let you know if its more), give me a list of what you have to choose from and I can work from there up.

With these builds assume a 12 in healing prayers, 8 in devine favour and 10 in whatever else I suggest (blood magic or water magic). I’d get minor runes in both healing prayers and devine favour to bump them up that little bit. (+1) Here we go…

1. Escape

Escape is the sort of skills that a monk could benefit from – blocking attacks while healing is useful. It’s also low on energy, which is good, so they don’t waste all their energy on one skill. The HUGE problem with equipping a skill like this for a monk is that it relies upon the primary skill of rangers (expertise), so instead of it lasting for 15 seconds (or possibly more), you get 5. pretty weak really for a skill that takes 30 seconds to recharge. Therefore, I would scratch this off your option list.

2. Well of Power

This necro blood magic skill can be quite handy. It gives both health regen and energy regen. So is a help to the casters, and anyone being attacked. The only problem with wells, is that, at times, they only kick in towards the end of a battle, or at its completion – which is handy to speed things along and move on to the next bunch of beasties. It costs 10 energy, but for what it does, that isn’t too bad really – wells are only possible to cast when someone is dead in the area (foe or friend) so they don’t usually kick in till at least the early mid stages (generally later). The other good thing about this skill is that there are some other handy skills in the blood magic repertoire – life syphon (but its 10 energy, so I wouldn’t recommend it and WoP, and offcourse, vampiric gaze, which I would definitely equip in a build like this, which operates both as an attack and a self heal. Handy indeed.

I’d fill your skillbar with something like this for a healing build

1. Orison of healing

2. Words of Comfort

3. Healing Touch

4. Healing Seed (you can get it from the hero skill trainer in Comand Post)/ Heal Party / Purge Condition

5. Remove Hex

6. Well of Power

7. Vampiric Gaze

8. Res (pick any) Restore Life, or Resurrect are my usual choices

3. Ward Against Harm

Think of this as a elementalist version of watch yourself. A little stronger, and lasts longer, and… gives you stacks more armor if you happen to be up against a fire ele (great for ring of fire islands for example). The key downside of this one is its cost – 15 energy, which is a lot. But… remember, it will make the healers job easier, equip Koss with Watch yourself, and it basically doubles its effectiveness. Wards only work in a specific area, but if you’re a warrior they will have to be reasonably close, so its not as much of an issue, as it might be for a ranger. Sticking with my theme, of giving you 2 specialist skills from an attribute, (in this case water magic) I would recommend armor of frost – its only 5 energy and will really help keep her alive. Armor of mist is also acceptable, but not as great as it costs more. Both are available from a few skill trainers only… so go but them (with someone that has ele secondary obviously – just check wiki for the location)

Heres the suggested build

1. Orison of healing

2. Words of Comfort

3. Healing Touch

4. Healing Seed (you can get it from the hero skill trainer in Comand Post)/ Heal Party / Purge Condition

5. Remove Hex

6. Ward Against Harm

7. Armor of Frost

8. Res (pick any) Restore Life, or Resurrect are my usual choices

4. Mist Form

Basically, I’d use mist form if you’re finding Tahl is dying often. Just replace Ward Against Harm from the above build. Mist form will mean she cant attack others (but that doesn’t matter, shes a monk). This helps just her… not the whole team.

Overall opinion

I’d probably try out 3 and 2 (in that order), see what you think is working best. If shes dying a lot go for 4. I like both wards and wells. You’ll get some attack out of her with 2, but better defence with 3… so its up to you…

Hope it helps

enjoy

session report: may 5

thought I'd take advantage of the double XP for skills caps this weeked and hit Perdition Rock.






















Knowing that I had a total of 4 skills to cap in the area, I took 4 caps (hoping for some lucky spawns) and 3 darkstone keys, as well as a couple of lock picks I just happened to have on me.

so the first awesome thing to mention is that I found a total of 5 chests - 2 gold items. I actually retained a lock pick for the first time, and then did it again... so that was nice! I did a full circuit of the island, which took me about 2 hours (with henchies). Here's the map.

















Lastly... I managed to get 3 of the 4 caps i was looking for. Unfortunately, Echo, was the one I missed out on. Oh well. I now have a total of 8 skills lef tto find in prophecies for the 2 classes. It means a trip to mineral springs and some other stuff.
Its pretty tough to just choose 4 skills to go with, but i managed. Here's my skill bar.

skills that pay the bills - now with added mesmery goodness

i thought i'd pick one from each attribute.

Let's start with
No Attribute
Signet of Midnight - Basically, this just has a great graphic. i like signets... too bad most of them are pretty dodgy skills.



Fast Casting
this skill explains why so many mesmers can also be found in the backstreets of the amnoon oasis, striking up dodgy dealings with the local tengu. its stolen speed



Domination Magic
Panic. Basically this is here as a huge thanks to gary mcdonald who obviously posed for this fine graphic.



Illusion Magic
Recurring Insecurity. I like the pic, but more importantly, it seems like a skill that might be used by someone we know... "you know nothing about john wesley!"



Inspiration Magic
Lyssa's Aura. who needs to bring sexy back, when one of the 5 gods kickin round looks like this?

The Skills to Pay the Bills

OK, so here is a top 5 of the coolest Warrior elite skills...either because of the name or perhaps what they do - something about these skills tickle my fancy. I invite you to report your top 5 here also...

Shove

Quivering Blade

Headbutt

Auspicious Parry

Flourish

skill hunter anyone?

if you wanna get the skills that pay the bills
check out this site
this guy has made checklists for all the elites... very useful