Guild Wars 2: Necro Questions & Answers

SBFord

ArenaNet's Lead Designer Eric Flannum and Game Designer Isaiah “Izzy” Cartwright have been "summoned" to answer fans' questions about the latest announced class, the Necromancer. Devs cover several of the Necro's arsenal while talking about Fear, Death Shroud, Minions, Wells and more general questions about the class.

Q: Fear sounds like an unbalanced crowd control mechanic. Could you explain this mechanic in more detail? How often can you use it and can you remove it? Are there certain types of enemies that are immune to fear?

Eric: Fear is a condition and is therefore removable by anything that removes conditions. How often fear can be used depends entirely on the skill that inflicts it, so it will vary from skill to skill. Boss monsters are currently immune to fear, but this is something that we are constantly balancing.

Izzy: Currently, fear lasts 2 to 5 seconds in PvE and 2 seconds in PvP, but these are just the current numbers and we’ll continue to refine and balance them as we keep playing.

Read the whole series of questions at the ArenaNet blog.

Talthanys

Thanks SB. Without knowing any PvP details, 2 seconds sounds workable to me.

EricDanie

Yup, sounds like that at first sight in PvP fear is not an overpowered state if it lasts only 2 seconds. Heck, it's removable and lasts like a knockdown, so it shouldn't become a fear/CC-fest.

Whoever thought about making fear in PvP (other MMOs) last 10+ seconds should be seriously feared... permanently.

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Zeroxin

Haha, Fear seems like the kinda thing I would use when I want to rez someone in the heat of battle. Kinda like how I use blocking.

"Damn Danny is down!"

"I've gotta do something ANYTHING!"

"Ohh ... here we go"

"FEAR ME!!" *enemies run in the other direction*

"2....1..."

"REZ! BIACHE!"

natuxatu

Sound great! This should but PvPers at ease as they also confirm that they some skills will act different depending on if they are being used in PvP or PvE.. this lets them tweak the skills and balance them in PvP without effecting or chating how they want the skill to work in PvE. Nice!

twrule

Originally posted by natuxatu

Sound great! This should but PvPers at ease as they also confirm that they some skills will act different depending on if they are being used in PvP or PvE.. this lets them tweak the skills and balance them in PvP without effecting or chating how they want the skill to work in PvE. Nice!

Yeah, they did the same thing (having separate iterations of skills for PvE and PvP) in the original GW as well, I believe - and the game was renown for it's PvP balance so it looks like we can expect the same from GW2.

illyana

kudos to ANET for scouring the forums for player feedback and responding to them just a week after the Necro reveal

cant wait what PAX has in store for us

someforumguy

Im glad to read that Fear will be a removable condition. I also hope that it will have a decent recharge period to prevent Fear chains, so that it wont be the bad joke like in other games.

Kyelthis

Originally posted by someforumguy

Im glad to read that Fear will be a removable condition. I also hope that it will have a decent recharge period to prevent Fear chains, so that it wont be the bad joke like in other games.

I agree 100%. Either have a lengthy cooldown, or add some sort of immunity timer so you can't be Feared again until the timer runs out. It worked for Warhammer and pretty much was the only thing that made that game playable later on.

 

I have enough faith in ANet that they'll implement everything well and balance whatever needs balancing.

Zeroxin

If the skills of GW1 are anything to go by, there probably will be a skill that prevents you from gaining a condition for a short period of time. So depending on the team it is used on, chaining fear might not even work.

MMO.Maverick

I think Fear in GW2 is even underpowered now.

It's harder to protect against a stun on knockdown that last as long or longer than against Fear that is a Condition and suffers from any protection that works against Condition, besides, Fear effect can be removed from someone while stun and knockdown can't.

Nerfed too much already :-/

Nephaerius

Originally posted by cyphers

I think Fear in GW2 is even underpowered now.

It's harder to protect against a stun on knockdown that last as long or longer than against Fear that is a Condition and suffers from any protection that works against Condition, besides, Fear effect can be removed from someone while stun and knockdown can't.

Nerfed too much already :-/

 

Don't worry Anet devs tweak skills on an almost weekly basis in my experience.  Since the game is so focused on PvP they are constantly focused on this aspect.  Not saying there isn't a robust pve element, but IMO there is a pvp focus.