Guild Wars 2

Ascii.9726:

When you prove to me 30 point Spite Wellomancers work and don’t get your team killed through countless enemy rallies because of your lack of defense then ill take your opinion as something other then theorycrafting guesswork.

I think you are being a bit unfair…
Just wondering, how exactly could someone prove that ?
Right now Im testing 30/10/0/0/30 in WvW guild roaming and zerg killing only, id switch to my previously mentioned build for some more serious guild fights tho..
The build works great, at least with spectral armor, a fat DS life pool and traited armor. I dont die and I do insane damage. Ive been playing long enough to know that the most important thing in wvw/gvg is NOT DIEING. I would never run a build where I might be the reason 10+ people just rallied and completely turned the fight around. Its viable but I prefer my other build.
Maybe it doesnt work in NA tier 1 or whatever I dont know, but I wouldnt count it out either.

I have more than 2k hours on necro and ~500 on warrior and mostly do wvw and tpvp on the side, and I have over 360 wvw ranks if that makes me sound more credible lol…

And I do think blind is better than weakness tho, if you want weakness get offhand dagger and enfeebling blood on DS.

Ascii.9726:

I play this build at least 6 hours everyday in T1 WvW both commanding and following, im in the highest ranked NA GvG guild fighting some of the best guilds in the game.

Maybe you shouldn’t be questioning my experiences and more informing us of yours which you still haven’t done.

And here we are again with the “I’m better than you” and “I speak only the truth” arguments.
I’m wasting my time here, I should have realized it before.

I can maybe offer a couple of comments, take them with however many grains of salt as you like… as a reference, I run 0/30/0/20/20 wells now, going PVT with either carrion or berserker gemming, depending on how I’m feeling. I run staff and dagger/wh.

1) I don’t see the point of going more than 10 points into DM anymore (20% cooldown trait). That investment has a huge opportunity cost in terms of going deeper into blood magic or SR.

2) Speaking of SR and death shroud, I highly recommend considering going 30 in curses for Weakening Shroud… It’s interesting that in the curses tree, there are 3 great choices in minor traits.

3) It’s good to see somebody else who realizes that vampiric doesn’t suck. I run bloodthirst and no vampiric precision… my guesstimate is that the additional damage gain is in the range of 3-10%, and this doesn’t consider healing. That’s for a 15 point investment… my guess is that this would compare really well to 15 points in say spite.

4) Have you considered running dagger instead of axe? … I used to try to run axe, and have found dagger to be so much better.

@Aphix.9846
When i say prove i mean stuff like videos or footage of the said build actually in action in a remotely similar environment to a 50 vs. 50 fight outside a garrison or such. There are so many factors you cant account for when theorycrafting such as siege, enemy placements, how many melee and how many backline est.

As you’ve clearly said and is the whole point of my argument, the most important thing in GvG is not dying and a 30 spite point build has much higher chances of dying then a Toughness heavy counterpart.

Your typical path you pointed out on a previous post is spot on and what i would recommend to every Necromancer starting out in WvW. Start full PTV and tweak and tweak until your comfortable you can survive a 20 man melee train to the face and yes we do have to account for the meta difference between NA and EU (NA tend to run superzerg full BLs with heavy melee trains comprised mostly of guardians).

Warhorn offhand isn’t as vital as i might of made it out to be, if anything its preference that i would recommend for the large syncs it has with Plague and Deathshroud but when Plaguing, blinding is the only logical option and Chilling Darkness syncs perfectly with its disruption.

And yes your opinions actually have more credit to me as i can clearly see you’ve spent alot of time in WvW on a high ranked server on a Necro with high rank points and have spoken about guild fights and i thank you for your calm and constructive feedback.

Good build, ASCII. Being kind of cheap, I do not have a Melandru set for my Necro but suppose the temple armor would do in a pinch.

What I generally do is use pizza and cheap chill-duration runes along with epidemic to make chill as irritating to the opposition as possible. Anything that handicaps mobility in wvw is worth more than most give credit for. Chill and, to a lesser extent, cripple and blind can force the enemy line backward and put their condi cleanses on CD but the condition has to be inconveniently long or people will just play through it. A 1 sec chill is tolerable but make it, say, 3 seconds with condi cleanse on CD and players get worried and consider exiting the battle.

@sas.6483
An 0/30/0/20/20 is quite a viable build too, as i mentioned before if i did ever change for more damage Soul Reaping would be the tree i go into with something like 0/25/10/20/15. I tend to favor Deadly Strength alot though because 9/12 pieces and runes add toughness were-as your using Carrion but i would give up toughness if its made up in health (or DS health in this case).

I do think sPvP players really underestimate Vampiric and Vampiric Precision in WvW. The sheer amount of people you tag a second with 9 AoE skills and then Plague makes for pretty consistent healing and true damage.

I have considered running Dagger infact its a topic were discussing right now in SoR TS3 (a immobilize + epidemic combo) but having used axe since beta i would find it difficult to change especially considering Unholy Feast is stupid right now (18 second Retaliation going into Plague does so much damage).

@Anchoku.8142
Chill builds are quite effective, i use to run a chill build long ago and it was really fun. Melandru runes might be expensive to buy but remember they are runes on temple armour so 252k karma will get you the runes from salvaging.

Man I’ve been waiting for this discussion for ages. Keep the good stuff coming guys and thanks Ascii for getting this thread up.

Ascii.9726:

Melandru runes might be expensive to buy but remember they are runes on temple armour so 252k karma will get you the runes from salvaging.

I can’t believe this didn’t occur to me. I was looking at the price on the TP last night with a disappointed look on my face (I hate spending gold). Of course I have more karma than I will ever spend however.

Ascii.9726:

@Aphix.9846
When i say prove i mean stuff like videos or footage of the said build actually in action in a remotely similar environment to a 50 vs. 50 fight outside a garrison or such. There are so many factors you cant account for when theorycrafting such as siege, enemy placements, how many melee and how many backline est.

As you’ve clearly said and is the whole point of my argument, the most important thing in GvG is not dying and a 30 spite point build has much higher chances of dying then a Toughness heavy counterpart.

Your typical path you pointed out on a previous post is spot on and what i would recommend to every Necromancer starting out in WvW. Start full PTV and tweak and tweak until your comfortable you can survive a 20 man melee train to the face and yes we do have to account for the meta difference between NA and EU (NA tend to run superzerg full BLs with heavy melee trains comprised mostly of guardians).

Warhorn offhand isn’t as vital as i might of made it out to be, if anything its preference that i would recommend for the large syncs it has with Plague and Deathshroud but when Plaguing, blinding is the only logical option and Chilling Darkness syncs perfectly with its disruption.

And yes your opinions actually have more credit to me as i can clearly see you’ve spent alot of time in WvW on a high ranked server on a Necro with high rank points and have spoken about guild fights and i thank you for your calm and constructive feedback.

Mostly agree with this. I don’t run the same build but the larger picture is the same in my experience.

Smashing into zergs of 50+ puts you to the test on survival and you do see very Guardian heavy front line groups in NA top tiers. Frankly the tiers that did not do this before have been making changes now that the system mix and matches from a larger pool. T2, T3 groups have felt the huge difference between what T1 servers have to offer and everyone else. That being said my build has been optimized for a while now to give me as much survivability as possible while still being a threat on damage.

6 months ago I could run with mostly Zerker gear and still live to tell tales and now that is just too risky even with havoc teams and smaller skirmish battles. The overall player base is far more experienced and smooth. Aside from guild tags there is no real way of knowing what skill level you are facing at any given minute. Therefore I build my character to be in the best position to survive and deal damage possible.

I have had a few people toss their comments at me about “idk what build you run but I…” or “just do….”. This dismissive statements do not account for individual play style or the play style of ones regular guild or group. If my build and weapon choice suits me and fits in with the people around me thus working with other builds and players all the theory crafting is wasted.

Theory crafting as an individual player thinking solely of how you function is fine, but it is very important to also account for the 30+ other people you play with, plus siege, plus enemies, plus mobs and so on.

If you build to be a roamer or havoc group player there are fewer variables to face in those situations. Roamers and small group players do not expect to survive being overrun by 50+ people.

WvW is not the same from Tier to Tier or even from region to region as EU and NA approaches are quite different from each other.

If a player that crashes into 50+ zergs every day for hours on end wants to carry extra toughness over some other option, I largely respect and understand it. The why is about personal taste. I can’t run with anything less than what my character has now, I die too frequently. Other players can manage it better than I can.

Not going to tout my credentials here other than to say I have 2928 hours logged in this game and most of it is in WvW.

I still learn new things all the time and can’t be bothered to tell another player where it is better to spend his trait points if he is happy with his build and finds success with it.

Ascii.9726:

Melandru runes might be expensive to buy but remember they are runes on temple armour so 252k karma will get you the runes from salvaging.

I am pretty sure you cant salvage karma armor for runes (its what ive heard and makes sense), otherwise I imagine melandru runes would be worth about 20s :p

Aphix.9846:

Ascii.9726:

Melandru runes might be expensive to buy but remember they are runes on temple armour so 252k karma will get you the runes from salvaging.

I am pretty sure you cant salvage karma armor for runes (its what ive heard and makes sense), otherwise I imagine melandru runes would be worth about 20s :p

I believe you’re right. Probably why doing this hadn’t occurred to me initially. Down deep somewhere in my muddled brain I knew karma armor can’t be salvaged.

Sorry i meant transmute and then salvage xD. Even without, 18g can be made in a night or 2 with the current price of heavy loot bags.

Currently 10 fine transmutation stones will cost you just under 13g so buying them and 420k on 10 armour sets you can sell the remaining 4 Melandru runes for 11g after taxes.

Ascii.9726:

@Dredlord.8076
Yes maybe it is a cynical of looking at the trait and im not denying Close to Death is a strong trait, but the tradeoffs are just not worth it. For the 300 power and 20% more damage below 50% you have to lose 8-16% damage from Target the Weak, 250 Toughness, 25% boon duration (which is 3.75 seconds of Retaliation which when Plaguing is massive) and 100 Power anyway.

I understand you are going for more tankiness but it might also be worth considering that you also give up 30% more uptime on 8-16% damage from target the weak.

I don’t go into that line when I make a tanky build either for what it’s worth.

@Dredlord.8076
I think it would be impossible to take Target the Weak and 30% condition duration without completely changing the builds ratios away from tanky Wellomancer. The 8-16% is based more on allies applying conditions more then yourself.

With the build mainly dealing direct damage and Plagues conditions being 1 second in duration the only thing the condition duration would affect to the point of being beneficial would be Axe 2, Staff 2 & 3. Then we have to factor in water fields, shout warriors & guardians and all the other cleanse heavy builds in the current meta.

Soul Reaping is a much more feasible tree to go into for damage whilst maintaining some of the tankiness you need and are expected from your team (especially since the DS health and Spectral Armour change).

First of all, I just wanted to say that I really like your build. I’ve been dabbling with a 0/25/0/15/30 DS centered build with the same utilities as you. I would love to try your build, but I hate the staff so much. I have tried to like it, I really have, but I’m just so fail at laying the marks where they need to be. Now, I guess it may be a different case when facing a Zerg (just drop ’em in the middle and call it good), but is there an alternative weapon set that I could use in place of the staff with your build? Or am I just going to have to get over myself and learn to use the staff? Haha. Thanks in advance for any response! Good luck out there!

I saw most of necro WvW builds it is all about scepter with epidemic and tons of conditions it is amazing for non-organized WvW open fight or those servers on low wvw tier

but once we talk about organized zergs/guilds with heavy classes running shouts build, 80% of necro conditions will be thrown in trash by those angry warriors and guardians

Organized zergs relies on heavy classes which actually generate tons of boons and share it together also take the benefit of some combos to stack might, swiftness…etc, so most of necro builds such as conditionmancer or builds that rely on DS will simply fail

I’m always trying new WvW builds on my necro and test it with my guild, right now I’m with ASCII side because what a necro should do in such fights is to counter their tactic by
1-striping their boons using axe & WoC
2- chill, cripple and blind them as mush as you can
3- any single target skills/traits is useless so better to focus on how to maximize our AOE and make it strong (dagger is not good, scepter needs epidemic)
— unfortunately we don’t have any weapon that cleave like other classes so till now i never found a weapon that do the job beside Staff except Axe and its skill #3

4- plague is the best choice as Elite Skill and works fine with Chill of Darkness
5- taking Chill of Darkness in not a bad idea and it works fine with Well of Darkness also, so you turn your necro into zone control machine which is awsome while defending lord rooms
5- hp 21k-24 is enough for any necro but you need to find a way to regenerate fast, i know siphon health/life stealing is not that good but its better than nothing
6- Death shroud in WvW is just for skill #5 & #4 or another hp bar if you are about to get down don’t expect anymore than this, so Soul Reaping trait line is only useful if you want more crit damage
7- any CC is always amazing in WvW and Daze in not bad at all
8- Warhorn is the best if you don’t like it you can replace it with off-hand dagger which is also suitable for WvW
9- toughness is like mistakes forgiveness its recommended in WvW but also you don’t need tons of toughness if you think you are good player
10- Greater Mark is not about radius only, it makes our Marks become unblockable (since Arenanet move it to Master i’m trying to make new WvW build without it)

The way that ASCII thinks is correct, if you are experienced WvW player, this build is what you need while playing with commander not roaming alone, with Guild not PuGs

ASCII, your build is 80% similar to mine but i’m trying to do some improvements on it

-I’m thinking to remove the Death Magic trait line and and complete Blood magic grandmaster with Vampiric Rituals (in WoC for example it will heal 42 * 5 players * 5 pulses = 1050) you can say 3k if you use WoD, WoC and WoS which is not bad amount

so you gain:
+100 vitality
+100 healing power
+ 3k Siphon health on average 33 sec (from wells)
+ 5% damage while hp above 90%

PLUS one of these options :

Option A (10 points in spite + 5 in Soul Reaping)

• remove 3 condi/kill every 10 sec
• heal 1k/kill every 5 sec
  +100 power
  +10% condi duration
  + 5% crit damage

Option B (10 points in Soul Reaping + 5 in Spite)

• heal 1k/kill every 5 sec
  +10% crit damage
  + 50 power
  +5% condi duration
  -15% DS skill cooldown

Option C (Full 15 points in Spite)

• remove 3 condi/kill every 10 sec
• heal 1k/kill every 5 sec
  +15% condi duration
  +150 power
  +90 healing power

Option D (Full 15 points in Soul reaping i won’t recommended but still an option )
+15% crit damage
- 15% DS skills cooldown

• Spectral Armor

So what do you think is worth it to lose
+100 power
+250 toughness
+25% boon duration
-20 cooldown on staff skills

• Greater Marks

Why i’m suggesting remove Death Magic trait line because of those useless 2 minors in Adept and Master which related to Jagged-horror & +20 toughness for each minion

@LoRdZeRo.5364
Those warriors and guardians… so sooo angry -shivers-

Yes, i have been playtesting 5/25/10/30/0 and will admit it is very strong for sustain. It breaks my heart moving away from unblockable marks though as I’ve secured some amazing kills with it and nothing is more satisfying as fearing the head of an enemy melee train thats passed through and are on there block/ healing phase.

Your correct on them variations and i would agree these would be suitable variations if you did want to drop greater marks;
5/25/10/30/0
0/30/10/30/0
0/25/10/20/15

I don’t think i would ever consider going more then 5 points into spite and the 5 point itself has me split. The snowball effect it brings is nice but typically when people start getting stomped and this starts procing the fight usually begins to tip in your favor (unless some 30 spite point necro dies and rallies all the downed enemies :P)

Those 2 minor Death Magic traits are terrible and i would never call anything more then 10 points in DM mandatory.

@Digno.6945

I really wouldn’t recommend not using a Staff when in large scale fighting as it brings so much to team-fights.

Dropping a mark into a zerg and hitting 5 targets instantly is an automatic 125 heal from Vampiric and 105 average from Vampiric Precision. Considering a 2-5 takes 2 seconds max you can easily heal up for 920+. If you use Sigils of Blood like i do you have the options of procing the 30% chance of any one of the 5 tags instead of just 1.

Marks put up heavy pressure on walls, can be used to take down manned siege too and can be used to “mark up” a portal and watch an enemy zerg rush out and insta-downed to the 40 marks lying there.

Staff isn’t too hard to learn in organized team-fights, general rules are save your blast mark (staff-4) for when its called and drop the marks at the front/ back of the train your hitting (depending on what is called for focus).

If you really cant learn to love staff, scepter + dagger would do an OK job at AoE disruption but just know it most likely wont stick if the enemy is organized.

Ascii.9726:

@sas.6483
An 0/30/0/20/20 is quite a viable build too, as i mentioned before if i did ever change for more damage Soul Reaping would be the tree i go into with something like 0/25/10/20/15. I tend to favor Deadly Strength alot though because 9/12 pieces and runes add toughness were-as your using Carrion but i would give up toughness if its made up in health (or DS health in this case).

I have considered running Dagger infact its a topic were discussing right now in SoR TS3 (a immobilize + epidemic combo) but having used axe since beta i would find it difficult to change especially considering Unholy Feast is stupid right now (18 second Retaliation going into Plague does so much damage).

I didn’t even consider Unholy Feast into Plague… that is a fantastic idea. And yeah, I can see if you prefer Knight’s gear over PVT, there might be some preference for grabbing Deadly Strength instead of plowing into Soul Reaping. In defense of PVT and SR, once you get to 30k health, the idea of a 35-40k death shroud on top of that is really appealing.

Question: I’ve seen pre-Greater Marks patch people prefer 0/30/10/0/30 for the stability, and have considered it, but I just can’t seem to let go of Vampiric… thoughts?

@sas.6483
I play as both melee train and backline. As im sure with every organized guild, we rotate Plagues and im always Plague 0 (on impact), because of this i rely completely on the melee train to grant me stability.

Personally I’ve never been a fan of Stability on Deathshroud because if you use DS for Stability your effectively locking yourself out of DS whilst its on cooldown. Plague & ally AoE is usually sufficient enough stability as long as you can dodge the enemy train.

Using DS as a shield rather then stability has saved my life so many times. It allows me to Plague for much longer then usual in an enemy backline and coming out of plague and right into DS then double dodging to safety. At a push, 20 would be the max i would go into the Soul Reaping tree.

PTV and PVT are very strong armour stats too, i prefer PPT because the major stat toughness (as i rely alot on Melandru + Lemongrass to null out conditions and reduce the need for Vitality so i can put the points elsewhere into damage). When i compared the cold hard stats of effective healths between full PTV and PPT it was only around 6k effective health.

If you really want a good engagement, use Axe 3 for 18 seconds of Retaliation, Warhorn 5 for 10 seconds of AoE damage and cripples, drop your wells then plague, it destroys and the healing from Vampiric and Vampiric Precision is very strong (up to 215 times in 20 seconds).

LoRdZeRo.5364:

Soul Reaping trait line is only useful if you want more crit damage

I dont see how this is true, you got traited spectral armor which is amazing, DS cooldown reduction, larger life force pool and most importantly stability on demand. Getting caught behind a line/ring of warding/earthshaker might happen and then you can pretty much get smashed without stability… I value that way more than life stealing from vampiric (not saying its bad) especially when I can pop into DS to soak up damage more often.
As far as blob/zerg killing goes you get more than enough sustain from DS and the sigil/foods which are often preferred for such fights, like restoration sigil/omnomberry compote.
For GvG type of fights I have spectral armor x2 + lowered DS CD for the shield and obviously stability to help when actually getting focused and I can easily dodge to safety.

Also on the bright side after using my axe/staff rotation and wells I will most likely pop DS for some extra big damage channels from DS 4, and guess what, you will have stability so you cant get interrupted I really hate it when I get CC-d when channeling DS4 :p
At least thats how I personally roll.

Ok so im bored and would like to know what some of you think. As I see it you need to set your traits 1st and then find the gear to balance the stats etc.
Basically I find death magic trait line next to useless honestly, minor traits being useless and only half-decent trait is staff cdr for wvw, unblockable and bigger marks dont make that big of a difference in wvw, you will hit 5 people anyway.
You can make up for the toughness with a few changes of armor pieces and for boon duration, 19 or 15 seconds of retal doesnt really make a big difference.
And clearly as you have probably noticed I like the soul reaping tree so I thought maybe 0/20/0/20/30 ? Can have the extra life stealing on top of the DS sustain which I mentioned and well mastery.
Even most tPvP build ignore death tree nowadays anyway.
Just throwing this option out there.

I think what he meant was outside Life Transfer and a panic shield incase you misplay or get focused, Deathshroud has little use in damage and utility compared to what you can do outside Deathshroud (although a Axe 3 > Warhorn 5 > F1 makes a very nice front-line dive tool).

I wouldn’t say Soul Reaping is just for critical damage though, Last Gasp is now a very strong trait that could easily fill a bar from 0 to 100% and can be used with Walk and the +% DS health only gets stronger in returns as the week goes by (with the server-wide +% max health buff).

Its certainly open for a good debate if comparing it to stuff like Vitality.

@Aphix.9846
Would you even consider 10 points for 20% staff cooldowns? Remember its not only a faster staff rotation but faster on your Vampiric and Vampiric Precision too.

If not, personally i would go 0/25/0/20/25 with a similar armour, food and utility layout;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRLcvSTTjfPBMpw7xjZU8w0MgndA-j0yAYLBRCTgICgJPl1EogYZsIasabMlLgKeR1GchITuWtMAMLA-w

You would have to abuse DS alot (diving with Retaliation and Locust Swarm as much as you can) to make up for the drop in Toughness and the Boon Duration will hit your boons alot, 25% less on a 25 might stack is quite noticeable not to mention 4 seconds off your Retaliation.

I wouldnt worry about 4 seconds of retal because I use it before plague obviously, but very rarely I stay in plague for the full duration, 15 seconds is enough, we usually disengage to regroup/heal quite quickly after a push to keep everyone healthy, unless of course you need to keep the pressure up but thats situational.
Might stack will be a bit of a loss.
And Id still go for stability over target the weak, with the current meta you will not have many conditions on your opponents and if Id be abusing DS alot and going in with retal/locust swarm I might have stability as well.
Also I dont think soul marks are needed especially without the 20% staff cdr trait, rather piercing life blast, 15% cdr on ds skills or death shroud cdr.

I see your point on both of those examples actually, it would mean much more careful play but it would do the job quite well and i cant disagree with anything you said.

In order to keep the consistent magic 50% critical chance and armour in the 2700 requirement i set myself for all build variations i would change the 3 parts berserker armour for knights and use double berserker ascended instead of 1 piece.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRLcvSTTjfPBMpw7xjUU8wUPgf9zB-jkyAYLBRCTgICgJwioxWGLiGr2GT5GZVsQqBPRm8hVLDAzCA-w

This build does drop too much Toughness for damage and i personally would not go so far into Soul Reaping but for someone who doesn’t want to use DM at all, it would do the job quite well as long as Deathshroud is abused as much as the Rice Balls were at the start of the game.

Ascii.9726:

The drop in Toughness and the Boon Duration will hit your boons alot, 25% less on a 25 might stack is quite noticeable

Except your build doesn’t supply that might so your boon duration means nothing. Unless I’m terribly wrong about how fire fields + blast finishes work.

On the more constructive side would you consider dropping spectral walk for spectral wall or well of darkness? Does the lack of a stun breaker out weigh the benefits of either skill? The swiftness seems pointless to me when running with a guild group.

I’m usually always 25 might stacked or close too after stacking and blasting fields prior to an engagement and it makes the initial Suffering and Corruption very deadly. 25% on any AoE boons over a 4 min fight is very noticeable.

Walk and Armour are both feasible 3rd utility skills, but Wall has very little impact on melee trains sadly with melee trains usually always having stability or invulnerability up when charging, although we always have at least 1 PTV Necromancer running it. Remember Walk and Armour both regenerate LF very quickly (i usually pop walk after depleting my LF pool for the full bar back ready for another dive).

The lack of a stunbreaker is very noticeable, if your caught out by the melee train and have a low DS pool to absorb it the stunbreaker double dodge saves your life. Well of Darkness is also a feasible utility if you plan on staying backline 100% of the time but usually PTV Wellomancers will run this along with Corruption and Wall.

Lalnuir.4957:

Ascii.9726:

The drop in Toughness and the Boon Duration will hit your boons alot, 25% less on a 25 might stack is quite noticeable

Except your build doesn’t supply that might so your boon duration means nothing. Unless I’m terribly wrong about how fire fields + blast finishes work.

On the more constructive side would you consider dropping spectral walk for spectral wall or well of darkness? Does the lack of a stun breaker out weigh the benefits of either skill? The swiftness seems pointless to me when running with a guild group.

Its more about the stunbreaker and life force, swiftness is a bonus. Its always possible to switch in spectral wall for holding chokepoints/fighting on keep walls etc, tho in open field I think its not worth it. And well of darkness is always useful, you just gotta know you role and what your guild needs, if you need damage you get suffering, if your melee are having a hard time switch in well of darkness.
I think stunbreaker is incredibly useful, but for me the utility slot changes constantly between well of corruption/darkness/suffering and spectral walk/armor/wall.
Choose wisely depending on the situation

I do also switch between Walk, Darkness and sometimes Wall depending on were we are fighting too. If the enemy is melee light and mainly backline, Wall works wonders but this isn’t the case in most situations.

Thank you both of you for the opinions about utilities. I never really considered the life force gain as worth much but I guess that comes from not not actually being a necro.

Ascii.9726:

I’m usually always 25 might stacked or close too after stacking and blasting fields prior to an engagement and it makes the initial Suffering and Corruption very deadly. 25% on any AoE boons over a 4 min fight is very noticeable.

I’m aware of might stacking in WvW but from my experience the duration of the might gained from blasting a fire field is dependent on the character using the blast finisher not the player gaining the might.

To my knowledge all other boons in the game work this way. For example if a guardian with high boon duration uses empower next to some one with no boon duration they still get the same duration of might.

Great thread. I like how you defend your build, because it shows that you put some thought/time/effort into it. It is a great example of a T1-T3 necro, vs a T4 or below necro, which have different WvW situations altogether.

Dekar is going to probably kill me, but I am going to try this build out and see how it works.

Edit: quick question; Since this is based around wells, can you tell me what wells you would use, when you would use them, and why you would use them?

@Lalnuir.4957
You are actually correct on that (boons granted by allies is dependent on the casters boon duration and not yours). This is something i never actually knew after just testing it right now.

That being said i still don’t want to play down 4 seconds of Retaliation whilst in Plague form as Retaliation isn’t bound by per-second requirements and can proc alot during them additional seconds, however our limited access to other self-casted boons will make re-evaluate 15 points in Death Magic!

I think i will begin playtesting the following build tonight:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRLcvSTTjfTBIV46JFePeMjiHm+A8A-jkyAYLBRCTgICgJwioxWGLiGr2GT7CoiXUtBfIam8ULDAzCA-w

Which when compared to my current build is;

• Loss of 130 power (4.46%), but gain of 9% critical damage (equivalent of 4.5% damage overall).
• Loss of 48 toughness, but gain of 3188 DS-Health (equivalent of 159 Vitality).
• Loss of Unblockable marks, but gain of -12 second of Walk/
• Gain of Spectral Armour.

@Thustlewhumber.7416
I would happily debate and discuss builds all day with people who have the experience to back it up and really encourage it to improve Necromancer WvW gameplay in general.

Just wanted to say thank you too Ascii, I’m sure the thread didn’t quite go how you hoped, but there’s some excellent discussion towards the end here. Very useful.

I’m wondering how much synergy there could be with another necro built specifically to help you when you do the plague rush, or would two necro’s running this build together do even better either diving simultaneously, or even concurrently?

Ascii.9726:

I play this build at least 6 hours everyday in T1 WvW both commanding and following, im in the highest ranked NA GvG guild fighting some of the best guilds in the game.

Maybe you shouldn’t be questioning my experiences and more informing us of yours which you still haven’t done.

We are not worthy.

@Godless.1857
I’m not too fussed at how this thread started out, i was actually expecting posts by sPvP theorycrafters but i wont say anymore on that incase im theorycrafted out of existence.

Depending on how large the enemy force it, its not uncommon for us to have 2 Necromancers plaguing at the same time and if not there almost always concurrent with one starting up just before the previous one goes down.

@Ascii.9726

I think that’s part of the problem, the sPvP forums are full of people making sure noone gets the upper hand on their chosen class – too negative/adversarial. If they thought for a few seconds that they could have a better team for themselves with necro being able to excel in some area, instead of assuming that necro has 120 trait points to spend and a double sized utility bar allowing them to do all things at all times.

With the dual necro, I was thinking something along the lines of two necros, one using your build or similar, the other setup to lay down well of blood, darkness and maybe spectral wall. So both plague through, one doing most of the damage, the other to support escape at the end.

Godless.1857:

@Ascii.9726

I think that’s part of the problem, the sPvP forums are full of people making sure noone gets the upper hand on their chosen class – too negative/adversarial. If they thought for a few seconds that they could have a better team for themselves with necro being able to excel in some area, instead of assuming that necro has 120 trait points to spend and a double sized utility bar allowing them to do all things at all times.

With the dual necro, I was thinking something along the lines of two necros, one using your build or similar, the other setup to lay down well of blood, darkness and maybe spectral wall. So both plague through, one doing most of the damage, the other to support escape at the end.

Blaming sPvP players.

Amaaaaazing.

Oh, by the way, there is a difference between sPvP player, and tPvP player. For future reference when you’re randomly targeting/insulting wide groups of people.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Blaming sPvP players.

Amaaaaazing.

Oh, by the way, there is a difference between sPvP player, and tPvP player. For future reference when you’re randomly targeting/insulting wide groups of people.

Don’t bother to answer this topic anymore, it’s not worth the time loss.
Since we play also tPvP and sPvP, we obviously lack the competence and the experience to express any from of opinion about a WvWvW build.

Altroll, the fact you even questioned plague in WvW shows you have no clue about what your suggesting.

Sorrow, you’ve already given us your opinions, if you have nothing more constructive to say stick to what you said earlier and stop posting, this thread is already filled with people who want advice or have opinions speaking directly from a large-scale WvW experience PoV, this is what i was after not theorycrafting.

Ascii.9726:

Sorrow, you’ve already given us your opinions, if you have nothing more constructive to say stick to what you said earlier and stop posting, this thread is already filled with people who want advice or have opinions speaking directly from a large-scale WvW experience PoV, this is what i was after not theorycrafting.

Really?
I’ve suggested to do not go that deep into the Death Magic traitline and you dismissed that saying that I had not enough experience.
I’ve said that Death Shroud buff was huge and you don’t need that extra 150 toughness from Death Magic and you dismissed that too.

Once Aphix said that he tried 30/10/0/0/30 which is a way less defensive build compared to the alternative I’ve brought to you, you said the following:

And yes your opinions actually have more credit to me as i can clearly see you’ve spent alot of time in WvW on a high ranked server on a Necro with high rank points and have spoken about guild fights and i thank you for your calm and constructive feedback.

Amazing feedback, spoken about guild fights and so on! :O LOL

Then lordzero:

I’m thinking to remove the Death Magic trait line and and complete Blood magic grandmaster with Vampiric Rituals (in WoC for example it will heal 42 * 5 players * 5 pulses = 1050) you can say 3k if you use WoD, WoC and WoS which is not bad amount

Woot, that sounds familiar!

That’s what I said in the first posts:

The points invested into Death Magic are not worth the damage loss

and then I suggested to go 30 into Spite or:

You can also giving up on Close to Death investing 20 points only into the spite line and go deeper into Blood Magic for Vampiric Rituals.

We essentialy said the exact same thing: investing into Death Magic is not worth the traitpoints spent. The solutions are different, but the concept is the same. I guess that if I say that, I must be wrong.
In fact, you answered:

I’m not sure were your drawing your GvG wvw experience from, but 250 toughness and 25% boon duration for 200 power is not worth the trade in WvW. Let me put it another way, you cant deal damage if your dead and if you make bad trades like that you will be dead.

This has gone far too much ridiculous. Do I have to pair my opinion with my credentials to be considered worth reading?

Your opinions have been dearly noted and disregarded.

sorrow.2364:

This has gone far too much ridiculous. Do I have to pair my opinion with my credentials to be considered worth reading?

I’m a big believer in only taking advice from experienced/skilled people. Back when I ran track (like 10 years ago) I wouldn’t have taken training advice from someone running an 22 second + 200m, but if they were running a low 20, you better believe I’d take their training advice.

Craptrain.7203:

I’m a big believer in only taking advice from experienced/skilled people. Back when I ran track (like 10 years ago) I wouldn’t have taken training advice from someone running an 22 second + 200m, but if they were running a low 20, you better believe I’d take their training advice.

Everyone here can fake its credentials.
The fact that I’ve said the exact same things as some “Necro with high rank points and have spoken about guild fights” says much about how that method of evaluation of people’s opinion suck.

Ascii.9726:

Your opinions have been dearly noted and disregarded.

Yeah, you said the same thing few posts ago. I’ve understood that my opinions should be “noted and disregarded” nevertheless.

sorrow.2364:

Craptrain.7203:

I’m a big believer in only taking advice from experienced/skilled people. Back when I ran track (like 10 years ago) I wouldn’t have taken training advice from someone running an 22 second + 200m, but if they were running a low 20, you better believe I’d take their training advice.

Everyone here can fake its credentials.
The fact that I’ve said the exact same things as some “Necro with high rank points and have spoken about guild fights” says much about how that method of evaluation of people’s opinion suck.

Sure you can fake credentials. You just as easily disprove those fake credentials. I honestly don’t see why anyone would take offense at being asked for credentials before their advice is seriously considered…unless of course they had none.

Now if you want to argue that someone is being hypocritical in what credentials they accept, that’s another argument entirely.

Craptrain.7203:

Sure you can fake credentials. You just as easily disprove those fake credentials. I honestly don’t see why anyone would take offense at being asked for credentials before their advice is seriously considered…unless of course they had none.

Now if you want to argue that someone is being hypocritical in what credentials they accept, that’s another argument entirely.

The point is that he did not asked my credentials. He just dismissed my opinions while accepting it when said by someone else who claimed to be an experienced Necro few posts later (who also joked about the credentials).

How do you call this behavior? I’ve a proper word in my language and I’m pretty sure there is one in english too, which I actually don’t know.

@sorrow.2364
You really havent… if you actually read Aphix’s posts rather then skimming it he says;

Aphix.9846:

Right now Im testing 30/10/0/0/30 in WvW guild roaming and zerg killing only, id switch to my previously mentioned build for some more serious guild fights tho..

I am neither testing nor talking about unorganized engagements.

My agreement comment was on this for newcomers to WvW;

I started off with a full PTV set in wvw ages ago and kept playing and playing and adjusting my build/gear switching some pieces for zerker/cavalier etc

His previous build was:

I got 0/20/20/0/30 with about 1650 toughness, 2k+ power, 40% crit chance, 60% crit dmg.

Which has no Spite, and can somewhat be debated because of the DS pool. I disagree with the lack of Blood Magic and alot of my other posts explain why. I never agreed nor disagreed or even commented on this particular build so saying i did is just incorrect.

And i only responded with the thanks for providing his experiences in WvW because he was somewhat questioning it;

Aphix.9846:

I have more than 2k hours on necro and ~500 on warrior and mostly do wvw and tpvp on the side, and I have over 360 wvw ranks if that makes me sound more credible lol…

with

Aphix.9846:

id switch to my previously mentioned build for some more serious guild fights tho..

Showing that he knows the difference between zerg busting and guild fighting.

Your opinions have been dearly noted and disregarded.

sorrow.2364:

The point is that he did not asked my credentials.

Ascii.9726:

I’m not sure were your drawing your GvG wvw experience from, but 250 toughness and 25% boon duration for 200 power is not worth the trade in WvW. Let me put it another way, you cant deal damage if your dead and if you make bad trades like that you will be dead.

I’d say that was pretty much an invitation right there to share any credentials you might have. Heck, you could have done it at any time and defused that whole argument of his…but you didn’t.

This is indeed a really good build. Why?

This isn’t pve where crowds stand around and let you hit them. A lot of your dps will be wasted because people MOVE and DODGE. So, one cannot just focus on getting the biggest numbers. If you lack survivability and utility, you will die. Not only that, you will fail your group. 30 spite is nice damage, but spite is almost nothing but damage besides the minor that lets you regain health on kill. What could you give up by putting points anywhere else?

Warhorn + Spectral Walk provides extreme mobility. That alone makes it strong. If you want to lead a group, you want to be mobile. Nobody cares about how much damage you bring if your objective cannot be captured in time.

Also, the goal of a wellmancer is to provide area control. You want to control the battlefield to your allies’ advantage. This is why you need cooldowns. Your allies need you and they certainly aren’t going to wait for your cooldowns, because they could probably die already. That incidental vampiric bonus adds up, since you have no problems with hitting stuff.

Likewise CC is extremely powerful because it takes control away from the players. Chilling Darkness is just that good. The utility it offers to your group outweighs individual damage you could provide.

It is due to this that running without ground targeted wells is a terrible joke. Do you really want to be invalidated due to elevation? It’s not just tower defense. WvW isn’t completely flat. Thus it is quite essential for this build.

My own well build, which really isn’t worthy of being discussed due to nubness here has a large emphasis on damage, but yet since I’ve actually played a necro in wvw I can see why this build works.

@ArchonWing.9480
Absolutely spot on.

I also have no issues what so ever with 5 points in Spite for the Health on Kill proc, infact i recently suggested such a build to a player for a mass snowball effect using this and sigils.

Yep, restoration sigil, compote and 5 in spite can be really helpful for zerg busting.

Also the reason why Im not using my 30 spite build.. personally, I feel like necro can offer a bit more than just damage, meaning losing chilling darkness would be a bad trade for just seeing bigger numbers and being kinda selfish…. and maybe even for example in my suggested 0/20/0/20/30 (for people who dont like death magic) would allow you to use well mastery and that means more of boon conversion/blinding well which are very important and I will try that build out when I get home, but Ill have to buy my 4th set of ascended trinkets to make the stats work ;[
And maybe even with the fat DS life pool, traited spectral armor, lifestealing from blood I could switch the stunbreaker for well of darkness, I honestly think that should be enough even if you do get CC, I never used to run stunbreaker for the majority of my time in wvw, I never really had a problem with stuns but since I started using it in tPvP (its a must there imo) I equipped spectral walk/armor for wvw as well.
And with stability used preemptively with 30 in soul reaping I think I should be fine, but thats me, I am always that guy who very, very rarely dies so I think reapplied aoe blind would be worth the trade off.

I really am liking this build and i appreciate you sharing it with the community. One question i have is why the sigil of blood? If it has a cd of two secs is the health that procs from it really worth it?

Just a friendly reminder for those going after Melandru runes.

Use a karma booster before chugging those jugs, if you need more than you have on your character.