Guild Wars 2

What’s the best build for PvE? Weapons/traits/skills?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Guide-DPS-Necro-for-PvE/first

Wish I could sticky this…

Longbow and bear.

Nilgoow.1037:

Longbow and bear.

this comment was so stupid and it made me giggle like a child

This is the best Berserker build for necro, and it wasn’t affected in the last update:

enjoy

Im gonna go quote the very person who made that build.

“There is no best build, only best at…”

And as much as i hate that quote its somewhat true. That build however is not the best beserker build for pve thats for sure. Maybe for pvp or wvw. But definately not pve. Best is subjective. I consider best as being the most effective and efficient which certainly wouldnt be a DS camping build.

Spoj Has the right of it. Nemisis did a really good job on that build.

to quote him again, “there is not best build, only best at”

The Nemisis Glass cannon is amazingly good at crafting and sustaining the single necromancers’ DPS.

But as spoj suggests, what you are asking is the best PvE build. which is entirely subjective.

So, My suggestion, Look at Nemisis Glass cannon build, and look at Spoj and his Berzerker Necro for PvE. snd try them both and see what “is best” for YOU. and then what is best for your group you run with.

at least you have a template you can elaborate from

Yeah the “best” is extremely subjective.

Spoj’s shroud flashing dagger build is probably the highest PvE dps, however, if you are any of the following:

- lazy
- can’t manage complex skill rotations
- dont have the best ping
- not very good at avoiding damage in melee range
- prefer ranged combat

…then a DS autoattack spam build might be more effective.

The flashing dagger also depends on the groups you run with. In an organized GC group, flashing dagger is the way to go since enemies die to cleave way too quickly. But in unorganzed pugs, you’ll life blasting 3 or 4 enemies in a row for long periods of time, so maximizing life blast damage would be more important.

I prefer Spoj’s build for guild runs and Deathshroud build for pugs as it is easier to play and has range.

You can use axe and/or DS for range on my build and you will get more dps aswell.

There’s one, small advantage of DS build over any other : Underwater combat. Basic DS #1 while hits less than land version, has very short cast and almost no aftercast + transfers condition. It out-damages eery other dps option underwater for necro and not only I believe

You miss the point though. My build stacks more damage modifiers and in a decent group you should be close to 100% crit chance. So lifeblasts will hit harder potentially. There is no reason to take deathly perception unless you have low crit chance and are doing wvw/pvp.

It is a bit of a toss up between target the weak and Close to Death, though. Target the weak, at 5 conditions, has a 10% boost. Close to death gives a 20% boost, but only for half the time, so that comes out to 10% as well.

The thing with the DS builds, though, is that they focus more heavily on power than precision, and this does quite a bit of compensating. So, to compare your build to a newly updated DS build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIbDbkRrSvYTdjePhA9IXePnJqwxQ9YdcnPE-jQCBYfC0EEwkGgUBAZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1GcFRrOIgRB-e

The effective power between the two at full sigil stacks is about a 2.2% difference. With close to death and target the weak being arguably equal, the only variables different between the two are fury uptime and DS duration.

The unfortunate thing about furious demise is that its effectiveness is inverse of DS sustain time. This is because the recharge for DS doesn’t start ticking down until you exit DS. With no time in DS you’ll have a 71% fury up time, but every second you are in DS increases the recharge rate of DS, so at 3 seconds you’ll have 50% up time, 8 seconds you’ll have 33% up time, and 13 seconds you’ll have 25% up time.

Deathly perception just gives the flat 50% increase in DS. So, whichever one becomes stronger is dependent on how long you stay in DS during a fight. Now, I’ve comprised a formula to calculate the total effective power of the builds based on DS up time, and it is as follows:

2484 x ((0.73 + 0.2 × 5/(7 + Y)) x 2.64 + (0.27 – 0.2 × 5/(7 + Y))) = 2898 x ((0.5 + 0.5 x Y / (Y + 10)) x 2.69 + 0.5 – 0.5 x Y / (Y + 10))

Where Y = time (in seconds) in DS. Oh boy! A math problem! My algebra skills aren’t nearly up to the task, so I just graphed both sides and then found their intersect, which is at Y = 2.75 seconds.

Considering that life blast takes about 1.5 seconds, If you fire off more than a single life blast in Death Shroud in a fight, then the Deathly Perception build does more damage than the dagger flashing build. Now, this conclusion is done on various assumptions, and I will list them here:

#1: No additional input from teammates (fury or might) Fury in particular, since additional fury will help out the dagger flashing build, whereas with the Deathly Perception build additional fury does nothing while in DS. For the DP build to win out, it needs to stay in DS and contribute meaningfully for 6 seconds. This number goes down depending on when fury is applied, but I have no formula for this… yet.

#2: Might. Both builds have similar might stacking abilities, depending on if you use reaper’s might instead of chill of death on the dagger flashing build. But, if we are to assume maximum might from teammates, then the equivalence point is shifted from 2.75 seconds to 4.04 seconds. Including permanent fury, then the threshold is moved to 9.1 seconds.

#3: Health maintenance. The time spent in the scholary threshold changes between builds dependent on skill level. However, I will assume the build is weilded by uber experts and both uptimes are 100%.

#4: Rotation changes. The warhorn loses a tick from locust swarm, and in battles lasting longer than 7 + Y seconds but shorter than 10 + Y seconds, weakening shroud gets a second proc. The impact this has on battles is unknown, since the length of time spent in DS changes from fight to fight, and the amount of time to overtake a locust swarm pulse is unknown.

Otherwise, I am assuming that the circumstances where you use lifeblast or the primary dagger + focus/warhorn for both builds is identical.

This gives us a series of thresholds:

No support: 2.75 seconds (or 2 life blasts)
Permanent fury: 6 seconds (4 life blasts)
Max might: 4.04 seconds (3 life blasts)
Max might + fury: 9.1 seconds (6 life blasts)

Whichever is better depends on where you sit with your group. In highly organized GC groups with high fury and might, of course the dagger flasher is better. 9 seconds of straight up life blasts isn’t going to happen there. But, in a pug that offers little to no support, 2.75 seconds is really easy to pass. Heck, 6 seconds is really easy to pass.

EDIT: checked math and fundamentals again, resolved a nagging mental tick I had, and updated information to include permanent fury times.

I"m pretty sure I’m out of room on the above post, so I’ll have to put this here.

If we are to assume one of two circumstances with fury uptime:

#1: The necro receives permanent fury
#2: The necro receives fury that persists long enough after DS that it finishes the fight.

Then we can change the formula above to this in a permanent fury scenario:

2484 x (0.93 × 2.64 + 0.07) = 2898 x ((0.7 + 0.3 x Y / (Y + 10)) x 2.69 + 0.3 – 0.3 x Y / (Y + 10))

They intersect at Y = -0.3! This means that, even without going into DS, under permanent fury the Deathly Perception build is stronger than the dagger flasher! Of course, this is neglecting a few traits that benefit the dagger flasher (chill of death, banshee wail), so I’m not ready to stop the presses yet, but it is an interesting outcome.

At maximum might + fury, the new threshold becomes 1. 49 seconds. So, the two builds are even but for a single life blast, then the Deathly perception build pulls forward.

This makes sense when you think about it. The less precision you have, the more fury helps out. At no precision, 4% crit rate becomes 24% crit rate, which means you’ll be hitting quite a bit harder. Apparently, the jump from 50 to 70 is larger than I expected it to be, and so much larger than the jump from 73 to 93 that it actually overshadows the benefits gained otherwise.

So, new table of thresholds!

0 might 0 fury (from team): 2.75 seconds
0 might 100% fury: 0 seconds
25 might, 0 fury (from team): 4.04 seconds
25 might, 100% fury: 1.49 seconds.

These are dependent on the additional assumptions at the beginning of this post. If the DP necro happens to receive only enough fury that it wears out while still in DS, then the numbers from the previous post apply.

Also, this assumes that life blasting is appropriate. In any circumstance where you cannot hit 2 or more enemies with life blast, the dagger flashing build will be superior by default (assuming the Deathly Perception build doesn’t get permanent fury). To be specific, at 0 might it will be about 13% stronger, and at full might + no additional fury it will be 23% stronger.

“There is no best build. Only ‘best at’.”
— Nemesis

Massive flaw in your calculations. You included fury but you didnt include banner of discipline and banner of strength. In a group with perma fury, banner of discipline and appropriate food you get 83% crit chance. With perception stacks you have over 95% crit chance. At these points you would be very unlucky to miss a crit on life blast so the modifiers are what makes them hit harder. Over a long period of time you may hit for less with life blasts due to a few missed crits but 30/25 should provide the biggest numbers and also provides far better sustained dps with dagger. If I ever get round to doing a high hit video on mage crusher for necro it will be with 30/25.

Im not sure how you managed to calculate that life blast pulls ahead if it hits more than once. Dagger auto can be completed in 2 seconds and is over twice the damage of a single life blast in 1.5 seconds.

Also I assume you know this already but I thought id mention it anyway. Effective power is not useful for comparison when using different methods of attack (dagger vs life blast).

Spoj, just a general question about going into Curses vs. going into Soul Reaping. I am not a theorycrafter so have not done the calculations.

Going 30,25,0,0,15 you clearly get more precision (for crit chance) as well as the damage modifier from Target the Weak

Going 30,10,0,0,30 you get 15% more crit damage as well as the damage modifier from Strength of Undeath

Given the same food, banners, stacks, etc, how much of a difference does the 30/25 build make vs the 30/10 if you dont use life blast in the 30/10? It seems like the higher crit damage and Strength of Undeath modifier would make up somewhat for the loss of precision and Target the Weak.

The reason I ask is that in PvP and WvW, the 30,10,0,0,30 build tends to perform better due to the fact that targets don’t just stand there and you really need to life blast if you want to take someone down. For those situations, deathly perception is invaluable. I am lazy and do not like switching my build when I run a dungeon with guildies, so if the DPS of 30/10 is comparable to 30/25 given the same buffs and using dagger auto, it would make sense to just keep the same build.

Crit damage is a highly overated stat. And due to strength of undeath only being a 5% boost (not perma on the DS build either) the damage potential is quite a bit lower. The advantage it has in pvp and wvw is because you are not reliant on external sources for crit chance. And buffing is somewhat neglected in those gametypes or theres just not time.

If you dont care about min maxing then 30/10 should be fine for dungeons. You lose quite alot but if you dont want to switch its not going to be a huge issue or a huge damage loss. It would be big enough for me to get annoyed and notice the difference though.

The calculation with dagger and LB damage is pretty easy. The base damage for LB is 341, and the dagger chain is 940 base damage. The dagger takes 2.1 seconds, which comes to 447 DPS. The LB takes 1.5 seconds, which comes to 227 damage. Thus, if LB hits two targets, it will do 454 DPS, exceeding dagger damage.

Your massive flaw is that you are assuming that only your build gets buffs. If you give a buff to one build, you have to give it to another. Of course, how things will behave is quite obvious: the more precision you give, the better DP does. The more power you give, the better dagger flashing does.

Assuming full buffs, with a banner of discipline, the threshold is 0.6 seconds in DS. With strength, the threshold is 1.8 seconds , and with both discipline and strength, the threshold is 1 second. The reason why it does this is simple: the Deathly Perception build has higher power.

Differing combat styles is all well and good, except you said this:

You miss the point though. My build stacks more damage modifiers and in a decent group you should be close to 100% crit chance. So lifeblasts will hit harder potentially. There is no reason to take deathly perception unless you have low crit chance and are doing wvw/pvp.

AKA: your build does more damage life blasting than the Life blasting build does Life Blasting, because the dagger flashing build has higher precision. This is not true, of course, since the higher power of the lifeblasting build both compensates for lower precision, and makes the life blasting build stronger the more you buff precision.

What is also not true is the modifiers. The three damage modifiers the dagger flashing build has is deadly strength, runes of the scholar, and target the weak. The three modifiers the LB build has is deadly strength, runes of the scholar, and close to death. The only difference between the two is close to death and target the weak, and as it happens, those are about roughly the same as each other.

No i was saying 30/25 does more damage with life blasts. Im well aware 20/25 does less life blast damage.

Anyway I misunderstood you when you said life blast hits more than once. I thought you meant getting off more than 1 lifeblast. Anyway dps comparison should never be done using cleave or pierce because that is obviously going to skew the results in favour of whatever cleaves.

Also ive compared effective power of all build variations to find the best dagger dps and 30/10 is one of the worst for dagger dps. Even with a full group giving you all the precision you could hope for its quite bad. I think the only time it may be ok or even better than the others is if you have all buffs and a ranger with spotter in the group.

Also btw 30/15/0/0/25 is better than 30/10. You get more dps on dagger and deathly perception is incredibly overated.

I know we are talking about dungeon runs with optimized groups here but have you found any way to work the 30/25 or 20/25 builds into PvP/WvW and if so, what is the general play style?

I havent touched pvp or wvw in a while so I cant really comment. But id imagine it would be the old imobalize and cc then drop wells and burst them.

Sepreh.5924:

I know we are talking about dungeon runs with optimized groups here but have you found any way to work the 30/25 or 20/25 builds into PvP/WvW and if so, what is the general play style?

I have used 30/25/0/0/15 as a burst pvp build. It is pretty much a ‘kill them before they kill you’ build, and I find it to have more burst than 30/10///30, but it can be kited easier.

I am not sure how other players use this build in pvp, but I ran well of suffering, bone minions, and I think I switched out the 3rd a lot. Basically I would use dagger/horn to CC someone then switch to axe/focus and use focus4, drop well of suffering, and then axe2. You can detonate bone minions while channeling axe2, and this all adds up to some serious burst if you land it. Its not a combo that experienced pvpers would get caught in, but I just wvw and play pug spvp, so it worked for me.

DS Life Blast build works fine in WvWvW. It has ton of survival thanks to amazing Life Force generation, high vitality and amount of deaths around. I used to run 30/0/10/0/30 with both spectrals and minions cd reduce. Usually Axe+Focus/Staff. It’s a kitten pain train in zerg and smaller roams. I run CC, Spectral Walk, Flesh Wurm and Spectral Armor + Flesh Golem. With this setup you have probably nearly best possible necro mobility and tricks