Guild Wars 2

Hey.

I’ve been running this build for awhile (as I’m sure many others have) and I’ve been loving the play style so I decided to make a video (my first) showcasing certain game play elements that I’ve had success with like “bleed bursting” and flesh wurm usage.

The build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMax79aub0bKApCPPV47oHEfcwUKKndA-T0AAzCpIaS1krJTTymsNN8Y5xxj5CPPA

The focus:

The focus of this build is being able to have a constant offense even while playing defensively. Sigil of Geomancy gives 3 stacks of bleeding on weapon swap, Weakening Shroud gives 2 stacks of bleeding and weakness on DS activation, and Mark of Evasion gives 2 stacks of bleeding and regen on dodge. This allows you to keep up the pressure with bleed damage when the enemy is mounting an offensive and you can’t stand at range and cast. It also allows a condition version of burst via ability chains:

Staff 2 > Dodge toward enemy > Weapon Swap > DS 2 > DS 3 > Scepter 2 > Dagger 5

(Tip: Can weapon swap when knocked down, dodging, stunned, etc to keep bleed stacks up at all times)

Epidemic allows for large AoE damage and control (DS2 + Epidemic for long AoE chill, etc). I always try to use Flesh Wurm because he’s damage, lifeforce, poison, stun break and mobility all on a 40 sec cooldown, and I couldn’t imagine playing without him. Corrupt Boon never leaves my bar.

Found better success with Hemophilia over Master of Corruption as most of the damage comes from bleeds from sources other than your autoattack (ie why I didn’t take Lingering Curse). Also Soul Marks over Master of Terror as the goal of the build is to have DS available for Weakening Shroud as often as possible. Rabid Jewel over Rampagers because of lack of Sigil of Earth, but it’s all down to preference.

This video was just something to do for fun to showcase a build I enjoy and give me an excuse to put NIN in something:

Thanks for sharing!

I’ve been doing this for quite some time on my Necro, and it’s a wonderful pressure combo. Smart players understand what just happened and cleanse immediately which makes a follow-up Epidemic hard to land, but it’s still an effective tactic.

I use a somewhat odd build (0/20/10/10/30) to pull this off. It’s a variant of a Terror build, but I incorporate Soul Marks and either 5-sec CD Death Shroud or stability shroud.

For a Necro, I find that any bleed duration is wasted on anyone with a cleanse, so efforts are best put elsewhere and that 30 points in Curses isn’t mandatory. So, 20 in Curses for Terror plus Master of Corruption or Weakening Shroud is all you need most of the time.

30 points in Soul Reaping is a preference for me, and taking the 5-sec DS trait is also something I prefer. I like to be very tanky, and being able to flip in and out of DS to absorb hits is something I value greatly.

Zeke Minus.5720:

Thanks for sharing!

I’ve been doing this for quite some time on my Necro, and it’s a wonderful pressure combo. Smart players understand what just happened and cleanse immediately which makes a follow-up Epidemic hard to land, but it’s still an effective tactic.

I use a somewhat odd build (0/20/10/10/30) to pull this off. It’s a variant of a Terror build, but I incorporate Soul Marks and either 5-sec CD Death Shroud or stability shroud.

For a Necro, I find that any bleed duration is wasted on anyone with a cleanse, so efforts are best put elsewhere and that 30 points in Curses isn’t mandatory. So, 20 in Curses for Terror plus Master of Corruption or Weakening Shroud is all you need most of the time.

30 points in Soul Reaping is a preference for me, and taking the 5-sec DS trait is also something I prefer. I like to be very tanky, and being able to flip in and out of DS to absorb hits is something I value greatly.

I used to use 0/20/10/10/30 and still very much enjoy it, I just felt like I was doing more damage with 30 in Curses but living longer with 30 in Soul Reaping. I miss the stability stomps mainly, but I feel like the extra condition damage and crit helps me down people faster. I went back and forth on Hemo for awhile but noticed it was considerably easier for me to maintain more stacks of bleeding with it active than without it. Condition cleanse isn’t really a concern with how quickly stacks can get reapplied, especially when you bait the cleanse before trying to burst stack.

Good soundtrack!

I also use the burst bleed spec, and also hybridize it with the fear spec. The biggest difference is that I use spectral walk instead of fleshwurm and 0 in blood for full 20 in death for the “fear when CCd” trait. The added mobility can be game changing and the fear demolishes thieves for me.

At least, that’s how I like it

You choose hemophilia over lingering curse?
Not sure but when you see about the entire fight, most bleeds come from the scepter and the after effect 33% should be better then..

1) Terror is awesome WITH Master of Terror
2) Mark of Evasion Vs. Foot in the Grave / Near Death…No contest at all max out Soul Reaping
3) Curses: Weakening Shroud is great in sPvP if you are being trained, reduce cd on Corruption for Boon strip its amazing…

You don’t have any condition duration increase so why take Haemophilia?

I try running a carrion power/condi well build that maximizes my on demand terror abilities:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW7YjMaV6Za+a07JAJFPfdkigHm6R5pzOA-TsAgyCuIiSFlLKTUyosRN8Y5xeBA

I also agree that bleeding duration is completely meh in sPVP so the more sources you have that apply 2-3 stacks, the better it is for you. Sadly though I dropped weakening shroud and 5 second DS so I can have targetable wells, master of terror, terror and soul marks. My terror nearly always ticks twice with the duration of 1.7 seconds.

I also think that mark on dodge is not a very good option considering what you can take instead of it with those 10 points. Don’t quite understand why a lot of people take it. I also think that the most reliable overtime bleed stacking is staff mark of the blood, especially with reduced CD.

If they make greater marks baseline and move the unblockable trait into the staff CD trait, then I put those 10 points from death magic into curses and take banshees vale among with a stun duration sigil on one of the weapons so I can have a 4 seconds AOE daze.

Flowerpower.6795:

You choose hemophilia over lingering curse?
Not sure but when you see about the entire fight, most bleeds come from the scepter and the after effect 33% should be better then..

For conditions I play 0/30/20/20, 0/30/20/0/20 Fear, 0/30/10/0/30 and 0/20/10/10/30. I enjoy all of these builds. I played this same setup as 0/20/10/10/30 long before switching it to what it is now. I -never- used Hemo in my builds as there are so many other alternatives in the Curses tree. The reason I dropped Lingering Curse was because it didn’t solve the main problem I faced as a condition necro in PvP: Getting focused on by everyone.

If I’m allowed to stand at an ideal vantage point and spam abilities, yes Lingering Curse is optimal and it has a place in every other condition build I play. But the reality is it only benefits scepter auto and Grasping Dead. Yes, 33% longer cripple, poison and bleed is awesome, and it was hard for me to give it up for Hemo, but LC does nothing for the bleeds applied from Enfeebling Blood, Dark Path, Mark of Blood, Mark of Evasion, Weakening Shroud or Sigil of Geomancy. The entire premise behind the play style of this build is supposed to be constant pressure at all times. Anytime you’re fighting and NOT spamming scepter 1, aside from GD, Lingering Curse is doing nothing.

Cempa.5619:

1) Terror is awesome WITH Master of Terror
2) Mark of Evasion Vs. Foot in the Grave / Near Death…No contest at all max out Soul Reaping
3) Curses: Weakening Shroud is great in sPvP if you are being trained, reduce cd on Corruption for Boon strip its amazing…

You don’t have any condition duration increase so why take Haemophilia?

1. If I was running 0/30/20/0/20 with Nightmare runes and Reaper’s Protection I would have taken MoT over Soul Marks, but this isn’t a Fear build and spreading your build strategy too thin reduces effectiveness. Soul Marks provides HUGE lifeforce generation, combined with Rabid jewelry and undead runes plus the double regen from the 10 points in Blood Magic gives substantial survivability. Like I said, the premise is to be able to continue your offense while being defensive which is why I focused on survivability and bleed applications that come secondary to defensive maneuvers (ie: bleeds when dodging, bleeds when going into DS, bleeds when swapping weapons). Terror is fine on its own. I tried this build with MoT and still felt more durable with Soul Marks but of course everything is down to preference.

2. Near to Death doesn’t work well with this build other than flashing for permanent Fury. I originally started this build with Foot in the Grave but it’s just too situational and I lose ~5% crit chance and 100 condition damage plus one of several good Curses traits. DS stomps were the best part about it but there’s no point in choosing that AND Weakening Shroud; you want DS activation to be offensive AND defensive, not just defensive. I find myself reserving DS use with FitG to interrupt control effects, thus Weakening Shroud becomes a secondary objective and that’s not the goal of this build. Mark of Evasion, however, fits well with this build’s goal of attacking and defending simultaneously. With regen at 90% health, 3 stacks of bleeding and regen on dodge, plus staff’s own Mark of Blood, I have almost constant regen as well as 3 stacks of bleeding AoE. I’ve played 0/30/10/0/30, it’s a perfectly fine build (it’s what I use in WvW). This build is a different build with a different theme.

3. You have no idea how hard of a choice it was taking Hemo over Master of Corruption considering how much I love CB. I’ve never run a condition build without MoC. Like I said earlier, Hemo has just worked better for me in THIS specific build. It’s not like you use CB and Epidemic the second it comes off cooldown, they’re reserved for specific circumstances, so a shorter cooldown is only helpful sometimes where as 20% bleed duration is helpful all the time. I wouldn’t give up Weakening Shroud in this build because, like you said, it’s useful when being trained and, like I said, the entire focus of this build is bleed application continues even when you’re being trained.

No build can do everything, they need to have a specialized focus to excel in certain areas. I made this build with the mindset of, “When I’m getting focus fired, I need to be able to keep up the damage while trying to survive the attack” because I felt like my offense was strong when kiting, and my defense was strong when defending, but my offense was garbage when being focused. I gave up more common trait choices used in other condition builds in favor or the ones that focused on constant 3 stack bleed applications. Also why I gave up Sigil of Earth for Geomancy. Most condition builds only have 3 ways of AoE bleed application: Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood and Mark of Blood. The first two have interruptable 3/4 sec cast times and the third is on your support weapon. The above build adds three more 3 stack AoE bleeding abilities attached to actions that you do constantly throughout a fight (again: weapon swap, DS activation and dodge roll). You’ll not only see enemies who are attacking you die from your AoE bleeds but by combining dodge, weapon swap and DS with other bleed abilities in rapid succession, you can play very aggressively by stacking bleeds quickly. Getting rid of any of these limits the effectiveness of the build’s strategy and turns it into one of the many other condition builds. All of them are pretty equally effective in my experience, the only reason I chose to showcase this one is because the play style is enjoyable and surprisingly effective.

Thanks for the comments.

I just tried your build and must say it is amazing! I was using nemesis fear build in tpvp but i felt it is somewhat lackluster. Only problem i had with this build were together mesmer and eles vs me with constant aoe, kocking, imobilization, daze and huge dmg x.x and lack of dodges on my part. Thanks for shaing it, i can now drop ppl so fast.

nice work Hanzo

I just started using a similar build and Felt unique, oh darn :P

I have some difficulties covering my bleed tho, always the first condition being removed.

When not under pressure, I love to use the combo : Mark fo blood, DS + Fear + DS off/dodge/swap weapon + Mark of fear + epidemic. I use master of terror si I usually get the epidemic, and it hits hard.

I should take soul mark to try.

Nice build man

Hanzo.9624:

Flowerpower.6795:

You choose hemophilia over lingering curse?
Not sure but when you see about the entire fight, most bleeds come from the scepter and the after effect 33% should be better then..

For conditions I play 0/30/20/20, 0/30/20/0/20 Fear, 0/30/10/0/30 and 0/20/10/10/30. I enjoy all of these builds. I played this same setup as 0/20/10/10/30 long before switching it to what it is now. I -never- used Hemo in my builds as there are so many other alternatives in the Curses tree. The reason I dropped Lingering Curse was because it didn’t solve the main problem I faced as a condition necro in PvP: Getting focused on by everyone.

If I’m allowed to stand at an ideal vantage point and spam abilities, yes Lingering Curse is optimal and it has a place in every other condition build I play. But the reality is it only benefits scepter auto and Grasping Dead. Yes, 33% longer cripple, poison and bleed is awesome, and it was hard for me to give it up for Hemo, but LC does nothing for the bleeds applied from Enfeebling Blood, Dark Path, Mark of Blood, Mark of Evasion, Weakening Shroud or Sigil of Geomancy. The entire premise behind the play style of this build is supposed to be constant pressure at all times. Anytime you’re fighting and NOT spamming scepter 1, aside from GD, Lingering Curse is doing nothing.

This makes sense. Second question. Why not master of corruption instead of hemophilia? Don’t get me wrong.. i just think hemophilia isn’t realy good when it comes to pvp
Btw: you could improve your build by using a warhorn, banshee’s wail (instead of hemophilia) and a 15% stun duration sigil on your wh. A 4sec aoe Daze realy is something you want in pvp + swiftness and cripple helps your mobility and kiting.. because you have no mobility skills like spectral walk. =)

Flowerpower.6795:

This makes sense. Second question. Why not master of corruption instead of hemophilia? Don’t get me wrong.. i just think hemophilia isn’t realy good when it comes to pvp

The majority of my damage is coming from bleeds, so the 20% increase in duration is helping me 100% of the time during combat. Master of Corruption is ONLY helpful if you’re using the abilities within the time that the spells have been reduced.

Corrupt Boon becomes 32 seconds (from 40) and Epidemic becomes 12 seconds (from 15). If both spells are on cooldown and you don’t use CB within 8 seconds of it being available, or Epidemic within 3 seconds of it being available, Master of Corruption has now effectively done nothing to help you. Both spells are generally saved for important moments so it’s not like you’ll be spamming it the second it comes off of cooldown. Overall, the benefit of +20% bleed duration in a build devoted entirely to bleed stacking helps me more often than -20% cooldown on two situational spells that I reserve for specific circumstances anyway.

Flowerpower.6795:

Btw: you could improve your build by using a warhorn, banshee’s wail (instead of hemophilia) and a 15% stun duration sigil on your wh. A 4sec aoe Daze realy is something you want in pvp + swiftness and cripple helps your mobility and kiting.. because you have no mobility skills like spectral walk. =)

Getting rid of dagger offhand gets rid of Deathly Swarm which is not only huge for survivability in terms of a 3 person blind and a condition transfer, but the condition transfer is also a damage source, as the build has high condition damage. It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness. This would completely hinder the theme of the build, which is rapid AoE bleed stacking.

Putting a +15% stun duration sigil on my offhand gets rid of Sigil of Minor Corruption which, at 25 stacks, loses me +250 condition damage (1742 total condition damage with a full sigil)

I run Flesh Wurm in this build and never have a problem with mobility. It applies poison, has a steady auto-attack that does fairly decent damage, is on a shorter cooldown, gives 10% lifeforce on Necrotic Transversal, and can get me through walls and up onto different levels. Spectral Walk is 20 seconds longer of a cooldown, only gives lifeforce on hit (which, when popped, usually means I’m running away/toward something and not getting hit), and swiftness is easy to shut down. Plus if you use it to run away from a losing battle, you certainly won’t be using Spectral Recall as it would just put you right back where you started. Don’t get me wrong, I love the spell. Just not in this build. Unless I’m using both Flesh Wurm and Spectral Walk for teleport stomps, of course!

Like I said above, you don’t want to spread your strategy too thin. If you try to make a build that thinks it can do everything at once, it will just be mediocre at everything. I’ve run primarily a dagger/warhorn well bombing build for a long time, usually with thief runes but I’ve definitely done the banshee’s wail + mesmer rune combo. The thing is, when the build is designed around condition damage and bleeds, giving up condition damage and bleeds for other utilities—albeit useful ones—waters down the concept of it.

Hope I explained that well enough, sorry my writing is so verbose. This is just my own personal reasoning behind my decisions, hopefully I made it clear that while your suggestions may not fit with the goal of my build, they’re perfectly acceptable strategies to incorporate into other builds (and of course, you can do whatever works for your playstyle with this one as well!).

Thanks for the discussion.

Hanzo.9624:

It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness.

I thought this was a typo in your first post, but since you mentioned it again now:
Enfeebling Blood (and therefore also Weakening Shroud) gives 2 stacks of bleeding.

Please note the next things:

Dodge mark gives only 2 stacks of bleed instead of 3 according to wiki.
Enfeebling blood is 2 stacks of bleed.

Thought weakening shroud enfeebling blood was applying 3 stacks but was wrong heh.

That is the ‘correct’ condition build for tpvp soul marks is a must. Some skip the mark on dodge for 30 DS and stability, I like the mark on dodge.

1) The only reason to use Rabid Amulet is if you use Earth Sigils. Use Carrion Amulet + Necromancer runes. It will be more damage and more survivability. I know you are trying to stick to theme here but I’m just telling you what is actually more effective.

2) I disagree with your assessment of “being mediocre at everything” simply because you grab Master of Terror. One of the biggest reasons you want to bleed bomb in the first place is to get a fat Epidemic off on that large bleed stack you just put on your target. Master of Terror gives you the fear duration you to chain your fear into bleed bomb into epidemic all while your target is CC’ed. Plus it’s more damage from terror and acts as a ghetto AoE interrupt (since you Epidemic a 0.1s fear as well).

3) I don’t consider Mark of Evasion necessary for bleed bombing, though it is a nice skill. The reason why is because it still effectively has a cast time (the dodge itself) so you can’t immediately chain it together with all your other bleeds. Personally I find Mark of Evasion great for a tanky, shaman amulet variant since it gives you near perma regen uptime. Also it gives 2 stacks of bleeding, not 3 like the staff version.

4) I also don’t consider Hemophilia mandatory either. In my mind any Necro worth his salt should be bleed bombing, and you only need 0/20/10/0/20 to do it (to grab terror, master of terror, weakening shroud, greater marks) with 20 points to float around as you see fit. I don’t fault your use of Hemophilia however, as it is great if you get it on a target with no condi removal. What I’m basically saying is that IMO Necros should be bleed bombing no matter what personal condi variant build you are using.

5) I have started using Flesh Golem a lot recently as well and it is also great to help CC your target to get those bleed bombs off. Their charge ability is also great to charge through Guardians rez’ing allies through sanctuary .

flow.6043:

Hanzo.9624:

It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness.

I thought this was a typo in your first post, but since you mentioned it again now:
Enfeebling Blood (and therefore also Weakening Shroud) gives 2 stacks of bleeding.

Iceflame.5024:

Please note the next things:

Dodge mark gives only 2 stacks of bleed instead of 3 according to wiki.
Enfeebling blood is 2 stacks of bleed.

Thought weakening shroud enfeebling blood was applying 3 stacks but was wrong heh.

I knew this at one point, apparently I forgot. Thanks for pointing it out, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. Appropriate corrections have been made.

Skyro.3108:

1) The only reason to use Rabid Amulet is if you use Earth Sigils. Use Carrion Amulet + Necromancer runes. It will be more damage and more survivability. I know you are trying to stick to theme here but I’m just telling you what is actually more effective.

Looking at the numbers of Rabid/rabid [Undead Runes] vs Carrion/carrion [Necro Runes]:

Rabid:
1926 attack
49% crit
2630 armor
1492 condition damage
19,372 health

Carrion:
2570 attack
18% crit
1936 armor
1406 condition damage
26,312 vitality

Barbed Precision would suffer at 18% crit but it’s minimal. I’d be interested to give this a shot. Thanks for the suggestion.

Skyro.3108:

2) I disagree with your assessment of “being mediocre at everything” simply because you grab Master of Terror. One of the biggest reasons you want to bleed bomb in the first place is to get a fat Epidemic off on that large bleed stack you just put on your target. Master of Terror gives you the fear duration you to chain your fear into bleed bomb into epidemic all while your target is CC’ed. Plus it’s more damage from terror and acts as a ghetto AoE interrupt (since you Epidemic a 0.1s fear as well).

I was just making a general statement about trying to focus on too many different strategies in one build (mainly referring to incorporating warhorn and daze duration to this build). I played this build initially with MoT but ended up finding more consistency with Soul Marks. It’s still an absolutely and equally valid alternative. I just happen to, at this specific point in time, prefer SM.

Skyro.3108:

4) I also don’t consider Hemophilia mandatory either. In my mind any Necro worth his salt should be bleed bombing, and you only need 0/20/10/0/20 to do it (to grab terror, master of terror, weakening shroud, greater marks) with 20 points to float around as you see fit. I don’t fault your use of Hemophilia however, as it is great if you get it on a target with no condi removal. What I’m basically saying is that IMO Necros should be bleed bombing no matter what personal condi variant build you are using.

Agreed.

Skyro.3108:

5) I have started using Flesh Golem a lot recently as well and it is also great to help CC your target to get those bleed bombs off. Their charge ability is also great to charge through Guardians rez’ing allies through sanctuary .

I love Flesh Golem for all of my builds, especially in small areas where he can pin people to the wall and do insane amounts of damage.

Hanzo.9624:

The majority of my damage is coming from bleeds, so the 20% increase in duration is helping me 100% of the time during combat.

It’s only helping you for the bleeds that actually run their entire course. Most of ours are so long off the bat, that this will will be very few in PvP. Maybe scepter 1 spam at 5 seconds is likely to get some ticks from Hemo, but I find myself not spamming scepter 1 that often, usually something better to do.

The only sure bleed it is extending is Barbed Precision (20 more damage on average per proc). Mark of Blood is already 8 seconds, Grasping Dead 7 seconds, Enfeebling is 10 seconds, BiP is 30 seconds, that will never get a benefit. That’s without duration from runes, spite, or anywhere else. In WvW of course you could get 40% on food then Hemo and Lingering Curses become totally redundant wasteful.

I wonder about the average length a bleed stack is on competent players in PVP, I can’t imagine more than 5 or 6 seconds, which means most of these bleeds are getting cleansed before Hemo does anything.

Hanzo.9624:

I love Flesh Golem for all of my builds, especially in small areas where he can pin people to the wall and do insane amounts of damage.

If he runs into an obstacle that they’re standing on the far side of, he can also hit with all the charge ticks. For example in clocktower, if they’re standing just off the raised centre area and he is up on it. If they’re a little further back, you get a massive knockback instead.

Similar concept to an old build I used to use btw:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Post-Your-Build-Thread/856001

Thanks for sharing your build. I just want to add that setting up your burst is a very good way to set yourself apart from other Necros. Instead of just using all your weapon abilities as soon as theyre off CD, set them up with fears when their utilities/heal is on CD, and you’ll quickly drop your target.

Skyro.3108:

1) The only reason to use Rabid Amulet is if you use Earth Sigils. Use Carrion Amulet + Necromancer runes. It will be more damage and more survivability. I know you are trying to stick to theme here but I’m just telling you what is actually more effective.

Just coming back to this after playing only this way since you recommended it.

I did like the long fears with MoT and Necro runes, but I absolutely felt starved for life force without Soul Marks; dropping the trait only realistically left me with Feast of Corruption for life force generation, and flesh wurm. That combined with a lack of toughness from rune and amulet changes left me a little squishier than I like to be.

Because I couldn’t live without Soul Marks, I switched back to Undead Runes but kept the Carrion Amulet. I liked this setup a lot, actually. I think I was sitting around ~1452 condition damage vs ~1492 with rabid gear so the difference wasn’t that bad. My crit was 18% but with no significant on-crit abilities it wasn’t noticeable, and the HP gain was great. The added direct damage does help overall (especially with inanimate objects). The only obvious downside to this setup is losing the toughness from Rabid amulet; you can feel the lack of toughness, but you can also feel the increased direct damage. It felt very balanced to me in terms of play style with both having equal survivability just in different ways. Thanks for showing me another option!

I’d like to ask what you guys think of this build, now this build is not mine, it is by a strictly Tournament player who posted it on the forum with a youtube guide (I added the armour and food he didn’t).

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|b.1h.h1k.8.1h.h5|6.1h.h1k|1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716.1b.716|1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b.1b.9b|0.u467.a2.0.u49b|30.d|3r.48.3x.3w.4f|e