Guild Wars 2

Anyone who can help me a bit here? I can’t under any circumstances understand who bleed can be better than direct damage.

On a world event, let’s say a dragon, two bleed users is enough to keep up max bleed stack. Any other bleed users are then totally useless, except for the small amount of damage the initial bleed attack is doing.
If im not mistaking, the initial attack on a “bleed attack” takes its damage from power and not condition damage. And if you are “bleed speced” you will not stack up on power.
Bleed is easy to remove, and if it is removed you suddenly got no damage going.
Bleed takes time to build up.

Playing a powerspec/direct damage, you will not have this problems.

So can anyone please enlighten me why one should use bleed spec when it is so inferior to direct damage in all situations, so far?

First of all you are right.

Bleed is benefical only if you have max ONE other person stacking conditions.
—> Solo Play , Dungeon Groups maybe, tPvP

It is beneficial because : Initial attack + Bleed = more overall dmg in comparion to Necros overall ability to deal direct dmg
PS: Bleed ignores Toughness

I think it is slightly higher than Dagger dmg.

But as you pointed out, there are situations when Bleeds are just worhtless (Big Events) and i am sure ANet is working on a sulution for this.

Ok, thanks for comfirming my conserns :s
Guess I’ll stick with axe/dagger-staff.

Where do you get the informations of bleed get damage from power and bleed ignore thoughness?
The wiki report this formula (from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleed):
2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage= per stack per second

And tells nothing about thoughness.
Is wiki wrong?

Source of information :

http://www.gw2bnc.com/2012/07/guide-to-bleeding/

My mistake. I was reading it worng. I thought some of the skills did 2 damgeses.
One on inital impact of the skill on the target, and then the skill added an bleed effect that lasted.
But reading abit on them I found out that the bleed spell attacks does not do an inital damage on impact on the target, it just add a bleed damage.

That makes bleed even more useless in an MMO event :s
No wounder I did not do any damage on the dragon, except from a few low numbers now and then, no matter how much I was spaming the attack ability.
(I kinda change all my gear after that dragon fight).

And on top of that, having 2 “low LvL” bleed players stack up with really low dps will lock a Lvl 80 player totally out of the fight more or less.
Having 2 “low lvl” nercromancers on a dragon will really make the day of the other higher lvl bleed users a really bad day.

So just an other reason why to use power spec.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Where do you get the informations of bleed get damage from power and bleed ignore thoughness?
The wiki report this formula (from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleed):
2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage= per stack per second

And tells nothing about thoughness.
Is wiki wrong?

It does not scale with power, true. But my bleeds tick for the very same amount on different people/mobs, so I can assume it completely ignores their defensive stats.

@ZtriDer

you are wrong… the scepter #1 and #2 spells for example have an inital dmg (boostet by power) AND apply bleeds (boostet by condition dmg). This is also true for the Staff #2 and Dagger #5

EDIT: Added picture

So I was right. You can still do a small amount of damage even if the all bleed stacks are taken.
But should not that initial damage be effected by condition damage instead? That would balance it a bit more out.

I am a conditiomancer and I use staff and scepter/dagger. In world versus world bleeds are very useful. Especially when attacking or defending. Becuase if you are on walls and you stack bleeds on guy near you, when he realises he is at low hp its too late so he runs and in like 5 seconds the bleeds kill him. Also I use “blood is power” and staff 2nd skill to open up on a 1v1. Then I switch to scepter and finish the guy off. At this point I usually have 6-7 stacks of bleed. I hit 91 per bleed. So this adds up a lot. Also lets not forget that necros raw damage sucks. We are only good at condition stacking. Even power build necro can’t compare to damage warrior and thief does.

You also have to understand that its not just the amount of bleeds you stack on one person….once you have those stacked you can use Epidemic to spread those conditions to EVERYONE near that target. That means in WvWvW you are hitting multiple targets for constant damage. That to me is a win for bleed specs.

Wait… so every class’s bleeds do the same amount of damage based on gear?

It’s just the way you apply it is different? What about poison?

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Where do you get the informations of bleed get damage from power and bleed ignore thoughness?
The wiki report this formula (from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleed):
2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage= per stack per second

And tells nothing about thoughness.
Is wiki wrong?

Bleed is not effected by Toughness

Dorn.5867:

You also have to understand that its not just the amount of bleeds you stack on one person….once you have those stacked you can use Epidemic to spread those conditions to EVERYONE near that target. That means in WvWvW you are hitting multiple targets for constant damage. That to me is a win for bleed specs.

Not every build has Epidemic, and if we are all forced to use epidemic than balance is way off.

Chidawg.6315:

Wait… so every class’s bleeds do the same amount of damage based on gear?

It’s just the way you apply it is different? What about poison?

All conditions are the same for all Prof. So if a Thief and Necro both have the same amount of condition damage than a bleed from one does the same damage as a bleed from the other. The difference between them is the duration of the bleed applied. One Prof might apply a 2 sec bleed but another prof will apply a 4 sec bleed. Or the crap blood is power witch is 2 30 sec bleed. Too bad it will be cleansed long before it lasts 30 sec (pvp anyway).

Not letting me quote reply for some reason, but to answer Angry Flying Squirrel. I realize every build won’t be including Epidemic, but if you are specc’ing bleeds WHY wouldn’t you use it? Anet isn’t FORCING you to use the ability and if you choose not to utilize it then that is your problem. Taking into account Epidemic’s very short cooldown and the speed at which necro’s can apply conditions, they have to balance around that as well.

Dorn.5867:

Not letting me quote reply for some reason, but to answer Angry Flying Squirrel. I realize every build won’t be including Epidemic, but if you are specc’ing bleeds WHY wouldn’t you use it? Anet isn’t FORCING you to use the ability and if you choose not to utilize it then that is your problem. Taking into account Epidemic’s very short cooldown and the speed at which necro’s can apply conditions, they have to balance around that as well.

That was my point. You are forced to use it because nothing else we have is anywhere as good. And lets not even talk about how all Necro’s should run with it no matter what your spec is, as other Prof can stack bleeds better than us anyway. Most of the time teams what you to spread their bleeds not the ones we create. When a Ranger or Thief can stack bleeds much faster and better than us, we might as well just bring epidemic just to move their bleeds around.

I’m not an expert by any means…but how do other classes spread conditions faster than we do? My main is an elementalist and I have a thief as well and I don’t think they compare to the necro in sheer speed of condition application? We have a signet that can apply like 8 conditions instantly? Sure that’s one example but I can stack about 7 stacks of bleeds + weakness in about 4 seconds. My elementalist and thief can’t beat that.

I forgot to mention that the necro has lots of options that I think are quite viable for all builds. I run scepter/dagger and staff offhand. I am loving Epidemic of course, but I also run Well of suffering and Blood is Power. With that I’m applying vulnerability, bleeds galore and weakness. I guess its a matter if you are having fun playing the class or not. I don’t for once feel that I’m underpowered compared to other classes. Hell my healing is well of blood…how many other classes HEAL others with their healing ability. Guess I enjoy the support role. :P

Dorn.5867:

I’m not an expert by any means…but how do other classes spread conditions faster than we do? My main is an elementalist and I have a thief as well and I don’t think they compare to the necro in sheer speed of condition application? We have a signet that can apply like 8 conditions instantly? Sure that’s one example but I can stack about 7 stacks of bleeds + weakness in about 4 seconds. My elementalist and thief can’t beat that.

I didn’t say they did. I said they apply conditions faster than we can.

If you can’t beat that on your Thief your playing it wrong. And Ele are bad at applying bleeds right now.

Dorn.5867:

I forgot to mention that the necro has lots of options that I think are quite viable for all builds. I run scepter/dagger and staff offhand. I am loving Epidemic of course, but I also run Well of suffering and Blood is Power. With that I’m applying vulnerability, bleeds galore and weakness. I guess its a matter if you are having fun playing the class or not. I don’t for once feel that I’m underpowered compared to other classes. Hell my healing is well of blood…how many other classes HEAL others with their healing ability. Guess I enjoy the support role. :P

Are you talking pve, wvw, spvp, or tpvp?

I haven’t pvp’d much except to try out mesmer and that was in the Eternal Battlegrounds. I mostly PVE and I have no problems applying conditions on my thief, but I don’t agree they apply bleeds faster. Actually, there is one instance where they can apply faster but its not what I consider a good use of my thief abilities. What I mean is if you want to spam Death Blossom, you will apply 9 stacks of bleed in about 3 seconds. That’s ONE type of condition and then you are forced to auto attack while waiting for your initiative to recharge. I’m stating basic abilities only compared to the necro because if you count poisons etc then the necro can also front load sigils and still win out.

Dorn.5867:

I haven’t pvp’d much except to try out mesmer and that was in the Eternal Battlegrounds. I mostly PVE and I have no problems applying conditions on my thief, but I don’t agree they apply bleeds faster. Actually, there is one instance where they can apply faster but its not what I consider a good use of my thief abilities. What I mean is if you want to spam Death Blossom, you will apply 9 stacks of bleed in about 3 seconds. That’s ONE type of condition and then you are forced to auto attack while waiting for your initiative to recharge. I’m stating basic abilities only compared to the necro because if you count poisons etc then the necro can also front load sigils and still win out.

Thief’s can apply 20 stacks of bleed in no time. You are not playing a good bleed speck thief if you think they can’t beat necro’s in bleed application. Sorry but PVE is not a good way of judging the Prof. Eng, Ranger, Thief can all stack bleeds faster than a Necro. And Eng can stack more conditions than we can.

I’m curious how a Thief can apply 20 bleeds “in no time”. Maybe I’m wrong and I certainly have no problem admitting it. Here’s another line of thinking….who cares if they can? Are you contributing less to your team because you only apply 10 bleeds in the same amount of time? If I apply those 10 bleeds and then spread them to 5 different targets, that’s 50 bleeds in “no time”. Use the tools you are given and enjoy the class, if you don’t then try something else. The devs will look at these boards and see people are upset with a class…there will be nerfs and buffs and hopefully after a while the dust will settle and things will be more balanced. Every MMO shares that in common in that there are growing pains.

As a side note, I’d imagine if you went on each professions board you’ll see posts like this. “My class sucks, X class can do what I do only better”. Grass is greener syndrome if you ask me.

Dorn.5867:

As a side note, I’d imagine if you went on each professions board you’ll see posts like this. “My class sucks, X class can do what I do only better”. Grass is greener syndrome if you ask me.

I’ve gone to the other boards and only Elem have a similar number of complaints, which is deserving. Complaints from Warriors, Guardians or Thieves for example are utter whine fests. They don’t truly understand what broken traits and skills mean=)

Fear, for example. Other classes have better FEAR abilities than we do. How is that possible, seriously? How could the game get out of beta with FEAR for Necros being so underutilized. What? Knock downs as an example, serve the same exact function and other classes have plenty of them.

I agree that fears are somewhat limited. I mean most of our fear abilities last what…1 or 2 seconds? The only viable cc I’ve seen so far is the Ranger’s 20 second root skill and even that has a tremendous cooldown and its PBAOE to boot.

You did not understand my point. I never said it was a problem if other Prof can stack more bleeds than us. My point is that Epidemic is currently our gimic trait. It is so good that there is almost no reason not to take it on all builds. If anyone on your team runs conditions than its worth taking and using epidemic. Not a single other utility skill is as good as this one skill. This makes it hard as most teams than only want us to run conditions and if they are not running a condition team than they have no interest in taking a Necro, as other Prof perform better than us in other roles.

Much of this is due to the number of bugs we have, so time will tell.

This is from a tpvp stand point were the balance between Prof means something.

I remember a post by somebody from Arenanet saying that condition damage scales badly right now.

Thing is Necromancer’s power based builds are actually underpowered right now.
(Also recognized by Arenanet)
That’s why Scepter+Dagger+Epidemic is still better most of the time despite being Condition focused.

Necros aren’t the best at stacking Bleeds but they probably aren’t meant to be anyway.
Why would any of the squishier “glass cannon” Professions go for condition damage if they sucked at actually applying lots of them fast?

Necros are meant to be extremely hard to kill and very good at controlling the battle.
Epidemic is amazing, yes.
So is Well of Darkness with the trait that makes Blindness Chill.
Plague Signet would be very useful if it was actually working correctly…
Corrupt Boons is actually great as well, just situational.

No other Profession is so good at manipulating Conditions.
Guardian is pretty good at removing them, but they tend to focus more on Boons and saving people rather than messing around with the enemy.

One problem is that although Necros can apply Cripples, Chills, Weakness… All sorts of nasty stuff to massive amounts of foes we aren’t actually getting credited much for it.
Neither by the game or other players.

That’s a yet another recognized issue though.
Not much we can do but wait for patches.
Play some Borderlands 2 maybe?

LastDay.3524:

I remember a post by somebody from Arenanet saying that condition damage scales badly right now.

Thing is Necromancer’s power based builds are actually underpowered right now.
(Also recognized by Arenanet)
That’s why Scepter+Dagger+Epidemic is still better most of the time despite being Condition focused.

Necros aren’t the best at stacking Bleeds but they probably aren’t meant to be anyway.
Why would any of the squishier “glass cannon” Professions go for condition damage if they sucked at actually applying lots of them fast?

Necros are meant to be extremely hard to kill and very good at controlling the battle.
Epidemic is amazing, yes.
So is Well of Darkness with the trait that makes Blindness Chill.
Plague Signet would be very useful if it was actually working correctly…

No other Profession is so good at manipulating Conditions.
Guardian is pretty good at removing them, but they tend to focus more on Boons and saving people rather than messing around with the enemy.

One problem is that although Necros can apply Cripples, Chills, Weakness… All sorts of nasty stuff to massive amounts of foes we aren’t actually getting credited much for it.
Neither by the game or other players.

That’s a yet another recognized issue though.
Not much we can do but wait for patches.
Play some Borderlands 2 maybe?

I can’t tell you how many times a person, on my team, will win a fight and exclaim over (vent, mumble, skype) how they were just able to 2v1, 3v1 or 4v2, and completely forget and not even notices that i was in the fight from the start, or that i was the one that killed all the other members of the other team while they were focused on a single target.

This kinda whent way out of topic.

Im looking at it from a PvE perspective and not a PvP perspective. I care —><-- this much about PvP.
As for PvE having multiple bleed users in one group is a waist of dps. You can stack over 9000 power players and you will have 9000 times the damage.
Try do the same with bleed spec and you will have maybe 500 time the damage because of the limit of bleed. 498 players will do more or less no damage because 2 people will be able to keep the 25 stack limit at max.

The whole bleed concept in PvE is so broken that it limits a guild to have max 2 bleed users when doing a world event or “guild event”.

So in the end, the only way to build in PvE is power.

Can anyone give a reason why bleed is better then power in a world event? 1 reason?

On top of this, you have elements in PvE that are immune to bleed. Dirt piles, ice obelsks, etc etc that only take damage from power attacks.

They need to have each player have their own bleed stack or each different player that adds a bleed increases the condition damage of the bleed. Either of these would fix the multiple condition player problems.

ZtriDer.9573:

Anyone who can help me a bit here? I can’t under any circumstances understand who bleed can be better than direct damage.

On a world event, let’s say a dragon, two bleed users is enough to keep up max bleed stack. Any other bleed users are then totally useless, except for the small amount of damage the initial bleed attack is doing.
If im not mistaking, the initial attack on a “bleed attack” takes its damage from power and not condition damage. And if you are “bleed speced” you will not stack up on power.
Bleed is easy to remove, and if it is removed you suddenly got no damage going.
Bleed takes time to build up.

Playing a powerspec/direct damage, you will not have this problems.

So can anyone please enlighten me why one should use bleed spec when it is so inferior to direct damage in all situations, so far?

Bleeds are so easily removed by every single class that they become totally worthless. Every thing that you have said is correct.

They could reduce the duration of bleeds but increase the damage, so the 25 stacks are harder to build.