Guild Wars 2

Ok, first off, I’m asking about pve, primarily solo and open-world. I mix it up with events and temples, but really, my question is about solo, open-world, pve.

I switched to necro because I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of a ranger. I went back a forth between a conditionmancer focusing on crits and bleeds and one focusing on condition duration. I ultimately chose the crit-for-more-blood build.

I’m now leveling a new necro to experiment with spicing it up a bit. I still want focus on bleeds but I’m wondering if it can be overdone to where too much blood is a waste. In that case, I’ll still build something like 30/30/0/10 with rabid but go with condition duration food. (?) Or change things up in terms of runes/sigils/trinks? What do you think?

Is there a way to find out how much of my total or average damage is coming from bleeds? I guess I could analyze the combat log. Is there a good mob for testing purposes? Is there an established limit on the amount of blood damage that one can do? For example, is that 25 stacks from the sceptre enough if of itself? I do notice that my stacks don’t last long and think that more duration would help there.

P.S. Conditionmancer is definitely what I was trying to force a ranger to do for six months and just wasn’t seeing it happen.

In case someone needs clarification, my first build was heavily based on

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-new-conditionmancer-guide/first

Is there a way to find out how much of my total or average damage is coming from bleeds?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding (to calculate bleed damage)

is that 25 stacks from the sceptre enough if of itself?

Bleed caps at 25 stacks, but running solo if you’re capping the bleed stack then it’s a good thing! EXAMPLE: taking a fairly low average 1300 CD gives you a bleed that hits for about 107.5HP/s. If you can maintain an average 15 stacks of bleed then you’re bleed alone will cause ~1612HP/s damage.

Hmmm…this is really making me think about adapting that build a little for more duration beyond the traits. That way, when doing something like a temple, I can focus less on maintaining the 25. We have too many options to just pew-pew. And, open world mobs usually don’t need even 15 stacks….usually. Starting to think that bleed build might be overdoing it.

I run 30/30/0/10/0 for the bit of Vitality from the blood line as I am running Dire armor/scavenger runes. I think the 30 in spite with koi cakes/crystals is sufficient.

Also to get the most out of your damage run two daggers: one to stack corruption and one with Bursting sigil for the juicy 6% on top of your 25 stacks

gumoor.5674:

Hmmm…this is really making me think about adapting that build a little for more duration beyond the traits. That way, when doing something like a temple, I can focus less on maintaining the 25. We have too many options to just pew-pew. And, open world mobs usually don’t need even 15 stacks….usually. Starting to think that bleed build might be overdoing it.

Here is what im running around with right now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW7YjMap7tbKb07Ji5DcDmx71V0DiZskB-jAzAIMBZaBMVBi6Ak/UUzhCjFsioxqZwUpLqWHDYzB8IMa1A-e

It is pretty standard aside from a few small differences.

For one, I prefer the Afflicted Runes with a sigil of Doom slotted in the staff. I agree with the fact that the common build tends to over-emphasize the bleed. I can still cap a bleed stack and at the same time get a significant increase in poison uptime. IMHO, i feel like this increases my overall DPS slightly.

I also like to mix Rampager’s with the rabid gear. Give’s me a power boost and makes if feel as though im not quite hitting with a totally wet noodle when swinging my scepter. (especially for structures)

Slot skills should of course change with situation. I tend to swap Locust Signet for Spite Signet during any decent encounter. And of course i drop flesh golum for something more reasonable whenever im not just running around exploring.

I also agree with Gnat in taking a bit of vitality. When you are running corruption skills that extra vitality can make a significant difference when you miss a transfer or cleanse and are stuck with a couple of your own bleeds or poison for a second or two.

So that’s pretty much the bulk of my build. It is surely not the best but has been very reliable and I’ve had a lot of success with it and it can adapt to any situation just by switching around a couple utility skills.

I would run 30/30/0/10 instead for the extra burn from duuhmfire, because burning is the strongest dot in the game and you have access to it.
That is a bonus damage of min. 325dmg/s (every 10s ~650dmg for 5s) withought sigil and might.
You lose vampiric for it, but that heal is relatively small something about 30-40 if I remember right.

@unleashed, Yeah i have been thinking about adding dhuumfire. It seems pretty good for pve, especially if you can time your epidemics with it. But i have a really hard time giving up that vitality, the life siphon is really secondary in my opinion. It’s the vitality im after in that trait line.

@BoogerSammich You know that 7% of 50 is just 3,5 condition damage right? Even if you have sharpening stones, that only gives you total 5 condition damage for your added 50 vitality. You need 20 to increase you bleed tick by 1, so 5 doesnt do anything besides a very bad siphoning on hit.

The only thing you really get for 50 vitality is the added 500 HP, but you lose 5% extra condition duration and another condition and high cond damage. Not really worth it in my opinion. Maybe when 15 october patch comes in siphoning will actually be decent, but right now i dont think its worth it.

Well, I go ten in in Blood Magic for the Mark of Blood. That’s a 3-stack 8-second bleed when you dodge. And, I’m not trying to diversify in conditions. Just my taste…but I want bleed, more bleed, bleed a lot on crit, stack those bleeds, and then throw in a bleed or two.

Also, a problem with Dhuumfire is that there are a lot of fire-resistant mobs in this game. But main reason is because I like bleed-builds. If some poison comes out, it wasn’t planned…and hopefully it sneaks into the wound to make the bleeding even worse (haha).

FYI: I’m not an expert on necro-builds though. I can handle myself ok, but I have plenty to learn…haven’t even messed with combos yet.

Sometime around October, the damage number floaters for each condition will be consolidated into 1 number for each condition type.

So i’m guessing instead of seeing:
116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 300, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 116, 300
You will see:
(Bleed Icon) 928, (Poison Icon) 300, (Bleed Icon) 928, (Poison Icon) 300

Making it a lot easier to see how much dot damage you’re doing.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first