BoC Update: Takarazuka Powers On
Thanks for the great episode. That tip on Epidemic is a real game changer for me.
On the topic of Fear and Terror, Fear is the only “hard” CC that is affected by Condition Duration and is actually a Condition itself (whereas others like Blowout, Pull, Knockdown, Stun and Daze are not). When used on a Defiant Champion or Legendary mob, unless they are outright immune, the Fear Condition will still be applied, hence dealing damage from Terror. On a Condition Damage build, it’s not hard to slip into Death Shroud, insta-cast Doom, slip out of Death Shroud and continue your regular rotation. With Master of Terror, you only need +10% Condition duration and Rare Veggie Pizza to get an extra second of Fear.
Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…
Thanks for the great episode. That tip on Epidemic is a real game changer for me.
Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…
Im pretty sure that thats mosly because outside of a friend group, most setups would like the necro to use another setup (30+ fractals, Arah and CoE especially), i think i mentioned it when i was on the podcast that if you take a necro and theif/warrior/mesmer, the necro will fall behind in terms of damage if they have the same total zerker stats, but if going for a defensive and supportive setup, they will still do pretty good base damage while spreading conditions (you get a easy 15 seconds of chill in a medium sized aoe by using chillblains, putrid, dark path, swap hydromancy proc into epidemic), healing for pretty insane numbers even if not hard supports in cleric/shammy (WoB+Transfusion), giving a 25 second immunity to attacks in a aoe (Plague and WoD) and even after that use CPC to make all those risen corruptor/gorilla attacks be glancing blows.
For example in SE the golem bosses (and the Alpha in CoE) you benefit more from swapping to Spectral Wall, Plague Signet and Signet of Undeath with Consume Conditions and Lich or Golem while staying on staff/DS attacks even if a condition necro because the enemy will benefit from every vuln, bleed and blind you apply and you are negating a nice bit of damage from your allies and having a free rez if a enemy is in a aoe you wouldnt survive.
Another awesome episode. That bit about the Flesh Wurm in Cof path 1 is really useful and made me “wow, you can do that?!”
Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…
Yea, I only started back to the game about a month ago and really haven’t been able to branch out to other dungeons or even fractals much. That is mostly due to the amount of time I have available to play right now. CoF1 IS a brain dead quick run and not a great way of exploring viability of various builds/utilities.
Do you have specific things you are looking at for answers or just some more general overviews of powermancers in other dungeons? Even though I do not run them myself, I talk to a lot of people who run various power builds so I have a handle on it at least and know about how things work. Hopefully, soon, I can start running more stuff… I haven’t been able to play much the past few days so keep missing out on runs that people are doing for other dungeons in guilds I am in. I only pug a dungeon through gw2lfg.com once I have run it at least once and know what I am doing.
Andele has some good points there…. there is a thread on the GW2Guru forums right now about doing a pure support build for a necro. The person who started it was trying to support like a guardian and we’ve been working through it to make something that would work for a necro and be viable. So far it seems interesting and I may grab the gear for it and give it a try to see what it is like for myself.
(edited by Takarazuka.3025)
I have been posting in these forums for a while about a pure support build, my latest comments also included a link for a builds site so you can see what I run.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.2|6.1f.a8|b.1h.h1k.g.1h.h6|1f.71h.1f.71h.1f.71g.1f.71g.1f.71f.1f.71f|1f.66.0.66.1f.66.1h.62.1h.62.1a.9d|0.k39.k24.u26c.0|4n.d|3t.4b.4d.4c.0|e
The latest discussion is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Support-focused-Necro-Is-It-Possible/first#post1639892
you’ll have to dig for the older ones. The basis of this build is basically near-constant protection upkeep as well as massive healing that imo rivals guardian healing, and the CC is far far more powerful than any CC a guardian can dish out, making this build more powerful for true support as I discuss in the threads.
~Surrender fiend and you will get an easy death
~I could promise you the same…but it would be a lie…
So far it seems interesting and I may grab the gear for it and give it a try to see what it is like for myself.
Shammy and Clerics are both great picks, but a necro can be a good support even in zerker gear (it does waste WoBs potential, but Protection on wells and transfusion are really strong on their own). Might i suggest 0/20/10/20/20 if on a power setup and 0/30/10/30/0 if with conditions.
I was looking at something similar, but went 0/20/20/30/0 and did Cleric/Sapphire gear with axe/focus.
Damage overall is low of course, but you have 1552 Healing Power with food buffs and plenty of support still.
Also, I meant to add (it’s early… no coffee yet and work keeps distracting me heh), I have done SOME fractals and was even dragged in to a Fractal 16 with some friends and actually did very well considering I had no agony resist and didn’t know much about what was going on. I did find I needed to change my utilities/major traits up quite a bit and be more flexible than normal so as to not get trapped in a rut of being dependent on certain utilities.
Currently, I do not have a primary guild (though I am in BoC so maybe that will be my primary guild now? heh) so I am restricted to only pugs. To be honest, fractals did not really excite me overall the times that I ran them. They aren’t a bad idea, but I prefer regular dungeons personally. Maybe it’s the storylines or something… I don’t know. One of my goals is actually to run every path of every dungeon in my current zerker build and learn more about how each one works with the build. I want to create a “tips and tricks” type guide for each dungeon then based on the zerker build to try and help give people some ideas and things to think about when going in.
I think we probably should have covered that you stepped away from the game for a bit. Sorry about that.
I was looking at something similar, but went 0/20/20/30/0 and did Cleric/Sapphire gear with axe/focus.
Damage overall is low of course, but you have 1552 Healing Power with food buffs and plenty of support still.
Silly you… taking chilling darkness and taking lich form over plague. Why? Now the vulnerability mark is nice and all that with its 10sec cd… which if im not wrong from the top of my head lasts also for 10sec base… but on single target due to how focus works you can get 5-15 stacks with single focus use. So that can’t be it. And the boon/condtion strip massive super awesome aoe its cd combined with lich forms cd… a bit counter productive if you ask me.
Plague simply lets you face tank a boss/group of annoying npcs and with chilling darkness you can even reduce their use of obnoxious abilities that aren’t affected by blind so win/win.
Oh yeah… if you speak strictly pve, greater marks isn’t all that useful tbh. Now one could argue that reduced cd on staff isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference either but… meh… you can toss condition removal and interrupt more often. regen + chill/weakness combo isn’t something sneeze at either. Highly debated tho… extra range is still nice but meh I can’t really decide lol.
Still I wanna hear why lich and not plague.
(edited by HiSaZuL.2843)
Silly me… using someone else’s buildcraft and literally 5s of changing around trait points just to show numbers and not all of their major trait setups and skills =]
For that support build…. Plague all the way yes. Not even going to go in to why since you know why and so do I. I was just showing numbers and crap; not a detailed layout of the possible build.
If you are doing a pure support build then I am going to just flat say that staff is required along with greater marks and cooldown reduction. It is too important for the diverse utility it brings to NOT make it better through traits.
Still I wanna hear why lich and not plague.
Actually on some bosses in Arah (Grenth Wraith) and most Golem bosses, you wanna swap plague to lich, the boon and condition strip from 5 is really nice and since you dont apply conditions there are no healing/aggro problems that could pop up.
Also you can knock around adds with winds if they get too close.
If you are doing a pure support build then I am going to just flat say that staff is required along with greater marks and cooldown reduction. It is too important for the diverse utility it brings to NOT make it better through traits.
*hint hint* Staff is incredibly strong as it is, the 20% CDR trait is nice, but greater marks is training wheels in PvE (but mandatory in WvWvW and PvP ofc); Weakning Shroud and Path of Midnight in total bring more than Greater marks does (the CDR being on par with them, but SR and Curses bring better minior traits).
(edited by Andele.1306)
Do you have specific things you are looking at for answers or just some more general overviews of powermancers in other dungeons? Even though I do not run them myself, I talk to a lot of people who run various power builds so I have a handle on it at least and know about how things work. Hopefully, soon, I can start running more stuff… I haven’t been able to play much the past few days so keep missing out on runs that people are doing for other dungeons in guilds I am in. I only pug a dungeon through gw2lfg.com once I have run it at least once and know what I am doing.
First off, apologies for butchering your username.
And, no, it’s not that I have specific questions regarding your Power build in a specific scenario. I was simply utterly disappointed that, of all the dungeon you could have brought on as an example of viability and usefulness for your build, you bring up COF P1. Of course, this was without the crucial context SOMEBODY forgot to mention. (Welcome back)
I myself run with a “semi-static” guild group and we care about personal and group performance. When we decide to bring any of our characters to a dungeon, the very first question we ask ourselves and each other is “What can this profession and build bring to the party?” This way we push our builds harder, find ways that our particular profession can make a dungeon or encounter that much easier. Warrior? Pure unmitigated glory in damage. Guardian? God-like support. Mesmer? Swiss Army Knife. Elementalist? Heals, cleanses and permanent 25 stacks of Might.
Necromancer?
I know we Power builds can hold our own in terms of burst damage. But our defining moment comes when we are able to maintain our DPS while, at the same time, provide game-changing party utility. For example, a Guardian can go full Berserker gear, yet is still able to provide just as much party support through her Shouts and Consecrations.
hint hint Staff is incredibly strong as it is, the 20% CDR trait is nice, but greater marks is training wheels in PvE (but mandatory in WvWvW and PvP ofc); Weakning Shroud and Path of Midnight in total bring more than Greater marks does (the CDR being on par with them, but SR and Curses bring better minior traits).
I was talking more specifically for a pure support build though…. in that case, imo, having a buffed staff is more important than offensive traits. The only one that I could agree on getting is Weakening Shroud since Weakness is a great condition for support.
I was talking more specifically for a pure support build though…. in that case, imo, having a buffed staff is more important than offensive traits. The only one that I could agree on getting is Weakening Shroud since Weakness is a great condition for support.
Path of midnight allows for more Dark Paths (Chill), Doom and Life Transfers (can squeeze a additional pre miniboss and 3-4 pre real boss). Mobs in general dont have complicated movement patterns to require the greater marks (and they aint big enough to cover people at range) making perma regen on melee and faster cond removal give more net benefits. But overall as with most builds going by gut feeling is usually the best (good build with a playstyle that doesnt fit the player does worse most of the time than a “bad” one that fits the player) and it does make sense, thus its viable.
I myself run with a “semi-static” guild group and we care about personal and group performance. When we decide to bring any of our characters to a dungeon, the very first question we ask ourselves and each other is “What can this profession and build bring to the party?” This way we push our builds harder, find ways that our particular profession can make a dungeon or encounter that much easier. Warrior? Pure unmitigated glory in damage. Guardian? God-like support. Mesmer? Swiss Army Knife. Elementalist? Heals, cleanses and permanent 25 stacks of Might.
Necromancer?
Something that i wanted to mention on my turn was but ran out of time, we can solo most fractal tricks with DS: half of underwater dark path, corrupt the jellyfish and our sink ignoring defiant, solo the ice wall on the svanir one and can jump from the top down via ds/spectral walk tricks and life transfer him from the safe spot when he is up on the ledge for group heal, during jade maw using Swalk to port back with crystals to the group location if they run out and the tentacles didnt respawn yet, use minions to keep chanters on one side busy while shattering the other seal on the big naked blue guy fractal. use DS to get past the lazor stairs in uncategorized, making it easier for the rest of the group to get past, trick the swamp walls with flesh wurm to port with the whisp to the tree, etc… Not to mention that DS is epic in higher level fractals eating 2-4 ticks for free, so giving you a net 10-15 free AR if full.
(edited by Andele.1306)
Lol ok point taken you just picked random elite because everyone knows which one you should have for support heh.
And yeah andele got a good point I sort of forgot about weakening shroud. Granted its use will be sort of hampered on support build due to lack of both condition duration and ds traits. Hmm… I guess with food it should be pretty solid. Its really good on DS power builds though. Especially if you go for piercing blasts so you get harassed a lot on large pulls.
Naked blue guy… lol.
On subject of lich boon strip… i’d just use focus… god knows its cooldown is infinitely more manageable. And if you are support you just don’t have stats to get anything meaningful out of lich form.
Thanks for the great episode. That tip on Epidemic is a real game changer for me.
On the topic of Fear and Terror, Fear is the only “hard” CC that is affected by Condition Duration and is actually a Condition itself (whereas others like Blowout, Pull, Knockdown, Stun and Daze are not). When used on a Defiant Champion or Legendary mob, unless they are outright immune, the Fear Condition will still be applied, hence dealing damage from Terror. On a Condition Damage build, it’s not hard to slip into Death Shroud, insta-cast Doom, slip out of Death Shroud and continue your regular rotation. With Master of Terror, you only need +10% Condition duration and Rare Veggie Pizza to get an extra second of Fear.
Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…
Terror’s damage is good. However I don’t like how it is build.
2 + (level * 4.5) + 30% of Condition Damage damage per second.
At around 1,500 condition damage (reasonably high), the fear does around 2+360+0.3*1500=812 damage at the end of that second. You should have another condition on the foe, so that damage becomes 812*1.5=1218. If you got fear duration 100% boost, you can deal that twice. So damage is decent. In wvw your allies can stack buff your might to 25, so you deal even more damage.
However the damage is based on condition damage. At the same time the condition duration is based on Spite and Soul Reaping. What does that mean? That means if you want to max the fear damage by making it 2 ticks, you would need to invest into condition duration. However when you do that, you losses on condition damage itself, which would hurt your bleeding and poison damage.
This is a common theme of “conflict of interest” on many necro builds.
I have tested this build in the Mist. I has not tested this in wvw. But I can already tell that it won’t work there. My staff 5 and DS 3 are too valuable to be “thrown away” for 1,200 damage. That timely interrupt could save your whole zerg or yourself in certain situation.
Fear should be used for interrupting foes in a timely manner. It should not be used for DPS.
Now don’t get me wrong. I think that trait is very helpful as a support damage. But I personally won’t build my whole build around it, specially not for wvw. Not with the way I play anyways.
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
(edited by CHIPS.6018)
Pro tip, don’t go into a trait tree simply for the stat bonuses, go into the trait tree for the traits. People go into Spite for the traits in spite, with the added bonus of condition duration and power; I don’t know anyone that goes into Spite in a terror build for the Condition duration, when you can just eat some food.
First off, apologies for butchering your username.
And, no, it’s not that I have specific questions regarding your Power build in a specific scenario. I was simply utterly disappointed that, of all the dungeon you could have brought on as an example of viability and usefulness for your build, you bring up COF P1. Of course, this was without the crucial context SOMEBODY forgot to mention. (Welcome back)
I myself run with a “semi-static” guild group and we care about personal and group performance. When we decide to bring any of our characters to a dungeon, the very first question we ask ourselves and each other is “What can this profession and build bring to the party?” This way we push our builds harder, find ways that our particular profession can make a dungeon or encounter that much easier. Warrior? Pure unmitigated glory in damage. Guardian? God-like support. Mesmer? Swiss Army Knife. Elementalist? Heals, cleanses and permanent 25 stacks of Might.
Necromancer?
I know we Power builds can hold our own in terms of burst damage. But our defining moment comes when we are able to maintain our DPS while, at the same time, provide game-changing party utility. For example, a Guardian can go full Berserker gear, yet is still able to provide just as much party support through her Shouts and Consecrations.
Even in a power build we have access to boon/condition manipulation through wells and staff. Stripping conditions from ourselves and allies and transferring them is pretty strong I would think. That seems to be what ANet wants us to be focused around regardless of build and, hopefully, we will get a buff in that area to make us the masters of it.
I think you should look at our utility not in terms of direct, but indirect. For instance, we have 4 combo fields available to us… Dark, Ethereal, Light, and Poison. You are most likely always going to have Dark (wells) and Poison (from Chillblains). We are lacking in finishers obviously, but other classes have them and can proc the combo. Just takes coordination to know which to use (Projectile on a Well gives Life Stealing for instance). So we may not have direct buffs available to our group members, but we have a combo fields that help give support that way. That’s just a quick example I popped off, but others could be discussed.
I do not like to try and compare classes since I honestly think classes like Guardian and Warrior are utterly broken and need to be fixed. I actually do not WANT to be as insane as they are and would rather they be toned down to force more teamwork and not relying on ridiculous buffs and damage from a couple of classes.
I do not like to try and compare classes since I honestly think classes like Guardian and Warrior are utterly broken and need to be fixed. I actually do not WANT to be as insane as they are and would rather they be toned down to force more teamwork and not relying on ridiculous buffs and damage from a couple of classes.
Valkyre Ele>Zerker Warrior in terms of broken (warriors in general are only slightly above necros, trading their utility for brute force, kinda like a comparing how cool a turian- necro- is to a krogan- warrior- in mass effect, both kitten, but in different parts).
The actual “broken” thing that they have perma protection and regen, not actual class power.
However the damage is based on condition damage. At the same time the condition duration is based on Spite and Soul Reaping. What does that mean? That means if you want to max the fear damage by making it 2 ticks, you would need to invest into condition duration. However when you do that, you losses on condition damage itself, which would hurt your bleeding and poison damage.
You need exactly 0 points in Spite to reach +100% Fear duration.
Master of Terror (+50% Fear duration) + 2x Superior Rune of Lyssa (+10% condition duration) + Rare Veggie Pizza (+40% condition duration) = +100% Fear duration
However the damage is based on condition damage. At the same time the condition duration is based on Spite and Soul Reaping. What does that mean? That means if you want to max the fear damage by making it 2 ticks, you would need to invest into condition duration. However when you do that, you losses on condition damage itself, which would hurt your bleeding and poison damage.
You need exactly 0 points in Spite to reach +100% Fear duration.
Master of Terror (50% Fear duration) + 2x Superior Rune of Lyssa (10% condition duration) + Rare Veggie Pizza (+40% condition duration) = +100% Fear duration
But you still need 20 point into Soul Reaping, which doesn’t increase your fear damage.
Your runes are part of your build. In wvw condition damage is nearly always better than condition duration. While your terror now ticks twice, your bleeding and poison now deals less damage than they could have been. You sacrificed them for the fear damage.
Either way none of the above are deal breakers. What really broke the deal for me is that it changed your precious fear skills into DPS skills. In wvw your fears can potentially be game changers. It might be the difference between interrupting that ele, or your rams getting destroyed. It might be the difference between fearing those 2 foes off their ballista, or your zerg gets wiped. My fear skills are too valuable to be spammed for DPS.
Like I said I have no problem of using terror as a support damage. But I won’t design my build around it.
The Order of Dii[Dii]-SBI→Kaineng→TC→JQ
Necro Encyclopedia-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs
(edited by CHIPS.6018)
Just for reference, tak and the podcast was about pve power builds. He is not a wvwvw or tournament player. What may work better in tournaments in wvwvw is not always best in dungeons. Using terror offensively is great in dungeons, but is probably better used defensively in tournaments.
I have used the fear build in wvwvw, chips, and it is pretty hilarious to watch 1800 ticks on players.
Hey guys I’m enjoying your podcasts. I think you should post them on youtube though. You would probably get more attention and people would be able to leave comments/questions.
Thanks for the great episode. That tip on Epidemic is a real game changer for me.
On the topic of Fear and Terror, Fear is the only “hard” CC that is affected by Condition Duration and is actually a Condition itself (whereas others like Blowout, Pull, Knockdown, Stun and Daze are not). When used on a Defiant Champion or Legendary mob, unless they are outright immune, the Fear Condition will still be applied, hence dealing damage from Terror. On a Condition Damage build, it’s not hard to slip into Death Shroud, insta-cast Doom, slip out of Death Shroud and continue your regular rotation. With Master of Terror, you only need +10% Condition duration and Rare Veggie Pizza to get an extra second of Fear.
Overall I think Takaruza has some good points, but his absolute lack of input regarding a Power Necro is dungeons other than COF P1 really bugged me. Yes, I get that Power Necros can do well in the easiest and most brain-dead dungeon in the game, but what about places like CM, SE, Arah or even Fractals? COF P1 is just a silly DPS run, while there are many dungeons that greatly benefit with the correct utilities; what can a Necro bring to a party in such cases? It would have been really great if he could have provided some insights in those. Unfortunately, as he admits, he doesn’t do anything other than COF P1…
I will tell you right now that pure berzerker glass cannon necros are viable in every dungeon. I run a pure berzerker build in every exp mode dungeon as well as fractals. Our innate high HP pool plus DS make us one of the best candidates as a glass cannon build.
Also with regards to what utility do we bring… We bring regen and condition removal from our marks with staff. Our wells also give us darkness fields which can provide life siphoning and blinding. Necros may not bring the same perceived value as a guardian with regards to boons, but we do bring some valuable utility, plus as a glass cannon build we can bust out some serious dps (AoE and single target).
(edited by kidbs.8920)
Hey guys I’m enjoying your podcasts. I think you should post them on youtube though. You would probably get more attention and people would be able to leave comments/questions.
They are on YouTube in audio form. I am working on getting videos to go with the audio. There is a link on the website. If you go to YouTube and search for but of corpse it will come up.