Guild Wars 2

Hey. Was just fighting a match in a solo queue and I met a necromancer who was somehow able to put over 20 stacks of bleeding on me within perhaps 5 seconds from engaging. He was able to do it few times during the match and I am sure it was 1v1 (at least for the part where the bleeds came in). I dont recall very well facing smth like that before. I asked him after the match but he didnt replied to my whisper. Could someone please tell what sort of build was that? Some shenanigans with scepter and some specific runes? I am just curious.

There are 3 ways that a necro can really burst bleeds onto someone, and they aren’t build specific.

#1: Condition transferring. If a necro gets a bunch of bleeds, then can shove them onto an opponent via Putrid Mark, Deathly Swarm, and Plague signet. Most condi builds have at least 2 out of the 3.

#2: Epidemic. If a neco stacks bleeds on something nearby, they can use epidemic to put all of those bleeds onto everything nearby. With all of the necro’s AoE bleeds, this can mean that a player can hit the cap in moments.

#3: They can blow all of their cooldowns and get lucky with procs. Mark of Blood into Grasping Dead + Enfeebling Blood, follow up with Weakening shroud + dark path, then summarize with Blood is Power or a condition transfer of some sort. When you put all of those together, getting 20 stacks can be really fast.

But my guess is condition transfers. It would help to know what class and build you yourself were playing.

Its unlikely he had to rely on transfers, you can easily drop 20 bleeds without it. Almost every condi necro should be able to hit 20 with a bit of help from barbed precision.

Sigil of Geomancy + your standard bleeds from abilities: Mark of Blood, Dark Path, Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood (x2 from Weakening Shroud). Not including any AA or Barbed Precision procs, that is 16 bleeds. The full combo is up every 25 seconds, 15 seconds if you drop Dagger 5’s Enfeeblind blood. Generally speaking its also used with Chillblains, DS5+4, one source of fear (generally Doom), and then any of our utilities that you might have to add in some burst, such as Signet of Spite and Epidemic (in team fights) when you are going for the full damage.

Bhawb.7408:

Its unlikely he had to rely on transfers, you can easily drop 20 bleeds without it. Almost every condi necro should be able to hit 20 with a bit of help from barbed precision.

Awe.1096:

…within perhaps 5 seconds from engaging.
…
He was able to do it few times during the match and I am sure it was 1v1

20 stacks in 5 sec is not possible without transfers.
If it was 1v1 then there clearly wasn’t epidemic involved, so it had to be something like Deathly Swarm or Putrid Mark.
You could be extremely lucky with Barbed Precision, but since it was in sPvP he probably just had +30% duration from Spite. So one proc lasts 2,6 sec, that means the only way to spike bleeds over 20 stacks would be triggering it with every single hit of Life Transfer (3,25 sec duration) or Ghastly Claws (2,5sec). That alone is extremely unlikely and on top of that he said it happened a few times during the match.

And yes, it’s easy to reach 20 stacks with any condi build, but the whole rotation takes a lot longer than 5 seconds… and certainly longer than any other player would wait to use a cleanse.
That means: he had to use a transfer.

I just listed how he could do it. Its 16 stacks of bleeds with a rotation, and then 4 barbed precision procs.

You’re assuming he is completely accurate on the 5 second mark. Its a very rough estimation he made after the match, it doesn’t mean he recorded the match and then took a stopwatch and counted the seconds from the first bleed application till it hit 20 and it was 5s.

I love trying to figure out stuff like this…. Dont know exactly how he did it but this is one way to fast stack bleeds.

Blood is Power = 2x bleeds
Mark of Blood = 3x bleeds = 5
Putrid Mark = transfer 2 self bleeds from PiB = 7
Dodge roll trait into Mark of Blood = 2x bleeds = 9
Weapon Swap = Grasping Dead = 3x bleeds = 12
Enfeebling Blood = 2x Bleeds = 14

With some crit procs you can get 20. Another possibility is Weaking shroud when going DS for more bleeds. More like 6-7 seconds then 5.

Including Weakening Shroud, Geomancy Sigil, and Dark Path and you have another 8 bleeds on top of that.

Xom.9264:

I love trying to figure out stuff like this…. Dont know exactly how he did it but this is one way to fast stack bleeds.

Blood is Power = 2x bleeds
Mark of Blood = 3x bleeds = 5
Putrid Mark = transfer 2 self bleeds from PiB = 7
Dodge roll trait into Mark of Blood = 2x bleeds = 9
Weapon Swap = Grasping Dead = 3x bleeds = 12
Enfeebling Blood = 2x Bleeds = 14

With some crit procs you can get 20. Another possibility is Weaking shroud when going DS for more bleeds. More like 6-7 seconds then 5.

That’s pretty much the number I got to as well – and as a side note, wouldn’t this take like 6-7 seconds to cast the full rotation? 6-7 seconds of no cleanse and t jsut standing there taking it?

Had to test, yeah Geomancy is a must with a really good crit string you can get the 20 stacks in 5 seconds before the rotation in done.

Sure the target dummy did not dodge or block but it can be done.

Bhawb.7408:

I just listed how he could do it. Its 16 stacks of bleeds with a rotation, and then 4 barbed precision procs.

You’re assuming he is completely accurate on the 5 second mark. Its a very rough estimation he made after the match, it doesn’t mean he recorded the match and then took a stopwatch and counted the seconds from the first bleed application till it hit 20 and it was 5s.

Yes, well. Perhaps it was 5 seconds, perhaps it was 6 seconds. As you said, it was my estimation, not an exact math behind this. The point is, he was able to stack 20+ bleeds on me very fast, in few seconds, and that is what made me curious and that is why I created this thread. Large stack of bleeds is not something super rare, but I believe when it is applied so fast, it is. Thanks for all the input so far btw. I’ll make some tests in the mists.

Its a really common rotation. Lets just say you start with staff. Staff 2+3, swap to S/D, 2+5, jump into DS, DS 2+5+4 (usually you want to doom if they haven’t cleansed now, it forces CDs), and they’ll be on 16 bleeds with poison, chill, cripple, weakness, torment, immobilized once DS 5 ends, and feared; burning if you have it. You should pretty much always have Geomancy sigil and Weakening Shroud because of this, it means you can burst 14 bleeds and fear them to force stun breaks (or 2 ticks extra) every 20 seconds, and then bigger bursts when DS 4/5 is up. Plus you almost always get some decent Barbed Precision procs.

That is why people QQ (reasonably or not) about condi Necros.

Blood is Power (2)
Mark of Blood (3)
Putrid Mark (2)
Signet of Spite (2)
Mark of Evasion (2)
Weakening Shroud (2)
Dark Path (3)
Geomancy (3)
Grasping Dead (3)
Enfeebling Blood (2)
——————-
That’s 24 stacks.
A 2-3 second bleed from Barbed Precision with a 50% crit chance will add maybe 1 or 2 stacks at a time.
Every attack except Weakening Shroud and Geomancy weapon swap has a 3/4 sec cast time and a short aftercast delay. Also dodging to your target, the travel time of Dark Path and maybe some other circumstances might prolong this combo a bit.
So my estimation for this whole thing would be 9-10 seconds.

Now, this rotation adds bleeds rather slowly for the most part, 2 or 3 stacks at a time.
No opponent in his right mind would let himself be attacked for 10 seconds without dodging or cleansing, especially if he already has 10 stacks of bleeding after 5 seconds.

The way Awe discribes the encounter sounds more like he suddenly and surprisingly had 20 stacks, he wasn’t standing by and watched his bleed count increase by 2-3 stacks per second.

There is no doubt in my mind that there was a transfer involved.
Maybe he played an engi and applied 5-10 stacks himself. Now all the necro had to do is a few skills – DS combo – weapon swap and transfer.

Talk to any tPvPer and they’ll tell you Necros burst bleeds all the time. Its not remotely rare or amazing, its pretty commonplace.

It doesn’t take a tPvPer to know that.
However, 20 stacks in a 1v1 within a few seconds is just not possible without using your opponents bleeds against him.

And Awe seems to be someone with a decent amount of pvp experience, so when he says something like “I dont recall very well facing smth like that before”, then I’m sure he is not referring to a standard necro condi burst, which as you said is pretty common.

Blood is power→daguer 2 →daguer 4 into mark of blood when dodging into weakening DS → DS 2 into geomancy swap → staff 2 = 20 stacks of bleed in less than 6s.
You can add barbed prec. and earth sigil proc to reach more ones.

We can’t know if a transfer was done but it could easily be done without it.

Godless.1857:

Xom.9264:

I love trying to figure out stuff like this…. Dont know exactly how he did it but this is one way to fast stack bleeds.

Blood is Power = 2x bleeds
Mark of Blood = 3x bleeds = 5
Putrid Mark = transfer 2 self bleeds from PiB = 7
Dodge roll trait into Mark of Blood = 2x bleeds = 9
Weapon Swap = Grasping Dead = 3x bleeds = 12
Enfeebling Blood = 2x Bleeds = 14

With some crit procs you can get 20. Another possibility is Weaking shroud when going DS for more bleeds. More like 6-7 seconds then 5.

That’s pretty much the number I got to as well – and as a side note, wouldn’t this take like 6-7 seconds to cast the full rotation? 6-7 seconds of no cleanse and t jsut standing there taking it?

This was what came to mind for me as well. I like how we all talk about this being commonplace and non-remarkable, but seriously, what is the target doing while you are spamming everything you have in that 5-6 second window?

I guess if he has no condition removal at all, his dodge key is broken, and he forgot any anti-condition skills and immunities, then okay.

Rennoko.5731:

Godless.1857:

Xom.9264:

I love trying to figure out stuff like this…. Dont know exactly how he did it but this is one way to fast stack bleeds.

Blood is Power = 2x bleeds
Mark of Blood = 3x bleeds = 5
Putrid Mark = transfer 2 self bleeds from PiB = 7
Dodge roll trait into Mark of Blood = 2x bleeds = 9
Weapon Swap = Grasping Dead = 3x bleeds = 12
Enfeebling Blood = 2x Bleeds = 14

With some crit procs you can get 20. Another possibility is Weaking shroud when going DS for more bleeds. More like 6-7 seconds then 5.

That’s pretty much the number I got to as well – and as a side note, wouldn’t this take like 6-7 seconds to cast the full rotation? 6-7 seconds of no cleanse and t jsut standing there taking it?

This was what came to mind for me as well. I like how we all talk about this being commonplace and non-remarkable, but seriously, what is the target doing while you are spamming everything you have in that 5-6 second window?

I guess if he has no condition removal at all, his dodge key is broken, and he forgot any anti-condition skills and immunities, then okay.

This sounds like PvE fights if its common to hit people with all this. Might be bots running around sPvP

Rennoko.5731:

This was what came to mind for me as well. I like how we all talk about this being commonplace and non-remarkable, but seriously, what is the target doing while you are spamming everything you have in that 5-6 second window?

I guess if he has no condition removal at all, his dodge key is broken, and he forgot any anti-condition skills and immunities, then okay.

We’re assuming you are smart enough to not spam out skills while he’s in the middle of invuln frames. If you get partway through and he starts blowing all his CDs then you’ve done what you wanted to anyway. It means he’s putting his big defenses on CD (our burst is on a tiny CD compared to defensive CDs) while you’ve just used a few abilities that will be back in 15s max.

Not saying that you can just walk in and start jamming buttons all the time and make it work, but we’re assuming here that you actually know how to, you know, play.

Bhawb.7408:

Rennoko.5731:

This was what came to mind for me as well. I like how we all talk about this being commonplace and non-remarkable, but seriously, what is the target doing while you are spamming everything you have in that 5-6 second window?

I guess if he has no condition removal at all, his dodge key is broken, and he forgot any anti-condition skills and immunities, then okay.

We’re assuming you are smart enough to not spam out skills while he’s in the middle of invuln frames. If you get partway through and he starts blowing all his CDs then you’ve done what you wanted to anyway. It means he’s putting his big defenses on CD (our burst is on a tiny CD compared to defensive CDs) while you’ve just used a few abilities that will be back in 15s max.

Not saying that you can just walk in and start jamming buttons all the time and make it work, but we’re assuming here that you actually know how to, you know, play.

Every profession has a optimal burst rotation no matter the build and usually the optimal burst rotations are on moderate cd’s or you have an alternative burst rotation. Usually against experienced players you will never get your full optimal burst rotation because everyone knows what the optimal burst rotation is if you both are experienced.

The above I can see if you bait a noob to blow dodges while you AA with scepter and he is playing full defensive and has nothing offensively to threaten you. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense and him applying good pressure to you wont allow you to just stack 20 bleeds. Usually everyone takes at least 1 interrupt in their build for all professions.

Your suggesting fighting someone completely on their heels and not threatening you in anyway while you bait out dodges and their defensive skills. Then you just got magic bullet and duelist or izerker with a chaos storm follow interrupting you or diversion, this is all offense that will make it so you can’t stack 20 bleeds. A elementalist that starts lighting arc for a bit of pressure but you know that at any moment this glass scepter ele can close to “one shot you” all with out blowing any of its defensive skill.

My point was simply that if you are getting that many bleeds stacked on you in that 5-6 second window, the question shouldn’t be what is he doing to cause those bleeds, but rather what am I doing wrong in not avoiding any of them. You cannot leap to the assumption people are smart enough to avoid the bleeds if they are asking a question like this.

The same could be true of any class, engineer/ranger/warrior, in that you could see 20 bleeds in 5 seconds or less. What necro does isn’t remarkable in that sense. His inability to grasp how to avoid the bleed burst, which is very straight forward is the question that needs to be resolved.

Dodge dark path, keep him outside of melee range, and you negate easily half the bleeds in a burst style build like this. No DS2 (3), no Weak Shroud (2), no dodge mark (2), no geo swap (3). Now it is just 10 bleeds, and all you had to do was dodge one skill and blink/kite for a few seconds.

Watch the pertinent portions of the video here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-new-conditionmancer-guide

It’s possible to get 25 stacks of bleeding, but there are some conditions that must be met first!

Watch the pertinent portions of the video here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/The-new-conditionmancer-guide

It’s possible to get 25 stacks of bleeding, but there are some conditions that must be met first!

We have two major things that differentiate us from other condi classes. The first is sheer condition output. Your weapon skills will apply not just bleeding, but cripple, chill, poison, and weakness, along with having the chance to crit for burning. That is up to 6 conditions applied very quickly, and many classes don’t have the same luxury we (did, WAI ANET WAI YOU KILL PUTRID MARK) do of being able to void our entire bar of conditions.

The second is fear. You can get off half(ish, depending on fear duration) of your burst under the cover of Doom alone. No other condi class has that luxury.

Not saying thakittens easy. But we are the top condi class right now for a reason. Also, we actually can do a ton of counter-pressure. Want weakness, cripple, or chill on your target to keep them off you? Its part of your rotation anyway, and will stack bleeds. Fearing them to keep them off you? Burst them while they are stuck (which can force stunbreaks if they don’t want to eat the damage), and they are taking Terror damage anyway. Going into DS? Swapping weapons? Both are defensive options that work great while under pressure and both provide offense.

Currently we aren’t as OP as we used to be on the counter-pressure front, but it used to be very easy to down at least one person while their team focused you down. You’d go down as well, but you’d provide a ton of counter pressure while doing it.

@Rennoko and that line. Besides dodging the bigger things, Doom/fears can be used to keep him out of the 240 range that will keep you out of 5 stacks of bleeds. Also remember that in general, the fight between a condi Necro and another Necro comes down to who transfers first. Bait him into blowing his transfer, then transfer it right back and you essentially won outright.

Bhawb.7408:

@Rennoko and that line. Besides dodging the bigger things, Doom/fears can be used to keep him out of the 240 range that will keep you out of 5 stacks of bleeds. Also remember that in general, the fight between a condi Necro and another Necro comes down to who transfers first. Bait him into blowing his transfer, then transfer it right back and you essentially won outright.

My advice was universal, not necro on necro. NvN fight is all about dodging and hitting condition transfers, and nothing else. I did not notice the OP was a necro also? Perhaps I missed that.

Huh, for whatever reason I thought he was. That’s what I get for assuming. Anyway yeah, stay out of melee range and DS 2.

Also to note, put out as much offensive pressure as you can when out of melee range. A lot of condi Necro counter-pressure is tied into melee range, when you are at range they can still do strong sustained DPS, but it won’t have the same burst potential, and they can’t do it while being defensive.