Guild Wars 2

Celestial necro round two, success?

Hello. I used to run celestial on necro before the June 23 patch. I liked celestial due to its well-rounded nature and equal mixture of power damage, condition damage, and survivability. It was the target for a lot of criticism due to berserker amulet being the golden standard at the time. Really, why use celestial with a power build that has 1) little condition damage, and 2) no sustain. The celestial stats are seemingly wasted.

However, after the June 23 patch, all of those issues have been alleviated.

The new celestial build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V44-_;1kHFJ0D4-KkJ0;9;479A;0136246148;4INl2h;1Bk-2Bk-20M

Simple video demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlQsW5JKu04

(Flame Legion rune is outdated on the build calculator. The newly updated Flame Legion rune effect: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Flame_Legion )

Key points of the build:

• Celestial amulet
• Flame Legion runes
• Dhuumfire
• Life siphoning wells
• Equal mixture of power and condition damage

Dhuumfire is now a powerful trait with the condition system revamp; it now has zero internal cooldown and applies burning on every hit of shroud skill 1 (permanent 3-4 burning stacks on target while using Dhuumfire). Flame Legion runes are the best choice to amplify the burning, and it also fits the theme of equal mixture power/condition damage.

FAQ: Why Banshee’s Wail instead of Vamp aura trait? Banshee’s Wail gives the build near permanent swiftness from warhorn, and it is also an essential part of the build’s tankiness as it is a key source of life force generation. More life force equals more dhuumfire.

Survivability: This is where the build shines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlQsW5JKu04#t=5m46s

• Blood Magic gives very good sustain, especially from the lesser vampiric signet from trait that procs very easily due to the synergy with Curses traits.
• Anti-conditions: Plague Sending and Well of Power provide easy condition wipes, and the Well synergizes nicely with the 20s cooldown Consume Conditions and Plague elite. All negatives of using Master of Corruptions are erased with Well of Power.
• Banshee’s Wail and Soul Marks traits amplify the life force regeneration of the build. Soul Marks synergizes with mark of evasion, and it gives the build momentum with another source of ranged, instant life force early in a fight.

I’m always looking for ways to improve the build. Please take a look, try it out in-game, and give feedback. Thanks for reading.

Not sure about this one, but I think I’ll roll it for a couple of matches, give it a fair shake. Come back with my opinions.

I’m not, usually, a fan of Dhuumfire. However, I’ll note that because this is a ‘hybrid’, it makes use of the power scaling aspect of Life Blast, causing Dhuumfire to more be a damage buff.

Blood Magic is good but I prefer Curses with perma weakness, boon conversion and 1 additional plague signet.

So after messing with it some, what I’m noticing is that the strongest point of this build seems to be the combination of LB’s strong power damage AND the burn damage. 5k blasts with 800-100 ticks.

It has pretty kitten ed good sustain between vampiric traits and wells. I tossed on some sigils of smoldering to buff that burn damage. I don’t know that this build is necessarily better than others, but it DOES seem to work, at least partially.

Hi, if anyone wanted to try something else, here is the latest iteration of my celestial necro. It has actually seen a fair number of minor revisions lately:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V4443d;0o20G0143JkJ0;9;4679;0036148258;4IFl3J;1oHAhoHAh0p

You could very easily substitute dagger/warhorn for the second weapon set in place of scepter/focus if you wanted to. I realize that is probably one of the more bizarre points of the build. I just find that the build is ranged enough that you might as well just keep it all ranged. You can use the chill on spinal shivers to kite people a bit more. Also, it is easier to make sure you are facing the person if you range them.

Scepter doesn’t do bad dps with the celestial amulet though. I used to have more condi-focused sigils, but the proc-on-crit ones seem to work better both in practice and against a heavy golem.

Edit: Only downside of build is it sucks at life force generation. Just fair warning. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a lot of traits that are centered around DS anyway.

After much experimentation, I have refined and improved the celestial dhuumfire build (using some suggestions posted here, too). I agree that the Curses trait line is powerful, and I replaced the Spite traits with Curses.

Without Spite, the build loses out on the Chill of Death proc, might stacking, and signet trait. With Curses, the build gains more defense versus conditions, more defense versus power damage through weakness, more condition pressure, more crits, more synergy with Blood Magic and Soul Reaping traits. Essentially the build’s damage output remains relatively the same, but the survivability has been greatly improved (it already had good survival to begin with).

The new celestial build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V44-_;1kHFJ0D4-KkJ0;9;479A;0136246148;4INl2h;1Bk-2Bk-20M

Simple video demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlQsW5JKu04

The footage is very basic but it shows the celestial dhuumfire build in motion. My gameplay is not perfect and I make errors, but perhaps the build will excel in more capable hands.

I’m liking the tankiness of this build and its damage. As with all necro builds, the weak point is probably the active heal – easy to get interrupted accidentally or purposely – maybe use the well that provides stability first…not sure.

I have a lot to learn – mostly with regard to CD management and when to use which wells. Hard not to panic and blow them all

bhagwad.4281:

I’m liking the tankiness of this build and its damage. As with all necro builds, the weak point is probably the active heal – easy to get interrupted accidentally or purposely – maybe use the well that provides stability first…not sure.

I have a lot to learn – mostly with regard to CD management and when to use which wells. Hard not to panic and blow them all

Aside for breaking stuns, I try to use Well of Power (condi conversion) only after I heal, or right before if I know I’m about to heal soon. Well of Power converts the vulnerability and blind from the heal into extra protection and fury. If I’m about to use plague elite, I blow all cooldowns, all wells, all marks, then go into plague. By the time plague ends, all cooldowns will be refreshed and ready for round two.

Also, try to use staff skill 4 after healing because it will transfer your blind and vuln to the enemy. Don’t make the mistake of using any other mark or important skill (like fear) right after a heal because it will just whiff due to blind.

Couple important notes: 1) Well of Power does little damage but it vamps the same amount as the other wells. And 2) When placing down the power well, enemies cannot discern whether or not it is the highly damaging wells (suffering, corruption). They all appear the same. You can use this information to lull your foe into a false sense of security. “Oh the necro used his wells, I’m safe for a while!” then you surprise them with immobilize and throw out your damage wells.

Well of Suffering and Corruption go hand in hand; you should always use them together in unison. It’s Well of Power that you need to make tactical decisions on. Every enemy class has a good opportunity for power well. Example, when a guardian or ele lays down a burning field that constantly applies burns, putting down the power well will give you multiple aegis blocks. It’s a very versatile skill.

I’ve been using this build and have made the following modifications to suit my playstyle:

1. I take Foot in the Grave
2. I take DS cool down reduction
3. I take healing when coming out of DS

My playstyle now revolves around constantly jumping in and out of DS every 7 seconds (with every third rotation casting torment and siphon). This means I:

1. Get stab for 3 seconds
2. Heal for 2k (and allies)
3. Apply 10 seconds of AoE weakness and some bleeds (and weakness in general all the time thanks to weakening shroud)

Every 7.5 seconds.

This combined with my wells, constant “dagger 1” spam, and condi transfer keep me alive and I can deal out some good damage.

Today for the first time, I killed one of these new GS/Hammer warriors with insane quickness and rampage. Twice! Big time validation

P.S I’m also messing around with well of blood – the additional well makes it seem that I’m always in the middle of something dangerous, taking a bit of pressure off me in team fights. Not sure how that’s working out yet – have to still see if the loss of CD and condi removal is worth it.

I uploaded the video demonstration on YouTube for 60fps goodness.

The Celestial Dhuumfire build remains the same: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V44-_;1kHFJ0D4-KkJ0;9;479A;0136246148;4INl2h;1Bk-2Bk-20M

Please try it out. Any feedback is appreciated.

Dude I gotta say I am playing your build tonight and its awesome. your so survivable but can still dish out some damage. had some awesome 1 v 1 fights like with a cele ele and still managed to win if I play well.
Loving it man

On video you don’t place many many fire, or not at all … I’m okai with dhumfire but i think others runes like the good old rune of the Pack should be more profitable.

I’m running my own cele version I don’t trust Wetfire and I’m not letting go of Spite nice seeing cele builds on necro.

As Zhaid said, I don’t think dhummfire is worth your rune set, and sigils. It works well in the build, but basing so much of your damage on life blast is risky. Sure you can destroy people faster, but taking other runes will help you out more often.

Zhaid Zhem.6508:

On video you don’t place many many fire, or not at all … I’m okai with dhumfire but i think others runes like the good old rune of the Pack should be more profitable.

Interesting suggestion. Do you think pack rune would be better? I used pack rune by default at first but gradually evolved to Flame Legion. The swiftness on pack is unnecessary because of Banshee’s Wail, and this build gets fury in Shroud, and blind from heal is converted to fury with Power well. Though, pack runes would give more fury than that.

I tried this build with small modifications, and kudos. I’ve been experimenting with every and all necro builds since patch and dislike them all for various reasons. This build feels pretty good overall.

MAJOR modifications I’ve made:
1.) Life from Death over Banshee’s Wail. The 2k heal from deathshroud on a 10 sec cd is substantial.
2.) Spectral Armor over Well of Power. I’m not sure about this one but spectral armor is consistently strong where well of power I feel is only good in certain situations. The condi convert from consume conditions I don’t feel is significant enough to say 100% it needs to be there.
3.) Unholy Martyr over Vampiric Rituals. (Granted I’m running only 2 wells), but if you haven’t tried this trait you should. It can help you stay in deathshroud a hilariously long time, on top of being another form on consistent condi clear (which kind of compensates for not having well of power).

Minor modifications:
4.) Sigil of Leeching over generosity ( I don’t find generosity consistent enough)
5.) Sigil of Frailty (or doom) over smoldering. Smoldering doesn’t do nearly enough to warrant the sigil, but frailty and doom both act as cover condis for burning on top of a little extra reliable damage.
6.) Sigil of Blood over Air, it does about 350 less damage-ish, but you get 1k heals off of it every ~5 seconds. Though it is bugged and doesn’t show up in the combat log.

zone.1073:

Zhaid Zhem.6508:

On video you don’t place many many fire, or not at all … I’m okai with dhumfire but i think others runes like the good old rune of the Pack should be more profitable.

Interesting suggestion. Do you think pack rune would be better? I used pack rune by default at first but gradually evolved to Flame Legion. The swiftness on pack is unnecessary because of Banshee’s Wail, and this build gets fury in Shroud, and blind from heal is converted to fury with Power well. Though, pack runes would give more fury than that.

I don’t think pack/flame legion would make a significant difference either way. I actually am really enjoying flame legion. It really helps with dhuumfire and the extra 1.3 seconds of burn every 10 seconds is not neglible damage plus the 7% damage to burning targets makes up for the stat loss that you would have from pack.

Still trying to understand why you ran celestial before June 23….celestial is the product of an efficient might stacking class

Jelzouki.4128:

Still trying to understand why you ran celestial before June 23….celestial is the product of an efficient might stacking class

I can’t speak to pre June 23rd, but I’ve since noticed that you can get away with running cele with (1) a power rune; (2) signet of spite on passive; and (3) the Deadly Strength trait. The power in this scenario is still lower than a might-stacking ele/warr (just over 2k) but it might be enough depending on your preferences (it is for me).

KreatE.7612:

I tried this build with small modifications, and kudos. I’ve been experimenting with every and all necro builds since patch and dislike them all for various reasons. This build feels pretty good overall.

Very good feedback, thanks. I will be doing tests. Unholy Martyr does not clear conditions from yourself; it pulls conditions from allies to yourself like plague signet passive. I agree that this is a good grandmaster trait if you decide to drop 1 out of 3 wells. I liked wells for the extra long protection with Vampiric Rituals (Well of Power giving even more protection on vuln conversion), but perhaps this can work too.

I feel like your tweaks are fine because they change the build but achieve the same goals. The purpose of Banshee’s Wail is primarily to gain huge amounts of Life Force in group fights, similar to the purpose of Unholy Martyr. Life from Death gives consistent healing over time, similar to the effect of siphoning wells with Vampiric Rituals. Etc.

Jelzouki.4128:

Still trying to understand why you ran celestial before June 23….celestial is the product of an efficient might stacking class

I liked celestial pre June 23 for its survivability while not compromising damage by very much. I have a lot of celestial videos pre June 23 in my signature.

Hi guys, sorry for my english i’m french.

I really love this build. It’s very tanky and you can survive in 1v2 fight too keep points.
As a necro you are often focus on team fight but it’s not a problem! Taking 3 wells is the best option i think but i have changed sigils too.

A question : are you noscoc?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-3_-3-0-o2GF034ZJkJ0;9;4A76;0147146136;4UsW7O;1H7W3H7W30W

KreatE.7612:

I tried this build with small modifications, and kudos. I’ve been experimenting with every and all necro builds since patch and dislike them all for various reasons. This build feels pretty good overall.

MAJOR modifications I’ve made:
1.) Life from Death over Banshee’s Wail. The 2k heal from deathshroud on a 10 sec cd is substantial.

I’ve been testing this for about 15 hours straight in sPvP. Trying to synergize with Life from Death is awkward, because I don’t flash shroud. I stay in shroud for as long as possible to maximize dhuumfire and survival, so I don’t get the 1.6k HP heal from the trait every 10 seconds – more like every 20+ seconds. I think the trait may work with a particular play style though.

Shakaal.2563:

Hi guys, sorry for my english i’m french.

I really love this build. It’s very tanky and you can survive in 1v2 fight too keep points.
As a necro you are often focus on team fight but it’s not a problem! Taking 3 wells is the best option i think but i have changed sigils too.

A question : are you noscoc?

Glad you like it. Please keep testing the build and provide feedback. I am always trying new things and testing.

zone.1073:

Very good feedback, thanks. I will be doing tests. Unholy Martyr does not clear conditions from yourself; it pulls conditions from allies to yourself like plague signet passive. I agree that this is a good grandmaster trait if you decide to drop 1 out of 3 wells. I liked wells for the extra long protection with Vampiric Rituals (Well of Power giving even more protection on vuln conversion), but perhaps this can work too.

I feel like your tweaks are fine because they change the build but achieve the same goals. The purpose of Banshee’s Wail is primarily to gain huge amounts of Life Force in group fights, similar to the purpose of Unholy Martyr. Life from Death gives consistent healing over time, similar to the effect of siphoning wells with Vampiric Rituals. Etc.

Thanks, it took me a while to realize unholy martyr wasn’t working like I thought lol.. However, its still ridiculously strong at keeping you in DS after having tested it.

And I 100% agree with you about Life from Death after testing. Banshee’s Wail will be better or even vampiric aura will heal more over the duration of 20 sec (not including the damage you would gain).

Well of power I still wouldn’t run over spectral armor (comparable protection), but easier to use and gives you insane life force.

However the life siphon off of vampiric rituals stacked with vampiric aura might make it more valuable. I’m curious as to how stacking your wells with well of blood as your heal and maybe even take the well of blood on revive trait would do. I’ll try testing when I can.

It’d lose the condi clear and have a larger cd on heal, but the overall healing from a well of blood with an extra 200 siphoning/sec would be a little crazy. I’m really reluctant to drop unholy martyr, but it’s worth a shot. Plus you could swap out the corruption mastery for either path of corruption or terror.

KreatE.7612:

I’m curious as to how stacking your wells with well of blood as your heal and maybe even take the well of blood on revive trait would do. I’ll try testing when I can.

If you’re going to take Well of Blood, there’s little use for Master of Corruption (MoC) trait. That’s the main purpose of MoC. It changes Consume Conditions into the largest burst heal possible on the shortest cooldown in the entire game.

I originally played with Well of Blood, and it’s a good skill for mind games. Makes enemies run away. However it didn’t fit my play style because I am very aggressive and I need larger healing over time due to soaking up so much damage. Perhaps a more team supportive play style can make Well of Blood work.

You can drop the lesser Vampiric signet trait and it wouldn’t be that bad. The signet does not heal you in shroud anwyay, so you wouldn’t be missing out on much. Again, a more team supportive play style can benefit from the revival trait.

i feel like curses is not the optimal choice here, sure it adds weakness and a passive cleanse but other stuff would give you more.

if you don’t like spite, have you tried death magic? unholy sanctuary benefits from the healing of celestial and by taking a dagger offhand you can go for vampiric prensence to add something for the team in teamfights without losing cleanse. rune of the pack to make up for the swiftness of warhorn or even travelers.

i also like spite because of the might, when you manage to get the enemy below 50% those 20 might stacks are just too good combined with close to death.

celestial necro will only become really powerful when reaper is availlable with reaper/blood/soul or reaper/spite/soul or maybe with death magic, can’t say yet but the one with spite will definitely be the most offensive one. the reason is the shroud auto, while life blast is 1s cast, reaper shroud 1 is 1/2s 3x with another 1/2s aftercast so it’s 3 hits in 2 seconds instead of 3 hits in 3 seconds with life blast.

the difference between reaper spite soul is that spite gets the might from autos and benefits from the vulnerability crit chance whereas reaper blood soul benefits from might on chill and the blood siphoning but loses the extra might (5s from chill vs 18s or so from shroud autos) from spite.

i have 2 builds in mind that could be pretty strong in 1v1 but it’s always the same, a focused necro is a dead necro in teamfights.

Necromancer
Dhuumfire:
Fixed a bug with this trait that caused the skill facts on shroud skill 1 to omit the damage within a range of 600.
Corrected an issue in which the Dhuumfire version of shroud skill 1 would deal less damage than intended.
Fixed a bug in which Dhuumfire was a shorter range than shroud skill 1.
Unholy Martyr: Fixed the description of this trait to specify that it draws conditions instead of removing them.
Chilling Darkness: Added a 5-second internal cooldown to this trait.
Plague: This skill no longer inflicts bleeding every second while it is active. Instead, it inflicts 10 seconds of bleeding when it is first activated. When traited with Master of Corruption, it inflicts 4 seconds of poison.
Mark of Evasion: This trait now only activates if you are in combat.
Last Rites: The portion of this trait that prevents allies from bleeding out now only applies to allies while you are not downed. The bonus healing power is applied regardless of state.
Consume Conditions: Lowered the number of self-applied vulnerability stacks from 10 to 5.
Vampiric Presence: Fixed a bug in which the Vampiric Aura effect applied by this trait allowed it to steal life on skills that did not actually hit.

So… the celestial dhuumfire got buffed big time.

Dhuumfire range has been increased from 900 range to 1200 range. Dhuumfire now deals more damage (as if it didn’t do enough already).

Plague no longer inflicts repeating self bleeding, and Consume Conditions vulnerability is only 5 stacks. This makes taking Master of Corruptions even more viable than before.

Testing in progress!

Dark irony my cele build got nerfed by ICD on Chilling Darkness lol >.> I’ll test dhuumfire again(one more time) but the patch seems partial.

Edit: Nah not feeling it and I got two traits mixed up lol

Are you guys really able to get good mileage out of dhuumfire? I’m finding that in fights these days there really is a huge amount of CC. And with the AA having a 1 second cast time, between CCs, dodges, blinds, other invulns and blocks, I hardly ever get to actually use my GM build defining trait…

I love the idea of dhuum. But I’m just not getting much mileage

Cele is good on necro now, but dhuumfire is outclassed by death perception even on celestial. When reaper comes out I think dhuumfire will be good if you trade curses for reaper.

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

bhagwad.4281:

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

I’ve wanted to do this math for a long while now. Prot uptime and Armor should be factored in as well, but even just a basic Crits vs. Burn damage comparison is something I’ve been too lazy to do yet.

bhagwad.4281:

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

Yes it deathly perception gives you more damage than dhuumfire and applies to more skills as well. Look at Nos’s cele build, where he takes death perception over dhuumifre, simply because it deals much more damage.

Like I said, with the reaper, that may change.

hi guys
i tested your build. It s very funny to play and hard to kill.. 3v1 and you can earn some precious time in pvp..
but i have a couple of questions too:
1) someone has argued about change curses with spite.. less survability, more damage. don t u like it??
2) why dagger and not scepter??

Sparda.9750:

hi guys
i tested your build. It s very funny to play and hard to kill.. 3v1 and you can earn some precious time in pvp..
but i have a couple of questions too:
1) someone has argued about change curses with spite.. less survability, more damage. don t u like it??
2) why dagger and not scepter??

Scepter is weak link,dagger/WH is the best necro set and staff being the second best. The whole point of cele necro is to avoid what makes other specs weak like AI,low LF gain,no cleave etc. To me curses is a must my cele necro uses Spite,Curses and Blood Magic I haven’t found Soul Reaping that attractive.

nearlight.3064:

bhagwad.4281:

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

Yes it deathly perception gives you more damage than dhuumfire and applies to more skills as well. Look at Nos’s cele build, where he takes death perception over dhuumifre, simply because it deals much more damage.

Like I said, with the reaper, that may change.

Do you have a link to “No’s” cele build?

Well.. i like soul reaping.. it gives spectral armor, more LF generation and good marks mechanics, and dhuumfire of course.. is that we are talking about
The problem is ( my opinion) : is better than spite??
I started to play pvp ( and only this) just 3 days ago, after a long time.. and i have to be honest: i really like new necro. I said this because my tests aren t enough to take conclusions, but the few games i played with spite in place of curse, i find them harder.. The might stacking is less usefull in place of the survability by curse, but replacing soul reaping doesn t sound me good…
Let me be clear: with exactly this build i feel the immortality.. but the damage is quite low.. i generally win 1v1 and don t die in 2v1, so i guess to replace something with spite.
I don t know if could be worth

bhagwad.4281:

nearlight.3064:

bhagwad.4281:

Damage wise, does it make more sense to take deathly perception instead of dhuum? I just tried out deathly and with so many condi clears in the game, getting the damage out and up front might be a better bet than otherwise…

What do you think?

Yes it deathly perception gives you more damage than dhuumfire and applies to more skills as well. Look at Nos’s cele build, where he takes death perception over dhuumifre, simply because it deals much more damage.

Like I said, with the reaper, that may change.

Do you have a link to “No’s” cele build?

Just scroll down and find the link on his twitch page. http://www.twitch.tv/noscoc

And yeah I like soul reaping because it improves your survivability AND damage more than blood magic in my opinion, although you lose out on stuff like transfusion rezzes.

Nos cele build op

How is this build in WvW roaming?

Thank you to all who have been testing this build. Please keep testing and posting feedback.

I’m still performing consistently well vs many other strong builds. The only build that has stood shoulder to shoulder 1v1 is a tanky celestial Ele build with diamond skin, and still I could succeed versus that, given enough time.

It seems like Runes of Balthazar would always be better than Flame Legion in this build. It is more burn duration and an extra burn on heal.