Guild Wars 2

Current build 7/8, explanation further down:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yn0ISPN2bD22A/Nm4Yok6DiOAOgtl6pYICCA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA

Playstyle (needs updating, at the core most of this is still true, but the build plays differently now):
Get into teamfights as much as possible, its where you shine. Strip boons, keep your LF and health in check (axe/focus for LF, D/D for healing yourself and removing conditions.) Well of Power and Spectral Wall are powerful utility in team fights that can give your guys an easy edge through condi control, protection and area control. Pop into death shroud as often as possible to proc your bonuses. Dish out AoE, strip boons with path of corruption, fear, death shroud things.

ORIGINAL POST:

Here’s a concept build I’ve been playing with, that started after playing some of the builds Nexed and Mindx have been using, focusing on the powerful life force regen provided by spectral traits (specifically spectral armor). After trying to figure out how to give the builds a more offensive slant without giving up all too much defense, and disenchanted with some of the rune options for them, I wanted something super efficient. I realized how much more raw stats you get from celestial, and given the healing options Mindx’s builds, I thought I could pull it off as all stats are used. I firmly believe Hybrid necros have insane synergy for PvE, so I thought that maybe I could transfer those benefits to PvP as well.

One thing I didn’t like about other builds was its reliance on DS. It was both your offensive and your defensive form, which I think makes both of them a little worse at those jobs. I wanted to reduce reliance on that form, and allow me to use my other weapons more often.

Let me know what you think, and how you’d improve it!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWn0ISPN2bD22AHOm4YomsEOhoDgDYbpcKGCA-TJxHwADeCAW2fAwpAoYZAA

Comments:
D/D is an excellent set of weapons for celestial. Traits that improve the daggers considerably are relatively easy to pick up, with daggers you have strong power, healing, and some decent conditions to boot. Weakness is great in PvP, and hard to come by as Power, usually.

I used quickening thirst for a while in PvE and thought it was quite useful, this allows you to free up a utility slot that might normally be eaten by Spectral Walk, or Warhorn 5. I wanted to use more spectral skills in it’s place (because it’s traited, but perhaps I could drop the 20% trait anyway for something else, the main benefit is double spectral armor), both Spectral Wall and Grasp are acceptable, I found Wall offers a lot more utility though. The defensive utility of it is remarkable with a 7.5 second duration.

-Signet of Vampirism to make sure I’m getting a lot of use of my healing outside of Life Siphons.
-Condi removal: Staff 4, Dagger 4, Well of Power
-Boon stripping: Path of corruption. A little more pragmatic than Corrupt Boon on most fights (since most enemies only have a few boons at a time), and makes death shroud that much more potent. perhaps there’s a build to be with a focus and putting these points elsewhere but by going this deep, I also get Target the Weak, one of my favorite minor traits.

Weaknesses/Places for improvement:
-I wish I was a little beefier again, I’m thinking of other sigil options, perhaps the healing ones, but 3 stacks of might on swap is pretty hard to pass up for anything hybrid because of doubling down. Also I’m looking at rune choices, but I kinda want divinity to work just because of the brick of stats its provides.
-Staff is a solid hybrid weapon I find. Offers me a little of everything (though a little light on power damage, I have plenty of options without it), but I’m curious if it would work with something like scepter/focus d/d. I miss some of the staff traits I was taking before too, but I just don’t think there’s room.
-I toyed with the idea of master of terror since i have 3 fears, but 30% DS recharge is too critical to staying alive all too often.
-

For the record, I was using this in soloQ last night as well as some duo team queue with pretty good success. I’m quite pleased with how functional Quickening Thirst is and I think I’m onto something.

I feel very in control with this build. It’s a balancing act of a lot of things, and I think it has a moderately high skill cap. Chain fears are prob my favorite part.

how about to change runes to traveler and pick Mark of Evation trait instead Quickening Thirst ?

That would actually probably be well worth it, I’m not sure I’d take mark of blood, the 10 second CD is a bit of a turn off. I don’t find it as effective as I’d like. That said, freeing up 10 points to go to say, SR might not be a bad idea, and a bit of condition and boon duration would got a long way considering my current lack of it. I’d be losing almost 300 stat points across the board by switching runes, but those effects are quite nice. Definitely food for thought and I think there’s a build to be had there.

Funny thing is that’s actually what I did for my PvE build to finally drop quickening thirst since I was tired of D/D for my hybrid PvE build.

Some traits I could try with a freed up trait:
Deathly Perception, Foot in the Grave, Soul Marks, Deathly Invigoration
Shrouded Removal and take Well of Power out of the mix for another Utility?
Change up my weapons set entirely? That opens up some possibilities.

I cannot understand why you would even consider vampire signet instead of consume conditions or bloodwell especially in pvp.

400 healing a second while being attacked is basically a healing signet. That said, I could change out WOP for some more offensive wells and take Well of Blood and the well CD reduction trait but so far I’ve had good success keeping my life up. The idea was to be constantly making use all of my stat points, since i’m banking on the stat efficiency of celestial items to make me a powerhouse across the board.

So far I’m impressed with the offensive and defensive capabilities, though absorbing sustained burst in teamfights can be quite difficult to deal with. I can’t really get my siphons off but 2 stun breaks helps. I think I just need to get better with using all my abilities to the max of their potential, bouncing in and out of DS efficiently and effectively.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

400 healing a second while being attacked is basically a healing signet. That said, I could change out WOP for some more offensive wells and take Well of Blood and the well CD reduction trait but so far I’ve had good success keeping my life up. The idea was to be constantly making use all of my stat points.

No, it is a really bad version of healing signet as it only works if you get hit and doesnt work in DS.

I never was able to make that heal work in pvp, i always felt i had more survivability with consume conditions without healingpower and with some healing power both blood well and consume conditions.

And i really tried to make a vampire necro work. But it seems that our other builds are simply better.

I agree that vampire necro isn’t as strong as other survivability options, but I think calling this a vampire necro because it uses the signet is a misnomer. I’d imagine a build for that would take more life stealing traits, here it’s clear that there are a lot of different areas of focus.

I think what’s worth noting is that necros have a lot of interesting options for condi clear whose ramifications differ a lot from straight up condi removal. Well of Power, Dagger 4 and Staff 4 (plague signet as well) all transfer or convert the conditions into something useful, in addition to getting them off of you. Nothing huge, but worth noting in the face of losing consume conditions, something a lot of people I think tend to gloss over when talking CC vs other condi clear for necros.

Additionally, I’d argue the vampire signet offers a lot more aside from just the passive healing, including a larger initial heal on use with increased for 5 seconds after (if dealing damage, some bonus damage with the active, and team utility as well. I’d really like to see if there’s a noticeable increase in DPS on targets with multiple people wailing on a marked target. An extra ~300+ damage per hit per target attacking could add up quickly. I may experiment with using it more as an offensive tool later.

My point being, the healing signets passive heal is all it has going from it aside from a pathetic 3.2k heal.

Updated version:
D/D Axe/Focus:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAoY3dn0ISPN2bD22A/No4Yok6DmqEiOAOgtlypYIA-TJxHwADeAAn3fAwJAoYZAA
-Swapped staff for axe/focus, LF gen and boon stripping from axe focus more than makes up for the loss of the CC
-Swapped out Lich for Plague, I found myself wanting a defensive boost more than I wanted an offensive boost.
-Took Shrouded Removal to make up for loss of condition removal staff provided

Trying this variant now:
Scepter/Dagger Dagger/Focus
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRArY4dn0ISPN2bD22A/No4Yok6DmqEiOAOgtlypYIA-T5wHwAn3fAwJAoYZAA
Reason being the redundancy of power, so far, I’m missing the reliable life force from axe 2(not missing axe 3 too much, though it is great),but being able to pile up conditions on a whim is a great addition to the toolkit. I felt I wasn’t getting enough out of my condition.

Overall I’m finding this a much more productive build. I may opt to drop the 10 points in blood for dagger recharge but I think it’s quite good. essentially, daggers are my defensive weapons (condi transfer and life siphon), and axe/focus are offensive. I don’t fee like I’m getting too much out of my condition damage now, however. I’ll try to pay more attention to the bleeds I stack up.

(original build for posterity):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWn0ISPN2bD22AHOm4YomsEOhoDgDYbpcKGCA-TJxHwADeCAW2fAwpAoYZAA

UPDATE 6/29:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAoY3dn0ISPN2bD22AHOoYXok6GgKAiOD+g5ly1YLA-TJxHwADeAAn3fAwJAoYZAA
Check it out, swapped back to axe, the boon stripping in teamfights, retaliation and LF gen is too good to pass up. Speaking of awesome, I finally found a reason to go 10 into spite. I can proc enfeebling shroud, shrouded removal, and spiteful spirit every 7 seconds. jesus. I also dropped 20% spectral CD for 15% DS cooldown.

Latest iteration, I think I really really like this setup:
Update 7/8:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yn0ISPN2bD22A/Nm4Yok6DiOAOgtl6pYICCA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA

I now roll with my pve weapons set (i play hybrid as well), Axe/Focus Scepter/Dagger, and I think it meets all my needs. I do miss the dagger for its immobilize and good life drain, but I think I get more with this.

I’ve been practicing my shroud stomps and starting to fall in love with foot in the grave. I was considering dropping plague as a result but I still think the ability to hold a point 1v2 with it is uncanny (especially since you’re almost guaranteed to have a full LF bar after dropping it), and the clean stomps are still nice. I know the stability from popping into DS so often sometimes goes unnoticed by me as well, since I noticed Hambows get way easier to fight with foot in the grave.

But for playstyle, you have Axe/Focus: Boon stripping, life force, burst damage set. S/D is pro aoe (though unreliable 1v1, I need to work on my aiming), condi removal, and reliable condition damage for people spamming their evasion/block moves. Being able to pile them up is powerful. I sometimes have troubles with dropping too quickly, however. I am considering trying a consume conditions variant now.

You’re constantly generating life force and have a very large pool. With 3 short CD boon strips, you can toss them out aggressively, and not totally ruin a fight if you whiff with a spinal shivers thanks to path of corruption and unholy feast. I don’t think the same can be said if you miss your corrupt boon. Dark Path is insanely good with this build.

I love going in circles…..swapped back to Axe/Focus D/D and took -20% to dagger CDs again instead of foot in the grave. Might swap back to foot in the grave but enjoying it for now. I think d/d is the way to go than scepter dagger. Not getting nearly enough use out of the scepter. Every move on Dagger’s bring some big stuff to the table. The 5 even does good for the aoe weakness.

I’ve been thinking about this, and experimented with a few different variations. After playing celestial d/d ele a lot as well, I’ve come to the conclusion that celestial only works if you bear the following in mind when you’re building:
1. you gotta exploit all the stats, otherwise it’s a sub-par set. That includes not only the obvious (condition damage), but also healing power, which is quite tough for us to manage effectively because healing doesn’t go through DS.
2. celestial damage is mediocre without lots of might stacks. Even if you’re exploiting the condition damage as well as the physical damage properly.

With that in mind, I started thinking about what weapons to use. We need both conditions and physical damage, and unfortunately none of our weapons do both: scepter does plenty of bleeds and poison, but it scales atrociously. Axe and Dagger do decent physical damage, but no conditions.

We’re therefore going to look elsewhere for our condition damage then. Luckily, the two conditions that scale best (+25% of condition damage), are both accessible from within death shroud: burning, and fear! That’s right, we’re going back to that old Terror/Dhuumfire well!

With that in mind, I settled on dagger as my MH weapon: it has the best single target physical damage, the best life force generation, and also a decent heal in skill 2, helping us exploit that healing power. Having settled on this concept, the rest of the build was easy to come up with:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc0Ucb5N22whbCchC63MAi2I/gJgy4IMA-TpBGwABeAAKOCAh2fAwhAowJAgZZAA
You’ll see that I chose 2 spectral stunbreakers for my utilities (the third can be by Corrupt Boon or Signet of Spite). I know that Flesh Wurm is a better stunbreak, having 2 spectrals helps me massively in building life force. I tried a signet-based variant (Plague, Locust, Spite) with Signet Mastery to build Might, and it was absolutely awful, I got trashed every single fight.
Traits-wise, the main difference from the old standard Dhuumfire build is Close to Death instead of master of terror. I’ve found the terror damage lacklustre without master of terror, but with frequent flashign into DS to proc Dhuumfire a necessity, Close to Death is still better. The other important trait is Reaper’s Might. I know a single stack per life blast isn’t much, but with its long duration (amplified further by Strength Runes), it’ll normally persist long enough after a fight to give you a little bit of a head start for the next fight.
Sigils were a tough choice. You definitely need might-generation on both weapon sets. You’ll be usign runes of strength, so you have to maximise those duration bonuses. For the 2nd slot I went for Doom in the dagger slot (since my only source of poison is on staff), and Blood on the other, but these are not crucial to the build: as long as you’ve got some might generation the 2nd sigil slot is up to you: Energy or Generosity sigils also work.
Staff as my 2nd weapon set was the result of a lot of testing. I’ve also experimented with dagger/warhorn+axe/dagger, but I’ve found that Deathly Swarm alone did not provide enough cleansing. Moreover, staff is useful for chasing, standing on ledges, aoeing stealthed thieves, fearing stompers etc. I never did well with axe on my other set.

After playing with this extensively, I came up with a slight variant that ditches Terror and goes full-on on the burning: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc0UcbjN22whbCchaqlA63MAiWqbjw4ZB-TZhAwAXeAAgOCAAOFA42fQcZAA
Using Runes of Fire and Sigils of Smoldering, I can get a whole extra second of burning for epic 5" burns on Dhuumfire, which actually almost equals the lost damage from Terror (since your fears without Master of Terror usually tick once). Additionally, you can grab Deathly Perception for extra physical damage on that life blast. The downside is it’s a more one-dimensional build, and it feels a bit like a normal zerker necro but with burning instead of Close to Death. I find I do better against some classes with this variant, but some others completely ruin me. The first build otoh is a better all-rounder, but not as much damage.

(Note, Runes of Fire are perfectly viable as an alternative to Strength for the first build as well. You actually generate more Might stacks with them because of the 6 bonus, but in my opinion the bonus damage from Strength’s 6 bonus is marginally better. )

So after 3 days of playing around with this stuff, is it viable? Well, yeah, just about. But it’s definitely not optimal. You’re a beast in team fights (and not just because of Lich), but in 1v1 you’re going to have problems against certain builds, meaning you’re not as flexible and able to fill every position as a d/d ele would be. So yeah, it works ok, but you’re definitely better off as a conditionmancer, as you don’t utilise celestial nearly as efficiently as other professions can.

I’m a big fan of Signet of Vampirism, I think it allows you to take advantage of the healing power in a substantial manner, at the expense of your condi clear. I know CC is one of the best heals in the game, but I think celestial requires usage of Vamp. It’s quite an impressive heal when paired with a bit of healing power. The idea of using Dhuumfire and Strength Runes (along with some might stacking) is an interesting one. I want to take more advantage of the condi damage, which isn’t as high as I’d like it to be in my current form (still running a similar build)

I’ve been playing D/F cele ele and you’re right, without the might stack you’re nothin. It’s always been difficult to deal a lot of damage with my build, 1v1s are often very tough. I don’t think terror is worth it, especially at the expense of spectral attunement. Spectral Attunement is core to this build.

This is a lot like my build in my signature