Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

Some of you may remember that recently i was looking all over for some full glass cannon berserker necromancer for my little experiment.

Never thought it would be so hard to get them… but i finally did, and we did it…
Here are the results…

Citadel of Flame – path 1: 4x necromancer + 1x mesmer timed fast run…

I hope you guys enjoy…

ps: since i’ve recorded this video, i’ve found out that actually the time to beat is 5:20 starting from the initial gate… so as soon as the upcoming necromancer buffing patch will be released, i will redo this for an even better time…

I saw the movie, nice job.

So cool to see this. I have my zerk mes and war for CoF, but my necro is my main and love playing it more than my other characters. I have an awesome guild group that does both optimized and diverse CoF farming and I love going on my power necro.

Quick suggestion for the gate controller though: target it before the door closes, summon flesh golem, use BiP as it opens, flash deathshroud, ghastly claws while approaching, drop WoS, weapon swap dagger auto. Instead of the other minion use Signet of Spite. Its the only instance in the game where that kittening signet is useful. Then just swap it back out before the effigy. Give it a try, I melt the controller with this combo.

Again, well done and ty for the vid!

Tentonhammr.7849:

So cool to see this. I have my zerk mes and war for CoF, but my necro is my main and love playing it more than my other characters. I have an awesome guild group that does both optimized and diverse CoF farming and I love going on my power necro.

Quick suggestion for the gate controller though: target it before the door closes, summon flesh golem, use BiP as it opens, flash deathshroud, ghastly claws while approaching, drop WoS, weapon swap dagger auto. Instead of the other minion use Signet of Spite. Its the only instance in the game where that kittening signet is useful. Then just swap it back out before the effigy. Give it a try, I melt the controller with this combo.

Again, well done and ty for the vid!

I sort of did it that way before the run… you heard me saying “i did it faster last time”. This was our “last run”, i didn’t think we would do it faster, but we did.

I actually think we can do it even faster… looking at the video i saw some of the other necromancers didn’t use all they could…
I’ll remake this soon enough though…

While it doesn’t play as a record attempt, it’s a solid proof-of-concept: 4 power necromancers can go just as fast as your typical 4 warriors.

I’d be very much up for trying it again after the patch and putting a lot more time and effort into really making the time we set a challenge for any other professions to beat.

Also thanks for having me in on the runs!

Edit: someone posted this in the Dungeons forum too.

I am really excited for the demotion of axe training to master instead of GM. No longer having to choose between axe training and CtD in GM…..
oh man….

Hey Nemesis – already posted this on your reddit post but it is awesome that you guys did this. I have been loving playing gc necro since watching your build video (although I changed a couple things for my playstyle – eg. Superior Rune of Lyssa b/c getting 5 seconds of all boons with fleshy’s charge is awesome) and am glad that people can see that a necro can put out a decent amount of DPS

Tentonhammr.7849:

Quick suggestion for the gate controller though: target it before the door closes, summon flesh golem, use BiP as it opens, flash deathshroud, ghastly claws while approaching, drop WoS, weapon swap dagger auto. Instead of the other minion use Signet of Spite. Its the only instance in the game where that kittening signet is useful. Then just swap it back out before the effigy. Give it a try, I melt the controller with this combo.

I have been doing this only dropping both WoS and WoC instead of using Signet of Spite. Do you get more total DPS from the power boost with spite?

Sepreh.5924:

Tentonhammr.7849:

Quick suggestion for the gate controller though: target it before the door closes, summon flesh golem, use BiP as it opens, flash deathshroud, ghastly claws while approaching, drop WoS, weapon swap dagger auto. Instead of the other minion use Signet of Spite. Its the only instance in the game where that kittening signet is useful. Then just swap it back out before the effigy. Give it a try, I melt the controller with this combo.

I have been doing this only dropping both WoS and WoC instead of using Signet of Spite. Do you get more total DPS from the power boost with spite?

I’ve tried using WoC and WoS instead of WoS and Sig of Spite, but the Sig “feels” faster. The passive 180 power boost is excellent for this instance.
Only time you’ll ever hear me say anything nice about that utility. Hopefully that changes with the upcoming patch. I really need to run a video of myself doing the controller and enable combat logs to get a concrete answer as to which is truly more effective. I’ll see if I can answer that this weekend.

Were you guys using that 30/0/0/10/30 build?

Nemesis.8593:

Tentonhammr.7849:

So cool to see this. I have my zerk mes and war for CoF, but my necro is my main and love playing it more than my other characters. I have an awesome guild group that does both optimized and diverse CoF farming and I love going on my power necro.

Quick suggestion for the gate controller though: target it before the door closes, summon flesh golem, use BiP as it opens, flash deathshroud, ghastly claws while approaching, drop WoS, weapon swap dagger auto. Instead of the other minion use Signet of Spite. Its the only instance in the game where that kittening signet is useful. Then just swap it back out before the effigy. Give it a try, I melt the controller with this combo.

Again, well done and ty for the vid!

I sort of did it that way before the run… you heard me saying “i did it faster last time”. This was our “last run”, i didn’t think we would do it faster, but we did.

I actually think we can do it even faster… looking at the video i saw some of the other necromancers didn’t use all they could…
I’ll remake this soon enough though…

Additionally, blow up the bone minions, it does a ton of damage to structures. Since minions are balanced around having a low crit rate, and you can’t crit on structures, they have an edge over normal abilities.

Kravick.4906:

Were you guys using that 30/0/0/10/30 build?

Similar variations of that build, we were all either 30/10/0/0/30 or 30/0/10/0/30. I’m not 100% on that but to who I spoke to those are the builds.

Impressive =) good job nemesis

youlostthegame.8102:

Kravick.4906:

Were you guys using that 30/0/0/10/30 build?

Similar variations of that build, we were all either 30/10/0/0/30 or 30/0/10/0/30. I’m not 100% on that but to who I spoke to those are the builds.

The trait you take in 10 curses is fairly obvious, but what trait would you take if you go 10 points into death magic?

Looking back on it im really dissapointed in our time. Its only just as a good as a group of mixed classes who know the dungeon reasonably well. Also looking at the footage. I was the only one using BiP and locust swarm to dps. I have now also changed my opinion on signet of spite. I will be running it instead of WoC unless i need extra aoe/tagging.

I dont know how many of you guys read the thread in the dungeon section. We basically got mocked because of the time, which i completely understand. Also Nike from DnT posted a recording of him using his dps necro in coe. The auto attack chain on the dagger achieved a 9.3k crit at one point (Obviously under optimum conditions with 25 might + banners and fury and loads of conditions for target the weak).

Soul reaping is a good trait line for power builds because of the crit damage but its actual traits are more utility and situational. I ran 30 in SR for stability in arah and dungeons where i need it but not because of its dps. Ive switched back to 30/30/0/0/10 and it does do noticeably more dps. Having condition damage in curses is not an arguement to avoid it. The highest dps warrior builds use atleast 25 pts in arms which is precision and condition damage, just like the necro lines. The traits + minor traits and precision are too important to give up.

spoj.9672:

Ive switched back to 30/30/0/0/10 and it does do noticeably more dps. Having condition damage in curses is not an arguement to avoid it. The highest dps warrior builds use atleast 25 pts in arms which is precision and condition damage, just like the necro lines. The traits + minor traits and precision are too important to give up.

What would this build look like trait wise?

Kravick.4906:

spoj.9672:

Ive switched back to 30/30/0/0/10 and it does do noticeably more dps. Having condition damage in curses is not an arguement to avoid it. The highest dps warrior builds use atleast 25 pts in arms which is precision and condition damage, just like the necro lines. The traits + minor traits and precision are too important to give up.

What would this build look like trait wise?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIhhu1IjW6elmxGDfCA6xu46c0jjXmZqClD

The traits in spite can be swapped around a bit. I like chill of death for the damage and utility it provides. Spiteful spirit is good for when you need to aoe combo, which is also why i take reduced cooldown on DS skills. But that can be swapped for spectral cooldown if you are going to use a spectral skill. Lifeblast isnt as much dps as a dagger but if you need to pierce i guess you could take unyielding blast. You could take spiteful talisman instead of spiteful spirit, which is what id do if my group doesnt stack enough vuln or i dont need aoe as much.

For curses banshees wail and withering precision are must have for dps. Cripple and weakness helps boost damage from target the weak. Weakening shroud actually does alright damage in a power build and applies bleed and weakness which help target the weak. Plus you will most likely be flashing DS for fury if your group doesnt have perma fury uptime, so weakening shroud will be adding some dps when you do flash. You can take reapers precision instead of weakening shroud if you want. But I dont feel the lifeforce is needed. especially with the rumored boost in lifeforce generation coming our way.

spoj.9672:

I have now also changed my opinion on signet of spite. I will be running it instead of WoC unless i need extra aoe/tagging.

So I was right about “target the weak” and “signet of spite”. ^^

I run a 30/30/0/0/10 build with WoS, BiP and Signet of Spite for several weeks now instead of the 30/10/0/0/30 I used to run before… The damage is definitly higher.

Playing mainly with an axe and DS is fun but it is also frustrating because it deals less damage than a dagger. So I now play with dagger/focus as my main set (I use staff or warhorn alone as my second set of weapons depending on the situation).

Interesting. It actually seems like 3war/1nec/1mes could already be faster than 4war/1mes before the patch.

I’d like to run cof with you guys some time. Good job on the vid.

I keep talking and talking and no one bothers to listen… all people see are raw numbers without seeing the bigger picture…

The argued 30/30/10/10/0 vs my 30/10/0/0/30… let’s break it down then…

Your version:

• At lvl 80 it you need 21.16 precision to get 1% extra critical strike chance, you have 200 precision extra which = 9.45% higher critical strike chance.
• You also have fury from furious demise, which i do not have…
• 2% extra damage for each condition on the target… let’s say you go up to like 10%.

My version:

• 20% more critical strike damage “at all times” (remember at all times…)
• spectral armor when i am low on HP
• 5% more damage when my life force is higher then 50%…

So far your build looks to do more damage then mine, because of the fury… one would argue that fury would be used in a team composition regardless, so you don’t need to get some of your own… but still the up to 10% extra damage on the target beats my 5%… right ?… right…

Ok… here we go now…

This is what happens in the 30/30/0/0/10 build

Lich Form anyone ?

So… you’ll actually go into an overkill… while the 20% critical strike damage i have extra is never an overkill.

But wait… there’s more…

• You know how people keep saying that if you bleed you ruin the DPS for another bleeder ? I have proven that 2 bleeders are ok, but not the 3rd… every time you perform a critical strike hit or you use your blood is power you are actually taking DPS from the 1-2 bleeders that may be present in a team composition.

MOAR !

• You know how i said that necromancer can’t compete straight up for damage with some of the other classes… but !… if a necromancer’s damage = 80% of a warrior’s damage AND can amplify the warriors damage by 20% then they are equal ?
  Amplify the warrior’s damage not only in terms of higher numbers, but also DPS up time and positioning…

• How you may ask… every time you add protection, every time you AoE vulnerability, every time you pull so that a warrior has an easier time you amplify the group’s overall damage… instead of lowering the group’s overall damage by overwriting bleeds…

• Last but not least, you have the ability to go into DS on 5s CD if we do it my way… which guarantees you can go at range almost at any time = DPS uptime in those places that melee is not the way

I now rest my case…
/bow

edit: thank the gaming gods (if the patch notes are real) they will give the much needed power build buff in such a way that there is no more room for confusion… we have power builds – hybrid builds – condition builds…

Nemesis your build may be more balanced but I don’t think any of the points you make have a direct bearing on a 4 necro cof1 run. In that situation 30/30/0/0/10 would appear to be faster. If the group had someone buffing you guys that might change things for sure, but it didn’t. Similarly, if you were running a different dungeon things might change, but you weren’t.

Mammoth.1975:

Nemesis your build may be more balanced but I don’t think any of the points you make have a direct bearing on a 4 necro cof1 run. In that situation 30/30/0/0/10 would appear to be faster. If the group had someone buffing you guys that might change things for sure, but it didn’t.

Well of course not… but the discussion was going towards glass cannon build in general, and that is… not nice in my opinion to teach people something that will get them kicked eventually.

If you’re going for glass cannon necro, it’s better to run 30/10/0/0/30 over 30/30/0/0/10. the constant 30% on crit damage and 5% to damage when you have 50% ds bar filled up is far better than the extra damage given by curses minor trait(2% damage per condition) . imo, having more crit damage is better than having more crit chance, provided you have 45% and up crit chance.

It’s not really a matter of opinion though, it’s about math. You need to strike a balance, but the balance is heavily weighted towards crit chance. 1% crit > 1% crit damage until you have 60% crit, which is when mixing in a balance of crit chance and crit damage becomes worthwhile. Once you have 50% extra crit damage (and you’ll be well above this with full berserker), crit chance is always worth more than further crit damage, until you reach 100% crit chance. You should include whatever buffs you expect to be running of course.

Another way to put it would be that for anyone in full berserker gear, 1% crit chance is always better than 1% crit damage, until capped at 100%.

This is complicated by the fact that 20 in SR gives 20% crit damage while 20 in curses only gives 10% crit, but in max berserker gear the crit chance still comes out ahead.

As for strength of undeath vs target the weak, assuming 4 target the weak necros, if they’re using locust swarm and stacking vulnerability, it’s a constant 8% damage boost, which is better than 5% above 50% LF for the strength of undeath necros.

You know how i said that necromancer can’t compete straight up for damage with some of the other classes… but !… if a necromancer’s damage = 80% of a warrior’s damage AND can amplify the warriors damage by 20% then they are equal ?
Amplify the warrior’s damage not only in terms of higher numbers, but also DPS up time and positioning…

Warriors apply vulnerability on criticals and on GS auto attack, so they’re going to have 25 stacks of vuln anyway.

Nemesis, we’re talking about necro’s own dps… With a 30/30/0/0/10 build a necro will have a better DPS than with a 30/10/0/0/30 build thanks to target the weak and MOAR (as you say) crit chance → overall you do more damage by doing smaller crits but at a higher frequency.

Now the utility skills can be changed at will when you are out of combat. That means if a grab or more vulnerability/protection is needed you can use spectral wall and specral grasp even with a 30/30/0/0/10 build.

The changes we can see in the so called leak show, if they are true, that you were wrong : a 30/10/0/0/30 build lacks crit chance so Anet add a new trait that provides 50% more crit chance when in DS that can be add to Close to Death. The fact that we’ll be able to take both axe training and near to death shows that axe damage had to be improved.

The 30/x/x/x/30 build with axe will unquestionably give the highest hits though, which is what I believe he was shooting for when he originally posted that video. 30k with one ability is 100b territory.

You do a more damage yourself but not by much, and the entire team does less DPS… not by much but the fact remains you are buffing one player and weakening 4 other players. Also there are places that dagger 1 can not be used, so you must DPS at range… which you can’t do too effectively without DS 1.

If this was a numbers game like World of Warcraft we would not have chill, blind, weakness… and we would have damage meter, and tank with taunt.

Because you sacrifice your own damage by 10% the entire team gets more damage by 10%. Because you have done that, you’re overall contribution is higher…

edit: all of these won’t matter after the patch, apparently someone decided to shift the game in the direction that suits me just fine… I say thank you to that someone, who ever he is…

Just a note: SR grandmaster minor does not give 5% extra damage over 50% lifeforce. It gives 20 power per 20% lifeforce, which means 100 power at full lifeforce. (Bugged or bugged tooltip, cant tell)

Another thing to note: When buffed with high might, lich’s dps will be lower than dagger’s against single target after wells stop ticking in lich (i’m not even counting flesh golem here). This is because of lich’s autoattack has low base co-effiecient boosted by extra power. Boosting it further does not yield as good results as boosting dagger.

Also, why is nobody considering 30/15/0/0/25 or 30/25/0/0/15. Those bring a good balance between crit rate and crit dmg and grant you the most dps giving traits from the traitlines.

I was just wondering about it, 30/25/0/0/15 can be a good build, you have the 25 in Curses and the 15 in SR for the spectral armor

Very nice work! Point hopefully made. Tho when you see LFR website for CoF1 it’s still mostly Zerker wars only ping gear.

Rather than just start 1 class only bias. Why not work on fastest group whatever class.
As a necro, I’d like a support war’s banners. A non-support fire/air staff ele to do nice dam & buffs. etc.
Imagine if people realized that there’s not the 1 spec, 1 class only.

Rahveiz.7461:

I was just wondering about it, 30/25/0/0/15 can be a good build, you have the 25 in Curses and the 15 in SR for the spectral armor

This is the build I have been playing recently and it’s great. Good mix of a high crit chance plus some extra survivability from 15 in soul reaping

Sepreh.5924:

Rahveiz.7461:

I was just wondering about it, 30/25/0/0/15 can be a good build, you have the 25 in Curses and the 15 in SR for the spectral armor

This is the build I have been playing recently and it’s great. Good mix of a high crit chance plus some extra survivability from 15 in soul reaping

This is also a good choice. But the weakness helps with more dps. In a standard group of warriors, mesmer, guardian and a necro you get burning, bleed, vuln, cripple and weakness. Which is 10% bonus damage. You can also increase that with blinds and chill. Crit damage is really good but 90% crit damage compared to 110% actually doesnt make much of a difference. When your crit damage is that high you get more benefit out of target the weak than strength of undeath.

Also for our cof run, if we dont run 30/30/0/0/10 then we should atleast run 30/15/0/0/25 for fury. With one person on 30 in SR for stability so they can do the gate controller. But with 4 necro’s on the 30/30 build you can get perma vuln, cripple, weakness and bleed easy for a 8% boost.

spoj.9672:

Looking back on it im really dissapointed in our time. Its only just as a good as a group of mixed classes who know the dungeon reasonably well. Also looking at the footage. I was the only one using BiP and locust swarm to dps. I have now also changed my opinion on signet of spite. I will be running it instead of WoC unless i need extra aoe/tagging.

I dont know how many of you guys read the thread in the dungeon section. We basically got mocked because of the time, which i completely understand. Also Nike from DnT posted a recording of him using his dps necro in coe. The auto attack chain on the dagger achieved a 9.3k crit at one point (Obviously under optimum conditions with 25 might + banners and fury and loads of conditions for target the weak).

Soul reaping is a good trait line for power builds because of the crit damage but its actual traits are more utility and situational. I ran 30 in SR for stability in arah and dungeons where i need it but not because of its dps. Ive switched back to 30/30/0/0/10 and it does do noticeably more dps. Having condition damage in curses is not an arguement to avoid it. The highest dps warrior builds use atleast 25 pts in arms which is precision and condition damage, just like the necro lines. The traits + minor traits and precision are too important to give up.

I did a spreadsheet trying to work out the best dps build a while ago & i got 30/25/0/0/15 & 30/30/0/0/10 as top assuming 3 conditions. This was using dagger/focus/2x well. Also focus was better dps than warhorn. So theoretically agree with what ur saying.

As for the video yes it is a bit depressing, seems like an average pug or worse (to be fair it was actually a pug). No might/fury/banners hurts :S

Nemesis.8593:

You do a more damage yourself but not by much, and the entire team does less DPS… not by much but the fact remains you are buffing one player and weakening 4 other players. Also there are places that dagger 1 can not be used, so you must DPS at range… which you can’t do too effectively without DS 1.

If this was a numbers game like World of Warcraft we would not have chill, blind, weakness… and we would have damage meter, and tank with taunt.

Because you sacrifice your own damage by 10% the entire team gets more damage by 10%. Because you have done that, you’re overall contribution is higher…

edit: all of these won’t matter after the patch, apparently someone decided to shift the game in the direction that suits me just fine… I say thank you to that someone, who ever he is…

if u mean axe this is only if the rest of the group cant get 25 stacks of vulnerability. which is pretty easy to do. plus the axe skill vulnerability takes a while to build up

I previously ran a 30/30/0/0/10 power build and loved it. I tried tweaking it some and put more into SR, 30/25/0/0/15, to maintain TtW and get a slight boost in LF and crit damage plus spectral armor; then I started messing around with 30/10/0/0/30. I’ve settled on 30/15/0/0/25. I’ve personally seen better overall DPS when going deeper into SR, but I think Furious Demise is too good to lose.

However, this may all be irrelevant with the upcoming patch, so perhaps we should hash this out later next week.

Axe training + CtD … if that one doesn’t happen, whoever leaked those notes has dealt us a low, low, blow.

So I was surprised not to see you guys use lich form, blood is power, spite, etc, if the purpose of this was a speed run? (You had time warp after all).

Is dagger auto attack DPS higher than lich form auto attack?

And why was anyone using axe? Could you not just leverage off the vulnerability of WOS and the lich mark?

My pie in the sky expectation for a 4 necro 1 mesmer was that the fights would be: Spite signet for 180+ power, 10% crit 100 precision food.

Use blood is power, drop WOS, go into lich form right as the TW starts, spam 1 and have one person drop the vuln mark to hit 25 vuln, and then burn it.

This video, pardon me if I am missing what is going on, just seemed like 1 really experienced mesmer, and 4 zerker necros doing their own thing.

The COF 1 run really has forced delays built in, so any run is going to have a maximum speed it can be run. I havent parsed it, but I think the metric to think about here is not just overall speed, but speed of each boss kill.

Anyhow just my thoughts.

Rennoko.5731:

So I was surprised not to see you guys use lich form, blood is power, spite, etc, if the purpose of this was a speed run? (You had time warp after all).

Is dagger auto attack DPS higher than lich form auto attack?

And why was anyone using axe? Could you not just leverage off the vulnerability of WOS and the lich mark?

My pie in the sky expectation for a 4 necro 1 mesmer was that the fights would be: Spite signet for 180+ power, 10% crit 100 precision food.

Use blood is power, drop WOS, go into lich form right as the TW starts, spam 1 and have one person drop the vuln mark to hit 25 vuln, and then burn it.

As far as i know, the DPS of lich is not rly higher.
The insane amount of bonus-power you get is countered by the abysmal scaling of lich’s autoattack and the slow attack speed.
Also, Lich form seems to be a bit bugged when youre downscaled or in dungeons (or something like that, i dont know it exactly and i never used it in CoF1.).

But i agree, it seems weird that Nemesis Signet of Locust instead of BiP or signet of spite. (at least for the battles, you could have swapped out the Locust-signet).

Rennoko.5731:

So I was surprised not to see you guys use lich form, blood is power, spite, etc, if the purpose of this was a speed run? (You had time warp after all).

Is dagger auto attack DPS higher than lich form auto attack?

And why was anyone using axe? Could you not just leverage off the vulnerability of WOS and the lich mark?

My pie in the sky expectation for a 4 necro 1 mesmer was that the fights would be: Spite signet for 180+ power, 10% crit 100 precision food.

Use blood is power, drop WOS, go into lich form right as the TW starts, spam 1 and have one person drop the vuln mark to hit 25 vuln, and then burn it.

This video, pardon me if I am missing what is going on, just seemed like 1 really experienced mesmer, and 4 zerker necros doing their own thing.

The COF 1 run really has forced delays built in, so any run is going to have a maximum speed it can be run. I havent parsed it, but I think the metric to think about here is not just overall speed, but speed of each boss kill.

Anyhow just my thoughts.

Yep. I was the only one i noticed using BiP and locust swarm. I didnt use lich because when i came in to help with the last 2 runs i was told dagger does same damage as lich. I dont know how true that is, ive never tested it. Doesnt seem right to me but wasnt gonna argue. Problem was flesh golem was just as useless as i suspected, they got killed instantly in every fight. And to say the mesmer was really experienced is a bit of a overstatement. He new the basics that a lot mesmers fail to use, but there were a few things I would of done differently to help 4 necro’s maximize their potential. It was all a bit of a mess.

Im tempted to post up some builds for the team comp and exact tactics, but I still wouldnt trust casual necro players to do it properly. It would be best to get 5 experienced speedrunners to do the run. The problem is most have given up on their necro’s if they have them and have no interest in doing this sort of pointless run.

RashanDale.3609:

As far as i know, the DPS of lich is not rly higher.
The insane amount of bonus-power you get is countered by the abysmal scaling of lich’s autoattack and the slow attack speed.
Also, Lich form seems to be a bit bugged when youre downscaled or in dungeons (or something like that, i dont know it exactly and i never used it in CoF1.).

When you’re in Lich Form (And I think also in Plague Form) you lose the stats from your weaponry, but not your armor.

Edit: I think the bonus power might only be enough to match dagger’s auto-chain, but Lich form gives about 40% additional crit rate. I’m not sure how relevant that is to a full berzerker set-up (It’s not like you’ll have many more opportunities to sacrifice precision for power / prowess) but it’s still something to factor in.

On a larger balance scale, it’s also a 1200 range piercing attack, so that’s pretty great. But if all we care about is single-target damage, dagger makes a strong case.

Softspoken.2410:

RashanDale.3609:

As far as i know, the DPS of lich is not rly higher.
The insane amount of bonus-power you get is countered by the abysmal scaling of lich’s autoattack and the slow attack speed.
Also, Lich form seems to be a bit bugged when youre downscaled or in dungeons (or something like that, i dont know it exactly and i never used it in CoF1.).

When you’re in Lich Form (And I think also in Plague Form) you lose the stats from your weaponry, but not your armor.

Edit: I think the bonus power might only be enough to match dagger’s auto-chain, but Lich form gives about 40% additional crit rate. I’m not sure how relevant that is to a full berzerker set-up (It’s not like you’ll have many more opportunities to sacrifice precision for power / prowess) but it’s still something to factor in.

On a larger balance scale, it’s also a 1200 range piercing attack, so that’s pretty great. But if all we care about is single-target damage, dagger makes a strong case.

Even if you take your weapon off and compare lvl 79 lich to lvl 80 lich, you’ll notice huge differences in berserker’s gear. Easy way to test this: Go to Malchor’s leap between two temples, find the spot where your level scales from 80 to 79. Then compare your stats with weapon on/off. Then go to lich and compare them with weapon on/off. Do it first without any traits. Then put 30 in spite and notice the VERY interesting results. What happens there, happens with every single transformation skill, though they arent so noticeable unless you min/max stats they boost.

About lich critting: While it is true you can get 40% additional crit rate and it’s great, you can still reach ~80-100% with fury easily, depending on warrior banners and possible sigil stacks and food used. But true, if you minmaxed for lich, you’d want as much power (which sadly scales poorly with lich), crit damage and damage traits as possible.

I also agree that lich is great for situations when you don’t have/want to use DS, but need to be in ranged combat. both of them do huge, consistent ranged single target damage with piercing.

Softspoken.2410:

RashanDale.3609:

As far as i know, the DPS of lich is not rly higher.
The insane amount of bonus-power you get is countered by the abysmal scaling of lich’s autoattack and the slow attack speed.
Also, Lich form seems to be a bit bugged when youre downscaled or in dungeons (or something like that, i dont know it exactly and i never used it in CoF1.).

When you’re in Lich Form (And I think also in Plague Form) you lose the stats from your weaponry, but not your armor.

I have considered the weapons. aswell as the bonus stats from traitlines.
Look at the screenshot; I had the exact same amount of power when i was in lich form and when i was COMPLETELY naked in Lich form.
Just tested it again in bloodtide coast and Cof Explorable (the screenshot is made in CoF):
when youre downleveled and a Lich, the power-stat on ALL your equipment is not taken into account.

RashanDale.3609:

Softspoken.2410:

RashanDale.3609:

As far as i know, the DPS of lich is not rly higher.
The insane amount of bonus-power you get is countered by the abysmal scaling of lich’s autoattack and the slow attack speed.
Also, Lich form seems to be a bit bugged when youre downscaled or in dungeons (or something like that, i dont know it exactly and i never used it in CoF1.).

When you’re in Lich Form (And I think also in Plague Form) you lose the stats from your weaponry, but not your armor.

I have considered the weapons. aswell as the bonus stats from traitlines.
Look at the screenshot; I had the exact same amount of power when i was in lich form and when i was COMPLETELY naked in Lich form.
Just tested it again in bloodtide coast and Cof Explorable (the screenshot is made in CoF):
when youre downleveled and a Lich, the power-stat on ALL your equipment is not taken into account.

It’s more about the transformations capping the stat values they affect based on level if it’s below lvl80. See, it happens to your precision and vitality too, but in lesser extend as you dont reach the cap with your equipment. Lich does not affect your toughness so that difference is just your equipment.

Ah. Somehow I missed how important being down-leveled was to this the first time, and just noticed the weapon loss when I went and tried it out myself.

I’ll look into this further though. Stats capping early would really hurt the effectiveness of some elites, so it’s probably worth a thread in the Bug Forum.

Edit: As for the topic, if that means that Lich isn’t getting its full power boost, the auto-attack probably is hitting for less overall than a dagger chain. I think this would also imply transforming to power up Well of Suffering wouldn’t actually do anything if you’ve managed to hit a cap without its additional Power. Or at the very least, won’t do much if you’re near the cap already.

Edit2: Wow, that thread was made six months ago. Now I really feel late to the party.

spoj.9672:

Im tempted to post up some builds for the team comp and exact tactics, but I still wouldnt trust casual necro players to do it properly.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIbhG2IjW6elmxG9eCA6Ru46c0jjXmZqClD-j0xAYrioRT+DdyrIasthioxqrxUuER127ioVLFQEjBA-w

What would you change on that? I’d be interested in trying this out with some friends and since I know almost nothing about pve I’d love some advice.

Mammoth.1975:

spoj.9672:

Im tempted to post up some builds for the team comp and exact tactics, but I still wouldnt trust casual necro players to do it properly.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIbhG2IjW6elmxG9eCA6Ru46c0jjXmZqClD-j0xAYrioRT+DdyrIasthioxqrxUuER127ioVLFQEjBA-w

What would you change on that? I’d be interested in trying this out with some friends and since I know almost nothing about pve I’d love some advice.

That is the exact build id use on 3 of the necro’s. The gate controller necro would run 30/10/0/0/30 for stability.

Still not sure about elites though. If lich really is bad scaling in cof due to downscaling then i guess it has to be flesh golem.

spoj.9672:

Mammoth.1975:

spoj.9672:

Im tempted to post up some builds for the team comp and exact tactics, but I still wouldnt trust casual necro players to do it properly.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIbhG2IjW6elmxG9eCA6Ru46c0jjXmZqClD-j0xAYrioRT+DdyrIasthioxqrxUuER127ioVLFQEjBA-w

What would you change on that? I’d be interested in trying this out with some friends and since I know almost nothing about pve I’d love some advice.

That is the exact build id use on 3 of the necro’s. The gate controller necro would run 30/10/0/0/30 for stability.

Still not sure about elites though. If lich really is bad scaling in cof due to downscaling then i guess it has to be flesh golem.

There is always option to lich+jagged horror mark+vulnerability mark on slaver before he goes hostile. It might even be better than flesh golem.

Targuil.3741:

spoj.9672:

That is the exact build id use on 3 of the necro’s. The gate controller necro would run 30/10/0/0/30 for stability.

Still not sure about elites though. If lich really is bad scaling in cof due to downscaling then i guess it has to be flesh golem.

There is always option to lich+jagged horror mark+vulnerability mark on slaver before he goes hostile. It might even be better than flesh golem.

Nice suggestion, it also depends on whether we still need to use flesh golem to clear the mobs outside the gate though.