Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, i have been messing around lately with the build simulators based on the build a friend gave me. So far i’ve been testing out a new dps build for necromancers that potentially could overthrow the glasscannon setup.

The general idea is to not forgo full zerk since anything over 33% precision is overkill
-> fury + death perception is an increase by 70% precision
-> fury + lich form is an increase by 67% precision

Hence the extra stats in precision should be invested elsewhere to increase our overall damage.

People tend to get valkyrie gear to increase the already high base healthpool mostly because the stat major is power. In my opinion, it not a dps increase since power and ferocity gain remain the same and the hp increase does not help in patching necromancers weaknesses (low armor or mobility, and high hp lessens the effectiveness of heals).

All in all, the damage potential is roughly the same but for no real gain.

Here is the classic zerk glasscanon build i will use for reference, feel free to provide me with a better version.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW3djc0QvN2SD20AHOOwFq5Y3EVBNNajnFOABQLA-TFCEABEcQASU9ntUCykyPDuCA5s/Qb6OA4BBQKgBmaB-w

Please note that this is a wvw oriented discussion, as pvp stats does not allow my build to work as i would like. And minor changes could make this build pve friendly (scholar runes, dagger main hand for LF generation and axe camping for life blast with unyielding blast and unholy fervor)

Raw Stats
power : 2656
precision : 2086
crit. chance : 55.71% base, 75.71% with fury, 125.71% with fury under deathshroud
ferocity : 961
crit. damage : 214%

Assuming 100% crit chance and no might stacks…

Overall effective power is 5686.

Situation 1 – 25 stacks of bloodlust and 5 stacks of Applied Strentgh
power : 3156

Overall effective power is 8361

The main use of this build resides in the CD reduction of wells (-20%) and its protection towards frontliners (3.25 seconds each).
What i find sad about this build is that the other trait in the Blood Line if not usseless, are negligible at best. (Life from death : ~747 heal on a 19k hp character, great…)

Not to mention necromancers are expected to be effective and survivable without stability, breakstuns or even defensive stats (as a novice necromancer i find that quite challenging). All these reasons led me to being quite unhappy with the current meta build for necromancers.

Necromancers excels at long range AoE damage bombing while remaining durable. I believe boon support should remain to classes design for such tasks (elementalists & guardians) since it can hamper our damage potential.

Now, back to the point.
Here is the build i am currently testing : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW3djc0QvN2SD20AHOOwFKZPEDhNVb8swBIAaBA-TFCEABEcQASU9nuUCawVAQKlf5s/Qb6OA4BBQKgB2aB-w

The idea i got from my guildmate was to stack toughness and convert it to power from the trait Deathly Strength.

Death Strenght
converts 7% of toughness into power, 14% when in deathshroud

What i added was the consumable Furious Sharpening stones which converts 10% of toughness into ferocity.

Raw Stats – normal
power : 2330
toughness : 1692
armor : 2659
HP : 19212
precision : 1620
crit. chance : 33.52%
ferocity : 961
crit. damage : 214%

Raw Stats – normal and furious sharpening stones
power : 2455
toughness : 1792
armor : 2795
HP : 19212
precision : 1620
crit. chance : 33.52%
ferocity : 1140
crit. damage : 226%

Situation 1 – in deathshroud with fury
toughness : 1972
power : 2606
crit. chance : 103.52%
ferocity : 1158
crit. damage : -to be completed IG-

other stats are the same

Situation 2 – in deathshroud with fury AND 10 stacks of corrupter’s fervor (+300 toughness and -20% condition damage)
toughness : 2272
power : 2648
ferocity : 1188
crit. damage : -to be completed IG-

Overall effective power is 6069

Situation 3 – in deathshroud with fury,10 stacks of corrupter’s fervor AND 25 stacks of bloodlust & 5 stacks of Applied Strentgh
power : 3148

Overall effective power is 7215

Situation 4 – add 25 stacks of might

Overall effective power is 8934

As i recall in terms of EP, ferocity starts evening power around 3000-3500 power. Since the power level is roughly inside the 3000-3500 i believe the ferocity gain to be an EP increase. And the more power i gain (from might stacking) the more valuable ferocity becomes.

Another thing i enjoy about this build is that every trait from the Death Magic line has its use, be it a dps increase or just QoL (auto condi removal, higher LF generation…).
It may now allow necromancers to go melee, but the armor increase can’t be wrong (i once managed to keep 3 thieves from killing me under 5 seconds, enough to get my party around and making them flee).

Now feel free to comment on this build, test it and apply modifications ! I am aware it is very incomplete but i am in no way a veteran of theory crafting so if someone would ‘format’ this he would be most welcome.

Your turn.

Still digesting the vast majority of your post, but I wanted to point out that it seems you did not address that vitality helps boost total available Life Force. That’s a very important reason why folks choose Valk over Cav.

Is passive defense even worth it today? Iirc, mobs tend to favour targeting high toughness players, no? I may be off base on that, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test it. If so, then Toughness is not where we want to go.

PvE perspective
Converting toughness to power is a viable option in PvE but it also generates a lot more aggro making you take more of the group damage.

The aggro calculation table needs rework. Wearing toughness armor make you the group tank and highest priority target but you cannot be healed in death shroud by group members and the game does not encourage roles like tank and healer. Unless you specifically request a healers while you tank, you could spend your time going down, getting ressed, and making your group angry.

Using toughness to tank has never worked out too well for me because Necromancer cannot withstand high incoming dps due to death shroud forcing missed heals. It can tank short term, like absorbing bursts, but LF generation and DS CD create timing problems for healers. You would need TeamSpeak coordination for healers to time their heals. It is too complicated for most players and completely unnecessary when a war or guard can do better without the hassle.

Weakness, blinds, and protection apparently do not count for much in aggro calculation. And strangely enough, dps seems to generate less aggro than toughness.

I’d take Valkyrie over anything. Life force is our best tool and sometimes just means being able to dps.

Reading my own post reminds me how badly I want aggro formulas to be adjusted. Bunker stats and pets are far over valued considering the cost to dps. A berserker Ele doing 15-18 k should generate far more aggro than some bunker Necromancer doing, maybe, 5-7k dps with toughness conversion.

@Anchoku – Why would you build tanky if you don’t want aggro? Just go full zerk in that case. The whole point of a high armor necro is to tank damage for the team so they don’t have to take as much damage. I play a build with 3k armor and I survive easily even in FotM 50, and I camp dagger/horn most of the time.

Do you realize how pointless toughness would be if you couldn’t get aggro with a high toughness build?

Khristophoros.7194:

@Anchoku – Why would you build tanky if you don’t want aggro? Just go full zerk in that case. The whole point of a high armor necro is to tank damage for the team so they don’t have to take as much damage. I play a build with 3k armor and I survive easily even in FotM 50, and I camp dagger/horn most of the time.

Do you realize how pointless toughness would be if you couldn’t get aggro with a high toughness build?

While it is true that high armor makes tanking possible, i still believe the necromancer’s passive defenses to be inferior to a guardian’s blocks or a thief’s blinds.
More precisely in the context of pve, i wouldn’t dare try to tank dozens of mobs from the molten fractal. I’d rather take thief to blindspam and spin combo or just sandstorm (but that’s unfun)…

Besides it is not really a problem for the necro to draw aggro, its always this more given to eles and thieves.

Please note that what I would like to emphasize is wether a cavalier gear setup provides more dps than the classic zerk meta build.

First Edit : i’ve done a little check over the ferocity that looked a little to high. After review it looks like this build is still underperforming the zerk build… What a disappointment.

Second Edit : what an idiot. The cavalier build was under performing because it’s EP was calculated without the might stacks.
Now the cavalier build (8934) seems slightly coming over the zerk build (8361) with a marginal difference of 6%.

Let us resume the testings….

OP was comparing zerker and toughness dps.

My point meandered but was essentially that
1. zerker is actually more bunker than toughness armor because of the higher aggro on toughness leading to higher incoming damage
2. Necromancer makes a terrible dedicated tank because of DS causing missed heals

Being tanky is not the same as being the tank whose job is to hold aggro for positioning and safe attacking by the rest of the group. The high, sustained, incoming dps will quickly down the Necro who has no sustain when out of DS and cannot be healed when inside.

I play a build with high armor in PvE and trust me, it tanks very well. The problem with the OP’s build (for PvE) is the lack of Blood Magic. You can’t sustain without it.

So yes I wouldn’t play this particular build in PvE because it has no way to sustain through the aggro it generates.

I agree that in pve the sustain may be low, but consume conditions remains the best heal in game for soaking damage from multiple sources pvp wise. The extra defenses provided by death magic only helps to accentuate that fact (condition damage resistance, condi removal etc…)

Nonetheless, death magic provides a high potential of life fore generation, wouldn’t that count as a form of sustain ?

I usually use a cav amaulet for spvp. I tend to like it better than valk which seems very glassy like zerker. Only prob with cav is the no vit u really need to take some runeset with vit in it.

My comments on tanking only apply to group PvE. When playing solo or in PvP or WvW, aggro control becomes a moot point.