Dear fellow necromancers,
A short introduction to myself, I am newly inducted into the Asuran Necromantic Society and have started roaming the lands for barely 3 months. I hail from the land of Crystal Desert and have come to share and learn with all of you.
I would like to put forth here a build that has worked wonders for me and hopefully through discussions with you all, can be fine-tuned and made even better.
This build is centered around the concept of attrition-based fighting style and I have named it Spectral Shroud Skills (SSS). It is a rotation of Death Shroud skills to Spectral skills which refills your life force fast enough for you to rotate back to Death Shroud skill again, while loading your opponent/s with condition damage (bleed). It is for WvW use.
Weapon mainhand : Scepter (Sigil of Agony)increase bleed
Weapon offhand : Focus (Sigil of Bursting)increase condi dmg
Weapon swap : Staff (Sigil of Corruption & Fragility)condi dmg stack & vulnerability
Healing : Consume Conditions
Utility 1 : Spectral Armor
Utility 2 : Spectral Grasp
Utility 3 : Spectral Walk
Elite : Summon Flesh Golem
Item stats focus : Condition Damage (main) Toughness (sub) Vitality (sub)
Full Dire Armor Set with Dolyak Runes Set
Max buff : 3k~ Armor, 30k~ HP, 20k~ Life Force, 1.5k~ Condition Damage
Skill Traits :
6 to Curses : II – increase bleed duration, X – spectral skills increase duration and grant lifeforce, XI – conditions by scepter increased duration.
2 to Death Magic : II – gain retaliation heal skill used.
6 to Soul Reaping : III – reduce recharge on deathshroud skill, IV – reduces recharge on spectral skills, XI – gain stability when deathshroud entered.
Concept behind the build:
Having Life Force is like having an extra HP bar and that gives a necromancer immense survivability, allowing him/her to engage in an attrition-based fighting style where you have time to load your opponents with bleed damage and out-last him in a fight.
Imagine this, how about having two Life Force bars? or three? or more? the potential is mind boggling. How do we go about doing this? Spectral skills does a great job refilling your Life Force. Not to mention their very useful utility effects in WvW. Protection, speed boost, catching, ‘teleporting’, you have it all in these three skills to use offensively or defensively. Very flexible.
With frequent use of Death Shroud, you will want faster cooldowns on your shroud skills which is where the traits come in. you also want the stability buff because you don’t want any of your shroud skills to get interrupted as they have a really long cooldown.
This build does not have many options removing conditions from yourself, which is where the healing consume conditions come in. Flesh Golem was chosen for the elite skill despite the minions mechanics having a bit of trouble as there was no better alternative. When the golem does attack, he cripples, and charges.
Engaging in zerg vs zerg fights, you have great tankiness to survive and the staff provides you with great aoe tagging options apart from your Deathshroud skills which you can rotate to very often with this build.
If you do find yourself in small party fights or even 1vs1 situations, you can handle yourself very well. Even if you do end up losing, know that you held up the enemy for a long while =D you don’t die to burst damage.
Using bleed as your main damage dealer which is your scepter’s Auto Attack! 20% bleed duration from sigil, another 20% + 33% from your traits, gives you a very long bleed duration that just eats and eats into your opponents while they try in vain to take you down =D
Using your Focus’ skills to stack vulnerability on your foes and to chill and debuff them, perfect for keeping them weak and far away from you!
I’ve only been running with this build for 3 days and I can already feel its potential. I have found myself in three 1vs1 fights so far, surprisely all against thieves. Maybe because their class tend to roam more alone? I’ve not gone 1vs1 against any other class though so I can’t say that this build will work against others. But thieves…or at least the three I met…don’t have an easy time against this build XD
I have won two and drew one. Drew as in the thief cloaked and ran off after we traded blows for a long while. I believe I would have won in the end if he continued to stay though. As I did against the other two thieves who stayed…and died =D
For those who love tankiness and attrition-condi dmg fighting like I do, please give my build a try and let me know how it goes for you in WvW!
Also looking forward to critical responses so that the build can be better tuned =D
Lastly, see you guys on the battlefield.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsby6rYkxS8
(edited by EremiteAngel.9765)