Hello all.
This is one of my most coveted builds, especially for PvP / WvW. Many have asked for it, but have failed to actually make it work the way I do.
The build (minus the gear stats):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZakjG6sxKbw2G4vxB0QNn5aeDkNQAss0WoHeBA-TJxHwAILDY4UAEb/BAPBAA
PvP amulet: Cleric or Sentinels, recommend Clerics
WvW Stats: Nomads, Sentinel, Clerics, Apothecary. Nomads recommended, if not possible do Sentinel.
Reaper Variant (what this build is actually designed for):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjG6sxKbw2G4vxS3gNlx2YBg4H4E8CSNBGBVAA-TJxHwAILDY4UAEb/BAPBAA
Sigil of Cleansing instead of Purity is, IMO, better.
Greatsword is optional. Recommend greatsword though for the AoE blind and pulls.
Dagger is also optional. Replacement can be Axe or Scepter. Obviously recommend dagger.
If you are aiming for max selfish mitigation only swap Blood Magic to Spite for traits 2/2/3, which focus on self boon generation.
Unholy Sanctuary Vs Corrupter’s Fervor depends on if you have healing power or not. No healing power? Corrupter’s Fervor.
How the build works:
1) A combination of all these skills focus on life force generation while in death shroud. So you aren’t completely useless when they aren’t attacking you, you have blood magic to help your allies. In reaper, this is even better. As a necromancer, you can average about 20% life force a second when in the heat. As a reaper, this can be bumped up to 44% on average, the maximum (but unrealistic) scenario of 80% life force a second while in deathshroud. Absurd? Rarely happens though. 44% happens normally though.
2) You can kill people, but only if they are condi based and they are doing it on you. In WvW fights, this is super easy and you can 1 shot people this way. Take 20 stacks of burning and the wrath of the enemy zerg and toss it on the victim of your choice. Observe minimap for confirmed kill 1 second later. The others need to be really squishy or neither of you will budge.
3) Because you are a necromancer, you will naturally attract the hate of players. I don’t know why. It’s easier as a necromancer from my observations. That’s a good thing though!
4) In sPvP you don’t get access to nomads stats. Sentinels is risky because you can’t recover your health bar (the one that matters the most) as well, and since you have high health and low heals you will often be at half health or lower. As clerics you can almost always regenerate all of your health easily which is why I prefer clerics. Also your team presence is stronger with clerics.
The Playstyle:
1) When taking minimal heat (player focus or what not) that is manageable, you flash death shroud. Flashing death shroud means pressing it twice to toggle it on and off quickly, putting it on cool down. Doing this procs all your death shroud traits such as protection, healing when exiting death shroud, stability, etc. Take like 3-4k damage, flash, back to 100% with boons.
2) Don’t waste life force. It’s okay to flash and put it on cool down since we have reduced cool down duration. What I mean is to not sit in it auto attacking when you aren’t being focused or when not in the heat. Leave it and start working on life force generation / healing yourself. Most people sit in death shroud while taking minimal damage which gets them killed because they don’t have enough life force by the time they need it.
“But Sir, what if they start bursting me as I leave death shroud?”
In most cases, you would have died anyway. This is why we take locust signet as our emergency reset button.
3) If you are going to heal allies with #4 DS, do it only after you enter death shroud. Don’t be in death shroud for 5 seconds then decide to do it. Chances are it will be wasted.
4) Proper use of said mechanics allows you to take on 3-4 people on a point in sPvP long enough for allies to come to your aid.
5) Moa is the death of all necromancers. Knowing how to avoid it comes with experience. In most cases in WvW though moa has never really gotten me killed because I’m already so tanky without death shroud.
Combos:
Before entering death shroud, you must gauge the incoming heat wave. 3 Players? 10 Players? Are you going to be alone?
The response for each question can be gauged on how much life force generation you want for the next 10-15 seconds:
Never start with death shroud. You want your heal / locust signet on CD first to maximize your rotation. You usually want to be in death shroud when those 2 skills are on CD, and you want to be out of death shroud as long as your heal and such are available. Failure to do so means entering death… with no shroud.
When your health bar needs a break, Spectral Armor is activated first. This grants high life force generation regardless of enemy amount, so its good against 1-2 players on its own.
Locust Swarm is activated next for larger groups. This is best done against 4-5+ players.
When leaving death shroud for any reason, try your best to leave at least 10-15% left. If you are in incredibly heat this won’t happen, which is fine.
Keep track of your conditions. If you have only like 3 conditions don’t waste your plague signet. You always want to save your plague signet for the most damaging conditions. Typically, you will get the most damaging conditions while you are in death shroud (as when you are out of it you have your heal to clear all of it).
Fight and CC as you wish. I generally chase the ranged fighters while kiting their melee. This means their ranged will have their attention on me in addition to their melee. If I’m fighting their melee only I have less potential hit targets and their ranged is free to do whatever. Unacceptable!
I haven’t mentioned it yet but we take Rune of Svanir because its absolutely perfect for this build. Every once in a while you will turn invulnerable. In most builds, this screws you over. In this build, its the best thing ever. Need to leave early? Death shroud is a stun break and will remove the ice when you wish. Have too many conditions on you? Turn that invulnerability into a 2 second invulnerability and plague signet someone. You can manipulate that rune in so many ways its awesome.
Also chances are if you are that low on health you won’t have that many conditions on you to begin with since your heal and signet would have cleared it beforehand.
You also have -50% chill duration applied to you while gaining chill duration. With reaper, you are almost immune to chill, period. This is huge as you have high CD’s and this will make sure you never have to worry about it again. Also as a reaper that extra chill duration for yourself is a blessing.
It also gives toughness which is nice. Wish it gave vitality though.
Let’s not forget plague form. This is a very, very nice filler for taking on a huge amount of people. The best time to use this is at the start of a huge heat wave (as mentioned before): you don’t want to pop death shroud so early, you want to use your health first, heal up, then death shroud to maximize life time. If you use plague form, your health will drop much more slowly thereby increasing your life time.
The Tanks Stats
I generally have 29k health, 3.6k toughness, and 1,100 healing power. The best part about having blood magic is when I’m low (which is like, what, 8000 HP? lmao) my healing power gets boosted like crazy, making my heals even stronger.
As a reaper, I was able to take the wrath of a 10 man coordinated group by myself for 30 seconds, then began to flee for another 10 seconds before escaping into a tower. No other ally was present. Other classes would have melted without the use of prolonged invulnerabilities. Blocks wouldn’t have worked because they had a lot of unblockable attacks and interrupts thrown.
The Use of such a build
This build can serve 2 important functions:
For WvW, a scapegoat. An actual tank. You are taking the focus and skill CD’s of enemies onto yourself rather than your team mates. To do what I did above is only done to test stats. You are useless without a team. Period. When people are slamming on you, they are not slamming on your DPS oriented friends and thus makes their job incredibly easy.
For PvP, bunker or team support. You have high healing power and can do some nasty burst heals. As a bunker you can contest a point for long periods of time while fearing people out.
For PvE…. uh… healer? At the moment, doesn’t really offer anything except the success of even the worst pug groups.
Questions?
Keep in mind I have done extensive testing (4+ months) for this build specifically so suggestions on using different traits have probably already been done.