Guild Wars 2

I finally got fed up with all my builds being dictated by the annoying foray into Death Magic that Greater Marks necessitated so for my power build, I decided to try out a 30/10/0/0/30 spec but keep Staff in my offhand for its range and utility.

So far, I’m not finding the unblockable part to be all that big a deal. It’s certainly an impediment sometimes, but I can live without it. I miss the AoE more, but even then it’s just forcing me to endeavor for greater accuracy and look for thinner choke points. It does help that I’m running a power build so my autos are somewhat useful, but I still really like the utility of the marks, even if I have to aim them a lot more.

Ultimately, I still think it’s dumb how much harder it is to use the staff without Greater Marks, but it’s still a good offhand weapon without it, at least for power builds.

I go without greater marks all the time. It does indeed make it 2x as hard, but not impossible. You’re still going to cap out at 5 targets regardless of how big those marks are. The only time I run greater marks is when I know my team will need them- be it pve or pvp- usually when they are widely spread out and will rarely get the benefit from the marks no matter how accurate I am. During solo pve, I never ever take them. It’s a waste of a good trait spot. In WvW though, you’re pretty much forced to take it if you ever want to run staff, which is bad, but it’s what we have to live with. One interesting little tidbit I’ve noticed, is that even if you don’t run the trait, the actual triggers are exactly where the circles show, but the active effect sometimes works slightly outside that range. Not a full greater marks range, mind you, but it does have some wiggle room. I use this sometimes to my advantage by placing it between two groups and can not only hit both, but affect allies on both sides. Takes some practice.

I don’t use staff without greater marks basically ever. If you want it as a very small AoE weapon, or are anticipating more single target fighting, then it is fine as long as you are accurate. The Greater Marks is really needed in places where 10 points is not a huge investment compared to turning your weapon from essentially single target into actually giving a decent chance to hit 2-5 players.

I’ve tried doing this quite a few times and really the only thing it made me realize was that I had to possess some sort of clairvoyant ability to make sure my marks were actually triggered, especially when fighting thieves.

If you’re fighting a well played thief, your marks will never trigger without Greater Marks… Ever.

I never go with Greater Marks for pve. But for sPvP and WvW, Greater Marks is a must. Plus, having the toughness from Death Magic is always nice. The unblockable never really helps for pve, but has greater importance in pvp

Staff without greater marks is pure masochism. Plain and simple. The AoE size is pathetic.

I’ve tried using staff without Greater Marks a few times before. I mean seriously tried. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that without Greater Marks, this weapon set is completely useless. The auto attack is to slow for me to even consider this weapon even having one, as it will never hit anything, so the only reason I ever switch to staff is for the marks. With smaller marks you have to lead your target, but more often than not, I’ve had people just simply walk around them.

The day I gave up trying to use staff without Greater Marks is the day I had a thief on the ropes. He had a sliver of HP left. All I had to do was land one mark on him. Chillblains so I could catch up, or Mark of Blood to finish him off, or Reaper’s Mark to drop him with terror. What ended up happening was quite aggravating. He just zig zagged around two of the marks right as I dropped them right in front of him, and dodge rolled (fair enough) through the third, completely avoiding all of them. Seeing as he was a thief, he obviously got away.

My builds don’t usually have the wiggle room to dump two points into staff and I end up rarely using greater marks or even the 20% reduction trait. The result is still a useful weapon just not as useful.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Staff without greater marks is pure masochism. Plain and simple. The AoE size is pathetic.

This. Why would you make things harder on yourself?

I’ve always considered doing this. The thing with greater marks is that it doesn’t contribute statistically to the outcome of the fight. In theory, someone with better aim can do just as much with regular sized marks as someone who uses greater marks. If you are good enough with the staff, you can totally skip greater marks and be nearly just as fine.

Exceptions to this are when you are using it as a support weapon instead of an offensive weapon. The larger radius really helps with Mark of Blood and Putrid Mark.

In WvW i think it is kind of expected of you to use it for access deny and maximum potency in zerg fights or tower/keep capping, and then the blocking part, really important for PvP.

For PvE or watever, well it’s upto you coz it’s just PvE. ^^

You people make elephants out of mole hills. Is it good as it is no… its tiny radius should be as big as greater marks… unblockable part should be with staff mastery.
But its still very much usable in pve… For pvp when you see those tiny graffiti on floor just dodge right over all 4 of them for laughs. If you couldn’t tell if they are blockable or not it would at least be a gamble.

But for gods sake don’t blow this out of proportions there are actual problems with this class(a whole kittening train full of problems) and this isn’t at the top of a list.

HiSaZuL.2843:

You people make elephants out of mole hills. Is it good as it is no… its tiny radius should be as big as greater marks… unblockable part should be with staff mastery.
But its still very much usable in pve… For pvp when you see those tiny graffiti on floor just dodge right over all 4 of them for laughs. If you couldn’t tell if they are blockable or not it would at least be a gamble.

But for gods sake don’t blow this out of proportions there are actual problems with this class(a whole kittening train full of problems) and this isn’t at the top of a list.

Whether or not this class has other more pressing issues, is not the topic in this thread.
Just because there are more aggravating problems that need solving, does not mean we can’t discuss the usage of staff, with or without greater marks.

That would be like saying, we can’t discuss which flavor of ice we like the most, because there are much more pressing issues in the world. Just saying.

Yet majority of text here implies greater marks or gtfo. Yeah… good discussion about nothing in particular. I run mm… they work just fine w/o greater marks. I run some hybrid condition specs for spvp that don’t include greater marks even. Granted in pvp that actually hurts while in majority of pve content having greater marks amounts to little past larger combo field with 1 area being exception ssc where npcs have a tendency to spawn with 5+ ontop of each other. Otherwise majority of content never provides much of difference marks don’t hit all that many targets unless they inherently stack ontop of each other in which case great marks still don’t really put a whole lot on the table.
Again… mountains out of mole hills.

Bhawb.7408:

I don’t use staff without greater marks basically ever. If you want it as a very small AoE weapon, or are anticipating more single target fighting, then it is fine as long as you are accurate. The Greater Marks is really needed in places where 10 points is not a huge investment compared to turning your weapon from essentially single target into actually giving a decent chance to hit 2-5 players.

See, I wouldn’t mind so much except I absolutely need Close to Death for the build, and Foot in the Grave is borderline necessary for fighting Lupi and in WvW. This leaves me with 10 points to spend, so my options are Spite (for the precision to bolster my already slightly-low crit chance and Weakening Shroud to give me an extra trick for surviving in melee range) or Death (I hate Reanimator with a fiery passion and I want Weakening Shroud more than 100 toughness). If I didn’t have to delve so deeply into Soul Reaping, those 10 points may not have come at so high a premium.

Kravick.4906:

I’ve tried using staff without Greater Marks a few times before. I mean seriously tried. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that without Greater Marks, this weapon set is completely useless.

I’m finding this to be hyperbole, at least for me and for my power build.

In dungeons and in WvW, my autos are actually not that bad. I’m probably not often going to hit a mesmer who’s bouncing around like his life depends on it (it does), but they hit really hard and can nail a lot of people in a zerg fight. They’re especially nice if I’m trying to take out a downed player who’s further back in their zerg (Reaper’s Mark will interrupt everyone ressing them even when tiny). In an intense zerg fight, my marks will hit 5 people regardless of size, though admittedly #2 and 4 don’t make for as good support.

Look, I know Greater Marks makes the Staff into a much stronger AoE weapon and that the prevailing wisdom on these boards is to consider the Necro a 60-trait-point profession, but I would encourage you guys to try giving up GM for a while, at least for power builds that don’t rely on the Staff’s damaging conditions so much, understanding that your Staff will become much more of a strictly utility weapon than the AoE monster it can be. I’m not saying this is a great idea in general, but I’ve found it opens the profession up to much better experimentation, allows more flexible building, and forces you to improve your aiming game. I may very well go back to Greater Marks some day (my current build uses Runes of Strength so some extra boon duration would be welcome), but at the moment I’m enjoying having taken back my 10 trait points.

What’s funny is that I used to run staff without greater marks for the first 6 months of the game’s release (I have played necro since beta) and didn’t feel that much of a problem with it, but ever since I started using the greater marks, I could never go back to not using it. Staff without greater marks, is half a staff!

Osiris Shadow.5890:

I never go with Greater Marks for pve. But for sPvP and WvW, Greater Marks is a must. Plus, having the toughness from Death Magic is always nice. The unblockable never really helps for pve, but has greater importance in pvp

ive actually seen my marks get blocked with the greater marks trait in wvw. i asked ‘how the hell’ so many times i just forgot about it.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I would encourage you guys to try giving up GM for a while

Like I said, I’ve tried. Staff is completely useless without greater marks. People just walk around them otherwise. Trying to use staff auto in any situation in PVP is also a waste of time. There are a hundred different things you could be doing that would bring more to your team.

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I would encourage you guys to try giving up GM for a while

Like I said, I’ve tried. Staff is completely useless without greater marks. People just walk around them otherwise. Trying to use staff auto in any situation in PVP is also a waste of time. There are a hundred different things you could be doing that would bring more to your team.

People walking around your marks means you aren’t aiming them properly and greater marks is a band-aid.

Greater marks off:
PvE – Playing like a real man
WvWvW – Hope you like defending keeps since thats your only useful place like that
PvP – bwahahahahahahahahahahaha, didnt know league revive/clarity trolls played GW2 (not thakittens that bad, but you are seriously crippling yourself with the amount of dodge pops that happen).

Greater marks on:
PvE – Do you need a diaper with those training wheels?
WvWvW – FARM ALL THE BADGES!
PvP – Gratz you made your best weapon viable.

In It To Win It.2315:

Kravick.4906:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I would encourage you guys to try giving up GM for a while

Like I said, I’ve tried. Staff is completely useless without greater marks. People just walk around them otherwise. Trying to use staff auto in any situation in PVP is also a waste of time. There are a hundred different things you could be doing that would bring more to your team.

People walking around your marks means you aren’t aiming them properly and greater marks is a band-aid.

If you say so. Doesn’t change the fact that necro staff is a completely useless weapon without that trait. There is no other weapon in this game that is so disabled by not taking its associated trait.

Kravick.4906:

If you say so. Doesn’t change the fact that necro staff is a completely useless weapon without that trait. There is no other weapon in this game that is so disabled by not taking its associated trait.

Yet here I am, finding it far from useless without that trait.

Blaine, you’re talking about PVE, he is talking about sPVP. You live in different worlds called WWW, PVE and sPVP.

No, I’m talking about PvE and WvW. If Kravick would like to explicitly restrict his viewpoint to sPvP, then I wouldn’t disagree with him since I rarely play sPvP. But I play WvW all the time and am finding the smaller mark sizes to be a relatively minor problem considering AoE spells have a 5-target limit anyway and zergs can get packed pretty tight.

I too lived without greater marks for a great portion of my 10 months as a Necromancer. Since I have been using it I cannot live without it. I do not like being blocked. Besides, when I PvE I go with the 10 points into death magic tree for Cure a condition when entering Death Shroud. Great for throwing up blood is power and curing it instantly when I Shroud dance for the fury. Everything to help me stay above 90% health for Scholar runes makes me happy.

Blaine Tog.8304:

No, I’m talking about PvE and WvW. If Kravick would like to explicitly restrict his viewpoint to sPvP, then I wouldn’t disagree with him since I rarely play sPvP. But I play WvW all the time and am finding the smaller mark sizes to be a relatively minor problem considering AoE spells have a 5-target limit anyway and zergs can get packed pretty tight.

I’m talking about WvW and sPvP. PvE is a non issue. You can litterally face roll in PvE with 0 trait points spent and still win.

Saying you do fine doesn’t really tell me anything. Unless you’re willing to make a video of your game play, I can’t even take anything you say at face value. I could tell everyone that I’m the best necro in the game all day every day, but no one would believe me unless I showed proof.

Honestly, I don’t believe for one second you are doing fine in WvW without greater marks. You telling me you’re doing fine suggests to me that all you’ve done thus far is mindlessly run around following a commander icon without much forethought into why greater marks makes staff a viable weapon. Any class on any build can do this and then pat themselves on the back at the end of the day. They can say they did fine, but it doesn’t mean anything when you’ve got a bunch of other people who have a clue and are actually carrying you.

The way you describe yourself and the way you play, you honestly sound exactly like a random zergling. Zerglings don’t really know much beyond following a blue icon. They don’t understand what makes them successful.

You don’t seem to have put much thought into what you, as a necromancer, can bring to your group, or what your role as a necromancer is during a tower/keep siege. Without greater marks, you’re not hitting anyone on walls with those tiny marks. Since you can’t hit them up there, you’re incapable of applying pressure to force people to back off. Without forcing people to back off, your flame ram operators are going to get wrecked. You’re also incapable of blocking a choke with those tiny marks. Outside of hitting cannons and oil, staff without greater marks IS useless, because you sure as hell aren’t hitting players with it. Especially on walls, considering the projectile will just get obstructed or sidestepped.

By not running greater marks, you’re actually doing more harm than good. Its like thieves trying to roam with pistol/pistol. Sure, you can hit people, might even be able to kill the occasional bad player, but its not like you’re actually doing anything useful. More often than not, though, you end up flailing your arms about, while someone with an actual clue drives a spike through your chest. In your case, however, you’re hiding behind a zerg so you don’t actually know how bad running without greater marks is. Chances are, every other necromancer in your group is running greater marks and will do your job for you, so you probably don’t even notice. If your zerg wipes, you just tell yourself its because they had more numbers, rather than asking yourself why you lost, and what you could have done to change it.

Kravick, I started this thread because I’d like to generate a conversation. Every single time I see you post, not just in this thread but in others, it’s with a profoundly hostile attitude. You wield your opinions like weapons, apparently seeking to end the discussion with a single brutal slice.

I’m not trying to present myself as a professional player. Just a player who is interested in staying positive and talking about this fun game with other people who play it. As we are all limited to our own experiences, I speak about my points from that perspective.

In this thread in particular, I’m not even trying to say Greater Marks is a useless trait, or even a bad trait, or even an unnecessary trait. I’m saying that though the Necro already has pretty good build diversity, I’m tired of pretending we only have 60 trait points. I am interested in seeing what our profession is capable of when we take advantage of the full range of options. Just about everyone takes GM, but it’s hard to say whether our reasons for doing so are sound or not without testing them, because it is so often that sort of testing and tinkering that leads to new discoveries. It usually flops, of course, but when it doesn’t, you get stuff like the D/D Ele build that everyone uses these days, which wasn’t popular at all until daphoenix showed what it could do.

Just because something’s different from the popular wisdom doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or right for that matter. It means it bears discussion, where people experiment and discuss. In the spirit of experimentation, I am here seeking different data points. But you seem determined to always have the last word, and you’ll even go so far as to slander my play (which, as you point out, you haven’t even seen) to have it.

Greater Marks is obviously an excellent trait, and the staff’s marks should obviously have the increased area by default. I’m not questioning that. I just wanted to have a good-faith discussion about the pros and the cons of searching around the edges of the Necromancer as it stands. I would love for you to help present either the pros or the cons, whichever you’d like, but please, the hyperbole of which you are so fond is counterproductive. I just wish you weren’t always so quick to put down anyone who might even slightly disagree with you.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kravick, I started this thread because I’d like to generate a conversation. Every single time I see you post, not just in this thread but in others, it’s with a profoundly hostile attitude. You wield your opinions like weapons, apparently seeking to end the discussion with a single brutal slice.

Really? Because this is exactly how you present yourself to me and others on these boards. Every time you reply to me its always with a condescending attitude. Frankly, all of your posts are like this. The only thing I’ve done is be direct and upfront with my feelings. If you take offense to that, I can’t do anything about it. Its not as if they’re even my feelings any way. The general consensus among the majority of necromancers is that staff is pretty bad without greater marks. However, I simply explained WHY staff without greater marks is bad. If you’ve taken to offense to that, so be it. I can’t change how you feel and I’m not even going to try. We wouldn’t have so many people complaining about staff being useless without greater marks if it wasn’t such a problem.

If you started this conversation to generate conversation, then don’t go around and snap at people who answer. This happens quite a bit with you.

Kravick.4906:

However, I simply explained WHY staff without greater marks is bad.

If you’ll note, I didn’t take issue with that. You bring up real, substantive points, but then get all hyperbolic and mar your arguments by taking them to extremes, further than is warranted.

And I apologize if I’ve come off as condescending. My intention on these boards (in addition to procrastination and talking about one of my favorite professions, of course) is to try to help make things a bit more upbeat. It can get rather gloomy around here, and I don’t mean all the discussion of undead minions and blood curses and such. I’m trying to keep the atmosphere positive, but I realize I can veer towards the cloying on occasion.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I’m tired of pretending we only have 60 trait points. I am interested in seeing what our profession is capable of when we take advantage of the full range of options.

Then don’t take staff. I’m sorry but that’s the way it goes. You can make interesting builds without staff, but it is one of our most versatile weapons, and the only one that hits 1200 range… Which is why most necros take it.

If you’re not willing to sacrifice those 10 points (20 recommended for the 20% cdr), then don’t bother taking staff. It’s worse than taking any other weapon: it’s a useless thing taking up a weapon slot.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Just about everyone takes GM, but it’s hard to say whether our reasons for doing so are sound or not without testing them, because it is so often that sort of testing and tinkering that leads to new discoveries. It usually flops, of course, but when it doesn’t, you get stuff like the D/D Ele build that everyone uses these days, which wasn’t popular at all until daphoenix showed what it could do.

Except this is not the same issue at all. D/D was about discovering a ton of synergies that worked well together in a different build. This is like you trying to make a Necro condition build without condition damage.

What you’re “researching” is not only pretty obvious, but has been tested to death and back. Staff without greater marks gives you blockable tiny marks that are hard to aim (since they are ground targeted, miniscule, and with a slight delay on activation) and easy to avoid. Without that or 20% cooldown then you’re better off just auto-attacking with any other weapon.

You’re not going to find any hidden traits or konami codes that suddenly make staff without greater marks one hit kill enemies or have 200% life steal… Greater marks should be baseline on the staff, because without it you shouldn’t use staff. If you want those 20 points from Greater Marks and Staff Mastery, then make a build without staff.

I play PvE exclusively, and I don’t, and haven’t used GM. Dungeon designs don’t require it as you can usually bottle neck or drop the marks directly where you need them without pulls. I’m using scepter more often anyway.

I acknowledge that exclusive PvE and PvE/WvW builds are worlds apart.

Gnat.9405:

I play PvE exclusively, and I don’t, and haven’t used GM. Dungeon designs don’t require it as you can usually bottle neck or drop the marks directly where you need them without pulls. I’m using scepter more often anyway.

I acknowledge that exclusive PvE and PvE/WvW builds are worlds apart.

Even if you’re running PvE only there is one thing you need to distinguish between: Are you trying to “survive” PvE, just do all the content, or trying to be efficient at it – trying to clear content with decent speed/survivability/etc ?

If the first, then yes, you don’t need GM. In fact, you don’t even need gear. I leveled my necro to 80 with a lvl 40 green staff and a horrible build. You can clear almost all content in the game naked with only your weapon – some of it you don’t even need a weapon! Even if it will be incredibly slow.

If you’re trying to be efficient at it, then don’t bother with condition builds. Due to the nature of PvE power is king, and berserker’s is the word of choice. So staff is only there for utility, if anything.

Yes I’m holding out my gold for Power gear incase this balance is actually a balance. When I think of berserker Necro though I just think I may as well play my thief or make a warrior.

I didnt use greater marks for the longest time. However for my present build I can spare the 10 points, and have grown quite fond of to the point I certainly would not want to do without it.

But… I played just fine without it previously. Your marks affect 5 people tops, and the aoe without trait is much larger than the mark, probably the same size as with it. So what are you getting with greater mark?

Unblockable – nice but situational, a person can just evade through the mark too, and they have to blow their block, very rarely had this happen.

Larger – again dodge makes this easy to avoid still. Its better to land it on a person for an immediate nuke, but you can do this without greater mark, it just takes a little more aiming. If you’re missing its because greater mark has sapped your skill (or you never had to develop it). But you can hit people just the same. Try playing a grenade engie where you have to allow for travel time too!

Conclusion: Nice to have but not needed. The problem is once you’re used to it its hard to go back. So kiss those 10 points good bye.

A lot of the cap points in sPvP are the same size as the Greater Marks :P so you can deny access to a point just by laying down some marks, otherwise they can dance around your little weeny mark and still be inside the cap circle heh.

Also i live in Australia, so getting a non-greater mark on a running player with our latency is not the easiest thing. :P

WvW, having a bunch of necros with greater marks spammed all over an area or pasted all over the walls of a tower to stop aoe from above is extremely intimidating and painful, imagine if they were all itty bitty circles, they wouldn’t reach very far over a tower wall. xD

Many of the uses for marks do not fall under ‘aiming skills’ though, some do but not all, many rely on the terrain and layout of the map. If an enemy wastes their endurance bar just to evade a mark of blood because the area is too narrow to avoid it, then that’s already indirectly useful since without greater marks the enemy could have just walked around it. We destroy players endurance, imagine how much time it would take to get that evade back with weakness up.

I don’t like being blocked either.

You certainly don’t need Greater Marks, but in PvE I’ve never found anything better to replace it with. Death magic is too good to pass up.