Guild Wars 2

Rennoko.5731:

I run a similar trait setup exculsively, though I got rid of the “fear on downed” trait, because I just don’t like traiting to die, as that sort of rubs me the wrong way. I much prefer the cooldown reduction on DS skills for D2 and D3 about 2-3 seconds after DS comes off cooldown every time.

I have full tough/prec/condition similar to the video, and even though I have 18500 HP, i hardly notice it making a big difference. The very high toughness makes up for it, and HP is really only worth while if you can either gain Life Force quickly (which you can’t in this build) of if you have to soak condition damage, which you don’t.

I don’t really get why you didn’t use Afflicted X2, Krait X2, and Mad King X2, which with the 40% duration food, Fear trait, and bleed trait gives you 100% fear and 100% bleed. 93% bleeding duration is a horrible waste of our most powerful PVP bleed (barbed prec.). Going over 100% duration on fear is also a horrible waste.

The siphon traits are nice, but the cooldown reduction on DS skills is very important to me to keep chills and bleeds up. The DS 2 skill is just so kitten good at bleeding and chilling, to not cast it every 12-13 seconds. I don’t like the 50% duration fear trait at all, but since the spite tree is complete garbage for a condition build, I will live with using that for my extra duration.

Reapers prot. is also horribly wasted VERY frequently in WvW, and I have considered dropping it because of the lackluster traits in death magic, but when it works good, it works REALLY good. A 4 seconds fear, even if it only connects effectively once every 5 times it goes off, wins fights. I would much prefer if we had control over when it went off, or at least if the game AI was intelligent to know not to blow it when someone uses a ranged disable on you, thus fearing nothing. Mesmer pistol stun from 1200 range….. doh….

I didn’t invest more in bleeding duration so i don’t have the ability to get to 25 stacks on the target… why is that you ask… well by the time you get to 25 stacks on a target in a non PvE environment many things might happen, you might die, IT may die or he’ll just leave or even better cleanse all your efforts. So why would you invest in adding 25 stacks of bleeding therefor benefiting from maximum bleeding DPS when you will not get that very often…

So how about we get the longest possible fear that in truth will benefit far more in a real scenario, not only IT does about 2600 damage in 2 seconds, which is the equivalent of 10 bleeds on the target (so you had the equivalent of 20 stacks of bleeding on the target for that time) it also requires less time to reach this, means less time in which “something might happen”, keeping in mind that bleeds continually do damage on top of fear, fear merely ensures they do the job… You don’t really need to go PvE overkill on a target…

I consider this method more reliable in a real scenario.

Secondly Reaper’s Protection may be wasted at times, at other times it’s what i call “An Opener….”, you might wait for the enemy to make a mistake and move in for the kill, or you might build your traits in such a way in which the enemy is more likely to give you an opening… if the target has 10 stacks of bleeding on him, stuns you thinking he has time to heal/cleans… he gets feared… then DS fear + staff fear and he is dead… maybe one last effort to stability get rid of fear to heal… but corrupt boon will transform that into an extra fear…

4x fear = 4 × 2600 damage (actually more) + 10 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds… about an extra 4 × 2600 (actually way more cause you continue)… You see where i am going with this ?

Anchoku.8142:

I tried running a fear build close to Nemesis’ recommendation and it did add to survivability more than traiting the vitality line. A few thousand extra HP at the start of a battle does not mean much in the long run and traiting the blood line never seemed to provide any significant functional benefits. I have been traiting at least 20 in the death magic / toughness line for the last couple of months after giving up on what I thought was supposed to be one of the the Necromancer’s two specialties; vitality. If healing capacity and HP scaled better, then I might change my mind. It would also be nice if the LF pool also scaled significantly with traiting the blood magic line.

So right now, for me at least, I trait for reducing incoming damage rather than improving my health pool and healing. There is also the effect of agony in Fractals that doubly-kinks the vitality route. More defense or more potent heals/life steals are needed. A bigger HP pool has almost no effect.

I should have been even more detailed in my explanations… but then the video would have had 2 hours, and people would rage over it even more. Thank you for testing it out and understanding it.

MeanMug.2630:

Nemesis,

Thanks for all your efforts……it is very much appreciated!

I have two things I would like to ask clarification on:

1- Although I disagree with most of what Speshal has said, he does have a point that some of the damage provided by this build is dependent on someone cc’ing you, downing you or having stability up. I realize the survivability benefits but, compared to your bleed duration build, I am not sure your damage output loss is as minimal as you are asserting.

In your Fear video, you said that to get the full benefit of the bleed duration, one would need to have 25 stacks of bleed. In the bleed duration video, you stated that if one were to use Blood is Power, the duration boost would turn a 7k damage spell into a 14k damage spell. So I would not need 25 stacks to benefit from the bleed duration spec.

Please clear this up as I am trying to decide between these two and find the Fear survivability comforting when I am trying to move between objectives alone, or in small groups.

2- In your videos, you reference your gear but I am unable to find one that addresses these points:
-Are they all from the same set?
-Are they transmuted from other pieces?
-Do they all require PvE? (I am almost exclusively WvW)
-Do I need to use these pieces (armor) if they are PvE or can other be used?
-If I can use others, what set would be ideal?

Thanks again so much for your contribution to this community!

I keep meaning to put a more detailed description… yesterday i went through 6 SIX ! HOURS of recorded tournament footage. Finally i decided to use 6 tournament matches in which my team doesn’t zerg, i don’t get zerged… there are no idle moments, there is enough class variations, enough fighting locations… many criteria…

Need to make time for that…

So… you use precision, toughness, condition damage gear both for PvE and for WvW, only the runes traits and 1 utility differs.

As for bleeding, if you aim towards 25 stacks of bleeding you will achieve an overkill… not only would you rarely get a chance to get your 25 stacks of bleeding on the target since it may die by then, you might die by then, the target might leave or cleanse everything… but you also don’t need 25 stacks of bleeding to kill that target…

So how about we get the longest possible fear that in truth will benefit far more in a real scenario, not only IT does about 2600 damage in 2 seconds, which is the equivalent of 10 bleeds on the target (so you had the equivalent of 20 stacks of bleeding on the target for that time) it also requires less time to reach this, means less time in which “something might happen”, keeping in mind that bleeds continually do damage on top of fear, fear merely ensures they do the job… You don’t really need to go PvE overkill on a target…

I consider this method more reliable in a real scenario.

Secondly Reaper’s Protection may be wasted at times, at other times it’s what i call “An Opener….”, you might wait for the enemy to make a mistake and move in for the kill, or you might build your traits in such a way in which the enemy is more likely to give you an opening… if the target has 10 stacks of bleeding on him, stuns you thinking he has time to heal/cleans… he gets feared… then DS fear + staff fear and he is dead… maybe one last effort to stability get rid of fear to heal… but corrupt boon will transform that into an extra fear…

4x fear = 4 × 2600 damage (actually more) + 10 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds… about an extra 4 × 2600 (actually way more cause you continue)… You see where i am going with this ?

As for the gear, it can not be obtained from WvW, you need to do dungeons for it or buy it… it’s the “Khilbron’s” set… but i don’t recommend that, i don’t even mention it in general cause it’s almost 60g.

And yeah you can transmute it if you want, make it look like you want it… you can get it from Arah or Twilight Arbor, but you can make it look like CoF if you want…. as long as they have the stats precision/toughness/condition damage it’s all good.

Rennoko.5731:

Keep in mind you can retain 100% bleed duration and 100% fear duration, unlike what is shown in the video. So you can have a max duration bleed build and max duration fear build. I mentioned it above with runes. Because this build has zero power, the gear setup it uses would be Condition/Toughness/Prec, which can be karma bought or dungeon bought, or TP bought.

The only comment I would make, is that this build is lackluster compared to a hybrid build in PVE. The mobs in PVE stun/daze all the time, so reapers protection is horribly wasted, and the fear damage is negligible on a boss, or even IMMUNE. WvW wise it is my favorite build to run (a variant, but relatively close).

Yes… it’s a WvW dedicated build, the introducing the conditionmancer is for PvE… and it’s a little bit different… because like you said, and i said… and many before us said… monsters are different then players, therefor different ways of fighting is required.

…answering SPESHAL

1. You spent several traits, runes, and gear on getting 6 potential fears and for those fears to do ONE extra tick of less than 2,000 damage on ONE target.

They do 1 extra tick, two ticks in total for 2600 damage and they also ensure that my average of 10 bleeding stacks do not get healed through or dispelled from my target for 2 seconds, putting the total damage over 2 seconds at 5200… if i continue with a second fear (staff) that would double that… would put my target at 10400 damage, if he was at half HP when i started this combo, he would probably be dead…
This is why fear is good… it’s like saying “stealth for thieves does nothing… it doesn’t do damage…”. Thieves have stealth to ensure their damage being done, we have fear to ensure our damage being done.

2. One of the fears is on a 90 second cooldown and is not available on demand. Two require you to be down. Another one REQUIRES the other person having stability and you successfully landing Corrupt Boons on them.

The one that has a 90 second CD is what i call an opener, i put 4-5 bleeding stacks on the target… the target stuns me… big mistake, you just signed your own death… 4 second fear = 5200 damage just from the fear + the same from ~ 10 bleeding stacks = 10400 damage, if he breaks it with stability… “hahaha… you fool…” corrupt boon extra fear + 2 more sure fears (1 from DS 1 from staff)… 90% of the targets die from that…
The two that require you to be down, makes the necromancer downstate as viable as thief or mesmer downstate, prevents stomping as well as providing a lot of damage… more damage then the mesmer’s abilities that’s for sure…

3. ONLY 1 of your 6 fears works if your opponent has stability and that requires you to have Corrupt Boons off cooldown and land it successfully.

You forgot the one from staff

4. Your own EDITED video didn’t highlight 4 of those fears doing much of anything that made a difference.

I was talking saying this video is designed to show the survivability of this build, not it’s damage… i have other ones, which i linked in the annotations that show it’s damage… and i also said i will have SPvP ones that will show the build’s potential for 1v1.
You really don’t know how hard it is to tab through targets so fast at 25 frames per second while recording such massive WvW battles, i have to monitor so many things… can’t focus… also the footage was edited, sometimes it was after 3-4 hours of WvW-ing in which we just zerg or got zerged or just walk around… tension was high, attention started to drop…

5. You make fun of wells…yet you use one.

[b]I make fun of wells as a potential build, a well’o-mancer build would be futile… if you count on doing damage with your wells. I use wells for support, all my damage comes from my weapons…[b/]

6. You claim the cooldowns are too long yet you waited longer than 45 seconds between applications of Epidemic and Corrupt Boons in virtually the entire EDITED footage. Corrupt Boons has almost the same cooldown as my wells….Plus, YOU use a well with an even LONGER cooldown than mine.. lol

Yes… i don’t blindly spam buttons in a crowd and hope for the best… i wait out, i pick my targets then i decide… The point is that this build allows you to do this… that’s what the long footage was all about.

7. Wells have shorter cast times and provide area denial…break up front lines…sabotage other professions area buffs…etc…mine also corrupts more boons on more targets.

You would think they corrupt more boons, but for that to happen they need to stand in that well for 5 seconds, who does that ?… also yes… took you 5 seconds to get their boons of, and now they have placed them back, your well is on CD, what do you do now ?… Area denial ?… let’s see you get charged by 2 players and you put all your wells down, will that stop you from dying ?

8. You use Plague Elite sparingly (probably because it has zero range…what did you say about your build’s great range?). Yet a wellomancer with Lich form would be devastating opponents regularly with it from much greater range.

I am not even going to comment on this until you show us how you devastate people in Lich form… i could say i can do a million damage with a hidden magical fear, do you believe me ?.

I use Axe and Dagger O/H, so you have slightly greater range with the scepter, but, in your own video, there was almost always someone withing the 600 range to hit with an axe.

Axe and dagger O/H, exactly what i tell people not to do… so axe and dagger O/H and you use wells as utilities… traited how ? what gear ?… berserker ? you would die from random AoEs, soldiers ? you would do almost no damage… actually… no damage… You spam axe 1 ?… you channel axe 2 every 8 seconds and hope the target doesn’t dodge / move ?… When you are at/on a gate, you do… what ?… you don’t have range…

You have ZERO mobility. I can spectral walk to chase someone…or get in range…and then portal to get away. I can exploit z-axis for which there are many in this game. I can also get to a point or help someone faster…You can’t.

Chasing people alone in WvW gets you killed, chasing people with other people… you get speed buff anyway

My LF pool is greater than yours and does tons of damage while also giving greater survivability. Your LF generation is horrible, the pool is smaller, and you do no damage in DS.

Your LF poll does tons of damage… Again… vague speculations, i ask for traits… gear… weapons… utilities, clear scenario… not fantasies

BTW, I’m not your typical power build. I get 18+ seconds of protection at 50% health…so my survivability and mobility murders your extra 800 toughness.

Conditions ?…. go through protection, why does 18+ seconds of protection give you more mobility, where do you get your mobility if you use a well’o-mancer build… Please give me your traits, gear, weapons and utilities… you can’t simply chose all the skills you want and put them into one… you don’t have 300 trait points or 20 utility slots…

You claim power builds don’t use condition damage which is patently FALSE. Barbed precision, dagger 5, DS 2, and mark 2 all give bleeding. In fact, my bleeding damage adds up to much more than your piddly fear damage.

Oh god… the more i answer you the more i realize you don’t understand the necromancer class at all… You compare things that shouldn’t be compared, you use bleeding in a power build, you call it power build not hybrid build… you would use a hybrid build in WvW… you still have not said your traits, weapons, utilities and gear… At this point everything i go on is everything you say you can do without proof, and i’m starting to see a lot of “impossibilities” .

As for a 3 v 3 scenario, you would be in very sorry shape against me and my team. I could just pop Lich and kill 1-2 of your guys.

Hahahahaha… o m g… ok i won’t answer you anymore sorry… if you pop lich form i will kill you in the next 5 seconds and you won’t be able to do much to me… and i won’t even tell you how

Or I could burst you with the axe/dagger while spreading weakness and vulnerability. I could add further LF and conditions with my marks and then burst you more with my piercing and vulnerability stacking DS#1. (I also have the same 2 fears you primarily use..they just don’t last an extra second or do a little damage.)

and i stay afk and let you do all that… Want to duel some ?… i am currently undefeated in duels for about 4 days now… except for… Mufasa the bunker elementalist, that guy is unreal, the build is OP, everything is upsetting about that scenario lol…

Oh yeah…I also have those wells…I’ll just wait for you to dodge some of my burst which drains your endurance. Then, I’ll chill/cripple you and drop wells on you. Other professions may be able to escape wells, but not YOU and your build…lol

Why would i want to escape a well that doesn’t do that much damage on me, why would i want to leave since i just dodged your burst and i am safe for the next 8 seconds… you can pew pew me if you like, wells will be gone soon and you are mine…

Fighting my 3 man team would at least give you a chance to showcase 2 of your fears because you would be going DOWN…except of course, if one of my teammates has stability…then your 2 down fears are worthless. Even if they hit…how many times would you actually be able to rally????

Ok then… you bring 3 more… i bring a friend… sounds fair ?…

Let’s think of your best case scenario…You succeeded in building stacks of conditions and landed a successful epidemic and also landed your 90 second cooldown fear on me or my teammate who cc’d you…Big deal…I could just heal to remove all conditions or use my staff/dagger 4 to xfer them back to you. I also have an added fear break with spectral walk..so gg to you.

You are trying to describe how you can 4v1 me ?

Oh…and best of all…even if things go wrong and my 2 other teammates suck…I can just spectral walk out of there and fight another day.

What are your options again???

That’s what I thought.

If you’re having fun with this wacky build…more power to you (pun again?)

I’ve explained enough for people to decide on their own.

People have nothing to decide upon, you have shown no build, no gear… no traits, no utilities… just vague speculations and you call them facts

I will stop now… continue later on… I will as i promised answer everyone individually… but now i have to eat, and finish the SPvP video… been working on it for 3 days now.

I have about 6 hours of tournament footage recorded… hopefully i will make it today… one can only hope.

Thank you all for your input and contribution.

I can vouch for Nemesis when he talks about how hard it is to pick people out of a zerg for epidemic. In my tier the zergs are huge and I am very good at using epidemic with a beast of a computer but with people dying so quick and cleansings its not that simple as some might think.

Just tested this spec its the bomb, I altered the spec a bit but the result is virtually the same, sometimes terror even ticks 3 times. The terror ticks are nasty lol, ticking for 1282, thank you for this man it made my necro fun again!

Just for info incase anyone is trying to get the armour if you goto Orr karma merchants at the Cathedrals you can get a few of the Condition/Toughness/Precision armour for Karma.

Tactician Deathstrider at Cathedral of Glorious Victory (Straits of Devastation) does Helm, Mantle & Leggings
Historian Vermoth at Cathedral of Zephyrs (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Brutefur at Cathedral of Eternal Radiance (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Surefoot at Cathedral of Verdance (Cursed Shores) does Gloves
Keeper Jonez Deadrun at Cathedral of Silence (Cursed Shores) does Mantle, Gloves & Leggings
Crusader Benson at Arah Entrance (Cursed Shores) does Leggings.

The only two armour items you cant get for Karma is Garb and Shoes. But they should be easy to get via some Dungeon runs.

I also tried this build out and it is really good and you do some nice damage output. Survivability you have to watch when your in the thick of it and you need to be more aware of your surroundings than when in a full PVT build. But in full PVT you lack the damage that this brings and with this build your still tough enough and can still output a good bit of damage if played correctly with your rotations.

Nemesis,

Please save your time/energy for this amazing and constructive discussion. I don’t want to discount SPECHL’s opinion, but THIS discussion is about your Fear build and we are all clear that he disagrees with it as a viable build. No need to continue to address his doubts/concerns.

So, as I see it, the ONLY difference in your build and Rennoko’s is Soul Reaping (10) and Rune selection. Is that right? I am building toward a Fear build and don’t want to overlook any subtle differences.

Thanks again for your contributions!

I’ve been following this thread for the past couple of days, I would love to see some details on SPESHAL’s build and gear, since he seems to go on………………. and on……………. about off topic material and hurling abuse at Nemesis, who obviously has put allot of time and effort into helping others achieve their best. I personally appreciate it as a new lvl 80 necro still learning the ropes, this guide is very useful and works wonders.

Im still working on exotic gear but got most of it, gear from TA, fractals rings, and just bought 80 rares off the TP to fill in the slots for the mean time. Played around with this fear build and loved it, my main is a guardian an I must have switched build around 100 times before finally landing 1, I started messing around with Lopez’s condition build which is similar to this minus the fears, I think I will land somewhere in-between but still will do some crazy damage from fears and live to tell the tale.

One thing I don’t like though and that’s the mobility, I play mostly WvW with guildies and do small group tactical work and we hate zergs, generally our objective is to divert the zerg. My trouble is I can’t seem to get away fast enough if im just on the edge of death and need an escape.

Also what food are you using for +condition duration? having trouble locking it down with my short casual game playing lol.

Scarran.9845:

Just for info incase anyone is trying to get the armour if you goto Orr karma merchants at the Cathedrals you can get a few of the Condition/Toughness/Precision armour for Karma.

Tactician Deathstrider at Cathedral of Glorious Victory (Straits of Devastation) does Helm, Mantle & Leggings
Historian Vermoth at Cathedral of Zephyrs (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Brutefur at Cathedral of Eternal Radiance (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Surefoot at Cathedral of Verdance (Cursed Shores) does Gloves
Keeper Jonez Deadrun at Cathedral of Silence (Cursed Shores) does Mantle, Gloves & Leggings
Crusader Benson at Arah Entrance (Cursed Shores) does Leggings.

The only two armour items you cant get for Karma is Garb and Shoes. But they should be easy to get via some Dungeon runs.

I also tried this build out and it is really good and you do some nice damage output. Survivability you have to watch when your in the thick of it and you need to be more aware of your surroundings than when in a full PVT build. But in full PVT you lack the damage that this brings and with this build your still tough enough and can still output a good bit of damage if played correctly with your rotations.

Scarran….thanks for this! Can you tell me the set names that these pieces are part of? I want to have a certain lok at 80 and would like to know how much I will need to transmute if I am mixing and matching.

blc.7963:

Rennoko.5731:

Runes are as follows:

2xAfflicted
2xKrait
2xMad King

Are the extra 10% condition duration worth not going 3xAfflicted + 3xKrait (110 condition damage)?
All in all, if you really feel the need for those 10%, you can always go to Givers weapons.

Absolutely it is worth it. If you need the extra 10%.. plus it helps all the other conditions too.

And if you start talking about the giver’s stuff, it takes your primary stat away which is 90 condition damage or 180 condition damage plus alternate stats I do not like. Just taking a giver’s weapon would cancel out the bonus condition damage you added in. (they are terrible btw, stat distribution wise).

Nemesis.8593:

I didn’t invest more in bleeding duration so i don’t have the ability to get to 25 stacks on the target… why is that you ask… well by the time you get to 25 stacks on a target in a non PvE environment many things might happen, you might die, IT may die or he’ll just leave or even better cleanse all your efforts. So why would you invest in adding 25 stacks of bleeding therefor benefiting from maximum bleeding DPS when you will not get that very often…

-Shrikin the post

I am not trying to imply that the reason to take 100% bleeding duration over say 93% is to increase your chances or allow you to stack up to max bleeds, the reason is to allow barbed precision to get a second tick in, as opposed to 93% duration, which does nothing for it.

Each crit has a chance to proc barbed precision, and at 100% duration you get two ticks instead of one. This procs on AOEs and everything else, and since you are running a 50%+ cirt rate…. In my opinion you either go all the way to 100% to take advantage of this, or take undead runes and use pizza to increase your other bleeds and get the increased condition damage (ignoring the potential of barbed precision double duration).

Despite the more argumentative posts in this thread, I just wanted to say that this build and the tutorial encouraged me to use my last slot to start up a necro. Nice Work! Knowing that I spend most of my time leveling in WvW, but that I am going to need to PvE at times, would you suggest leveling with your conditionmancer build and switching to this at 80? Or is there a better leveing build for a necro than conditions?

MeanMug.2630:

Scarran.9845:

Just for info incase anyone is trying to get the armour if you goto Orr karma merchants at the Cathedrals you can get a few of the Condition/Toughness/Precision armour for Karma.

Tactician Deathstrider at Cathedral of Glorious Victory (Straits of Devastation) does Helm, Mantle & Leggings
Historian Vermoth at Cathedral of Zephyrs (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Brutefur at Cathedral of Eternal Radiance (Malchor’s Leap) does Helm & Leggings
Lightbringer Surefoot at Cathedral of Verdance (Cursed Shores) does Gloves
Keeper Jonez Deadrun at Cathedral of Silence (Cursed Shores) does Mantle, Gloves & Leggings
Crusader Benson at Arah Entrance (Cursed Shores) does Leggings.

The only two armour items you cant get for Karma is Garb and Shoes. But they should be easy to get via some Dungeon runs.

I also tried this build out and it is really good and you do some nice damage output. Survivability you have to watch when your in the thick of it and you need to be more aware of your surroundings than when in a full PVT build. But in full PVT you lack the damage that this brings and with this build your still tough enough and can still output a good bit of damage if played correctly with your rotations.

Scarran….thanks for this! Can you tell me the set names that these pieces are part of? I want to have a certain lok at 80 and would like to know how much I will need to transmute if I am mixing and matching.

Below is a picture of what the full set from the Orr karma merchants look like, I havent adjusted any colours of it this is what it looks like default. And remember the knee high boots wont be there and the garb/chest piece as you cannot get Condition/Toughness/Precision in those.

http://snag.gy/kRGjd.jpg

To be honest its not the nicest and I did transmute mine. I decided to go more for the looks of the blue invader set from WvW which can be got very cheaply. Below is what the blue invader set looks like. Not very dark and Necro like but it does me as I hate most of the masks in the game and its hard to match the colours with my blue faced Sylvari.

http://snag.gy/EDfOw.jpg

I leveled with minons out all the way, with staff…. Pretty sure I didn’t even know about weapon switch until I was level 60 or so. Minions are boss for leveling in my opinion. Necro is also a very fun class to level because you can take on most any situation with ease.

Prett sure I used DS a total of 10 times before level 60 as well… forgetting that I had it, and only remembering when running for my life. Yeah I was pro when this game came out…

Nemesis.8593:

…answering SPESHAL

…The one that has a 90 second CD is what i call an opener, i put 4-5 bleeding stacks on the target… the target stuns me… big mistake, you just signed your own death… 4 second fear = 5200 damage just from the fear + the same from ~ 10 bleeding stacks = 10400 damage, if he breaks it with stability… “hahaha… you fool…” corrupt boon extra fear + 2 more sure fears (1 from DS 1 from staff)… 90% of the targets die from that…
The two that require you to be down, makes the necromancer downstate as viable as thief or mesmer downstate, prevents stomping as well as providing a lot of damage… more damage then the mesmer’s abilities that’s for sure…

Ok, regardless of what beef you have going on with speshal, I can’t agree with any of this. Reaper’s Protection as an opening I get but:

Stability does not break stuns. In fact, there are only 3 utility skills that break stuns AND grants stability. Stand Your Ground, Armor of Earth, and Mantra of Concentration. MoC is even less relevant to your argument because stability only lasts 2 seconds (which means if you have the slightest bit of lag, or was in the middle of activating another skill, your window to corrupt boon will be gone), and MoC can be used twice.

I’m not saying Corrupting stability is bad per se, but this whole argument of ‘chain fearing’ someone who broke out of fear via stability is faulty; in actuality this will only work against guardians and eles; but mostly, scrubs who think stability breaks out of fear.

Secondly, in WvW, downed2 is terrible. Stomps are dangerous to do, and much often than not, people will dps down a downed player rather than stomp. Fearing 1 target will probably just ruins someone’s chance of getting loot from your soon to be dead body.

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

But how does it actually benefit you, or this build, unless you plan to fear suicide bomb into a group of enemies (which is actually quite undesirable). Much better off with any of the other traits tbh.

Derk.3189:

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

But how does it actually benefit you, or this build, unless you plan to fear suicide bomb into a group of enemies (which is actually quite undesirable). Much better off with any of the other traits tbh.

Not the point of my post. My point was, it is very doubtful the fear from Fear of Death will cause your opponent to go beyond 900 range from you. (I was just testing, it seems like the range is a little less than 600, actually.)

I can take a stab at it though. If in a close fight, your opponent goes melee and just manages to finish you off, it will interrupt any combo skill they’re using as well as doing a nice shot of damage. It also clears the area immediately around you from any melee enemies, so it can give you a second to pick and call a target or for allies to dive in and revive you without having to jump directly on top of 2 or 3 mobs.

Would you be better off with other traits? Maybe! I don’t know! But there’s a couple situations it could be useful in.

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

But how does it actually benefit you, or this build, unless you plan to fear suicide bomb into a group of enemies (which is actually quite undesirable). Much better off with any of the other traits tbh.

Not the point of my post. My point was, it is very doubtful the fear from Fear of Death will cause your opponent to go beyond 900 range from you. (I was just testing, it seems like the range is a little less than 600, actually.)

I can take a stab at it though. If in a close fight, your opponent goes melee and just manages to finish you off, it will interrupt any combo skill they’re using as well as doing a nice shot of damage. It also clears the area immediately around you from any melee enemies, so it can give you a second to pick and call a target or for allies to dive in and revive you without having to jump directly on top of 2 or 3 mobs.

Would you be better off with other traits? Maybe! I don’t know! But there’s a couple situations it could be useful in.

Its really useful in SPvP, where communication will often allow an ally to come to your aid, before you get downed, and traits like Fear of Death buys precious seconds to keep you alive. Just as you described.

Again, I absolutely question its use in WvW, even if you clear away your melee attacks (which shouldn’t be many because: this is a control build that is good at putting distance between you and your enemy, and that there are less melee attackers in WvW than ranged attackers).

Nesso.1806:

It’s a nice fear build, but I much prefer the fear/might stacking build that was posted around here a few weeks ago (with some minor personal trait modifications for myself).

It has nice survivability, decent LF generation, and might stacks help for big numbers in both power and condition damage. Nothing like fearing for 1.4k a tick for 2 seconds while wailing for 3k LF crits. Not to mention the AE mayhem that a full staff rotation does with the spec…

If that is how you find yourself owning, then go for it

Rennoko.5731:

Dietzen.6127:

BTW, I’m not your typical power build. I get 18+ seconds of protection at 50% health…so my survivability and mobility murders your extra 800 toughness.

Care to share your build? For inspiration and whatnot.[/quote]

I am sure he is using runes of the forge, which give protection for 10 seconds at 50% HP. And he has spectral armor from the DS tree, which give 6 more seconds, so with some toughness tree points, he gets around 18 seconds.

BTW, the post up a few was insanely hostile, take a chill pill. A power necro build is going to whomp a condition necro build every time. So talking about how you would pwn him is waste of time. I am sure he knows this build would suck against a power necro build.

I personally think counting downed fear, and a fear while going down, and reapers protection as accessible fears in the build is a misnomer, and makes a niche thing sound like a strength. There is nothing wrong with traiting for 100% fear duration if you match it in such a way that you do not punish the rest of your conditions. Staff and DS3 are up a lot, espeically with the CD reduction, and the extra damage is nice in a condition build.

Also I wouldn’t take his video as a classic example of the build working well. No movement utilties is in my humble opinion a serious fail, and not using DS2, and epidemic constantly is also fail (long AOE chills). Just because his video shows him not playing it right, doesn’t mean 100% bleed 100% fear is bad. Again, the downed state fear/long cooldown stuff is very niche/wasted. I also hate* corrpution boon because of its long cooldown. (compare it to BIP and epi).

While I cannot categorically say a fear/bleed/condition build (similar to this one)works better than power builds in wvw, it has given me a much better place in team fights because of the access to more control, and longer game changer conditions (like chill). Power necros still geat fears, but mine come off cooldown faster and last much longer. [/quote]

I was trying to prove only two points with everything i said, it appears i haven’t manage to get through this time in my video. One… you are survivable enough to not be collateral damage, secondly because you are survivable enough to not be collateral damage while you sustain the fight with an epidemic here and there, you have the time to carefully chose your targets in the crowd and bring them down with a fear combo…

Necromancers don’t have constant AoEs they can spam like elementalists have, so our role is not to go in a crowd and start spamming even without any target selected and still contribute… our role is… can be… we are effective at exactly what i was trying to prove. If you try different paths in my opinion you will be lacking.

MeanMug.2630:

So I really like the comparisons and am finding it very helpful. Please keep contributing in a positive way and I should be piling up stacks of bodies sooner rather than later.

Rennoko….do you have any vids or a link to your build? I am anxious for Nemesis to jump back in and discuss the changes you suggested. I think you have tweaked some things that will give more “up time” to abilities that you have invested in, which I like. I don’t like investing heavily on abilities that are “niche” unless they are great. I really like the “no you don’t” fear that Nem shows to protect against the “i win” thief opener.

Keep it coming…….

Exactly… you get the “no you don’t” and you also get the “i have you now” as soon as you see “an opening”. That is all i wanted… and i don’t go for as much bleeding duration as in PvE or even TPvP because there will be so many conditions on the target anyway that sometimes all you need to do is nudge an enemy off the cliff, he has the conditions on him… he is about to cleanse them, so he uses stability to be sure he gets to do that… you spot him… corrupt boon + fear + fear… epidemic before he dies, DEAD !… and you are free to move on…

You can also do that while staying in and around constant shrapnel damage that is on the battlefield… the damage that is being done by classes that can afford to constantly blindly spam AoE in a crowd.

lessurl.6107:

I’d been toying with the idea of trying a fear build recently also. I have always found myself playing power builds (I’m a serial respeccer so have tried a few) and had just settled on one I quite liked (I usually judge them by running around solo in wvw and seeing what I can accomplish), but this inspired me to give conditions a try for a change.

I’m a cheapskate though, plus I am not a pve fan, so I don’t have access to (and am certainly not paying for with the prices they are at) the chest, boots, accessories and staff. I filled the staff/chest/boots with rampagers instead and used rare accessories.

So my stats aren’t quite as good as those listed above, but I did go for the 100% bleed and fear duration variant in the runes.

I have to say I’m enjoying it so far, considering I’ve never played a condition spec before (and hence am making a lot of mistakes) it’s proving pretty effective. For a condition build you can put out a pretty nice burst using fear. Using corrupt boon to turn stability into fear is particularly satisfying.

I have to say though, I think I agree about the lack of usefuleness of the fear on being downed. I was never downed when I found a 1v1 (I’m sure I will be, but it wont happen often enough to make it worth it) and in a 1v2+ the fear when you go down isn’t going to save you. I think I’ll change it for the DS skills cooldown reduction as that seems like it will be more useful to me.

Go into Blood Magic nr III and nr V then, will make you constantly siphon health and have permanent regeneration alongside the other mark of blood from staff 2. You lose the “always 2 second fear 2 tick fear” which is insane when defending a keep.

Rennoko.5731:

MeanMug.2630:

So I really like the comparisons and am finding it very helpful. Please keep contributing in a positive way and I should be piling up stacks of bodies sooner rather than later.

Rennoko….do you have any vids or a link to your build? I am anxious for Nemesis to jump back in and discuss the changes you suggested. I think you have tweaked some things that will give more “up time” to abilities that you have invested in, which I like. I don’t like investing heavily on abilities that are “niche” unless they are great. I really like the “no you don’t” fear that Nem shows to protect against the “i win” thief opener.

Keep it coming…….

I would love to do a video one day, but considering how much suffering my computer does when the screen has more than 4 sprites rendering at the same time, it may be a while. My build is as follows, and I was running it even pre-terror buff.

0 Spite
30 Curses
Hemophilia, Terror, Lingering Curses
20 Death Magic
Greater Marks, Reapers Protection (can swap this with staff CD for PVE)
0 Blood
20 Soul Reaping
Path of Midnight, Master of Terror

Utility: Epidemic, Blood is Power, Sign. Locust/spectral walk, Plague Form

I run all Condition/Toughness/Prec gear, occasionally with the fractal rings that give Cond/Vitality/Toughness if I feel squishy.

Sceptor MH/Dagger OH : Staff

The stats are the same as was linked in the nem build above more or less. Runes are as follows:

2xAfflicted
2xKrait
2xMad King

Superior Sigil of Earth in both staff and MH, with Sigil of corruption in the dagger.

---

Rare veggie pizza (40% duration + 70 cond).

Freqenty use of DS2, and DS3 are part of what I think makes this build shine in WvW. Getting in the mix makes your reapers protection almost guaranteed to hit a few people, and then they run for 4 seconds if they don’t have a fear break. Chills and cripples last a very long time.

To be honest though, this build doesn’t work well in spvp at all, because losing the 40% duration on all fears/bleeds/conditions is a massive hit to a build that focuses only on conditions. Also your condition damage is so much lower in Spvp.

Terror/barbed precision are very reliable sources of damage in wvw, and losing that extra second tick on each of those effects hurts badly. To get long enough durations in Spvp you would have to change up traits and runes.

In my opinion the above gets a nice mix of defense and offense, and really only falls short against the dreaded inanimate object. If big or small groups the greatest control you have is over spreading conditions, and this maximizes those conditions without giving up your bleed and fear damage.

Your build puts out more damage then my build in terms of bleeding DPS, also is a little bit more mobile and a little bit… wait… why Path of Midnight ?

It’s a great build… but… in my experience… the mobility you get from the utility when running with my group is useless since each time we engage the buffers buff… the healers heal… the chargers charge… Also periodically we pause to redo these things for all…

Also your damage is overall higher as sustained, not sure if you will get to use it, at the rate they cleanse things in WvW…. you can apply more stacks of bleeding then me by about… let’s say i can go to 12-14 you can go to 16-18 so in truth more DPS, but do we get a chance to go that high on average before being cleansed ?

If we do… the target dies, if we don’t the target lives… I was aiming at sealing the deal at 10 bleeding stacks and bring the target into the ground before he has a chance to cleans + heal.

Rennoko.5731:

MeanMug.2630:

Awesome man….tyvm for writing this up.

One thought: Have you considered ‘Unyielding Blast’ for Soul Reaping 10? I know on my Engi that piercing projectiles is severely underrated in group / chokepoint fights. Not only does it hit multiple targets but, on the necro, it add Vuln and bleeds on crits……

I don’t know if this would be as impressive as my Engi but, compared to 15% cooldown improvement, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

So here is my rational about that.

When I am in DS form there are only two reasons I am there. I am popping in to get DS2/DS3 off and to put up fury. Occasionally I will use DS4 if a lot of mobs are around just for the few extra bleeds I get from the crits.

I never ever use the DS1 skill as a condition build, because it is sub-par DPS to anything else I could do. The same reason why I never use the staff 1 skill. When you have built around having zero power and zero crit damage (aside from traits) it seems completly illogical to try and blast anything with DS1. The windup is slow, and bad for applying bleeds. Vulnerability also does very little for a condition build.

I totally agree with this…

Quillixx.7034:

We ran Terror build tests after the Dec patch, and while the build was neat at first, it’s actual contribution in WvW and SPvP was found lacking when compared to most all other builds.

No matter how you spin it, the DPS of a Terror build resides with bleeds, not fears. The total contribution of Terror damage coupled with the long recharge timers of the fears available, made up an estimated 5% of total damage dealt. The tests were run in a controlled SPvP room among friends, and used the ‘on death’ damage breakdown to compare both inactive killing (killing someone standing still), and duels ranging from 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3. The damage from conditions and direct damage vastly outstripped Terror, especially in prolonged encounters.

While the video provided here shows active WvW, the necro’s damage contribution is extremely below par, which is what several individuals are picking up on. A change in playstyle can fix some of that; such as picking a target more off to the side, to build up conditions, and then Epidemic. Allowing auto-target to repeatedly choose the closest target, or directly choosing the obvious target will result in little to no condition stacking, and constant condition removal. Which is what your audience saw.

What the audience didn’t see was the use of fear for control, which is one of the strengths when running this style of build. Enter DS, use Dark path to teleport to your opponent, run through them, and then chain fear them into your allies. Standing back and using your fears the way the video demonstrated did little to help in the grand scheme, because your targets were pushed out of range of yourself and your allies; effectively helping your opponents survive.

This video also demonstrated what a typical condition type necro runs into during WvW, with the large number of condition cleanses. Save for a few cases where 1 player was being focused by the entire zerg (in which case they were going to die regardless), the average bleed stack across the entire video was 3-5, and not all of which were even from the main necro, Nemesis. The net result was minor damage ouput, over the course of the recording.

From your first paragraph i would like to point out that you can not bring a PvE mentality into a PvP environment… “fear DPS is lower then bleed DPS”… yes, that’s why i would never use fear to DPS in PvE. Fear is not about DPS even though it more or less doubles your DPS for a very short period of time… fear is the there to seal the deal, fear is the nail in the coffin… without fear the target will cleanse and heal and all your DPS was in vain.

The damage was low, and i already said i am not focusing on damage, i have a video in an annotation in which me and 2 other people hold down a guard tower against 20… you can see my damage there, and i wasn’t even running this final version of a WvW build. The damage was low… but did anyone notice that i tabbed through targets at the speed of light ? How can your damage be higher in my scenario ?… Do we have constant AoEs to spam that i do not know about ?…

Yes the damage was low overall but that doesn’t mean you have an alternative, that doesn’t mean you don’t contribute… necromancers are usually the ones that kill people that are on catapults, battering rams and so on because of their fear combo + bleeds…

Another thing that people don’t understand that in such a big zerg, all the individual damage is low, but it stacks up on top of each other… and when 100 people put down 100 damage each worth of AoE in front of them… that’s 10000 damage worth of AoE before them… that is not low, and that also means all their contribution was equal.

You think the meleers that were in the front full tank spec (so they don’t get 1 shotted) do more damage ? Who does more damage ?… Thieves that pick on a target ? They are very very squishy, they would die from 4 random AoEs… who does so much more damage that doesn’t require targeting and they are tanky enough to survive the shrapnel damage…

What class and build ?

Rennoko.5731:

Quillixx.7034:

We ran Terror build tests after the Dec patch, and while the build was neat at first, it’s actual contribution in WvW and SPvP was found lacking when compared to most all other builds.

-snip

I agree with some of this post, but realize that terror is one trait, where no other traits would give more or comparable damage in that tree in that spot. Arguably the 20 points in SR could be put anywhere and they would add marginal/null DPS to a condition build.

I would absolutely dispute that the damage from terror only accounts for 5%. Maybe over the course of a long fight against a boss (prob lower than 5%), but against a player that is just inaccurate. If I fight and down someone in 30 seconds, and I have them feared for 6-8 seconds of that (1300+ a tick)….. thats quite a bit more than 5%. You are also ignoring its bursting potential through a chain.

I remember the posts early on after the terror buff talking about how weak the damage was when you count how long the cooldowns are and use that to calculate DPS over the full duration. Again that is just stupid, because pvp is fluid, and 2600 damage NOW is not the same as 2600 damage at some point in time during the fight.

You said you tested in Spvp, where you cannot get this build to work with 100% bleeds and 100% fears. You can in WvW.

I agree… also PvP is not about how high you can score on a damage meter, it’s about your opponents falling before you… You can get 1000 bleed stacks on the target if the target can cleanse it, the fear chain ensures they do not get removed before they finish the job.

Quillixx.7034:

When you start factoring in 2v2 and 3v3, and AOE such as Epidemic, healing, prolonged fights, the fears amount to very little overall damage. Yes, in 1v1, where your opponent is standing still and you kill them outright, it’s more, when you get into a 1v1 duel that factors in several minutes, the damage percentage it contributes drops drastically.

If you are in a duel that factors in several minutes vs anything except a really really skilled bunker then you are doing it wrong…

I can end a duel vs glass cannon thieves in about 10-15 seconds, bunkers take me a minute tops unless i mess up. Yes… with this build…

MeanMug.2630:

Quillix…thanks for that comprehensive input. Do you have a WvW build that you suggest?

Rennoko….thanks for that explanation. Your logic is sound. On that note, perhaps I should discuss my playstyle and see if you (Nemesis, others) have thoughts on the direction I can get the most from my build (hybrid, CM, pwr etc).

I view WvW much like Nemesis’s WvW “ownage” video….ie it is a large scale objective and not reduced to random 1v1 in the field. I play with the big picture in mind

Let’s take a known area, for example, and I will describe what I consider my playstyle:

So, my team has taken the Ogre camp in Eternal BG and we have set up siege in the camp to assault Ogrewatch keep. The enemy is pressing to get into the Ogre camp to kill the siege.

As a Necro, I feel I am most valuable by sustained pressure on selected targets. My role is to prevent the enemy from gaining/keeping momentum in a given fight.

I will use the doorway (chokepoints) to keep Staff 2,3,4,5 down for area denial. I will then use Scepter 1,2,/dggr 5 to stack conditions on the most aggressive targets. I will scroll through targets looking for a few key things:

1- Players with low health. They will likely be retreating and make great “dirty bombs” that walk back to their friends as I Epidemic them

2- Gurdians. They will almost always pop all of their Boons as they rush in. I will use Corrupt Boon and Epidemic. (Haven’t decide whether I will keep CB but when it works…..it WORKS)

3- Any player with a large quantity of buffs/cond to corrupt/speread. When Corrupt Boon is on CD, I will use Epidemic on players with lots of conditions as it comes off CD.

Now, once I get a big hit off on an Epidemic something interesting happens almost every time. This is a bit outside just gaming and translates to real world scenarios but stay with me…… if the front line of an offensive pushes toward a conflict, those behind them will follow. If ONE person turns to run away, just about everyone does.

Once that BIG Epidemic hits (say a Guardian Corrupt Boon / Epidemic at full boon) the front lines of that group withers heavily. I then push into that and begin using DS 4 to further pressure. Almost without fail, I have a surge follow me and all that is left is to loot the bags and regroup.

Very frequently, I will rush a grp of downed players and use DS4 to help finish them to save the CD on my Scepter skills that have added effects (cripple etc) that would be better used on active enemies.

Another example…..I will go into a keep Scepter 2, dggr 5 on the inside of the door and then DS 4 through the door. I often use this on the outside of a keep as we assault (stand close to the wall) forcing wall defenders to either back off the edge or get close to the edge to target me.

So, although I am heavy conditions, I do use some of the pwr necro stuff to add some short term sustained pressure. I don’t want to give it up because I see the psychology of all the numbers on players screens influencing their behavior. That behavior translates into impatcing the “big picture” of WvW……

So how to I maximize my playstyle….or am I hopelessly lost?

Thanks in advance!!!!!

You are surprisingly accurate with what you are saying… some players will say… yes, and you have killed nothing… Who among you here thinks that if a necromancer is to kill a squad / army on his own is… not OP. You did your part… you also were allowed to do your part because… you were not a victim in this build and with this mindset.

I’ve spoken a lot about WvW mindset in the past and people thought i was just filling up minutes of a video with pointless discussion to get views. If i were to make that… i would bring out 2 videos every day, i did not joined youtube to do that. I actually want to help people improve.

On that note… the only thing i see missing is the focusing of key individuals, the ones that man the trebuchets, battering rams and catapults. That target will be a high profile target… usually tanky, usually with boons and stability on, he will also have his attention directed to where he is pointing the siege weapon, unless he stops and goes after you. If he does go after you you have achieved victory, if he does not he probably won’t remove his conditions right away… which puts him in a almost too late situation, which can be turned into a “it’s too late” situation. Which lives that siege weapon unmanned for a period of time, until another player… in all that chaos… sees that the siege weapon no longer fires, and needs to be manned.

All of this can be achieved because you are sustainable enough to not die in the process.
FINAL VERDICT: Siege weapon harasser.

Rennoko.5731:

Okay, but what do you take alternatively? In that build setup with 0/30/20/0/20?

If your argument is you are better off going hybrid, then thats a choice you make, but in that build setup you cannot get more damage from a different trait, even if you consider the sole purpose of terror to be dealing damage (ignoring the bursting potential and psycological effect of the damage ticking with the bleeds).

Exactly my point…

What is your alternative as a conditionmancer ?… Power builds just don’t cut it when it comes to keep defense / assault. You guys can take a power build and go outside the walls if you want, i’m staying inside and keeping the guys off catapults and battering rams.

Rennoko.5731:

MeanMug.2630:

-Snip

Thanks in advance!!!!!

So given your situation, which is a very common EB situation if you happen to be east on that map for the week, I would say your best build bet would be just a standard 20/30/20/0/0 build. Again this is just my opinion, not trying to dictate for you or anyone else.

If you don’t fight in small skirmishes much, and you do the right thing with point defense and keep defense, the most powerful deny tool for you is the staff and epi, which you pointed out. If you are not tooling around semi-solo small group, the toughness stat in general is mostly wasted.

If you focus on rampagers gear, and staff mark size/cooldown you are going to deal quite a bit more damage. You do not keep 100% fear duration, but that is not a big deal in the big zerg fights, as was pointed out.

Since you have the extra power and you can get reapers might, you can stay on staff more often, and not go into 900 range unless its safe, using life blast to build might on your conditions improving their damage.

Also you have 20% duration from the power tree, which means you can drop some other trait somewhere, or go with different runes to improve your hybrid damage. I would still maintain 100% duration on my bleeds, as that is a must for a condition/hybrid build, but you have much more leeway on how you get there. Also you can forgo hemophillia for a nice trait in its place, like chilling darkness.

Alternatively you can keep the toughness stuff and just use undead runes, to try and squeeze everything out of condition damage, with the logical argument that the bleeds rarely ever run full duration (I don’t subscribe to this philosophy, but the builds are out there).

Yes… i agree that this build may be a decent trade-off and therefor it’s equivalent, but how do you use the power aspect of this build when you are on the wall ? No weapon has enough range except staff 1… and good luck with that… You will be limited to conditions regardless, and… you just made them a little bit weaker with a different gear set… also you are a little bit less survivable.

kKagari.6804:

Nemesis.8593:

I just woke up, going to cook something nice relax for a few hours after that i will finish the SPvP video/version of this build.

From everything i saw here, the problems that are brought up are… i don’t use everything (it’s hard in such a big zerg, my targets were disappearing faster then i could target them, the down fear doesn’t count as much…) and a few other things.

In SPvP… actually TPvP there will be a more clear demonstration of the build, just because of the fact it’s not as hard to demonstrate it there, i can afford focusing on what i want to demonstrate rather then a few dozen other things.

Some of the things you guys were saying aren’t bad or wrong, but you guys need to understand that it is very easy to say, “you should have done this… should have done that…” but it’s not as easy as it sounds, when every second you have to tab 3 times and make a decision, ops… that one’s gone, then tab 3 more times and make a decision… in such a big zerg… you guys can try it out for yourselves if you don’t believe me.

So i appreciate all of you guy’s input and i will answer all of you individually later today.

I can see this build working more in sPvP actually, it’d make those 1v1 scenarios use the fear on down trait more useful. As of WvW I kinda feel like you’ve ran with a gimmick a little too far, I don’t feel it works well as some others have pointed out.

What alternatives do you prefer for WvW then ?… Take in consideration you need to have range for walls, CCs for people that man siege weapons and be survivable enough to not die from shrapnel all the while having the possibility to do AoE damage.

Pendragon.8735:

I think some of the earlier comments about Bleed still being your bread and butter ring true to me. Terror should be a supplement to a bleed/condition build not its central core in my opinion. But you do not need 6 fears for 100% extra fear duration (or even close to 100%) to be well worth it. Nor do you have to sacrifice very much in the way of condition damage to get there.

Longer fears actually work in great harmony with high condition damage, because it increases the amount of time that opponents must suffer under condition damage.

Also want to make one input on Rennoko’s comment about never using DS1. When I ran almost an identical build to his, I also hated ever having to use DS1, but I found myself in situations where I was in DS to eat damage, waiting for a heal to come up and had no choice but to use it. In my experience normal health ran out way faster than LF, which is where you ended up in before you died.

With having dropped master of terror I needed to go 10 points into spite to get fear respectable enough duration, and I used to hate spite, but having tried it, I think 10 points is not bad at all, because Reaper’s Might is nice a little trait that gives you a reason (or at least some benefit) to firing off 1-3 Life Blasts while you are sponging damage. 2 or 3 stacks of might for about 15 seconds when you come out of DS will give you a nice little damage spike through nearly your whole rotation. Just an alternative to put out there.

Also would agree that sPVP tests are of little relevancy here, when these type of builds are so reliant on the usable food buffs in PVE/WvW. They pretty much don’t work without it.

Hmm… since you lack power, your DS 1 will do less DPS then you would do with just conditions, unless you go rampager and then you lack survivability…
See my point ?… yeah sometimes you are stuck in DS to wait for heal… and you have nothing left… so… instead of DS 1, how about you scout the field of battle while you re-position yourself / run. You don’t have to go all spartan on your enemies, you can make a small tactical retreat to heal up and come back stronger then before…

MeanMug.2630:

Rennoko.5731:

-Snip…back at ya

Well, the survivability comes in when you may be going to/from and objective and solo roaming thiefs etc will want to stop you from getting back to the fight. Alternatively, there are those who will notice me playing around the fringes of a battle to get those “dirty bombs” set up and jump me.

What I want is to incorporate a few of those fears (4 sec fear….woot) and survivability while being able to maintain my playstyle, which I see as meaningful in the “big picture”.

EXACTLY !… and there are often thieves and interceptor warriors that you think that are fighting… but they are actually the assault team defending the guy on the siege weapon… as soon as the guy on the siege weapon gets tagged you’ll find them charging you. You can’t continue fighting the guy on the siege weapon if you just died in one hit…

Edenwolf.6328:

Just tested this spec its the bomb, I altered the spec a bit but the result is virtually the same, sometimes terror even ticks 3 times. The terror ticks are nasty lol, ticking for 1282, thank you for this man it made my necro fun again!

Hell yeah…

Margicar.8694:

I’ve been following this thread for the past couple of days, I would love to see some details on SPESHAL’s build and gear, since he seems to go on………………. and on……………. about off topic material and hurling abuse at Nemesis, who obviously has put allot of time and effort into helping others achieve their best. I personally appreciate it as a new lvl 80 necro still learning the ropes, this guide is very useful and works wonders.

Im still working on exotic gear but got most of it, gear from TA, fractals rings, and just bought 80 rares off the TP to fill in the slots for the mean time. Played around with this fear build and loved it, my main is a guardian an I must have switched build around 100 times before finally landing 1, I started messing around with Lopez’s condition build which is similar to this minus the fears, I think I will land somewhere in-between but still will do some crazy damage from fears and live to tell the tale.

One thing I don’t like though and that’s the mobility, I play mostly WvW with guildies and do small group tactical work and we hate zergs, generally our objective is to divert the zerg. My trouble is I can’t seem to get away fast enough if im just on the edge of death and need an escape.

Also what food are you using for +condition duration? having trouble locking it down with my short casual game playing lol.

Thank you for your input mate, i did put a lot of effort into making this one… a lot…
Your mobility while not in combat may come from switching well of power into signet of the locust until you reach your destination. Before you engage switch back and you are set…

Also when you are just on the edge of dying, mobility won’t save you as a necromancer… you can’t be like an elementalist to mist form into blink into ride the lightning into fire and be in a different zone all together.

You are build to endure through stuff while covering your escape with fears, chills and blinds… also plague form guarantees your escape vs 5 almost all the time, unless they chase you for more then 20 seconds, in which case they probably are at about 50% of their health, and when you come out… you well of power into double AoE bleeding into death shroud life transfer into some focused fears… you might kill a few, you might get them to back off since you are not worth the trouble… you might even die… but by that time you already wasted the time of 5 people, took them more then a minute to kill you… you gave them a run for their money and you have this… nice feeling inside, you won’t even feel bad, you’ll feel like a baus

As for food, open up the black lion and write pizza… you’ll find some to your liking

Rennoko.5731:

blc.7963:

Rennoko.5731:

Runes are as follows:

2xAfflicted
2xKrait
2xMad King

Are the extra 10% condition duration worth not going 3xAfflicted + 3xKrait (110 condition damage)?
All in all, if you really feel the need for those 10%, you can always go to Givers weapons.

Absolutely it is worth it. If you need the extra 10%.. plus it helps all the other conditions too.

And if you start talking about the giver’s stuff, it takes your primary stat away which is 90 condition damage or 180 condition damage plus alternate stats I do not like. Just taking a giver’s weapon would cancel out the bonus condition damage you added in. (they are terrible btw, stat distribution wise).

Giver weapons offer 10% bleeding duration which is more or less the equivalent of 100-150 condition damage at 1000 condition damage, since it increases all your bleeding damage by 10% as in… 10% longer bleeds that give the 10% extra damage in that time. The thing is when you reach around 1800 condition damage 10% added to that it’s quite good… when you are under 1000 condition damage, adding 10% more damage instead of 100 condition damage will be a waste.

Always better to have 11$ then to have 9$ + 10% of 9$… but it’s better to have 17$ + 10% of that instead of 18$. That’s how i see it.

MeanMug.2630:

Nemesis,

Please save your time/energy for this amazing and constructive discussion. I don’t want to discount SPECHL’s opinion, but THIS discussion is about your Fear build and we are all clear that he disagrees with it as a viable build. No need to continue to address his doubts/concerns.

So, as I see it, the ONLY difference in your build and Rennoko’s is Soul Reaping (10) and Rune selection. Is that right? I am building toward a Fear build and don’t want to overlook any subtle differences.

Thanks again for your contributions!

The difference between my build and Rennoko’s as far as i see in traits it’s only the fact that i use fear on down instead of Path of Midnight…

He uses different runes… i aim for longer fear he aims for longer bleeding duration…

Rennoko’s utilities replace my well of darkness and corrupt boon with blood is power and spectral walk/signet of the locust.

In conclusion his build has the potential of being more mobile and apply higher stacks of bleeding in time… but lacks the longer fear duration + the fear on stability and the extra anti-zerging that a well of power brings to the table.

You guys can decide…

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

But how does it actually benefit you, or this build, unless you plan to fear suicide bomb into a group of enemies (which is actually quite undesirable). Much better off with any of the other traits tbh.

Not the point of my post. My point was, it is very doubtful the fear from Fear of Death will cause your opponent to go beyond 900 range from you. (I was just testing, it seems like the range is a little less than 600, actually.)

I can take a stab at it though. If in a close fight, your opponent goes melee and just manages to finish you off, it will interrupt any combo skill they’re using as well as doing a nice shot of damage. It also clears the area immediately around you from any melee enemies, so it can give you a second to pick and call a target or for allies to dive in and revive you without having to jump directly on top of 2 or 3 mobs.

Would you be better off with other traits? Maybe! I don’t know! But there’s a couple situations it could be useful in.

Exactly… few other traits can do a better job in this situation… the only other variation i would go for will be in my TPvP conditionmancer builds… but that relies more in NOT going down at all by having perma-regeneration on you. In WvW perma-regeneration will get you nowhere, it also forces you to go in a zerg more often to obtain it… which will prove more problematic then helpful.

Derk.3189:

Softspoken.2410:

Derk.3189:

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Fear Of Death was an AoE Fear with a fairly limited (600ish) range.

But how does it actually benefit you, or this build, unless you plan to fear suicide bomb into a group of enemies (which is actually quite undesirable). Much better off with any of the other traits tbh.

Such as ?

Thanks nemesis, I have actually ended up going back fully to this build, fearing with crazy damage is too much fun. Found the much needed pizza cheers

Was mistakenly using lich form when I 1st tried this, found it to be a big mistake in WvW as its like “hey look at me I’m a nice big target” using plague has changed it all completely much better survivability, though I feel it is fairly useless in the damage I can do with it, so only really use it as either a meat shield or an escape, dunno if I’m using it wrong? lol.

Upon looking over mobility, I don’t think I can do much else than keep swapping out Signet of the Locust but keep a bit of distance, This is the only part I actually dislike about the necro lack of mobility. Will have to try out spectral walk into zerg pop a few bleeds+ epid then hit the tele, I don’t think I have ever used well of power in wvw, will have to try it I suppose.

Guess im just to used to playing guardian and not dying at all lol.

Derk.3189:

Nemesis.8593:

…answering SPESHAL

…The one that has a 90 second CD is what i call an opener, i put 4-5 bleeding stacks on the target… the target stuns me… big mistake, you just signed your own death… 4 second fear = 5200 damage just from the fear + the same from ~ 10 bleeding stacks = 10400 damage, if he breaks it with stability… “hahaha… you fool…” corrupt boon extra fear + 2 more sure fears (1 from DS 1 from staff)… 90% of the targets die from that…
The two that require you to be down, makes the necromancer downstate as viable as thief or mesmer downstate, prevents stomping as well as providing a lot of damage… more damage then the mesmer’s abilities that’s for sure…

Ok, regardless of what beef you have going on with speshal, I can’t agree with any of this. Reaper’s Protection as an opening I get but:

Stability does not break stuns. In fact, there are only 3 utility skills that break stuns AND grants stability. Stand Your Ground, Armor of Earth, and Mantra of Concentration. MoC is even less relevant to your argument because stability only lasts 2 seconds (which means if you have the slightest bit of lag, or was in the middle of activating another skill, your window to corrupt boon will be gone), and MoC can be used twice.

I’m not saying Corrupting stability is bad per se, but this whole argument of ‘chain fearing’ someone who broke out of fear via stability is faulty; in actuality this will only work against guardians and eles; but mostly, scrubs who think stability breaks out of fear.

Secondly, in WvW, downed2 is terrible. Stomps are dangerous to do, and much often than not, people will dps down a downed player rather than stomp. Fearing 1 target will probably just ruins someone’s chance of getting loot from your soon to be dead body.

Fear of death is also terrible because if you do manage to down a player, the fear would likely have made them run away further than your downed state attack range. They’ll have lost all their conditions which doesn’t mean well for you either.

Corrupt boon can be used not only against stability but also against any and all boons, and while not many stun breakers apply stability, there are many situations in which players apply stability on themselves alongside other boons (depends on the class)…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

Think about all the elite skills that apply stability… Necromancer Lich Form… power necromancer going all “I WILL KILL YOU ALL”… “no you are not… fear… now go away”…
Battle Standard, Rampage, Rampage As One, Dagger Storm, Tornado, Plague, Elixir X, Mortar, Avatar of Melandru… their strongest skills are turned against them… it is so… beautiful…

So a player will damage you instead of finishing you off, but since you double fear you he will move outside of range… how are these two situations true at the same time ?…

Nemesis.8593:

Rennoko.5731:

blc.7963:

Rennoko.5731:

Runes are as follows:

2xAfflicted
2xKrait
2xMad King

Are the extra 10% condition duration worth not going 3xAfflicted + 3xKrait (110 condition damage)?
All in all, if you really feel the need for those 10%, you can always go to Givers weapons.

Absolutely it is worth it. If you need the extra 10%.. plus it helps all the other conditions too.

And if you start talking about the giver’s stuff, it takes your primary stat away which is 90 condition damage or 180 condition damage plus alternate stats I do not like. Just taking a giver’s weapon would cancel out the bonus condition damage you added in. (they are terrible btw, stat distribution wise).

Giver weapons offer 10% bleeding duration which is more or less the equivalent of 100-150 condition damage at 1000 condition damage, since it increases all your bleeding damage by 10% as in… 10% longer bleeds that give the 10% extra damage in that time. The thing is when you reach around 1800 condition damage 10% added to that it’s quite good… when you are under 1000 condition damage, adding 10% more damage instead of 100 condition damage will be a waste.

Always better to have 11$ then to have 9$ + 10% of 9$… but it’s better to have 17$ + 10% of that instead of 18$. That’s how i see it.

Mathematically you are correct in your example, but the cost of Giver’s weapons is too high. Compared to equivalent gains from runes/traits/food it is far and away the worst place to try and get duration, because it comes at the inherant cost of losing 90-180 condition damage. Not to mention the loss of preferred secondary stats.

The total gain from undead runes in a structured build is 275 or so. We can blow that set apart and replace it to get 40-45% duration to all bleeds, and only lose 240 condition damage. That is a big hit, but replacing weapons with Giver’s equivalent loses 90 or 180 condition damage, and adds only 10% duration.

You are almost always better off avoiding these.

Nemesis.8593:

MeanMug.2630:

Nemesis,

Please save your time/energy for this amazing and constructive discussion. I don’t want to discount SPECHL’s opinion, but THIS discussion is about your Fear build and we are all clear that he disagrees with it as a viable build. No need to continue to address his doubts/concerns.

So, as I see it, the ONLY difference in your build and Rennoko’s is Soul Reaping (10) and Rune selection. Is that right? I am building toward a Fear build and don’t want to overlook any subtle differences.

Thanks again for your contributions!

The difference between my build and Rennoko’s as far as i see in traits it’s only the fact that i use fear on down instead of Path of Midnight…

He uses different runes… i aim for longer fear he aims for longer bleeding duration…

Rennoko’s utilities replace my well of darkness and corrupt boon with blood is power and spectral walk/signet of the locust.

In conclusion his build has the potential of being more mobile and apply higher stacks of bleeding in time… but lacks the longer fear duration + the fear on stability and the extra anti-zerging that a well of power brings to the table.

You guys can decide…

Just to note, my fear lasts the same length as yours. The max duration is 100%, and I hit that. The extra in your fear is a wasted stat.

In a less mobile situation the darkeness well is a good substitute for a movement skill, I completely agree on that. Its is the best well for a condition build defensively. Corruption boon over blood is power is a situational choice. My other guild necros mostly prefer the boon flip/epi trick on guardians in big fights, but I have gotten so used to dropping BIP immediately in fights I have a hard time missing the extra damage and the super long bleeds if they land on the fool who doesn’t run a condition clear (I am looking at you zerker mesmers).

Rennoko.5731:

Just to note, my fear lasts the same length as yours. The max duration is 100%, and I hit that. The extra in your fear is a wasted stat.

In a less mobile situation the darkeness well is a good substitute for a movement skill, I completely agree on that. Its is the best well for a condition build defensively. Corruption boon over blood is power is a situational choice. My other guild necros mostly prefer the boon flip/epi trick on guardians in big fights, but I have gotten so used to dropping BIP immediately in fights I have a hard time missing the extra damage and the super long bleeds if they land on the fool who doesn’t run a condition clear (I am looking at you zerker mesmers).

So does Spect Walk allow you to do offensive spells while “walking” or does it just serve as a travel/return mechanic?

I really like BiP too, but I find that it has far less “withering” effect on a group than a massive CB/Epi move. The sudden inability to move, heals are halved and all those conditions on a player messes with people’s minds. Once panic sets in and the group mentality takes over, momentum can shift decisively.

I am set on CB and Epi…..I just need to decide between blinding well and Spec walk.