Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a 0/30/10/0/30 condition build , during my solo roaming in WvW I got totally owned by a mesmer and a thief. Whenever I get one of them low in health, they can always stealth and heal themselves up while the other keep harrasing me until I’m dead.
Is there any method I can stand a chance playing against these annoying professions?

1st best 1vX build for wvw is 30/20/0/0/20
2nd you kill mesmer while maintaining high AoE preassure and kiting + cc thief, once the mesmer, save reapers mark for when mesmer is down, once the mesmer is down dont try to stomp him but aoe dps and use reapers mark incase thief tries to shadow refuge ressurect the mesmer.
3rd you gotta take advantage of environment your in.
4th you cant kill good players in 1vX

No thief + mesmer fights here but you can see overall kiting and build strategy in my 4th WvW roaming movie – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5lgXJYeqXk

If they’re any good, Thief/Mesmer combo has been a Necro buster since day 1, especially in PvE

Mesmer/Thief is probably one of the stronger duos to fight, by default.

to echo everyone else.. those are the fights you have to expect you’ll lose.

Knowing how the classes work is a big factor. Second of all, power builds IMO are generally better for roaming. I run 30/10/0/0/30. Death shroud is amazing. Dps the mesmer fast then kill the thief.

sierras.6297:

Knowing how the classes work is a big factor. Second of all, power builds IMO are generally better for roaming. I run 30/10/0/0/30. Death shroud is amazing. Dps the mesmer fast then kill the thief.

Except the part where their opening salvo of zerker summon + backstab downs you in a power build instantly… or if you are more tanky, you fail to get them below 50% because of PU and shadow regen.

I have people that message me convinced power works for roaming, but I have yet to see any power video in an outnumbered scenario convince me otherwise. Even fights sure, it works fine, even amazing, and in slightly outnumbered fights if you can lich 1 spam, but beyond that 2 to 1 odds, I cannot see a power build working. Without epidemic to leverage your damage significantly, I don’t see where a power build makes that up.

Presumably the duo was heavily zerker, as most thief mesmer combos are…. that would be a fight where you have to hope they are just bad… it is as simple as that.

Both thief and mesmer have instant cast abilities to break stun, and those abilties either move them out of range or make the untargettable. If you get lucky enough to wait out the decoy or the shadowstep/blinding powder from them without wasting your DS2/DS3 + epidemic combo, you might pull off downing one or the other, but they have shadow refuge and mass invis… so you won’t down or stomp anyone.

Currently the standard PU zerker mesmer phantasm build is very hard for a necro to handle, even if they only run the bare bones condition removal. Simply because they can stay invisible for such a long time cycling cooldowns, that you just have to face tank those summons while he stealths and heals etc.

Thief is far less of a problem in 1v1, but anything + thief in 1v2 makes for an up-hill battle.

Rennoko.5731:

sierras.6297:

Knowing how the classes work is a big factor. Second of all, power builds IMO are generally better for roaming. I run 30/10/0/0/30. Death shroud is amazing. Dps the mesmer fast then kill the thief.

Except the part where their opening salvo of zerker summon + backstab downs you in a power build instantly… or if you are more tanky, you fail to get them below 50% because of PU and shadow regen.

I have people that message me convinced power works for roaming, but I have yet to see any power video in an outnumbered scenario convince me otherwise. Even fights sure, it works fine, even amazing, and in slightly outnumbered fights if you can lich 1 spam, but beyond that 2 to 1 odds, I cannot see a power build working. Without epidemic to leverage your damage significantly, I don’t see where a power build makes that up.

Presumably the duo was heavily zerker, as most thief mesmer combos are…. that would be a fight where you have to hope they are just bad… it is as simple as that.

Both thief and mesmer have instant cast abilities to break stun, and those abilties either move them out of range or make the untargettable. If you get lucky enough to wait out the decoy or the shadowstep/blinding powder from them without wasting your DS2/DS3 + epidemic combo, you might pull off downing one or the other, but they have shadow refuge and mass invis… so you won’t down or stomp anyone.

Currently the standard PU zerker mesmer phantasm build is very hard for a necro to handle, even if they only run the bare bones condition removal. Simply because they can stay invisible for such a long time cycling cooldowns, that you just have to face tank those summons while he stealths and heals etc.

Thief is far less of a problem in 1v1, but anything + thief in 1v2 makes for an up-hill battle.

I think that the problem you’ve described, about power specs disability to deal with outnumbered fights lies not in power specs, but rather in condition ones.
The game is currently constructed in a particular fashion, that player should have a very hard time dealing with outnumbered fights because of downed state. It kills power specs in outnumbered fights, because most, like mine, have situational, cooldown defense which is lacking when it comes to stop and channel stomp. The exeptions to this rule are mostly Thieves and Mesmers, which have no problems with stomping people, so they’re the most popular classes for outnumbered fights since beta.
Condition specs have just easier way. Condition specs require only one stat to work, rest is usually passive defense. So it works better with stomping because you’re more resilient when casting stomp.

That’s said, I can tell you that I do manage some outnumbered fights in my build. However, most of them, successful, are won mostly by positioning and a lot of preparation.
Condition specs, like yours, running defensive stats can manage outnumbered fights in almost any terrain or situation. Conditions, once applied, always hit and you just can survive more raw damage without using cooldowns or positioning.

So yep, the problem lies not in Power specs, but Condition spec unfair advantage

Rym.1469:

Rennoko.5731:

sierras.6297:

Knowing how the classes work is a big factor. Second of all, power builds IMO are generally better for roaming. I run 30/10/0/0/30. Death shroud is amazing. Dps the mesmer fast then kill the thief.

Except the part where their opening salvo of zerker summon + backstab downs you in a power build instantly… or if you are more tanky, you fail to get them below 50% because of PU and shadow regen.

I have people that message me convinced power works for roaming, but I have yet to see any power video in an outnumbered scenario convince me otherwise. Even fights sure, it works fine, even amazing, and in slightly outnumbered fights if you can lich 1 spam, but beyond that 2 to 1 odds, I cannot see a power build working. Without epidemic to leverage your damage significantly, I don’t see where a power build makes that up.

Presumably the duo was heavily zerker, as most thief mesmer combos are…. that would be a fight where you have to hope they are just bad… it is as simple as that.

Both thief and mesmer have instant cast abilities to break stun, and those abilties either move them out of range or make the untargettable. If you get lucky enough to wait out the decoy or the shadowstep/blinding powder from them without wasting your DS2/DS3 + epidemic combo, you might pull off downing one or the other, but they have shadow refuge and mass invis… so you won’t down or stomp anyone.

Currently the standard PU zerker mesmer phantasm build is very hard for a necro to handle, even if they only run the bare bones condition removal. Simply because they can stay invisible for such a long time cycling cooldowns, that you just have to face tank those summons while he stealths and heals etc.

Thief is far less of a problem in 1v1, but anything + thief in 1v2 makes for an up-hill battle.

I think that the problem you’ve described, about power specs disability to deal with outnumbered fights lies not in power specs, but rather in condition ones.
The game is currently constructed in a particular fashion, that player should have a very hard time dealing with outnumbered fights because of downed state. It kills power specs in outnumbered fights, because most, like mine, have situational, cooldown defense which is lacking when it comes to stop and channel stomp. The exeptions to this rule are mostly Thieves and Mesmers, which have no problems with stomping people, so they’re the most popular classes for outnumbered fights since beta.
Condition specs have just easier way. Condition specs require only one stat to work, rest is usually passive defense. So it works better with stomping because you’re more resilient when casting stomp.

That’s said, I can tell you that I do manage some outnumbered fights in my build. However, most of them, successful, are won mostly by positioning and a lot of preparation.
Condition specs, like yours, running defensive stats can manage outnumbered fights in almost any terrain or situation. Conditions, once applied, always hit and you just can survive more raw damage without using cooldowns or positioning.

So yep, the problem lies not in Power specs, but Condition spec unfair advantage

I would counter that it isn’t that condition builds have an unfair advantage, but that certain classes and builds avoidance of damage and pin creates the necessity for the condition bunker.

I personally wouldn’t bat an eye at across the board condition nerfs if they would improve the effectiveness of conditions in large scale fights, and balanced the downed states evenly. Currently power is the only choice in zerg battles that gets the job done, and that isn’t a good thing.

First off, I would like to acknowledge that there are some videos you can find of a necro fighting 1vX. I have fought in 1vX situations, and won. The problem mentioned about downed state is frustrating, but if you focus people right, you can down the dps sealers so that the less damaging people are left (usually can down two people in one DS) and stomp one, or even both, because people need to choose between A) rezing one person or attacking me, and with a high health pool and DS, the latter does not usually work. So it usually works out that you can down one person, then the other has just gotten up, and is at 50%, so you can death shroud them backdown and fear the third person. Then stomp them and deal with a 1v1 like normal and just face roll the person because they are low damaging, usually an up level or tanker build. This is in a 1v3 scenario, as I haven’t even had the chance of fighting more when solo. Also, I do not use lich form, and this is based off of the standard 3 man roaming team. When encountering better players, this changes and it becomes a reaction scenario.
I agree with the counter-counter argument because Condi builds do not have an unfair advantage. Their source of dps can be cleansed, which is the equivalent of dodges/blocks. HOWEVER, Condi specs have an aoe advantage that is something which damage specs lack drastically. Granted DS 4 skill is aoe and a damage spec can get 6-9k on the end of the chain, it is the only option other than wells, which are easily avoidable. So I wouldn’t go as far to say Condi has an advantage, because they are so differently focused and played. It is what makes this class that much more diverse.

sierras.6297:

First off, I would like to acknowledge that there are some videos you can find of a necro fighting 1vX. I have fought in 1vX situations, and won. The problem mentioned about downed state is frustrating, but if you focus people right, you can down the dps sealers so that the less damaging people are left (usually can down two people in one DS) and stomp one, or even both, because people need to choose between A) rezing one person or attacking me, and with a high health pool and DS, the latter does not usually work. So it usually works out that you can down one person, then the other has just gotten up, and is at 50%, so you can death shroud them backdown and fear the third person. Then stomp them and deal with a 1v1 like normal and just face roll the person because they are low damaging, usually an up level or tanker build. This is in a 1v3 scenario, as I haven’t even had the chance of fighting more when solo. Also, I do not use lich form, and this is based off of the standard 3 man roaming team. When encountering better players, this changes and it becomes a reaction scenario.
I agree with the counter-counter argument because Condi builds do not have an unfair advantage. Their source of dps can be cleansed, which is the equivalent of dodges/blocks. HOWEVER, Condi specs have an aoe advantage that is something which damage specs lack drastically. Granted DS 4 skill is aoe and a damage spec can get 6-9k on the end of the chain, it is the only option other than wells, which are easily avoidable. So I wouldn’t go as far to say Condi has an advantage, because they are so differently focused and played. It is what makes this class that much more diverse.

The AOE potential of epidemic is disasterously high, and that creates really strange winnable scenarios what would otherwise be winnable.

I find the downed state problem is a much larger issues not in 1v2, as much as it is in what I tend to end up doing, which is 2v4+. At that stage, they can more or less stand on each other with stability and spam F while I unload on them for a straight 60 seconds. The ressing mechanic is very friendly to larger numbers. 1-2 max people allowed to res would greatly help that disparity as well.

Rennoko.5731:

sierras.6297:

First off, I would like to acknowledge that there are some videos you can find of a necro fighting 1vX. I have fought in 1vX situations, and won. The problem mentioned about downed state is frustrating, but if you focus people right, you can down the dps sealers so that the less damaging people are left (usually can down two people in one DS) and stomp one, or even both, because people need to choose between A) rezing one person or attacking me, and with a high health pool and DS, the latter does not usually work. So it usually works out that you can down one person, then the other has just gotten up, and is at 50%, so you can death shroud them backdown and fear the third person. Then stomp them and deal with a 1v1 like normal and just face roll the person because they are low damaging, usually an up level or tanker build. This is in a 1v3 scenario, as I haven’t even had the chance of fighting more when solo. Also, I do not use lich form, and this is based off of the standard 3 man roaming team. When encountering better players, this changes and it becomes a reaction scenario.
I agree with the counter-counter argument because Condi builds do not have an unfair advantage. Their source of dps can be cleansed, which is the equivalent of dodges/blocks. HOWEVER, Condi specs have an aoe advantage that is something which damage specs lack drastically. Granted DS 4 skill is aoe and a damage spec can get 6-9k on the end of the chain, it is the only option other than wells, which are easily avoidable. So I wouldn’t go as far to say Condi has an advantage, because they are so differently focused and played. It is what makes this class that much more diverse.

The AOE potential of epidemic is disasterously high, and that creates really strange winnable scenarios what would otherwise be winnable.

I find the downed state problem is a much larger issues not in 1v2, as much as it is in what I tend to end up doing, which is 2v4+. At that stage, they can more or less stand on each other with stability and spam F while I unload on them for a straight 60 seconds. The ressing mechanic is very friendly to larger numbers. 1-2 max people allowed to res would greatly help that disparity as well.

I understand what that can be like as I run with an engi in my guild for duo roaming. I feel that the number of people rezzing should scale on the number of people present, primarily because in large Zerg fights, even having 6 people rezzong won’t get everyone up because of the large amounts of aoe and the fact that Zergs often move “through” each other.

I find this to be true of different specs and classes, but focus the weakest or easiest to kill first. Even a naked level 2 can Rez a great player if you do down them, so they need to go first. Use cc as needed to prevent rezzes or secure a stomp. Plague form can be hit mid cast to secure a safe stomp, if needed.

Epidemic is pretty critical if you are in a condi build and outnumbered.

Oh and also, don’t hop out of death shroud for no reason. When I fight other necros sometimes they hop into death shroud to absorb some hits at low health, pop all the cooldowns and immediately leave it with tons of life force and little health. That’s a mistake most times. Stay in DS until your heal and other things come off cooldowns. You might not make it another 10 seconds to use that up.

But in general thief/mesmer is very tough to fight against and it would be commendable for anyone on any class to 2v1 that combo, assuming they are competent players.