Guild Wars 2

Hi,

part time necro here.

I have a question about how to deal with conditions in DS.

I using a power build that I camp most of the time in DS, normally necro is master of manipulating conditions but we have 0 tools to deals conditions in DS.

I mean, if the conditions would not be there, I can stay %80 of time in DS while playing necro, but you have to drop our of DS, cleanse, heal, transfer but then you have most prob no DS for the next 8s.

Am I missing something here, is there a trick to deal with conditions in DS?

posthumecaver.6473:

Am I missing something here, is there a trick to deal with conditions in DS?

You could precast Well of Power before going into DS if you anicipate getting a lot of conditions. There’s Sigil of Purity and Generosity, you could trait for Shrouded Removal, or some even less viable options like minions drawing conditions or landing projectiles through light fields after going into DS, or maybe you’re lucky enough to have someone step on your Putrid Mark while you’re in Shroud.
Other than that your only option is to let your life force absorb it.

On the upside, in HoT we’ll get an improved on-hit version of Spiteful Renewal that also removes a condition.

If i think of Death Shroud as a weapon or set of combat utilities, i feel more frustrated than if i think of it as an awesome Moa transform we can control at will.

Power builds are awful at handling conditions. Even if you go axe/Dagger + Staff, you’ll be overwhelmed. This is because everybody else’s conditions and removals were buffed since launch except for the Necromancer’s.

First, I assume you are not talking about PvE, where conditions are negligible.

Second, in the power build, you’ll notice that you don’t actually camp your time in DS. Really, only 40% of your time is in Death shroud.

Third, I bet you’ll notice that the conditions that are killing you aren’t the burns, poisons, and bleeds, but the immobilizes & cripples & weaknesses.

Fourth, As much as we all hate anet for “Death shroud is a second life bar for defense,” it is good at soaking up damage over time if you can kite. It should soon become second nature to you to leave DS with consume conditions or staff 4 ready. This is why necromancer has a good reputation as a pure condition class before the advent of celestial amulets or immobilize spammers.

As for your actual options, there are sigils that remove conditions, and these still work in death shroud. Especially if axe wasn’t so terrible, this would be a decent option.

There are runes that reduce condition duration. These aren’t so great, because you really just need protection against immobilize, not everything else.

There’s a trait that removes conditions when you enter death shroud. It is underpowered, but it could save you.

There is the terrible signet, which would work as a condition clear stun break if that actually happened every time in game (and if it didn’t have a terrible passive).

You can use you DS 2 to try to get yourself out of trouble if you are being condition focused.

Finally, there’s well of power, which removes conditions too slowly to be of much use since it doesn’t prioritize immobilize (and has a too long cool down to be effective against immobilize spam).

The trait changes will bring a removal trait in spite that you won’t be able to count on & certainly won’t help you against immobilize spam (the condition that actually kills you).

The reaper will have a trait that reduces the condition duration of movement conditions. This will become mandatory for all Pvp Reapers. The problem is that the trait is too week, Anybody with kiting skill, range and CC is going to destroy / hard counter reapers (even, for example, necromancers).

I suppose that the Reaper could theoretically also take shouts and soldier runes, but this comes at the expense of even more badly needed stun breaks. The ability to remove up to an additional 5 conditions per minute isn’t anything to write home about either.

Wait for reaper to come out, it will solve all movement related issues with shroud knight, and the other conditions mostly boil down to health which is resolved by lifeforce.

Kilger.5490:

Wait for reaper to come out, it will solve all movement related issues with shroud knight, and the other conditions mostly boil down to health which is resolved by lifeforce.

Pretty much this. You’ll have a 66% reduction of movement impairing effects while in Reaper Shroud, and your Life Force will soak up the damaging conditions.

As for currently, You shouldn’t be in Death Shroud that much. Death Shroud works great if you use it to sustain your health and maintain offensive pressure while waiting for your cooldowns to become available again.

As for just staying in Death Shroud as long as possible, sounds like something that would fit a bunker build. Any chance you could elaborate more on your situation?

Shaogin.2679:

Kilger.5490:

Wait for reaper to come out, it will solve all movement related issues with shroud knight, and the other conditions mostly boil down to health which is resolved by lifeforce.

Pretty much this. You’ll have a 66% reduction of movement impairing effects while in Reaper Shroud, and your Life Force will soak up the damaging conditions.

As for currently, You shouldn’t be in Death Shroud that much. Death Shroud works great if you use it to sustain your health and maintain offensive pressure while waiting for your cooldowns to become available again.

As for just staying in Death Shroud as long as possible, sounds like something that would fit a bunker build. Any chance you could elaborate more on your situation?

I think the DS1 is the hardest hitting for power necro. With %50 crit chance + %20 for fury, it is nearly perma crit, with some traits and protection, I have crazy damage in DS and tankiness but the moment I stay too long in DS I am condi bursted.

With protection, crits and spectral armor filling my life force I am nearly unkillable to direct damage but condi burst is kitten me.

Even condition necro has somewhat issues with condition clear, slow cast times easily interrupted heal only SoPl is reliable but not that good in DS it’s worse of course in you’re limited, if DS was a weapon swap our utilities would work in it it’s just HP with some skills on it right now. Of course that is all right now.

If its wvw you could try spiteful removal (removes 3 conditions on kill), if you tag enough people should be some cleanses rolling in.

Hoelbrak, Melandru, Generosity, and consumables can help beyond Shrouded Removal

posthumecaver.6473:

Shaogin.2679:

Kilger.5490:

Wait for reaper to come out, it will solve all movement related issues with shroud knight, and the other conditions mostly boil down to health which is resolved by lifeforce.

Pretty much this. You’ll have a 66% reduction of movement impairing effects while in Reaper Shroud, and your Life Force will soak up the damaging conditions.

As for currently, You shouldn’t be in Death Shroud that much. Death Shroud works great if you use it to sustain your health and maintain offensive pressure while waiting for your cooldowns to become available again.

As for just staying in Death Shroud as long as possible, sounds like something that would fit a bunker build. Any chance you could elaborate more on your situation?

I think the DS1 is the hardest hitting for power necro. With %50 crit chance + %20 for fury, it is nearly perma crit, with some traits and protection, I have crazy damage in DS and tankiness but the moment I stay too long in DS I am condi bursted.

With protection, crits and spectral armor filling my life force I am nearly unkillable to direct damage but condi burst is kitten me.

You can actually put out more damage with your Dagger auto-attack. It just feels the other way around because you’re see one huge number splash on Life Blast instead of the multiple smaller splashes on the Dagger. Also you shouldn’t need the Furious Demise trait for the Fury on Death Shroud.

This is a basic power build for Necromancers.
Power Necromancer

With that build you have a 46% crit chance outside of Death Shroud, and 96% while in Death Shroud, which is more than enough. As long as you properly manage your time in and out of Death Shroud, and save Consume Conditions and Putrid Mark for the proper moments, you shouldn’t have much issues with conditions. And if conditions still give you that much trouble, you could consider taking an off-hand Dagger instead of Warhorn, but it is really not worth it.

If you don’t mind me asking, what build/set-up are you running?

I’d say, even less than 40% in Shroud than nekrtaal pointed out.

Personally, I treat Life Blast as a filler. My damage comes from dagger and axe, mostly, then conditions. On zerker. And I can’t function on Power build without Near to Death. I utilize the cooldown too much to give up on 4 seconds reduction.

But then, I run no wells and Rune of Speed, so not everyone might like that. Works better against more experienced players than spamming LB, though.

nekretaal.6485:

. The reaper will have a trait that reduces the condition duration of movement conditions. This will become mandatory for all Pvp Reapers. The problem is that the trait is too week, Anybody with kiting skill, range and CC is going to destroy / hard counter reapers (even, for example, necromancers).

You do realise with this trait you can have -33~91% on movement impairing conditions depending on runes.
This means every second of chilled/cripple/ immobilise will last between 0.67 and 0.09 seconds.
Taking melendru runes means in shroud you are immune to movement impairing conditions and hoelbrak runes means they will almost instantly fall off you. Same outside of shroud they won’t stop you long if at all. I can’t say the trait is weak. If anything its extremely strong and it’s the strongest incarnation of its type of trait in the game others capping at 33%.

Sigmoid.7082:

nekretaal.6485:

. The reaper will have a trait that reduces the condition duration of movement conditions. This will become mandatory for all Pvp Reapers. The problem is that the trait is too week, Anybody with kiting skill, range and CC is going to destroy / hard counter reapers (even, for example, necromancers).

You do realise with this trait you can have -33~91% on movement impairing conditions depending on runes.
This means every second of chilled/cripple/ immobilise will last between 0.67 and 0.09 seconds.
Taking melendru runes means in shroud you are immune to movement impairing conditions and hoelbrak runes means they will almost instantly fall off you. Same outside of shroud they won’t stop you long if at all. I can’t say the trait is weak. If anything its extremely strong and it’s the strongest incarnation of its type of trait in the game others capping at 33%.

You can pretty much ignore Nekretaal. He hits up near about every necro thread spouting his pessimistic nonsense.

Shaogin.2679:

posthumecaver.6473:

Shaogin.2679:

Kilger.5490:

Wait for reaper to come out, it will solve all movement related issues with shroud knight, and the other conditions mostly boil down to health which is resolved by lifeforce.

Pretty much this. You’ll have a 66% reduction of movement impairing effects while in Reaper Shroud, and your Life Force will soak up the damaging conditions.

As for currently, You shouldn’t be in Death Shroud that much. Death Shroud works great if you use it to sustain your health and maintain offensive pressure while waiting for your cooldowns to become available again.

As for just staying in Death Shroud as long as possible, sounds like something that would fit a bunker build. Any chance you could elaborate more on your situation?

I think the DS1 is the hardest hitting for power necro. With %50 crit chance + %20 for fury, it is nearly perma crit, with some traits and protection, I have crazy damage in DS and tankiness but the moment I stay too long in DS I am condi bursted.

With protection, crits and spectral armor filling my life force I am nearly unkillable to direct damage but condi burst is kitten me.

You can actually put out more damage with your Dagger auto-attack. It just feels the other way around because you’re see one huge number splash on Life Blast instead of the multiple smaller splashes on the Dagger. Also you shouldn’t need the Furious Demise trait for the Fury on Death Shroud.

This is a basic power build for Necromancers.
Power Necromancer

With that build you have a 46% crit chance outside of Death Shroud, and 96% while in Death Shroud, which is more than enough. As long as you properly manage your time in and out of Death Shroud, and save Consume Conditions and Putrid Mark for the proper moments, you shouldn’t have much issues with conditions. And if conditions still give you that much trouble, you could consider taking an off-hand Dagger instead of Warhorn, but it is really not worth it.

If you don’t mind me asking, what build/set-up are you running?

The reason I stay that much in DS, we have nearly no mechanics to replenish our HP pool only pitiful regeneration (or small portion of condition damage) but there are so many ways to fill Life Force when you are in DS.

So what happens in PVP match a thief and mesmer sees me, they say nom nom, a necro and he seems to be a power necro with berskers. What they don’t know I have 2 wells, spectral armor, %100 chance to crit in DS and Cavalier Amulet.

So when they are on top of me, pop spectral armor, pop wells, get the protection from SA, Wells, SA is filling my life force when taking damage, plus %100 crit chance filling my LF plus %220 crit damage hitting them like truck while with my 1900 toughness + protection I barely take any damage.

This works perfect against baddies but when a good players see what I do and condi bomb me and of the story. I wished there would be a way that taken condi damage would fill the LF also while SA is doing it for direct damage but it is not doing it for condi damage.

Well there is one issue there, you take a serious hit on your vitality in exchange for that toughness. And with Death Shroud, you should be able to soak up most of that damage without the need for that extra toughness. Also, with Cavalier Amulet, where are you getting this 100% crit chance? Even going all in with spite and taking eagle runes and sigil of accuracy, you’re looking at 34% crit chance out of death shroud and 84% in it.

So as an end result, you are taking less vitality, less precision, and less power, and trading it off for a bit more ferocity and some toughness. And I can almost guarantee you that that Toughness isn’t playing a big factor in your survival against those thieves while in Death Shroud.

posthumecaver.6473:

Hi,

part time necro here.

I have a question about how to deal with conditions in DS.

I using a power build that I camp most of the time in DS, normally necro is master of manipulating conditions but we have 0 tools to deals conditions in DS.

I mean, if the conditions would not be there, I can stay %80 of time in DS while playing necro, but you have to drop our of DS, cleanse, heal, transfer but then you have most prob no DS for the next 8s.

Am I missing something here, is there a trick to deal with conditions in DS?

as a fellow powermancer, i have almost no problems with conditions. i am spec’d specifically to require the full attention of three or more people applying conditions for them to actually bother me. take a look around teh current traits to help deal with this problem, maybe change up your utilities as well.