Guild Wars 2

After the response by ANet stating we need to use Death Shroud properly I started to think of a build. Namely high life force gain necro. So first I thought it had to be a power build but then I tried many and the burst is not the same as other classes can do, we require much more setup or long combo chains and lots of auto attacking, also we suck at group battles so bad its not even funny, bar wells but I never liked them that much.

Anyways, heres the build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNAW7YjMap7lbabM8JApHW/M0QF2l6x6sfOA;T0AgyCuoGzMmYM7YuxkjtAZAyJkdIvQA

So going over my decisions on weapons.

Staff is the main weapon and the focus of this build. The utility is bar none the best of the necro weapons. Now the reason for power and condition is the staff benefits equally from both so to maximize you would do both.

The auto is a combo finisher and generates life force. Marks can get huge and constant pressure, not to mention combo fields for teammates and the fear which can be used defensively or offensively.

Switch is the known Scepter/Dagger. The main problem I dont like with Scepter is it attacks so slow. But the parts I do like are Scepter 2, and Dagger 4/5. Scepter 2 is a cripple and a bleed so more conditions and better to kite, Dagger 4 is just too good with condition transfer, and 5 gives more conditions and weakness. Scepter 3 isn’t as great damage wise but you can use for the life force gain which is what we’re all about in this build.

Traits
10 Spite

Spiteful Spirit or Reapers Might.

Spirit if you like the retaliation if you want to punish people attacking you when you enter Death Shroud which isnt as great as it should be since its only 3 seconds I think it should be like 5 seconds, 3 seconds is nothing.

Reapers Might since Might increases power AND condition damage.

30 Death Magic
Shrouded Removal/Greater Marks/Reapers Protection.

Shrouded Removal is just quick ways to remove conditions if you dont need to use the Death Shroud for severe offensive/defensive usage. Note: Immobilize/Cripple/Chill are all conditions that can be removed.

Greater Marks cause bigger Marks.

Reapers Protection causes an auto fear if you get CCd whats not to like. You can not use this if you’re skilled enough with Death Shroud gaining stability but I’m not and I like free CC’s as it stops cheese builds.

Shrouded Removal/Reapers Protection can potentially be removed if you think you can manage without them, and instead put those maybe in Blood for life transfer heals or maybe more into Spite for increased Mark damage (Note: only increases mark initial damage).

30 Soul Reaping

Unyielding Blast/Soul Marks/Foot in the Grave

Unyielding Blast pierce is sooo delicious in group battles, and Vulnerability increases ALL damage taken and I think is an often overlooked condition. So vulnerability increases the condition damage they take also.

Soul Marks cause 3% Life gain per mark is so good and fast life force gain.

Foot in the Grave cause we really need access to some stability. Too bad its only 3 seconds, I would’ve liked maybe 4-5 seconds so I could use it for stomps.

Now utilities. These are exactly what is meant by utilities. CHANGE them depending on scenarios. You can do this in battle depending on what builds you’re facing/builds you’re playing with.

The ones I listed go in line with high life force gain but can be changed around depending on your playstyle.

Blood is Power. 30 second blood and 20% life force, helllloooo life force. Fastest way to gain life force imo and should be the first thing you do in battle especially if you’re low on life force.

Second is Corrosive Poison, now this is a personal pick and you can choose whatever you want really. I like it cause it lasts 15 seconds and does weakness and poison, two of my favorite conditions. Make heals worse, and make them glance.

Last is Spectral Armor you can use as stun breaker, protection and/or Life force gain. Now theres some problems with this ability but its still a pretty good ability. Its a shield ability with an abnormally long CD of 90 seconds. You look at Balanced Stance of Warriors its on a 40 second CD and grants stability for 8 seconds/stun breaker. Spectral armor is only 6 seconds. Hell I dont even need the protection, give me stability. Or make the CD 60 seconds so its more in line with other abilities. Or look at Stand your ground from Guardian its AOE, stability and retaliation for 5 seconds and only a 30 second CD. Thats BS. And last part is it is removed when you death shroud. Cmon that sucks so much its not even fair. Yet despite that its required cause of stun break and the high life force gain you get when using it while being bashed on.

Other utilities that can be use are:
Epidemic Spreading conditions “Share the love!”
Corrupt Boon; awesome but very situation and can be countered/blocked easily. So depends on scenario/builds. Guardian builds would be obvious usage for this ability but if its a smart guardian he’ll bait the corrupt boon and then convert those conditions into boons/or use to heal himself with it.
Plague Signet; its good but I’m personally not a fan of it. Especially in generally pub matches since no one supports you. Plus 60 seconds sucks in order to transfer conditions.
You can do wells if you like them, since its affected by power. Good damage but short duration that they’re out for. Also will need to move some traits around so wells are more viable.

Last is ult.
Lich Form. Grants stability for 30 seconds, and best benefit to power. Huge marks areas and boost to health pool. I would use it until you get to how much health you normally would’ve had, and then EXIT the form. The stability STILL remains. So if you really really needed the stability you can use it for stomps/heals whatever.

Reason not to use Plague it only lasts 20 seconds, the range is pathetic easily countered by moving away from the swarm. Stability only lasts 20 seconds then.

Flesh Golem iskitten No stability, on maps with lots of elevation pets are sokitten its not even funny. Raid of capricorn, going to beach from spawn they walk around the stairs takes forever. An enemy attacking you from above? It walks all the way around to attack you. Battle of Khylo (however its spelled). Oh god its so bad. Above the keep in Foefire, it just stands there doing nothing, cant use the knockdown.

General info/Theorycrafting

A major problem of condition mancers is death shroud looks like it sucks so bad cause its mostly power based, but this solves it and boosts condition damage through vulnerability. And you need death shroud for defense as if you try to build without it you are extremely squishy. Now I think precision is overrated for a Scepter build, cause you arent going to auto attack as much as you think, and 66% of a 40-50% crit is only 33% chance. and 25% of a crit for weakness is only 12.5% chance. Now the downside is you lose out on the on crit sigils.

Crit makes the most sense for daggers because you attack so fast though.

I think necros are made to be offensive support if that makes any sense. Just throwing tons of conditions/constant damage/pressure while your teammates go to town. You can dispel/remove conditions but the necros job is to apply more conditions faster than they can remove them. AOE’s, combo fields.

And the last thing about death shroud. Death shroud is the answer to almost everything. Taking burst? Death Shroud. Need to survive a bit longer Death Shroud. All conditions are applied/all cd’s are off, death shroud to boost condition damage/life blasts. Interrupt needed? Death Shroud. Quick condition removal? Death Shroud.

You’ll be able to death shroud 2-3 times per battle because of how fast you gain life force which dramatically increases your survivability.

Life force shouldnt drop below 50% cause then you lose out on damage.

Fear should last longer. 1 second is BS. 2 seconds would be way better. Thieves get 3 already. I’ve tried the trait for increase fear by 50% and the sigils for Fear and it still is too short.

Regarding traits that increase bleed/condition duration in theory they’re cool, but in practice the duration increased is minuscule (few seconds increase) and losing out on a lot of other traits. However other classes that increase buff durations get abnormally long increases which is quite BS imo. If you really wanted to you can get a warrior with Might stacking armor sigils to get 46 second long mights to the whole team. And since might stacks in intensity you can theoretically get might stacks of 6-9 permanently. Thats 200-300 power and condition damage increased for your whole team almost all the time.

Sigils

Hell you can do whatever you want. I just picked this cause I like poison, condition damage, and it gives me haste! Who doesn’t like haste. You can pick anything in the Malice line tbh. Weapon sigils are to taste also.

I dunno if I’m missing anything. I like theorycrafting but my skill isn’t as on par.

Another great thing is staff 4. It dumps ALL conditions on you into all enemies in an aoe. I love my staff too much. This is a good, well thought guide, btw. Great work! My build tries the power/condition, but I am still working with it, so I will have to give it more time.

I was under the impression that Conditions did not benefit from vulnerability.

Zyphent.2967:

I was under the impression that Conditions did not benefit from vulnerability.

So was I at first, but I noticed it on my necro a few weeks ago. Try to make your target bleed, record the bleed damage, then use the axe or something to inflict vulnerability. It goes up by some from what I have seen.

I have not seen any difference in stacking vulnerability to up your condition damage… or at least as far as bleeds or poison is concerned. I have been working on a combo mix of power and condition build myself and with all the different variations I never noticed any of my ticks going up in damage.

… And just for the records sake. I am currently in front of a dummy in the mists getting a solid 58 ticking… only difference is if i stack intensity and its still a 58, just flashing faster. That is with 10 stacks of vulnerability. Hard to stack both on a target, but i think 10 would be enough to notice a change.

I like your build though, kudos to you. Staff FTW

Son of a b*tch. Vulnerability from in-game tooltips and wiki http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage as well as the vulnerability wiki say it increases condition damage. But it doesn’t.

It was supposed to be fixed ugh. Vulnerability though will still help the life blasts.

Might stacks do work properly at increasing condition damage though.