Guild Wars 2

Ok… So I’m running an Apothecary Build at the moment, and I’m LOVING IT, but I feel I could invest in Torment as it’s just one of those things you look at, compare it with a Build you know of, and think: “I’ve gotta test this, even if I’m the first ever person”-after all, that is what Guild Wars 2 promotes.

My Question is:
Is it worth reducing a Stat of mine (from the Apothecary Tree (Toughness, Healing & Condi)) to maximise a Torment Build with excess Healing and sufficient Condition Damage to keep Torment on par with my Bleed stacks? Would it be effective in WvW, PvE & Dungeons/Fractals? Which Professions would it be most effective/least effective at? Why?

I’m sure I’m not the only person looking for answers ;D

Thanks! Feel free to share thoughts!

Merry Christmas btw!!!!

If you want to use a Torment build, Mesmer or Thief are your best bets. I recently saw a build on the thief forums that actually applies 20+ stacks of torment solo, so I would think that is the way to go.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

If you want to use a Torment build, Mesmer or Thief are your best bets. I recently saw a build on the thief forums that actually applies 20+ stacks of torment solo, so I would think that is the way to go.

Weird to think that a DPS-based and stereotyped class now beats a Condition-renowned class in terms of a new condition with a mean-sounding name to be honest, but I have to agree…

I don’t really wanna spend about a week levelling up my noobie Human thief though if I’m honest, I’d rather stick with my Necromancer in terms of Conditions as it’s pretty much maxed for what it currently is; would there be any suggestions to (if anything) get a Necromancer with the standard of a Thief’s Condition Build in relation to Torment? I’d love to hear any news/Videos you’ve found

Realistically, the answer is no. Necros have only one method of applying Torment, and it’s on a long cooldown with a low stack cap. Thieves have two skills that apply Torment, one of which can be heavily traited to make better and the other which has no cooldown (but it does have practical limitations).

The thief build in particular uses the two summoning skills with a venom share Skale Venom to apply 16 stacks from that skill alone. Add in one P/D#3 and that’s 18 stacks before accounting for runes or sigils.

18 stacks compared to 3. There simply is no contest. Even without using Thieves Guild, it’s still 10 stacks or more on a similar cooldown to Tainted Shackles.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Realistically, the answer is no. Necros have only one method of applying Torment, and it’s on a long cooldown with a low stack cap. Thieves have two skills that apply Torment, one of which can be heavily traited to make better and the other which has no cooldown (but it does have practical limitations).

The thief build in particular uses the two summoning skills with a venom share Skale Venom to apply 16 stacks from that skill alone. Add in one P/D#3 and that’s 18 stacks before accounting for runes or sigils.

18 stacks compared to 3. There simply is no contest. Even without using Thieves Guild, it’s still 10 stacks or more on a similar cooldown to Tainted Shackles.

I agree there xD
What would you say to that Build for the Thief all-in-all then?

Oh, and would you think that ANet would see sense and allow Necromancer to more Torment Abilities since it would suit Necro?

If you want a torment build, i’ roll a Thief.

It has the most torment at it’s disposal. Through the p/d dual skill, torment venom, torment sigils/runes.

I’ve run it a couple time in sPvP and it isn’t “optimal” for team play, but it is very fun. You can solo lord/creatures easily and 1v1s with players are fantastic.

Just don’t be a troll, because it’s a very annoying build to fight :/

30/0/0/20/20 p/d p/d

Short answer, with necros limited torment it isn’t worth it.

It is one of those things that I play around with. Currently I have x6 superior rune of tormenting on my necro, and they’re alright.

Necromancers have a lot more torment than everyone is giving them credit for. While thieves can spam shadow strike and use skale venom share to inflict a lot of torment, that is done on one target, and only for 5 seconds at a time. Necromancers only inflict 3 stacks on any one target, but they do this to 5 targets in a large AoE. Effectively, a necro inflicts 15 stacks of torment with tainted shackes, and these stacks last for 10 seconds each. And then you use epidemic…

Whether this is worth the investment or not is a different question. The reason why it works well for thieves is because they can burst 18 to 20 stacks of torment onto a single target. That is the equivalent of 30 bleeds, and all of the extra duration from tormenting runes is enough to ensure a kill.

But for Necros, additional torment is just a bit more damage in an AoE. I’m sure that the additional 3 seconds of torment (about 2k damage per enemy, or 10k damage total) on multiple enemies helps, but it doesn’t seem nearly as crucial as it does on a thief. Right now, the biggest buff the rune set has is the torment on heal, which is in itself risky to use.

As for the sigil of tormenting… it is beaten out both by the sigil of earth and the sigil of geomancy in the majority of situations. The only time the torment sigil can beat earth is if it constantly procs on 4 or more targets. That is quite hard to do, in both PVE and PVP.

The primary source of damage from condi necros is bleeding. First and foremost, you should have your bleeding sorted out, and if you have to compromise bleeding to get torment, then it isn’t worth it.

Torment had to stay as a necromancer hallmark. “Tormenting” has nothing to do with a mesmer, warrior or thief. Plus we have only one skill with higher cooldown to use torment. They have to change burning and some bleeding to torment before.

Umut.5471:

Torment had to stay as a necromancer hallmark. “Tormenting” has nothing to do with a mesmer, warrior or thief. Plus we have only one skill with higher cooldown to use torment. They have to change burning and some bleeding to torment before.

yeah, no, that wont happen. it’s pretty unlikely that they remove torment from other classes again. and changing burning? that would mean anet has to admit making a mistake and this is simply not possible.

besides, i already hear ppl whining about “TORMENT OP!!11”…

It is not worth investing any money into necromancer right now. All our builds are 1 or 2 nerfs away from being made useless. And these nerfs are coming up in January.

Torment and Dhuumfire are probably going to be nerfed in the same update.