Guild Wars 2

Hey Khalifa, its Draylic the guy you’ve been messaging.

So a couple things:

First off, the build is a tonne of fun. I enjoy it a lot…when I live.

I’ve been having serious issues with the team fights. I dont know if I’m just doing it wrong (probably) or if its just hard as kitten to continue to live through the zerg fest a mid team fight brings, but as a cloth caster with 1 heal (and, granted, DS) its hard at times to survive.

Next, as a melee class, what do we have to get away? I mean if we’re using Epidemic (which i’ll get to in a second) and the other 2 for DPS/Team fights, we have little to know escapibility.

How do u run away from a fight thats headed south? switch to staff, AoE fear…then what? 1 second and they’re on you again?

2nd, epidemic has been quite helpful for mid. You’re right it HAS been awesome.

it just seems very hectic to be constantly worrying about getting ganked, popping into DS, switching out, meleeing, dropping AoE’s, Syphoning, watching enemies for high condition count to Epidemic, watching teammates to res them, all while trying to stay alive as a melee caster :/

Care to enlighten us baddies? haha

Well I mean it’s not an easy build to play I will say that. It has taken me A LOT of practice to even be able to play this in paids. Like you said yes there is a ton of things you have to be aware of constantly to not only survive but to also keep a good dps cycle going.

As far as getting away from the zerg I mean it’s pretty reliant on knowing when to engage a fight and which target to attack. You have to play this like you would a thief or warrior, go in for the gib at the right time. If you just run into the middle of a fight you will die very very fast.

That being said I will tell you ele and guardian are your best friend in this build. Any decent ele will be able to peel targets for you so that you can get away. This can be very frustrating to play at first because it will seem like you’re not contributing much. I have to say just stick with it and over time you will see the true effectiveness of this build. The damage output is worth the risk you have to take to play this build imo.

You will pretty much have 100% LF at most times so I mean use that to your best ability to get away from targets. A well placed fear/chill mark into a dagger 3 will give you plenty of time to get away from targets. Don’t forget dagger 3 + epi is an aoe root that can be used offensively and defensively.

So a quick review from 8s (and a few 5s).

This build is very fun. That said, it is very squishy. It seems completely hit or miss. Some games I just crush and other games I can’t catch a break. I have found if that if you are unfortunate enough to eat some burst like mesmer shatter of 100b, you are toast.

I find the build is incredibly reliant on team skills (for stability for example). It has also changed the way I play. I will continue playing it (and tweaking it). Now, come up with a good axe build for us :P

I would really like to see a lifesteal work. This build would be unrealistically fun if lifesteal gets ironed out.

I think this build has really opened my eyes to our traits. I think they are awful. Many, many times I was stuck choosing the best of terrible choices.

Thanks!

QSpec.4298:

So a quick review from 8s (and a few 5s).

This build is very fun. That said, it is very squishy. It seems completely hit or miss. Some games I just crush and other games I can’t catch a break. I have found if that if you are unfortunate enough to eat some burst like mesmer shatter of 100b, you are toast.

I find the build is incredibly reliant on team skills (for stability for example). It has also changed the way I play. I will continue playing it (and tweaking it). Now, come up with a good axe build for us :P

I would really like to see a lifesteal work. This build would be unrealistically fun if lifesteal gets ironed out.

I think this build has really opened my eyes to our traits. I think they are awful. Many, many times I was stuck choosing the best of terrible choices.

Thanks!

Well I am glad you are having fun with this build. It is rather squishy at times, but I mean what high dps class is not sqishy in this game (besides the broken class that is retal dps guard).

I tend to not usually have a hard time with things like mesmer/warrior burst because of the fact that you almost always have full DS in this build and you build LF really quickly. It takes a lot of map awareness to play effectively, you have to be anticipating those bursts and be ready for DS to eat them.

This build is highly reliant on a competent team, but that is because I specifically designed this for tpvp(paids). By creating a build with team play in mind you are able to come up with more fun and creative ways to play like this build.

As far as axe goes I’m afraid that until we get some sort of weapon rework for axe it just won’t be on par with the dagger. The dps output is just far lower and I don’t feel the extra range on the axe justifies using it over dagger.

Like you I can’t wait until the day life steal is addressed so that it heals for a respectable amount. The survivability issues necros face would probably be fixed if life steal worked the way I think they intended it to. I feel that is why currently necros seem to have terrible survivability, I believe that life steal was supposed to be our mechanic to stay alive but it has been almost forgotten about by the devs. I highly dobut there was any serious testing for the blood magic tree the way they released it.

Keep at it if you enjoy the build, I have to say this is the most fun way to play necro imo.

I’m gonna try this build. Thanks for sharing.

My 80 main is a warrior, and I thought necro would be a cool alt, but don’t really like playing finger-wigglers. Since I enjoy the melee of the warrior, I’m hoping to like this necro build. Direct Damage (is that what D/D is?) is more fun to play for me.

Bogartan.2756:

I’m gonna try this build. Thanks for sharing.

My 80 main is a warrior, and I thought necro would be a cool alt, but don’t really like playing finger-wigglers. Since I enjoy the melee of the warrior, I’m hoping to like this necro build. Direct Damage (is that what D/D is?) is more fun to play for me.

D/D is dagger/dagger, but I mean it’s mostly direct dmg. Most necro moves add condi’s so its a mix of both.

@Khalifa

I find the burst difficult to deal with in 8s when dodges and DS cooldown are being used more frequently to avoid other things. I found in 5s and some tourney’s that it was less of an issue. I did have problems popping bunkers in tourney’s though. Thoughts on that?

I also think this build will make one a better player (within reason). I have already learned significantly more about best times to dodge, DS, etc.

Would you comment on our traits? I find them to be a little haphazard. I found this to be especially true with your build. While there are certainly some good ones in there, some seem chosen because there were no real alternatives (like +mark damage in spite). Thoughts?

this build is only viable in teamfights if #1 you have time warp and lich form, time warp is brokenly op. #2 if kitten sit in your wells. Other than that you’re either sitting in staff spamming 1-5 or chasing someone around with your dagger.

Oblivion.8307:

this build is only viable in teamfights if #1 you have time warp and lich form, time warp is brokenly op. #2 if kitten sit in your wells. Other than that you’re either sitting in staff spamming 1-5 or chasing someone around with your dagger.

And how is scepter/staff build any different? you spam your marks and hit 2 and 3. Dagger has more direct damage and I still get the aoe condi spread with epidemic. Wells are most effective when someone goes down, drop them on the person and his team will most likely die if they try to rez, or use your root before you well. This build is only really viable with a team that works with you and that’s what it is made for (tpvp).

People always tell me this build isn’t viable, just because you can’t make it work doesn’t mean someone else can’t.

QSpec.4298:

@Khalifa

I find the burst difficult to deal with in 8s when dodges and DS cooldown are being used more frequently to avoid other things. I found in 5s and some tourney’s that it was less of an issue. I did have problems popping bunkers in tourney’s though. Thoughts on that?

I also think this build will make one a better player (within reason). I have already learned significantly more about best times to dodge, DS, etc.

Would you comment on our traits? I find them to be a little haphazard. I found this to be especially true with your build. While there are certainly some good ones in there, some seem chosen because there were no real alternatives (like +mark damage in spite). Thoughts?

Yeah I mean this build isn’t for hotjoins, I can’t even stand 8v8 I don’t know how anyone does it lol. For 8v8 you would be much better going scepter. As far as bunkers go, they can be killed with this but it takes a long time, and I mean a long time lol. It is a tourney build after all, there is no reason you should be trying to kill a bunker let alone anything solo.

I can agree with you that the build would make you more or less a better necro simply for the fact it teaches you to use DS to its fullest potential. Then you can take that into other builds if you wish.

As far as traits go, we all know they are spread kind of randomly. Some of them just seem to not synergize with the tree they are in. I believe that the devs are aware of this (whether it seems like it or not), and a fix will come sometime in the future. For now we have to make the best of what we have. To comment on your uncertainty about the marks trait I think it’s a great one actually. Being that staff is a main weapon in most builds the 10% damage boost is nice. Not to mention thief runes + grandmaster spite trait would give you 40% dmg boost on staff to enemies under 50%.

I set up a stream so people who want to see this build played can watch. It’s kitten quality because my computer atm is pretty bad lol, but I’ll be getting a new one soon to improve quality.

www.twitch.tv/khalifasts

Khalifahaze.6045:

Oblivion.8307:

this build is only viable in teamfights if #1 you have time warp and lich form, time warp is brokenly op. #2 if kitten sit in your wells. Other than that you’re either sitting in staff spamming 1-5 or chasing someone around with your dagger.

And how is scepter/staff build any different? you spam your marks and hit 2 and 3. Dagger has more direct damage and I still get the aoe condi spread with epidemic. Wells are most effective when someone goes down, drop them on the person and his team will most likely die if they try to rez, or use your root before you well. This build is only really viable with a team that works with you and that’s what it is made for (tpvp).

People always tell me this build isn’t viable, just because you can’t make it work doesn’t mean someone else can’t.

Because you can’t be kited with a scepter.

Ok so I’ve been playing this build a bunch and you’re right Khalifa I finally settled into the same trait allocation as you (30/15/10/0/15). It’s the best burst damage you can get w/o going higher into the curses line and it isn’t worth giving up the utility + survivability in soul reaping (more on that in a min). I’m a min/maxer at heart and through my efforts to min/max I discovered a few things you might want to consider.

First is that I had before running the numbers I had no idea the degree in how superior power was compared to precision and crit dmg. Assuming 50% uptime on fury, Power is valued at 2x precision and 2.5x critical dmg. This is initially what prompted me to settle back into the spite line after testing 30/30 curses/SR. But that led me to take another look at my rune set up to look at my options for power runes, and I found runes of the ogre to provide superior DPS than runes of the thief, even assuming 100% uptime on the targets back which obviously is not a realistic assumption. And by the same token this makes bloodlust sigil superior to the precision variant.

The 2nd is I’ve also settled for the focus as my offhand. You can spec for the 20% CD reduc in the spite line if you wish, but the main reason is because of the instant 12 stack of vulnerability if you use Focus 4 in meele range, and has very nice damage + LF generation to boot. Combined with Well of suffering you can quite close to a full vulnerability stack on your spike target . Very powerful in a coordinated spike (imagine it combined with staff guard for party might and/or party fury with aura share ele… scary indeed). The boon strips and additional chill/snare from Focus 5 is just icing on the cake.

For utilities I’ve been swapping that 3rd slot (rez sig, Well of suff) quite a bit. I’ve settled on 3 options: well of corruption (I like to alternate the two wells for more consistent spikes as dagger 3 has roughly half the CD as the wells), flesh wurm (stun break of choice, but generally not needed) and signet of locust for mobility. BiP I found to be quite underwhelming.

I know you said you settled on epidemic to give you an extra option from ranged but I actually grabbed unyielding blast instead of path of midnight to give me a strong ranged option. I pretty much save my DS 2 skill to coincide with my Dag 3 so a reduction in cooldown there is useless, and I use DS 3 defensively or as a set up for 2 so a reduction there isn’t all that great either. Unyielding blast however gives you a powerful piercing projectile that can be used to burn down rezers, burn through minions/clones etc. It’s pretty potent in a team fight. Plus it stacks 2x vulnerability per hit. With the ample amount of LF generation this build has you have plenty of LF to burn.

I think those were the main tweaks I made. Just thought I’d offer them up since you opened my eyes about this build working in paids.

Skyro.3108:

Ok so I’ve been playing this build a bunch and you’re right Khalifa I finally settled into the same trait allocation as you (30/15/10/0/15). It’s the best burst damage you can get w/o going higher into the curses line and it isn’t worth giving up the utility + survivability in soul reaping (more on that in a min). I’m a min/maxer at heart and through my efforts to min/max I discovered a few things you might want to consider.

First is that I had before running the numbers I had no idea the degree in how superior power was compared to precision and crit dmg. Assuming 50% uptime on fury, Power is valued at 2x precision and 2.5x critical dmg. This is initially what prompted me to settle back into the spite line after testing 30/30 curses/SR. But that led me to take another look at my rune set up to look at my options for power runes, and I found runes of the ogre to provide superior DPS than runes of the thief, even assuming 100% uptime on the targets back which obviously is not a realistic assumption. And by the same token this makes bloodlust sigil superior to the precision variant.

The 2nd is I’ve also settled for the focus as my offhand. You can spec for the 20% CD reduc in the spite line if you wish, but the main reason is because of the instant 12 stack of vulnerability if you use Focus 4 in meele range, and has very nice damage + LF generation to boot. Combined with Well of suffering you can quite close to a full vulnerability stack on your spike target . Very powerful in a coordinated spike (imagine it combined with staff guard for party might and/or party fury with aura share ele… scary indeed). The boon strips and additional chill/snare from Focus 5 is just icing on the cake.

For utilities I’ve been swapping that 3rd slot (rez sig, Well of suff) quite a bit. I’ve settled on 3 options: well of corruption (I like to alternate the two wells for more consistent spikes as dagger 3 has roughly half the CD as the wells), flesh wurm (stun break of choice, but generally not needed) and signet of locust for mobility. BiP I found to be quite underwhelming.

I know you said you settled on epidemic to give you an extra option from ranged but I actually grabbed unyielding blast instead of path of midnight to give me a strong ranged option. I pretty much save my DS 2 skill to coincide with my Dag 3 so a reduction in cooldown there is useless, and I use DS 3 defensively or as a set up for 2 so a reduction there isn’t all that great either. Unyielding blast however gives you a powerful piercing projectile that can be used to burn down rezers, burn through minions/clones etc. It’s pretty potent in a team fight. Plus it stacks 2x vulnerability per hit. With the ample amount of LF generation this build has you have plenty of LF to burn.

I think those were the main tweaks I made. Just thought I’d offer them up since you opened my eyes about this build working in paids.

I’m glad you are enjoying the build and I appreciate your feedback on changes to make the build stronger. I will have to try out ogre runes when I get a chance, I will take you word that they are preforming better.

As for the focus, I have said to many people (forgot if I did in this thread or not) but focus is a great offhand. It can work very well in this build and increase your spike damage by a ton (like you stated). That being said, dagger is just my preference I love the blind/condi transfer and I feel that both dagger and focus synergize well with this build.

For utilities again many different things will work, the ones I chose are just what I prefer to run. The reason I used to run BiP is because my team ran with a staff guardian. BiP+guardian might stack gives you 25 stacks of might, and that adds a lot of damage for setting up burst (especially in lich form). I finally settled on epidemic because of the increased pressure it adds on the enemy team. Just because I’m not full condi doesn’t mean epidemic is a bad choice. If your all focusing on one target they will have plenty of condis to spread (spreading confusion from a mesmer is awesome).

In my orginal d/d build I used to run with unyielding blast instead of path of midnight. The ranged damage from life blast was pretty nice considering how hard they hit a target. After more and more time with the build I decided that faster cd’s on DS skills was more worth it to me because of how much time you spend in DS with this build. Another reason for the change was sitting in DS blasting all your LF away is not always the smartest choice. Once again though whatever works for you is great, I am just glad you are enjoying the build

First, thanks to Khalifa for keeping conversation going on the necro class that most decent players already abandoned due to bugs and other issues.

I’ve been fooling around with Dagger main necros for awhile, and it is a very fun playstyle. Min/maxing burst with the Thief runes just as Khalifa does it here is one of the things I stumbled on and found it awesome. One of the coolest things is that you can change off-hand pretty much on the fly and it is still awesome.

I hadn’t thought to use the spiteful marks trait, but I see the logic and want to try it out. Seems like a good fit.

A little variation that I fiddled with for 8’s was dropping the last 5 from the Curses line (I know, losing fury sucks) and pumping it into Reaping for the +50% fear duration, then going 2x Runes of Lyssa and 4x Runes of the Lich. You drop off direct damage a ton, but the AoE CC chain is silly in the large team mid fights. 2s large AoE Fear followed by +50% duration immoble that you can epidemic makes for lots of dead bodies in a hurry when there are more traditional burst builds all over the place already in 8’s. If you catch a big group too close together and you can get off a dagger 3, epidemic, well of suffering, Staff 3-4 you can drop multiple targets in a matter of a few seconds before they even figure what happened.

Like has been said, it definately isn’t a build for everyone, and the skill floor (meaning minimum skill required to be remotely effective) for a power necro built this way is probably higher than just about any other class/build combo, but it is ultra fun once you get the hang of it.

Hey I just saw this thread. I’ve done a lot of dagger builds and any kind of pure dagger build is weak for sure so the main question is what to run with it. The two builds I now use a lot, with d/d and d/f are a chill build with Chilling Darkness and +chill/freeze duration and a power/DS build. It’s fun to build might with Reaper’s Might/Blood is Power and see how high a crit you can get with Necrotic Slash.

Khalifahaze.6045:

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

First, thanks to Khalifa for keeping conversation going on the necro class that most decent players already abandoned due to bugs and other issues.

I’ve been fooling around with Dagger main necros for awhile, and it is a very fun playstyle. Min/maxing burst with the Thief runes just as Khalifa does it here is one of the things I stumbled on and found it awesome. One of the coolest things is that you can change off-hand pretty much on the fly and it is still awesome.

I hadn’t thought to use the spiteful marks trait, but I see the logic and want to try it out. Seems like a good fit.

A little variation that I fiddled with for 8’s was dropping the last 5 from the Curses line (I know, losing fury sucks) and pumping it into Reaping for the +50% fear duration, then going 2x Runes of Lyssa and 4x Runes of the Lich. You drop off direct damage a ton, but the AoE CC chain is silly in the large team mid fights. 2s large AoE Fear followed by +50% duration immoble that you can epidemic makes for lots of dead bodies in a hurry when there are more traditional burst builds all over the place already in 8’s. If you catch a big group too close together and you can get off a dagger 3, epidemic, well of suffering, Staff 3-4 you can drop multiple targets in a matter of a few seconds before they even figure what happened.

Like has been said, it definately isn’t a build for everyone, and the skill floor (meaning minimum skill required to be remotely effective) for a power necro built this way is probably higher than just about any other class/build combo, but it is ultra fun once you get the hang of it.

Yeah this could work quite well, I have recently stopped playing d/d in tpvp and switched to a 0/20/20/0/30 s/d terror build. It works quite well for me atm with the meta being so ele heavy. I do plan to go back to power in the future and I would most likely play around with it more, possibly doing things as you have stated. Rumor has it power necro will be getting a buff so we will just have to wait and see what happens.

alamore.1974:

Khalifahaze.6045:

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Weak by what PVE standards? You can get a little more damage by using ogre runes etc, but the damage from this build is great imo.

Ive been using this build for a while after khalifa gave it to me when I was moaning on the forums. It’s a lot of fun but u gotta know what youre doing. You’re like a thief with more utility and no stealth.

I wanna take this build into wvw. Knight stats arent the same in pve. Any gear suggestions?

alamore.1974:

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Don’t be silly. If you look at the math on Necro skills in general they cannot keep up with the sustained damage of most other classes when it comes to direct damage. It isn’t a real DPS set up. The BURST is stupid though. You can melt a bunker from full health when the sigil procs and still have time to stomp before the quickness wears off if the RNG gives you enough crits.

The volume of hits that you put out with the MH dagger renders essentially all mitigation except invulnerability and knockbacks completely useless when you are under quickness, and if you can bait the outs or have a dazed/kd’d target before pushing the burst (this is what takes patience and skill) it is all over, pretty much without exception. It is tricky to utilize to its full potential (I am nowhere near it) due to all of the situational skills, but wildly effective.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

alamore.1974:

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Don’t be silly. If you look at the math on Necro skills in general they cannot keep up with the sustained damage of most other classes when it comes to direct damage. It isn’t a real DPS set up. The BURST is stupid though. You can melt a bunker from full health when the sigil procs and still have time to stomp before the quickness wears off if the RNG gives you enough crits.

The volume of hits that you put out with the MH dagger renders essentially all mitigation except invulnerability and knockbacks completely useless when you are under quickness, and if you can bait the outs or have a dazed/kd’d target before pushing the burst (this is what takes patience and skill) it is all over, pretty much without exception. It is tricky to utilize to its full potential (I am nowhere near it) due to all of the situational skills, but wildly effective.

Yeah pretty much this, I’ve 100%→0% players long before the dagger 3 root ended with the quickness proc.

nerva.7940:

Ive been using this build for a while after khalifa gave it to me when I was moaning on the forums. It’s a lot of fun but u gotta know what youre doing. You’re like a thief with more utility and no stealth.

I wanna take this build into wvw. Knight stats arent the same in pve. Any gear suggestions?

I haven’t done any pve or wvw only tpvp so I can’t answer that for you sorry

Khalifahaze.6045:

alamore.1974:

Khalifahaze.6045:

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Weak by what PVE standards? You can get a little more damage by using ogre runes etc, but the damage from this build is great imo.

Weak by pvp when It looked like your d1 skill barly hit 1k…

Edit tpvp my build right now hits about double that

alamore.1974:

Khalifahaze.6045:

alamore.1974:

Khalifahaze.6045:

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Weak by what PVE standards? You can get a little more damage by using ogre runes etc, but the damage from this build is great imo.

Weak by pvp when It looked like your d1 skill barly hit 1k…

Edit tpvp my build right now hits about double that

Swing and a miss. D1 is hitting 8x per 3/4 sec. if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t frame by frame a video, but the numbers have to pop so fast that I don’t think your eyes can keep up with it at playback speed, or the display can’t even display fast enough.

That said, I assembled a variant based on this concept using Orrian runes with the rage sigil and full Berserkers’ amulet. The proc’s on Orrian 6 increase the burst frequency and make it a wild killing machine. Probably not viable in tourney 5’s due to glassiness, but silly fun in 8’s. I ran it 30/20/0/20/0 with the +50% while down buff, ground target wells and quickening thirst + bloodthirst (I know, blood sucks, but it mitigates kiting and extends survivability when you pop Dagger2 under the quickness buff). Giving up greater marks is tricky, so I packed WoC and WoS with Signet of Undeath. Some of the “not working as intended” features of the necro get highlighted in doing this which makes it kind of a wierd way to play. You are so squishy that you will get downed, but when you know that your quickness will proc you can push the envelope and let the foes down you because your back damage is SICK and you will rally the vast majority of the time. I’d be interested to hear someone elses evaluation after playing it this way.

nerva.7940:

Ive been using this build for a while after khalifa gave it to me when I was moaning on the forums. It’s a lot of fun but u gotta know what youre doing. You’re like a thief with more utility and no stealth.

I wanna take this build into wvw. Knight stats arent the same in pve. Any gear suggestions?

I’ll take a stab at this.

In WvW this build would be suboptimal in most of the large mob scenarios, because you can’t survive frontlining a mob long enough to burst and escape. You could use it in small group hit & run scenarios, and that is about it. Place a couple of these in a group of 5 or so and staff the rest of the team with mobility (Swiftness shouts, mesmer portals, etc), AoE Stealth and other utility/buffs and you could probably run camp to camp all day wiping out npcs super fast and capping before foes can get there to stop you. WvW is so zerg centric that the upside of the concept is very limited, and finding a good fit for it in that game mode is a bit challenging.

For gear on the PvE side it doesn’t really need to be terribly specific, and it will still be effective for what it does. Just push as much power and precision into the gear as you can, with enough vitality and/or toughness to be able to survive for short duration heavy combat and it’ll go fine. Berserker, Rampager or Knights armor would all be fine. A mix of Ruby, Coral and Charyscola accessories taken with the armor of choice will work out to comparable stats proporionally. The only thing that really matters to the burst is having about 50% crit chance before you proc fury and having high enough power to make the dagger 1 hurt like hell. The rest is season to taste. If you want to prioritize the burst, then Power takes top priority with Precision 2 and crit damage 3. If you want better utility out of the staff, then pump stats into condition damage through your gear.

Yeah after doing some analysis I actually settled on the engie who brings excellent single target dps with rifles, decent aoe dps with nades and has decent survivability with zerker gear.

I just dont see a place for power necros in wvw outside of small skirmishes and popping lich every now and then.

In spvp the build is really solid tho

You put to much on your power and to much on fury from ds. I have 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage so I don’t even need fury from going into ds foot in the grave for the stable is much better.
Go to 1215 of the video and you can clearly see in lich from you hit 2900 roughly were as I hit 4000.
now granted your build may have little more HP or toughness.

alamore.1974:

You put to much on your power and to much on fury from ds. I have 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage so I don’t even need fury from going into ds foot in the grave for the stable is much better.
Go to 1215 of the video and you can clearly see in lich from you hit 2900 roughly were as I hit 4000.
now granted your build may have little more HP or toughness.

If your getting these stats in spvp your running with berserkers ammy which will give you roughly 22k hp. Have fun getting insta gibbed.

Khalifahaze.6045:

alamore.1974:

You put to much on your power and to much on fury from ds. I have 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage so I don’t even need fury from going into ds foot in the grave for the stable is much better.
Go to 1215 of the video and you can clearly see in lich from you hit 2900 roughly were as I hit 4000.
now granted your build may have little more HP or toughness.

If your getting these stats in spvp your running with berserkers ammy which will give you roughly 22k hp. Have fun getting insta gibbed.

Nothing a little skill can’t handle. :p

@khalil – I always like seeing new builds and ideas, and while I am pretty positive that condition damage is not good for every build I do like your approach. However, couple of quick points.

1) Having bloodlust on your secondary weapon means you need to finish yoru first 5 fights with staff in order to get max damage rolling.
2) Rage and Dagger auto are a bad combination – it doesn’t really improve it’s damage at all as Quickness has almost no effect on attacks as fast as dagger auto. Plus you could miss at the worst possible time with Rage rolling. Rage works pretty badly for Necro’s in general, you would be better suited with either a heal proc or just a flat damage proc.

@Bas

Rage on Dagger is awesome. I’m not sure where this “dimishing effect on fast attacks” theory came from but it’s not true. I believe there might be some de-syncing of the attack animation (similar to the de-syncing of quickness stomps) but I assure the difference in damage is significant.

Also the cooldown on Rage isn’t that big of an issue as it can be mitigated with careful usage of your weapon swaps (which is roughly 2x the CD as your immobilize). You’re not really going to be chasing people in meele with Dagger the whole match in tPvP. You’re still pretty squishy so you’ll be at range a lot.

I prefer focus in my offhand, I don’t find that dagger offhand offers much of anything (I think it’s the weakest offhand we have).

I love the build, but I changed to focus oh and I swapped the 10 point spite to II to support it because I find having a 1200 range chill on a 16 second CD to be a massive lifesaver when someone is running and I’m stuck between swaps and DS is on CD

Witch the range on chill can hlp you chase down some coward. Dagger off hand is just not that useful for a power build

This build is a lot of fun! Thanks for the guide. I did switch some things.

Full berserker amulet

Then for utilities

Spectral Grasp
Blood is Power
Well of Suffering

:D

I also changed my gear around for PvE and WvW for this. Should be interesting since my condition dmg is still fairly high too.

Bas.7406:

@khalil – I always like seeing new builds and ideas, and while I am pretty positive that condition damage is not good for every build I do like your approach. However, couple of quick points.

1) Having bloodlust on your secondary weapon means you need to finish yoru first 5 fights with staff in order to get max damage rolling.
2) Rage and Dagger auto are a bad combination – it doesn’t really improve it’s damage at all as Quickness has almost no effect on attacks as fast as dagger auto. Plus you could miss at the worst possible time with Rage rolling. Rage works pretty badly for Necro’s in general, you would be better suited with either a heal proc or just a flat damage proc.

Having bloodlust on staff really isnt a huge issue, in tpvp when players go down it’s your job to cleave the area for anyone that tries to rez. You should always be dropping marks around the body for anyone that comes in to try and save them, so getting a stack with staff isn’t hard to do at all.

As for rage sigil and dagger mainhand, from my experience this is one of the most amazing things. I have ran this build using fire and air sigils and I still prefer to run rage. The damage you put out with quickness from dagger #1 is crazy. Granted the rage sigil sometimes will proc when your not in range for dagger etc but generally speaking I still like it over air or fire. When it does proc the person you’re fighting is going to die.

Kellhus.8071:

I prefer focus in my offhand, I don’t find that dagger offhand offers much of anything (I think it’s the weakest offhand we have).

I love the build, but I changed to focus oh and I swapped the 10 point spite to II to support it because I find having a 1200 range chill on a 16 second CD to be a massive lifesaver when someone is running and I’m stuck between swaps and DS is on CD

This has always been a topic for debate whenever I give someone this build. Like I said earlier in this thread what you run as offhand is your choice. I still prefer to run the dagger offhand the condi transfer/blind is awesome in pvp and I always feel weaker without it. With focus you can get super fast stacks of vuln with #4 + well of suffering. The chill/boon removal is awesome too. That being said it’s whatever you like to use, I’m just a person that prefers dagger OH.

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

Very nice to see some appreciation for necro D/D. Having a condition cleanse and AoE weakness on the offhand weapon is exceedingly useful and allows for more skill bar diversification.

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

Khalifahaze.6045:

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

can u link ur condi build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNArYWjMat7Rbyb87JAJFPDdkigNm6R5pfOA;TsAgyCuo+y8l4L7Xuvkft8Y4xcBA

You will probably have to copy paste the link into your browser.

Khalifahaze.6045:

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

While I agree with this it’s Reaper’s Protection that I feel is sometimes overrated. I like to flip flop b/w Reaper’s Protection and the Scepter trait depending on the comp.

Skyro.3108:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

While I agree with this it’s Reaper’s Protection that I feel is sometimes overrated. I like to flip flop b/w Reaper’s Protection and the Scepter trait depending on the comp.

It’s all what you prefer really, personally I feel reaper’s protection is far too good to give up.

Bumping for those who haven’t listened to the Podcast and want to see the build.

Khal,
Thanks for the in-depth discussion. It’s nice to see peeps sticking with the Necro, despite the issues the class as a whole is still having.

One question, though. I was considering farming the Twilight dungeon for the Nightmare rune set, but now I’m conflicted. Is the Precision you get from the Thieves set that exceptional, or could I augment the Precision loss another way?

philmosk.3420:

Khal,
Thanks for the in-depth discussion. It’s nice to see peeps sticking with the Necro, despite the issues the class as a whole is still having.

One question, though. I was considering farming the Twilight dungeon for the Nightmare rune set, but now I’m conflicted. Is the Precision you get from the Thieves set that exceptional, or could I augment the Precision loss another way?

Two things, he mentioned in the podcast which I recommend you catch.

1). Khalifa has never done a single bit of PVE ;p.

2). He now uses Eagle Runes and 1 Divinity Runes. For pve purposes, the stats are slightly different and depends on how your gameplay is going.

Is this build still relevant? We’ve had some patches.

chrisk.4320:

Is this build still relevant? We’ve had some patches.

yes.

So what are you using for your sigils now? Rage doesn’t seem all that great anymore.