Guild Wars 2

Hola amigos, I am currently working on leveling a necromancer, he’s level 50 now. Just to clarify, I’m not looking for the bestest build, or the most efficient build or the end all of necro builds. From basic analysis, I’ve concluded that conditions, while fun, don’t have the same damage output as a power/prec/crit build just in general for any class. Condition stacking is broken for me because I play with a Warrior who goes sword/shield-rifle so I’ll always hit the 25 stack cap. And conditions don’t crit… as far as I know.

Anyways, I’ve decided to go Staff (Aoe) – Axe/Warhorn (Single target dps) with utility wells. As for traits I’m thinking about 20/0/30/20/0 or something like that focusing on staff/marks/wells etc. I’m going to use mostly Power/Tough/Vit gear with Berserker trinkets. I’m finally got a good feel for all my CC cooldowns (Warhorn #4), Staff (#5), (DS) #4. I also feel like I have decent control on getting rid of conditions off my self and my teammates (I play PvE like 98% of the time). I want to stand next to my warrior and guardian friends so I can get their boons so I made this tanky/support/power damage necro build.

BUT. My issue lies in said topic title. Stability and Stun Breaking. Me personally, I hate just standing there, stunlocked, knockdown locked, fear locked, blahblahblahlocked into my inevitable death. My elementalist has cantrips, my warrior and guardian have shouts. But necro, I kinda just lay there and do nothing. Some may call it a challenge but I personally do not find stun locking fun, I don’t enjoy laying on my back for 4 seconds every 15 seconds. There is nothing fun about it. As a side note, I’d like to hear from ArenaNet about CC in this game because at the moment I hate feeling useless, I hate just laying there not doing anything, not contributing, not being able to fight back. I do appreciate when someone times a CC right to interrupt, that is really satisfying, no one however enjoys being CC locked and not being able to fight back.

So, my fellow necromancers. How do you deal with being useless for seconds at a time? I understand that if you go deep into the utility tree, you can get a whooping 3 seconds of stability, we also have 2 stun breakers on a 90 second cooldown? Please correct me if I’m wrong because I really really want to be wrong. Someone tell me that we have like some 20 or 30 second stunlock/stability skills and traits. I’m really close to giving up on this class because I am not a fan of being CClocked to death.

Sorry, that 30 trait is the only stability that Necro has. Period. End of story.

Spectral Walk is the only stunbreaker that isn’t worthless outside it’s stun break effect. The swiftness is long lasting and stays crunchy in milk.

Spectral Walk is on a 60s CD and is two stun breaks, one for each use of the ability. There’s also Spectral Armor (90s) and Plague Signet (60s), and the signet would help you support your friends even more. Teleporting to the worm minion (its secondary skill) is also a stun break. Since you are already in Death Magic you can pick up Reaper’s Protection and punish people for disabling you with a long disable of your own. You can go into Death Shroud at any time, even if disabled, so if you have good life force generation (staff + axe/focus is decent) you can eat any damage that comes your way after the disable.

If you put 15 points into Soul Reaping, you will automatically gain Spectral Armor for free, including the stun break. I’m pretty sure that’s the only traited one we get.

with 30 in Soul Reaping, the LF bar fills up pretty quick. i havent noticed a need for a stun breaker. i just pop into DS when i see a burst coming. Foot in the Grave is absolutely essential for spvp, it gives you 3s of near on-demand stability for stomps, or for avoiding knockbacks. Spectral Walk is a stunbreaker but it’s just a survival ability, meaning that it’s not helping you kill or buff, which wastes a slot imo. you also have an aoe fear, as long as u use a staff. and doom in DS.

Ah cool, good info ty. The CD’s still seem really long compared to other classes IMO. I’ll play around with it more and see how it affects my build, I’d really hate to lose cooldowns on staff or wells. or just losing wells all together. I don’t die all that much if at all, I just really hate sitting there in stun lock. Its incredibly annoying.

I won’t go into PvP without the 30pt stability trait. The only stun break I use though is Spectral Walk since you not only get the two breaks, but the added mobility as well as the LF gain will actually help you avoid the CC chain by either out maneuvering it or allowing you to get into DS faster for the stability and Doom to get a little breathing room. Chain CC is a Necro’s worst nightmare and one of the few major aggravations for me regarding my Necro in PvP.

The best thing to do, when you get knocked down (skelks in AC for example), is DS then hit #3 immediately. The skelks will get stunned instead of feared, not sure why, but it breaks their channeled knockdown allowing you to get up again. In PvE you don’t really need any stunbreakers as long as you have life force.

Best part about it is you can use it every 20s.

Edit: Minus jade maw, but it’s not like you’ll be using wells for anything during that boss fight.

lettucemode.3789:

If you put 15 points into Soul Reaping, you will automatically gain Spectral Armor for free, including the stun break. I’m pretty sure that’s the only traited one we get.

Plus, the lowered Spectral timer is at 10pts into that line, I find it fairly worthy enough to keep it there as it drops the cycle time down to about 48sec on Spec-Walk (not been able to confirm if it affects the cyclic time of Spec-Armour at 15pts though).

Which if nothing else gives you +33% speed 90% of the time, 100% if you switch in a warhorn for Locusts. That in a way does give you something of ‘prevention’ instead of cure for maintaining a kiting position.

Generate Life Force, Stack Vulnerability, Blood is Power, touch their butt, epidemic if you want to touch their friend’s butts too. If they try to touch your but, use Plague and quickly ctrl+mouseclick plague 2 so it auto-attacks. (this makes you clench like those female body builders, no one can touch this butt)

And if for somehow your butt gets touched anyway, Spectral Walk and run away while building more life force if people chase and attack… etc.. so forth, wink wink nudge nudge.

Basically, I touch butts without stability. And if you really need to get that stupid vengeance kitten greatsword Rambo down, Plague Stomp.

XiL.4318:

Generate Life Force, Stack Vulnerability, Blood is Power, touch their butt, epidemic if you want to touch their friend’s butts too. If they try to touch your but, use Plague and quickly ctrl+mouseclick plague 2 so it auto-attacks. (this makes you clench like those female body builders, no one can touch this butt)

And if for somehow your butt gets touched anyway, Spectral Walk and run away while building more life force if people chase and attack… etc.. so forth, wink wink nudge nudge.

Basically, I touch butts without stability. And if you really need to get that stupid vengeance kitten greatsword Rambo down, Plague Stomp.

I like this post.

By the way, all the plague skills act like a switch. Your plague pulses once per second, and will use whatever ability you clicked last on each pulse until you press a new one. No need to autocast.

lettucemode.3789:

XiL.4318:

Generate Life Force, Stack Vulnerability, Blood is Power, touch their butt, epidemic if you want to touch their friend’s butts too. If they try to touch your but, use Plague and quickly ctrl+mouseclick plague 2 so it auto-attacks. (this makes you clench like those female body builders, no one can touch this butt)

And if for somehow your butt gets touched anyway, Spectral Walk and run away while building more life force if people chase and attack… etc.. so forth, wink wink nudge nudge.

Basically, I touch butts without stability. And if you really need to get that stupid vengeance kitten greatsword Rambo down, Plague Stomp.

I like this post.

By the way, all the plague skills act like a switch. Your plague pulses once per second, and will use whatever ability you clicked last on each pulse until you press a new one. No need to autocast.

You do this to dance in cripples without having to click another button.

I played RTS for years, a button press is an eternity.

Manticore Five.9867:

Sorry, that 30 trait is the only stability that Necro has. Period. End of story.

Spectral Walk is the only stunbreaker that isn’t worthless outside it’s stun break effect. The swiftness is long lasting and stays crunchy in milk.

this is a perfect description of our current state w/ stability and swiftness.

this is why i suggested 8s stability w/ spectral armor…

but the mods decided that suggestion was a general suggestion (wtf? its a necro specific suggestion to a necro utility), so they moved it to the general suggestions subforums.. but wait! they actually just deleted it instead. (my thread disappeared.. you can’t even search for it.) mod fail.

Thresher.3049:

lettucemode.3789:

If you put 15 points into Soul Reaping, you will automatically gain Spectral Armor for free, including the stun break. I’m pretty sure that’s the only traited one we get.

Plus, the lowered Spectral timer is at 10pts into that line, I find it fairly worthy enough to keep it there as it drops the cycle time down to about 48sec on Spec-Walk (not been able to confirm if it affects the cyclic time of Spec-Armour at 15pts though).

Which if nothing else gives you +33% speed 90% of the time, 100% if you switch in a warhorn for Locusts. That in a way does give you something of ‘prevention’ instead of cure for maintaining a kiting position.

you have no idea how heart-rending soul reaping 10 is for me.

i love perma-swift so much… i just wish it didn’t cost 10 points!!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun_breaker#Skills_that_break_stun

Stability is the huge weakness on necro, and this is one of the reason why you will want to use your elite very well. I personally have full soul reaping, so when i need it i take foot on the grave trait (honestly i mostly use that trait skill and rarely swap anyway), so i don’t really care, but i can see a non soul reaping necro having a lot of problems. Now if you need long lasting stability use your elite ( a whooping 20s for plague and 30s stability on lich form isn’t something you should ignore totally like most people seam to do here). The only real problem is that you can’t res with stability on the necro, which is totally stupid, necro lord of life and dead can’t res properly??? wtf

As of stun breaker they are enough of them i don’t see the problem, spectral walk is a good one if you like having speed buff.