Guild Wars 2

I was critting for 7k wearing full valkyrie gear. It really has the potential to hurt now.

Yeah. That thing hits like a truck now!
Of course Death Shroud rarely lasts long in PvP if you get pressured, and the projectiles are quite slow.

It’s also pretty awesome in PvE because you can stick to back line, use Unyielding Blast for the piercing and blast away!

Death Shroud’s projectiles are very fast. It’s the cast time that is slow.

But the opponents spam evasion abilities in sPVP are faster…..

Yup it won’t be very effective in tPvP that is for sure, zerg v zerg it will work a bit better I suspect. In small scale group wvw it has been working for me though.

Always did hit hard, I dont think damage went up. They just changed the requirement to get the max damage. But yea, get more of it now.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Shroud’s projectiles are very fast. It’s the cast time that is slow.

Depends what you compare them to.
They are slow as molasses compared to pistol shots, but compared to Necrotic Grasp anything is fast.

Kilger.5490:

Always did hit hard, I dont think damage went up. They just changed the requirement to get the max damage. But yea, get more of it now.

It’s damage goes up by 43% at below 600 range.
It deals the old full damage at above 600 range. (up to 1200)

It’s a huge increase.

Valkyrie necro is indeed now possible. What runes did you use in your armour?

LastDay.3524:

Kilger.5490:

Always did hit hard, I dont think damage went up. They just changed the requirement to get the max damage. But yea, get more of it now.

It’s damage goes up by 43% at below 600 range.
It deals the old full damage at above 600 range. (up to 1200)

It’s a huge increase.

it’s the exact opposite of that.
more damage when youre closer than 600

Yeah the old lifeblast mininum damage is buffed by 43% and used when firing from over 600 range. When firing under 600 it deals the same max damage it did before the patch. But we can have low lifeforce and still maintain decent damage from lifeblast now.

RashanDale.3609:

LastDay.3524:

Kilger.5490:

Always did hit hard, I dont think damage went up. They just changed the requirement to get the max damage. But yea, get more of it now.

It’s damage goes up by 43% at below 600 range.
It deals the old full damage at above 600 range. (up to 1200)

It’s a huge increase.

it’s the exact opposite of that.
more damage when youre closer than 600

That’s exactly what I said.
Except I said “less damage above 600” instead of “more damage below 600” :P

LastDay.3524:

RashanDale.3609:

LastDay.3524:

Kilger.5490:

Always did hit hard, I dont think damage went up. They just changed the requirement to get the max damage. But yea, get more of it now.

It’s damage goes up by 43% at below 600 range.
It deals the old full damage at above 600 range. (up to 1200)

It’s a huge increase.

it’s the exact opposite of that.
more damage when youre closer than 600

That’s exactly what I said.
Except I said “less damage above 600” instead of “more damage below 600” :P

Yes but you got the actual damage the wrong way round. Old full damage is below 600 range and the longer ranger attacks deal the old low damage with a 43% boost. Life blast doesnt hit any harder than it did before its just easier to maintain the max damage lifeblast now.

Oh. Well that’s disappointing.
I thought it deals the old full value at long range, and a ton of extra up close.

Still the numbers are very high, maybe I just forgot how hard that thing can hit in PvP because I rarely get to use it multiple times.

I don’t think RashanDale realized it, though.
If you read his post he thought I was claiming that the damage is higher at long range and lower up close.

Could you post a screenshot with that dmg in wvw/pve plz? I’ve hit 3-4k with it above 50% life force before but 7k seems so high. Would be awesome if it really does though

dimachaerus.4962:

Could you post a screenshot with that dmg in wvw/pve plz? I’ve hit 3-4k with it above 50% life force before but 7k seems so high. Would be awesome if it really does though

Doesn’t matter anymore if it’s above 50% lifeforce. It now does full damage when you’re within 600 range, and from 600-1200 you do, what equates to the old low damage (but buffed by 43%)

LastDay.3524:

I don’t think RashanDale realized it, though.
If you read his post he thought I was claiming that the damage is higher at long range and lower up close.

because thats what you seemed to claim when you said

It deals the old full damage at above 600 range. (up to 1200)

i simply assumed that you understood what the “43% damage increase” in the patchnotes actually means and that it is based on the old lower life blast value.

how? my crits are still at 2k?

I actually went and put my zerker stuff on and was critting around 5.5k or so on targets under 50%. With the axe trait.

I got a few up around 6.2k or so, but it was with some might and some vuln on the target. I only use ruby jewels, so I assume you are running some percentage increase runes, but still 7000 is going to be on a debuffed target or buffed player.

hmm forgot about that axe trait improving life blast damage. Might have to grab it now that it is down to master level. Still thinking it might be an oversight but worth trying for a while anyway. Main down side is have to grab an axe but whatever, main damage isnt from melee anyway.

Honestly, if you just run a rotation of axe 2 > DS (6-7 seconds to do whatever you want) > weapon swap staff > do stuff till swap is off cd > swap back > axe 2 > etc, you won’t even run into the dip in dps from not having dagger auto attack since you are never ever using anything outside of axe 2.

And the best way to maintain dmg output, as already mentioned, is 30/0/10/0/30
Might on blast, axe training, close to death
greater mark (or staff mastery if only 1 target)
vul on blast and 50% crit is necessary imo. 3rd one can vary. I personally use mark for life force, but lower drain or ds cd reduction are also fine.

This is probably only for PvE though. It’s the super glass and while necro has improved significantly, going this glass is still extremely susceptible to being trained in PvP/WvW.

I’ve been running 30/10/0/0/30.

Ten points in Curses allows for either Targeted Wells (awesome for group fights with the reduced CD’s and added utility), or Reaper’s Precision. Coupled with near 100% crit chance in DS, lifeforce drains suuuuuuper slow with Reaper’s Precision, and makes Life Transfer crazy good for sustaining DS.

The hardest part has been training my fingers to NOT flash into DS for the fear and pop back out again.

DS have become real fun to play with in PVE. LB traited for piercing, and the AOE nature of LT and TS makes for massive takedown potential. With warhorn in hand and wells on the ready we can really throw ourselves into the fight now.

I was just running beryl orbs for maximum crit damage bonus. I realize this isn’t ideal but I wasn’t going to dump tons of money on this spekittenil I tested it.

Yes the 7k crits were on debuffed targets below 50% with me at about 10 stacks of might which can be achieved just by staying in DS to unload lifeblasts. In a group when doesnt a target have max stacks of vuln and when wont I be able to stay in DS to blast away? Also the highest LB crit I got so far was 8.5k.

Without debuffs and buffs critting a player in www for 5.5-6k is still going to be the norm and still devastating.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;00;3kH-J0847JVJ0;9;4T;09T17B;40;015A5oX0h;9u-kLsFs0T;2L-Q0V1_YeZk_93-0N-5V5PcW5PF1;9;9;9;5777777;9;16-6Z

Here is the exact build and gear setup I did it with. I don’t think runes of the scholar would be a significant damage boost and it would drop a lot of HP so I am unlikely to pick them up when the price is 3.5g a piece. I will eventually replace all the trinkets for ascended power+prec+vit+crit damage pieces.

Just saying, it was able to crit this hard already before this patch.

For reference, glass cannon nemesis build.

Hmm, i notice that the crit chance in the hero panel do not change when going into DS. A minor cosmetic issue really.

AndrewSX.3794:

Just saying, it was able to crit this hard already before this patch.

For reference, glass cannon nemesis build.

The only difference now is that you have a 100% chance to crit, AND you can stay in DS firing of LBs until you exhaust your lifeforce pool—except that, if built right, you should almost never have to leave DS.

ryokoalways.3450:

Honestly, if you just run a rotation of axe 2 > DS (6-7 seconds to do whatever you want) > weapon swap staff > do stuff till swap is off cd > swap back > axe 2 > etc, you won’t even run into the dip in dps from not having dagger auto attack since you are never ever using anything outside of axe 2.

Cool, will try. I also like the immob on dagger however (esp right after spectral grasp, great combo), but cripple will have to do.

Phenn.5167:

AndrewSX.3794:

Just saying, it was able to crit this hard already before this patch.

For reference, glass cannon nemesis build.

The only difference now is that you have a 100% chance to crit, AND you can stay in DS firing of LBs until you exhaust your lifeforce pool—except that, if built right, you should almost never have to leave DS.

Such builds would be so luck based its not even funny. I’ve recently tried a new pure glass cannon based on death shroud and while the crits are indeed welcoming, the only thing that could sustain it was the one adept trait in curses that gives 1% lifeforce on crit with a 33% chance.

You can’t kill enemies that fast, no matter what kind of build. You will always run out of death shroud.

Phenn.5167:

AndrewSX.3794:

Just saying, it was able to crit this hard already before this patch.

For reference, glass cannon nemesis build.

The only difference now is that you have a 100% chance to crit, AND you can stay in DS firing of LBs until you exhaust your lifeforce pool—except that, if built right, you should almost never have to leave DS.

Sure, not denying that i’t buffed, just that very high crits from DS 1 aren’t a news – just weren’t as reliable as now.

Well I should have said it can hit hard now without sacrificing all defensive stats to do it. With my current build I have 26k hp and that is pretty good especially since LF is dependent on hp. This really seems like an ideal build for damage and survivability.

LezardValeth.9453:

Such builds would be so luck based its not even funny. I’ve recently tried a new pure glass cannon based on death shroud and while the crits are indeed welcoming, the only thing that could sustain it was the one adept trait in curses that gives 1% lifeforce on crit with a 33% chance.

You can’t kill enemies that fast, no matter what kind of build. You will always run out of death shroud.

Oh for sure. Not saying that you should in anyway try to maintain DS at all time. Just saying that the up time is incredible now (particularly given the Spectral changes), and the damage-changes to LB with respect to remaining Life Force make it far more viable.

AndrewSX.3794:

Just saying, it was able to crit this hard already before this patch.

For reference, glass cannon nemesis build.

You can now hit harder with a valkyrie build with axe mastery + closer to death.

I have decided to call this spec the Hand Cannon after I crit a glass cannon for 10k today in wvw. (DS4 consistently does more than 10k total btw)

Nice build, interesting that you can build around no crit chance now and let the grandmaster trait take care of it. Still nicer imo to have 100% crit in shroud imo But everyones got their preference.

Ties you very heavily to shroud too, as your crit chance is neg. outside.

Shroud and Lich Form. I am almost always in one or the other.

I tested a full zerk life blast. scholar runes/Axe mastery/ctd/ signet of spite and 13 stacks of might.

I hit a glass cannon messmer for 6,000 DMG.

His zerker clone proceeded to hit me for 6,500.

glass power necro focused on DS isn’t going to work outsid eof PvE. You are going to get trained and you will have nothing to defend yourself with.

And yes, iZerker now hits correctly and like a truck.

Had a bit of fun during my achievement run today. Found myself in Fort Trinity just as the cannons were being rebuilt, and i preceded to banzai in with D/W, wells and DS traited for crit. It was a glorious spectacle

If you place yourself in the right spot and get peeled, you can burst entire team with couple life blasts now /experience

I heard we need nurfing because someone got a 9.6k with custom runes to attack that mob type, food buffs & having others feed them might.

Didn’t I see the same setup on a war lets them do 40k on 100blades?

Guess we don’t have a DPS meter to kitten measure so we better do 1,000 attempts with buffs on the spell of choice. Oh the glory! I didn’t know number went that big, I struggle counting over 21, and need to be naked to even do that…

:-)