Guild Wars 2

I was wondering if anyone had looked into lockdown builds since the patch and how effective they are. The biggest buff I see is the fact Immobilize now stacks duration, and necros have surprisingly good access to Immobilize.

I was thinking about running this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRrVPTzTjePBMpI7xhesLuOHp44lB-TkAg0CnIISRkjIDRyisFNRA

General tactics would be to start with bone fiend’s immobilize, since that has very little tell and is unlikely to be dodged. Follow it up with Dark Pact, death shroud, tainted shackles, dark path. Then sit behind them auto-attacking with dagger until it wears off. Locust Swarm should be going as well throughout this (and with a 15 second duration, why not?)

The pulsing cripple and bleeds on crits should work to cover the immobilize, as would the chill and torment.

This is just the ideal situation I can think of. Anyone think this could work well? Anyone tried something similar?

I see potential here, I use MM and i use bone fiends imob all the time… don’t have dagger offhand so no Dark Pact but otherwise well worth it. You also have Wail of Doom for a 2-3 sec stun and for me Golem Charge for a nice KD.

3.3 seconds on the daze, and +50% condition duration for everything else. Not really a minion build, but between Locust Swarm and Flesh Golem, the target should be perma-crippled (to cover the immobilize).

I see potential in the build (why I posted it), but I don’t know how well it would work in practice. Also, I’m undecided on staff/dagger sigils. Considering Frailty just for another cover condition (vulnerability), but I’m thinking Force or Blood would just be better.

I imagine that a weakness of the build would be thieves, since they have two skills that explicitly remove immobilize (though one is rarely used because Hide in Shadows is nuts) and because shadowsteps ignore immobilize. On the other hand, it should be easy enough to bait the snare-breakers, and Dark Path is in the rotation specifically to deal with teleports and such.

Its a decent idea in theory, although I’m not sure of your build.

Really all you need is Bone Fiend + dagger and you have a massive immobilize duration, really, and its really hard to avoid.

The most useful aspect of that much immobilize in PvP would probably be to force someone off of a point (with Fears and the like) and keep them there, letting you neutralize / capture before you kill any defenders.

Actually, immobilize can 100% shut down entire builds. You can’t move or turn while immobilized, which means anyone that depends on facing the target to do their job is completely useless for 10+ seconds with the full immobilize unless they cleanse it.

And with the bleeds and cripple covering the immobilize, cleanisng it should require either specific (such as Roll for Initiative) cleanses or total cleanses in most situations.

Well, anyone have theoretical improvements, since it seems people really haven’t tried the build?

I wouldn’t push so much for the lockdown, to be honest. You don’t need to blow everything just for an extra second of CC.

Make a fairly standard power necro, but throw on bone fiend/warhorn and you should be pretty much set. The 20 into curses is still fine too, but I wouldn’t go too far out of your way to support the CC, since you have more than enough to setup a well burst and drop someone.

Other than the runes, I’m not really seeing the difference between a standard well-bombing build that runs Bone Fiend and this one, though. Yes, Well of Suffering is substituted for Well of Power, but having a stunbreak is always a good thing in PvP. Could you elaborate, perhaps?

Obviously, not all the CC will be used at once. The daze, both fears, and Fleshie’s knockdown are held in reserve and thedagger’s immobilize is on a 20 second recharge (will usually be used more than once per fight if they survive the first chain)

I believe most power builds go 30/10/0/0/30 or 30/15/0/0/25 (I’m not expert on what is common atm though). Generally what you would see is well of suffering, another well, and Spectral Armor. In your case, I would have dropped the extra well, and gone well of suffering, bone fiend, spectral armor, and then not worry so much about increasing my CC so much, since just that alone gives you 13s of immobilize if chained together, plus your daze.

I chose Well of Power for the stunbreak since it’s on a 20 second shorter (traited) cooldown than spectral armor and has fun with the condition-heavy meta. Well of Corruption is for boon stripping over damage (though the damage is still decent). It really isn’t a huge deal to swap that out, especially since stability doesn’t stop immobilize.

Even so, all the CC is on skills that well bombers usually have anyway (no elite really does better for them than Fleshie to my knowledge, and they usually run dagger/warhorn for one weapon set), so what’s confusing me is your comments about increasing CC so much. Only real change I notice is the Bone Fiend, but that immobilize is too easy to land to not use.

You took a sigil, 20 deep into curses, and all 6 of your runes to increase the CC. All of those could be put elsewhere to increase your damage. It is a power build that you tweaked quite a bit to put a larger emphasis on CC, when its really a lot of overkill. You could have just slotted bone fiend and called it a day, instead of sacrificing a fair bit of damage.

Most feedback on the immobalize spam has been negative. expect a nerf.