Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I am playing necromancer since the game is on. Got used to conditions (it’s not the point of attrition that Anet is saying about I suppose, conditions are easily removed in many times and what is more – power builds make bigger dmg, even AoE in necro!), looked for power and cleave – went into tanky LF/Staff Necro (with 2,750 armor and big pops in DS (and even hits with staff auto-attack), staying many times in full duration of our proffession mechanic). All the time searching for new things and to make the play more interesting. Even apart from knowing that Life Blast is best (as far for me for the traited might, vuln and piercing) ranged wep, and one of the best attacks wholeover.

I would love to thank Nemesis for his guides, mostly for teaching me the thought-process of gaming. Due to this I could get the point and get thru the necro in my own special way :P. (Ye, I also used words “Lifeblast is our autoattack” 7 months before or more)

And especially! All the time trying to maintain to “master the deathshroud”!
After last patch we cannot use DS as Aegis, like pop Ghastly Claws, enter DS, soak up a load of damage and reenter. Thought that is the point of attrition we are meant to be. Not to make attrition on somebody in condis, but let that guy to peel us of that shield called Death Shroud. Said to myself “If there are so many condi-necros, and Anet still is telling us about mastering our class it has to be something about it!”

TIPS about the necromancer:
-CD of the F1 starts of the last use. When a foe leaves you with an empty life force bar, you can reenter DS very fast. (Even faster in 3W, just collect the LF from dead corpses even from your dead friends!) Used it before the patch to soak damage, used ghastly claws for the minimum 10~~11% of LF and reentered again. -> It means that we have to sit in DS as long as we can, at least 10s (or traited 7).
-I suppose that when we are forced to get out of DS the CD is renewed, but must look at it better, because if it is so, Necro can be a really good healer with Deathly Invigoration. As far as it wasn’t a bug.
-Warhorn is not our best gap-closer. The DS2 that is. Not only the teleport matter, but also AoE chill covered with bleeds, which I will explane later.
-Healing in DS is DS4. Big amounts of leeched LF is nice healing in the meaning of the lore of necro ;P.

But, to the topic. My thought-process into the necromancer and the gameplay. (I will speak not only about the PvE, but WvWvW and others in general, how you will get it, it’s your way ^^).
Why condition damage is a waste for me (even in the class, where maintaining all conditions is so easy in AoE matter)?
Necro needs mostly 3 stats for condis: C dmg, C duration, and precision (barbed precision). But you have to know that there are many conditions (untraited) that do not damage foes – chilled, blind, weakness, cripple, fear, immobilized, vulnerability.
So little damaging conditions (bleed, poison, burning, torment, confusion[hard to maintain but possible], fear traited) while so many non damaging. What is more – the mostly applicated condition, bleeding, is the first condition erased by skills like WoP and so on.
You will say – ey, man, but we got best thing to use with conditions – epidemic! I answer: OK, but what if your main source of damage will be deleted 2 or 3 seconds later? Next skill use will be in 12 seconds time. What is more it is hard to implement so many bleeds anywhere, and even harder when other players come with bleed-applying weps. With skills like Well of Power or other that can make condition into boon Condi-players are rather a bless for users of this skill than a curse. It’s why Well of Power is a must have for me.
I don’t say Epidemic is a rubbish, you can use it to spam chill, weakness, cripple, vuln and other great curses on many foes, but using it as a main source of dmg is a big lackluster.

First Conclusion: Condis are way more a bit of CC and bleeds are used to protect more important condis out of cleansing them of. If a foe has a bleed and poison, and he will try to cleanse himself, first he will get rid off of bleed. The one and only way to counter it is to cleanse more than 1 condition at a time.

Going further. The condition duration is compared with the power stat in Spite not with the condition dmg. And like Nemesis said before – it’s prolly for stacking vuln. OK. But as far we got other conditions let’s use them for CC, not for the damage.

To understand the way of thinking of the devs I looked at in-game necros, for example in AC dungeon. Wells with tons of many conditions (equal for us would be using Signet of Spite and Epidemic, am I right?), but no auto-attacks applying condi. Focus 4 in mages attack at cliffside Fractal and big attacks made with direct damage. Even more is telling us that we should use condis to enhance our damage and make situations to play for us, to make people think how to get rid off, mostly of the weakness that we got it at most).
Making someone weak is one step forward for us, but turning somebody’s strengths into weaknesses and our weaknesses into strengths is making the foe one step behind and letting us to make one step forward. In summary – there are two steps forward (but in GW2, there are more than 2 boons/condis to be better than somebody).
As a role of the best thing a necro can imagine (without condi dmg at all at start) is might! Imagine power-LB necro with 25 might with big hits and big bleeds, with lot’s of CC.

Second conclusion: Stacking boons on necro never was and never will be a bad idea!

Lots of condi necros don’t use LB, because it’s waste of condi dmg they can apply. But stacking might is the way. On power mancer you got already cond duration and precision but you need cond dmg – so here it is. In MIGHT. What if I tell you that you must LB to be even better power-mancer and condi-mancer? What if I tell you that you bleed to protect your chills, poisons, vulnerability and other condis and even crit hard? What if… Nevermind. Just try this build, go thru the mind-process and implicate your changes.

AoE version:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBmODbkRLTvTTZjhPhAp49qlIFIzyQ9YdQnPE-jQyAYMBZCSgIEwJwiox2GKiGr2GT5mU9bkVxAA-e

tanky, PvE version I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW3djMaZ6daKbM8JEpCND0j3rWcGqHrD68hA-jQyAYMBZCSgILwJwiox2GKiGr2GT5mU9bkVxAA-e

Heal-o-mancer, is it really broken? (Why necromancer has an icon of a vampire, but noone leeches health properly?)

Well, after the conclusion about boons and might I wanted to do something with stability. Thou, it can be the best stability in the internal game, really. (Apart from it that it is used to land DS4 imo). To make it work, we will need boon duration. Then I looked at regen at Staff2, and another thing – we are the class that has one of the biggest ability to achieve such AoE regen (ranged! it’s also a pro). What is more – boon duration works with Well of Power. Also works with ritual of protection. So we will need wells. If wells, we will need well of blood. Then hated by everyone healing power.

I will show you now how to use this stat on necro.
Necro does not heal others as other classes. As the only one he leeches health. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_stealing)
Dark Combo field (utility wells) + Projectile Finisher (Staff1) = 202 health 0.1 per point in healing power.
Our staff hits 3 targets and has 20% to finish a combo. Let’s say that 2 hits per well will leech health. It is 6 for all used utility slots. 6×3×332 health = 5976 health in total. What is more we are very supportive in the way the wells work. Other party members can leech too. We have to remember that we can finish a combo even for 15 times (and it will be 15000~~ leeched health) or cannot finish at all. But we have to remember that leeching works like retaliation – it also consumes somebody health (so we need power and toughness, not precision nor other stats). It will be why we need stability – to stand in our wells to leech health properly!
Well of Blood provides big party heal. As same as Deathly Invigoration, DS4, Staff 2.

Vampiric Heal-o-mancer:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBmODbESrTPTzSjfPBIVA7pHdP+2UPKH9zB-jACBoNCyUDBKLqIas1uht6KalXBRNjIqWZDDA-e

We use Staff as a main weapon. We enter and leave DS just for the healing and stability. Sometimes for big spike heal as DS4. I change into Axe and warhorn (Axe3, Warhorn5) before entering Plague for surviving big fights and spam 2, but mostly in 3W.

Necromancer is still OP, only when are mastered and should not be nerfed (because is hard to get used to new thing – combo, what is so unstable in fast game), in some cases (mostly in those not played – support based I mean, which the core is Well of Power). (There is one thing under-powered now – Deathly Invigoration. After traiting DS CD we have 2 more sec to wait but the heal was not adjusted. ;<)

Let the discuss begin!

Ey, guys… really, no comment?