Guild Wars 2

OK, so i’m new to this profession and am trying some things out. What do you guys think? . . .

For PvE on my own, I’m running a hardy trait build with emphasis on minions, health sapping and death shroud. I use Signet of Locusts instead of bone minions though, and I run a scepter/focus, and dagger/warhorn. So far its been going really good, and I’m hard to kill, but I’m curious what other minion builds or just solo PvE builds people have come up with? Any other ideas?

Also, PvE dungeon and group builds interest me. I’m thinking of going for a master of conditions Necro. He would run Plague Signet/Epidemic/Corrosive Poison Cloud, and would use Staff & Scepter/dagger combo. This would maximize my ability to manage group and enemy conditions. But I’m not sure what traits he should run…

So, community… what other PvE builds have you come up with? Let us know what weapons and utility skills you use, and how it all comes together with your traits. Also, what do you struggle with when using this build?

Finally, do any of you know of any websites that host GW2 build conversations?

instead of posting and waiting for an answer, use the search function, or google, there are tons of builds. btw plague signet is busted.

You shouldn’t use health sapping, it is really, really underpowered. You get more life out of a Mark of Blood on dodge than you do out of the lifestealing trait throughout a whole fight, and they occupy the same major trait slot.

As for the PvE dungeon spec, I run conditions. It’s the best way to play; rather than run Poison Cloud(which has really short condition duration, and hurts YOU), you should run Blood is Power or Corrupt Boon, depending on the encounter. Don’t forget you can change utility skills between fights, so you can prepare properly for the next boss. Signet of Undeath really helps in dungeons; a lot.

For PvE, I run conditions. Sometimes I pick up some of the minion skills, but I don’t trait for any of them. When I was leveling up, I ran all of the minions and picked condition skills, ran with scepter/dagger and staff, and I was able to do extremely well, even against 5-6 mobs, because the minions tank for you as best as you can while you can AoE. You really don’t need to trait for the minions, in fact I wouldn’t even recommend it, because the minion AI is really bad and they behave poorly. If they die, you can always just resummon them.

Plague signet….. you brave soul.

For pve I would either go for a toughness+wells build or run with minions. As dumb as they are sometimes, they do decent damage.

Condition damage for contribution is still kind of bugged at the moment. (with bleed caps etc) so I’m asuming you want to get gold contribtion for events, and the best way is probably either having your minons hit the targets, or go power build (less sturdy.)

Minions are also useful in that structures doesnt bleed/poison/etc, so minions are helpful with taking these down.

Ah, so “conditions master” in terms of the plague signet isn’t really a viable option right now…

And your suggesting not to run traits for your minions, Mathmagician? what traits would you suggest instead?

And how effective is simply running “conditions”? Do you survive long enough for them to really cut down on your opponent, because it seems like minions just has so little health.

Contagion.7206:

Ah, so “conditions master” in terms of the plague signet isn’t really a viable option right now…

And your suggesting not to run traits for your minions, Mathmagician? what traits would you suggest instead?

Depends on if you want Power or Condition. I ran Condition, so I picked up things like Hemophilia, Lingering Curses, and and Weakening Shroud in the Curses line. I also grabbed some utility traits like Greater marks and Mark of Evasion in the Death magic and Blood magic lines, respectively. My final 20 trait points went into Soul Reaping, grabbing either Path of Midnight or Fear of Death and Reaper’s Mark.

When I want power, I went for 30 points in the Spite line, grabbing Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death or Spiteful Spirit(Training of the Master would be fine in PvE though) and Axe Training or Close to Death, then 30 points in Soul Reaping choosing again path of Midnight and Reaper’s Mark, as well as Foot in the Grave or Near to Death. I’m a PvP player primarily though, so your mileage may vary, and you can tailor the major traits to your tastes, or get entirely different trait lines instead. It’s unfortunate that the Curses tree has Precision and Fury on entering DS, because those are great for Power builds, but little else in the way of synergy with power.

Contagion.7206:

And how effective is simply running “conditions”? Do you survive long enough for them to really cut down on your opponent, because it seems like minions just has so little health.

Conditions are surprisingly powerful. The formula for bleeds, directly from the wiki, is as follows:

2.5 + (0.5 * Level) + (0.05 * Condition Damage)= per stack per second

So if you’ve got 300 condition damage at level 40(rabbit out of hat number), your bleeds are hitting every second for 38 damage. PER bleed. The formula for poison damage is twice that of Bleed, but generally doesn’t last as long.

Bleeds last around 8 seconds, so one hit of your scepter deals ~50-80 damage(made up number, I have no idea)? and an additional 304 over 8 seconds, so about 400 damage in 8 seconds. However, you keep hitting them with more bleeds every second, so after two hits, the total damage is 800, they’ve taken ~100-150 direct damage and are now bleeding for 70 every second, then you throw a poison on, and they’re now taking 140 damage every second, which is more than your scepter is swinging for.

After 4-5 seconds of swinging your scepter in this hypothetical scenario the target is now taking 400 damage per second, and you can do other things now… like use Epidemic to make all nearby targets also take 400 a second, or pop Death Shroud and use the 4th skill for more aoe damage, or swap to staff and throw down some marks for even more bleeds/damage, or use another skill(like enfeebling blood, dagger offhand(+2 bleeds, some small direct damage, and weakness to boot)).

It’s true, your minions won’t last long, but even with traits they still won’t last long. However, they WILL last long enough for you to kill your targets. In a typical PvE encounter, I would have Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Bone Minions, and Flesh Golem up. Very often all would survive or only 1 would die, but sometimes 2-3 died if I pulled a lot of mobs. They did their job; they face-tanked for me while I killed stuff. They even contributed a little bit of damage. Further, most of the summon minion cooldowns are 30 seconds, so it’s really not that bad. And it’s not like you have to wait for all of your minions to be up, just having one up will still do the job and you’ll be able to continue fighting.

Anyway, condition snowballs fast, and it’s a playstyle I enjoy. Power builds are viable in pve also; I am partial to the axe, but the dagger’s autoattack has okay damage too. Play whatever you like; the game is fantastic, and you should play what you want.

Sceptar/dagger + staff back up. signet of spite + epidemic can be a mean… spite long cd but… you pretty much spread all the condition spite does to everyone. its like having Mono at a highschool party… everyone gets it… having blood is power on top of that is also good. but try searching the net to make your judgement. fun class but right now there are A LOT of bugs with necros.

That’s a cool idea. Spite + epidemic sounds fun.

I searched builds online… not much luck. Most seem out of date. Sort of beta builds. Do you guys think much will change as they debug the Necro?

Bolopop.4061:

Sceptar/dagger + staff back up. signet of spite + epidemic can be a mean… spite long cd but… you pretty much spread all the condition spite does to everyone. its like having Mono at a highschool party… everyone gets it… having blood is power on top of that is also good. but try searching the net to make your judgement. fun class but right now there are A LOT of bugs with necros.

The problem with signet of spite is that everything wears off after 5 seconds, it doesn’t deal much damage, and its passive buffs power, which is in direct contrast with what you want to do with Epidemic: condition damage.

Contagion.7206:

That’s a cool idea. Spite + epidemic sounds fun.

I searched builds online… not much luck. Most seem out of date. Sort of beta builds. Do you guys think much will change as they debug the Necro?

I think Power will become viable again and people will still be running the 30/10/10/20 Condition Damage builds, except they will actually be useful instead of kitten. If everything worked as it is supposed to in the 30/10/10/20 build it would be acceptable.

I also enjoy a conditions play style. Power is less appealing to me.

But I also had hopped that in dungeon runs, plague signet would good for helping the team, and that life siphoning would be more effective. if you maxed out Blood Magic, and debugged plague signet, do you think a group condition remover might be possible? If they buff these things along with life siphon that would be nice. Also, group activity against NPCs changes things.

PS: interesting breaking down of bleed Mathemagician. throw epidemic at the end of all the bleed stack and you’ll be laying down some real pain on everyone.

Contagion.7206:

I also enjoy a conditions play style. Power is less appealing to me.

But I also had hopped that in dungeon runs, plague signet would good for helping the team, and that life siphoning would be more effective. if you maxed out Blood Magic, and debugged plague signet, do you think a group condition remover might be possible? If they buff these things along with life siphon that would be nice. Also, group activity against NPCs changes things.

PS: interesting breaking down of bleed Mathemagician. throw epidemic at the end of all the bleed stack and you’ll be laying down some real pain on everyone.

I could see condition remover becoming a viable playstyle. With a wells build and all the regen we have(Mark of Blood, Focus offhand, Well of Blood) Necro could easily play support, if we get our bugs worked out.

And yeah, Epidemic is absolutely fantastic. It’s never not on my bar as condition, except for single target boss fights with zero adds.