Guild Wars 2

You can’t use a build that is “secret” to defend an accepted (although potentially false, I’ll give you) idea among the vast majority of the community. It isn’t even a controversial idea about Necromancers being bunkers; it is well accepted that we cannot handle main-bunker. If you have a secret build that works so well, then either keep it secret, or put it out there. There is absolutely no point waving a “secret” in front of our noses, it reminds me of what kids do; tell fake secrets to get everyone’s attention, then later reveal there was nothing at all.

I also would not be surprised if builds existed that were stronger bunkers than minion builds. Minion builds are not meant to be the main bunker of any team, they are bruiser builds, meant to have very high defensive stats, while retaining reasonably high burst and sustained damage. I would never try to

Explain us how a necromancer could be a reliable bunker with almost no access to stability,

Don’t even mention plage form… a 180 cooldown is not enough to be viable as a bunker,

Which team would pick a necromancer to play the bunker role while there’s guardians, rangers, engineers and elementalists?

Is not about being able to “bunker”, is about being efficient,

I can kill a thief and cap a point with my necromancer, but it’s not the optimal choise for a team,

Once again, if don’t believe me, contact me ingame to see it. I’m not going to humor this nonsense any further. The build exists, and it’s solid.

Here’s an old bunker build from last year:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW7YjQah6daaa87JAJFPj9kivHn6h7sfOA-TsAg2CrIASBkDIDQSgsAN+Y9xuBA

It’s pretty decent at what it does. You can survive 1 or 2 guys indefinitely. Most outlast builds can’t kill you and you’re pretty immune to burst from less than 3 guys unless you think you can facetank. I did used to facetank solo 100b warriors for laughs though.

The only problem is that since I last played it people figured out rangers are good, and rangers destroy it with ease. It’s still inferior to a guard or engi anyway. Well, definitely the guard, it’s probably competitive with an engi since they fixed the super elixir bug.

That is incredibly close to the bunker build I use, but it’s missing a couple of aspects that make it truly strong as a bunker.

At a guess from what’s been said I would say something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAoYWjQah6daaa87JAJFYb9kivHn6R5sfOA-TsAgzCmI2RtjbHzOSgsANKY9x8DA
Changing shrouded removal to greater marks/vampiric ritual if conditions aren’t an issue. (Near to death is rather neat with shrouded removal, but the stability is way to important)

Of course he also claimed near a minute of protection, which would instead mean spectral wall+armour combo, which would mean shorter spectral CD’s instead of shorter DS skill CD’s, and would rule out vampiric wells entirely. This build would theoretically mean you could have protection for over a minute, but now that have thieves have no CD boon steal, it would be rubbish now if it wasn’t before.

Having 3 wells but no siphon on Wells seems strange to me. I’d like to try this mystery build. Currently playing bunker Guard because I can bunker, as well as offer group support through aoe condi removal, aoe swiftnesss, group stability, aegis, group healing, group might, immoblize, area denial, and stomp protection. What can Necro bunker do?

AoE blind, aoe boonstrip, aoe cripple, group healing, group condition removal, stomp protection. Pretty sure the build I listed provides more group healing than a guard too. In fact I’m pretty sure it heals most allies for more than their actual heal skills can, at 424/s averaged out. There’s no question that guards are better on mid, but necros have their upsides.

Of course, wells and marks give great numbers but pbaoe is pretty dubious in actual play. No one should be standing that close to the bunker unless there’s a very good reason. Same goes for shouts of course but the instant effect means you can duck in and out. You don’t get much benefit from a single tick of well of blood. Foot in the grave is really strong on paper, but burning your DS recharge for stability can result in major problems as a bunker.

It’s harder to kill than an engi bunker (post elixir fix), but terribly slow so you can’t really hold a side properly. It applies and alleviates more pressure in clustered up groupfights than a guard bunker, but that’s not tremendously relevant against properly positioned opponents, and again, that’s only in a theoretical sense. If you were to put a number value on guards movement control such as wards, hammer KB, sword tele, and group stability, that number would be a very high number. An unattainably high number for any other class imo, which is why guards have always been the first inclusion in any team.

Oh, and I played around with siphon on wells, and it’s actually pretty strong. Just not as strong as the alternatives. Which would you give up, stability or protection? I used to run it as 0/0/20/30/20, without foot in the grave, but you get decapped far too easily.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

That is incredibly close to the bunker build I use, but it’s missing a couple of aspects that make it truly strong as a bunker.

so annoying. you should hear to yourself and stop talking

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of "this build is good or that build is good".
These types of statements are relative.

In a low-tier PvP game, there are certainly Necro bunker builds that could withstand 3 people long enough for team support to arrive.

On the other hand, playing in a high-tier game, a Necro bunker build is not good enough and will either get neutralized or killed rather quickly.

And IMO it’s only ever good enough to run in a close-point defender anyway, if ever.

So when speaking about a build and how good or effective it is, it’s very important to state where it was successful.

This goes for any build for any class.

The fear-dot stability stomp 0/30/10/0/30 is a good build to play in high tier PvP games, but at this moment Necro is just sub-par compared to what an HGH Engi can provide to those teams. High tier players will lock the Necro down before his life force can generate since it’s an easy target to train. At the same time, this build is fine and works well in almost every other PvP setting.

You’re mistaken if you think a necro bunker can’t survive in high tier pvp. E.G the only time the build I posted was burst down was by a PZ war/thief/mes spike build. Against more balanced teams, you’re fine.

They’re just not as effective as guardians. It’s not a survivability issue though, it’s the utility. Particularly when it was always kyhlo for map 3, you’d be really silly to run a necro over a guard. At the time we only had one good guard player though, and he wasn’t on 24/7 obviously :P

Mammoth.1975:

You’re mistaken if you think a necro bunker can’t survive in high tier pvp. They’re just not as effective as guardians. It’s not a survivability issue though.

I would certainly love to see a Necro bunker defending back-point vs any high tier team in NA right now. Because when I queue tournies it’s a team from the top 25 on leader boards.

And when I say high tier, any decent team in the top 50 of the leader boards. You will get neutralized, back-capped when you try to help mid, and die too fast vs two of them to receive support in time.

Necro is by far my favorite class. More power to them. I have over 2300 PvP games as this class. 1500 hours played total. I want to see it have any viable build for top tier play as much as the next Necro. I’m not trying to deter a Necro bunker build at all. I just wish it was just as viable as say a Ranger BM back-point is right now.

It’s exactly as tenderly says, a necro bunker works, but it doesn’t work well enough for competitive play, and other classes do it better, leading to the point of why use necro for a role that it is outclassed in?

Tenderly.7019:

Mammoth.1975:

You’re mistaken if you think a necro bunker can’t survive in high tier pvp. They’re just not as effective as guardians. It’s not a survivability issue though.

I would certainly love to see a Necro bunker defending back-point vs any high tier team in NA right now. Because when I queue tournies it’s a team from the top 25 on leader boards.

And when I say high tier, any decent team in the top 50 of the leader boards. You will get neutralized, back-capped when you try to help mid, and die too fast vs two of them to receive support in time.

Necro is by far my favorite class. More power to them. I have over 2300 PvP games as this class. 1500 hours played total. I want to see it have any viable build for top tier play as much as the next Necro. I’m not trying to deter a Necro bunker build at all. I just wish it was just as viable as say a Ranger BM back-point is right now.

I’m looking at the current leaderboards and unless some players have gotten a lot better in the 4-5 months since I played last, the competition in NA looks a little softer than it used to be. A few friends and guildies are up there in the top 50, good players, but players who would rarely goldbox paids, and were, like me, struggling around the lower end of the old top 100 QP leaderboards. If anything, now would be a better time to play it than back then.

Still, as I said a couple times already, you’d definitely prefer a guard. Just pointing out that it’s not a survivability issue.

Mammoth.1975:

I’m looking at the current leaderboards and unless some players have gotten a lot better in the 4-5 months since I played last, the competition in NA looks a little softer than it used to be.

A lot has changed since 4-5 months ago. Back then, Necro was actually wanted for at least the 30/30/10 power wells build. Players that were just OK before have become much better.

There are certainly less players playing now, but that just means that the higher-tiered players and mid-tier players play the same top teams more often. Which breaks groups after losses more oft than not due to playing the same top team over and over. Players not wanting to queue because “X team is playing right now” and you’ll only match up against them every queue, but I digress.

Let’s not compare ourselves or any bunker build on any class to a guardian. Guardians are the best mid-point defenders hands down. Lets specifically compare to a close-point defender where viability should be a possibility.

Tenderly.7019:

Mammoth.1975:

I’m looking at the current leaderboards and unless some players have gotten a lot better in the 4-5 months since I played last, the competition in NA looks a little softer than it used to be.

A lot has changed since 4-5 months ago. Back then, Necro was actually wanted for at least the 30/30/10 power wells build. Players that were just OK before have become much better.

There are certainly less players playing now, but that just means that the higher-tiered players and mid-tier players play the same top teams more often. Which breaks groups after losses more oft than not due to playing the same top team over and over. Players not wanting to queue because “X team is playing right now” and you’ll only match up against them every queue, but I digress.

Let’s not compare ourselves or any bunker build on any class to a guardian. Guardians are the best mid-point defenders hands down. Lets specifically compare to a close-point defender where viability should be a possibility.

Sadly I don’t think we can really do side points either. Our few ways of getting decent mobility require utility slots that we need for survivability. We did try it for a while, and it was fine at just holding the point all day, better than anything else actually, including guards, because you could actually kill oroamers solo. The problem was that was all it could do. You can’t move off point without RtL, portal, permaswiftness, etc.

So I’m a new necro that got into tPVP and looking at this necro bunker discussion I have one question to ask. The way it seems to me is that bunker is supposed to pretty much protect a point and keep it capped for your side. At the same time it takes around 2-3 seconds to neutralize a point so if it got neutralized under your nose then I see it that you failed as a bunker.

If we put it this way, protection kinda doesn’t mean much in this situation. Stability is important and maybe stun breakers. But with our access to stability we can still get easily pushed outside that point for 2-3 seconds to neutralize the point so where is the success of the bunker then?

In regards to the troll in this thread with his secret build: 1 minute of protection is most likely from spectral wall, spectral armor and the passive spectral armor trait. Maybe a set of runes on top of it but yeah. If you fully trait for spectral skills and go with the DS stability trait then you can have 2 stun breakers with spectral walk and spectral armor(and a third one on the passive spectral armor trait) as well as DS stability and very good LF generation from those spetral skills including wall. I do not know how effective that is going to be though. I’m actually trying to run a 10/20/10/0/30 build with fully traited spectral walk/grasp and wall as well as the 5 second DS and the LF generation is really up there. I am running a power version with dagger/warhorn and staff and for now it’s not really working out that much for me but I guess it’s gonna get better with practice.

The troll might be talking about something where he goes full spectral with condi/healing gear but if I think about that silly attitude, I feel ashamed about paying him any attention.

Tenderly.7019:

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of “this build is good or that build is good”.
These types of statements are relative.

In a low-tier PvP game, there are certainly Necro bunker builds that could withstand 3 people long enough for team support to arrive.

On the other hand, playing in a high-tier game, a Necro bunker build is not good enough and will either get neutralized or killed rather quickly.

And IMO it’s only ever good enough to run in a close-point defender anyway, if ever.

So when speaking about a build and how good or effective it is, it’s very important to state where it was successful.

This goes for any build for any class.

The fear-dot stability stomp 0/30/10/0/30 is a good build to play in high tier PvP games, but at this moment Necro is just sub-par compared to what an HGH Engi can provide to those teams. High tier players will lock the Necro down before his life force can generate since it’s an easy target to train. At the same time, this build is fine and works well in almost every other PvP setting.

The only reason Necro home bunker doesn’t work is because of our lack of mobility. If we were allowed to sit on that point all game and not be a detriment to our team, we’d make for great home point bunkers. But the reality is that you want your back point to be able to push up, and we just can’t afford to do that. Hell, we can’t even engage enemies off point because they can go past us and just neut the point before we get back.

From my experience, what teams do with me when I am running a bunker build, is they sit me mid, and just have me sit there all day (depends slightly on map). On Khylo they will rotate someone in for me while I go kill treb (Flesh Golem brutalizes treb), on Spirit Watch its actually pretty easy to get involved with the fight, so sitting on point isn’t a huge issue. On temple I secure the Ferocity buffs when nothing is happening mid, and our guardian can roam around and secure the buffs (and if they don’t send theirs mid, we just sit on mid all game). On Forest I’ll come off point to solo the Buffs, and on Foefire frankly I feel useless.

I feel like there are possible niches for having a Necro bunker on your team. However I would never suggest trying to run a Necro bunker (unless this mystery build Troll speaks of works) without a Guardian, because of team fights. But running a Necro can actually free up the rest of your team a lot, and if you run a very mobile team around your Necro, I could see it working (although maybe it won’t).

Mammoth.1975:

Sadly I don’t think we can really do side points either. Our few ways of getting decent mobility require utility slots that we need for survivability. We did try it for a while, and it was fine at just holding the point all day, better than anything else actually, including guards, because you could actually kill oroamers solo. The problem was that was all it could do. You can’t move off point without RtL, portal, permaswiftness, etc.

Pretty much this. I’ve done home point bunker a lot, it is what I do any time I’m not queueing with high ranking people. Necros would be amazing here because we have some builds that are just amazing at 1v1, you pretty much need to send 2 people to cap side point if a strong Necro is defending it (or they’ll just keep it capped and fight you over it for 10 minutes). Except you literally can’t move anywhere or you will lose the point if someone sees it.

Iceflame.5024:

If we put it this way, protection kinda doesn’t mean much in this situation. Stability is important and maybe stun breakers. But with our access to stability we can still get easily pushed outside that point for 2-3 seconds to neutralize the point so where is the success of the bunker then?

In small points, we are able to stay on point fairly well, if you are playing right. Its larger team fights, usually mid, that this would definitely be the case. In fact, its really the only reason I think a lot of people are having doubts about the build, because your team’s main bunker needs to be immovable from point.

It is possible to get nearly-perma protection, by using two 15% prot runes, 20% boon duration from traits, spectral cooldown trait, spectral wall (running through it twice), spectral armor, well cooldown trait, prot on wells trait, with well of blood + a well of your choice, and 15 points in soul reaping.

At most you’ll have rgen + prot and any boon strip will negate the build unfortunately.

Still fun in low-tier PvP though.

Something like this I put together for the sake of the post

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-3-0;0IFI084-K-K0;9;6JTJ;413-17B39-U;1U;1pJICpcW59cP

Plus or minus traits that you like, there’s around 15 points to spare.

Yeah we actually get significantly higher protection and stability uptimes than guards, and the shorter stability cooldown is a big plus that easily outweighs the shorter duration.

I agree Bhawb, and I was talking about high-tier play, Necros are perfectly fine in low-tier!

Other classes can just do it so much better!

But also, right now a back-point BM Ranger is good for high-tier play as a defender. Their only movement skill is the number 2 on sword. They have swiftness from a random attack on Raven. But the reason they bunker very well and have amazing team fighting is

• burning
• pet damage
• spirit of rebirth,
• quickness stomps/rez (a bit weaker now)

Daze/dodge with shortbow variant, and more condis with axe/torch sword/dagger variant.

On top of bunkering versus two very well with

• evades
• two types of constant healing over time
• 4 condi-removal every 10 seconds,
• prot on dodge, prot on trait proc
• vigor

It’s not only the mobility that determines a good back-point.

Our stability, while very accessible, won’t prevent you from get neutralized by a good player.

If people are actually running rangers on the side point now, the competition is definitely weaker. Rangers are great 1v1, probably the best, but without the mobility it’s just too easy for a good team to decap, keeping him out of the fight, or keeping him out of the fight and preventing him from doing his job.

Mammoth.1975:

If people are actually running rangers on the side point now, the competition is definitely weaker

I apologize, but if you’d like to catch up on the current meta and see what the top teams run right now, there are a multitude of recent tournaments recorded and shoutcasted on twith.tv. Necro is near non-existent.

There have been a numerous amount of patches since you’ve played 4-5 months ago.

Tenderly.7019:

Mammoth.1975:

If people are actually running rangers on the side point now, the competition is definitely weaker

I apologize, but if you’d like to catch up on the current meta and see what the top teams run right now, there are a multitude of recent tournaments recorded and shoutcasted on twith.tv. Necro is near non-existent.

There have been a numerous amount of patches since you’ve played 4-5 months ago.

Sorry, I’m not trying to be irritating. I just don’t think it’s a patch issue if teams are no longer taking advantage of slow side bunkers. Two infiltrators arrows and their point is decapped, forcing them to run all the way back and recap, both of which take them out of the fight for longer than the thief, while they also miss out on a few points. To hold a side you need to be at least close to as fast as their fastest guy on any given map, even if it’s only over a short distance or on a long cooldown.

Unfortunately part of it is just that Ranger’s BM builds are flat out broken right now. Necromancer bunkers can fill the role of slow-as-molasses side point bunkers very nicely, with strong team fight presence, the problem is that everything we bring, Rangers bring harder. They can use their ult as a team res, whereas a bunker Necro has to give up a utility slot (and we really can’t afford it). We both bring burst pressure, but theirs is stronger. We both can have condi pressure, but they have burning.

Once they get around to nerfing BM rangers so they can’t spec fully defensive and still have 14k bursts from pets, we’ll see a bit more diversity on back point defense.

Who needs stability when you can perma blind and absorb so much damage that you can hold points when outnumbered easily. Yes necro’s can bunker remarkably well. Im not very experienced playing my guardian in pvp but I found i was getting shut down after cooldowns were forced and i was outnumbered. Never had that problem with the necro. Even when not building full bunker. A bunker necro when you know how to play and build right is a lot easier to hold points with and potentially alot stronger. Not to mention they can still kill glass cannon builds pretty fast.

You scrubs need to L2DS yo!

And then a guardian bubbles you off the point and they get the neut on mid, and you’ve failed a major requirement to be a bunker.

That is literally the main thing keeping Necromancers off of being able to bunker. We have the ability to eat the damage like a bunker should, we have decent CC, though not quite as strong its workable considering higher damage. What we don’t have is the ability to physically stand on mid point for days while eating hard CC. It is the biggest thing that is holding Necros back from being a viable choice as mid bunker.

Bhawb.7408:

And then a guardian bubbles you off the point and they get the neut on mid, and you’ve failed a major requirement to be a bunker.

That is literally the main thing keeping Necromancers off of being able to bunker. We have the ability to eat the damage like a bunker should, we have decent CC, though not quite as strong its workable considering higher damage. What we don’t have is the ability to physically stand on mid point for days while eating hard CC. It is the biggest thing that is holding Necros back from being a viable choice as mid bunker.

Generally speaking most good necro bunkers take foot in the grave so cc isnt an issue. Also blinds and dodges completely negate cc and with necro’s ability to perma blind, you can bully guardians off points so easily especially with a bit of boon removal.

Im not amazingly clued in on pvp terms. Wtf does “get the neut on mid” mean? I see alot of people use the term “peel” on other threads aswell, I assume peeling is the term for disengaging but I might be wrong?

Blind does not negate all CC, and Necros don’t have nearly enough blinds to blind all the CC that a hammer guardian brings, or anywhere close to it. Your boon removal won’t be enough to force them out except once.

Foot in the grave is 3s of CC every 10s. That means they just need to wait for you to go into DS, and then they have a 7 second window to blow you off point. Neut means making a point neutral, IE decapping it in PvP. It means your team is no longer getting points off it. Peeling away from a fight is disengaging, and peeling for a teammate is CCing a target so they have to disengage.

Well ive never had a problem beating a guardian lol. Almost any necro build counters guardians. I also had no problem outsustaining a bunker ele b4 the nerfs, he even had a cc warrior try and help him deal with me. Ended badly for both of them. The ele seemed fairly skilled, not the best ive seen but certainly not bad. Necros really are strong in pvp when you know how to deal with what other classes can do. I feel like the necro is actually strong in pvp but not in pve.

I come mainly from pve in gw but I have a competative gaming history so I know how to adapt to my opponents and have yet to come across any players than can beat me in a straight 1v1 except for one regen ranger when i was running a terror build. Rangers are probably the main counter to bunker necro’s so im quite surprised that i havent been beaten more often by them.

And as AItroll said earlier. You can make some really strong necro builds if you are pretty good at theorycrafting.

While on the bunker subject, I was thinking about why an Elementalist is better than a Necro at bunkering.

-Vigor <this guy again
-Teleports if they get knocked off point
- invulnerability through mist form
- Stability on 90 second cd. What our Spectral Armor coulda been. Also gives protection.
- Healing similar to Guardian
- Ride the Lightning

Why is it the 2 classes with the highest HP pools are the worst in TPvP? Thinking ANet over estimated the usefulness of high base health. Instead of high health other classes get better ways to mitigate and heal through damage.

1v1 isn’t the problem at all. You aren’t a main bunker unless you can sit on point without allowing it to get neutralized or captured in a full 5v5. Bunkering side point against 1-2 people is a completely different issue, we’re bad there for a different reason.

Builds themselves aren’t the problem. I have builds that on paper could sit on mid point for years and never get kicked off. Over 12k healing every 32 seconds with WoB, tons of siphoning from minions/myself, a 975 heal every 10 seconds, 3k healing with Dagger 2, and I can still throw out some huge damage. The problem is, I would never be able to bunker well, because one CC chain or failed dodge, and I’m downed. A high level player is going to push every Necro build off point in at most 2 rotations of DS. The first one you get CC and then can blind your way till the next DS, but after that you are SOL and he’s throwing you off point. I’m not doubting people’s ability to facetank the damage, I’m doubting the ability to resist CC.

Eles aren’t better because of their ability to take damage, they can just stay on point/get back by running full cantrip builds.

Minions don’t work as bunkers at all. Once the Minions go down, you’ll go down soon too.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Minions don’t work as bunkers at all. Once the Minions go down, you’ll go down soon too.

I have used my minion/power hybrid with the SOAC team in tournaments against teams rank 40+ and won every game. The minions don’t matter for the healing, although its nice to have on the side. 90% of the healing comes from somewhere else, the minions are there for control and burst damage.

sigh

Sure Bhawb. Sure.

Minions are the bestest. They have the bestest burstesteses, and the most amazingest bunkerness.

That train of thought must be why everyone including yourself think we’re low tier.

I mentioned i never lost 1v1’s as point of individual skill. But ive held points against 1v2/3 with no problems plenty of times. And with good positioning even hard cc wont knock you off point. Very few classes/abilities can knock you back that far and they are very predictable. A necro is very good at staying on point. They do have issues of getting back to the point if they are knocked off though. Having said that a necro can actually force any class off of the point pretty well aswell. Well timed fears give you the opportunity to slowly shift the point in your favour.

In the all necro eu MM tourny in the very first game, which we lost, I went to cap their point. Ended up getting it neutral and then holding it 1v1 with a less than ideal bunker build. It turned into a 1v2 and I was able to force them out of the circle enough times to actually finish capping the point. Giving us a few extra points and delaying them from taking it back so quickly. Unfortunately after i took it I ran out of ways to take them on and my minions were all dead so i got overwhelmed. With a non mm build i could of kept that point indefinately until they brought a 3rd member in.

We have the potential to be extremely strong, often matching other classes strongest builds, if we would just get out of this annoying repetitive mindset.

We’re not a jack of all trades, master of none. We’re a Master of all trades. Most of us simply have yet to realize it. We are by far the most balanced class in the entire game.

We need bug fixes, and could use improvements, but a huge amount of the problems people have with Necromancers are either l2p problems, or lack of build imagination.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

We have the potential to be extremely strong, often matching other classes strongest builds, if we would just get out of this annoying repetitive mindset.

We’re not a jack of all trades, master of none. We’re a Master of all trades. Most of us simply have yet to realize it. We are by far the most balanced class in the entire game.

We need bug fixes, and could use improvements, but a huge amount of the problems people have with Necromancers are either l2p problems, or lack of build imagination.

Couldnt agree more. There are a few traits which need some serious buffing and various bugs that need fixing. But almost all our weaknesses can be fixed with builds or just skill.

30/0/10/0/30 d/d staff knights amulet

• Open up with dagger-5, staff-5 or DS-3
• Dagger-3, Well of suffering, Dagger-1 auto (position behind them to avoid less dmg)
• Dagger-2 if they break away
• Dagger-4 if they put condition on you, or Staff-4
• Corrupt boon if they stack boons
• Chase them down with DS-2 or spectral walk and repeat

Have your group mark high value target, Lich-1 form and nuke. Lich-5 to aoe strip boons if needed. 2-4 solid hits will likely down most players. It does 2-5k a hit. Lich-3 to prevent res/stomps. If you are being focus, don’t stay in lich exit out to heal/DS. Heal or be near to full HP before going in to Lich form or else it won’t be worthwhile, but situational.

If you are being focus, Switch to DS run while casting DS-3/4. If an enemy is ahead of you, DS-2 to jump there. If you run out of life force drop staff2-5 wells behind you while running or Dagger-3 and spectral walk. This is about the only way to disengage.

Dagger-1 and spectral walk will provide so much lifeforce allowing you to DS a lot.
30/15/10/0/15 does more damage, but stability is crucial in tPVP. Lets you DS stomp and allow you to DS-4 without being interrupted for massive aoe dmg.