Guild Wars 2

Actually, just looking at the stats, valk looks pretty good.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNBHhZakRLdPaTbjhPRA9491yZRFOG1DAAAAA-jECB4fCiEEgEBBK9pIasVSFRjVhET7iIq2erIa1SBMqwI-w

About 100 less power and 12% less crit chance than full zerk but gains 5000 HP. It’s not really that big a loss offensively with a gain of over 20% HP.

mistsim.2748:

im not here to hijack the thread with my “valk build” so i’ll just end it with this post. there are a few misconceptions im going to address:

- best type of damage mitigation is downing somebody instantly or in seconds; when youre in an organized group of people, offense is the best defense. as the numbers piles up, attrition becomes less and less effective. when your group is doing more “instant damage”, you dont have to worry much about sustain

- stats for a proper valk/zerker build with buffs are: 2600 power, 50% crit chance out of DS, 23-26k HP, LF pool 20k, 95-100% crit damage, and about 1k toughness; crit chance in DS is 100%. aoe damage is something like 20k over 5 seconds with wells and life transfer, but more importantly for skirmishing is your life blast which you can snipe people with. tanky heavies are hit for about 4k per blast so guards go down really fast; glass thieves are mesmers are usually 3-shot at worst. out of DS, staff 3 and 4 hit for 3-4k aoe, and axe/focus can burn down any boon-heavy scrub in under 10 seconds if they decide to stick around.

- getting PVT or knights is really a waste because you rob yourself of that sweet 100% crit damage. you dont need all that survivability if youre in a good group. for GvG or GvZ it’s a crime to equip PVT/knights on the necro, unless youre brand new to the game. u just need high HP and LF. LF bar fills up very quickly as you down more people. with coordination, kills = limitless LF.

- you’re more mobile. youre not sticking around to build up condis on someone. you can nuke while moving, or nuke then move. mobility on its own is worth the 600 toughness difference between builds.

so in summary, attrition play doesnt work against a higher number of competent opponents. what works is mobility, high burst and the accompanying element of surprise. i did play a rabid necro for a long time, but it’s very difficult for me to go back, at least in gold league, unless we’re doing duels or something like 2v5 for example.

I agree the best defense is a good offense. That is why I would run zerker, and do my best to learn to play safer and smarter. 100% crit at 120% crit damage means i’m going to be hitting 5-6k lifeblasts EVERY shot. Not just some shots. I will pass on some vitality for that. I am not advocating for zerker, just making the point.

Power is always better when people are going down a lot, because downed state is a full condition clear, and that strongly screws condi builds. Also if your party doesn’t deal condis to support your epi, it is also a big waste. No argument there.

I just don’t care for that stat combo, which does you absolutely no good when you are out of DS. Crit damage with no crit chance is a horrible situation to be in. I would prefer knights, because at least my crit rate would synergize with my power. If you could reliably enter DS and get your burst off in all circumstances (like a 100% crit out of stealth thief), then I would be all about this. But if you find your DS burned, you would be a PVT necro without the T. having played a PVT necro, it is not good for me.

Mobility is what it is… and I am not sure how that factors into the stats you are using.

In either case, if you make it work, that is excellent, as power necros are under-represented and need more love.

Rennoko.5731:

I just don’t care for that stat combo, which does you absolutely no good when you are out of DS. Crit damage with no crit chance is a horrible situation to be in. I would prefer knights, because at least my crit rate would synergize with my power. If you could reliably enter DS and get your burst off in all circumstances (like a 100% crit out of stealth thief), then I would be all about this. But if you find your DS burned, you would be a PVT necro without the T. having played a PVT necro, it is not good for me.

A valk necro isn’t what you think it is.

Again, I would point you to my mock up of a valk necro build in the post above. With ascended trinkets and the right combination of gear, its stats are very close to full zerker but with a much larger HP pool. It’s not even close to being simply “PV” outside of DS.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Rennoko.5731:

I just don’t care for that stat combo, which does you absolutely no good when you are out of DS. Crit damage with no crit chance is a horrible situation to be in. I would prefer knights, because at least my crit rate would synergize with my power. If you could reliably enter DS and get your burst off in all circumstances (like a 100% crit out of stealth thief), then I would be all about this. But if you find your DS burned, you would be a PVT necro without the T. having played a PVT necro, it is not good for me.

A valk necro isn’t what you think it is.

Again, I would point you to my mock up of a valk necro build in the post above. With ascended trinkets and the right combination of gear, its stats are very close to full zerker but with a much larger HP pool. It’s not even close to being simply “PV” outside of DS.

I looked at it and you have traded power for precision to make up for the builds lack of precision. You give up a flat 5 percent damage because your crit rate is too low. Your vitality is only a few thousand higher than zerker, and you have sacked your power wrench and are using stat heavy runes without any interesting damage side effects like Scholar.

You have a finite stat pool to work with. Taking a secondary stat that is completely dependent on another stat not even on your gear is just not optimal. It doesn’t matter how you slice it up.

I am sure the build is fine and if you enjoy it more power to you.

Rennoko.5731:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Rennoko.5731:

I just don’t care for that stat combo, which does you absolutely no good when you are out of DS. Crit damage with no crit chance is a horrible situation to be in. I would prefer knights, because at least my crit rate would synergize with my power. If you could reliably enter DS and get your burst off in all circumstances (like a 100% crit out of stealth thief), then I would be all about this. But if you find your DS burned, you would be a PVT necro without the T. having played a PVT necro, it is not good for me.

A valk necro isn’t what you think it is.

Again, I would point you to my mock up of a valk necro build in the post above. With ascended trinkets and the right combination of gear, its stats are very close to full zerker but with a much larger HP pool. It’s not even close to being simply “PV” outside of DS.

I looked at it and you have traded power for precision to make up for the builds lack of precision. You give up a flat 5 percent damage because your crit rate is too low. Your vitality is only a few thousand higher than zerker, and you have sacked your power wrench and are using stat heavy runes without any interesting damage side effects like Scholar.

You have a finite stat pool to work with. Taking a secondary stat that is completely dependent on another stat not even on your gear is just not optimal. It doesn’t matter how you slice it up.

I am sure the build is fine and if you enjoy it more power to you.

First of all, the vitality is 5000 which represents greater than 25% increased HP. With minimal armor, it’s not much but the ability to take 25% more damage is the ability to take 25% more damage.

Secondly, I agree that the loss of the 5% from sigils is not good.

Thirdly, I don’t know what a power wrench is.

Fourthly, I have no idea what is so interesting about scholar runes. A 10% damage bump is okay but one hit, you’re below the threshold and the bonus is gone so I personally don’t care for them. To each his own. The crit damage is quite good, though.

Lastly, I’ve never run this build — that was sort of implied by the initial post. I just ran it through a build calculator and found that your assessment was fairly exaggerated. All I am saying is that a valk build doesn’t have to be 0% crit chance as you intimated nor would it be useless outside of DS. Crit chance can be nudged up to 40% or so which makes Deathly Precision a near lock to crit. I said that you are going to have to give up damage to get that HP — there’s no free lunch — but the set up would at least put you in the ballpark while providing added survivability (given the same toughness). No one is arguing optimality. Not even a little bit. It’s just a question of the fairness of assessment.

By wrench I meant the sharpening stoned buff, looks like a wrench. Taking the precision oils obvious prevent that from being used.

I don’t really disagree with anything else said expect scholar. The reason why I like it is because I can start a fight in DS when my hp is 100 percent and burn a full bar of DS damaging with 10 percent more damage before I lose most or all of my ds and have my hp drop below the threshold.

Rennoko.5731:

By wrench I meant the sharpening stoned buff, looks like a wrench. Taking the precision oils obvious prevent that from being used.

I don’t really disagree with anything else said expect scholar. The reason why I like it is because I can start a fight in DS when my hp is 100 percent and burn a full bar of DS damaging with 10 percent more damage before I lose most or all of my ds and have my hp drop below the threshold.

This is true. I don’t run glass builds so I never really considered the effect of the DS health bar in protecting the Scholar bonus. My familiarity with them is on the thief which explains why I think they’re too front-end, so to speak. Excellent point. It’s well worth the equip.

This has also changed my assessment of valk gear as well. With Force sigils, this is a loss of 15% damage along with lower power and precision. The difference is too great for it to be considered “ballpark” damage at this point. It is significantly weaker and 25% more HP does not make up for it. While valk is viable, if you truly believe that a good offense is the best defense, it is definitely inferior to the full zerk.

I can see a mix of Berserker’s and Valk doing well. Use enough Berserker’s to hit 50% crit chance out of DS, then fill the rest with Valk. You have the same power and crit damage as full berserker’s, but the lost precision doesn’t mean anything in DS where you would have 100% crit rate anyway.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I can see a mix of Berserker’s and Valk doing well. Use enough Berserker’s to hit 50% crit chance out of DS, then fill the rest with Valk. You have the same power and crit damage as full berserker’s, but the lost precision doesn’t mean anything in DS where you would have 100% crit rate anyway.

We discussed this in the above posts. It probably works fine on balance, it lags behind full zerk. Valk/zerk yields 25% more HP but more than 15% (probably closer to 20%) less damage from things like the loss of power, precision, Sigils of Force and Scholar runes.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I can see a mix of Berserker’s and Valk doing well. Use enough Berserker’s to hit 50% crit chance out of DS, then fill the rest with Valk. You have the same power and crit damage as full berserker’s, but the lost precision doesn’t mean anything in DS where you would have 100% crit rate anyway.

We discussed this in the above posts. It probably works fine on balance, it lags behind full zerk. Valk/zerk yields 25% more HP but more than 15% (probably closer to 20%) less damage from things like the loss of power, precision, Sigils of Force and Scholar runes.

Once you hit 50% crit chance in a Deathly Perception build, you really aren’t losing anything by replacing further Zerk’s with Valks. So your damage output outside of DS drops slightly (you’re still mostly Zerk’s, so it’s a small drop) due to a lower crit chance. In return, you get improved durability and the same exact damage output in DS (same power, same crit damage, same 100% crit chance).

Again: you go Zerk’s gear until you hit that 50% threshold, then fill the rest with Valk’s.
This is not a “half and half” idea I’m proposing. You will still be mostly Zerk’s gear.

The question is, how are you going to get to that 50% crit chance threshold? You’re going to have to give up something. You’re already giving up precision for every piece of valk gear you run. Given that stat points are finite, you can never make this difference up. Zerk gear gives up survivability and turns this into extra damage.

Here’s how it shakes out:

The best I can come up with (in comparison to a full zerk build with no added precision) is full zerk trinkets and weapons, truffle steak, oil, sigils of accuracy and scholar runs with the valk armor.

You give up 90 power, 10% crit damage.

You get +2% crit chance (46% total) and 2300 HP.

At 94% to 96% crit chance in DS, this amounts to about 12% or so less damage. This is not the same damage output and the difference is hardly insignificant. The cost of the trade is, on a glass cannon build, about 2 weak hits. Better survivability, indeed, but for a damage-centric build, probably not worth it. Go all out or run another build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBHRhGiJEoHvXt4MRFOGqHrD68hA-jUDBYfDimgAgwAiII0JPDhN9JaFOFRjVjET5aR1aXA2bJygLY2cpWKgIWGB-w

Good example of what I mean. I chose Eagle runes instead of Scholar (I like the bonus better), but you end up with a 50% crit chance pre-DS and are more durable (though not by a whole lot) than pure Zerker. Once you enter DS, you enjoy the same 100% crit chance with the same crit damage.

While the scholar/berserker set does have a higher theoretical peak damage output, my linked build has a more reliable damage boost in real situations.

This actually can’t be considered a valk build or even half a valk build — it’s a zerker with 2 pieces of valk armor and 2 valk trinkets. With weapons, this is less than 1/3 the set up. The less valk armor, the less the differential in damage. Outfitting the build to handle “real situations” with Eagle runes, the damage differential is down to around 6% now.

Ballpark but still significant.

Rennoko.5731:

Nemesis.8593:

I have watched your video with a lot of curiosity… i was suspecting something and i was correct…

I have seen you time and time again surviving people ganking up on you, via plague or teleport or even getting res by your team… and my final word on the matter is this:

You have outskilled all those who have failed to kill you, they in fact were quite bad… significantly bad…
For me this video does not prove that necromancer can survive focus fire, it proves that you can survive focus fire if you heavily outskill your opponents + have help…

Regardless… you play well, and congratulations for that… just that it is not the class that carries you, it is you… who carry the class.

ps: just to prove my point a bit more… i am willing to demonstrate at any time that, even though you survived 4-5 players at a time… you won’t be able to survive me + 1 friend of mine, you would be dead in under 30 seconds… hell… i solo other necromancers faster, but i am coming from the idea that you are not “other necromancers”, you are a skilled necromancer + your premise of surviving focus fire… therefor +1 on my team.

I am not saying you are bad, on the contrary i am saying you are a good player… yet it is the class that pulls you down, you would do more if you could… but you simply can’t…

To be honest, I think the organzied RET group would take offense to being called significantly bad. Certainly there are bad individual players in these videos, but not to such an extreme degree that you claim. You need to watch more WvW videos if you think these people were bad. Most groups will auto attack from 1200 the guardian. WvW players are not much like Spvp players, they don’t have the general awareness.

I agree that I survive with help, but honestly there was not much these groups could have done to take me down any faster. They were all hitting me as hard as possible, and since both DS and plague are instant, they cannot stop me from soaking that damage. I am literally forcing them to beat through 80,000 hit points.

The way the game currently works, stealth is so unbelivebly powerful, especially in WvW, that thief/mesmer will always be the king of outnumbered fights. When you can run in any direction, and I have no way to know which way you went. You have long range teleports, you have leaps skills, I will NEVER catch a good mesmer or thief under those circumstances. At a high enough skill cap they become impossible to kill without overwhelming numbers. They should take a page from WILDSTAR and use a progressivly easy to see distortion field for stealth skills so there is some counter play.

I am absolutely certain that you and one other person would kill me in 30 seconds, especially in Spvp where I lose my stat cushion. But my implication was not that I can handle 2v1 odds alone. I tried to make it clear, and I have said numerous times in the past, necro has a serious problem in outmatched fights alone.

To be absolutely crystal clear, I am NOT claiming necromancer is in a good spot. This video was not intended to paint a picture of necro survival that is A’OK. I wanted people who play necro and get trained to know there are ways to try and stay alive, there are team comps that work better if these keeps happening to you, and you don’t always have to die. I get frustrated getting trained, and I know other people must as well.

Oh Nemesis. I honestly don’t think he could :popcorn: ;D

Video is enjoyable enough though

-zombify

Nagato no Kami.4980:

This actually can’t be considered a valk build or even half a valk build — it’s a zerker with 2 pieces of valk armor and 2 valk trinkets. With weapons, this is less than 1/3 the set up. The less valk armor, the less the differential in damage. Outfitting the build to handle “real situations” with Eagle runes, the damage differential is down to around 6% now.

Ballpark but still significant.

I never claimed it to be a Valk build either.. That’s just the way I would choose to run it on a necro.

Zerker is fun for ganking smaller groups with a slightly bigger group. As long as you can freecast those numbers are awesome!
When focussed you’ll die without being able to do major damage or you’ll go sittingduck plague style to just postpone your faith a little.

quote:
“- best type of damage mitigation is downing somebody instantly or in seconds; when youre in an organized group of people, offense is the best defense. as the numbers piles up, attrition becomes less and less effective. when your group is doing more “instant damage”, you dont have to worry much about sustain”

Complete bs. If the group you’re facing has some sustain you won’t be able to drop one just like that. The zerker target they focus will always die first imo.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

This actually can’t be considered a valk build or even half a valk build — it’s a zerker with 2 pieces of valk armor and 2 valk trinkets. With weapons, this is less than 1/3 the set up. The less valk armor, the less the differential in damage. Outfitting the build to handle “real situations” with Eagle runes, the damage differential is down to around 6% now.

Ballpark but still significant.

I never claimed it to be a Valk build either.. That’s just the way I would choose to run it on a necro.

I forgot to mention, the thing I like about it is the stat juggling you did to get to a flat 50% precision. No wasted crit chance there.

The way I see it, builds should be fine-tuned to your personal preferences.

That and I’ve been working on a build that is 100% DS crit chance and +100% condition duration, so there has been a lot of juggling on stats :p