Guild Wars 2

Updated 1-8-14 (happy new year)

More mostly 2 man roaming against FA and TC, since we don’t seem to get to play anyone else. Build for most of the video is 30 30 0 0 10.

Only notworthy change is that I have started to run spiteful removal over spiteful spirit. I find that with a guard who can provide retaliation, I don’t care that much about overlapping the buff with him, while my other option is the chance some dangerous conditions might get pulled off. Also dying mobs help with keeping my debuff bar clear.

Upcoming video is going to be a proc based build, I am just waiting on finishing my armor for a few days. A few clips in this video were running that build, but I want to devote a video to it.

—older—

Updated 12-26-13

Roaming with a larger group in a more standard Dire build.

Hey guys, back with another roaming video. Managed to get a decent set of heavily outnumbered fights.

I used SoV for this entire collection, and I really find the signet to work well with the class combination we run (Guard/Necro).

Build is 30/20/0/20/0 (except the last two fights).

Comments welcome,

That was pretty awesome! I’m a full time guard setting down my staff and leveling a necro at level 28 now. Do you have any advice on gear and stuff? I know conditions seem to longer be the meta and power is. So any advice that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Good video as usual.

Oh man, you’re fighting SBI (my server) and Yaks so you must be on Maguuma. Yikes.

Are you saying that having high uptime on Protection and other boons from the Guardian increases the effectiveness of SoV moreso than our other heals? Or is it that since the Guard can cleanse you, the loss of condition removal from CC just isn’t as big of a hit?

I really enjoyed the video, but I didn’t see anything that made me think SoV was a big player in any part of it. High prot uptime, high vigor uptime, and often not focused, or just auto-spammed by some Thief with a shortbow or something.

Again, I enjoyed the video, but I really don’t see how it highlights anything about SoV.

Mortalitas.9710:

That was pretty awesome! I’m a full time guard setting down my staff and leveling a necro at level 28 now. Do you have any advice on gear and stuff? I know conditions seem to longer be the meta and power is. So any advice that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I guess it all depends on what you want to do. Power necros tend to do much better in large group fights with ranged wells. I don’t do this type of fighting much because I don’t find it interesting. Condition wells work OK in large fights, but often times don’t get much accomplished.

If you are used to plaing a guardian it will be a pretty big adjustment, as you will have few boons to work with, and my advice is to stick with the class and find someone you enjoy playing with to play with often, as solo necro can be very frustrating. Both Rabid and Dire are find for conditions, and the HP pool is forgiving.

Stx.4857:

Are you saying that having high uptime on Protection and other boons from the Guardian increases the effectiveness of SoV moreso than our other heals? Or is it that since the Guard can cleanse you, the loss of condition removal from CC just isn’t as big of a hit?

I look at this way, the guard heals me for about 3.2k at the end of empower, he heals me on shout, and he keeps regen on me most of the time. If I pair that with SOV, siphons, blood sigils, it will keep my healing a smooth increase, as opposed to a spike every 25 seconds. I also run into the problem of using CC right after he uses his condition clears to pull off me, and I get a bad heal and he gets all the conditions he didn’t need to get.

Obviously the protection helps a lot in this respect. The only real problem becomes when we get overwhelmed by conditions (2+ necros), which then we don’t have enough condition clears, since I can no longer help cleanse him.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I really enjoyed the video, but I didn’t see anything that made me think SoV was a big player in any part of it. High prot uptime, high vigor uptime, and often not focused, or just auto-spammed by some Thief with a shortbow or something.

Again, I enjoyed the video, but I really don’t see how it highlights anything about SoV.

Its WvW, there are a lot of zerker shortbow spammers. There were thieves in that video if you keep an eye out for them, but not as many as there used to be. At one point there were 3+ thieves on me, they just kept going down. Honestly I don’t see nearly as many thieves as I used to months ago just in general.

Positioning helps with being focused, and I try to make sure the guard gets in first, and becomes the focus before I get involved. I would never win any out numbered fights if the people we played against played smarter, but such is the way this game works with 2vX. It is much easier to watch a video and comment on what everyone did wrong then to be in that situation and know what you should be doing.

SOV just provides a smooth heal, like regen, and like siphon. It helps to keep healing consistent across a 3 minute fight, and it provides an extra cushion for an emergency heal if I need it. I know everyone hates it, but I don’t have a problem with it in the right setup. I also love Deathly Invigoration… one of my favorite heals.

Some really nice fights. Guardian/Necro is a really good combo since they cover some of our weaknesses.

what sort of stats in your gear you use then for that build?

i’ve played my necro always as more of the backline defensive/support wellomancer but that got boring pretty fast, and now planning to try something wich actually would let me kill enemies more efficiently than wellomancing, not just serve the kills on a silver plate for others ;P

Rennoko.5731:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I really enjoyed the video, but I didn’t see anything that made me think SoV was a big player in any part of it. High prot uptime, high vigor uptime, and often not focused, or just auto-spammed by some Thief with a shortbow or something.

Again, I enjoyed the video, but I really don’t see how it highlights anything about SoV.

Its WvW, there are a lot of zerker shortbow spammers. There were thieves in that video if you keep an eye out for them, but not as many as there used to be. At one point there were 3+ thieves on me, they just kept going down. Honestly I don’t see nearly as many thieves as I used to months ago just in general.

Positioning helps with being focused, and I try to make sure the guard gets in first, and becomes the focus before I get involved. I would never win any out numbered fights if the people we played against played smarter, but such is the way this game works with 2vX. It is much easier to watch a video and comment on what everyone did wrong then to be in that situation and know what you should be doing.

SOV just provides a smooth heal, like regen, and like siphon. It helps to keep healing consistent across a 3 minute fight, and it provides an extra cushion for an emergency heal if I need it. I know everyone hates it, but I don’t have a problem with it in the right setup. I also love Deathly Invigoration… one of my favorite heals.

I’m not trying to judge your playstyle. Far from it, actually. I think you two are out-playing your need for a “good” heal, so SoV is “fine”. You work really well as a team, and it’s really fun to watch. But for example, if they DID play smarter, would SoV work? Even if you might run into cases where the Guard cleanses your condis when you go to consume for a heal, doesn’t the ability to protect yourself from extended condi pressure when that isn’t sufficient worth having over a heal that can manage cases where the enemy isn’t playing “properly” against you two?

Of course, you can use whichever heal you’d like. I’m not trying to tell you how to play, I’m just thinking out loud. Maybe the Protection uptime really does seal the deal when you’re running pretty high toughness already. Maybe WvW success is built more around the ability to completely shrug off auto-spammers on the sidelines instead of feeling any pressure from them, so the Prot + Siphon from being hit by a bunch of weak attacks is peanuts.

I do think SoV has a place, but I don’t think that video showcases SoV as much as it showcases good coordination between classes that are complimenting each other really well. That’s all.

Have anything solo with SOV?

alanis.6094:

Have anything solo with SOV?

I think an important thing to remember is that it doesn’t have to be good solo. Necros already have heals that are good solo. Having one that synergizes nicely with a particular class/team comp doesn’t make it a bad heal if it’s lackluster in certain situations, it just means it fills a niche.

Pazernus.9273:

what sort of stats in your gear you use then for that build?

i’ve played my necro always as more of the backline defensive/support wellomancer but that got boring pretty fast, and now planning to try something wich actually would let me kill enemies more efficiently than wellomancing, not just serve the kills on a silver plate for others ;P

I used Rabid for these videos, but it works with apoc or dire as well fairly well. I wanted high enough crit to get lots of siphons and they don’t scale well with healing power anyways.

I enjoy roaming, and really the very small scale romaing the most because of what it takes to pull it off. In our setup, you really only have your own conditions to epidemic, so you can’t just cast and hope it goes off, but effectively use doom to setup the epidemic.

alanis.6094:

Have anything solo with SOV?

I don’t, but I really don’t solo roam much. I could see it working fine against a mesmer, and a ranger, but really badly against a backstab thief. I don’t think the heal is good at all for solo play, just like blood fiend and WOB.

I am sure I could do some solo roaming with it, but I would be outplaying people to make it work, not as a result of the signet. I really think in a group setting though when the signet has time to slowly feed in the HP, it does make a difference.

mhm out of those 3 the rabid really seems like the most fitting, as when i was testing with vit i didnt feel it gave enough hp to feel comfortable taking it over other stat as wellomancer. as taking crit over it would proc more heals and those heals would mitigate more than stacking hp.

and i assume something like 6/6 melandru’s as runes would work as well for this? or should i go for something more offensive?

and thats kinda the plan for me, want to start smaller scale roams too on more quiet hours rather htan just the massive scale wvw where wellomancer really did shine :> cause wellomancer felt pretty useless and weak in few vs few fights or 1v1 encounters

Pazernus.9273:

mhm out of those 3 the rabid really seems like the most fitting, as when i was testing with vit i didnt feel it gave enough hp to feel comfortable taking it over other stat as wellomancer. as taking crit over it would proc more heals and those heals would mitigate more than stacking hp.

and i assume something like 6/6 melandru’s as runes would work as well for this? or should i go for something more offensive?

and thats kinda the plan for me, want to start smaller scale roams too on more quiet hours rather htan just the massive scale wvw where wellomancer really did shine :> cause wellomancer felt pretty useless and weak in few vs few fights or 1v1 encounters

Antitoxin runes are a nice fit for an SOV build, because they have good condi damage and give some reduction to cover your lack of removal. Rabid I agree seems to work best.

I just don’t feel comfortable with this heal when I know I’m going to get focused. You might not be quite as hated as I am, Rennoko, since you are so respectful to your enemies. Tricare might end up changing that for you though.

Oozo.7856:

I just don’t feel comfortable with this heal when I know I’m going to get focused. You might not be quite as hated as I am, Rennoko, since you are so respectful to your enemies. Tricare might end up changing that for you though.

He tries really hard. I am okay as long as no one realizes he is the other guy in all my videos. Wait….

Yes I am working on adjusting things around to account for dealing with conditions, but it is still very weak to backstabbing thieves, and I am not sure the signet, much like retaliation will ever work against them.

Updated fight attached with TC at North camp, with 5-7 vs. their spawn.

Rennoko.5731:

Updated fight attached with TC at North camp, with 5-7 vs. their spawn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7KybgQf30Q

Very fun to watch. These are the kind of fights I go looking for basically all the time, but rarely find. It would probably help if I knew 4 other people who were into WvW.

Bonus points for The Glitch Mob, that’s been my roaming jam for the past several days.

EDIT – One criticism. At about 16:08, you target a rabbit, run towards it, but don’t Staff #1 it for the extra 14-15% LF.

Thou Shalt Not Suffer Thy Critters To Live.

How about that ele giving you fury and swiftness huh? Pretty gooooood heals right?

FrownyClown.8402:

How about that ele giving you fury and swiftness huh? Pretty gooooood heals right?

Quitter, hope you enjoy basic.

what’s the second n in ‘nn’ for?
n, ne, nw. it’s kind of embarrassing how people don’t know what compass’s are anymore.

In mag we call it north north so people know we are talking about the camp

Lightsbane.9012:

what’s the second n in ‘nn’ for?
n, ne, nw. it’s kind of embarrassing how people don’t know what compass’s are anymore.

It’s how we type out supply camps here on Maguuma. Typing nn is faster than typing out north supply.

Not sure how this would apply to knowing what a compass is? It’s cardinal directions.

He might have more been asking why it isn’t just ‘n’ instead of ‘nn’. There isn’t really another supply camp that it could be confused with.

An indication of just North was always a more general indication to me, indicating people were moving in that direction, but not necessarily to the North supply camp. NN was always a clear indication that the referece was to that supply camp in particular.

I don’t think it is because maguuma cannot read a compass….

I can see the argument that it may be one letter easier to start using N to indicate that camp, but I don’t run the server, so I cannot change the way they view things. I will fix the topic name so it is less embarrasing for our server and our backwater, homespun ways.

I don’t think it’s just your server, as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other players from other servers reference that convention.

Out of curiosity, how are the other camps identified? Is it NN, NE, SE, SS, SW, NW?

Cogbyrn.7283:

I don’t think it’s just your server, as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other players from other servers reference that convention.

Out of curiosity, how are the other camps identified? Is it NN, NE, SE, SS, SW, NW?

Yup

Sorry for derailing, I just find it interesting that NE, NW, SE, and SW made it past the initial “simple direction” check, but N and S didn’t. Not judging, whatever works, just intrigued.

At any rate, for anyone just tuning in, the videos are quality. Have a watch.

In Darkhaven we actually type out part of the name of the camp or link the poi.

Newest video: