Guild Wars 2

I toyed around with a transfusion build in sPVP the other day, and it was pretty good. Sadly, it look like transfusion primarily targets minions, but heals for a TON (1500+ per hit from what I recall) Wondering if just a well/transfusion and weakness build would be viable for dungeons? I’ve been running a power/might build which I like, but considering just doing support for a little while.

This is what I’m thinking about twerking with as far as builds are concerned -

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW4YjQad6VaiaM8JgpHk3t4RPG+YmpKUOA-jwyA4thITKQIGwUDAyBUSsIasFWioxqLqiBTnSEV7UKiWtUAfLMC-e

Thoughts ?

Necromancer Support is very good from experience. Although it looks underwhelming at first look and on “paper,” the proper setup (especially with the new changes to transfusions) really helps groups. I also really like how you can swap the minor trait to match your situation by switching Mark of Evasion, Transfusion, Bloodthirst and Ritual of Life on the fly. Transfusion for me now heals up to 5000+ health in total on up to 5 allies. Very nice. :p

That being said, although you’re heart is in the right place with your build, it focuses too much on the support aspect.

So much so you’re actually gimping your offensive capabilities to gain little to no (or worse) defense/sustain/group sustain. For example this is my condition based support/healer build for Necromancer which I have used in dungeons, spvp, wvw and open world for more than a year now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW7YjQad6Zaub07JApHXj9zTP+ecxjKMMA-jUCBYiCyINJjWQZm8IQ5RFRjtaqIas6ZER1qbYGxFRrWIgFrBA-w

Notice that the above build achieves and surpasses all the support stats you were aiming for, along with 1079 more condition damage and 140ish more power. Now this can be easily rectified in your build by replacing the Giver’s armor with Cleric (if you want to remain power based), Apothercary, Settler’s etc. The boon duration from equipment isn’t worth it on Necromancer since it really only benefits MoB (which can be constantly reapplied anyways) and Ritual of Protection.

Just going 30 into Death Magic gives you 30% boon duration, access to Ritual of Protection which makes all your wells give 4 seconds of protection on up to 5 allies within them on cast. That means you can get upward to 12-16 seconds (20 if you count RoL) of protection from all your Wells in addition to other bonuses when you stack them on allies. Ritual of Protection also makes Well of Blood/Ritual of Life much more effective, essentially reducing incoming damage by 33% and possibly increasing the healing effectiveness by the same for the duration.

The other benefit to taking 30 Death Magic is that you can take Staff Mastery and Greater Marks. That means faster MoB, faster weakness combo, more allies/enemies being effected by Marks and if you go condition damage, the Staff doubles as a mass AoE DPS weapon in addition to being a support weapon.

This link is a bit outdated now due to additional skills gaining healing power scaling such as Transfusion and Siphons, but it helped me crunch the numbers before I seriously invested into support Necro:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10wgz2/how_healing_affects_necromancers/

That’s excellent. Thanks for the advice.
PS: What is your opinion on weakness versus protection? I was shooting for damage mitigation via glancing blows and trying to do big group heals via transfusion more frequently.

Protection is more dependable. There’s much less boon stripping in all game modes than there is condition removal. Protection assures that incoming damage on whomever is booned is reduced by 33% period. Weakness of course debuffs the source by reducing endurance regen by 50% (useless in PVE but great in SPvP/WvW) and 50% of the time reducing enemy attack damage by 50%. It doesn’t work against “objects,” enviromental effects and can be easily removed by condition removal mechanics. However, having both up at the same time means insane damage reduction since they stack in mitigation.

Withering Precision while good, is 20 extra trait investment in Curses than you would have otherwise (10 for Focused rituals). You still have Chillblains + Putrid Mark combo for 5 seconds of weakness and Enfeeling Blood on Dagger off-hand for 6 seconds (add 2-3 seconds for each with cond food). With epidemic you can further increase their durations. So instead of perpetual weakness, you get 15-20 seconds of it in addition to 12-16 seconds of protection in 26-40ish second intervals. If you stack both during high enemy DPS spikes against allies, they can mitigate the majority of the damage if not entirely.

As for Transfusion the recent buff makes it awsome for a spike healing. I think 10 trait points for Path of Midnight could be used elsewhere as a 34 second CD isn’t that much different than 40 seconds. Especially since you can’t keep track of DS skills or may not have enough LF to pop it easily, leading to that 6 seconds being wasted more often than not.

The power of Necro healing really comes from Mark of Blood/WoB still, mainly because MoB can be applied to allies within 180-240 range of enemies, who are within 1380-1440 range of the necro, persistently. With enough healing power that can easily translate to 3000 health regeneration every 10 seconds and 9000+ health over 30 seconds. WoB heals allies around 7000 health over 10 seconds every 32 seconds. Now with transfusion we get another 5000 health spike heal bringing us to about 24000 potential ally healing in a 40 second period (around 25000-26000 for yourself). All while still peforming our basic offensive abilities since Transfusion is a spike dmg channel, Mark of Blood is a quick recharge/cast skill and WoB isn’t taking up skill bar space.

Basically your focus should be sustained ally healing over time, while still focusing on and spewing out damage (especially if you go condition… i keep saying that :p). Transfusion is secondary as an emergency spike heal and performs perfectly as such unless its interrupted (recharges for full CD).

Balekai.6083:

Necromancer Support is very good from experience. Although it looks underwhelming at first look and on “paper,” the proper setup (especially with the new changes to transfusions) really helps groups. I also really like how you can swap the minor trait to match your situation by switching Mark of Evasion, Transfusion, Bloodthirst and Ritual of Life on the fly. Transfusion for me now heals up to 5000+ health in total on up to 5 allies. Very nice. :p

That being said, although you’re heart is in the right place with your build, it focuses too much on the support aspect.

So much so you’re actually gimping your offensive capabilities to gain little to no (or worse) defense/sustain/group sustain. For example this is my condition based support/healer build for Necromancer which I have used in dungeons, spvp, wvw and open world for more than a year now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW7YjQad6Zaub07JApHXj9zTP+ecxjKMMA-jUCBYiCyINJjWQZm8IQ5RFRjtaqIas6ZER1qbYGxFRrWIgFrBA-w

Notice that the above build achieves and surpasses all the support stats you were aiming for, along with 1079 more condition damage and 140ish more power. Now this can be easily rectified in your build by replacing the Giver’s armor with Cleric (if you want to remain power based), Apothercary, Settler’s etc. The boon duration from equipment isn’t worth it on Necromancer since it really only benefits MoB (which can be constantly reapplied anyways) and Ritual of Protection.

Just going 30 into Death Magic gives you 30% boon duration, access to Ritual of Protection which makes all your wells give 4 seconds of protection on up to 5 allies within them on cast. That means you can get upward to 12-16 seconds (20 if you count RoL) of protection from all your Wells in addition to other bonuses when you stack them on allies. Ritual of Protection also makes Well of Blood/Ritual of Life much more effective, essentially reducing incoming damage by 33% and possibly increasing the healing effectiveness by the same for the duration.

The other benefit to taking 30 Death Magic is that you can take Staff Mastery and Greater Marks. That means faster MoB, faster weakness combo, more allies/enemies being effected by Marks and if you go condition damage, the Staff doubles as a mass AoE DPS weapon in addition to being a support weapon.

This link is a bit outdated now due to additional skills gaining healing power scaling such as Transfusion and Siphons, but it helped me crunch the numbers before I seriously invested into support Necro:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10wgz2/how_healing_affects_necromancers/

Here’s my question:

Since wells only proc protection on those who are standing in them on cast, do you find that because of ground targeting, you are forced to choose between buffing allies or yourself?

This is a very interesting build. The armor and healing must give it enormous sustain. I just might try this out.

The short answer is yes. When you find yourself and allies under pressure in totally different locations in combat, you may find yourself conflicted. In that instance I usually try to keep myself up instead of possibly sacrificing myself in order to help others.

With that said, Vampiric Rituals sometimes helps make the opposite decision for you, since buffing allies within close proximity of 5+ enemies can give you around 2200 more health from life steals over 5 pulses. Making it in your best interest to throw 2-3 Wells (even WoB) on allies/enemies, instead of hoping protection will save you in addition to your 2900-3000 armor. That way you might heal yourself 2200-6000 health just from Vampric/Vampiric Ritual traits procing while you run around evading damage. Also my default minor blood trait is Mark of Evasion for the extra DPS and regeneration on dodge, which helps your self-sustain while focusing on buffing other players with MoB+Wells. It can also assure that those in melee range have 24/7 Regeneration if you’re stacked with them.

Usually that isn’t an issue though since I find myself usually around allies at range or melee. I play the above build at 0-300 range mostly (for MoE/Geomancy triggering) as a meat grinder. Focused Rituals really just gives you the flexibility to disengage, face tank or stay at range and still be able to buff allies within 900 range. Nice when you find youself multitasking.

I’m thinking about testing a power version of this more suited to zerging. I think I’d optimize it as a frontline heal tank whose job would be to drop regen, heal and protection — preferably as part of the commander’s party to prioritize heal distribution. This build wouldn’t get many bags but it could make a huge difference in a close fight.

I’m still not sure about the food. It helps ensure massive heals but I’m worried about condition management — and lack of stunbreaks for that matter (hence the Melandrus). It’s tempting to go balls out on the heal but you can’t heal if you go down.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBmQDbESrTPTzSjfPBI946nxe6R3j/dUhiB-j0CBYgRGPEApJZ0CJjaIQEIwZRFRjtupIasqZER16kYGcFRrWKgvFGB-w

I think that’s a fine Power rendition of the build for WvW. I would switch out Mark of Evasion for maybe Vampiric Rituals every now and then (when worried about self sustain). Maybe switch out Chilling Darkness for Focused Rituals especially when you don’t really want to get into the thick of things. The food is ok and would also bring power food when you want more DPS of course.

Another thing you can do is have Dagger off-hand when you think you’re going to get hit by a heavy condition zerg, but being in a large zerg + WoP should take care of that mostly. Stunbreak or lack thereof will always be a problem with Necro, in which Vampiric Rituals may be a good idea again for more self-sustain and added well DPS. I would also think about switching out sigils of life for sigils of renewal. That way you can heal yourself and nearby allies (300 range) on weapon swap for 374+(0.1xHealing Power).

Mark of Evasion will proc 3069 regen over 9 seconds without the 25 stacks of heal on the sigils. Having more access to this will greatly improve the sustain of the front line. It will basically turn everyone it hits into warriors with Healing Signet and reduce the need for rallying. Vampiric Rituals would be a nice addition but since this is a support build, sacrifices need to be made. I’ve abandoned the idea of doing any real damage with this build.

Chilling Darkness synergizes with Plague and WoD too well to not take. The offhand warhorn is there for the same reason.

I like the idea of Sigil of Life. It’s certainly better than Hydromancy. Thanks for that.

Looking again at the build, I wonder if the armor is too light… I’m much more comfortable with it over 3000. If I adjust the trinkets to Givers with snowflakes I can get to 3000 but the heal drops to 1450… =/

I like your rebuttals in relation to the build’s primary goal. Your armor should be ok especially with all the healing power. There’s only about 3-5% damage reduction difference in between 2900ish armor and 3000+ so I wouldn’t focus too much on it. If your armor was below 2800 hovering more towards 2700 then yes it wouldn’t be enough because of ascended weapons moving up what constitutes as heavy/bunker.

Also I would check to see whether the added 250 healing power from sigils of life adds enough healing on regeneration to surpass the weapon swap heal on renewal. If so the only bonus of renewal would be the fact that its another heal to stack on top of regeneration. If you do take renewals I would just put a sigil of life on the warhorn and put sigils of renewal on staff/dagger main. That way you get the weapon swap effect on both weapon sets. That gives you the option of dropping precision buffs/equipment/infusions if you want to as well (even though it helps with DPS).

Tested it tonight on reset.

It… um… didn’t go well.

No bags. No damage. Heals didn’t help that much. Conditions became an issue without Melandrus and Lemongrass.

Will continue tomorrow but the prospects look grim for this experiment.

I may be completely off base here… But to me it seems like a build like this, is more suited for small-scale fights… Like 3-5/3-5?

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Tested it tonight on reset.

It… um… didn’t go well.

No bags. No damage. Heals didn’t help that much. Conditions became an issue without Melandrus and Lemongrass.

Will continue tomorrow but the prospects look grim for this experiment.

Hmm unfortunate, especially the no bags/kill credit part. My main issue with power based builds as necro without any or little precision/critical damage, is that the damage output is just not there (hard enough for classes that do have good base damage on skills). The high damage comes from single targets kills only and all AoE/bouncing skills have low to lower-mid base damage (except WoS). So it gets even worse when you’re trying to create a power based support build that’s likely using 2 defense stats and power being a secondary stat.

In part that’s why I went condition based, since it doesn’t need precision or critical damage to be effective. Bags are almost never an issue (you can even cheat by applying bleeds to downed people as you run by getting credit :p ). Necromancer bleeds recharge very quickly, are AoE and regardless of damage output are always forcing large groups of people to condition clense. Your not waiting 25-40 seconds for that damage to recharge. The other thing is that condition damage allows you to multitask a lot more. You can “fire and forget” most of the time at 0-1200+ range with MoB, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood circulation. Meaning more time for focusing on how to sustain youself/allies

At some point (if there’s a chance of your zerg winning), the enemy condition clense breaks down once enough pressure is applied, giving you the opportunity to help finish off a lot of invaders with conditions without them being clensed (WoC can be very effective in that instance with high condition damage).

In a roamer situation or very little condition clense in an enemy zerg, i’m usually ticking on average 1000-1400 bleeds, 250ish poison and various other conditions on 3-5 people constantly, with low DPS ticks of 300-600 dmg every 20ish seconds for around 5-10 seconds.

Although Anet seems to increasingly be buffing Blood/Death Magic (and therefore Necro support) for power, I still believe that condition/support is more effective as the various Marks, Wells, Condition transfers and Boon corruption synergizes much better with conditon. I believe the strength of necromancer healing is not that it out performs eles/guardians spike heals, but that you can perform sustained AoE support, healing and condition offense at the same time, often using single skills peforming all three mechanics. I’m hoping your next test goes better.

JestersMadness.7528:

I may be completely off base here… But to me it seems like a build like this, is more suited for small-scale fights… Like 3-5/3-5?

It very well could especially teamed with more DPS oriented allies. Nagato’s build has some serious healing potential (much more than mine I think), that may be getting wasted in very large zergs. Smaller roamer groups and smaller zergs may benefit a lot more from it’s sustained, high regening regenerations etc. I know my build performs very well for me in roamer solo/small group fights. The only issue I could see in Nagato’s build is getting caught alone without much DPS even in a 1vs1 situation. It truly is a group support and while it may be able to sustain indefinitely, it may not be able to finish off enemies. Especially once they clue in and start using ranged dmg.

I kind of think, in theory, it works really well. But in my experience in zerg fights, if I’m running with an organised group, I’m not going to drop Well of Blood down on our stack when we pull out as it risks overwriting the water field which will heal for more when you have quite a few people blasting on it. Moreover, speed imo is the other advantage that the water field + blast combo has over Well of Blood. Having our group sit in one spot for 10 secs is a bit risky.

I like the heal from the Transfusion trait but I feel right now, as it stands, healing is something other classes (namely elementalist) do better.

Usagi.4835:

I kind of think, in theory, it works really well. But in my experience in zerg fights, if I’m running with an organised group, I’m not going to drop Well of Blood down on our stack when we pull out as it risks overwriting the water field which will heal for more when you have quite a few people blasting on it. Moreover, speed imo is the other advantage that the water field + blast combo has over Well of Blood. Having our group sit in one spot for 10 secs is a bit risky.

I like the heal from the Transfusion trait but I feel right now, as it stands, healing is some other classes (namely elementalist) do better.

Very true. In actual practice you learn that WoB is not a spike heal. It’s very much like speed buffs. A Guardian should never place a light field on top of lighting fields when a zerg is buffing swiftness. However once people start running, using staff symbol for swiftness is great for sustaining it.

WoB is a sustain heal to counter sustained damage over a 10 second period, especially in WvW enviroment. That means its best used at times of heavy damage per second, when allies must stand their ground, before or after water field(s) are used. So when a commander shouts out “water fields” don’t use WoB, just as you wouldn’t use SoS as a Guardian when they call “lighting fields” for swiftness. Instead, I would use transfusion when water fields are called (which I have always swapped in for zerg fights to replace MoE).

I either use WoB early when you know there’s going to be high DPS incoming within 1-3 secs, or mid fight on an enemy zerg right before you charge into them for self/group sustain while moving through, or use it late when allies have blown much of their own sustain/heals and are trying to finish off enemies etc.

Spike heals from water field combos are indispensable to a zerg, but may not necessarily sustain it over the long term. Sure a zerg can proc 30K+ health worth of water field combos to get the group back into fighting shape for another 20-30 seconds. However, what happens in the 20ish seconds between healing spike CDs and another enemy charge? How much of that 30K health was used efficiently to heal the zerg and how much of it was “wasted” on fully healed toons? What happens when your zerg is in such heavy skirmish that it falls into disarray procing wise, making water field combos difficult?

I think that’s where a Necro(s) can possibly come in. You help sustain allies with Weakness, WoB, WoP, WoD, Transfusion and spammable AoE Regeneration from MoB, while also helping to put pressure on enemy sustain/mobility/offensive capabilities with AoE Bleeds, Weakness, Torment, Cripple, Poison, Weakness, Chill and WoC etc. Only problem: The spammable condition removal large fights. This makes the build more effective in smaller roamer fights.

A while back I did a numbers game comparing necro sustained healing to Eles/Guardians. What I found was that although they heal for more via spikes and sustian traits, they have to give up more in play style, traits, damage etc. due to class mechanics. The support build I play can go full meatgrinder AoE bleed mode while still firing off all my support, or I can stay at 900-1200 range and fire off all my support without switching a skill or weapon. I don’t have to worry about procing anything. An Ele has to switch to water and combo to truly heal/support their team members, which gimps DPS for that timeframe. A Guardian has to be within 300-600 range to truly help others, but once they are in range their group sustain is very good.

@Usagi
What you say is true; it ain’t water. That being said, I don’t think anyone in their right mind (well, anyone who knows how to zerg properly) would drop WoB in that situation. If not for your own heal, optimally, you want to drop it in combat where someone can blast it for area retaliation which is pretty nice on the front line.

@Balekai
I pretty much agree with everything you said. There’s also the matter of the extreme specialization of this build. So much went into healing. Since we can’t blast a water field, we have to do it mostly through regen. For it to be effective, that takes a TON of healing. So much so that it begins to effect the build on both the offensive and defensive side which really puts pressure on the way you play. I thought this might be the case but it’s a bit more significant than I anticipated.

I do, however, see the potential of the condi build you run and how it can thrive in smaller fights. This is probably (certainly) the necro healer’s best application. What’s more, I think you’re right in that the condi is superior in zerging as well despite the mass cleansing… straight power certainly wasn’t working! XD

I know it’s not a water field; I’m referring to the groups who will be running eles and who will be dropping Staff Water #3 and #5.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Tested it tonight on reset.

It… um… didn’t go well.

No bags. No damage. Heals didn’t help that much. Conditions became an issue without Melandrus and Lemongrass.

Will continue tomorrow but the prospects look grim for this experiment.

A bit surprised by this in terms of damage/bags. Even without any crit damage, 3k power plus wells, marks, and transfusion should be netting some bags.

alanis.6094:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Tested it tonight on reset.

It… um… didn’t go well.

No bags. No damage. Heals didn’t help that much. Conditions became an issue without Melandrus and Lemongrass.

Will continue tomorrow but the prospects look grim for this experiment.

A bit surprised by this in terms of damage/bags. Even without any crit damage, 3k power plus wells, marks, and transfusion should be netting some bags.

This was more about my main focus being on keeping healing and protection on the zerg at all times. As such, I mainly threw MoB and wells on my location and stayed in staff almost exclusively. Not much damage to be had with that play style.

Perhaps I should try a bit more balanced approach but, at that point, you sort of wonder if it’s worth what you’re giving up in damage and CCs to give an occasional regen and DS4 to the group.