Guild Wars 2

Go ahead and put forth whatever new builds or trait/skill synergies with whatever that you can think of. Be it with weapons, runes or sigils. Anet expects it and I need to know whether I’ve lost my touch for theorycrafting or if there’s really nothing noteworthy in these changes.

The only new thing I can perhaps see working is Weakening Shroud and Spiteful Spirit doing a half decent 3k~ hit or so on entering DS, about twice as much counting potential Air+Fire procc. It wouldn’t do much but at least its something. And it could be used while you’re being CC’d.

we don’t have the greatsword traitline yet and not sure how the utilities and armor/weapon stats will change… so it might be a bit premature to set up builds…but I like thinking about builds so here I go!

For WvW roaming…or what WvW will become…
For a hybrid necro scepter/dagger/staff with decent power/condi/crit chance

Curses line: Enfeebling Blood, Path of Corruption, Terror (terror dealing damage is more important than 100% increase duration while on scepter since it gives more instant burst damage which a hybrid burst build needs)

Soul Reaping line: Soul Marks, Vital Persistence, Dhummfire (no cooldown on dhummfire procs? OPPPPPPPP…reduce staff cooldown and generate lifeforce in one? OPPPPP…DS skills recharge faster and drains slower in one? OPPPPP)

Those two lines are the ones I will very likely take.
The last one might be greatsword specialization line if it turns out good for my build…if not, it is a toss up between bloodmagic and spite lines…

The spite line is more offensive with chill of death and close to death
The bloodmagic line is more sustain with regeneration and healing and movement speed from wielding a single dagger! this will allow me to swap out my rune of traveler for a more offensive rune.

This hybrid build depends on bursting your target hard so I think I will still opt for the spite line since I don’t see any rune out there that will allow me to burst harder than the spite line…also having fought high burst builds, regeneration is not really going to save you…

Spite Line: Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death, Close to Death

In the end, condi duration gets nerfed since I won’t have it through traits, so its only food 40%, sigil 10%, going traveler runes means I only get an extra 10% for a total of 60% for all condis except bleed which will get up to 80%…

I’ve mostly been thinking about minions with these changes (I can’t help it), and there are some interesting uses, plus Lingering Curse has ridiculous synergy with basically every condition everything in the game.

Death Nova Bone Minions + Lingering Curse
Death Nova applies 5s base of poison twice (or three times? I can’t get in game to test it atm). With bone minions, this means 10 seconds of Poison, twice(or three times) per minion every 16s, plus two applications of 6s of Weakness. So, in ideal spots, you can get 4(6) stacks of poison for 10s plus 12s of Weakness, every 16s, plus any extra poison from Jagged Horrors.

Axe/Focus + Spiteful Talisman, Chill of Death, Unholy Feast
In ideal situations you are removing up to 8 boons per 16 seconds.

Blinds + Chilling Darkness + Bitter Chill
Each blind will chill, which will also inflict vulnerability.

And just for fun, the new MM build will be able to remove 5 conditions per 10 seconds from itself (without Blood Fiend or jagged horrors), minions will transfer (in total) 3 conditions per second to your enemy, plus you all get Protection on DS exit, Transfusion, Heal on DS entry, and then you can either go into spite and get what I was talking about with A/F, use a condition build, or go Soul Reaping for Foot in the Grave or Deathly Perception. Should be a lot of MM variation.

I really like the pbaoe boon removal with unholy feast/axe.

I doubt it’s a good build, but:

I’m gonna make some sort of permanent retaliation tank beast. I had tried it before, but now it’s way more plausible since I can cast Unholy Feast twice every 15 seconds. That alone gives me over 100% uptime against 3 opponents. With possibility of CDR and boon duration, I can get around 100% against two opponents. If I can add in a way to tank a lot of damage consistently without squatting in Death Shroud for too long, it’ll be interesting to see how much Retaliation damage an opponent will be forced to eat before they have a hope of dropping me.

Also up for consideration is yet another try at siphon-spam Necro, with the new quickening thirst & signet traits.