Guild Wars 2

So, I just got this game a week or so ago and I’ve taken a liking to the Necro class. I especially like the bleed build. I’ve just been wondering some things about how bleeds work that I can’t find on the wiki anywhere.

So, I know how bleeds duration works (I think): So, lets just say I start with http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power this puts up 2 stacks of bleeding for 30 seconds. Next, I hit twice with the scepter, which attacks 1 and 2 put up a single stack of bleeding (assuming I didn’t crit) for 4 seconds. Now, I stop attacking. In 4 seconds, I will lose 2 stacks of bleeding but keep the other 2 stacks from my start with blood is power, but the duration of those 2 stacks wouldn’t have been increased with the application of scepter hits 1 and 2. I believe this is how bleed stacking works, correct me if I’m wrong in this.

Now, on to what I’ve been thinking about. So, a Ranger uses http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Entangle and puts up 20 stacks of bleeding. As he does that, I attack twice with scepter hits 1 and 2 and crit with both, so now I’ve applied 4 stacks of bleeding to make almost a full 25 stack. Since I’ve applied stacks to his 20 stack, do I only get the damage ticks from my 4, or do I benefit from the damage of all 24 stacks of bleed?

Any comments / discussion would be greatly appreciated. Any tips experienced bleed condition necros can shoot out that I might not know yet would be cool too.

Welcome to the game and we’re glad you’re enjoying playing your necro.

You are correct in that bleed stacks up to 25, but each application of bleed ticks away on its own timer, so your BiP will keep the enemy bleeding for half a minute but your scepter-applied bleeds will disappear much faster. The nice thing about the scepter is that it continuously applies bleed-bleed-poison bleed-bleed-poison through autoattack, so on something with high HP, you should maintain around 9 or 10 bleeds just from autoattacking with scepter (if you have traited for this, I think it’s a grandmaster trait).

If a ranger applies 20 stacks of bleed and you put on the other 5, the enemy’s HP will drain according to 25 stacks, but you only do damage from your 5 stacks of bleed. And as you know, scepter autoattack without the bleeds is pretty underwhelming. This is why it is not ideal in a party to have more than one condition-based party member. I’ve been in parties with people who can maintain 20 stacks of bleed by themselves, in which case my damage over time is effectively more than halved.

You won’t always know who you’ll end up teaming up with, but if you know in advance that someone with a condition build is coming along, it’s better for you to adjust your traits and go with dagger/dagger to do more direct damage. You can still bring along skills like Epidemic to spread your party’s bleeds to nearby foes, but directly applying conditions yourself is not going to make the enemy die faster once it hits the 25 bleed limit.

Ok, I kinda figured that I only got the damage from my own applied bleeds, but had to ask to make sure. I’m kind of worried about using a dagger, since melee range is usually not the safest place to be more often than not, especially in fractals. I was thinking of using an axe in that situation, since it applies the vulnerability with the autoattack and probably a dagger in offhand for the blind and weakness.

Something else I forgot to ask. If I use Blood is Power and halfway through the self-bleed, use Deathly Swarm from the dagger off-hand, does it apply that bleed to the target at full duration (10 sec) or just apply it as it was on me and last for 5 sec?

It applies it at the current duration of when the projectile hits. If the projectile lands at 3 seconds duration, you get 3 second duration on the opponent. I would personally recommend you only use transfers when you have multiple stacks of bleed, or severely long duration burns/poison.

I wouldn’t focus on duration in PvP/WvW, honestly. If you’re planning on PvE, then Duration will work nicely, but even at that, some builds are better for a quantity of bleeds/terror while still being able to spec for extra survivability.

Ok, cool. Thanks for the advice and clarification. Appreciate it.

The short version:
Each bleed is individual and caster dependant scaling only with condition damage.
The cap is 25 total.
Once the cap is reached the oldest bleed in stack is removed and new one added at the end.
It doesn’t account to anything like durations, strenght of bleeds just position in stack.