Guild Wars 2

I’m mostly playing tPVP in this game and I also see a lot of people and builds going with off hand dagger and that seems to be the standart thing for a lot of condi builds.

Let us see what OH dagger gives you.

Enfeebling blood:
-25 CD which is incredibly long for such an ability
-only 2 stacks of bleed
-weakness
-slow cast time and sometimes it may take nearly another half a second for the animation before the effect takes place
-experience showed that I suck horribly at landing it so I just waste the 25 CD

Deathly swarm
-18 second CD
-3 condi transfer + blind which is nice
-slow unreliable projectile
-transfers 1 condition to each foe when bouncing

Dagger CD reduction trait is strange too, it’s only 15% while I believe all the other weapon CD reduction traits are all 20%. Only the warhorn trait has the 15% reduction but it adds the duration to the spell effects. As a result I see that enfeebling blood for off hand dagger is extremely horrible lol. Deathly swarm is nice but meh, I transfer condies with putrid mark or eat them with consume.

And NOW lets us take a look at the warhorn and I am going to make this a bit trait and sigil specific. Lets look at warhorn spells first:

Locust swarm:
I actually grow to love this thing more and more as it is not only my source for swiftness(which is quite crucial since it improves the main problem of the necro which is shmobility), it is actually quite nice for kiting or chasing people. You can cast it and have the effect stay even when entering DS, helps a lot of times to actually chase and catch up to a fleeing enemy with dark path for example. If you’re being chased by melee they get crippled, they get damaged, you get 1% LF each tick! If chasing someone, just go into melee and be as much of an annoyance as you can by smacking them on the face with your scepter!

Wail of doom:
By itself alone it might feel a bit lacking but it is still an aoe daze. The downside is a 30 second cd and a duration of only 2 seconds. But what happens when you take banshees wail and a sigil of paralyzation for +15% stun duration? Both your locust swarm and wail of doom become a 25 second CD! Your wail of doom becomes a whooping 4 second aoe daze!!!

So there you have it. I would also like to post my build, please check it out:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBLhZakRLevdzXjePBIp45rjUE8yUPKPd2B-TsAgyCuIiSFlLKTUyosRN8Y5xEBA

This build is meant to maximize my 2 on demand terror fears and is CC heavy too since it has a 4 second aoe daze from warhorn and the knockdown from golem. The most important thing is to not care about your golem at all and realize that he is there for the charge pretty much. If he manages to deal some damage that is fantastic, if he made a successful charge and died that is in fact good, if he failed the charge well just try again in 40-60 seconds. On top of it a lot of times he actually manages to deal DAMAGE while plague or lich are doing nothing when they are off CD, golem is pretty much constant damage most of the time!!!!!! Wurm is our best escape tool, would be nice if necrotic traversal wasn’t bugged by pathing and didn’t fail to work 60% of the time lol.

I’ve been playing tPVP for only 3 weeks and currently am flying around the 96% mark of the shmeaderboards. Hope my solo queue heroism gets me to the top 1000 EU next.

The terrors manage to tick twice dealing 2.2 K+ damage which is really nice for condi bursting. And I forgot to mention that stability or 50% reduction on DS CD is just too mainstream for this build, but jokes aside it would just mess up the CC/staff/on demand fear specialization.

Dagger is ranged and has basic tools youd take as utilites in skills, kinda why OH D>Warhorn for pvp,
Honestly the only reason why i do run D/WH on my pve setup is 2 things, LF generation and Life Siphon scailing (1:1 power and 5% of Healing) and the cast time on WoD is ok in pve, but it doesnt work that well as a pvp interrupt, and 3/5s cast times (and especially animations) for their effects are too long. Still WH is really nice and happy to see another person use it (oh if you wanna kitten with dazes get a ranger/mesmer combo or make a asura ranger for wvwvw, its amazing).

Andele.1306:

Honestly the only reason why i do run D/WH on my pve setup is 2 things, LF generation and Life Siphon scailing (1:1 power and 5% of Healing)

What?
Locust may proc a lot of Lifesteals, but there is no innate Life Siphon-Ability on warhorn. oO
So care to explain that sentence, especially the scaling part?

Agreed.

Warhorn > OH dagger

So much more use in having a daze + lifeforce generation than having a crap aoe weakness and bleed and an unreliable condi transfer.

RashanDale.3609:

Andele.1306:

Honestly the only reason why i do run D/WH on my pve setup is 2 things, LF generation and Life Siphon scailing (1:1 power and 5% of Healing)

What?
Locust may proc a lot of Lifesteals, but there is no innate Life Siphon-Ability on warhorn. oO
So care to explain that sentence, especially the scaling part?

Dagger/Warhorn setup, together the 2 make the highers LF generation of necro weapons and Dagger 2 is Life Siphon, 5 ofc helps with locusts proccing vampiric but its not that important.

Andele.1306:

RashanDale.3609:

Andele.1306:

Honestly the only reason why i do run D/WH on my pve setup is 2 things, LF generation and Life Siphon scailing (1:1 power and 5% of Healing)

What?
Locust may proc a lot of Lifesteals, but there is no innate Life Siphon-Ability on warhorn. oO
So care to explain that sentence, especially the scaling part?

Dagger/Warhorn setup, together the 2 make the highers LF generation of necro weapons and Dagger 2 is Life Siphon, 5 ofc helps with locusts proccing vampiric but its not that important.

Ah, right. I thought we were talking about WH vs. Dagger offhand.

I’m new to the necro profession but I loves me my warhorn, though the cooldowns are quite long. Went dd at first, but like you I also had trouble with enfeebling blood.

On an aside, I believe many of the necro cooldowns are out of whack with the abilities.

Used to play D/Warhorn, now trying D/D. I love the synergy between blood is power and Deathly Swarm. But i miss the locust swarm LF regeneration

Andele.1306:

And the cast time on WoD is ok in pve, but it doesnt work that well as a pvp interrupt, and 3/5s cast times (and especially animations) for their effects are too long.

What if we take the version where it’s not really an interrupt but a 4 second AOE daze in a huge cone in front of you? The cast time ain’t that bad compared to other stuff we have. You can also fear into a daze and stuff.

Seems most people are talking about dagger/warhorn but I actually wanted to promote it’s usage with a scepter in a condi build.

Andele.1306:

Dagger/Warhorn setup, together the 2 make the highers LF generation of necro weapons

Actually that depends on how many foes you’re up against.
One Necrotic Grasp has the potential to get you 15% LF, and so do marks if you have the Soul Marks trait.

All i have to say is having and extra stomp/revive interrupt with WH is great, even though its not reliable for heal interrupts. Even the untraited 2 sec daze can change the course of a fight.

Iceflame.5024:

Andele.1306:

And the cast time on WoD is ok in pve, but it doesnt work that well as a pvp interrupt, and 3/5s cast times (and especially animations) for their effects are too long.

What if we take the version where it’s not really an interrupt but a 4 second AOE daze in a huge cone in front of you? The cast time ain’t that bad compared to other stuff we have. You can also fear into a daze and stuff.

Seems most people are talking about dagger/warhorn but I actually wanted to promote it’s usage with a scepter in a condi build.

Yeah and for that you offer what exactly, another sigil (so either a aoe on swap, a 5% bonus, a killstack effect/50 power pre kill) for just 1 trick… yeah not gonna work, especially not vs any team with ele or guardian in it. Would be better off as a 1 second fear so that it would at least trigger terror like DS3 underwater.
Also why bother with a melee weapon when you use scepter in main hand, even focus makes more sense for the boon strip. And even if you do end up melee as condi necro the blind and weakness is probably gonna be better than a daze, like the LF generation from Locust seems like the only benefit scepter would get from it over Dagger.

flow.6043:

Andele.1306:

Dagger/Warhorn setup, together the 2 make the highers LF generation of necro weapons

Actually that depends on how many foes you’re up against.
One Necrotic Grasp has the potential to get you 15% LF, and so do marks if you have the Soul Marks trait.

Mentioned it since he asked and Locust is 1% pre enemy pre second and please tell me when people walk in a conga line in pvp/all 5 are on the same area for 15% soul marks trigger OR hell even in pve also its max 9% since its destroyed after it hits a third enemy, but the chance of getting 15% off GMed soul marks is pretty high there.
So 6% LF pre 1.5 (1.7 with aftercast/if you dont cancel the dagger pull animation with 2) and 1-5% life force pre second for 10 seconds (so min 10% max 50%) or 3-9% pre 1.1 if in melee (+ flight duration but it wont be counted) with 3-15 pre mark (12-60%), but you also offer up all of your cooldowns instead of just auto attack + 5.
It ends up as high resource use/high potential reward vs low resource use/medium potential.

Andele.1306:

Yeah and for that you offer what exactly, another sigil (so either a aoe on swap, a 5% bonus, a killstack effect/50 power pre kill) for just 1 trick… yeah not gonna work, especially not vs any team with ele or guardian in it. Would be better off as a 1 second fear so that it would at least trigger terror like DS3 underwater.

I am sorry but could you please explain what you mean here, I did not understand your point at all.

Andele.1306:

Also why bother with a melee weapon when you use scepter in main hand, even focus makes more sense for the boon strip. And even if you do end up melee as condi necro the blind and weakness is probably gonna be better than a daze, like the LF generation from Locust seems like the only benefit scepter would get from it over Dagger.

Calling it a melee weapon is harsh. Ignoring 600 range AOE daze in a huge cone and swiftness while everyone is mentioning necro lack of mobility is a rather strange phenomenon. It’s more of a utility CC weapon and also helps you with fleeing and it seems people underestimate the kiting potential of locust swarm. Enfeebling blood is still on a whooping !!!!>>>25 CD<<<!!!! with a slow cast time+bonus animation time before effect takes place and only !!!!>>>2<<<!!!! stacks of bleeds so meh.

And surely I am mostly talking from the solo queue heroism perspective and you might want the weakness and additional bleeds for the team but the aoe daze is still powerful. You already have weakness from chillblains into putrid mark too.

They both suffer from the same issues. Slow/unreliable activations, terrible aiming, and cooldowns generally too long to warrant the active effects.

But then again, this is Necro we’re talking about, why expect anything else.

Iceflame.5024:

Andele.1306:

Yeah and for that you offer what exactly, another sigil (so either a aoe on swap, a 5% bonus, a killstack effect/50 power pre kill) for just 1 trick… yeah not gonna work, especially not vs any team with ele or guardian in it. Would be better off as a 1 second fear so that it would at least trigger terror like DS3 underwater.

I am sorry but could you please explain what you mean here, I did not understand your point at all.

Andele.1306:

Also why bother with a melee weapon when you use scepter in main hand, even focus makes more sense for the boon strip. And even if you do end up melee as condi necro the blind and weakness is probably gonna be better than a daze, like the LF generation from Locust seems like the only benefit scepter would get from it over Dagger.

Calling it a melee weapon is harsh. Ignoring 600 range AOE daze in a huge cone and swiftness while everyone is mentioning necro lack of mobility is a rather strange phenomenon. It’s more of a utility CC weapon and also helps you with fleeing and it seems people underestimate the kiting potential of locust swarm. Enfeebling blood is still on a whooping !!!!>>>25 CD<<<!!!! with a slow cast time+bonus animation time before effect takes place and only !!!!>>>2<<<!!!! stacks of bleeds so meh.

And surely I am mostly talking from the solo queue heroism perspective and you might want the weakness and additional bleeds for the team but the aoe daze is still powerful. You already have weakness from chillblains into putrid mark too.

WH4 is the only daze we have, so offering up a trait and a weapon sigil for the trick is a lot in comparison of what you would get if you left it normally. Also the aoe part of the daze is wasted unless you get it on a team (not to mention as a lot of other people will confirm there were so many times when a enemy was inside the friggn animation but still didnt get stunned/its hit detection is kitten), and what group does a teamfight without a guardian or ele there to share their defensive power around (stability/stat aura/etc.)?
Mobility =/= swiftness and spectral walk is better anyway if you want swiftness (also being a stun break, as in does what you need to do most of the time when you need to pop swiftness as a necro), not to mention that only worthwile part of locust is the actual LF effect. Enfeeble is a actual targetable aoe/zone control for those that know the animation it is still 2 10 second bleeds (saves you about 3 auto attacks worth of condi damage) and weakness that is already a nice “counter” to vigor (since it takes effect after all the boosts in energy regen) lets see what buffs itll get.

Last but not least, dont pop putrid for the weakness, please dont, its a terrbible thing to do…

Andele.1306:

Last but not least, dont pop putrid for the weakness, please dont, its a terrbible thing to do…

What do you mean don’t pop putrid mark for the weakness? I can go into a situation discussion here but I won’t since the variety is immense.

Swiftness is part of the mobility thing and I want to have a swiftness source outside of a stunbreaker so I can relocate between points faster.

WH4 daze is a cone with the range of 600 according to the tooltip so that’s basically axe range. The animation most likely covers only about 200-300 range so the effect goes actually waaaaay further than the animation and the cone is actually quite wide. Ig we are going to talk about ele and guardian support abilities then what good is that enfeebling weakness on a 25 seconds CD if it’s gonna get cleansed as well?

Andele.1306:

Mentioned it since he asked and Locust is 1% pre enemy pre second and please tell me when people walk in a conga line in pvp/all 5 are on the same area for 15% soul marks trigger OR hell even in pve also its max 9% since its destroyed after it hits a third enemy, but the chance of getting 15% off GMed soul marks is pretty high there.
So 6% LF pre 1.5 (1.7 with aftercast/if you dont cancel the dagger pull animation with 2) and 1-5% life force pre second for 10 seconds (so min 10% max 50%) or 3-9% pre 1.1 if in melee (+ flight duration but it wont be counted) with 3-15 pre mark (12-60%), but you also offer up all of your cooldowns instead of just auto attack + 5.
It ends up as high resource use/high potential reward vs low resource use/medium potential.

Necrotic Grasp hits up to 5 targets.
Also, you can use the warhorn and then switch to staff. So the extra 1-5% per hit should apply to your staff calculation as well.
If you go for Soul Marks you’ll automatically get Gluttony as well (plus 10% lf gain).
So if enough mobs line up conga style, then you can gain 100% LF in a little over 4 seconds:
Locust Swarm (4 ticks = 20%), 4 marks (60%), 1 Necrotic (15%), +Gluttony = 104%.

Yeah, I know it’s a rare scenario, especially in pvp. So the dagger might be the safer bet for lf regen.

Andele.1306:

Also the aoe part of the daze is wasted unless you get it on a team (not to mention as a lot of other people will confirm there were so many times when a enemy was inside the friggn animation but still didnt get stunned/its hit detection is kitten), and what group does a teamfight without a guardian or ele there to share their defensive power around (stability/stat aura/etc.)?

No guardian or ele can keep perma stability on their team.
Also, even if it hits just one or two it will be worth it. 4 seconds disabled in a team fight means burn a stun breaker or lose.
And don’t forget the defensive benefits of it, 4 seconds is a lot of breathing room.

Andele why do you say pre instead of per? Thought it was a typo at first, but you do it everytime. :/

Scepter warhorn is completely viable btw. Necro has low mobility and condition builds lack lifeforce generation, warhorn helps with both of those issues. Daze is also very strong for chain ccing enemies while in a group and interrupting key attacks. Offhand dagger does have its uses in pvp but most of the time warhorn will provide more.

As a demonstration of how huge the aoe daze cone actually is please check this video:

http://ru.twitch.tv/iceflame1988/c/2382197

Edit: The big and small golems at the sides get dazed too if someone watched and didn’t pay attention to them.

@flow and Andele:
Soul marks gives 3% per mark. not per enemy. unless there was a stealth-change in the last patch.
tested it like 2-3 weeks ago and it was definitely 3-4% (cause of gluttonay) per mark, with multiple enemies hit.

edit: whoops, was a bit longer ago. tested it when i wrote this post

flow.6043:

Necrotic Grasp hits up to 5 targets.
Also, you can use the warhorn and then switch to staff. So the extra 1-5% per hit should apply to your staff calculation as well.
If you go for Soul Marks you’ll automatically get Gluttony as well (plus 10% lf gain).
So if enough mobs line up conga style, then you can gain 100% LF in a little over 4 seconds:
Locust Swarm (4 ticks = 20%), 4 marks (60%), 1 Necrotic (15%), +Gluttony = 104%.

Yeah, I know it’s a rare scenario, especially in pvp. So the dagger might be the safer bet for lf regen.

Andele.1306:

Also the aoe part of the daze is wasted unless you get it on a team (not to mention as a lot of other people will confirm there were so many times when a enemy was inside the friggn animation but still didnt get stunned/its hit detection is kitten), and what group does a teamfight without a guardian or ele there to share their defensive power around (stability/stat aura/etc.)?

No guardian or ele can keep perma stability on their team.
Also, even if it hits just one or two it will be worth it. 4 seconds disabled in a team fight means burn a stun breaker or lose.
And don’t forget the defensive benefits of it, 4 seconds is a lot of breathing room.

I dont know if you got the notice about 7 months ago, but pretty much everyone knows ngrasp got nerfed to 3 pierce limit like all auto attack pierces (non trait created ofc and explosion aoe doesnt take in hit count), dont know if it applies to the mists but the risen and fireflies sure think so.

Also you get 33% stability and 50% aegis upkeep with shout boon guardians and eles get their nice Shocking Aura on disable and dagger trigger that will actually proc on daze aoe back to stun you. Also unlike other control effects, it does very little since you can move and dodge, so yeah you get a breather but its usefulness for cost is limited to 3+ people attacking a point with you solo on it.

RashanDale.3609:

@flow and Andele:
Soul marks gives 3% per mark. not per enemy. unless there was a stealth-change in the last patch.
tested it like 2-3 weeks ago and it was definitely 3-4% (cause of gluttonay) per mark, with multiple enemies hit.

edit: whoops, was a bit longer ago. tested it when i wrote this post

I know it did in risen farm, mostly use staff for DS and Putrid transfer trough so if it got ninja patched, meh still good trait.

Hi Ice, i tried the buid out in some duels + spvp and I like it, my only concern is that auto attacking with scepter i can only maintain 5-6 bleed stacks, is it worth taking the crap minor + staff 20% CDR as opposed to 30 in curses for the scepter duration + minor trait?

As for the rest of the build i like it, have you tried with rabid over carrion and if so what were the results, also When i was in spvp i tried to be as far away as possible which made the sigils on both weapon sets a bit redundant, even if i went up close for locust LF gain its still only at best 1 proc you’ll get off for weapon switching, are there other sigils that could be more beneficial?

I’m gonna drop my 2 coppers here as well since I’ve tested a few things about this in PVP and have come to agree with the OP that warhorn AND (not despite) all it’s effects on the build are actually beneficial overall (I’m assuming a condi build with terror).
What does the build look like:
20 Curses: Terror, Banshee’s Wail
20 Death Magic(only 10 mandatory): Greater Marks, Staff Mastery
30 Soul Reaping: Vital Persistence, Master of Terror, Soul Marks
Sigil of Paralyzation on warhorn and staff

Why:
- fear is a condition and a stun so the +15% stun duration from the sigil affects both your warhorn daze and all your fears (thanks to the guy that opened the q.q thread about the effect of -stun and condition duration runes on fear, made me realize this). Also, you don’t really have any good off-hand sigil options for condi necro (minor corruption is marginal, since you tend to go down relatively often in tpvp)
- lifeforce generation (and sustain while in DS) – if you couple it with the Vital Persistence trait it will make it not drain at all while the swarm is up and hitting someone, especially if you channel ds 4 while you’re at it.
- warhorn obviously provides you with better control tools for teamfights – aoe cripple and long aoe daze
- the 15/25s swiftness uptime does wonders for your mobility, allowing you to ditch spectral walk (in favor of say, rez signet); you can also stack them if you really want to I guess.

The main downside of this build is that it reduces the “bleed-bomb” potential, which you can somewhat alleviate with a slightly different trait distribution, getting the Weakening Shroud on DS activation trait.

To also give an opinion on Elvahaduken’s question about amulets, Rabid’s benefits are limited to Earth Sigil procs at the moment (the trait is horribad imo). It does not provide you with better survivability unless you receive considerable healing from your team. (tested this with steady weapon, even factoring DS out and using one self-heal, you stay alive for the same amount of time vs the same source of damage with carrion and rabid amulets; carrion is proven to be more effective when it comes to DS sustain, so overall there’s not much reason for it to not be better in this regard). As far as the Scepter Duration trait goes, I think it’s not worth it at all because it applies to the base duration, so it only affects the conditions applied by scepter #1 and #2. The 25-point minor trait that you get in the process only affects direct damage, so it’s effect is pretty much negligible.

Gabi P.3094:

- fear is a condition and a stun so the +15% stun duration from the sigil affects both your warhorn daze and all your fears (thanks to the guy that opened the q.q thread about the effect of -stun and condition duration runes on fear, made me realize this).

Melandru runes reduce the duration of control effects in general, but Fear Knockback Pull and Knockdown dont count as stuns/dazes, otherwise they would work with Unsuspecting Foe and said Sigil of paralization, that is one thing im sure of since i checked on my warrior to see if there could be a hammer build based on fear me (and a 3 second fear turning into a 3.45 second fear would be easy to notice).

Andele.1306:

Melandru runes reduce the duration of control effects in general, but Fear Knockback Pull and Knockdown dont count as stuns/dazes, otherwise they would work with Unsuspecting Foe and said Sigil of paralization, that is one thing im sure of since i checked on my warrior to see if there could be a hammer build based on fear me (and a 3 second fear turning into a 3.45 second fear would be easy to notice).

Ok, here’s how I tested the effect of the sigil on fear, I’ll let you judge if it’s reliable or not:
- Terror trait, Master of Terror trait (50%), Runes of the necromancer (20%), 20 points in Spite (20%); all of this amounts to 90% fear duration
- NO other conditions on golem so fear will not get 2 ticks without 2 second duration
- casted a fear (they’re all 1s base) on a golem without sigil of paralyzation, got 1 tick of Terror
- swapped to weapon with sigil of paralyzation (105% fear duration), got 2 ticks of Terror

Also, melandru runes reduce condition duration by 25% AND stun duration by 25%; the thread I was referring to was about the fact that fear is affected by both these effects, which makes those runes reduce it’s duration in half.

Andele.1306:

Gabi P.3094:

- fear is a condition and a stun so the +15% stun duration from the sigil affects both your warhorn daze and all your fears (thanks to the guy that opened the q.q thread about the effect of -stun and condition duration runes on fear, made me realize this).

Melandru runes reduce the duration of control effects in general, but Fear Knockback Pull and Knockdown dont count as stuns/dazes, otherwise they would work with Unsuspecting Foe and said Sigil of paralization, that is one thing im sure of since i checked on my warrior to see if there could be a hammer build based on fear me (and a 3 second fear turning into a 3.45 second fear would be easy to notice).

A srsly kittening hate the mess that is the CC-system in this game and how it is affected by what stats -.-

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Melandru-Runes-Evil-to-Necros/first#post2153421
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/stun-sigil-work-for-wh-daze/first#post2091469

So stun-sigil works on stuns and dazes?
But Melandru-runes work on everything and on fear twice (despite stating “stun duration”, not “cc-duration”)?
And traits only works on what they specifically state?

Ugh….

funny thing, I solved the debate and I use both to great effect. Axe/Horn, D/D and swap constantly throughout fights.

The more I play these weapons the more I wonder why the heck I even bothered with the clunky staff. Don’t get me wrong, staff has its moments where it shines, but overall it is just so lackluster to play. It mostly collects dust in my pack waiting for the few moments when I decide to Zerg in WvW.

Locust Swarm is great, but Wail of Doom needs some love somehow in regards to cooldown/added effects/not interrupting autoattack.

I’m personally a fan of making it a land version of Deadly Catch by having it pull nearby enemy to the Necro.

RashanDale.3609:

@flow and Andele:
Soul marks gives 3% per mark. not per enemy.

You’re right, just tried it in the Mists.
Never used this trait, so I assumed otherwise. Thx for clarifying.

DaisyRogers.6837:

The more I play these weapons the more I wonder why the heck I even bothered with the clunky staff.

Because it’s the best weapon in da universe!!

Andele.1306:

I dont know if you got the notice about 7 months ago, but pretty much everyone knows ngrasp got nerfed to 3 pierce limit like all auto attack pierces (non trait created ofc and explosion aoe doesnt take in hit count), dont know if it applies to the mists but the risen and fireflies sure think so.

See attachment.
It works on 5 targets in the mists and it certainly also works in PvE/WvW.

Well i put a little though in this suggestion and it is realy true… necromancer need as much as posible cc because we cannot dodge like ninjas.. so we need fears, golem knock down, daze and fast LF generation. Good idea Iceflame

Here is my build i currently use
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBLhZakRLevczTjePBIp4ZojeccwLTpo80B-TsAAzCpI+S9l7LzXyvsfNqY9xEBA

i love to finish enemies like place corrosive poison cloud —> knock enemy down with golem —> daze with warhorn —> fear them and make 2 ticks of terror

flow.6043:

RashanDale.3609:

@flow and Andele:
Soul marks gives 3% per mark. not per enemy.

You’re right, just tried it in the Mists.
Never used this trait, so I assumed otherwise. Thx for clarifying.

Andele.1306:

I dont know if you got the notice about 7 months ago, but pretty much everyone knows ngrasp got nerfed to 3 pierce limit like all auto attack pierces (non trait created ofc and explosion aoe doesnt take in hit count), dont know if it applies to the mists but the risen and fireflies sure think so.

See attachment.
It works on 5 targets in the mists and it certainly also works in PvE/WvW.

To the 1, kinda kitten, still a nice trait and since sta kitten use for DS and 4 are amazing ill stick to Soul Marks;
for the second, i remember it in the hit generalization patch notes and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp - even the wiki stated so, maybe its just derpy in pvp since when would you think to get 5 people hit, will test it later in pve.
*it should say out of range when over 3 enemies hit*

ok then if the stun sigil works on fears wont it make sense to run it on staff aswell to guarantee the 2 tick fear?

also in reply to MGjam, dont you find it hard to get lf without soul marks?

Elvahaduken.3609:

ok then if the stun sigil works on fears wont it make sense to run it on staff aswell to guarantee the 2 tick fear?

also in reply to MGjam, dont you find it hard to get lf without soul marks?

Master of terror itself is pretty much a guaranteed 2nd tick, just time it not to drop fear right after the condi tick of the mob.

A bit of clarifications:

I would like to state that I am not aware if the stun sigil affects fear. I was thinking that it does not and put it there only for the 4 second daze. There is no need for the second sigil of 15% stun duration. Rashandale pretty much posted a link to the topic regarding the idea of using the stun sigil to get a 4 second daze, check it out.

If it affects my fear than the fear duration is 1.85 seconds. If it doesn’t then my fear duration is only 1,7 seconds(which I was thinking it is). Nevertheless Gabi P you are mistaken when saying that terror fear does not tick twice unless you have +100% duration on it. I thought so too at first but some posts and threads on the forums discussed it and state that you do not need +100% duration for the second tick.
That seems to be in fact true, those topics also discuss the way condition ticks work.
From my own experience I can say that be my fear 1,7 seconds or 1,85 seconds it still consistently ticks twice.

Funny how Skyro is saying that he is starting to like locust swarm so much that he is also taking the decaying swarm trait that a majority of people find to be useless lol. Locust swarm is amazing and so is a banshee wail WH with +15% stun duration.
And again you can see how freaking huge the cone are of the daze is.

PROMOTE WH PLAY!!!!!

@MGjam

Well I am maximizing the on demand fears kind of so I take staff mastery for the 20$ staff CD reduction which takes 8 seconds off of the reapers mark. Having all the other marks on reduced CD is never a bad thing in any way, it is in fact fantastic. I also do not see how you would ever want to go sPVP without a flesh wurm anymore, especially if you go the solo queue heroism style.

When you have these 2 tick terror fears with a 1,7+ duration your burst is very nice unless the enemy gets stability which completely negates the terror damage part and that is horrible and a unique situation for our class specific and unique trait. Instead of adding burning I’d rather they let the terror damage go through stability and just block the CC effect. If burning is added on top of this 2 tick terror with our bleed bursting people are going to scream in agony that we are OP when they get condi bursted without stability. People with stability won’t care much since it’s gonna be pretty much burning and bleeding so we will have 2 different situations that need to be balanced.

On the other hand if terror damage goes through stability and we don’t have any burning then the damage is the same in both situations and stability is not such a huge factor.

Iceflame.5024:

Funny how Skyro is saying that he is starting to like locust swarm so much that he is also taking the decaying swarm trait that a majority of people find to be useless lol. Locust swarm is amazing and so is a banshee wail WH with +15% stun duration.
And again you can see how freaking huge the cone are of the daze is.

Decaying is awesome with hp DS bug, on a true 25 hp proc its virtually useless (since you are kinda already dead then…
And VoD still isnt worth speccing for, its too buggy in terms of hitting things, ask anyone who played a bit longer with it or even some of the guys that were on the BoC podcasts and they will all confirm, there is a pretty high chance that a enemy just wont get stunned despite you slicing his kitten off with dagger half a second ago. For daze specs go onto a ranger, mesmer or if you wanna be fancy and ultra spam annoying, thief.

Personally I use Weakening Shroud to get enfeebling blood. It’s on a much shorter recharge and works right when you need it.

Andele it’s probably best to just make a bit of range before dazing the enemy. It’s a cone after all, the closer the enemy is to you the narrower is the daze zone.

What’s the bug associated with decaying swarm though?

Andele.1306:

for the second, i remember it in the hit generalization patch notes and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp – even the wiki stated so, maybe its just derpy in pvp since when would you think to get 5 people hit, will test it later in pve.
it should say out of range when over 3 enemies hit

It does say “out of range”, but only after the 5th target.
I can’t remember if it ever was just 3, but I’m sure it has been 5 targets since they reduced the range to 1200. Never seen the wiki note or anything else on that matter to make me think this wasn’t supposed to be like that :/

I just updated this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/stun-sigil-work-for-wh-daze/first#post2091469

Tested in the Mists.
+90% fear duration. With the Sigil I actually got a second tick.

flow.6043:

I just updated this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/stun-sigil-work-for-wh-daze/first#post2091469

Tested in the Mists.
+90% fear duration. With the Sigil I actually got a second tick.

Yeah i got the second tick with just 2 lich runes a few times, doesnt mean it adds duration to it.

Andele.1306:

Yeah i got the second tick with just 2 lich runes a few times, doesnt mean it adds duration to it.

I wasn’t talking about “a few times” in combat with pre-existing conditions on my target to promote the chance of getting a second tick with less than 100%.

I tested on a training golem, no extra conditions, just the DS fear. And I repeated the test several times. The sigil always gave a second tick, the other set never did.

They do seem to work for fear, but only really worth it if you are going warhorn as well. It’s not enough on its own unless to ditch dagger unless you already like that basically melee range style fighting the warhorn is setup for.

I think that Focus is better than both

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

I think that Focus is better than both

Yeah it’s great!
I don’t sPvP much, but when I do I usually use Scepter+Focus.

In PvE off-hand Dagger might be better.
Dunno, I like using the Focus in PvE sometimes, too.
The Chill is nice and since there aren’t enough Boons in PvE for me to bother taking Corrupt Boon I can strip Boons with my Focus if I feel like it.

flow.6043:

Andele.1306:

Yeah i got the second tick with just 2 lich runes a few times, doesnt mean it adds duration to it.

I wasn’t talking about “a few times” in combat with pre-existing conditions on my target to promote the chance of getting a second tick with less than 100%.

I tested on a training golem, no extra conditions, just the DS fear. And I repeated the test several times. The sigil always gave a second tick, the other set never did.

Always one tick out of 16, with 2 lyssa runes, 2 ticks 3/9 times.
So no you had extra condi duration runes and/or spite , also note the initial 75 and 190 damage from doom and reapers are the actual skill damage procs not terror (its 390 and 580 hits depending on condis on target).

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

I wasn’t talking about “a few times” in combat with pre-existing conditions on my target to promote the chance of getting a second tick with less than 100%.

I tested on a training golem, no extra conditions, just the DS fear. And I repeated the test several times. The sigil always gave a second tick, the other set never did.

Always one tick out of 16, with 2 lyssa runes, 2 ticks 3/9 times.
So no you had extra condi duration runes and/or spite , also note the initial 75 and 190 damage from doom and reapers are the actual skill damage procs not terror (its 390 and 580 hits depending on condis on target).

Did you make sure Fear was the first and only (ticking) condition you applied? To make sure you should use a fresh golem every time. And if he counted the initial damage he would never have seen just one tick, because terror ticks at least once.

Not sure where you guys use the horn`s stun, the staff #1 and the staff fear to actually kill people, but they don`t seam to work ‘that well’ in WvW (I`m in T2 US).
Staff #1 = slow sloooow projectile, that one does not even need to Dodge to avoid.
Staff fear = minor inconvenience for players.
Wh Stun = veeeery rarely get to stun anything. More worth it in PvE, for me at least.

Andele.1306:

So no you had extra condi duration runes and/or spite

Of course I had extra duration:

flow.6043:

+90% fear duration.

That was the whole point of the test. Get enough so you can see if the 15% from the sigil would tip the scale.
I had Master of Terror, 20 Spite, Runes of the Necromancer.

And yes

BadJas.5178:

Did you make sure Fear was the first and only (ticking) condition you applied?

that’s what I said:

flow.6043:

I tested on a training golem, no extra conditions, just the DS fear.

Btw I made a second discovery:
2 Sigils of Paralyzation don’t stack their duration.
With Master of Terror (50%), Runes of the Necro (20%), and 2 Sigils (2×15%) on one weapon set. This combo does not give a second tick.
So apparently you can’t extend you fears by 30% with 2 Sigils, just 15%. (bug?)

flow.6043:

And yes

BadJas.5178:

Did you make sure Fear was the first and only (ticking) condition you applied?

that’s what I said:

flow.6043:

I tested on a training golem, no extra conditions, just the DS fear.

Oh, haha! I was asking about Andele’s testing procedure, I knew you had done this. Sorry for the mix-up!

The WH is a nice piece for sure. I find it better on a power Necro personally, but I’ve used it in some condi builds as well.

Wail of Doom seems to glitch and miss if you turn your camera before use. Might be that the animation and the area of effect de-synch when you shift camera, and that is a major problem for the defensive situational uses of the weapon. Untraited the WH is subpar, but with the trait and the sigil the 4s daze is just awesome.