Otaking's "Rasputin" SPVP D/W Well Build
Tactics:
Generally this is a roamer style and is best served hovering between mid and rear cap, as the weight you can lend to a teamfight is pretty great and you are no slouch in 1v1. You can move fast enough with warhorn out of combat and teleport.
From most beginning matches you will have DS charged from your first down state player that you charged up on daggers with..or perhaps the trebuchet, or chieftan, or svanir that you went for right off the bat. You can usually solo trebuchet under even three players worth of pressure in this build and get away alive so it’s one of the best places to get your first DS charges. Swipe downed players down anytime a speed stomp is not needed so as to keep DS charged.
After leading in with staff and a set of marks on the approach and locust swarm to set up properly…DS-teleport in and get behind them (helps keep them from starting their opener as they have to turn around) with a immobilization -well 1 – warhorn daze – well 2 – Golem charge – Fear, dagger spam – Back into DS life transfer, step out staff switch and repeat the marks/dagger siphon as they mount their offense on you and you fear them back while waiting for wells. That’s pretty much the basic rotation, and you will change it as you fake out classes to waste their invulnerability etc.
This is for solo kills. For teamfighting you have a great potential to reverse the course of a cap point battle by poisoning it with wells followed by a life transfer. If you have people that have learned what a threat you are (or they just know the Necro is the easiest lockdown and kill or some combination of that tactical math) and they are targeting you hard in a teamfight then be conservative with your point assault and instead of hanging around for the full combo + life transfer and eating damage, bolt through, drop a well or a few marks from the outside of the cap point, move to the outside if needed, check for the thief that saw you running and slay them on the edge, switch to marks, repeat the rotation into the point etc.
This will also tempt bad spvpers into chasing you just because you ran which will net you a lot of easy kills as you just pin them in your well combo outside the point if you have a determined one. Or if they are tougher, just pin and slow them outside the point while you get back in there to focus on a weaker player still fighting on the cap.
Versus thief: Land as much CC as possible while backing up remaining facing them at all times and never stop dagger swiping no matter what else you are doing if you have dagger out. You will win if you can autoattack them in the face everytime they are out of stealth and can drop at least one well under them. Get distance and damage on them with marks between you and the point of stealth entry anytime they stealth. Mark of fear them out of shadow refuge asap. Watch for your dagger animation to change on third hit so you know when you are landing stealth hits. Also, if you have them targeted when they go into stealth and you swipe air, you can see a miss where they are located if they are behind a wall. Consider an early well combo or reposition the fight if they pop thieve’s guild. If you get basilisk’d your hps/DS will see you through but try to build a lot of distance right after with marks or fear them early because you’re about to eat their 3 second fear and the better they are the smaller window you’ll have to prepare for it.
Versus mesmer: Set NPC names off, keep the player targeted and constantly be moving to the back of the clone army which will kite the clones and keep you in damage range of the mesmer. If he does a juke switch which would make you have to run through the army again, consider a DS teleport directly to the rear of the army or staff switch and kite off blowing up the clones with marks as you move out to reset. Hit 5 to zoom off when you are moa’d. The glassy ones are cake, the tanking versions can be difficult but still winnable.
Versus guardian: Your WoC combo ensures you will rip most guardians apart as long as you don’t forget to swipe or locust hit the aegis off first before locking them down. Tougher guardians may have you speeding up the rotation cycle as you go back to staff to kite them more often, generally one of the easiest fights.
Versus ele: A serious pain in the kitten and ten minute battle usually vs. any good one. Mediocre ones you can destroy with the usual rotation, the elite ones I’m not sure necros can beat them with a power build really. Save those dodges for RTL knockdowns as that’s the start of their combo chain. Save fears for water form.
Versus engie: These fights generally go similar to an elite guardian or KD spam warrior just be ready to dagger down/life transfer net turret or reposition the fight elsewhere when they use supply drop.
Versus ERMAGEHRD THE ZERG GOT THE DROP ON ME: Warhorn and GTFO, switching to staff and dropping marks under your feet to fear and chill pursuers.
Keep spectral walk in your water bar and swiftness buff yourself/juke back to the water line with it as soon as you hit the water line. On land keep your DS teleport ready to escape off a target in the distance, or juke the zerg back to the slowest pursuer in the rear of the zerg by 180 mouse flip, fire DS TP, and continue running forward until the TP bolt lands.
Remember to always walk on the weirdest surfaces you can find with the most jumps such as the tops of walls or the roof around clock tower to minimize pursuing pet pathing and maximize your opportunities to mark and fear people off walls.
People chasing will also have to perform jumps typically better than you did to catch you since they will be chilled/crippled from your marks/locust if they caught you. Remember to 180 mouse flip and immobilize or DS fear your nearest pursuers while fleeing.
I like these kind of builds although I have not found they are not that viable in tpvp. But if you like the build rock it.
A few suggestions though.
1. Runes of ranger are better than eagle ( its 5% DMG all the time. You don’t need a companion.)
2. Vital persistence is a bad trait. Take path of midnight or unyeilding blast.
3. I believe you would benefit much more from soul marks in this build rather than master of terror.
4. This one would be my preference. I would take well mastery over vampiric rituals. Getting out your two wells more often would have more of an effect then the siphon.
I like these kind of builds although I have not found they are not that viable in tpvp. But if you like the build rock it.
A few suggestions though.
1. Runes of ranger are better than eagle ( its 5% DMG all the time. You don’t need a companion.)
2. Vital persistence is a bad trait. Take path of midnight or unyeilding blast.
3. I believe you would benefit much more from soul marks in this build rather than master of terror.
4. This one would be my preference. I would take well mastery over vampiric rituals. Getting out your two wells more often would have more of an effect then the siphon.
Thanks for the suggestions!
Interesting about the runes, I’ll look into those.
The thing with vital persistence and vampiric rituals is I really want maximized defense on Necro. They are generally so easy to kill that I want all the defense possible, vital persistence allows me to stay in DS that much longer and soak that much more damage, and conserve DS for when it is really needed.
I have killed two thieves at once in this build etc so I feel it is doing the job on that score individual thieves and mesmers are generally no trouble at all as well as all guardians, warriors, engies, and anything but elite elementalists.
Life blast is generally so easy to avoid I try not to spend a lot of time firing it unless I am point blank with the target. It’s ‘ok’ but the slow rate of fire combined with the amount it gets dodged make a vuln stack on it anemic at best to me. If it stacked more vuln per application I might consider it but eh..I might give it another whirl but I prefer to drop 10 in blood and pick up 10 in power for might stacking if I’m going to think about Life Blast at all.
Rituals vs. Well recharge is something I have gone back and forth on..it’s 4 seconds per well anyway at two wells difference which is not really that huge. This is probably the most worthless trait either way, but again, maximized survivability in a power build is the thought here while still doing enough burst to drop a target.
I have run it with soul marks, however I have zero problems with LF gen and always have a full shroud bar pretty much. The extra CC time on fear is huge to me to set people up, defend, etc properly. It’s one of the few ways we have to interrupt combos, break a group trying to stomp or CC chain us..etc etc. The only time I actually want soul marks is maybe if I’m fleeing a zerg and want to build shroud while fleeing but then again, I usually only need enough for a fear or two to shake pursuit. Generally I’m not in staff long enough to make use of the soul marks trait, and dagger provides more than enough LF.
I find the viability comes from the ability to take on most solo roamers, and you can get away from up to three people if you have to pretty easily. Then in a teamfight you can drop three + people on a point that aren’t paying attention as well as clearing it of pets and engie junk etc. You are still quite useful against structures as well. My major gripe with condition builds is if there is any structure related objective like gates, treb, engie structures you’re pretty useless against them, which makes you less viable overall in strategy you can apply and not to mention one ranger elite root can kill you pretty easily.
(edited by Otaking.4675)
Okay respect your decision on VR and MoT
But i cant stress enough how bad vital persistence is(and well known by necros). Good death shroud management is what sets the bad necros from the good necros. As a necro you never ever want to be in death shroud for a long time because of how the degen works(poping in and out doesn’t even cost lf). You need to pop in and out to soak damage/stability incoming cc/stomp/use the skills. If your using ds properly vp will not matter. Path of midnight would be a far better choice.