Guild Wars 2

PTV (Power, then Toughness and Vitality) has been something of a fad here recently- as far as I know it started with the Juggermancer build by Sheobix.

Nemesis responded with the Abomination build, taking the PTV gear core but retooling the traits/sigils/utilities to accentuate the tankiness of the gear with some tanky lifestealing.

Next was the Deathhammer build by SupahSpankeh, another modified version of the Juggernaut PTV idea- this one focusing on chills and retaliation, and using traits to boost dps over the tanky variants.

I like the idea of a PTV necro, as the bleed cap is rather frustrating and worrying about having multiple condition builds in one dungeon is a hassle. And the designers of these builds have demonstrated that a power necro can be fun and viable. However, each has some shortcomings outside of their target focus. The abomination is incredibly tanky, but I find that the PTV gear core alone is tanky enough, allowing room for damage in traits, sigils, runes, etc. The Deathhammer offers this, but the real arena of that build is wvwvw, where both chill and retaliation are fantastic. Using the build in dungeons, though- while it is still perfectly functional- I feel like chill and retaliation just don’t have as much luster in the PVE setting.

Point is, these all work well in dungeons and fractals, but they aren’t tailored specifically with dungeons in mind. There doesn’t seem to be a power necro equivalent of Lopez’s PVE Conditionmancer guide and accompanying fractals guide, which is designed without pvp in mind.

I’d like to hear the thoughts of the resident necroes on PTV builds optimized for a dungeon- what sorts of traits, runes, sigils, weapons, and utilities should I be considering as a dungeon/fractal player? Has anybody developed a variant that really shines in instances, the way that Deathhammer shines in wvwvw? Any insights you’d like to share on relevant trait synergies, etc. will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Achi

Hey!

I think 30/25/0/0/15 or 30/30/0/0/10 is great with PVT and a little Knight’s gear; that is, if you want to bring heavy DPS which is popular in the current PvE meta.

Personally I just slot out retal traits, lose my mobility utilities and equip axe/staff as the encounter dictates – I’m happy with 30/15/25 in PvE, its a solid idea to have at least one tough player in case the kitten hits the fan.

I’d welcome discussion on the subject.

Death hammer has a good amount of weakness and chill – AFAIK chill reduces the reuse of boss abilities like it does player abilities. Retal is useless though.

Hey SuperSpankeh. Chill in PVE is something I’ve been wondering about- I haven’t managed to find any conclusive answer on whether or not the skill cooldown increase affects mobs and bosses (even made a thread for that question specifically last week, but nobody knew). Though to be honest, the main reason I’m unhappy with the hydromancy sigil + ice rune combination is because they bug out so often- nor have I been able to find a good way to replicate the hydromancy issues or fix them. Basically sometimes I’ll be in the middle of a dungeon and hydromancy stops proccing until the dungeon is over- meaning that the runes of ice stop being very useful, and the sigils might as well not be there in these situations. Of course, this could be fixed in a patch soon.

For traits, picking up some more precision does seem like a good idea. But the major traits seem underwhelming from that line, not sure which would be best to go with in that case.

Achilevel.1807:

Basically sometimes I’ll be in the middle of a dungeon and hydromancy stops proccing until the dungeon is over- meaning that the runes of ice stop being very useful, and the sigils might as well not be there in these situations. Of course, this could be fixed in a patch soon.

I just wanna point out that as far as I know all Sigils share a cooldown.
So if you use a “Effect on Crit” sigil (Like a Sigil of Ice or Earth) it will also disable your Hydromancy Sigil while on cooldown.

I know it goes the other way around at least, due to using Geomancer+Earth in the past until I noticed that my Earth sigil was constantly on a 9 sec cooldown. :P

In case you are using it with something else then I have no clue, really.

PVT stands for Paint Target (on me) Vigorously in PvE but is fine in WvW if you are not a condition bomber. (^_^) b

Achi – If the forums can’t answer a question, then take the initiative and test it yourself!

It shouldn’t be too hard to do. Find a mob with a special attack (just about any mob in Orr), equip runes (2 Svanir, 2 Ice, 2 Grenth) to get 60% chill duration, 30 points in Spite, then do a chilled/unchilled test run. I’d say 10 special attack intervals with/without chilling would be a solid statistical basis for claims re: chill in PvE.

I’ve never had Hydromancy stop proccing, but then I don’t use anything more than Force/Hydromancy Bloodlust/Hydromancy on my weapons, so if you’re using an on crit or on swap then it might be over-riding the Hydromancy procs.

Putting 25 points in Curses is useful for the prec, but it’s mainly about getting that amazing 25 point Curses talent – Target the Weak. In a good group, most targets will have 9-10 conditions at all times, which translates to a 18-20% damage boost. In WvW I couldn’t give up Deadly Strength or (especially) Spiteful Vigor, but in PvE (FotM and instances) moving 10 points to Curses will give you a substantial DPS boost.

In solo play you can generally assume Target the Weak to be worth a 6-12% DPS increase, which is pretty good, but certainly not equivalent to the 30 point Spite major traits for power builds, or the condition duration that Spite investment brings.

Hence why, for Deathhammer at least, I like to leave Target the Weak for group PvE content only. At all other times, it’s a strict 30/15/25/0/0 for that balance of pwnage and hard-shelled crunchy goodness.

I think that condition necro naturally has the advantage in PvE due to necro’s lack of high damage physical damage aoe’s. That said, PTV is great for many single target boss fights.
If you are looking for a hybrid build between the two, I would suggest trying out some Cond Dmg/Toughness/Vitality jewelry, or simply switch between condi gear and PTV gear for mass killing and boss fights.

I, unwhittingly, did create a PVT build, but I mostly post on the GW2 Guru website. It isn’t a pure PVT build in the form my guide is written in since I combine Soldier/Knight/Zerker for a mix of stats – a lot of people that use it for leveling and farming love it. Here is the link to the build I have for it: http://tinyurl.com/balon2w

I also have a 30/25/0/0/15 build that is full zerker gear and is proving to be amazing in damage output in groups with Target the Weak.