Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,
Lately I’ve just been messing around, making builds, testing them, and one build has really worked for me. It’s, like the title says, a celestial build. Trust me, it works.

Video with gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-JfPujyPtU

Build link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmqbbtx2G2bTgMUQ9kRHAFwBQdU0EvKA-TJRGwAAODAJeEAg2fYZZAA

22k health, 750 condi damage, 2.2k armor, 40% crit, 200% crit damage, 1650 power

With the might-stacking involved in this build (primarily through sigils, but also from BiP and Reaper’s Might) you should always be around 15 stacks, which equates to ~525 extra condition dmg and power.

Compared to the standard power necro (6/2/0/0/6), it does about 33% less direct damage, but 150% more condition damage. (<rough estimate)

Pros: (IMO)
-95% uptime on swiftness
-AoE
-Lots of LF regen (almost always able to enter DS at 100%)
-People will never expect a build like this
-Lots of CC

Cons: (IMO)
-no burst
-real counter to this build is any mesmer running shattered concentration (remove boon on every shatter) or any boon removal class
-probably some more that i cant think of atm

So yea, that’s it. I’m very curious on what you fellow necro’s think of this, I think it has potential

Video build+combo’s+gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-JfPujyPtU

if I were to run celestial necro it would be something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIRtG2IHNV32bjtNs3mAXog8ACgozgJIfpcLGDA-TJxHwADeCAa2fAwJBoYZAA

yours will prob work better tho, I guess I’ll give it a whirl.

If we had attrition and more sustain I think celestial builds will work better for Necromancers

I think there is a reason our two most viable PvP builds are centered on burst – either condi burst and fear or power burst with lich/wells/lifeblast

I have tried many celestial builds on Necro and the lack of killing power is what the issue is – Duel a Cele Ele or a Soldier Hambow and you will see what I mean

I dont know if its just me but i feel that necromancer cannot make use of celestrial amulet as good as eles/engies or warriors. I always feel some of the stats (healing power mainly) are wasted on necros…

Yeah the healing power is a real problem, and it’s also hard to make a build that leverages both power and condition damage. If you try to go for bleeds you’re stuck on scepter, which has terrible power scaling. It makes more sense to go for burning and/or terror, and use a power weapon, but those conditions are locked behind Master and Grandmaster traits, so it’s impossible to get them without gimping your build in some other way. (eg you might have to sacrifice Deathly Perception, which tbh is way more raw DPS than Dhuumfire, or go without Spectral Attunement, which you really need for LF generation)

I played around with this extensively, I just don’t think there’s any good way to do it.

I am liking this build. After running it through a number of matches I have found this build handles 2 vs 1 situations very well. I will admit though that my competition was very much on the inexperienced side, however in 1 vs 1 against experienced players (Champions and ravagers+) It handled itself well. The only changed I made was swap spectral grasp for locust signet. I found the mobility between points made a bigger difference for me personally. The ability to move from point to point and unload staff was more valuable than a pull that personally gains me death shroud. If life force was an issue it has spectral armour and dagger where you can ‘get among it’ and out gain for the life force needed.

A solid necromancer build. My only regret is not screen shooting the 2 downed players while i had 25 stacks of might.

I agree taking signet of the locust is a very good idea especially on a buile that uses banshees wail and pretty much has 100% swiftness so signet of the locust is very useful for more speed above the 33% yesyesyesyesyesyes

I save the AoE cripple on warhorn for high evasion rangers, ele’s and group fights to set and maximise banshee. I don’t waste in between points. To use a a soft CC skill just to get to the fight highlights why I don’t use it for mobility. Also as stated sword-dagger thieve’s, evasion spamming ele’s, high evasion rangers will most;y naturally avoid spectral grasp because of it’s lack luster projectile speed. I also think you should play with the build more. I have found it never provides 100% up time on swiftness (15 seconds of swiftness on 30 second CD..so that’s 50% up time.). Mobility is too important in terms of rotations. If you are needed to swap out a player (I.E I will continue removing the engi while you head to mid while your skills are recharging) Then wasting one of the 2 snares you have seems inefficient. Most tpvp teams will agree the best position for a necro is assisting 2 vs 2. Even after this lastest ToG the common quote about 2 vs 2 was “If they have a necro, you’ll most likely lose.” This is why I place more of a premium on being able to move between nodes as needed and keep the soft AoE snare for when i get there. It sets up banshee better, it helps ensure the dagger immobilise connects and keeps everyone in range of the death shroud siphon. Also in clutch moments locust when used will siphon 1000 health per opponent present. In 2 or 3 vs situations this can provide an additional 2000-3000 health. I like to call this amount, “I still 4-6 seconds to go on healing cool down.”
However, if you want to use 50% of your warhorn skills simply to get back to mid from respawn, or to return to home to assist or create a rotation and not actually use once your at the node, then that is up to you. It is not what I would do, I’d rather have it on hand than use just as a speed proc, that doesn’t in fact create 100% up time on swiftness.

This explains my choice in a rationale way. However i do understand it is easier to negatively comment on a thread of p[layer who is trying to expose builds, than it is to stop and think for a moment and understand another persons rationale. I understand your rationale now. You’d rather blow the cooldown to get to the node, rather than use it once on the node. If that suits your play style, awesome..it doesn’t suit mine.

I’m even more impressed with the build after playing with it this morning where more champion/reaper status players have been present. The build is pretty solid for necro and in general just enjoyable to play.

I have played with this build or a similiar build probably more than you, sol is an awful utility I do understand the reasoning, but it doesn’t make it reasonable. =)

But since we are doing this! While using this build I typically do not use grasp I find its a little inconsistent. I will still use it on skyhammer. I would run this build with swalk, sarmor, and bip. And it would seem we would be measuring the effectiveness of swalk vs sol, I would much rather have another stunbreak that also gives me a sort of teleport. Combined with locust swarm you will have swiftness the entire match.

Thank you CntrlAltDefeat for looking past the celestial part of this build. Glad you enjoy playing it as much as I do. 2 v 1’s are very possible with this build, if they aren’t too bursts that is. And with the warhorn trait you have 22 1/2 sec swiftN on 24 sec CD. And having locust swarm up 15/24 is good enough for me, but like you said, you like it on demand which is fine [although I would switch out spectral attunement for something else if you only have 1 spectral skill.

Other commenters:
Most of you consider celestial a problem, which it can be, but isn’t. Sure healing power isn’t used a lot in the build, which I get, but still you got 2000+ other stats that aren’t wasted.
But, looking past celestial, any other comments? I feel this build is very viable and has no real weaknesses other that boon removal, which isn’t too common.

Holl.3109:

Thank you CntrlAltDefeat for looking past the celestial part of this build. Glad you enjoy playing it as much as I do. 2 v 1’s are very possible with this build, if they aren’t too bursts that is. And with the warhorn trait you have 22 1/2 sec swiftN on 24 sec CD. And having locust swarm up 15/24 is good enough for me, but like you said, you like it on demand which is fine [although I would switch out spectral attunement for something else if you only have 1 spectral skill.

Other commenters:
Most of you consider celestial a problem, which it can be, but isn’t. Sure healing power isn’t used a lot in the build, which I get, but still you got 2000+ other stats that aren’t wasted.
But, looking past celestial, any other comments? I feel this build is very viable and has no real weaknesses other that boon removal, which isn’t too common.

I do not think it is bad, not the trait distribution/selection – I actually like it a lot

What I do not like is the amulet – Celestial does not give enough condi pressure to kill anything with cleansing and your physical dmg is not enough to down a true bunker like Soldier Hambow… 3k Lifeblasts won’t cut it which is about the most you will hit them for

I like this build with zerker – more sustain than 6/x/x/x/6
I even tried it with Carrion but instead I took PoC and Terror – Pretty much the same physical dmg as Celestial but a TON more condition dmg – I used Sce/Dagger Axe/WH

Overall it is good though +1

Another thing, the best time to use Locust Swarm – at least in my opinion of course – is right before you enter DS so you get some LF and tank some hits

I’ve been playing with this build as a zerker for quite some time, the sigils are a little different. I keep the battle sigils but I drop the strength sigils for energy for extra dodges. Also you can tailor the build a bit, you can turn it into a crazy boon removal build by swapping out deathly perception for chill of death, and taking path of corruption. But the original 2/6/0/0/6 has enough damage and sustain to keep a zerker necro from dropping immediately when focused.

@OP it’s not that we think celestial amulet is bad, it’s that I don’t understand the equation between celestial and might stacking. Eles, engis and warriors love it not because it goes with might stacking, but because they use every single one of the attributes it offers effectively (near-constant healing-over-time, weapons that inflict both damaging conditions and which scale well with power, like warrior longbow, good fury uptime so they can use the extra critical damage, etc). Necros can’t use those stats as well, mostly because we can’t be healed while in DS (and it sounds like this build relies on DS a lot).

Now, I watched your video and I saw you got some decent bleed stacks going from Barbed Precision, but with those bleeds being only 2" long, I don’t think you realise HOW LITTLE damage the 432 condition damage celestial gave you added: bleeding scales quite badly, at 0.05 of condition damage according to the wiki. So, for 6 stacks of 2" bleeds (which seems to be the maximum you got), your amulet added 259 damage. Not per bleed, but for the whole 6-bleed stack, over its entire 2" duration. (For comparison, if you had 20 might stacks, the extra condition damage from those would have added nearly twice as much damage, 420.) So it’s clear that getting condition damage just for barbed precision procs isn’t a great use of your attributes. So that’s 2 attributes you’re not using. If you were using Dhuumfire, or Terror, that might be a different deal, cause those scale with condition damage much better, at 0.25 in fact, and have a much higher base (at 0 condition damage you need about 10 stacks of bleed to do the damage of 1 burn). But you’re not, which is my point.

We therefore see that the main benefits you’re getting from that ammy is power, precision, ferocity, toughness, vitality. At that level, you’re gaining benefit from 2190 attribute points. (Yes, I know not all attributes are equally valuable, but for the sake of argument). Well, the normal 3-point stat distribution amulets already give you slightly more than that, so, while celestial is still a decent deal, I’m not sure it’s worth sacrificing the extra Power you’d get with another amulet. For instance, you already have Deathly Perception, and a lot of points invested in Curses, so, if you went for a Carrion amulet instead of celestial you’d still have a 98% crit chance with Fury (which you’ve traited) in DS. The extra power would more than make up for the reduced Ferocity (I did the maths, life blast would hit for about the same), but here’s the bonus: 932 points of condition damage. If you swapped out the warhorn trait for Terror, like some people have been doing, then with 20 stacks of Might your fears would tick for 1200 dps, and that’s in addition to the extra damage your Barbed Precision procs and your Torment stacks would do. Alternatively, you could go for a Soldier’s or Barbarian’s amule, still have 98% crit chance in DS, and be A LOT tankier. You coudl even (Grenth help me) get a Rampager’s amulet (urgh!) and drop Deathly Perception for 2 points in another traitline, since you won’t need the extra crit chance from DP. You could even drop another 2 points from Curses and get Dhuumfire – with the extra might, your burns will be proccing for as much as rabid or carrion amulets would. Though I get that’s a different build entirely

In short, no, nobody has a problem with Celestial per se. It’s just that might stacking builds don’t HAVE to use celestial, not if they’re not getting the full benefit from it, and with this build (with you spending so much time in DS and barbed precision being your only condi damage) you’re not. It’s more like celestial builds HAVE to use might stacking, because celestial’s damage is so sub-par without 15+ might stacks…

NeXeD.3042:

I agree taking signet of the locust is a very good idea especially on a buile that uses banshees wail and pretty much has 100% swiftness so signet of the locust is very useful for more speed above the 33% yesyesyesyesyesyes

I’m pretty sure you can’t go above 133% base speed, it’s capped. So you won’t be running at 158% base if you have both SoL and swiftness, only 33%.

Actually wiki says that in-combat speed is actually capped at 25%, which I didn’t know! So even with swiftness you’ll only be moving 125% base.

My post was dripping with sarcasm, I was basically saying sol is poo poo

Sorry, I had stab up, makes me immune to sarcasm

manveruppd.7601:

So it’s clear that getting condition damage just for barbed precision procs isn’t a great use of your attributes.

To be fair, staff marks and shroud skills add some more conditions. And his Barbed are 2.2 sec long so they’re likely to occasionally tick a third time.

manveruppd is right though. You’re basically playing a regular power build with a different amulett which provides much less synergy than a berserker amu.
The bottom line is: you sacrifice a lot of damage for 438 toughness and 107 vitality.

There is no equation between celestial and might stacking, it just happens to be the case in this build. And nope I’m not taking condi damage just for barbed precision, lotta other sources of condi’s. Mark 2 does a full 2.3k bleed I think with 10 stacks of might, which you will at least have.
Well thanks for the feedback everyone, in the vid I also went over the whole amulet thing. Carrion might indeed be a better choice for this build damage wise, but than you lose that overall tankiness, 400 somewhat vit/toughness is always good to have.
And if you haven’t done so, please whatch the gameplay part of the video. Celestial really shows it’s potential there with 1500 bleed mad and usually ~400.
But again, sure change the amulet, I’m just stuck on celestial =P

manveruppd.7601:

Yeah the healing power is a real problem, and it’s also hard to make a build that leverages both power and condition damage. If you try to go for bleeds you’re stuck on scepter, which has terrible power scaling. It makes more sense to go for burning and/or terror, and use a power weapon, but those conditions are locked behind Master and Grandmaster traits, so it’s impossible to get them without gimping your build in some other way. (eg you might have to sacrifice Deathly Perception, which tbh is way more raw DPS than Dhuumfire, or go without Spectral Attunement, which you really need for LF generation)

I played around with this extensively, I just don’t think there’s any good way to do it.

Necro only has one weapon really designed for bleeds. That is why I have been promoting a 2h power weapon like a land spear for use at short range. Most of Necro’s conditions benefit from duration. Ironic, right? There is no condition ‘resistance’ to differentiate between low condition damage stats and high.

That, I think, is a huge gap in game mechanics. Why would a berserker War’s condi damage matter if the player did not trait for it?

Anchoku.8142:

manveruppd.7601:

Yeah the healing power is a real problem, and it’s also hard to make a build that leverages both power and condition damage. If you try to go for bleeds you’re stuck on scepter, which has terrible power scaling. It makes more sense to go for burning and/or terror, and use a power weapon, but those conditions are locked behind Master and Grandmaster traits, so it’s impossible to get them without gimping your build in some other way. (eg you might have to sacrifice Deathly Perception, which tbh is way more raw DPS than Dhuumfire, or go without Spectral Attunement, which you really need for LF generation)

I played around with this extensively, I just don’t think there’s any good way to do it.

Necro only has one weapon really designed for bleeds. That is why I have been promoting a 2h power weapon like a land spear for use at short range. Most of Necro’s conditions benefit from duration. Ironic, right? There is no condition ‘resistance’ to differentiate between low condition damage stats and high.

That, I think, is a huge gap in game mechanics. Why would a berserker War’s condi damage matter if the player did not trait for it?

Yeah, agreed, every other profession has weapons which cause both conditions AND do decent physical damage. Warriors are the best example (longbow’s burst especially, but also sword), but mesmers, engis, and rangers too to an extent. The only skill with good power scaling on scepter is FoC and even that is sub-par on either rabid or carrion gear. Even if you cast it right after SoS it’ll crit for under 2k. I personally only use it for the life force.

Staff’s autoattack actually scales pretty well. That’s what I think they intended to be our “hybrid” weapon. But Mark of Blood got nerfed to make up for Dhuumfire, and the nerf never got reverted, and the projectile speed on the autoattack is so slow it NEVER hits unless your enemy is either downed or goes /sit.

NeXeD.3042:

I have played with this build or a similiar build probably more than you, sol is an awful utility I do understand the reasoning, but it doesn’t make it reasonable. =)

But since we are doing this! While using this build I typically do not use grasp I find its a little inconsistent. I will still use it on skyhammer. I would run this build with swalk, sarmor, and bip. And it would seem we would be measuring the effectiveness of swalk vs sol, I would much rather have another stunbreak that also gives me a sort of teleport. Combined with locust swarm you will have swiftness the entire match.

Nice advice. After rereading my post, I sound snarky. I also have a lot of typo’s. I should probably not post when tired. I didn’t mean to come across that way. Generally out of 6 alts I play each one for a month in rotation, but I have a soft spot for necro. In my opinion the necro community, and formerly the ranger were the meekest of the PvP communities. Always getting kicked from dungeons and told how bad their profession is. That’s why I kinda like the necromancer community..only they seem to know how sweet necro can actually be. I kinda have to agree with swalk, it is a sweet skill to make use of, especially if opponents get suckered for the teleport back. After playing all up 7 of the 8 professions I am just too used to passive increase to movement and over time have kinda baked it in to my play style. Without it I just sluggish. I can see why the movement increase per dagger is where it is. It would work in a siphon build if siphon builds were more effective or worked perhaps how anet intended them to, but never implemented well. All in all the thing i liked about this build was it was genuinely fun to play. With a good peripheral set up it can keep you swapping hotkeys etc as quickly as any other profession more or less. It brings a reasonable to the table in terms of what necromancers can do.

Here’s my take on the cele spectral necro:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc0Ubb5NG3webCihS6T4CG3IDgGgyqILA-TpgSQAg9H0lBAA

Too lazy to add sigils.

So basically you’re going for a slightly tankier condition build (using the extra defensive attributes the celestial amulet gives you over rabid or carrion)? I take it the extra Fury uptime from the runes is to ensure Life Blast does semi-decent damage while you’re stuck in DS?

manveruppd.7601:

Now, I watched your video and I saw you got some decent bleed stacks going from Barbed Precision, but with those bleeds being only 2" long, I don’t think you realise HOW LITTLE damage the 432 condition damage celestial gave you added: bleeding scales quite badly, at 0.05 of condition damage according to the wiki. So, for 6 stacks of 2" bleeds (which seems to be the maximum you got), your amulet added 259 damage. Not per bleed, but for the whole 6-bleed stack, over its entire 2" duration. (For comparison, if you had 20 might stacks, the extra condition damage from those would have added nearly twice as much damage, 420.) So it’s clear that getting condition damage just for barbed precision procs isn’t a great use of your attributes. So that’s 2 attributes you’re not using. If you were using Dhuumfire, or Terror, that might be a different deal, cause those scale with condition damage much better, at 0.25 in fact, and have a much higher base (at 0 condition damage you need about 10 stacks of bleed to do the damage of 1 burn). But you’re not, which is my point.

We therefore see that the main benefits you’re getting from that ammy is power, precision, ferocity, toughness, vitality. At that level, you’re gaining benefit from 2190 attribute points. (Yes, I know not all attributes are equally valuable, but for the sake of argument). Well, the normal 3-point stat distribution amulets already give you slightly more than that, so, while celestial is still a decent deal, I’m not sure it’s worth sacrificing the extra Power you’d get with another amulet. For instance, you already have Deathly Perception, and a lot of points invested in Curses, so, if you went for a Carrion amulet instead of celestial you’d still have a 98% crit chance with Fury (which you’ve traited) in DS. The extra power would more than make up for the reduced Ferocity (I did the maths, life blast would hit for about the same), but here’s the bonus: 932 points of condition damage. If you swapped out the warhorn trait for Terror, like some people have been doing, then with 20 stacks of Might your fears would tick for 1200 dps, and that’s in addition to the extra damage your Barbed Precision procs and your Torment stacks would do. Alternatively, you could go for a Soldier’s or Barbarian’s amule, still have 98% crit chance in DS, and be A LOT tankier. You coudl even (Grenth help me) get a Rampager’s amulet (urgh!) and drop Deathly Perception for 2 points in another traitline, since you won’t need the extra crit chance from DP. You could even drop another 2 points from Curses and get Dhuumfire – with the extra might, your burns will be proccing for as much as rabid or carrion amulets would. Though I get that’s a different build entirely

In short, no, nobody has a problem with Celestial per se. It’s just that might stacking builds don’t HAVE to use celestial, not if they’re not getting the full benefit from it, and with this build (with you spending so much time in DS and barbed precision being your only condi damage) you’re not. It’s more like celestial builds HAVE to use might stacking, because celestial’s damage is so sub-par without 15+ might stacks…

NeXeD.3042:

I agree taking signet of the locust is a very good idea especially on a buile that uses banshees wail and pretty much has 100% swiftness so signet of the locust is very useful for more speed above the 33% yesyesyesyesyesyes

I’m pretty sure you can’t go above 133% base speed, it’s capped. So you won’t be running at 158% base if you have both SoL and swiftness, only 33%.

Actually wiki says that in-combat speed is actually capped at 25%, which I didn’t know! So even with swiftness you’ll only be moving 125% base.

Btw, I don’t only use condition damage only for the barbed precision procs, there are some more (not a lot more though), other condi’s that it’s really useful for. Sure barbed precision will be the most damaging, but don’t forget staff, BiP and tainted shackles!
I’m lazy but with a rough average: tainted shackles; I would say at least an extra 1k torment damage. BiP; probably ~2k. Staff; idk but mark of blood does 2k bleed, so that really helps.

Now, carrion/terror+PoC, would be your best bet for hybrid build for sure, but thats not what I was going for. With banshees wail you get a lot more swiftness and and extra sec of daze, and with spectral trait a lot more sustain with LF regen.

But what did you think of the clips in video? I thought it did very nice damage for the sustain it gives…

But again, it comes down to preference. I just don’t think an extra 400 condi dmg, 200 power/vit a good trade off is for the sustain and less dmg celestial gives :/
I can’t now, but next time I’m online I’ll test carrion and poc/terror

To elaborate on my earlier point about condition damage’s relevance, consider the list of conditions, themselves.

Condition – performance factors
Bleed – condition damage and duration
Blind – duration but only single use so little effect from stats
Burning – condition damage and duration like bleed, except Necro is not designed for burning so burning is on Life Blast, stacks in duration only
Chill – duration only
Confusion – condition damage and duration like bleed, except Necro is not designed for confusion
Cripple – duration only
Fear - duration only except if the Terror trait is used, then also condition damage but Fear access is relatively infrequent despite being a major mechanic and Terror being strong
Immobilize – duration only
Poison – condition damage and duration but poison only stacks in duration, not intensity
Torment – condition damage and duration like bleed
Vulnerability – duration only and stacks in intensity (anti-Might)
Weakness – duration only

Bleed is the primary beneficiary of condition damage on Necromancer followed by Poison. Terror, Burning, and Torment also benefit but are not strong contributors to overall damage unless traited and/or frequently used in DS.

Every condition benefits from duration, which is part of the Spite trait line. Scepter is the MH weapon which most takes advantage of condition damage followed by Staff. Off-hand weapons have longer ICD and are more multi-purpose.

Only Bleed, Torment, and Confusion stack in intensity. The only weapon Necromancer has to take full advantage of the condition damage stat is Scepter. Sigils and runes are necessary to proc additional effects more frequently and are open to all professions.

Anchoku.8142:

To elaborate on my earlier point about condition damage’s relevance, consider the list of conditions, themselves.

Condition – performance factors
Bleed – condition damage and duration
Blind – duration but only single use so little effect from stats
Burning – condition damage and duration like bleed, except Necro is not designed for burning so burning is on Life Blast, stacks in duration only
Chill – duration only
Confusion – condition damage and duration like bleed, except Necro is not designed for confusion
Cripple – duration only
Fear - duration only except if the Terror trait is used, then also condition damage but Fear access is relatively infrequent despite being a major mechanic and Terror being strong
Immobilize – duration only
Poison – condition damage and duration but poison only stacks in duration, not intensity
Torment – condition damage and duration like bleed
Vulnerability – duration only and stacks in intensity (anti-Might)
Weakness – duration only

Bleed is the primary beneficiary of condition damage on Necromancer followed by Poison. Terror, Burning, and Torment also benefit but are not strong contributors to overall damage unless traited and/or frequently used in DS.

Every condition benefits from duration, which is part of the Spite trait line. Scepter is the MH weapon which most takes advantage of condition damage followed by Staff. Off-hand weapons have longer ICD and are more multi-purpose.

Only Bleed, Torment, and Confusion stack in intensity. The only weapon Necromancer has to take full advantage of the condition damage stat is Scepter. Sigils and runes are necessary to proc additional effects more frequently and are open to all professions.

I just wish necro had more torment. For a ‘necro only condition’ mesmers do a kitten good job of apying it. Add it to staff auto attack and problem solved….