Guild Wars 2

Recently all the good build suggestions are power based. Weller, Life Blast spike, etc.

My necro’s gear (mostly exotic) is very focused on condition damage. But let’s get real they don’t hurt much. They are armor ignoring, but they get removed way too fast in wvw. And the armor ignoring part (for killing guardian and warriors) is very overrated. You cannot kill guardians and warriors with condition damage because these 2 classses are very effective in countering conditions.

So I want to experiment with power builds. However to do that I would need to buy some exotic power gear. This will cost a lot of money, pretty much all I got.

I was waiting for a while now for the necro buff. However from what Anet said we would be lucky not to get nerfed. >_>

This will be a big decision (in game money wise) for me. So I would like some opinion on both sides. Should I stay with my condition damage gear, or should I switch everything to power? Or maybe half-half?

why not just have a set for both?

You don’t HAVE to buy power gear. It’s not like they can’t come from dungeons or karma or anything -.-

Time is money friend. Spending hours farming dungeons still takes time.

I personally have a full condition set, a full PVT set, and a full knights set. I like to play around with all of them though I run the condition set 80% of the time.

What you are saying in your OP are blanket statements that are really not true. Warriors are on even footing with us in most cases (or at a disadvantage), short of a few condition removal specs that most warriors don’t run. I have beaten warriors with a condition fear build without taking more than 50% of my life in damage on many occasions. Dodge roll bull charge and well… thats about it.

Guardians that spec knights and condition removal and omnom life steal are downright beastly and unstoppable. If you fail to land your corrpution boon at the right time you are dead hands down. But… most guardians dont run this build either…. they run more tanky builds for wvw.

The real uncoutnerable weakness for necro in wvw is target break. We don’t have one. If you have ever heard about tunnel vision, it happens all the time in this game, and when your target can’t get “untargetted”, its a good target to spam or focus on, because it cannot prevent your no skill skills from hitting (like Heartseeker).

Hence the issues with roaming with a necro, or doing 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 fights etc. Select necro—— eventually kill necro—— then use brian to deal with the other class you have to pay attention to who are constantly breaking your target selection/mark.

Rennoko.5731:

The real uncounterable weakness for necro in wvw is target break. We don’t have one. If you have ever heard about tunnel vision, it happens all the time in this game, and when your target can’t get “untargetted”, its a good target to spam or focus on, because it cannot prevent your no skill skills from hitting (like Heartseeker).

Ha. I remember having a discussion on this very forum with someone who thought that he was being focused on constantly because everyone was afraid of him.

No, really!

Did the OP really just say that warriors have an easy time removing conditions? hahahahha. oh wait you were being serious?

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

And the armor ignoring part (for killing guardian and warriors) is very overrated.

This line tells me a great deal of how much misconception you have regarding game mechanics and class builds. Armour, as in the stat provided by actual armour pieces, mean little to nothing without Toughness. Toughness, on the other hand, is being stacked to kingdom come on most class builds, and more often than not at the expense of Vitality. This is a good thing for Condition Damage builds of any profession.

People prefer Power builds because it provides quick bursts of damage that secures kills; Condition Damage builds do consistent damage throughout the fight while kiting, dancing, etc but run the risk of enemies fleeing, i.e. zomgnobadge.

People also absolutely adore the BIG NUMBERS that pop up for Power builds, but can’t appreciate the string of small numbers spewing off the enemies’ heads.

Necro is in a tough place build wise, because by default so much of our base damage is condition (even with no gear on, just our core abilities).

That means if you spec purely for power, you won’t match power or burst of other classes that get closer to 100% of their core damage from direct damage, and you’ll have gimpy conditions.

If you spec condition, you are building more in synergy with the core necro design and can indeed maximize damage a lot in this way. Trouble is that gets negated by bleed caps, and in PVP players with high condition removal.

If you spec condition and power, DPS hybrid, then you actually become squishy.

Death Shroud is meant to perhaps be the bridge to solve this quandary, but doesn’t mesh well with condition builds, and lacks much mobility for getting you out of sticky situations. It’s just a big sponge.

I think the way you balance the Necro and up his attrition value is really through making life steal a lot better, and also not forcing you to totally give up good damage if you want to build a life steal spec.

Right now I’d still take condition over power, there are some matchups that are hell, but those that aren’t prepared, are going to get melted.

Pendragon.8735:

I think the way you balance the Necro and up his attrition value is really through making life steal a lot better, and also not forcing you to totally give up good damage if you want to build a life steal spec.

Right now I’d still take condition over power, there are some matchups that are hell, but those that aren’t prepared, are going to get melted.

I have felt all along, if they would just make our passive healing effects from siphon traits and regen work on us while we are in DS, allowing our health to come back up some during DS, we would be in such a better place. Or how about killing a mob while in DS form actually causes the life force to jump back up, instead of having no effect.

Its too bad necros were so good in the beta patches in DS form that it had to be reduced to the painful state it is in now.

TheWalkingDead.7298:

Did the OP really just say that warriors have an easy time removing conditions? hahahahha. oh wait you were being serious?

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

I’ve seen this time and time again… Oh no. Conditions too easy to remove… Etc etc.
Yes all classes have wipe condi clean skills. Some builds allow them to clean condis often.
That sucks for a ranger. If someone steps on 3 traps and then instantly cleans everything that sucks pretty hard.
For a necro that’s a laugh. Oh no. You cleaned up my bleed stack. What am I going to do? Oh yes. I’ll just keep auto attacking you with my scepter faster than you can possibly clean bleeds if you go full shout and put runes that clean conditions. You might also be running a sigil of on crit condi removal but then you are probably not dps and then what do I care. I’m a necro. I have large health pool and death shroud. We’ll be here a while.

Your strength is not in spiking people with massive bleed stacks. Your strength in constant application of “high enough” quantity of bleeds. Eventually they will blow their condi removal skills and you’re ready to laugh.

NullMad.4370:

I’ve seen this time and time again… Oh no. Conditions too easy to remove… Etc etc.
Yes all classes have wipe condi clean skills. Some builds allow them to clean condis often.
That sucks for a ranger. If someone steps on 3 traps and then instantly cleans everything that sucks pretty hard.
For a necro that’s a laugh. Oh no. You cleaned up my bleed stack. What am I going to do? Oh yes. I’ll just keep auto attacking you with my scepter faster than you can possibly clean bleeds if you go full shout and put runes that clean conditions. You might also be running a sigil of on crit condi removal but then you are probably not dps and then what do I care. I’m a necro. I have large health pool and death shroud. We’ll be here a while.

Your strength is not in spiking people with massive bleed stacks. Your strength in constant application of “high enough” quantity of bleeds. Eventually they will blow their condi removal skills and you’re ready to laugh.

To be fair, condition removal is not really an issue in a 1v1 situation like you are talking about. It is a much larger issue in the medium to larger scale fights where it is very hard to stick on the same target long enough to counter his 1-2 condition removal abilities. Since every half-brained player runs at least one removal, even a boss epidemic is likely to get cancelled out on most players.

And also the picture you paint sounds like you are playing against a tank without any DPS skills. If the warrior is standing around letting you auto attack them with sceptor, then they are a bad warrior, or they are built to do something other than DPS. The only practical times to auto attack with sceptor are when you have burrned all your other, better bleed/condition application skills, and/or they are feared.

Just like zerker thieves who dive face first into a stafff 5 ring, and then wonder why they are dead before the fear ends — does not equate to all thief encounters. Bad warriors are bad, and warrior vs. necro certainly favors the necro; but it is hardly a landslide if they know what they are doing.

Ojimaru.8970:

And the armor ignoring part (for killing guardian and warriors) is very overrated.

This line tells me a great deal of how much misconception you have regarding game mechanics and class builds. Armour, as in the stat provided by actual armour pieces, mean little to nothing without Toughness. Toughness, on the other hand, is being stacked to kingdom come on most class builds, and more often than not at the expense of Vitality. This is a good thing for Condition Damage builds of any profession.

People prefer Power builds because it provides quick bursts of damage that secures kills; Condition Damage builds do consistent damage throughout the fight while kiting, dancing, etc but run the risk of enemies fleeing, i.e. zomgnobadge.

People also absolutely adore the BIG NUMBERS that pop up for Power builds, but can’t appreciate the string of small numbers spewing off the enemies’ heads.

Oy, Mr. I-Know-My-Game-Mechanics. Bring up your Hero Panel. On the right you see Power, Precision, Toughness, and Vitality. Under that you see Attack, Crit Chance, Armor, and Health. Pay attention.

Rennoko.5731:

Bad warriors are bad, and warrior vs. necro certainly favors the necro; but it is hardly a landslide if they know what they are doing.

True for all cases. Else you should be getting a serious nerf stick
I’d be skeptical thou that a lot of DPS warriors will sacrifice the very dps to have extensive condi removal. So yes. You are likely to either fight a condi removal tank. A glass cannon dps or a hubrid that does a little bit of everything. Not high burst dps with lots of condi removal, so have a plan for each encounter, but don’t expect one player to do it all. For example you have 3 chills on ya if you have staff/focus. Any dps with one clean will wipe that as fast as he can even before you put bleeds on him. Or he can spend most of his time at -66% everything. You now have a semi condi removal less guy to “start” a fight with.

Also scepter is nothing to sneeze at. You can maintain a constant 10 bleed stack with it, through crits, and bleed duration extenders. It’s burst condi builds that are “better” that suffer from “ahh crap he just cleaned”

The best answer as someone else has already said is to have multiple sets of gear. I have a power/crit set, a power/condition set, and power/tough/vit set. It may take a little bit of time to build up multiple sets but it’s not insanely long or anything.

My personal opinion is that power/crit or hybrid builds are the most functional for necros.

kidbs.8920:

My personal opinion is that power/crit or hybrid builds are the most functional for necros.

It really depends on the game mode. For sPvP and tPvP, power/crit and hybrid builds get chewed up by other classes. For those condition is a much better choice.

I like straight condition for wvw. It works fine against zergs and smalls scale fights. Hybrid builds I like for PVE where you can effectively avoid damage, but find them too flimsy for wvw. PVT i liked for wvw, but I just felt like a weaker version of a guardian, with no group buffs. Once the numbers get too large you either stay back and deal weak staff damage, or run in and deal retailiation damage.

I encourage everyone to try different gear setups, they make the class and game fun and exciting all over again… for a little while.

Proven.2854:

Ojimaru.8970:

And the armor ignoring part (for killing guardian and warriors) is very overrated.

This line tells me a great deal of how much misconception you have regarding game mechanics and class builds. Armour, as in the stat provided by actual armour pieces, mean little to nothing without Toughness. Toughness, on the other hand, is being stacked to kingdom come on most class builds, and more often than not at the expense of Vitality. This is a good thing for Condition Damage builds of any profession.

People prefer Power builds because it provides quick bursts of damage that secures kills; Condition Damage builds do consistent damage throughout the fight while kiting, dancing, etc but run the risk of enemies fleeing, i.e. zomgnobadge.

People also absolutely adore the BIG NUMBERS that pop up for Power builds, but can’t appreciate the string of small numbers spewing off the enemies’ heads.

Oy, Mr. I-Know-My-Game-Mechanics. Bring up your Hero Panel. On the right you see Power, Precision, Toughness, and Vitality. Under that you see Attack, Crit Chance, Armor, and Health. Pay attention.

I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing with this post, but you certainly haven’t corrected Ojimaru.

I may be a huge noob, but I thought defense/mitigation was Armor + Toughness. While I realize conditions ignore defense/armor/toughness, I thought the formula was as simple as that for non-condition damage.

@OP: Start by purchasing a full set of Rare power gear. I would recommend Knight’s or Berserker’s. Honestly, the difference between Rare and Exotic is not that significant, but you can purchase it and test the playstyle for about 10% of the price.

Rennoko.5731:

I may be a huge noob, but I thought defense/mitigation was Armor + Toughness. While I realize conditions ignore defense/armor/toughness, I thought the formula was as simple as that for non-condition damage.

Every character has some base armor value, plus armor from gear, plus toughness. Those three things add up to create your Defense stat, and condition damage ignores all three of them.

Pres/tough/condi gear IMO i.e Rabid gear. Add undead runes on that and Rabid stat rings, neck, cloak and ear rings.

This will give you high survivability, high condition damage (1600 without buffs). I run it on my necro and it works great in both WvW and PvE.

0/30/20/20/0 spec, using scepter+dagger and a staff. People bleed out very fast, you have a steady application of both bleeds and poison from scepter#1, then you have utilities and condition transfers ontop of that.

TheWalkingDead.7298:

Did the OP really just say that warriors have an easy time removing conditions? hahahahha. oh wait you were being serious?

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

What’s so funny?

I run capt hammer build and can remove conditions seven different ways (shout trait each removes a cond, heal removes two, forget what the rune and sigils are called)

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier

So…? Just reapply them. The build I’m running has a fast enough rotation that it’s not a big issue for them to clean ONE condition at the time.

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

True. One of which is a dark pulsing aoe field with a red circle border. It converts boons at a rate of one per second.

You, sir, are an evil genius.

pmargeti.7680:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

True. One of which is a dark pulsing aoe field with a red circle border. It converts boons at a rate of one per second.

You, sir, are an evil genius.

You’re right. Now if only Necros had anything to force people inside their “red circles”… And if only that was only the secondary, AoE-oriented, option that also damages… If only… If only both of them had less cooldown than the Guardian’s skill…

Oh wait…

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

True. One of which is a dark pulsing aoe field with a red circle border. It converts boons at a rate of one per second.

You, sir, are an evil genius.

You’re right. Now if only Necros had anything to force people inside their “red circles”… And if only that was only the secondary, AoE-oriented, option that also damages… If only… If only both of them had less cooldown than the Guardian’s skill…

Oh wait…

Must be amazing living in your world.

Yeah all that is very theory-crafty. Much like necro on necro battles (both condition specced) it comes down to who was over-eager and wasted there last cooldown for condition clears before the other guy.

I liked the infinte loop though…. I was stuck clicking those links for at least 15 mins.

I guess I will stay with condition damage for now. But if I don’t see major improvements I might switch in the future.

Thanks all!