Guild Wars 2

to start with: strenght soldier is the other viable reaper build next to the frostfire condi bomb.. no meta build but pretty solid bruiser build who can hold a point for minutes against 2 (non zerker) opponents. It gets destroyed by frostfire though bc its somewhat weak against condis

its strength is based on the soldier amulet which gets removed.. knights and crusader somewhat work but its just not nearly as good as it is on soldier.. and the new amulets dont really make hope.
another viable necro spec is cele signet, similar playstyle but cele gets removed too..

so dear anet is forcing us into playing frostfire. the new amulet (power/condi, thoughness/vita) and the other changes will make this thing beastmode no doubt. I can see deathly chill getting nerved bc of all the whining already.. then we stand there with no available build.. gj

if you want to remove soldier (btw its a power main stat amulet!) give strength soldier some combo which fits.. for the sake of build diversity
1050 power
1050 thoughness/vita
560 vita/thoughness
560 ferocity

or simply leave soldier in pvp.. remember: strength soldier is the only viable pvp power build we got

thx for reading and discuss

DEATHsCLAW.1978:

soldier is the only viable pvp power build we got

Not true.

But if you want something similar, the new Paladin’s amulet is going to have power/prec/tough/vit.

Reaper’s Amulet :^)

1050 power
1050 toughness
560 vitality
560 ferocity

THIS IS THE DREAM AMULET PLZ MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!111!!!!1!1!!!!!

Imo old Strength Soldier is gonna be smth like this (with Pala amulet)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhZ6kGRozGsyGw8GgeTsgLYxZxvYZE6qFAWAUph2wXA-TZQOAAw+DAA

With the 54% crit from the amulet, I felt like you could run the stunbreak on traits (Foot in the Grave) and then run the new Corrupt Boon instead of Spectral Armor.

Then theres the option to just run the same old build but with Valk, less sustain more dmg

Krysard.1364:

Imo old Strength Soldier is gonna be smth like this (with Pala amulet)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhZ6kGRozGsyGw8GgeTsgLYxZxvYZE6qFAWAUph2wXA-TZQOAAw+DAA

With the 54% crit from the amulet, I felt like you could run the stunbreak on traits (Foot in the Grave) and then run the new Corrupt Boon instead of Spectral Armor.

Then theres the option to just run the same old build but with Valk, less sustain more dmg

I doubt paladin amulet has enough defence to keep the strength soldier alive.. way too offensive. we need 1050 thoughness 560 vita combo otherwise our shroud will just burn..
any amulet with

1050 power
1050 thoughness
560 vita
560 ferocity or precision

would keep it alive..

I did some more testing today with barbarian, crusader, knights and valkyre
nothing came even close to soldiers sustain.. valkyre is a good more offensive option but not made for going mele in 3+ teamfights.

I just think it is funny that anet designed a melee fighter and now they deny its viability to fight frontline..

Why not try runes of lyssa for more sustain and condi counter and then you could mix and match other more offensive amulets?

No one believing in the power of mender?

You forgot Cavalier:

1200 toughness
900 power
900 ferocity

With 3 shouts (heal, 1 utility, elite) and shout trait + soldier runes, you get a pretty solid/sustainable base.

I would also go with well of corruption: It’s unblockable, more reliable than corrupt boon (which is stopped by grass or god knows what, and self inflicts poison), and is just perfect for conquest (less on foefire though). It also provides some life force to complement the spammable heal.

Also, blood magic might come back, with which crusader amulet has some appeal. Not to mention that even with a 0 healing amulet, a reaper’s transfusion with vampiric aura heals for 4-5k.

Tim.6450:

No one believing in the power of mender?

on necro? hahahaaa do you know how well our skills scale with healing power? and running around with 1888 armor will be fun with those new thiefs..

Maven.1690:

Why not try runes of lyssa for more sustain and condi counter and then you could mix and match other more offensive amulets?

we dont have any quick elite skill besides plague.. maybe with quickness swap and elite shout. and necro really doesnt need precision

DEATHsCLAW.1978:

Tim.6450:

No one believing in the power of mender?

on necro? hahahaaa do you know how well our skills scale with healing power? and running around with 1888 armor will be fun with those new thiefs..

Necro scales quite well with healing power. I’m wondering if anyone else will realize how strong Crusader amulet is for us.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

DEATHsCLAW.1978:

Tim.6450:

No one believing in the power of mender?

on necro? hahahaaa do you know how well our skills scale with healing power? and running around with 1888 armor will be fun with those new thiefs..

Necro scales quite well with healing power. I’m wondering if anyone else will realize how strong Crusader amulet is for us.

crusader is a solid amulet on reaper but soldier is far superior bc we can stay in shroud much longer and proc more traits like blighters boon. I did a lot of testing on that bro..
besides that what exactly scales well with healing power?
siphons? nope
regen? yes, but doesnt heal through shroud
heal skills? all right nothing special
blighters boon? no, never saw such a bad scaling..
unholy sanctuary? idk but its in the wrong line anyways
dagger2? pretty good, but takes ages..
signet of locus? yes, but again it takes way to long to activate

just an example..
blighters boon heals for 200 on crusader instead of 192 on soldier.. this trait could really make a difference if it had a good scaling but it doesnt..
besides that all our other skills which heal take way to long to activate. in pvp they arent reliable at all

DEATHsCLAW.1978:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

DEATHsCLAW.1978:

Tim.6450:

No one believing in the power of mender?

on necro? hahahaaa do you know how well our skills scale with healing power? and running around with 1888 armor will be fun with those new thiefs..

Necro scales quite well with healing power. I’m wondering if anyone else will realize how strong Crusader amulet is for us.

crusader is a solid amulet on reaper but soldier is far superior bc we can stay in shroud much longer and proc more traits like blighters boon. I did a lot of testing on that bro..
besides that what exactly scales well with healing power?
siphons? nope
regen? yes, but doesnt heal through shroud
heal skills? all right nothing special
blighters boon? no, never saw such a bad scaling..
unholy sanctuary? idk but its in the wrong line anyways
dagger2? pretty good, but takes ages..
signet of locus? yes, but again it takes way to long to activate

just an example..
blighters boon heals for 200 on crusader instead of 192 on soldier.. this trait could really make a difference if it had a good scaling but it doesnt..
besides that all our other skills which heal take way to long to activate. in pvp they arent reliable at all

Life From Death and Transfusion both have extremely high Healing Power coefficients. Transfusion may not look like it at only .2 per pulse, but that ends up with total coefficients of 1.8 with Life Transfer and 2.4 with Soul Spiral.

For reference, your average Healing skill (#6) has 1.0 coefficient.

Signet of the Locust: .6/target (ranging from .6 to 3.0)

Life Siphon: .1/pulse, .9 total

Signet of Vampirism: .24/stack, up to 1.44/person (1.2 practical max, as 6 stacks are difficult to claim). Additional .5 for the Necromancer.

Well of Blood: .4/pulse, 2.4 total, additional 1.0 for Necromancer.

Spiteful Renewal: .1 coefficient

Unholy Sanctuary: .125/second coefficient

Mark of Evasion: .75 coefficient, modified by boon duration.

Vampiric: effectively gives all attacks a .005 scaling per hit. Ghastly Claws, for example, gains a .04 scaling. Locust Swarm untraited can give up to a .25 scaling. Small amount, but stacks with everything.

Vampiric (minions): .022 coefficient per minion hit. Small amount, but can easily add up over a fight with Bone Fiend and Flesh Golem or Rise.

Life From Death: 1.5 coefficient. This is quite high.

Vampiric Presence: .005 coefficient. Combined with Vampiric, at least this is a 1% scaling on every hit. Small, but if healing scaling were your main concern, you would have grabbed Life From Death instead.

Vampiric Rituals: .0115 coefficient. Up to .345 per well.

Augury of Death: .02 coefficient, up to .1 per shout.

Soul Eater: .04 coefficient, up to .2 per Gravedigger.

Blighter’s Boon: .0333 coefficient

Most of those coefficients look small, but it’s when you start applying more than one that things get interesting. For example, Well of Suffering when traited with Vampiric Rituals has up to a .495 healing power scaling, not including the possibility of Vampiric Presence. which boosts it to .645. Considering that skill usually doesn’t give any healing, that’s quite impressive. Granted, this is a perfect scenario.

A more realistic scenario would be using a shout in a teamfight, which nets a 12.5% healing power scaling (between people, druid pets, and Mesmer illusions, this happens rather frequently) on a skill that isn’t normally healing.

Life Siphon with Vampiric Presence is a .99 coefficient, amusingly.

Blighter’s Boon, if you have Spite trait line, gives you a .0333 coefficient on your shroud autoattack. This still stacks with everything, and it is not limited purely to your auto either. Auto something below 50%? 10% scaling for you on that hit. Need some Stability, but don’t necessarily need a Fear? .2664 coefficient on Reaper Shroud 3.

Necromancer is in the unique position of being able to get literally every skill they have equipped reliably heal them. Thieves get close, but the best they can do is rely on crits. What this means is that, while an individual coefficient may not be that high, our actual coefficients/second on healing are among the highest in the game.

FYI, only Spectral Walk and Spectral Armor can’t actually give the Necro any health, even via traits.

That Axe power build on meta battle is god awful and should of never been put there in the first place. Wish Arenanet would do a bit more with greatsword. Necro power is just sub par atm, Arenanet is pushing condi so hard for necro pvp.

@drarnor thx for the detailed info! not gonna quote it bc its pretty long..

but now have a look at this:
we are talking reaper “tanky” power build on a crusader amulet
so you need a spite/soul reaping/reaper combo.. there isnt much choice since you need precision via vulnerability from spite and decimated defenses from reaper..

so your only available heals are:

regen from mark of blood, just place it on you for 1.2k heal over time

if you take dagger over axe ( I always do..) dagger#2, just takes forever but can heal 5k-ish

heal skill: shout or signet, both are all right..

signet of locus, takes way to long to cast and gets blinded often.. in a perfect scenario it heals for like 7k-ish on crusader but if it misses you wasted like 1.5 seconds..

blighters boon, useful for sure but not as good and impactful as it should be in my opinion..

idk if they just adjust a couple things like more lf and a better scaling on blighers boon and lower cast times on locus signet and dagger I could imagine some sort of crusader reaper being viable..

Lucifer.7289:

That Axe power build on meta battle is god awful and should of never been put there in the first place. Wish Arenanet would do a bit more with greatsword. Necro power is just sub par atm, Arenanet is pushing condi so hard for necro pvp.

axe is just plain bad but if you change things a bit around (for example dagger over axe) it can shine.. takes more skill than condi though and is simply worse in any 1v1 than carrion frostfire because the chill trait outshines blighters boon by a lot..

Soldier Shout Reaper only actually requires two traits in the Reaper line, being Augury of Death and Decimate Defenses. Both of the other trait lines are optional. Death Magic instead of Spite actually works quite well, for example. Vuln stacks can come from weapon choice or Unyielding Blast instead of Spite. I’m looking at testing another variant with Blood Magic instead of soul reaping as well.

Signet of the Locust is already a low cast time, so I’m not sure what you’re complaining about there.