Guild Wars 2

As i first laid eyes on the leaked patch notes, i knew i would be making this build… it took me a few days to perfect it, and a lot more days to actual record and edit it, but i have remade my initial glass cannon guide…

Guild Wars 2 – redefining the glass cannon necromancer (perfected tutorial)

I have finally find a way by which people that are looking for a shorter version of the entire guide can now have what they want.
At the same time people that want to hear the whole story, how and why everything was designed this way… they can, within the same video.

I have also went further in depth then ever before with the explications behind my decisions on why this particular combination of skills, traits, utilities and damage rotation… by adding a proof of concept in terms of math calculations of the actual DPS over a benchmark of 30 seconds.

FINAL STATS:

3501 Power (+875 from 25 stacks of might)
51-54% Critical Strike Chance (100% Critical Strike Chance while in Death Shroud)
106-110% Critical Strike Damage
1934 Armor
19372 Health
10% Boon Duration
————
+ the ability to act as a debuffer – by adding up to 24 stacks of vulnerability on a target
+ up to 75% overall damage increases
+ the ability to have amazing DPS even while having a DPS uptime of 100% = highest overall DPS
+ the ability to stack 25 stacks of might on your own

This new way of doing things, while it is a great effort… has brought me a “burst” of positive feedback in the day since i uploaded the video… so i really hope you guys enjoy as well.

If i missed anything or if you have any questions feel free to comment here, on in the comment section on youtube.

Enjoy

Hi,

Thanks, great guide as usual. Could you put together a list of ‘best at’?

I have been trying to mimic a Ranger build that I love playing in GW2 and it is a high survivability build with excellent Vigour and Regeneration while maintain solid damage via +2k power and pet combination. I am not saying I like pets, I like the damage output when I combine my 2k power bow with pets.

As you can see I am a fan of ranged game play and so I do not like daggers.

Thanks again.

I run a very close build, just with way more survivability. Knight Armor/Berzerk the rest, 30/10/0/0/30. Weakening Shroud and Near to Death.

Which skills Dark Armor works with?

Do you have particular rotation?

Couldn’t listen because I’m at work currently but watched still a bit. Quite similar to mine, I just don’t focus on stacking might as my group gives it to me and because signets get removed in DS, I don’t use signet of spite either.
About the damage bonuses:
1) Strength of undead is flat power depending on your current LF, not , it also has more stages (0/40/60/80/100 power iirc)
2)While Wiki lists axe training damage bonus as 10, but from previous tests done somewhere, people came to conclusion that it’s 15% (10% value is from some older tests closer to release)

About DPS rotation: It’s worth to cast tainted shackles for at least aoe rotation. The damage listed in it is terribly wrong: You can crit 3-4k+free torments with it for quick casting time (though longer than listed so It may not be good enough over lifeblast for single targets)

Killing Veteran risen giant: While I agree this build has slow buildup for constant might, the killspeed on giant was quite bad (~40s with stack). It’s possible for necro to kill it in around ~23s. (Warrior can do it well below 20s, he probably had undead killing potions, I didn’t. Neither Did I swap weapon after reaching 25 stacks.)

DPS test: Now this is interesting. In the other thread we were doing some math. The dps test you did is quite good and everything in it can be applied in grand scale to other things now. Thing is… by itself it isn’t much. It’s just the DPS of those 3 means of attacking without any crits taken into account, but those can be calculated in with ease. And with crits taken into account, both lich and DS should be around 100% so their relative damage increase doesn’t change. Lich>DS (0 might) with no doubt. Dagger however falls behind with it’s lower critrate will fall behind, or maybe come even if buffed with fury (Quick calculation from your critical stats results in almost 40% damage boost for lich and DS when you raise your crit from 54% to 100% at 110% crit dmg) (0 might). Now if we take full mightstack into account, the tides might actually turn in favor of DS dps. This is all relative to your current power (and somewhat critrate/crit power). I can do it later with your stats if you didn’t do it verbally already (or If it’s in some part of the video and slipped past)

Hey nemesis, great video. Thanks for the work you are doing for the necro community!
Catched a small mistake and wanted to let you know. While counting your dagger chain attacks in 33seconds you skipped the 5th chain. So you get one less chain in (16 instead of 17) and the damage per 33s should decrease by about 6 percent.

Azraeel.1238:

I run a very close build, just with way more survivability. Knight Armor/Berzerk the rest, 30/10/0/0/30. Weakening Shroud and Near to Death.

Which skills Dark Armor works with?

Do you have particular rotation?

It’s not a standard rotation… as i’ve explained… it’s about DPS uptime. Lich Form > dagger 1 > DS 1 and you have to cycle through those to get 100% DPS uptime.
The beauty of this build is that DS 1 empowers dagger 1 and axe 2, which in return give you life force so you can stay in DS 1 which empowers your…

You keep empowering yourself while keeping up with 100% DPS uptime, which is what truly matters.

Also dark armor works with Ghastly Claws, Life Transfer and Life Siphon… Life Siphon and Ghastly Claws are sort of what you will be doing if you are in danger and not in DS. If you are in danger and in DS, it will eat up your DS and then you are back to the safety of continuous DPS uptime while at range and at +400 toughness…

@Targuil.3741

Wiki use to state 15% before this patch, i’ve looked at wiki and it said “updated” and now states 10%, so i’ve placed 10%…

And yes… in some cases it is worth it to cast DS 5 in your DPS rotation, but in a real scenario you burst up to like 150.000… since you benefit from might and 20% more damage on targets under 50% health… so if the targets are not dead by then, that means you are in a dungeon… and if the targets are still not dead by then… with the contribution of your team, then you’re not using a correct build for the encounter.

I said in the overview… don’t use this build for encounters that require heavy AoE damage. This build won’t get the job done in dredge fractal 48… but it will make CoF p1 2 times faster then a condition build would.

As for the giant… yes, i do it faster with a condition build too, because as a condition build damage dealer i have 100% DPS uptime. While i was fighting the giant i had to tank it as well, and tanking takes out of my DPS uptime and max DPS capabilities, since it eats my DS.
At the same time… as a range glass cannon you are not suppose to tank, therefor your damage will increase dramatically, not only from higher hits due to higher might stacks, but also from DPS uptime.

Last… the tests i’ve done for myself are far more complex then what i have shown in the video. I don’t think i have the english required to explain them, or people have the patience to go even further with it.

I’ve missed the sigils (quickness on dagger), warhorn 5 for dagger… then comes the probabilities and statistics… where can you use what, and how much time you can actually use that “what”.

Since none of my hits crit in the target dummy, and since in a “with curses” build you can actually get to 100% crit chance with dagger 1 as well… but you lose a lot of critical damage to do it, you also apply bleeds in the process which ruins it for some of your other team mates.

Anyway… i just wanted to give the people a general feel about the concept that “nothing beats DPS uptime”. Also to put into perspective… kind of which skills do what…
I’m not saying use this or that… i’m saying use all of them so you can have 100% DPS uptime. I’m also saying that in my build… while you DS 1 you empower axe 2 and dagger 1, which in return allows you to go back into DS 1.

It’s beautiful….

Bellamy.9860:

Hey nemesis, great video. Thanks for the work you are doing for the necro community!
Catched a small mistake and wanted to let you know. While counting your dagger chain attacks in 33seconds you skipped the 5th chain. So you get one less chain in (16 instead of 17) and the damage per 33s should decrease by about 6 percent.

Now you see how hard it is for me to do these things… i struggle with english, on top of heavy editing on top of remembering everything i have to say, on top of making sure i explain it right so everyone understands…

It’s a lot of work…

@Nemesis
About the build, DS5 and aoe: Fair enough, It does have limited aoe capacity and yes I was talking about dungeons. DS5 damage is also delayed so overworld mobs are dead by then thats for sure.

About the giant, it was 23 seconds with similar DS build as yours, not condition. I had 7-8 seconds left on the cooldown of BiP with which i started the fight when the giant died. I also had to dodge the stomp once or twice resulting in DPS loss. Condition builds can probably do it quite fast too, haven’t tried really.

Yeah I was wondering about the quickness proc on dagger too, but with 45 second cooldown and quickness nerf, I’ve been quite hesitant to try it anymore. Warhorn 5 is an interesting case too. Haven’t tested its’ actual cast time+after cast to determine if its worth it. I guess it is.

Yes you can get dagger crit rate to high levels in curses build, but for DS build it’s definetly not worth it because, as you said, loss of critical damage and crit rate. The minor bleedoutput isnt that much, but it may lower some other players’ bleed damage slightly, yes.

I completely agree about the uptime and the concept of that though.

Nemesis.8593:

Azraeel.1238:

I run a very close build, just with way more survivability. Knight Armor/Berzerk the rest, 30/10/0/0/30. Weakening Shroud and Near to Death.

Which skills Dark Armor works with?

Do you have particular rotation?

It’s not a standard rotation… as i’ve explained… it’s about DPS uptime. Lich Form > dagger 1 > DS 1 and you have to cycle through those to get 100% DPS uptime.
The beauty of this build is that DS 1 empowers dagger 1 and axe 2, which in return give you life force so you can stay in DS 1 which empowers your…

You keep empowering yourself while keeping up with 100% DPS uptime, which is what truly matters.

Also dark armor works with Ghastly Claws, Life Transfer and Life Siphon… Life Siphon and Ghastly Claws are sort of what you will be doing if you are in danger and not in DS. If you are in danger and in DS, it will eat up your DS and then you are back to the safety of continuous DPS uptime while at range and at +400 toughness…

Interesting perspective to say the least. Sorry I couldn’t see all of the video as I’m at work, just skimmed through gear and traits. Have you tried this build in dungeons in general? Arah specifically? I’m curious as to know how viable this build is vs Lupicus, or Aetherblade trash pirates.

wow ! good job !! you have inspired me to start a necromancer !

Kratos.6293:

wow ! good job !! you have inspired me to start a necromancer !

Nemesis has this talent I started my necro after his hybrid build tutorial.

Great job Nem. Good guide, full of interesting things. In PVE, DPS uptime is big issue which I have problems to achive with my mesmer.

Hi, Nemesis, amazing videos and as a matter of fact, it is your guides that help me make up my mind about necro being my main, I really appreciate it.

Btw, I am just curious which build you are planning to do next

@Azraeel
I have done AR with a build similar to (but not so offensive) Nemesis’ and I think it’s viable. Just put down Well of Suffering, DS5, and DS4 then mobs’ health are down to around 25% and you can try to pierce them with DS1 to finish the rest.

I should also add that while I point out about minor technical things I greatly appreciate the work you do for the community. I like to research available options but I seldomly share it on grand scale unless the topic gets brought up.

Its a good build. I dont agree with a lot of the choices you’ve made though. Feels like more of a solo roaming pve build to me. Might and vuln stacking isnt needed that much for dungeons because your group will be providing that for you (same with boon duration). For dungeons it would be overshadowed by target the weak builds for dps and the issue with bleed caps isnt a problem in proper groups as noone who is serious about dungeons takes condition damage.

Glad you did some good dps tests with the different weapons though. Alot of the stuff in this video helped me to understand what I can do to my build to maximise its potential in a group setting. Good work, I enjoyed the video regardless of the things I dont agree with.

Ps. I dont agree with your two rules though. The highest dps builds on other classes break atleast the first one most of the time and in some situations they break the second rule aswell.

Random question, but why aren’t you using the Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup instead? You trade 80 Precision (that you don’t need) for 100 power (which you can never have enough of) and 10% total crit damage from the food (over 8%).

Hey man great guide! I watched it a few days ago on youtube when you uploaded it. Are you going to redo the hybrid guide? Hybrid is a beast too!

Cool build. I was thinking about experimenting with a spec kinda like this (I usually like having a two-handed weapon as my secondary, just my preference). I may give it a try.

One thing: you mentioned that BiP’s bleeds are ok because they don’t take too much DPS from your condi spec teammates, but you can actually avoid the bleeds entirely by casting the skill without a target. Just click away for a quick second to pop BiP and you’ll get the 10 stacks of might without giving yourself or your enemy any bleeds.

This is my EXACT build, with every utility skill! o.O Great video man, we think alike. Blood is Power and Signet of Spite will supply a lot of damage for… everything. Even the use on Signet of Spite is a waste, passive power is enough. xD

Thanks for doing these videos and the math.

Thing to note is that signet of spite doesnt boost your power in DS. Honestly I think signet passives should work in DS. Would make signet of undeath useful for a DS bunker build.

spoj.9672:

Thing to note is that signet of spite doesnt boost your power in DS. Honestly I think signet passives should work in DS. Would make signet of undeath useful for a DS bunker build.

That is indeed weird, I never doubted it would work in DS. It’s still worth it for the power outside DS though since half of our damage is there. If you really want to put your all in DS you could choose a more LF generating utility instead of the signet.

Well of corruption gives 1% lifeforce per pulse per target hit and does around half of suffering’s damage too.

As I promised, some minor or major mistakes. (btw, I find it kind of funny how I was right about youtube comments…)

Attention: I don’t do this because I have nothing better to do then flaming some Necro-VIP. I do this beacause you cannot imagine HOW HARD I want a DS build to work. I created my necromancer just because I love DS.
And your build is not bad. But it is not perfect. And the video is not, too. I made up my mind about DS and DS based builds build and I would love to discuss that topic. You once said, a critic is never bad in your book, and a critic I am.
Oh, and btw, I won’t discuss if Dagger or DS1 has better DPS, we did that in another thread, and, to quote one of my favourite DotA 2 heroes:
I do not care to see that dark grey place again.

Sooo, here we go…

• + % Bonus damage does not stack like that. If you gain + 20% Damage, that wil multiply your damage by 1.2. Now, if you gain another 25% damage, you won’t do + 45% damage but 1.2 × 1.25 = 1.5 aka + 50% damage.

• ~11:20. The main target of a glass cannon build is to deal damage. Conditiondamage is damage, and if you put 10 points into curses, you get a trait that makes use of that conditiondamage. It’s not much damage, but it’s more than you get from Death Magic. And this trait causes one second of bleed. While in DS this wil cause on average 0.44 stacks of bleed… thats nothing. At 16:55 you talk about 10 stacks of bleed. I am sorry but thats a huuuuuge exaggeration.
  On the other hand, your build would profit from Reapers Precision. More Life Force = more damage AND more survivability.
  You have a use for everything you get here, while the toughness from DM is a total waste. Remember, you’re a GC. You cannot sacrifice damage for any form of survivability – thats against the rules.

• 13:40. That may be nitpicking, but thats not what exponetially means.

• 17:39. “In a ten second circle if you hit with life blast 10 times, you now have 20 stacks of might.” This is wrong, LB hits once per 1.5s. Later in the video you even show that.

• 21:12. Its actually 25.5 seconds. And thats NOT enought to reach 25 might only with DS1.

Your final stats: 2616 Power (without might), 1974 Precision (54%) and 108% critical damage.

Without boonduration, BiP gives you 10 might for ten seconds every 30 seconds, thats 3.3 might on average. While in DS you get 15 Seconds of might every 1.5 seconds. Remember you won’t be in DS the whole time. But we’ll assume an DS uptime of 100% to get the most out of those mightstacks. This would give you, all in all, 10 + 3.3 = 13.3 stacks of might average.
Therefore, 70% mightduration pushes you to 22.61 stacks of might on average (NOT 25. 25 stacks are a peak while in DS and using BiP. I assuere you, you will have phases of low might stacks.)
22.61 stacks of might are equal to 22.61×35=790 Power.

Your Build: (2616 + 790)(1 + 1(100% critchanche in DS) x 1.58) = 8787
Now, lets try something different. We are going to invest 10 points into curses. Next, we replace 250 precision with 250 power (sigil of bloodlust) and last but not least, we replace your boon duration runes with ruby orbs.
We lose 100 + 84 – 250 = 66 Precision. We are still over 50%. We lose 22.61 – 13.3 = 9.31 stacks of might ( 325.85 power) and gain 120 + 250 = 370 power with bloodlust and ruby orbs AND + 12% critical damage.
(2616 + 836) x (1 + 1 × 1.7) = 9320

9320 / 8787 = 1.06
We won 6% damage. For free. Just because math.

And another thing. Your second rule was: never to gain an advantage at the cost of your teams disadvantage. You aplied this rule to bleed stacks but you have not considered mightstacks. If your poor Guardian, Warrior, Elementarist or Ranger wants to buf might to his team, his effectifness drops because you are already maxed out.

My suggestion will not only do more damage without team support but will also be more team friendly.

27:30 – to be continued

Well Molch… good theory crafting right there, and it is appreciated. While the build and my video is very good, if it’s missing a 5-6% here and there i don’t mind. Took me 4 days in total to make it what it is… the finishing touches can be added by the community… i don’t mind.

If i get people that know very little about making a proper power build and get them as far as i’ve gotten them, i’m ok with that.

You took seriously a lot of the things i was saying in the video, but keep in mind i am struggling with english, even more so when i am trying to concentrate on what i say, how i say it… and if i said everything.

I said you will never reach 25 stacks of might with DS 1 alone… but you have a head start with blood is power. I’ve said that at one point in the video.

Also since you reach about 14-16 stacks of might with DS 1 if you are lucky… you can blood is power the rest, and when blood is power the rest… and when IT is on CD, you can benefit from the other buffers in your team. All you have to do is wait for the buffer to buff you… and when those expire sneak in a blood is power.

So you do actually have ~ 25 stacks of might 95% of the time, i have tested that in dungeons… and it actually is the case.

Now going into curses… reaper’s precision is a little bit extra, but it’s never something noticeable. Doing bleeds… i’ve gotten up to 5 with dagger 1… without quickness proc, add some blood is power to it and we’ll have good times. It’s very rare… but i do not approve of it.

The toughness however i found very useful in many situations in which the mob was coming directly for me… that 400 toughness was actually the difference between me getting 1 shot or not…

As for the math part… this is quite… interesting… i’ll have to test this, i haven’t taken into consideration sigil of bloodlust, my goal was 50% critical chance then dumping everything into power and critical damage… the most power you can get now since blood is power is in the mix would be might stacking.

While i don’t entirely agree with the calculations… i believe you’d win 4-5% more damage by doing it your way, not 6…

But yeah… i think you have successfully found a way to improve my build by 5%. I like to think i would have figured it out myself if i wouldn’t have spend 4 days on the actual presentation… and had more time to spend on the numbers, but who knows.

I’ll give credit where credit is due though.

/bow

edit: I’m coming to this post again… that’s how impressed i am. You actually manage to give me a 5% boost on my build. Dude that is awesome… while i am a bit upset at myself for not providing the best possible combination, one can only do so much in terms of time spend / day on something.

I’m really impressed with your way of squeezing just a little bit more out of it with cleaver gear combinations… that’s my role haha…

I wish to applaud you once again… and i will test it myself to see if i see much of a difference, +-5% isn’t a lot, but it is something.

Molch.2078:

+ % Bonus damage does not stack like that. If you gain + 20% Damage, that wil multiply your damage by 1.2. Now, if you gain another 25% damage, you won’t do + 45% damage but 1.2 × 1.25 = 1.5 aka + 50% damage.

I am pretty sure you are wrong about that. Everything I have seen in this games where these kind of multipliers come up suggest they are additive and not multiplicative. i.e. the behavior of + or – % duration runes.

nemesis help me on my hybrid build QQ

Zzod.5791:

Molch.2078:

+ % Bonus damage does not stack like that. If you gain + 20% Damage, that wil multiply your damage by 1.2. Now, if you gain another 25% damage, you won’t do + 45% damage but 1.2 × 1.25 = 1.5 aka + 50% damage.

I am pretty sure you are wrong about that. Everything I have seen in this games where these kind of multipliers come up suggest they are additive and not multiplicative. i.e. the behavior of + or – % duration runes.

I tested it in the mists. Unless the damage calculation for a theif is different from a necromancer (thief has more +% traits, therefore is better to test that) I am pretty sure that I am right

Molch I suspected the same about % stacking but wasn’t sure and wiki was wrong so I didn’t mention it. Still, it only makes % stacking all the better which is nice, and it means scholar runes would give DS a considerably bigger boost than ruby orbs even and being over 90% health in DS means you’re getting the boost.

Nemesis.8593:

While i don’t entirely agree with the calculations… i believe you’d win 4-5% more damage by doing it your way, not 6…

Yeah, 4%, 6%. -2%, tbh that depends on the situation. My should be a little bit ahead but not by much. I think I forgot the 3 × 25 power your runes give…

The tl;dr of my Wall of Text would be:

1. Curses is not as bad as it sounds but a valid alternative.
2. + % might duration runes aren’t worth it, since ruby orbs or something similar, will give you the same damage but you get more out of team buffs.

Targuil.3741:

Molch I suspected the same about % stacking but wasn’t sure and wiki was wrong so I didn’t mention it. Still, it only makes % stacking all the better which is nice, and it means scholar runes would give DS a considerably bigger boost than ruby orbs even and being over 90% health in DS means you’re getting the boost.

Yes, Scholar runes are even better. Especially if you sacrifice some precision and calculate a banner of discipline, your damage will go insane^^

Edit: Banner of discipline and Scholar runes instead of ruby orbs.
(2616 + 836 -120 + 185) x (1 + 1 × 1.7 – 0.12 + 0.08 + 0.15) x 1.1 = 10871

Nemesis build with discipline.
(2616 + 790)(1 + 1 × 1.58 + 0.15) = 9298

Thats 17% more damage. Scholar is so utterly overpovered above 90%^^

The Might stacking is much better…. precisely when we have the bleeds that Nemesis did not wish. I remember doing the same with my engineer and grenades. I could get as much as 17 stacks of Might and they would tick as much as 90 per second on a full berserker gear.

With a build that does not have bleeds the rubies seem much better.

On a dungeon boss (the only metric that seems to matter as silver mobs are not a particular objective and world bosses have so many people hitting them that it does not matter if we sit there auto-attacking) we also have conditions lasting less (half time, was it?) which means even a dedicated condition player will not reach 25 stacks on their own.

Champions don’t see to have that duration halved thing, but, then we enter the realm of pugs. Can we trust a pug to provide Might? Can we trust a pug to have a dedicated bleeder? On a pre-arranged group throwing random conditions will just annoy the one person who is geared and set for them.

Kanto.1659:

The Might stacking is much better…. precisely when we have the bleeds that Nemesis did not wish. I remember doing the same with my engineer and grenades. I could get as much as 17 stacks of Might and they would tick as much as 90 per second on a full berserker gear.

With a build that does not have bleeds the rubies seem much better.

On a dungeon boss (the only metric that seems to matter as silver mobs are not a particular objective and world bosses have so many people hitting them that it does not matter if we sit there auto-attacking) we also have conditions lasting less (half time, was it?) which means even a dedicated condition player will not reach 25 stacks on their own.

Champions don’t see to have that duration halved thing, but, then we enter the realm of pugs. Can we trust a pug to provide Might? Can we trust a pug to have a dedicated bleeder? On a pre-arranged group throwing random conditions will just annoy the one person who is geared and set for them.

Even if you run my 30/10/00/30 build, you won’t get more then 2-4 stacks of bleed and scholar/rubys are still superior.
Engeneers on the other hand stack much more bleeds with grenades – here I would prefere the might.

True. In my engineer example (the only one I have experience with) stacking 20 bleeds without condition duration rune setup was a common thing with the grenades.

Were it not for their skill-shot aspect and they rocked.

I like the necro and it does some omfgwtfbbqsauce damage, but I dislike sticking at 600 range. Too often a boss insta turns my way and throws a one-shot move and because I am so close I can’t see it in time to dodge.

Since you’re using one well, would Focused Rituals be a good alternative over Reaper’s Precision if you’re going with the 30/10/0/0/30 build?

Hi, Molch, you mentioned in another thread that theoretically dagger does 30%-50% more damage than axe or DS1. So does it mean that dagger is a better option than axe/DS build for a pure direct dps role? Thank you.

ChungHan Ho.5837:

Hi, Molch, you mentioned in another thread that theoretically dagger does 30%-50% more damage than axe or DS1. So does it mean that dagger is a better option than axe/DS build for a pure direct dps role? Thank you.

Haven’t you been listening to Nemesis? It has better DPS but (probably) worse DPS uptime! Have a dagger on the second weapon set and use it if you can but you can’t stand in 130 range 24/7 with a glass cannon build. Getting downed will make you lose more DPS than you gained by using the dagger.

To Molch: Interesting points and math! Thanks for spreading the message! It’s always easy to miss something and you pointed that out perfectly. Also kudos to Nemesis for admitting this. ^^

Man, I love this community. Everyone are so helpful. Keep doing what you do, guys!

kitten Nemesis. You’re costing me another 10 gold with this build…

Thanks for the ideas!

I don’t enjoy the whole might stacking thing, it bores the hell out of me.

normally I love your builds nemesis but I dont like/enjoy the play style behind this one. I mean I enjoy playing full zerk, but the emphasis on might stacking is just not my thing, seems tedious.

Looking forward to the hybrid video.

Bajenalex.3405:

ChungHan Ho.5837:

Hi, Molch, you mentioned in another thread that theoretically dagger does 30%-50% more damage than axe or DS1. So does it mean that dagger is a better option than axe/DS build for a pure direct dps role? Thank you.

Haven’t you been listening to Nemesis? It has better DPS but (probably) worse DPS uptime! Have a dagger on the second weapon set and use it if you can but you can’t stand in 130 range 24/7 with a glass cannon build. Getting downed will make you lose more DPS than you gained by using the dagger.

To Molch: Interesting points and math! Thanks for spreading the message! It’s always easy to miss something and you pointed that out perfectly. Also kudos to Nemesis for admitting this. ^^

Man, I love this community. Everyone are so helpful. Keep doing what you do, guys!

The DPS uptime of Dagger is up to you. If there are people meleeing mossman in lvl 50 fotm with a glasscannon thief who has 12k hp, you can’t say that melee DPS uptime < range DPS uptime. And sometimes melee is even easier then range.

If you are experienced enough to use the dagger, you will do more damage. Especialy in organized groups.

Fade.1743:

Since you’re using one well, would Focused Rituals be a good alternative over Reaper’s Precision if you’re going with the 30/10/0/0/30 build?

If the situation needs you to use your well on range, Focused Rituals is a must. If you are fine in melee, it’s a don’t. Change your traits the same way you change your utilityskills – it always depends on the situation.

Molch.2078:

Bajenalex.3405:

ChungHan Ho.5837:

Hi, Molch, you mentioned in another thread that theoretically dagger does 30%-50% more damage than axe or DS1. So does it mean that dagger is a better option than axe/DS build for a pure direct dps role? Thank you.

Haven’t you been listening to Nemesis? It has better DPS but (probably) worse DPS uptime! Have a dagger on the second weapon set and use it if you can but you can’t stand in 130 range 24/7 with a glass cannon build. Getting downed will make you lose more DPS than you gained by using the dagger.

To Molch: Interesting points and math! Thanks for spreading the message! It’s always easy to miss something and you pointed that out perfectly. Also kudos to Nemesis for admitting this. ^^

Man, I love this community. Everyone are so helpful. Keep doing what you do, guys!

The DPS uptime of Dagger is up to you. If there are people meleeing mossman in lvl 50 fotm with a glasscannon thief who has 12k hp, you can’t say that melee DPS uptime < range DPS uptime. And sometimes melee is even easier then range.

If you are experienced enough to use the dagger, you will do more damage. Especialy in organized groups.

Fade.1743:

Since you’re using one well, would Focused Rituals be a good alternative over Reaper’s Precision if you’re going with the 30/10/0/0/30 build?

If the situation needs you to use your well on range, Focused Rituals is a must. If you are fine in melee, it’s a don’t. Change your traits the same way you change your utilityskills – it always depends on the situation.

All i have to add to this is that dagger 1 doesn’t do 50% more damage then DS 1, because it attacks slower, it’s more of a 25%… but like Molch said, if you are skilled enough you can do more damage at melee.

What i am saying is that if you have a build that you can go melee and range with it, if you reach a situation where you can melee that’s fine, if you can’t… you shouldn’t be dead weight, you have options.

You have to take in consideration where you are, who are you with… and not just your personal skill but the level of tiredness… we all have bad days, some days you shouldn’t melee cause you’ll be more dead then alive = low DPS uptime.

If you make a build just for melee, you might be overall 5-7% more effective then in my build – melee mode, or about 50% less effective because you are dead all the time… or not dead… just not DPSing.

It’s up to you guys what you wand to do, but now you know what is what…

ps: a long time ago i said that melee takes more risk therefor it has to do more damage, otherwise why would you ever play melee… if you do more damage at range with less risk… balance

Molch.2078:

Bajenalex.3405:

ChungHan Ho.5837:

Hi, Molch, you mentioned in another thread that theoretically dagger does 30%-50% more damage than axe or DS1. So does it mean that dagger is a better option than axe/DS build for a pure direct dps role? Thank you.

Haven’t you been listening to Nemesis? It has better DPS but (probably) worse DPS uptime! Have a dagger on the second weapon set and use it if you can but you can’t stand in 130 range 24/7 with a glass cannon build. Getting downed will make you lose more DPS than you gained by using the dagger.

To Molch: Interesting points and math! Thanks for spreading the message! It’s always easy to miss something and you pointed that out perfectly. Also kudos to Nemesis for admitting this. ^^

Man, I love this community. Everyone are so helpful. Keep doing what you do, guys!

The DPS uptime of Dagger is up to you. If there are people meleeing mossman in lvl 50 fotm with a glasscannon thief who has 12k hp, you can’t say that melee DPS uptime < range DPS uptime. And sometimes melee is even easier then range.

If you are experienced enough to use the dagger, you will do more damage. Especialy in organized groups.

Fade.1743:

Since you’re using one well, would Focused Rituals be a good alternative over Reaper’s Precision if you’re going with the 30/10/0/0/30 build?

If the situation needs you to use your well on range, Focused Rituals is a must. If you are fine in melee, it’s a don’t. Change your traits the same way you change your utilityskills – it always depends on the situation.

This. I have no issue meleeing 24/7 on my necro. I no longer even bother to take an axe anymore, I just run dagger warhorn and focus. Its very possible with competent players. Obviously nemesis’s build is very good for a safer option and for slightly less advanced/experienced players.

Just noting that because of critical hits, dagger dps compared to DS dps is almost identical. Dagger has much more raw damage but DS crits always. They even out. (This is before calculating might stacking/vulnerability from DS1)

Targuil.3741:

Just noting that because of critical hits, dagger dps compared to DS dps is almost identical. Dagger has much more raw damage but DS crits always. They even out. (This is before calculating might stacking/vulnerability from DS1)

You get about 80% crit chance with the dagger build in a group (fury + banner of discipline). Dagger will out dps enough to make up for a few less crits. And a DS build wont have permanent DS uptime. Also keep in mind even with above 100% crit chance you can still fail to crit. There seems to be an invisible cap.

It’s not about if a dagger oriented build does more then a DS 1 oriented build… it’s about DPS uptime. I have created a build in which you have the most DPS uptime no matter where you are and what you fight…

I have also shown that dagger 1 even though it has higher hitting potential… it hits slower then DS 1 because of the delay between activation times… which puts dagger 1’s overall DPS at about 20-25% higher then DS 1, not 50% higher.

If you build towards a dagger 1 melee build you will do about +5% on top of the 20% more damage vs single target (compared to DS 1) IF you manage to keep 100% DPS uptime in melee.

If you take my build you lose that +5% on top of the 20%… but you gain a lot more AoE burst since well of suffering and life transfer will always crit, and crit with higher power ratio… and you can still be melee and range depending on the circumstance.

With that being said… i don’t like or approve of a build which is 5-10% stronger, but glass cannon melee only, but that’s just me… maybe i’ve done too many dredge fractals to have the patience for melee with no cleave…

Nemesis,
Will you update your others builds? I hope so

Ryn.6459:

Nemesis,
Will you update your others builds? I hope so

I will after we get nerfed… game might changed a bit more, and what ever i do now will not be up to date then. I am waiting for the 9th this month to see what happens.

Nemesis.8593:

Ryn.6459:

Nemesis,
Will you update your others builds? I hope so

I will after we get nerfed… game might changed a bit more, and what ever i do now will not be up to date then. I am waiting for the 9th this month to see what happens.

The nerf will most likely be end of the month. So you might be waiting a while.

I still have hope Anet don’t do that. Necro now can burst, and that’s it.

At least they should wait a couple of months and see how the meta goes.

Aight, I decided to test this on some dummies in the Heart of the Mists., since I’ve always wondered whether switching to DS for #1 spam were a strict damage increase or not. Using the build described in the video, here are the averages of three tests each to kill a Medium dummy. In each case, I used BiP (without applying the bleeds to the dummy) and simply pressed 1 until the dummy was dead. I had to use a Sigil of Accuracy instead of Perception because there appears to be no way of stacking up sigils in the Heart of the Mists, so this means my crit chance was only at 40% (35% with dagger because of the Sigil of Rage).

Axe: 9.2 seconds
Dagger: 5.6 seconds
Deathshroud, sub-600 units: 6.0 seconds
Deathshroud, 601-1200 units: 7.5 seconds

My Sigil of Rage didn’t proc at all during the Dagger tests. If it had, we can assume it would’ve dealt 4.5 seconds of damage in a 3-second period, which means the average time for Rage-proc tests should be around 4.1 seconds, and the DS time would’ve been 4.5 seconds and 6 seconds respectively, assuming the target lived through the whole Rage proc.

These results are far from exhaustive, but it would appear that the Dagger does indeed have the best DPS on its #1, with DS coming in at a close second. This doesn’t mean you would ideally just sit in Dagger 1 all the time, of course. I suspect switching to DS for some 1s is better overall because of the might and vuln you’d bring back with you to your Dagger or Axe.

EDIT: I did this test with a Staff as well for funsies. Average time was 13.8 with a Sigil of Force and 14.0 with a Sigil of Accuracy.

EDIT: And with Lich Form: 5.5 seconds, though I cheated a bit to get that (BiP, Lichform, blew threw a Light, Medium, and Heavy golem at during one Lich Form casting and then took the average time of that).

Blaine Tog.8304:

Aight, I decided to test this on some dummies in the Heart of the Mists., since I’ve always wondered whether switching to DS for #1 spam were a strict damage increase or not. Using the build described in the video, here are the averages of three tests each to kill a Medium dummy. In each case, I used BiP (without applying the bleeds to the dummy) and simply pressed 1 until the dummy was dead. I had to use a Sigil of Accuracy instead of Perception because there appears to be no way of stacking up sigils in the Heart of the Mists, so this means my crit chance was only at 40% (35% with dagger because of the Sigil of Rage).

Axe: 9.2 seconds
Dagger: 5.6 seconds
Deathshroud, sub-600 units: 6.0 seconds
Deathshroud, 601-1200 units: 7.5 seconds

My Sigil of Rage didn’t proc at all during the Dagger tests. If it had, we can assume it would’ve dealt 4.5 seconds of damage in a 3-second period, which means the average time for Rage-proc tests should be around 4.1 seconds, and the DS time would’ve been 4.5 seconds and 6 seconds respectively, assuming the target lived through the whole Rage proc.

These results are far from exhaustive, but it would appear that the Dagger does indeed have the best DPS on its #1, with DS coming in at a close second. This doesn’t mean you would ideally just sit in Dagger 1 all the time, of course. I suspect switching to DS for some 1s is better overall because of the might and vuln you’d bring back with you to your Dagger or Axe. 12.7, 15.7,

EDIT: I did this test with a Staff as well for funsies. Average time was 13.8 with a Sigil of Force and 14.0 with a Sigil of Accuracy.

EDIT: And with Lich Form: 5.5 seconds, though I cheated a bit to get that (BiP, Lichform, blew threw a Light, Medium, and Heavy golem at during one Lich Form casting and then took the average time of that).

Well… these calculations resemble my own, so yeah… like i said, my recommendation for going into power is: get a build that you can stay in melee and range, and while at range you empower your melee… while in melee you assure range DPS uptime which empowers melee which… tam tam tam.

Guys, stop being so arrogant with this “if you’re a more advanced/skilled player, you can melee in safety which makes it okay!”

Everyone half skilled can dodge, position, and heal properly, but that misses the point of DPS uptime completely. How much DPS are you doing when you’re dodging? Healing? Repositioning after dodging? While you are constantly evading (which no one is saying impossible or hard to do), the ranged DPS is applying nearly constant DPS. So unless your melee dps is greatly higher than ranged dps (such as Warrior melee vs ranged), ranged dps will put out more.

There is no point arguing, since some of you will most likely reply with “oh, I never really need to dodge, I’m just really pro” stuff that I’m already seeing. To all the new players, test it out yourself. Don’t be fooled by big numbers and think that you are doing fantastic DPS. Even if you are not downing, the fact that you are spending several seconds at a time evading, healing, and getting back to the Boss cost you tremendous DPS.

Sometimes I really wish they allowed DPS addons in this game like WoW, it would solve a lot of issues with all these theorycrafting gurus.

Great guide, Nemesis.