Guild Wars 2

First off, im having a ton of fun with this build, im no pro, just an average player focussing on pvp, would appreciate any advice on build, but as it stands, with good positioning and gameplay, im destroying everything.

Smite-2,1,1
Curses-3,2,3
Reaper-2,2,2

all signets, vamp, locust, spite, plague, flesh golem elite for stun

wanderers amulet
necro rune

scepter/dagger, staff

some 1v1s are hard, but if played right you can litteraly just watch people rot away from conditions, using RS as a save by the way, usually helps to finish off melee that are low and get close after stuns/slows wear off.

The prob I’m having with this build is that the life force generation is pretty low. Swapping curses for soul reaping has helped me out a bit.

This is what I run and it’s a lot of fun.

Focus is surprisingly viable on this build. My only wish is Focus 5 had a shorter cast time. 3/4s would be plenty. Might uptime is really high with Rune of the Aristocracy, very easy to maintain 15+ stacks.

Hmm that looks like a decent build, but yeah you are gonna have a lot of issues generating enough life force. Most of this is due to your low health, since your life force pool is based on your maximum health, and the amount generated by each skill is based on a percentage of that pool.

You could swap out your least-useful signet for spectral armor, that might help, but really I think the issue is the amulet.

As the other post mentioned, using soul reaping with staff helps, as you will have access to soul marks, vital persistence and dhuumfire, and your life force pool will be higher as well (meaning EVERY skill will generate more LF). But you had to drop curses for that, meaning your scepter skills aren’t quite as effective.

If you want to keep your original build (curses, spite, reaper) mainly the same, then I recommend trying the following:

1) Use a carrion amulet!!! You will lose some toughness and condi duration, but the life force generation (and higher lf pool) is totally worth it. You will also lose a tiny bit of condi damage (the equivalent of 2 stacks of might), but I don’t think this will matter very much for your overall dps. And with a boost to power instead of precision, you may do slightly less condi damage, but you will deal a LOT more regular damage. On a condi build, the curses traitline gives you a ton of extra crit chance, and because of this curses usually has better synergy with carrion stats than with rabid.

2) Switch from dagger offhand to focus, since you’ll still have multiple condi transfers with staff 4 and plague signet, and the focus 4 skill gives life force. If you do this you’d probably want to switch your first curses trait to (2) plague sending, and your first spite trait to (1) spiteful talisman.

3) Think about switching from necromancer runes to traveler runes and dropping signet of the locust; this will help boost your boon duration, make up for some of the lost condi duration from wanderer AND give you the 25% move speed that signet of the locust did. Then you’d be free to run spectral armor, spectral walk or any of the shout skills to generate more life force without losing much (if any) might stacking.

4) Switch your healing skill from signet of vamp to “your soul is mine!”: this skill has a shorter cast time (less likely to be interrupted), shorter cooldown, and generates a decent amount of lf. It can also be used a few seconds before the match starts so you start out with some life force right away; if timed right, the skill will be off cooldown by the time you get to a point.

5) Swap out flesh golem for “Chilled to the bone” and consider changing your reaper adept trait to the 1st one, which will be especially helpful if you change your healing skill to the shout (and/or swap out signet of the locust for one of the shouts). Since you are mainly using the flesh golem for the stun, this is DEFINITELY a change I recommend.

If you make some or all of those changes you will still be running a similar build and have way more LF generation. I would start by switching out the amulet and your elite, and maybe the runes, and see how you like it.

Make sure you remember to drop signet of the locust if you decide to use traveler runes. I think you probably have more might stacking than you need, and with the +15% increase to boon duration, I’m sure you can afford to drop a signet (or even two!) without really seeing a difference in might stacks.

Finally, I’m guessing you know this, but landing your scepter 3 skill generates more life force when your target has a lot of conditions on them. If you have condis on yourself, use scepter 3 right after plague signet or use the combo of staff 2/3/4, (and maybe 5 if it’s off cd) and then scepter 3. Using that staff combo means they’d have 4 conditions already (bleeding, poison, chill, weakness) plus whatever you transfer from yourself.

Using a superior sigil of speed on your scepter or offhand also might help you land your scepter 3 skill more consistently (try this, especially if you like to use it right after swapping weapons or coming out of shroud). By using the scepter 3 skill after a swap, you can then load them up with condis with your scepter/offhand skills and use the 3 skill a second time before swapping back to staff (or going into shroud) to get even more life force.

Ashur.6403:

This is what I run and it’s a lot of fun.

Focus is surprisingly viable on this build. My only wish is Focus 5 had a shorter cast time. 3/4s would be plenty. Might uptime is really high with Rune of the Aristocracy, very easy to maintain 15+ stacks.

I like that. I will try it, but switch out the heal for vampirism or your soul is mine.

Starfall.6425:

I like that. I will try it, but switch out the heal for vampirism or your soul is mine.

If you’re not expecting condition pressure then signet of vampirism or “your soul is mine” is a great choice.

On a side note, I’m still running this build and it’s still a lot of fun. I’ve switched out sigil of doom for sigil of hydromancy. And sigil of ice for sigil of agility. Agility helps a lot for a quick Consume Conditions/Feast of Corruption/Spinal Shivers/Executioner’s Scythe/“Chilled to the Bone”. I don’t know how I necro’d without it!

So my build looks something like this now.

For condi reaper the best build I have found so far is

Spite 3 1 1
Curses 2 3 1
Reaper 1 2 2

Carrion

Scepter WH ice and energy
Staff hydromancy geomancy
Grenth runes

Ysim, rise, sol or sop, ps, ctb.

You can swap out shouts for all signets and wurm but if you do swap out of Grenth rune for aristocracy, hoelbrek. Or any other condi related rune that will help.

Reason for Grenth is the chill on heal with chill on hit and condi damage and chill duration. And I found I still have a lot of might during fights even without the duration.

NeXeD.3042:

For condi reaper the best build I have found so far is

Spite 3 1 1
Curses 2 3 1
Reaper 1 2 2

Carrion

Scepter WH ice and energy
Staff hydromancy geomancy
Grenth runes

Ysim, rise, sol or sop, ps, ctb.

You can swap out shouts for all signets and wurm but if you do swap out of Grenth rune for aristocracy, hoelbrek. Or any other condi related rune that will help.

Reason for Grenth is the chill on heal with chill on hit and condi damage and chill duration. And I found I still have a lot of might during fights even without the duration.

I’ve tried out similar and while I found grenth runes to be rather fun and fitting, I’ve opted for nightmare runes as the best. The %15 duration to all conditions and the fear causing CC (damage if traited for terror)->chill->vulnerability was too good to pass up. The chill when hit proc on grenth runes is negligible, IMO. It’s fear proc vs AOE chill when healing and for me the fear wins.

I also tried your soul is mine and it’s a nice skill but there is one reason that I never ever go for the route where your only condi clears are condi transfers: If an opponent unloads conditions on you and then runs away/negates your abilities/whatever you are toast.

I had this happen against a burn guardian once and I couldn’t do anything about it since he spammed blocks after unloading and I didn’t have unblockable marks. Had it happen in WvW before as well where a condition ranger destroyed me by unloading conditions and using evades/CCs.

To me, consume conditions is just too good to give up even though it has been triple nerfed.

The only way I might be willing to give it up is in WvW if you were to use sunless runes and sweet bean bun food to give you -55% incoming condition duration while still having 25% or more outgoing condition duration. Relentless pursuit on top of that is just lols. I tried that and while it’s fun and trolly, the 1G cost of the food makes it a no go for me.

My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7dnc0Al3g92AG3A0bilgBLuIuEjiUXhvwvKKpFAaAA-TphHABFcEAA/gAIwDAIo9HA4CAgUZAA

Key notes:
1) I use Superior Sigil of Speed (on-swap quickness) and Sigil of Rage on Scepter/Focus. The speed sigil is so versatile: great for nearly instant casting focus #5, Consume Conditions, and any other long cast time abilities on weapon swap or shroud drop. Rage Sigil is for quickly overloading the target with conditions with scepter or through Shroud (shroud #4 with quickness is tremendous burst).

2) Spectral Mastery makes the Spectral Wall grant life force every single time it is touched. Even if an opponent has stability, you are granted an easy 5% life force every time they cross the wall. Dropping it in the middle of a team fight means instantly 0 – 100 life force.

3) Damaging chills and fears and dhuumfire makes this build output very high pressure, both in melee and long-range. Though it has high damage output, it also has a lot of built in survivability through spectral skills, passive/active condition transfers and cleanses, and high toughness.

That’s a pretty good argument, I just don’t like the long cast time of consume conditions… even with the extra stability reaper offers, it’s just too difficult to try to get the cast off without getting interrupted.

As for condi transfers, running soul marks and superior sigil of speed on my staff is crucial for me, since I always try to use staff 3, 4 right off if I have any condis on me.

Personally I’ve been running a cele terrormancer build with:

soul reaping 2 1 1
curses 2 3 1
reaper 1 2 2

Skills are: your soul is mine, spectral wall, well of corruption, spectral armor, chilled to the bone.

I’ve been using staff and axe/dagger, which I find very effective, with sigil of doom and battle on a/d and sigil of speed/energy on staff, as well as traveler runes for the mobility and extra boon/condi duration.

While I can’t really stack might, the build is very effective at controlling team fights and wearing down enemies, as well as preventing stomps/rezzes. The life force generation is amazing, so I may try running dhuumfire again at some point. Also, the 850 condi damage I have gives me a solid dps output with fear and chill without making me too one-dimensional.

My favorite part about the build, though, is that if I am facing a power build, I have multiple ways to inflict weakness on them and almost 50% protection uptime, and if I am facing a condi opponent, I have 3 ways to transfer conditions back to them.

It is definitely more of a bunker-style necro build, but as I said, it is great at controlling team fights. And it is just as effective if I need to bunk home or far by myself. Really, the only place it doesn’t shine is when I need to cap a point quickly, so it’s not always the best build for making a late-game comeback. Although, it is pretty nice for lord rushes due to all the aoe fear procs I have.

zone.1073:

My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7dnc0Al3g92AG3A0bilgBLuIuEjiUXhvwvKKpFAaAA-TphHABFcEAA/gAIwDAIo9HA4CAgUZAA

Wow, your build is almost identical to mine! Even though mine is more of a hybrid and yours is more condi-focused, I bet the play style is very similar! I may try something like this at some point, although I would probably be more inclined to use a carrion amulet for the bigger life force pool.

Also, I’m kind of surprised you are running weakening shroud instead of lingering curse, especially with the amount of toughness you have. Although the high precision on the rabid amulet probably helps you proc weakness more often, so I guess I can see that working well for ya.

I noticed that neither of you guys (the 2 posters above) run unholy martyr or vital persistence…how does that affect your gameplay? How do you (or your build) work around the fast RS depletion? I see you load up on traited spectrals, so do you compensate the lack of UM/VP by having great LF regen?

Salamander.2504:

I noticed that neither of you guys (the 2 posters above) run unholy martyr or vital persistence…how does that affect your gameplay? How do you (or your build) work around the fast RS depletion? I see you load up on traited spectrals, so do you compensate the lack of UM/VP by having great LF regen?

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. My build generates life force very quickly, but it depletes more quickly, so it balances itself out. It fits the play style because majority of damage and pressure comes from outside of shroud, so it’s better to use shroud as little as possible and only enter shroud when absolutely necessary.

I only trait in spectral for the life force generation synergy with Spectral Wall. If I wasn’t running wall, I wouldn’t run spectral trait either.

Also, Weakening Shroud is necessary because this build does not use offhand dagger. Weakness is needed as a cover-condition to hinder enemy condition cleansing.