Guild Wars 2

i main a necro and im lv55 but im starting to notice that compared to the other classes im week no matter how i fix my build and stats
and its making me consider making a guardian but every where i look i see a guardian

is there a way or a built that makes a necro have good power and crit if so please tell me with detail cause i don’t want to abandon my necro cause it cant keep up and dont get me wrong every one says you shouldn’t care about you character power just have fun
but i wont lie to myself every one like a character that can handle it own or dish out good damage

Every week is necro week oh yeeeeeah!!!!!! Non stop… every weeeek……

But regarding your topic I guess you could try out khalifas dagger power build. Try searching the forums for it, there’s a topic somewhere. Basically it’s a power build using staff and dagger/dagger with dagger 1 as the main damage.

Iceflame.5024:

Every week is necro week oh yeeeeeah!!!!!! Non stop… every weeeek……

But regarding your topic I guess you could try out khalifas dagger power build. Try searching the forums for it, there’s a topic somewhere. Basically it’s a power build using staff and dagger/dagger with dagger 1 as the main damage.

Can D/D staff power build work with Epidemic? I am determined to build around this skill since it’s such a neat skill, and quite frankly a direct damage/power/crit based build can be done so much better with pretty much any other class IMO. I still haven’t found the build yet that works for me though. If only MH dagger applied some kind of condition I could spread it would be gravy.

Necro’s need some serious work to be any good in end game pve but they are still somewhat useful when built in certain ways. I run mine as a beserker well bomber and focus on group condi removal skills to support my group like a guardian would in dungeons.

For example in coe most speedrun groups take 3 wars, 1 mes, 1 guard. The other day noone in my group had storymode complete on our alts so i switched from guardian to necro. Took well of power for when conditions were an issue and corrupt boon for the boon golem. Combined with mesmer boon strip we were able to keep boons off the golem for 90% of the fight and kill it pretty fast. A 3 war, 1 mes and 1 necro can actually be faster than with a guard because my build provides more dps than a guard would.

But these days i mostly use my necro for non dungeon content like guild missions and meta events.

Problem if you like damage is that you won’t like a dagger build on necro. It doesn’t really come with any damage other than the 1 skill. The other two skills are situational. If you are used to a class that can burst, you will not enjoy that.

You also don’t control the pace of the fight and cannot prevent disengage from other classes (not all, but most).

On the plus side, you run zerker with relative safety, your DS attacks hit very hard, you have amazing AOE with DS4, marks, Axe 3, staff attack to some degree, and wells. Your completely ignoring the mechanic of the necro some might argue by just blasting out damage ignoring your conditions, but it works quite well if you are not being focused.

My personal wish is that it wasn’t so difficult to boost condition damage and your physical damage and your condition duration, without sacking important food, rune, and trait slots. It becomes almost impossible to run a nice power/crit build, if you want to have longer lasting conditions, and rampagers lacks crit damage, which hurts a crit power build.

I am still hoping for more stat options, like condition damage, prec, crit damage, or the celestial stats on armor (all stats items).

While Necromancers are not “weak” in an absolute sense, it’s true they are “less strong”. If you’re looking for raw power and crit damage, roll a warrior. Especially if you think you’ll be doing a lot of PvE, it’s virtually impossible to be conversant in it without having a warrior alt anyway.

Darkheron.6271:

Iceflame.5024:

Every week is necro week oh yeeeeeah!!!!!! Non stop… every weeeek……

But regarding your topic I guess you could try out khalifas dagger power build. Try searching the forums for it, there’s a topic somewhere. Basically it’s a power build using staff and dagger/dagger with dagger 1 as the main damage.

Can D/D staff power build work with Epidemic? I am determined to build around this skill since it’s such a neat skill, and quite frankly a direct damage/power/crit based build can be done so much better with pretty much any other class IMO. I still haven’t found the build yet that works for me though. If only MH dagger applied some kind of condition I could spread it would be gravy.

I was actually looking into this very concept. The idea of using condition duration, with curses 25 trait, with zerker style gear, with epidemic. What I found happening though, was that if I took enough condition damage gear to make the epidemic worth-while, the direct damage was too weak, and visa versa.

The pure zerker build with wells, and the pure condition build with terror, just do so much better by themselves, that meeting somewhere in the middle doesn’t seem to help much (or at all). Rampagers I still like a lot, but the crits are just too weak.

I thought the OP wanted a power crit build strictly for tPVP and that’s why I named that Khalifa build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Khalifa-s-PVP-D-D-Necro-Build-Updated/first here it is, there’s even a video about it somewhere.

Iceflame.5024:

I thought the OP wanted a power crit build strictly for tPVP and that’s why I named that Khalifa build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Khalifa-s-PVP-D-D-Necro-Build-Updated/first here it is, there’s even a video about it somewhere.

Well based on that hes lvl 55 id assume hes playing PvE.

You need to L2DeathShroud… J/K

Grab a dagger, a focus, Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption, and with some liberal use of Lich Form you should be good to go. It’s very powerful in PVE/leveling.

I actually leveled from 0-80 with D/D – Staff. Did less damage than others (had a couple of self made bad builds) but still good with also pretty good survivability.

Meanwhile I’m using scepter/dagger – staff, due to the chill factor in W3 .. cuz I slowly want more challenge I’m seriously thinking about making a d/d power build again. Might test it a bit in PvP first though

Epidemic is kind of a waste with d/d as they do nearly no conditions by themself. Planning on trying out Spectral Wall, Blood is Power and Well of Darkness or Suffering. Though haven’t tried it out yet, so no rely on me

Note for leveling, minion damage is fixed to zone, thus they are quite overpowered till you hit orr, you can essencially just minion/mark bomb stuff from a small hill on that mobs cannot climb and win, but since you are around 5 levels away from that yeah just pick up what the guys above said.
Also be sure to pick up Lich form and 10 points into soul reaping for piercing Life Blasts, seeing one hit 5 things at once for 1-2k damage kinda makes up for the kitten long cast time.

what the kitten is that attatchment

Rennoko.5731:

My personal wish is that it wasn’t so difficult to boost condition damage and your physical damage and your condition duration, without sacking important food, rune, and trait slots.

I’m sorry but do you honestly not realize how incredibly ridiculous this sounds? Your only wish was that you could have everything…? Wha…?

ProxyDamage.9826:

Rennoko.5731:

My personal wish is that it wasn’t so difficult to boost condition damage and your physical damage and your condition duration, without sacking important food, rune, and trait slots.

I’m sorry but do you honestly not realize how incredibly ridiculous this sounds? Your only wish was that you could have everything…? Wha…?

What Ren means is, he wishes for better scailing and/or base damage on weapons, example Dagger (primary direct damage weapon for necros) 2 (in general power weapons main burst skills) in full soldier is 1.1k-4.4k damage, while Guardian GS 2 is 2.7-9.6k and that some of our conditions are returned to their pre ds nerf times when they all went from 5 to 10 seconds (fears being 2 or 3 long).

Last two weeks I spent on pvp as guard,ele,mesmer . My main character is necro .I have got over 1000 hours on this necro but few reflections after these weeks of playing different classes . Necro is much harder to master and I think that it is easier to roll on pvp as elem,mesmer or guard . Their mobility is much better , dmg is outstanding and killing 2 people in the same time is much easier than on necro . Condi necro is a bit useless on pvp for example guard . If you use corrupt bone in wrong moment against guard (or it will miss ) you are dead . Guard has got so many condi removers that it doesn`t make sense to keep fighting .(Guard can deal 3000 dmg in one shot using hammer ). In pve my fract lvl is 63 and it`s normal to have 2 or more guards . Nobody wants 2 necro ! some people say that its better to have elem or mesmer but not necro . I think necro need huge buff , maybe traits rebuild or new weapon because right now necro is worse in everything , but I still enjoy my necro and I will be playing as necro , I like playing as strong debuffer and it fits me maybe one day necro will be true lord of the death.

Andele.1306:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Rennoko.5731:

My personal wish is that it wasn’t so difficult to boost condition damage and your physical damage and your condition duration, without sacking important food, rune, and trait slots.

I’m sorry but do you honestly not realize how incredibly ridiculous this sounds? Your only wish was that you could have everything…? Wha…?

What Ren means is, he wishes for better scailing and/or base damage on weapons, example Dagger (primary direct damage weapon for necros) 2 (in general power weapons main burst skills) in full soldier is 1.1k-4.4k damage, while Guardian GS 2 is 2.7-9.6k and that some of our conditions are returned to their pre ds nerf times when they all went from 5 to 10 seconds (fears being 2 or 3 long).

Yes thanks for helping me clarify.

And that would hardly be everything… you do realize that ZERKER gear gives three stats that all synergize together to make a great armor set? I can run FULL zerker, and then run whatever food I want, or traits I want, or whatever, and it will still work nicely.

If I run condition damage armor…… what else can I do to help that work better? Well I can try to leverage the crit trait for more bleeds, or leverage condition duration, but there is no armor that allows me to do that.

Where is the condition damage, condition duration, precision armor? Then I could run say a crit-heal food, or endurance/might dodge roll food. I would have OPTIONS on how I wanted to play a condition class.

Right now it is very plain. You run duration food, you run rampagers/rabid/carrion, and you have to pick up traits to help duration or take spite to help duration if you want those conditions to synergize with your build.

I don’t want defensive stats…. I want to be a glass cannon condition player…. but taking rampagers just gives me some power that works good with crit, and not at all with condition damage, and I have to give up my primary stat to precision instead of condition damage.

If they made armor that was condition damage, condition damage, precision I would take that….. But the bottom line is, if you want stats that work well togther, and synergize to make a COMPLETE package, you take zerker, or you accept lower effectiveness. If I don’t need the toughness/vit to survive in the way I play, I shouldn’t be forced to take it. Zerker players aren’t.

Rennoko.5731:

Yes thanks for helping me clarify.

And that would hardly be everything… you do realize that ZERKER gear gives three stats that all synergize together to make a great armor set? I can run FULL zerker, and then run whatever food I want, or traits I want, or whatever, and it will still work nicely.

If I run condition damage armor…… what else can I do to help that work better? Well I can try to leverage the crit trait for more bleeds, or leverage condition duration, but there is no armor that allows me to do that.

You answered your own question. Crits. Rabid gear is my condition build gear of choice for a kitten reason – condition damage/precision/toughness. What else could you want?

You know why Berserker gear is power/prec/crit dmg? Because power is nothing without critical chance and critical damage. Because power is a base state, and criticals are multipliers. The damage increase from adding power is linear… But criticals are exponential…

Because you need all 3 to fully maximize your damage, you have berserker gear. But berserker gear isn’t necessarily the “bestest gear evurr!” – at least outside of PvE. It has absolutely no defensive properties. That’s why you have Knight’s gear, which is more widely used for a reason. It adds a compromise of good damage (power and precision), and defense (toughness or vitality, depends on the game mode for some odd reason).

…But conditions don’t have criticals…. They already deal max damage per tick with condition damage alone… No, condition duration isn’t the same. But do they have any other form of “enhancement”? Why yes! As it turns out, the best way to maximize your condition damage is to stack more conditions, specifically bleeds (most others don’t stack). Critical hits, on the other hand, are also widely used to moderate “on hit” effects. Namely, a lot of traits and sigils work “on criticals”. More importantly, most characters have a trait that gives them a chance to apply an additional bleed “on a critical hit”, and anyone can use sigils of earth (60% to add a bleed on crit).

But that’s only 2 stats… That means we have a free stat… Which can be used for defensive purposes – toughness.

And yes, I know what you’re going to say… In fact you already said it:

Rennoko.5731:

Where is the condition damage, condition duration, precision armor? Then I could run say a crit-heal food, or endurance/might dodge roll food. I would have OPTIONS on how I wanted to play a condition class.

[…]

I don’t want defensive stats…. I want to be a glass cannon condition player

What about “condition” duration…?

It’s a trap stat most of the times. Conditions, as you might have understood by now, don’t work like “white damage”. You put them on the enemy, and they tick away until they go out or are cleansed. They don’t have criticals. Outside of condition damage no other stat will actually raise the damage they do per tick. All you can do, is unload more of them. That’s how you get your “burst” as a condition build – you stack conditions.

All condition duration does is make your conditions run longer. It “adds damage”, yes. Potential damage at least… Except, it doesn’t really…

First, condition damage only ticks once per second, so any increment of less or more than a second is wasted. Second, conditions get removed. Third, condition duration is a fractional multiplier, generally with very low values. In short duration conditions it amounts to nothing (literally, because it doesn’t add up to a full extra second) and in long duration conditions it’s generally redundant, as condition will have been cleansed by then…

Let me put it another way: consider 20% condition duration – a pretty decent value. Now imagine a 10 second bleed, ticking for 100 damage – pretty decent duration and damage.

Before condition duration: 100 × 10 = 1000 total damage.
After condition duration: 100 × 12 = 1200 total damage.

Seems like a pretty “ok” increase, right? Except it’s a payoff you only notice after 10 seconds. The fight has to go on for 10 whole seconds, the condition has to remain “uncleansed”, the enemy can’t die, and you can’t die. At the end of those 10 seconds, you receive your extra 20% damage, provided all previous conditions were maintained. It’s a long term loan with interests.

In a game as fast paced as GW2, that’s just not worth that much… Most classes have a lot of condition removal. Even if they don’t remove all of your conditions all the time (obviously), they’ll remove a lot of them. And heal. And run away… etc. At the end of the day this is a game that emphasizes burst, even in prolonged “attrition” fights, more than linear long term sustained damage. Long term damage “bonuses” just doesn’t have that much expression. Especially in a game where conditions are constantly applied, cleansed and reapplied.

It’s a nice stat to have if you get it for free (or nearly), but in most cases it’s not worth sacrificing anything for. Especially not the toughness you can currently have in a condition build. Toughness is to health and vitality what Criticals and critical damage are to power…

This leads me to another issue – I don’t think you understand builds in this game.

Let’s look at this sentence again:

Rennoko.5731:

I don’t want defensive stats…. I want to be a glass cannon condition player

You want to be a glass cannon condition player… Why?

Question: What is the point of a glass cannon?

Answer: A build that relies on blowing up the opponent before they can do the same to you. Essentially, bursty builds. All damage, no defense.

But condition damage isn’t bursty… It’s slower, but impossible to mitigate except through removal. That’s the point of condition damage. It sacrifices the burst potential of “white damage” for DoT that ignores armor and protection.

Of course GW2 is still a “bursty” game – your conditions go in bursts, to be stacked, damage as much as possible, get cleansed and reapplied – but at no point will you be able to burst someone down as you can with white damage. If all other stats were equal, a white damage build will always destroy an equivalent condition damage build. Condition damage favors attrition. Which is why they usually come with higher defense – like toughness in Rabid. It doesn’t need criticals – it can’t have criticals, so it trades them for better defense.

Which is why a “glass cannon” condition build doesn’t make sense. It’s self-defeating. Like a boat that sucks water into itself as it goes. Even if there was such a thing as Condition damage/Condition duration/Precision gear why would anyone ever use it in lieu of rabid’s condition damage/precision/toughness?

If you want a “glass cannon” make a “white damage” build. Or an hybrid. That’s what Rampagers is there for – hybrid glass cannons.

Zenjii.6819:

what the kitten is that attatchment

That’s his build.

ProxyDamage.9826:

If you want a “glass cannon” make a “white damage” build. Or an hybrid. That’s what Rampagers is there for – hybrid glass cannons.

Even better, play a different class. As they have the proper defensive tools, mobility, and disengagement to make glass cannon builds viable. Facetank is not good synergy defense for glass cannon at all. Further even if you build for a glass canon too many of the necros skills and utilities are split with conditional effects and damage to get the most out of pure glass cannon builds that others can get. You are working against yourself, because as you say, attrition playstyle is too hardwired into our design to totally avoid it no matter what your build. If Necro had better sustain, say life steal was waaaay better, then it could work.

Necro is built to kill other players in between their bursts, when opponents best DPS is on cooldown, since we can’t match them in that regard, esp in regards to defensive elusiveness. Only problem is they run away a lot and get away after they burst, and we can’t lock them down like the devs claim is the Necro strength.

Warning: Scrub opinion

It might be my age but I had (have) a lot of trouble mucking around with the traits to extend durations especially with all the cleansing going on. BUT what I have done with my carrion condi wells build is opt for the 20% reduction in cooldowns on corruption, wells and staff skills….that means they are available 20% quicker therefore 20% more damage….it also means a lot more pressure with 12 sec epidemics etc on top of faster avaliabilities. That leaves a bit of leeway for other boosts and foods. It is a bit of a hyperactive build with very little time for auto attacking but I enjoy it.

TLDR: I use the cooldown reduction traits to give more damage due to m ore up-time rather than try and lengthen durations (usually cleansed anyway).