Guild Wars 2

Seems like all I see these days are cele signet necros or reapers, all running the same three signets: signet of the locust, plague signet, and signet of spite. Is anyone else getting tired of seeing this build in every PvP match they play?

I understand why it’s popular: cele signet necro does just about everything well: might stacking, condi transfers, boon corruption, mobility (from SotL), team condi cleanse (from plague signet), and they also have the lowest-CD stunbreak that necro has available (24s traited). In addition, plague signet will always hit, even when the necro is blinded.

I guess my issue is that signet necro isn’t the only strong necro build. There are a ton of strong and/or viable necro builds. However, with that being said, signet necro is the only build that does everything you could ask for and simply can’t be countered. I think power classes with a lot of CC are probably the best option for fighting against them, but even then I would argue that the necro probably has the advantage in that fight.

I guess I’m just a little disappointed that with all the builds that reaper has made possible, I’m still seeing the same one that I’ve seen for the past year. In my experience, there is usually at least one necro on each team in every PvP match, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a necro or reaper who wasn’t running a signet build. Is anyone else tired of seeing this build?

OP you might as well be my best friend ever.

I grew tired of the signet builds back in august, so to see more of the same is just saddening to me, along with the complete death of reaper build diversity with almost every builds taking spite and soul reaping.

I’ve run condi reaper with curses and master of corruption and with shouts and I honestly think those give condi reaper way more sustain and better spike pressure.

And yes, vampirism signet healing for barely more than 4K on celestial with a crappy active is a fail cele build to me.

Which is why I stopped using traps a loooong time ago :^)

Power BB reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGovGs2GwlGgeTsgLYxXxuYYkKN0GeWQXtAQLA-TZRGABA8AA6uMwBnBAQ2fwgDBAA

Condi Curses Reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo2GsvGw5GgeTscMYx5wfYRkaJ8EmVR9stVAA-TZhHwACOEAAeAAILDE4MAAa/BA

I find these builds a lot more engaging to play then standard signets, and both do quite well. Unfortunately power reaper can be easily countered in high tier PvP

Holl.3109:

Which is why I stopped using traps a loooong time ago :^)

Power BB reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGovGs2GwlGgeTsgLYxXxuYYkKN0GeWQXtAQLA-TZRGABA8AA6uMwBnBAQ2fwgDBAA

Condi Curses Reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo2GsvGw5GgeTscMYx5wfYRkaJ8EmVR9stVAA-TZhHwACOEAAeAAILDE4MAAa/BA

I find these builds a lot more engaging to play then standard signets, and both do quite well. Unfortunately power reaper can be easily countered in high tier PvP

Holl, I find Soldier ammy is the way to go for power Reaper. Necros have always excelled with bruiser builds (within their limits) and Reaper uses the bruiser playstyle to even greater success. Also, traited shouts on a Reaper are surprisingly impressive.

I see the point of your build, but I’m wondering if you’ve tried what I mentioned

Holl.3109:

Which is why I stopped using traps a loooong time ago :^)

Power BB reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGovGs2GwlGgeTsgLYxXxuYYkKN0GeWQXtAQLA-TZRGABA8AA6uMwBnBAQ2fwgDBAA

Condi Curses Reaper: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo2GsvGw5GgeTscMYx5wfYRkaJ8EmVR9stVAA-TZhHwACOEAAeAAILDE4MAAa/BA

I find these builds a lot more engaging to play then standard signets, and both do quite well. Unfortunately power reaper can be easily countered in high tier PvP

When I run Maurader I run almost the same exact build (great build) but you are wasting your native 54.% crit chance by not running at least one fire and or sigil (I am greedy so run 2x) The last thing our build needs is more might, air or fire would be WAY better than strength sigil IMO. Cant argue with hydro or energy though, but do try the air/fire (esp air with dagger) Just one air sigil would increase your DPS by significantly more than the chilling nova trait

Sig viper with rune that gives aegis on Sig use is fun…. and not cele Sig :p

The strength sigil and all the crit chance are what give him some sustain in shroud and extra lifeforce out of it. More might is never bad =)

Signet necro is still popular because it’s one of the few vanilla builds that’s still viable and is still the only real counter to boom spammers. Running into a Rev/Tempest/Scrapper who has 25 stacks of might is suicide in most cases, so boon stripping is really important.

NeXeD.3042:

The strength sigil and all the crit chance are what give him some sustain in shroud and extra lifeforce out of it. More might is never bad =)

This exactly. I have more than enough damage with dagger/RS, so the strength sigil is more for spammable might stacks which will in turn make you quite durable as a marauder reaper

-key trait is blighter’s boon

Vydahr.4285:

Holl, I find Soldier ammy is the way to go for power Reaper. Necros have always excelled with bruiser builds (within their limits) and Reaper uses the bruiser playstyle to even greater success. Also, traited shouts on a Reaper are surprisingly impressive.

I see the point of your build, but I’m wondering if you’ve tried what I mentioned

I’ll be honest, I have not >.> I’m a big fan of ‘go damage or go home’ builds, so I rarely choose soldiers amu. I know the soldier build is good too, just showing off another build

shrugs I’ve been running a shout/chill focused build. I take Suffer, Rise, Chill to the Bone and just yell at people until they die.

Holl.3109:

Vydahr.4285:

Holl, I find Soldier ammy is the way to go for power Reaper. Necros have always excelled with bruiser builds (within their limits) and Reaper uses the bruiser playstyle to even greater success. Also, traited shouts on a Reaper are surprisingly impressive.

I see the point of your build, but I’m wondering if you’ve tried what I mentioned

I’ll be honest, I have not >.> I’m a big fan of ‘go damage or go home’ builds, so I rarely choose soldiers amu. I know the soldier build is good too, just showing off another build

One of my favorite Soldier Reaper moments: Enemy team is zerging in Khylo. This irritates me. I go help a teammate take far and kill a couple enemy fighters. Then I camp their spawn to keep them from zerging. And let me tell you. A Soldier Reaper can be a huge pain in the kitten if played even marginally well in that situation. (Normally I don’t spawn camp, but the little zergers had it coming)

this is what i use and having fun with it as long as i have some group support till i get LF

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGozGs2GwlGgeTs8LYxLxo4UkaLMGCWQJtAwHA-TZxFwARLDk4MA8e/BAPAAEHCAA

Is cele signets really still a thing?
I can’t remember the last time I saw a signet necro, certainly not since HoT was released.
Also, I’m glad it’s going extinct because it was never a good build to begin with.

flow.6043:

Is cele signets really still a thing?
I can’t remember the last time I saw a signet necro, certainly not since HoT was released.
Also, I’m glad it’s going extinct because it was never a good build to begin with.

You play Hot Join or something? Carion or celestial signet reaper is still goin strong.

flow.6043:

Is cele signets really still a thing?
I can’t remember the last time I saw a signet necro, certainly not since HoT was released.
Also, I’m glad it’s going extinct because it was never a good build to begin with.

every necro i see running signet carrion or cele…. (i play mid high tier)

I decided to try a Settler’s Reaper for the funsies. Look at dat team healing…

Acotje.5689:

…

messiah.1908:

…

Like I said, I haven’t seen a signet necro in ages, and I regularly play both PvP and WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Look at dat team healing…

Healing to Allies includes rezzing, ~500k is still impressive though.

flow.6043:

Acotje.5689:

…

messiah.1908:

…

Like I said, I haven’t seen a signet necro in ages, and I regularly play both PvP and WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Look at dat team healing…

Healing to Allies includes rezzing, ~500k is still impressive though.

I’m more impressed how he was able to do 500k damage with a settlers amulet.

NeXeD.3042:

flow.6043:

Acotje.5689:

…

messiah.1908:

…

Like I said, I haven’t seen a signet necro in ages, and I regularly play both PvP and WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Look at dat team healing…

Healing to Allies includes rezzing, ~500k is still impressive though.

I’m more impressed how he was able to do 500k damage with a settlers amulet.

It makes me really sad, considering that’s the highest I’ve ever gotten on Soldier ammy

Yeah that is a crap ton of healing. Back when I was messing around with druid (before the changed CAF gain) I’d get around 350K healing to allies, and Tempest is generally 200-300K healing to allies and well chronomancer is 100-200K.

I think she can probably afford to take scepter with settlers now that its been buffed.

On my current wanderer condi build I usually do 500K condi damage per game.

Vydahr.4285:

NeXeD.3042:

I’m more impressed how he was able to do 500k damage with a settlers amulet.

It makes me really sad, considering that’s the highest I’ve ever gotten on Soldier ammy

Here are some screens I made. All played with a rampager amulet.

I suspect the first one has that much Damage Dealt because it included a lord kill on Legacy. All npcs combined probably add up to a lot of hp.
(2+3 was Kyhlo, 4 was Legacy but no lord kill).
As you can see on meow’s mini map they didn’t go for the lord. But their match ran out of time. I on the other hand had 3-4 min left in each match. So considering all that, it seems pretty reasonable that a settler amulet would do 300k/280k in 15 minutes.

Btw, as you can see in my screenshots, the Healing to Allies stat is exclusively produced by rezzing. You can almost tell how often I was rezzing someone in each match.

That’s some crazy healing.

/applaud

About thread topic, I’ve always been a power necro guy. I thought cele signet was kinda slow but I liked it because it helped put necros back on the map. I’d hate to say this on the pvp forum but I love having necro teammates. In soloQ gameplay, necros have been stacking well these days. When I saw my team had 3 necros, I swapped from engie.

Do you guys have luck with stacked necros when you soloQ?

Well, that got more attention than I expected. Here’s the build used. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZ6kjGo2GsaTwcTgeTsoNYTBgQ2BIOCmB/gUlgUQjC-TpRHwAQLDM4BAU4EAE4QAUa/BAHBAA

It has its faults. Namely it’s designed specifically for team fights, but if the team doesn’t coordinate it’s just a below average bunker. I used Dagger/Warhorn because the other team had a Diamond Skin Ele, and I would’ve been beyond useless at trying to take them down. If you feel like using Signet of Locust you can get 10k+ heals against 5 targets.

Here’s the last game I played for the day with Settlers. Funny enough it is against most of the same people that were on my team last screenshot. ~500k team healing (and 270k self) is much harder to get than the ~470k total damage. Since flow brought it up, this game ended with 4:22 left.

meow one twenty.4376:

I decided to try a Settler’s Reaper for the funsies. Look at dat team healing…

Lol that’s insane healing! More than double my Tempest

Vapour.7348:

That’s some crazy healing.

/applaud

About thread topic, I’ve always been a power necro guy. I thought cele signet was kinda slow but I liked it because it helped put necros back on the map. I’d hate to say this on the pvp forum but I love having necro teammates. In soloQ gameplay, necros have been stacking well these days. When I saw my team had 3 necros, I swapped from engie.

Do you guys have luck with stacked necros when you soloQ?

Yo I love having necro teammates in SoloQ. Here’s a recent 4 necro team on my main necro currently on carrion. What power build are you running? My two alt necros run power and cele sig.

Pimsley.3681:

meow one twenty.4376:

I decided to try a Settler’s Reaper for the funsies. Look at dat team healing…

Lol that’s insane healing! More than double my Tempest

You sir, should be banned from the necro forum for posting a Tempest screenie.

Running core necro marauder power wells d/w/staff atm. Diamond skin counters condi reaper chills so bad it’s kittened. Core necro could also survive against daredevils. Condi reaper does not. Annoying how scrub daredevils think they’re the kitten for easily countering condi reapers. Sorry mate, I never liked thieves in the first place.

I still love the Cele Sig build. I’ve been running it for awhile but I also love playing power build too ( if my team are willing to let me lol ) I’ve tweaked it a little where as I take reaper instead of DS. As for my elite I now use “Chilled To the Bone”. I like Chill condi as it freezes target in place. I’ve see some other MM’s out there ( I feel meh about the build tbh) and a no sig build ….probably a cracker jack home-made kind.

I don’t run cele with that build…and I don’t use the healing signet because I don’t think it’s even close to other heals…
I also use different traits that the meta… So I really don’t run this build I guess. People still whine that I’m running cele on a knights build…

fun build is using wells, spectral walk, and chill to the bone with mad king rune in team fights is some super fun stuff

I find signets to be rather fun and active since boon corruption is so essential right now. It’s a unique play style that gives necros their niche in pvp. Can it get stale? Yeah, but think about all the other classes stuck into builds as well.

atfer getting diamond (I main Ele), I tried out tons of sustainy/tanky necro-builds (cuz I think glassy necro builds are just a bad version of rev with less mobility that die very easily) and IMHO there are a few builds that can work in the current meta. What I was looking for in the builds was:

- Can hold a point against most 1v1’s (I think having like 1 bad MU is okay) and has maybe one or two 1v1’s he can win.
- Does well in teamfights (AoE, support or sth. like that)
- deals decent dmg, comparable to that of cele-tempest and other more defensive/supporty builds.
- Maybe offers sth. unique that other builds don’t or does sth. better than them

slightly tankier Signet Necro:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW4Yn0ICV2gd2AebC0biFcBLuK2FDjUph2wzC6qFAWAA-TZxFABnfQASf/BAeCAIcBAaqMAA

- “Rise!” is IMHO the key to surviving in teamfights and to get yourself an advantage in certain MU’s (like mesmer or ranger). It just absorbs so much dmg that I’ll likely use this in every necro build. If you’re having problem surviving against focused DMG, doesn’t matter what build you run, try using this shout, it helps a huge amount.
- In all the builds I use mainhand dagger, cuz it generates tons of Lifeforce and you’re able to deal dmg through resistance/diamond skin.
- Offhand Dagger works really well in this build, because I think it needs a bit more condi-removal, doesn’t need the swiftness and there are so many builds with tons of stability, that I don’t really like the daze as much anymore on the warhorn.
- I think Blighters boon just offers so much sustain and conditions get negated so easily, that it’s for me a clear choice over deathly chill on this build.
- I use durability runes cuz they extend the duration of might, which is where tons of DMG comes from. Also, they give more survivability which is needed on the necro, cuz you’ll be focused first in almost every situation.
- I use the quickness sigil on the dagger, cuz I love it to quickly cast the heal signet or the elite shout. It’s also good for quickness-rezzes, stomps and a few guaranteed dagger-1 spams.

The build is strong in 1v1’s against rev’s, condi-builds in general and can hold the point against ele builds if you don’t get knocked back. It does fairly well against druids, which is IMHO the best 1v1-class.
In teamfights, the boonstrip and the massive AoE comes in very handy. Some condition-removal/control is decent as well.

Shout-Necro
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmQD7kZToaTsdTwbTgeTsgLYxVxuYYkKN0GeWQXtAQLA-TZxFwABOIAC3fAwTAAxFAoZZAA

A very tanky Necro that’s very hard to kill in teamfights. Offers more teamsupport with the soldier runes, but has less boonstrip.
I really like how hard to kill this build is and how easy it is to just have tons of lifeforce in teamfights (“your soul is mine!” + “you are all weaklings”+blighters boon alone generate up to 20% and 10% instantly with ridiculously low CD’s.
Like on the other Necro, most of the DMG comes from reapers shroud and the mightstacks, so with more lifeforce comes more DMG! ^^’

I really like these two builds the most and they seem to work quite well on the higher MMR metagame that is filled with tempest, rev’s, bunker-mesmers and other stuff that used to just laugh at necro, at least before the latest small patch.

Why would I be tired of signet builds that are effective against some tougher opponents/builds? There’s a reason people use signet builds…it’s simply because signets are effective against a lot of the builds you see the higher pvp rank you go. I personally enjoy signets, but then I also enjoy being competitive and not get hard countered.

Ironically the class that can give signet builds trouble is the reaper class, played by good reapers. I find fights against reapers a toss up because it comes down to condi transfer management and timely use of cc’s.

btw I love running a signet build that includes traited Suffer & Chilled to the bone shouts. In team fights Suffer is a 12 second condi transfer skill when traited. More condi transfer is always a good thing as you know the higher MMR the more condi issues.

gavyne.6847:

Why would I be tired of signet builds that are effective against some tougher opponents/builds? There’s a reason people use signet builds…it’s simply because signets are effective against a lot of the builds you see the higher pvp rank you go. I personally enjoy signets, but then I also enjoy being competitive and not get hard countered.

Ironically the class that can give signet builds trouble is the reaper class, played by good reapers. I find fights against reapers a toss up because it comes down to condi transfer management and timely use of cc’s.

btw I love running a signet build that includes traited Suffer & Chilled to the bone shouts. In team fights Suffer is a 12 second condi transfer skill when traited. More condi transfer is always a good thing as you know the higher MMR the more condi issues.

Tbh gw2 is so easy and requires so little skill to play that almost any build can work if you rotate well and can play it mechanically well (which is easy since this game is so easy). Thats kinda why I’ve lost interest, because HoT has made most of the popular builds in the game feel like a cheap, cheesy, spamfest.

Though I will say that Rise with necromantic corruption (death magic) is cool, since it turns that shout into a mini-transient plague signet, and the traitline gives you overall a huge defensive boost.

I’ve been pretty tired of it since pretty much always simply because i just don’t like running it and most of the necros i see using it just try to might stack, get boon ripped and then cry when they cant burst you because all their damage comes from that might (i don’t like when my burst is that easy to cripple)…. That being said i’ve always just sorta been the kind of person to ignore metas, and managed to create a terrormancer reaper that used wells which apparently performed well (no pun intended) enough to warrant someone telling me to kill myself and get cancer for “being an unoriginal cancer scrub” or something like that, which i take as a major compliment, especially considering they were running DH.

Still using signets when I’m a necro, no point not too. PS is unreal, sol is a good second heal, and vamp signet is good enough. Only time I wouldn’t use signets is if I don’t go spite.. wouldn’t recommend not taking spite though.

good ol’ rabid terrormancer is fun
and wellmancer is amusing for downstate cleave, its a guaranteed extra downed enemy body most of the time
then again, I’m in amber
add to that: i’m a vanilla pleb, so i go by what little options i have

is it just me or is gw2skills down for every one. I am trying to view some of your builds and I just can’t seem to get it to work