Guild Wars 2

WvW is Siphon viable for small skirmish, solo camps?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNBIhZaESrSPTTZjhPBIp4Zsne494iHpA5hB-jkyAYMBRCCIhBg+AlALiGb5sIasKGMNMRUtJnIq2bgJFQELAA-w

I run a siphon build so…

Let’s say that it’s viable for solo camps, 1v1 and zerg fight. It’s sligthly harder when facing multiple oponents or in small skirmish because this kind of build is way to weak against hard CC oponent. So it’s a matter of you being focused or not.

Dadnir.5038:

I run a siphon build so…

Let’s say that it’s viable for solo camps, 1v1 and zerg fight. It’s sligthly harder when facing multiple oponents or in small skirmish because this kind of build is way to weak against hard CC oponent. So it’s a matter of you being focused or not.

Thoughts on the build I linked? Dagger+Wells way to go?

I have found better success with not using wells and focusing on your weaknesses ie. mobility. Unfortunately any good player will move right out of your wells and you have to prolong the fight for them to come off cooldown. Majority of the time you won’t last that long.

Wells / siphon works well in solo pve / dungeons as group support (if your pals are melees).
In PvP / WvW…

For me wells are great in WvW but I have to keep in mind the timing factor.

I might use marks and fear to drive the enemy into a place my wells can be effective.

Most often I try to place them when I know my enemies are committed to their position as plenty of Warriors and Guardians do not like to give up on someone they have wounded.

I also like to get my wells behind Hunters and Mesmers that tend to back up using distance as their safe zone. I have caught many that way as they back right over them and now have to dodge out or scramble for an unexpected position.
While backing up in a moderately sized group or zerg ball. I have watched an enemy group melt as they walk right over top a field of marks and wells we were previously standing on.

Casting on walls or while on a wall down onto enemies at the gate are very powerful tools to have. Those guys manning flame rams are in no hurry to leave and often have to choose between the full damage or disengaging.

I don’t think wells are the utilities that most roamer/zerker build tend to favor. I think you can have more useful options than a well that your enemy can simply avoid when playing with a more solo/small encounter style.

Most of my experience in WvW has been in T1 and T2. I did not enjoy playing my necro as a zerker power/crit build there very much. There were too many zerg encounters that I just could not survive with such a build.

Not really. It’s ok, decent in PvE but that’s about it.

Compared with the Elementalist water attunement or the Thief’s heal in stealth it’s laughable.

I’m runing something more like this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQRBHhhu1IjWleymmG/mCQqA2TP8mbxjPgM9h1B-jExAYMwsXR0YV2YaYioaA-w

And yes I feel the axe is more the way to go cause perma retaliation is wonderfull in groupe fight . When I use staff, I usually equip it in place of dagger/focus and change to trait II in death magic.

I’ve had good results with it in PvE. I use Axe/Horn Dagger/Dagger and swap constantly between the two.

The big thing is lining up your channels as they are major sources for your vampirism, as well as clustering mobs to be simultaniously struck by your AoEs. Every hit procs it.

My biggest suggestion would be to use the debuff weakness as much as possible. Mitigation multiplies the effectiveness of siphoning since you have less damage coming in to heal up. That being said, I also suggest high toughness to reduce damage. I rock mostly knights gear with some Valkyrie interspersed for health and crit power.

It is very much an attrition build so plan your fights accordingly.

It can and should be made better (made argument ad naseum) but it is quiet viable traited when coupled with power.

In PVE it works really well, npcs are stupid, clump together and wont move or dodge any of the damage from wells. This can increase your healing from well of blood by huge amounts on some fights, its cracking.

WvW zergs are slightly less stupid, they will dodge some of the damage but will inevitably take some of it when you throw a well down into a blob.

In pvp you will get nothing, apart from maybe non-shatter mesmers, everyone knows to move out of the bad circle lines and the return for your investment will be zero. Tpvp games are teams of 5, hence you will never see the maximum possible return from well pulses, and even if you managed to somehow pin one player down inside a well for the full 5 sec duration, you’d gain 500 health from it, hardly a remarkable return for an unrealistic best-possible situation.

Im using D/F + Staff

Full PTV. My DS hurst like a truck