Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to ask for opinions on soldier stats for wvw roaming?

Would a full soldier set up be viable for solo roaming as a necro?

no you will do no damage.

Only if you are an MM, otherwise like said above you really deal pretty low damage.

Yes you can but it is not smart. Because using mostly defensive gear means long or neverending fights, that normally are decided by addditional players (enemies or allies). Both are things you dont want as necr (disengaging is near impossible for necros) Going offensive gear is the better choice in most cases.

Dire is what I use. My armor is full Dire, my trinkets and weapons are all Rabid. Good survivability and high damage. As long as you’re not trying to facetank everything you should have plenty of room for mistakes.

I have used two armor sets in the game recently while roaming; Soldier+ Cavalier and also Zerker armor. In my experience, Yes, you can use soldier and roam pretty good, but it depends on where you put it.

Having as little pieces as possible is pretty much the goal and its better on bigger armor pieces, never accessories. I actually hit harder on my personal soldier set because my zerker armor + Cavalier accessories is pretty bad compared to zerker accessories + Soldier/cavalier armor when building a balanced build. So yes, you can work it in, but you have to make sure you still have lots of zerker related pieces because otherwise it will literally take forever and you will just be rolled over by the next incoming zerg. Base damage is good on soldier, yes, but critting can speed up fights hella fast and if you are critting, you might as well get crit damage.

This is my experience. so tl;dr, If you are roaming, you want to survive but not take forever because you arent escaping anything without death bodies. critting is needed.

:| Also, why are you bringing up Condi stuff when this is a direct damage stat talk, spellofiniquity? of course Dire has high damage, because the 3 main stats you need for condition damage are built into the traitlines and food. Condi, Condi duration, precision. Most Necromancers would build soldier are missing two key components to the perfect build; crit chance and crit damage. 1 of these gates another and its the one that is most sought after (crit chance).

Yeah I’m trying to build a power setup that does dmg but makes me not so squishy. I tried dire condi but I hate the play style of condi because I feel it is slow and I am impatient I guess haha. I’m used to fast attacks and scepter swing is so slow. If anyone can help me with a power build like this then it would be cool.

Soldiers amor and Berserker trinkets will work.
Cavalier + Berserker is nice too (that´s what i use).

30/10/0/0/30 or 20/0/0/20/30 Build, both are working.
U can use alot of utilitys. If u have traveler/speedrune you don´t need signet of the locust.
Corrupt Boon, Fleshwurm, Spectral Grasp or armor are nice.

Weapons ? I use staff and dagger/dagger or dagger/focus.

Yes, you can and yes, your dmg will be lower than zerker (obviously) but I never had problems to take camps or kill up to 3-4 player at the same time by myself (soldier or not, enemies zerkers melt very fast and their very high dmg is worthless against a soldier necro).
Also, I was able to tank big (and I mean BIG) zergs.

The build was 20/0/20/30/0 with minions (all but wurm) or wells (with consume conditions and plague form).

About power builds: like Norjena mentioned 30/10/0/0/30 is your friend. I’m using it with full zerker and the dmg is priceless.

I use consume conditions, signets, plague form and D/D-Staff but the main source of dmg come from DS.

daimasei.4091:

I never had problems to … kill up to 3-4 player at the same time by myself
…
Also, I was able to tank big (and I mean BIG) zergs.

cool story

daimasei.4091:

The build was 20/0/20/30/0 with minions

wot

daimasei.4091:

…and their very high dmg is worthless against a soldier necro.

…

daimasei.4091:

I use … signets, …

You must be trolling.

Loyo.8526:

I have used two armor sets in the game recently while roaming; Soldier+ Cavalier and also Zerker armor. In my experience, Yes, you can use soldier and roam pretty good, but it depends on where you put it.

Having as little pieces as possible is pretty much the goal and its better on bigger armor pieces, never accessories. I actually hit harder on my personal soldier set because my zerker armor + Cavalier accessories is pretty bad compared to zerker accessories + Soldier/cavalier armor when building a balanced build. So yes, you can work it in, but you have to make sure you still have lots of zerker related pieces because otherwise it will literally take forever and you will just be rolled over by the next incoming zerg. Base damage is good on soldier, yes, but critting can speed up fights hella fast and if you are critting, you might as well get crit damage.

This is my experience. so tl;dr, If you are roaming, you want to survive but not take forever because you arent escaping anything without death bodies. critting is needed.

:| Also, why are you bringing up Condi stuff when this is a direct damage stat talk, spellofiniquity? of course Dire has high damage, because the 3 main stats you need for condition damage are built into the traitlines and food. Condi, Condi duration, precision. Most Necromancers would build soldier are missing two key components to the perfect build; crit chance and crit damage. 1 of these gates another and its the one that is most sought after (crit chance).

I brought it up because he didn’t specify that it was a “direct damage talk.” He just asked if Soldier’s was viable.
Imho, it’s not unless you want to either make your enemy give up because they can’t kill you or you like to take forever to kill someone. Soldier Necro’s have terrible damage unless you’re mixing in other stats like Berserker. Either way, if you’re roaming, conditions are the way to go.

Aevis.4632:

Yeah I’m trying to build a power setup that does dmg but makes me not so squishy. I tried dire condi but I hate the play style of condi because I feel it is slow and I am impatient I guess haha. I’m used to fast attacks and scepter swing is so slow. If anyone can help me with a power build like this then it would be cool.

Roll Warrior if you’re impatient. I’ll have fun melting you with my conditions.

Mystogan.4157:

no you will do no damage.

158K kills later, I call serious hogwash on this given I have exclusively been using Soldiers with my long-standing frontline necro tank build….. some will always remain clueless. =.=

Rigel.3092:

Mystogan.4157:

no you will do no damage.

158K kills later, I call serious hogwash on this given I have exclusively been using Soldiers with my long-standing frontline necro tank build….. some will always remain clueless. =.=

Frontline Necro | : Killing people in zergs doesn’t count. They could have any number of conditions on them or extremely low health as is. I call hogwash as well.

Edit… tl;dr: Recommending Soldier’s make people scream, while recommending Knight’s/Cavalier’s seems OK. I can see a difference in “damage distribution”, but not a significant difference in average damage. What do I miss?

A bit off topic but can someone help me with the math.

I’m used to conditions, and I’ve started to look at the math behind power builds recently and came up with the following to get a ”damage index” to compare gear.

Power * CritChance * (1.5 + CritDamage) + Power * (1 – CritChance)

I usually run with a build based on 20/20/0/0/20 (and experiment with the last 10), and I can’t see an earth shattering difference when mixing Knight’s, Cavalier’s and Soldier’s. Not in theory nor in practice. Especially not after adding bonuses like Maintenance Oil. What I do see is a difference in ”damage distribution” (which isn’t strange).

Now… my findings doesn’t match most of your comments and I seriously guess I’m doing something very wrong since I’m new to power builds. Can someone shed some light on the issue?

It’s a different story if I mix pure offensive gear like Berserker’s or Assassin’s, but that’s not what I’m asking about. The OP uses his armor for roaming, and maybe some pure offensive gear is more relevant to him. I use my power build in small guild runs, and I feel I need some sustain in those situations.

jpersson.7368:

Edit… tl;dr: Recommending Soldier’s make people scream, while recommending Knight’s/Cavalier’s seems OK. I can see a difference in “damage distribution”, but not a significant difference in average damage. What do I miss?

I think I got it… I forgot to account for the weapon prefixes. My bad.