Guild Wars 2

This is probably nothing new to most of you but I just found out Spectral Armor can give pretty OP sustain against Condi burst!
In the past I used Spectral Armor as a stun break + LF refill only and thought it was a utility that works against physical damage only with its protection boon.
Having watched the PvP Noscoc use his though, I realized it is not just a stunbreak + means to gain Lifeforce and doesn’t just work against physical damage.
You can use it to soak condi burst damage extremely well if you activate it first then enter shroud immediately after.

I’ve been thinking hard about what utilities would work best against a condi Chrono who loads and deny my transfers through invis/blocks/evades/F4 without having to change my entire build to anti-condi.

• I tried Well of Power but it was too slow. Converting one condi per pulse wasn’t fast enough against the loads of condi.
• I tried Plague Signet but good Chronos load and deny your transfers so it wasn’t that useful for opening engages.
• I tried Consume Conditions but again against good Chronos, they will be looking to deny you that heal especially in the opening exchanges.
• I tried “Suffer!”shout and it was decent to clear condi on to the Chrono’s clones but it wasn’t enough condi clearance.

By using Spectral Armor then entering shroud when I got condi loaded, I could survive the burst. It would work very similarly to the Revenant’s Infuse Light that heals based on damage taken. The Shroud remains full for 6 seconds when I activate Spectral Armor and enter shroud after taking a load of condi burst. This would actually outlast some of the Chrono’s initial countermeasures when he tries to deny your transfers like evades or F4 invulnerable etc.

I just tried it against a very skilled Viper Chrono earlier in WvW (wasn’t using Moa though).
Won the first fight. Lost the second one after a close fight due to bad rotation from me as I was still trying to get used to the idea of using Spectral Armor against a Condi enemy lol.

If you already know about this, just ignore me.
Super excited to find a good utility against those Condi Chronos and condi any class that knows how to deny our transfers.
If they use Moa though…it would be a different story…much harder to dodge if they do it from invis…I usually save one dodge for when they go invis…then the other dodge for when they try it without invis…which means no dodge for their bursts which I would need to transfer or clear them…and Spectral Armor was incredible to help me sustain through a condi burst!

I read that the original death shroud reduced incoming damage by half. Does Reaper’s shroud do the same and does it also stack with protection? Because that would be awesome lol (and maybe that is what you are experiencing).

EremiteAngel.9765:

This is probably nothing new to most of you but I just found out Spectral Armor can give pretty OP sustain against Condi burst!
In the past I used Spectral Armor as a stun break + LF refill only and thought it was a utility that works against physical damage only with its protection boon.
Having watched the PvP Noscoc use his though, I realized it is not just a stunbreak + means to gain Lifeforce and doesn’t just work against physical damage.
You can use it to soak condi burst damage extremely well if you activate it first then enter shroud immediately after.

I’ve been thinking hard about what utilities would work best against a condi Chrono who loads and deny my transfers through invis/blocks/evades/F4 without having to change my entire build to anti-condi.

• I tried Well of Power but it was too slow. Converting one condi per pulse wasn’t fast enough against the loads of condi.
• I tried Plague Signet but good Chronos load and deny your transfers so it wasn’t that useful for opening engages.
• I tried Consume Conditions but again against good Chronos, they will be looking to deny you that heal especially in the opening exchanges.
• I tried “Suffer!”shout and it was decent to clear condi on to the Chrono’s clones but it wasn’t enough condi clearance.

By using Spectral Armor then entering shroud when I got condi loaded, I could survive the burst. It would work very similarly to the Revenant’s Infuse Light that heals based on damage taken. The Shroud remains full for 6 seconds when I activate Spectral Armor and enter shroud after taking a load of condi burst. This would actually outlast some of the Chrono’s initial countermeasures when he tries to deny your transfers like evades or F4 invulnerable etc.

I just tried it against a very skilled Viper Chrono earlier in WvW (wasn’t using Moa though).
Won the first fight. Lost the second one after a close fight due to bad rotation from me as I was still trying to get used to the idea of using Spectral Armor against a Condi enemy lol.

If you already know about this, just ignore me.
Super excited to find a good utility against those Condi Chronos and condi any class that knows how to deny our transfers.
If they use Moa though…it would be a different story…much harder to dodge if they do it from invis…I usually save one dodge for when they go invis…then the other dodge for when they try it without invis…which means no dodge for their bursts which I would need to transfer or clear them…and Spectral Armor was incredible to help me sustain through a condi burst!

Try “Nothing Can Save You!” + Plague Signet combo, I find it’s the best combo to deal with chronos, also cause with so many illusions the shout’s CD it’s laughable if traited.

Pretty sure Spectral Armor (and Walk) don’t give life force on condi ticks.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Pretty sure Spectral Armor (and Walk) don’t give life force on condi ticks.

Pretty sure as well.

However, it’s right to say that using spectral armor right before entering in shroud allow one to soak a lot of damage. Thought that’s nothing new, you just need to take physical damage every second.

Doesn’t affect ticks, or at least never has historically.

yes shroud reduces direct damage by 50% (baseline so it doesn’t stack with active reductions)

for example hit for 1000 will hit for 500 in DS, if you have protection it will hit for 333 and if you have shambling horror it will take 33% from that so you only get hit for 222

thats why conditions melt death shroud very fast and direct damage just fast.

Sublimatio.6981:

yes shroud reduces direct damage by 50% (baseline so it doesn’t count for active reductions)
thats why conditions melt death shroud very fast and direct damage just fast.

Last I tested it also halved condition damage. Easy to test in the mists with self inflicted conditions while in shroud and see how much you lose with Condi on Vs how much you lose naturally every second.

i just tried and you are correct, so its not only direct damage.
still, there are much more sources of direct dmg reduction that stack together so shroud protects better against it

Sublimatio.6981:

i just tried and you are correct, so its not only direct damage.
still, there are much more sources of direct dmg reduction that stack together so shroud protects better against it

True. Though damage mitigation has diminishing returns due to how it functions multiplicitivly.

Popping shroud and using infusing terror will reduce incoming damage and condition damage by 60% which is fairly big.

yeah but still extremely weak compared to other classes which can invuln or block entire end-of-the-world type of damage

Sublimatio.6981:

yeah but still extremely weak compared to other classes which can invuln or block entire end-of-the-world type of damage

Its reactionary since those two methods of defence do not work against conditions already applied to you. There are 5 things i believe in game that mitigate condition damage instead of negating it and necro have 3 of these, 2 of which are incredibly available and require almost no investment.

Corrupter’s Fervor, Infusing Terror…

That’s it on Necro.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Corrupter’s Fervor, Infusing Terror…

That’s it on Necro.

Shroud and its inherent 50% reduction. Tops out at 68% reduction to condition damage with all 3.

How did you test this?

I tried it with some conditions i got from npcs in PvE, and I tried it with self inflicted corruption condis in both PvE and HotM. Spectral Armor did nothing.

flow.6043:

How did you test this?

I tried it with some conditions i got from npcs in PvE, and I tried it with self inflicted corruption condis in both PvE and HotM. Spectral Armor did nothing.

Conditions don’t appear out of nowhere. Spectral armour grants LF when in shroud when getting hit. Shroud lasts longer. Shroud has natural-50% condi damage. e.g you can soak up way more condi burst with SA than without

what Flow meant is that spectral armor doesn’t give life force when conditions tick on you. Which is correct, because OP post is a total lie.

Sublimatio.6981:

what Flow meant is that spectral armor doesn’t give life force when conditions tick on you. Which is correct, because OP post is a total lie.

The way the OP reads I felt it was implied that you are still getting hit for it to work the way described. because everyone knows spectral armour doesn’t function against the ticking of conditions. Just worded badly in places.

So the message is basically: life force can mitigate damage?

Cool, thanks. But the title and wall of text in the first post certainly imply more.

Sry it seems like I was mistaken.
I think what I experienced during the fight with the chrono was:
Chrono shatter burst > I used SA and entered shroud > chrono continued to shatter and burst. His repeated attacks after I used SA plus shroud was probably what kept my LF full despite being heavily loaded with condi.

My bad on the post. I did initially think the condi damage ticks was refilling my shroud.

And uh… in spite of my nooby understanding, I did actually survive a few fights opening exchange better against condi chronos that try to outright down you at the start with the F2 burst > F4 invulnerable > F3 interrupt.

SA plus shroud still kept my LF high against the chronos burst rotation. Just not the way I thought lol…

Wel, SA and in a smaller scale SW are far from being bad skills. if you couple them with the shroud it’s easily the ban of the mesmer because their illusion will keep on doing very little physical damage on you every second and thus activating the life force gain.

When I was active in wvw, I always used a build that take adavantage of this. SA/SW + locust swarm + shroud combination is a good way to enter an enemy zerg, unleash a few deadly skills and escape safely. The only downside is that it doesn’t prevent you from being heavily CCed. However, if you trait spectral skills and War horn you got it easy in wvw group fight.

Against a single target (except mesmers that providentially spawn stupid summons to auto attack you) you will however find the fights a bit more troublesome.

A spectral heal and rework of the spectral elite has been on my wish list. Wall was nerfed a bit hard, imo, and I still miss the parachute but the 3 spectral utilities each have their uses. There are not enough tools to support a build using boon duration but spectral is the closest.

Spectral builds, as opposed to ad hoc skill slots, could be a legitimate option with a little help. Because Reaper has so much more to offer, Arenanet should polish up some of the tarnished core skills and refresh build options. Plague was reworked so why not Litch?

Perhaps the clones did hit you before they were shattered as well as the chrono himself