Guild Wars 2

Took my first plunge into PVP hotjoins after playing around in the Mists with alot of different build types. This one seemed to do pretty well against the NPCs as well as in the few matches I played. I was primarily going for alot of CC along with good survivability. Maybe I only did ok because it was hotjoin, I don’t know.

Anyway, thoughts and comments welcome:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBLhtG1IjWze3mtG9mCQSR0UDpoXpjKcMliyhH-TwAA2CpIMSZkzIjRSjsGNIYRw2ipFA

I may be a smidge too old to be trying to keep up with the twitch youngsters, but it was a nice change of pace from PVE.

Looks pretty good on paper, only thing I would change if it were me is instead of plague signet, put in well of power for your stun break because it will flip those condis for you. Recharge on them is about the same untraited and it would give you a chance for your team to get some dark field combos. Since you’re no longer using a signet you could swap the signet trait for spiteful removal, spiteful spirit, or death’s embrace (don’t knock DE I’ve won many a fight in downed state lol). Or if you don’t wanna go the well, maybe s-armor instead for your stun break since you’re already running spectral trait. I’d want to run a tad more condi dmg too since scepter is your main weapon, but idk how without sacrificing some toughness, so that’s just a personal preference thing.

Excellent thoughts. I agree that DE is very strong. I usually use it in PVE. I’ll give swapping out the signet a try.

I see very little synergy with your build.

You’re running a condition-damage weaponset with almost no condition damage. A half-direct damage/half-defensive gear setup, but with very little to use your direct damage with and little to support your quasi defense. And a “spectral” build with only one spectral utility.

I’d suggest if you want to keep the spectral look, that you go for Spectral Armor (which will also give you pretty nice Protection) over the signet, and trait something else there. I’d also either choose a power or condition build. If you want a condition build get a new amulet and sigils, if you want a power build get a new weapon/jewel.

What do you actually plan to use this build to do?

As I stated in my first post: I was primarily going for alot of CC along with good survivability.

I agree (as did Nay) that having more condition dmg would be preferable. But running the Plague signet really calls for alot of vitality to handle aggregating incoming conditions.

If I swap the signet to WoP or SA, then I could go with the rabid amulet and gain condition dmg & toughness at the cost of vitality and power. The downside to WoP or SA is that I’m no longer throwing the conditions back to the opponent as I would with Plague signet. Its all tradeoffs.

Plague signet throwing conditions back isn’t that big of a deal if the offensive conditions basically do nothing anyway (no condition damage); the defensive ones you have plenty of access to anyway, just by merit of being a necro (and also you have Deathly Swarm). Also, if you want to throw back conditions your runes are working against you.

Pick up Carrion if you want vitality.

All I’m seeing is a kind of defensive, super low damage build. As long as someone can apply consistent pressure (shouldn’t be hard because you do low damage), you aren’t going to outheal it, and you have really limited LF generation. They can just consistently train you down until you run out of HP.

I have to agree with Bhawb. It looks as if you were going for a MM but tacked on Spectral and condition elements. A stun-break is pretty important to keep from getting CC’d too much. Also, your configuration looks a lot like a condition duration build running scepter with Spite, which is really low dps in practice due to condi-cleanse.

If you really want to run conditions and scepter, I suggest building condi damage more than duration. If you want minions, run more of them and use axe/focus and dagger/warhorn. For spectral, set up for Terror-locking, Protect duration, and condi-cleanse.

I am far from an expert in PvP but I try to get as much synergy as I can in a build and write off skills I cannot support.

This is a really weird build with a lot of discordant elements. Nothing really looks like it gels together that well.

You’ve got three things vying for your attention when it comes to placing your traits; conditions, minions, and your spectral/deathshroud traits. Something needs to be dropped, because the synergies just aren’t there. If you ask me, drop the minion traits; Flesh Golem is solid regardless of whether you have those traits. Those three traits are mainly being spent on propping up your Shadow Fiend, and that’s not really very good value for money. The Shadow Fiend and its Haunt already have very short cooldowns, so it makes for a perfectly fine fire-and-forget minion. Doing this frees up 30 trait points for you, which is a pretty big deal.

You’ve also got Spectral CD duration, but it only affects Spectral Wall, and chances are you’re not going to be able to use that more than once in an encounter with or without the trait because of its base CD. I would personally suggest dumping Plague Signet and replacing it with either of the stunbreaking Spectral abilities. If you’re planning on sticking with conditions, I’d suggest Armor as that protection will keep you alive while you stack the conditions; if you switch over to Power, Walk might be a good idea, as being able to poke with no real commitment is a really nice boon to have. This also frees up those 10 points in Spite that you have.

You don’t have a staff, either. This is a really mainstay weapon that I find very difficult to justify moving away from, as it provides so much defensive benefit. Permanent regen, heavy condi clearing; it’s a very solid staple for every necro.

Anchoku.8142:

I have to agree with Bhawb. It looks as if you were going for a MM but tacked on Spectral and condition elements.

I will say for the record though, that minions can and do perform well in a variety of hybrids, you don’t need to run lots of them. Spectral (for more defense), conditions (offense and defense, depending, plus a variety of damage types), w/e you want. I just feel like you tried too many things at once.

In theory I think it has good potential though, don’t get me wrong.

Sarrs.4831:

This is a really weird build with a lot of discordant elements. Nothing really looks like it gels together that well.

From a stat/trait view, I agree. From a CC view, it works. However, whether that really suffices or is a winning approach is questionable, especially since it necessarily gimps my outgoing damage, and since the CC doesn’t seem to always be effective enough to turn the tide.

Even if you wanted a CC build, you could have done it better. The problem is you have a CC build with less CC than you could get than if you swapped things up, a condition damage weapon with no condition damage, sigils/amulet for direct damage with nothing to deal good direct damage with, and then minions thrown on top.

My problem with the build (that maybe I didn’t get across) is that you could have done it better, with the same general setup. Drop the second scepter weapon set and pick up a staff, drop the transfer and pick up another spectral OR another minion OR a well, drop the power gear and pick up more condition related gear. You could even drop the 20 in spite (your build doesn’t really care if minions are dealing 30% more damage, they are there for CC/LF) and pick up Terror and another spectral trait.

Dropping the second scepter/dagger set won’t hurt your CC at all, but will give you an AoE fear.
The transfer is okay, but your build supports other things so much better. Especially since you’ll be frontline with the bunker, you could pick up more defense (spectral), defense and support (well), or more CC and/or damage (Bone Fiend more CC/damage, Bone Minions for burst damage).
Dropping the power gear you already understand I’m sure, but it also ties in with the next point:
Which is dropping the spite and putting at least 10 of that 20 into Curses for Terror. That gives you so much more damage and makes your CC so much scarier, plus you have 3 sources of fears now. Then the final 10 should either go to Spectrals (if you didn’t get Bone Minions) or Death Nova (if you picked up Bone Minions).

That makes your overall build do more damage with more survivability and more CC.