Guild Wars 2

Does anyone chose spectral utilities instead of wells in PvE?

Just wanted to get a consensus on viability of spectrals versus wells in pve. I personally would love to do spectrals instead of wells just because I’m not a fan of picking utilities that require either myself or someone else to “stand in the circle”. I prefer a more mobile playstyle. The downside to this seems to be the overwhelming difference in utility gained from wells versus spectrals. Spectral builds seem to be a selfish build unfortunately as they offer no benefits to your party/group…outside of spectral wall that is.

My opinion is: if you are more of a life force user who likes to spend points in SR, the spectrals are better in my opinion. If not, then go with wells. Also, wells are better for farming and I believe spectrals are better for more difficult encounters and less AoE oriented situations.

I do use spectrals more often in pve than wells. Although I have to say I somewhat run with utilities from various categories. Last time I remember running a power build in pve, I ran with spectral walk, spectral grasp and well of suffering. Spectral Wall is a good option for crowd control, specially in the Ascalon fractals. Spectral Armor, with its cooldown reduced, is now a very good defensive and LF generation skill.

Maybe spectral wall could be good now with Terror, but besides that I just have never felt the need for all that defense.

I take spectral armor well of suffering and spectral walk purely because I like having full LF and the damage from the well while in DS (deathly perception) is spanking.
of course I dont need that much survivability in pve but its fun to play.

I tend to play fairly tanky, currently running Soldier gear. The wells provide a nice mix of offense and defense while Spectrals seem much more situational and defensive. If Spectral Grasp worked worth a kitten I might consider slotting it for WvW (the main downside of wells is against other players in WvW IMO when they just move out of the well) Spectral Wall can be rather fun, but the bugginess of grasp keeps me from considering it…

I used to run spectral armor, walk and grasp with spectral attunement my LF was full from empty in about 7-10s which was very effective. I do switch out a spectral skill or 2 for 2 wells sometimes but wouldn’t like to play without at least one spectral.

I’m not even level 80 (only level 60), but my necro does wonders in WvW.

Usually I use Well of Suffering for tagging purposes and it helps with the heavy amount of Vulnerability I’ve just given to the enemies.

My Utilities go:

Spectral Wall
Spectral Walk <~> Well of Corruption/Power
Well of Suffering <~> Well of Corruption/Power/Darkness for blinds

Most of the time though, I run with my Guild Zerg and they require good support as they severely lack necro’s. They don’t notice it, but aside from the mesmer (which they are also lacking in, and is coincidentally my main), we have the power to massively strip enemy boons AND add a condition.

The only bad thing with Corruption/Power vs Null Field is that it takes 2 utility, but Power also grants boons for Conditions. I say it’s worth it!

Spectral Walk is only useful to me when I need swiftness (and it looks really cool while riding the broom on spectral walk) or I want to be in DS for much longer (I only pop it for Life Transfer and the new skill, then immediately get out)

ODB.6891:

Does anyone chose spectral utilities instead of wells in PvE?