Guild Wars 2

I’m working on a WvW build for zerg-fighting that has one open trait slot at Death Magic 20. The build is a minion-bombing build to take advantage of the shorter Reanimator cooldown, so I should have a decent stream of time bombs in a typical zerg v. zerg battle.

Build is using my currently owned gear, so don’t expect perfection from it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW3djMal61aebM8JCpHRDATDSx7lGli1xOA-jkDBoLQoMAYNwEEwUFA0FQJQFRjtEMaVRhtcKIKZJVVDQdDT/Ky

General idea is to use the staff to build life force and spend most of the time using the piercing life blasts to harm the opposition, summoning new minions (and detonating bone minions) when necessary. Using Spectral Wall helps control the area of the battle and also provides a nice combo field to blast. Shadow Fiend is chosen because it can go where I want very quickly and grants me more life force.

The numerous poison fields, fear, and vulnerability should make it easier for my side to win the engagements. If I get caught in a solo position, the minions still provide good damage and the build is otherwise a decent DS might stacker.

But, as you see, I have a dilemma. Death magic 20 is the perfect spot for either Greater Marks or Staff mastery. Greater Marks means it’s easier to get the marks to hit the enemy while Staff Mastery gives me more frequent Chilblains, Putrid Mark, and Reaper’s Mark (Mark of Blood recharges fast enough anyway) for utility and life force.

Staff Mastery if you can only have one of the two.

Use Mark of Blood to ablate any aegis boons present within a group you are attacking then Mark away with the others. Up-time I find tends to be a tad more important than having absolutely every potential target get hit. Assuming you are not alone and your screen does not fold; you’ll get time to cycle them again too with shorter cool-downs.

If it was just one target I’d assume you would be weapon swapping anyways so moot point there.

Honestly, i would take the 50% health trait to use the minions as a buffer for your zerg. Each hit they can absorb for your team before they die should be thought as healing. They will be taking hits that would otherwise hit your team due to aoe cap and other mechanics. I will say that staff auto attack with pierce will give you all the life force you could ever ask for in wvw. Also, i would use the minions for the field and not invest in the damage trait. Minions dont cleave and dont attack frequently enough to benefit from the 30% damage trait in a zerg scenario. You will do more damage by dropping 10 from the spite tree and picking up 50% crit in ds.

I like the idea of your build though. Hope i helped.

I would also vote for Staff Mastery.
In Zerg v Zerg, your marks are pretty much guaranteed to hit something, while in 1v1 the size is irrelevant, making the reduced cooldown better. The only arguable case is in between, but I still think cooldown is better, since the bigger radius doesn’t guarantee multiple hits anyway.
I think the only saving grace for Greater Marks is unblockability and better area denial. Your build seems to have area denial covered, so you really just have to weigh how much you think your DPS varies between getting things blocked but firing them faster, or slower unblockable marks. I would personally err on the on the side of cooldown reduction, as its useful more often (outlined above), and because blocks tend to be limited – you will waste one skill to break the Aegis/Block, but then have faster cooldowns, meaning you’ll likely get your skill back before they retrieve their block.