Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running a power build with 6 points in SR for quite awhile. I feel those points are wasted for me since I end up using staff the vast majority of the time in WvW. Talking about Zerg busting with my guild or ZvZ as a pug during off hours. So, I’m thinking about tweaking the build and leaving the SR goodies behind. Crazy talk, I know.

I find LB damage to be unreliable and risky if you try to close on groups of enemies. I record a fair amount of video and it always surprises me how often LB gets blocked or just plain seems to miss or hit only a single target. I know I could improve my targeting, but dang it’s such a slow moving projectile.

Therefore, I prefer staff as primary source of damage (aside from wells of course). It has great range, AOE and is unblockable when traited. Marks are instantaneous and reliable with great utility. Maybe it’s due to projectile speed but I have an easier time getting Staff 1 to hit multiple targets.

Proposed build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmQDbkjmGbbpxmGOcToLUSvDrw9C9AEApQUTAA-TlCBABRqEsPNCN8gAqU9HAuIAZp8ro9HyTXwGHBA90QEAAB4m3Mb2mBDdoDdoDdoN0bO0bO0hWKA7WGB-w

Staff 3 Chill is one of our great contributions as necro to WvW. Even better combo’d with Staff 4 for AOE Weakness. This build has +70% condi duration from both Spite line and food (food also having life steal for sustain, countering retal). This maximizes the devastating Chill condition… 6.8 seconds of unblockable Chill up to 5 targets, on a 16 second cooldown. Assuming +condi duration applies to combo field effects, add in 5.1 seconds of AOE Weakness. Just plain awesomeness.

Personal choice, but I opt for Unholy Sanctuary over Furious Demise because US is the single ability that saves my butt more than any other.

In this build, I mostly reserve DS for straight defense or single target action (Axe burst as well).

Thoughts?

If you’re shooting for a hybrid support build where you focus on being pesky by applying chill, weakness, etc.. then the build works. But you do lose out on raw damage, such as dropping wells, going into DS and having 100% crit chance, watching your wells, marks, and any aoe you do crit like mother. Marks really don’t do good damage, it’s used mostly for utility.

My recommendation is if you want to be condi, go full on condi. Or if you want to be power, go full on power. Being half/half makes it so you don’t bomb as hard as full power necros do, and you aren’t as adequate at condi pressure as a full condimancer.

Because you went with Death Magic rather than Soul Reaping, you’re stacking precision and crit chance. This means you’re losing out on very useful weapon sigils such as fire, force, and air. You also lose out on +5% damage when above 50% lifeforce that Soul Reaping offers. In my opinion you lose out too much and didn’t gain enough to make you as useful as a full powermancer, or a full condimancer.

gavyne.6847:

If you’re shooting for a hybrid support build where you focus on being pesky by applying chill, weakness, etc.. then the build works. But you do lose out on raw damage, such as dropping wells, going into DS and having 100% crit chance, watching your wells, marks, and any aoe you do crit like mother. Marks really don’t do good damage, it’s used mostly for utility.

My recommendation is if you want to be condi, go full on condi. Or if you want to be power, go full on power. Being half/half makes it so you don’t bomb as hard as full power necros do, and you aren’t as adequate at condi pressure as a full condimancer.

Because you went with Death Magic rather than Soul Reaping, you’re stacking precision and crit chance. This means you’re losing out on very useful weapon sigils such as fire, force, and air. You also lose out on +5% damage when above 50% lifeforce that Soul Reaping offers. In my opinion you lose out too much and didn’t gain enough to make you as useful as a full powermancer, or a full condimancer.

It’s not hybrid at all but a pure power build. The main condis I care about are Chill, Poison and Weakness purely for the debuff effects. All are effective, especially on stacked melee balls. Sure, condis are cleared often by competent guilds, but I still find the debuffs have good uptime.

The build I posted has high power (3100) and crit chance (65%) with full guard and sigil stacks. Pack runes give almost a 50% uptime on Fury which further bumps crit chance to 85%.

I think that Mark damage is underrated. Sure, you don’t see the really big numbers except Staff 4. But the smaller numbers are often hitting a full 5 targets very reliably, due to no travel time and Greater Marks (larger area, unblockable). Staff 1 hits hard also and doesn’t have a range dependency for damage. I don’t know about you, but when I see a nearby Necro in DS spamming 1 (easy to spot), he becomes a priority target and often immob’d and focused down.

But the main reason I run staff is for the debuffs which are extremely helpful to any guild. Typical sequence: chain Staff 2-5, drop wells, Horn 5 + DS long enough for DS 5, 4 and then bounce back to Staff for more Marks, Staff 1 until wells are ready again then repeat. Lich also hits very hard with these stats.

I’ve had 6 in Soul Reaping for a very long time. I just find it difficult to reliably pierce multiple targets with LB, which brings the overall damage down. Sit in DS too long and you also lose the damage bonus and much needed health buffer for when you are focused. Therefore, I was on Staff a lot anyways which led me to look for a more Staff optimized build.

Just my opinions and preferred play style. Thanks for the feedback!

the simple fact is that life blast does more damage. sure its range is less by 300, but its not wise to be more then 600 range from your melee ball cuz you lose out on boons.