Guild Wars 2

(Please note, I wanted to make this comparison thread sooner, but I was afraid of getting either Mesmer, or any other class nerfed. Its a kitten shame that people are scared to make informative threads for fear of nerfing, Anet.)

Hey guys,

Guardians and Elementalists have been lauded as the best support classes in the game, and I was curious as to what makes them so special? This isn’t really a challenge as much as a comparison of what support these classes bring to a group and what makes them so valuable compared to other classes’ supportive abilities.

In case you don’t know, support Mesmers can bring:

- Up to 25x Might / Fury (AltruismRunes, Signet) / Perma Swiftness / Perma Regen / Perma Vigor / Aegis / Protection (a bit unreliably) / Perma Retaliation / 2.9k AoE burst heals every 3 seconds.

In addition to the usual Portals, Reflects, Rezz, blah blah… (If we kitten damage, we can do all of the above. If not, a lot of the above)

Would anyone knowledgeable on support Necromancer be able to enlighten me a bit? Examples of different builds, traits, abilities? Perhaps pros and cons? I’d like to work on making a comparison of all the different classes’ support abilities.

We can give 24/7 AoE regen to melee allies and have a very strong AoE heal in Well of Blood. Well of Power for AoE condition conversion too. That’s about it on the ally-support side of things.

On the enemy side, we have lots of Weakness, Poison, and Chill with more blinds than anyone but Thief.

We give huge sustained healing through easy 100% regen uptime, and WoB easily healing allies for 7k, twice if traited. DS 4, and leaving DS can both be traited to heal. We also have lots of ways to cleanse condis off allies (staff 4 isn’t working anymore though). But mostly we “support” offensively. Perma weakness, perma chill, lots of blinding, poison, cripple, fearing, etc. paired with I believe the highest sustained healing of any class is how we support.

How do you go about obtaining 100% uptime on regen?

Zikory.6871:

How do you go about obtaining 100% uptime on regen?

Mark of Blood. Use on cooldown.

Bhawb.7408:

We give huge sustained healing through easy 100% regen uptime, and WoB easily healing allies for 7k, twice if traited. DS 4, and leaving DS can both be traited to heal. We also have lots of ways to cleanse condis off allies (staff 4 isn’t working anymore though). But mostly we “support” offensively. Perma weakness, perma chill, lots of blinding, poison, cripple, fearing, etc. paired with I believe the highest sustained healing of any class is how we support.

100% regen uptime is nothing special. Mesmers, Elementalists, Warriors and Engineers can do the same.

About WoB, you need heavy amounts of healing power to get decent healing and it is the only skill which benefits from it. It is, also, unreliable since it requires your allies to be in an obvious circle to get healed.

So, the only support we can provide to our teammates is condition management (pretty much only through Putrid Mark and Well of Power) and some extra offensive support.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zikory.6871:

How do you go about obtaining 100% uptime on regen?

Mark of Blood. Use on cooldown.

That based on the assumption that your teammates are on melee.

You making this thread in every forum? Seems more like you are just trying to show everyone your mesmer support build…

sorrow.2364:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zikory.6871:

How do you go about obtaining 100% uptime on regen?

Mark of Blood. Use on cooldown.

That based on the assumption that your teammates are on melee.

Meh, I have always wanted to have a healing-ish support build for WvW. But any one I’v seen just seem so sub par usefulness compared to what other build can be doing for the team.

@sorrow this thread has nothing to do with the viability of support necros, only what we can do.

As for pros and cons.
Pros: arguably highest sustained healing in the game, lots of offensive support with debuffs, and generally you can still have very strong offensive pressure while still being supportive.
Cons: healing isn’t the easiest to make work, requires intelligent team. Also frankly offensive support via debuffs just isn’t nearly as helpful as buffing is.

Bhawb.7408:

@sorrow this thread has nothing to do with the viability of support necros, only what we can do.

This is a thread about viability.
The OP asked explicitly for a comparison with the support provided by other professions.
I’ve highlighted what Necromancer can do better than other professions; regen maintaining and party healing are not in the list.

The quote in question:

This isn’t really a challenge as much as a comparison of what support these classes bring to a group and what makes them so valuable compared to other classes’ supportive abilities.

Now to try and be on topic: I’d say that Necromancers have possibly the best condition control for a party in-game, currently. Well of Power alone can match Pure of Voice, and Plague Signet has some good support potential, especially in fights heavy on a single condition that stacks in duration. (Burning springs to mind, as does chill). If putrid mark still worked properly I’d say it was excellent all on its own, but I think it’s still not transferring conditions from allies so that’s >:C.

That said, the lack of reflection / projectile block is a serious flaw in the support capabilities of the necromancer. The lack of allied boon application is up there too, but the fact a necromancer is the only profession that cannot block a one-shot projectile for an ally (or, y’know, themselves but that is a different issue really) is a major problem.

Edit: Now I’m really curious. What profession can provide the best AoE / allied healing over 10 or 60 seconds? Maybe I’ll start searchin’.

Softspoken.2410:

Edit: Now I’m really curious. What profession can provide the best AoE / allied healing over 10 or 60 seconds? Maybe I’ll start searchin’.

In PvE, I’d say definitely guardian. They AoE heal for 129 + 1*HP on each dodge, which means 1600 HP each dodge with no internal cooldown with full clerics and they are also capable to mantain vigor permanently. This without counting the healing of Empower, Virtue of Resolve, Orb of Light, Shield of Absorption and some minor healing provided by other traits/sigil/runes.
Those heals I’ve listed are all AoE.

Elementalists have also some nasty AoE heals too. They can mantain Regen + Soothing Mist premanently on allies with enough points into arcana, plus Healing Ripple (heal when attuning to water), Cleansing Wave (including the one in Evasive Arcana) and Water Trident/Cone of Cold.
When running staff, Elementalists can still have quite good heals though blast finishing into water fields, which allows allies to self heal themselves too through leaps.

Transfusion trait, gives a nice aoe heal (To others in party not necro themself) in AoE burst times. Wells also are very sexy in the right situation. (Tho again, not really for our self as we have very very little combo finisher)

The staff #4 nurf or bug, hurt a fair bit for our condition removal.
The DS fix/nurf of last patch, means that using heal well, or support skills/traits over save our self stuff, means the necro is likely to be dead when the going get’s tuff.

Omnitek.3876:

You making this thread in every forum? Seems more like you are just trying to show everyone your mesmer support build…

It was a bit naive of me not to consider that people would assume this. The guide in my sig isnt a specific build as much as its an explaination on how to create a support-oriented Mesmer, its been around since February and is definitely not the only builds that can do what I stated in the original post.
I made these threads in every forum for the same reason: To gather as much information as I could on the various support builds different classes could bring and confirm how viable a support Mesmer is in comparison.
I feel as if support builds don’t get enough limelight and as a result many people think that theyre either bad or cant be done. I’m trying to break that misconception and am learning a lot about other classes in the process.

That being said, much thanks for the info guys! Does anyone know of a sample support-oriented Necro build being run nowadays?

You should never build fully around support with any class. The things necro can provide though are WoB, dark fields, blinds, condition cleansing and debuffing with weakness and chill. So not much in the way of useful support. Mesmers have better boon removal than necro’s. Fears are counter productive in PvE but spectral grasp can be good in select situations (not as good as guardian binding blades or mesmer focus pull).

spoj.9672:

You should never build fully around support with any class…

That’s the mentality I’m trying to explore. Why not?

It seems to vary more on a class-by-class basis. From what I can tell, full support builds are fine for WvW, decent for PvE and noottt so much for sPvP. But even then it depends on your definition of support and what you’re bringing to the table.

Building full support is an horrible choice for Necromancers.
You can pick more support-oriented skills and utility, but gearing for support (Healing Power and Boon Duration) is just not worth the efforts.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

spoj.9672:

You should never build fully around support with any class…

That’s the mentality I’m trying to explore. Why not?

It seems to vary more on a class-by-class basis. From what I can tell, full support builds are fine for WvW, decent for PvE and noottt so much for sPvP. But even then it depends on your definition of support and what you’re bringing to the table.

Support is fine for WvW. But PvE is designed around not having a trinity. Every stat combo has either power or condition damage on it. This means no matter what you are doing in PvE you should be doing damage. The way the current game runs in dungeons is that it is actually harder to complete content with low dps groups because face tanking and healing wont save you from boss attacks, only dodges and blocks will. You dont need to build around support to use blocks, blinds and dodges. The faster things die the less attacks you have to avoid/negate.

Tanky gear is only there for WvW and PvP imo. Its also ok for people learning mechanics, but they should all have the intention of switching to more dps orientated gear eventually. Theres no tanking in this game and if you do take tanky gear you get slightly more aggro and therefore it actually means you will have a harder time surviving than someone in beserker with good dodges.

I know this is the Necro thread, but since you mentioned that all classes should be built around damage for dungeons.. I’m wondering if this is true for Guardian as well? I read that Guardians tend to have substandard DPS (just in general, maybe I’m wrong) and tend to be brought for their boons/utility. So.. should guardians lay down their stakitten and pick up more DPS oriented builds/weapons?

Shyhalu.4891:

I know this is the Necro thread, but since you mentioned that all classes should be built around damage for dungeons.. I’m wondering if this is true for Guardian as well? I read that Guardians tend to have substandard DPS (just in general, maybe I’m wrong) and tend to be brought for their boons/utility. So.. should guardians lay down their stakitten and pick up more DPS oriented builds/weapons?

Yep. I run a beserker guard in dungeons and fractals with no real issues. My damage isnt as high as a warrior or thief. But I make up for it with aegis, stability, condi cleanse and reflect. You dont take guardians for pure dps but they can still do some nice damage. For comfortable runs in CoE you take a dps guardian even though its not needed. Simply because they provide really good damage (although not the highest) and have lots of useful party defense/utility.

A good dps guardian is a lot more useful than a clerics guardian. I use to run a knights AH anchor build when i first got my guard to 80, but that build was basically just my training wheels. Only time i ever use that gear now is for kiting the dredge in the dredge fractal, but after the door is open I switch back to zerk for clearing the dredge and the rest of the fractal. My traits have remained in my DPS spec since i got my beserker gear.

For a dps guardian sword auto is the best sustained dps. So I run sword focus and GS for burst then swap weapons accordingly for the situation. Hammer for fights with lots of auto attacks where protection will be good for the group. Scepter for when I need to range. Staff for when I need to run/skip/kite trash. Never use mace, its terrible for PvE. Shield is pretty good for Lupi’s aoe, if you time it right its a full party block.