Guild Wars 2

Hi,

So, QT have launched their new updates on the builds & benchmarks. According to the benchmark Condi Necro pumps out 32.665K of damage.

Build:
https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/necromancer/condi-reaper-quick-guide/

Looks OK, but here is the catch. All other classes have a multitude of builds (at least 2). Necro has only 1 they think is worth considering or tested.
Furthermore they posted following comment on their review of the patch:

“Necromancer: was unfortunately left relatively unchanged, apart from a slight nerf from the food changes, leaving condi reaper the same bad spot that it was in before the patch. Golem DPS numbers seem quite high for a bad build, but it relies heavily on getting whirl finishers in its chill field for bleeds. This can be very hard to achieve consistently in a real raid scenario, because of all the extra fields from your team.”

Feels bad man!

I feel like unwanted child. It would be better if Anet completly remove necromancer and allow us transfer everything to selected class…

Ahhh QT, the bane of my existence.

I’d mention what I truly feel about them but I’m certain I’d violate several rules of conduct, so let’s just say I’ll simply agree to disagree.

That said, keep in mind that they base all their data off of an immobile punching bag that doesn’t hit back, no mechanics to maneuver around etc. What happens in a non-hostile vacuum is NOT what happens in a real situation. So, my Brothers and Sisters of Necromancy, I offer this advice: Ignore QT’s pronouncements. I did. I raid with my necromancer, and I hold my own. Don’t let the Anti-Necro sentiment of QT affect your game. If you can pull your weight then raid on.

tl:dr: Ignore the pronouncements of QT, do what you do best!

QT are against “profession racism” and says to play what players enjoy.. it’s only that if you want to play certain class/build you can’t bring group benefit as if you were playing following optimized builds.

Vaxian.4138:

Ahhh QT, the bane of my existence.

I’d mention what I truly feel about them but I’m certain I’d violate several rules of conduct, so let’s just say I’ll simply agree to disagree.

That said, keep in mind that they base all their data off of an immobile punching bag that doesn’t hit back, no mechanics to maneuver around etc. What happens in a non-hostile vacuum is NOT what happens in a real situation. So, my Brothers and Sisters of Necromancy, I offer this advice: Ignore QT’s pronouncements. I did. I raid with my necromancer, and I hold my own. Don’t let the Anti-Necro sentiment of QT affect your game. If you can pull your weight then raid on.

tl:dr: Ignore the pronouncements of QT, do what you do best!

You and me both, mate.

Well, qT just state the usefulness of each profession and look for the most optimum builds for each.

Their view on the necromancer is sadly right, there is no room for the necromancer’s “support” in PvE raids, which leave just dps roles that need have pretty high damage to be competitive against other professions. And since power necro are a bit low when it come to their dps output, it’s a relief to see that at least on the condi side the necro is at a competitive level even if not outstanding.

qT is not evil or anthing like that, they just state facts that can help people to have a good view of the potential of their party as whole when they enter a raid encounter. It allow to easily know if yu enter in a group that will struggle from a lack of boon uptime and dps or not.

What the player base make out of these metric is where the evil lie.

Vaxian.4138:

they base all their data off of an immobile punching bag that doesn’t hit back, no mechanics to maneuver around etc. What happens in a non-hostile vacuum is NOT what happens in a real situation.

Like the part where it’s very likely that some time during a fight you will spin in a light field or a lightning field or some other type of field instead of your chill field despite proper field positioning. Don’t act like DPS in a vacuum discriminates more against Necro than any other class. Epi is good on bosses like Xera, Deimos and Sabetha, sure. But it’s still very likely that assuming similar levels of skill, classes higher up on the benchmarks will out-DPS the Necro. Believing anything else is ignorant and naive.

In the context of speed clearing, the benchmarks are correct. Assuming the group is mechanically skilled enough to perform at a level where everyone can squeeze out the best out of their class to the point where the incremental DPS percentages is all that matters. Then the fact stands, the DPS that Necro brings is lower than a Condi Tempest or Condi Berserker.

It’s not qT’s fault that groups that aren’t doing speed clears discriminate against Necromancers. They just provide numbers after extensive testing.

Orku.1546:

I feel like unwanted child.

That would be engineer.

Dadnir.5038:

Well, qT just state the usefulness of each profession and look for the most optimum builds for each.

Their view on the necromancer is sadly right, there is no room for the necromancer’s “support” in PvE raids, which leave just dps roles that need have pretty high damage to be competitive against other professions. And since power necro are a bit low when it come to their dps output, it’s a relief to see that at least on the condi side the necro is at a competitive level even if not outstanding.

qT is not evil or anthing like that, they just state facts that can help people to have a good view of the potential of their party as whole when they enter a raid encounter. It allow to easily know if yu enter in a group that will struggle from a lack of boon uptime and dps or not.

What the player base make out of these metric is where the evil lie.

tfw power mes does more dmg than power reaper, my heart goes out to all you power mains. Also cps being basically tied for most dmg on small hitbox whilst offering indispensable utility and not being a glass cannon, the lovely minds at anet working at full capacity.

qT are also among the best of the best so most of us could never hope to reach the numbers they get, I imagine. Still it’s good to have such knowledge shared freely and I don’t understand why some people feel the need to talk badly about what they do.

pretending these dps #s dont matter and that QT is somehow bad is just silly. Reaper has middling dps and even that performance is not achievable in a real raid. I’m just not sure how you can read that any other way. You like to play the class, that’s fine, but don’t pretend you’re something you’re not. It’s subpar.

I wish qt would just test 3 builds per profession: Power dps, condi dps, and support (using support metrics).

Vaxian.4138:

Ahhh QT, the bane of my existence.

I’d mention what I truly feel about them but I’m certain I’d violate several rules of conduct, so let’s just say I’ll simply agree to disagree.

That said, keep in mind that they base all their data off of an immobile punching bag that doesn’t hit back, no mechanics to maneuver around etc. What happens in a non-hostile vacuum is NOT what happens in a real situation. So, my Brothers and Sisters of Necromancy, I offer this advice: Ignore QT’s pronouncements. I did. I raid with my necromancer, and I hold my own. Don’t let the Anti-Necro sentiment of QT affect your game. If you can pull your weight then raid on.

tl:dr: Ignore the pronouncements of QT, do what you do best!

U do realize that qt test builds on real scenarios as well? The benchmark is there so u have something to base your performance on but they do test different builds and classes in real raid scenarios b4 coming to final conclusions.

And yes, in a real raid scenario getting ice field priority is super lucklaster cause u cant control where and when other players put their fields even if u try to get some distance. Hence the average necro can barely surpass 20k and that’s only with cleave dmg (epidemic).

QT are stating the facts as best as they can and a lot of hours go into that, they freely share that information with the community and they’re doing a pretty kitten good job, unfortunately necro is getting the short end of the stick for sometime now.

Wanna blame balancing? Sure go ahead but dont blame QT.

Look at attached screenshot from their old site. It’s pretty obvious. The only two classes their higher ups don’t care for are rev and necro. No surprise those are the same two classes that nobody wants in raids, since the people de facto in charge of the meta don’t want them. There are objectively better necro builds that have been bench-marked by others and myself already, yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Jahromi.2079:

Look at attached screenshot from their old site. It’s pretty obvious. The only two classes their higher ups don’t care for are rev and necro. No surprise those are the same two classes that nobody wants in raids, since the people de facto in charge of the meta don’t want them. There are objectively better necro builds that have been bench-marked by others and myself already, yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Can you link those builds.

Jahromi.2079:

yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Pretty sure qT is aware of the fact that there are Necro players like Farbstoff from LN that are better at Necro than them. And in the cases where someone discovers that a certain build is much better than what was initially used for benchmarking it is updated. I do believe that is what happened last time Necro was benchmarked.

Substatic.6958:

Jahromi.2079:

Look at attached screenshot from their old site. It’s pretty obvious. The only two classes their higher ups don’t care for are rev and necro. No surprise those are the same two classes that nobody wants in raids, since the people de facto in charge of the meta don’t want them. There are objectively better necro builds that have been bench-marked by others and myself already, yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Can you link those builds.

Yes, please share freely, like QT does, so all of us can get a better insight into the class

I don’t fully understand the hate against QT.. Is it because they say Necro is in a bad place? Because they point out you need your ice fields to max bleeds to put out decent dps?
We already know since long that Necro DPS and utility is lacking in Raid scenario’s and other classes offer more with much less effort.. It’s only logical that the meta will not look at a class which offers sub par performance..

Let’s just hope they will fix Power Reaper with the xpac

Jahromi.2079:

Look at attached screenshot from their old site. It’s pretty obvious. The only two classes their higher ups don’t care for are rev and necro. No surprise those are the same two classes that nobody wants in raids, since the people de facto in charge of the meta don’t want them. There are objectively better necro builds that have been bench-marked by others and myself already, yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Well, you really can’t blame them for mastering professions that were historically performant in the PvE game.

When the game was released, it was somewhat of a mess but a few things became obvious pretty quickly.
- You needed boons to sail through the dungeons easily
- You needed mobility to avoid the trash mobs
- You needed a lot of timed dodges to survive the one hit ko mechanisms.

After that, the most reliable professions became the one that could provide just that and the necromancer was not listed in any of those 3 requirements. Then, to top this there was a need for heavy burst ability and, let’s be honest, the necromancer wasn’t good at power damage and it’s ramp up for condi damage was horrible.

At the HoT era, condi damage changed and raids appeared making the need for heavy burst and dodge a lot lesser. However, the necromancer was still underperforming in boon providing (and most generally “usefull support”), dodge and mobility.

Reaper officially aimed at balancing the power damage of the necromancer, however this missed the mark because they focused on instant high damage instead of the sustained high damage more needed for the raid content and there were still no boon or meaningfull offensive support nor mobility. Which make the reaper a marginal in raid even with the best build possible. I can recall that at the launch of the raid, reapers were tried in all manner possible but always fall short on expectations.

Scourge is coming and for sure there is still no offensive support, still no mobility and the survivability dropped down. The dps still favor conditions (while I believe that the power dps won’t be that bad either) but in a more “busty” fashion. Scourge will be tested over and over at it’s release. I believe that, ironically, it will perform better than reaper as a power spec in raids but will still lack this offensive support that would have make him desired.

The bit of extra survivability that it will grant to it’s group won’t answer what’s needed to be reliably taken into a raid simply because survivability is the first thing that is cut off when there is a need for more damage. And, god!, the whole timer thingy on raid boss is a manifesto shouting : “Do damage guys!!!! Do damage and drop down this useless survivability!!!”

To make this extra survivability “valuable”, Anet would have to design raid encounters in such a way that you have to survive for the whole timer and even after. In other word, create “defensive” encounters instead of “offensive” encounters. That probably won’t happen.

Substatic.6958:

Can you link those builds.

Here’s one example from another player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0Gs6ejJyc
The idea is that you don’t want to overcap your bleed duration, which qtfy’s build does by quite a bit making it pretty inefficient. You have several options, such as swapping some equipment out for sinister giving a sizeable boost to condi damage like in the video. Another option is to go for the overall condi duration as opposed to just bleed duration, using a combination of runes like trapper and nightmare. If you do it right you can get +25% condi duration from just runes, which effects not only bleed (and caps it with food), but burn, poison, and torment you inflict as well, dealing 10-15% more damage in those departments.

Azzara Nectum.1734:

snip

I don’t hate qtfy. I actually really appreciate the work they do for the community; I use their builds all the time. My point, which I guess may not have been clear, is that the community puts them on a pedestal and they have an actual impact on how people play the game. Whether or not necro is truly viable, the word of qtfy is taken by many to be absolute despite their countless, well-intended disclaimers. But seriously, do you think it’s coincidental that none of their officers or leaders has interest in necro or rev and the former has only 1 build and the latter has 3 links to builds, one being for a mediocre damage, the second 404ing, and the last with a disclaimer that it only works on 1 boss?

I really do feel the need to point out that the video you posted only does 438 DPS more than the qT benchmark. That is not a significant increase.

Jahromi.2079:

Substatic.6958:

Can you link those builds.

Here’s one example from another player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0Gs6ejJyc
The idea is that you don’t want to overcap your bleed duration, which qtfy’s build does by quite a bit making it pretty inefficient. You have several options, such as swapping some equipment out for sinister giving a sizeable boost to condi damage like in the video. Another option is to go for the overall condi duration as opposed to just bleed duration, using a combination of runes like trapper and nightmare. If you do it right you can get +25% condi duration from just runes, which effects not only bleed (and caps it with food), but burn, poison, and torment you inflict as well, dealing 10-15% more damage in those departments.

Looks very interesting, thank you for sharing.

Shadow Fiend is interesting, I wondered why no one seemed to try it after the large scale buff to it.

Jahromi.2079:

Substatic.6958:

Can you link those builds.

Here’s one example from another player
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0Gs6ejJyc
The idea is that you don’t want to overcap your bleed duration, which qtfy’s build does by quite a bit making it pretty inefficient. You have several options, such as swapping some equipment out for sinister giving a sizeable boost to condi damage like in the video. Another option is to go for the overall condi duration as opposed to just bleed duration, using a combination of runes like trapper and nightmare. If you do it right you can get +25% condi duration from just runes, which effects not only bleed (and caps it with food), but burn, poison, and torment you inflict as well, dealing 10-15% more damage in those departments.

Spent the whole day testing a myriad of different setups.
The 2 top contenders are:

Full sinister armor with viper trinkets/weapons with krait runes and bursting/geomancy, which lands you almost exactly on 100% bleeding duration.
(If you change one shoulder/glove/boot piece to viper you get the stats Subli is using in his video)

This would theoretically be the best possible setup for fights where you use epidemic since you max out condition damage while still maintaining 100% bleeding duration.

The other is qTs Full viper with krait and earth/geo.

Both deal almost identical single target dps, I’ve tested every variation for the rotation I can think of but there’s just such a marginal difference that it’s not going to matter for single target.

I’ll grant that it is cool of QT to provide data to assist some of us. But here’s is the problem: it comes off as them saying that their way is the only way, and far too many people take their pronouncement as gospel, and it is extremely annoying. It’s gotten to the point where I get kicked from 3-4 groups before I’m finally allowed into a fractal run. Why is that? I’ll tell you: People see the pronouncement that “Necromancers are low dps in raids” and assume they are bad at everything. THIS IS NOT TRUE!!! Granted, necromancer don’t do the most damage in the game, but we can MORE than hold our own in raids, fractals etc.

I’m not saying that the necromancer is perfect, far from it. It needs a few tweeks and buffs on both condi and power to bring it up to par, and it wouldn’t be hard to do, but that’s another post.

The point I’m making is that while necromancer don’t to the best damage (for now), we are far from useless in pvp, wvw fractals and raids. That said, even IF I accept that QT intentions are good and well-meaning, they don’t help anyone when they create a situation where only certain classes are good enough for x situation and all others (read: Necro and Rev) stay home.

Vaxian.4138:

I’ll grant that it is cool of QT to provide data to assist some of us. But here’s is the problem: it comes off as them saying that their way is the only way, and far too many people take their pronouncement as gospel, and it is extremely annoying.

They explicity state on their website that their builds are for ideal team comps in a raiding scenario for the most part and not to be a class elitist.

How much dps does Power Reaper do now, just out of curiosity. Specific number.

Substatic.6958:

How much dps does Power Reaper do now, just out of curiosity. Specific number.

I would say 5 … 5 dps..
But only if your rotation is spot on, the planets have alligned, hell froze over, Trump has published his taxes and actualy became a competent president and world hunger and poverty have been fixed…

On a more serious note though I would have no idea.. I think ever since the condi reaper spec took over no one realy bothered with a power dps benchmark..

Azzara Nectum.1734:

Substatic.6958:

How much dps does Power Reaper do now, just out of curiosity. Specific number.

I would say 5 … 5 dps..
But only if your rotation is spot on, the planets have alligned, hell froze over, Trump has published his taxes and actualy became a competent president and world hunger and poverty have been fixed…

On a more serious note though I would have no idea.. I think ever since the condi reaper spec took over no one realy bothered with a power dps benchmark..

Aww I only wanted to do power reaper.

Substatic.6958:

How much dps does Power Reaper do now, just out of curiosity. Specific number.

Power reaper probably still sit on their 21-23 k dps.

Oh, have the holy lords of the perfect world spoken?

Vaxian.4138:

Why is that? I’ll tell you: People see the pronouncement that “Necromancers are low dps in raids” and assume they are bad at everything. THIS IS NOT TRUE!!! Granted, necromancer don’t do the most damage in the game, but we can MORE than hold our own in raids, fractals etc.

tbh this has been going on since the “speed run mentality” in dungeon pugs a few years back.
Back then everybody and his cats thought a bunch of randoms were a fully optimized speed clear group and handled it as such.