Guild Wars 2

The idea was mentioned on “the state of Necromancer’s in PvP” thread about a possible debuff bunker build (think guardian but with debuffs for the enemy instead of buffs for your team). I thought it may be a good exercise to see how close we could get to such a build with what we have now, and thus figure out what we still need to make it a strong build.

Some requirements:
High life force generation
Strong healing
High pressure on the enemy through debilitating conditions and (soft) cc

Maybe this spectral build would be a nice place to start this exercise?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Attrition-PvP-Spectral-Build-Video
Obviously, Unholy Sanctuary should be too good to pass up in a build like this… I mean, this is practically what the trait was made for, if it doesn’t live up than that will have to be one of the points that should be improved.

So… start brainstorming

(PS. I’ll try to flesh out the post a bit more once I find some time, but meanwhile: get started :P)

EDIT: Added the build I was referring too

(reserved: will keep the current best version of the build here and update as we improve upon it)

Basically, I think a build would either be focused on spectrals/conditions or power or power/wells. Condi makes it easy because damage scales easily, plus Terror allows you to deal decent damage still, power also has decent damage because of how high our base damage is with some things. I’ll post some sample builds in a bit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW3djk0UTbRNm3wfbiihaqYI6AoA+WqDinoIA-TJxGABAcRAy9JAwUZAh2fAA

High life force generation = staff aa/marks/axe 2/focus 4
Strong healing = 1197 healing power, 6s regen from focus 4 (18s cd), 7s regen from staff 2 (6s cd), WoB 631 Heal per/s (40s cd), DS 4 has 4.7k heal (34s cd)
High pressure on the enemy through debilitating conditions and (soft) cc = Chill on blind (plauge/WoD), Fear, Cripple, Tons of boon corruption (DS 2, corrupt boon, WoC)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7djc00abvN22wfbijhS6QYC62IDgDgypYJA-TpwPgAulBA2fAA

Condi/Chill/Spectral bunker support. Based off AlTroll’s old build. Basically spams out craploads of chill, has a TON of LF generation for you to camp DS as long as possible, high protection uptime to make all that LF and HP last forever. The more LF you get the more HP you can get, which lets your LF CD’s come up… etc.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4Yjk00UbRN+0wfjiihS6ToCC3JjheIqAgqgA-TJxHAB1+EAQqMQI7PAwFBAA

This is a power build. Uses craptons of healing (like literally craptons), good AoE protection, a lot of blinds, and every blind also inflicts chill. Note the two bone minions, weird choice? Blast finisher every 20s for AoE blind + chill. Blinds on blinds on blinds.

Also feel free to make any suggestions for what I’ve posted, these were basically thrown together, haven’t had time to test yet, will tomorrow.

Then you meet a meditation guard, a decent mesmer or a ranger and the rest of your day is ruined.

Andele.1306:

Then you meet a meditation guard, a decent mesmer or a ranger and the rest of your day is ruined.

And… what happens? I could see some of them being annoying due to boon removal (although I don’t see what a Ranger would do at all) or trying to burst, but there is no way they’re bursting through 30k+ HP with 3k armor.

I’m honestly curious to see if there’s a way to make the builds as good as possible while having awful support/bunker weapons.

Bhawb.7408:

Andele.1306:

Then you meet a meditation guard, a decent mesmer or a ranger and the rest of your day is ruined.

And… what happens? I could see some of them being annoying due to boon removal (although I don’t see what a Ranger would do at all) or trying to burst, but there is no way they’re bursting through 30k+ HP with 3k armor.

I’m honestly curious to see if there’s a way to make the builds as good as possible while having awful support/bunker weapons.

What is the main requirement of a bunker to function? Keeping a point alive, said guys murder from safety while keeping you off point.

Good suggestions so far.
I’ve tried to throw something together myself (will have to test it out tonight), but constantly get reminded how our stuff is truly all over the place… I mean you kind of want to work on 3 areas that simply aren’t compatible at the moment:
- You’ll be in DS a lot, so you want some traits to boost that
- You need a lot of life force generation, so spectral skills and their traits are your obvious answer
- You kind of want to bring some wells for the team utility/area denial
So you end up wanting/needing to go 6 in death, 4 in curses, 4 in blood, 4 in soul reaping … actually 4 in spite would be too bad either. Combine that with 6 utility skills and 3 weapon sets and you know you’ve got a problem.

I’m also really liking Bhawb’s suggestion for Unholy Martyr, as it would give us an option to simultaneously relieve some pressure from our own team while putting it on the enemy team…

TL;DR For lacking of anything truly game changing, you end up needing a ton of small things and you simply can’t slot that many…

If your bunkering stability is kind of important, this kind of pigeon holes the build to be x/x/6/x/6

Im wondering if focusing on weakness or chill would be better.

Something i threw together quickly. The idea is to get weakness and chill from weapons/sigils and utility rather than traits. CPC is a 12 second field which should be quite useful at keeping the pressure off on point. You want dagger offhand for the blind/condi transfer and the extra weakness. And dagger mainhand for the life siphon and lifeforce generation.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc00TbtNO3wfbCrhS6AYA+1pmAqrhWYEA-TJxFwAJOFAQLDka/BAPBAA

I don’t actually think stability is massively important, based on my bunkering as an MM, so long as you have other ways to deal with things. You can even use things like WoD or any well/bone minions to secure stomps and res. It is certainly helpful but not needed.

I guess. But i dont really feel like its reliable to stay on point with no good access to stab. You could get cc chained off point by a warrior, guardian or engi and let them decap it. Obviously with smart play and blinds you can minimise this. But with well cooldowns and the pulse time of WoD, I dont really like the idea of relying solely on blinds to avoid being knocked off point.

CPC is really quiet good for this… I did a couple of games now with this:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIRdG2IHN90WbjzN83m4Xok+FCg2dqgg6mYMiCA-TJxHAB1+EAOZ/BAOJAFVGAA
and, surprisingly, it sort of works… There’s definitely improvements to be made, but the first impression was better than expected. I was using it mostly to help the teams at mid, not as a close bunker or something (would probably pick some different choices for that).

So this is the current build, just used it in soloQ, had some interesting results. Mainly that I’m bad and need to remember the build is all about pro-actively using stuff, which I’m not used to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjk00UbRN+0wfjiihS6ToCC3JjheIqAgqgA-TJxHAB1eKAQqMQI7PAwTAAA

It took a bit of time, like I said, to get the hang of it. However, Unholy Sanctuary just wasn’t that good. I recognize I don’t have enough LF gen for it, and I feel like it’d only really be useful if you had a TON of LF regen, so I am going for this build, also swapping some other stuff around since I am not used to energy sigils and didn’t really feel like they did much more me.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjk00UbRN+0wfjiiBR6TV6MZseRFgqgA-TJRIABzeKAA4JAYUZgP2fAA

I went this way because I’m used to leeching sigils (frankly I have a huge kitten for them) and also because bone minions with self comboing poison fields on a 20s CD opens up so much. Downed body? Good luck raising him through 30s of poison and 3k damage.

And if that doesn’t work out, I’m going to try 0/6/4/4/0, with Master of Corruption/Path of Corruption, since I think those are such strong anti-bunker mechanics right now, and then pick up CPC obviously for downed pressure.

Honestly though the biggest issue I’m finding is just that staff is a really, really awful weapon for non condi builds. I just feel like it gives me absolutely nothing worthwhile, but it barely beats out axe so I’m stuck with it.

You should really try CPC, 15 sec of weakness + poison is just crazy strong.

And axe isn’t too bad, especially since it gives you easy access to near-perma retaliation. Probably also gives you (together with the off-hand) access to better LF-generation.

Arvid.3829:

You should really try CPC, 15 sec of weakness + poison is just crazy strong.

And axe isn’t too bad, especially since it gives you easy access to near-perma retaliation. Probably also gives you (together with the off-hand) access to better LF-generation.

I would, but Bone Minions + Death Nova are vastly superior. No self weakness, way better poison uptime (plus it is up more often), comparable weakness uptime, plus the 3k damage every 20s. CPC would only be used so I could free up 4 trait points, probably to dump into Curses.

Not that CPC is weak, mind you, but in this case death nova is stronger, but more expensive in traiting.

This is some good discussion

I was playing around with this build a couple weeks back, I was just messing with unholy sanc and seeing how well i could bunker.

I still use that build posted in the OP but I have been playing one that suits this thread a bit better.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIhtu1IHNF3WejvN83mgXokMAOgovgOIepcK+CA-TJxHABDcGAAa/hjLDAwDBAA

I know it seems strange but it works very well, dagger autos are really strong with this build. I know the power is low and the condi damage isnt quite what people are used to but this build is pretty much anti bunker, dishing out constant boon rips. If you coordinate burst with your team bunkers dont stand a chance. It really shines in foefire mid fights.

Its customizable to fit your playstyle as well. The trait choices are personal choices as I would assume most people would take terror over spectral attunement seeing as how i put spectral wall and nightmare runes, or MoC for corrupt boon. Its all preference but i find spectral attunement just works better for me.

Good luck! Also nullification on dagger is a good choice too!