Guild Wars 2

Regardless of the doom and gloom from how our changes weren’t as good as other professions got, there were some interesting changes that came with the news on Friday. With changes comes theorycrafting.

So, here is a place for us to start doing that. Come up with builds you would like to play!

One poster in the Mesmer forums had an interesting proposal for notation on builds made possible by the new UI. The notation was “[specialization name]v^o” Each character after the specialization name denotes whether the trait chosen is the top (^), center (o), or bottom (v) trait on the UI for that tier. All three trait choices in a line can thus be denoted by three characters total.

For example, “Spite v^o” refers to choosing Bitter Chill, Chill of Death, and Close to Death.

Entire builds can thus be denoted very quickly. I’ll throw one of mine as an example.

Dagger/warhorn+Axe Dagger, Signet of Vampirism, Well of Power, Spectral Grasp, Signet of the Locust, Lich Form
Spite o^^, Blood Magic o^^, Soul Reaping ^^^

Traits chosen are Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death and Signet Mastery in Spite, Bloodthirst, Quickening Thirst, and Vampiric Rituals in Blood Magic, and Unyielding Blast, Spectral Mastery, and Foot in the Grave.

You don’t have to use that notation form if you don’t want to, I just thought it was a really good idea.

Pretty nice idea. Unfortunately it would probably have to be explained everytime its used. x)

Seems 1-2-3 or a-b-c could also work. But ultimately builds will settle in, eventually, and this won’t be necessary. But there is a solid couple months of theorycrafting that this will apply to.

So, the actual point of the thread is actually theorycrafting builds.

Well here’s one:

Necromantic Minion Master:

Staff and Scepter/Dagger-Offhand, Apostate, Apothecary or Settlers, Krait Runes, Renewal/Geomancy Sigils.

Curse Magic: Weakening Shroud, Path of Corruption and Parasitic Contagion.

Death Magic: Flesh of the Master, Greater Marks, Necromantic Corruption

Blood Magic: Mark of Blood, Transfusion and Unholy Martyr.

Curse:
ooo
222
bbb
Death:
^^o
112
aab
Blood:
vvo
332
ccb

Assuming Minion AI/usability gets fixed, the idea is hybrid damage with minions with a mix of heals and condi drawing/transfers to help allies and punish condi using enemies. Keep yourself, allies and minions up as much as possible with Mark of Blood/Evasion, Transfusion and Beyond the Veil. Parasitic Contagion acts as a “cover heal” for incomming conditions drawn in by Unholy Matyr or applied on player (or when minions go down). Depending on how conditions will scale, the build should do 1-2K damage bleeding on up to 5 targets just from its own area bleeds. So 150 – 1500 health per second from PB.

Deathly Swarm, Putrid Mark and Nacromantic Minions will account for a possible 6-36 conditions transfered in the first 25 seconds and more or less every 25-30 seconds after that (assuming minions live). The wording on Necromantic Corruption is confusing, but I’m assuming both the condi transfers from player to minion and minion to enemies are both 10 seconds. It’s fairly possible that only the player to minion aspect is 10 seconds and all minion attacks transfer condis applied to them (due to wording “Whenever a minion attacks it transfers conditions to its target” which seems awfully plural for only one attack every 10 seconds).

The 10% lifeforce gain every 3 seconds form Unholy Matyr condition drawing should be adequate lifeforce gain to power DS entry with hopefully very few condis ever stacking up on Necro. Protection on DS exit should also help a bit on getting any minions back into play if they went down while protecting those that are already up. Mark of Evasion can be used to help heal minions while in DS by applying regeneration on dodge.

You play very close to your targets, dodge rolling/weapon swapping at the same time every 10 seconds to trigger MoE, Geomancy and Renewal sigils at the same time, improving your area bleed stacks by 5, applying more area regeneration and healing 800-900 health in the area.

If Unholy Martyr is still too unwieldy and Deathly Invigoration gets a huge healing boost, then I would switch the two.

Well I can’t help but notice the synergy between the new spite minor vulnerability on chill with greatsword – assuming it is Marjory’s auto-chain. I would assume that the specialization will go with the new line, spite, and soul reaping. Really seems like we’ll be very strong, especially when we get someone to 50%. Tons of vulnerability, chill of death, some might on hit (better than what we have now) and close to death will be intense.

I really hope the specialization has taunt. Would synergize so well with wells. But overall I hope we get good utility and sustain with the new specialization.

If we can get some changes to death magic, It might be a strong choice for power builds too. As it stands now, curses and blood magic don’t seem to be options.

Condi builds seem to be the same.

Sinister Parabond Shrouded Necro:

Force/Earth Sigiled Dagger/Warhorn and Bursting/Earth or Earth/Torment Sigiled Scepter/Dagger-Offhand, Sinister armor, Strength Runes.

Skills: Consume Conditions, Epidemic, Blood is Power, Specral Walk

Spite: Reapers Might, Chill of Death, Close to Death.

Curses: Toxic Landing, Banshee’s Wail and Parasitic Contagion

Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence, Dhuumfire

Spite:
o^o
212
bab
Curses:
^vo
132
acb
Soul:
^ov
123
abc

Not much to say about this. Just playing around with some new versions of traits and taking advantage of power/condi/precision and might stacks buffing both condis and power. I’m pretty sure Death Perception’s technical 25% power increase probably surpasses Dhuumfire in damage, but i’m going to argue Dhuumfire being good for a cover condi in DS.

Dagger/Warhorn are your melee weapons, Scepter/Dagger your mid range condi stacking skirmish weapons and Life Blast/DS being your close and long range alternatives.

You could just replace Parasitic Contagion with Lingering Curse to make it a normal, more DPS oriented Hybrid Build, but I’m banking on the high condi/power damage, in conjunction with sustain from PC being a powerful combo.

Roe.3679:

Well I can’t help but notice the synergy between the new spite minor vulnerability on chill with greatsword – assuming it is Marjory’s auto-chain. I would assume that the specialization will go with the new line, spite, and soul reaping.

Seems you’ve hit the nail on the head there lol good spot

Pretty much exatly the same Condi for PvP. Curses, DM, SR. Apart from the fact that we have to sacrafice either Vital Persistance or Master of Terror and I’ll probably go for VP, so here’s our Fear nerf.

I’m not sure where did Staff Mastery go, so probably equipped with nerfed staff.
Maybe I’ll try Putrid Defense, might help 1v1 a little bit. And get Speed of Shadows.

For DM, aside from Putrid Defense, possibly RProtection. For GM, honestly don’t know. Crappy Sanctuary looks like the only option. The only good thing after Adept in this line is GM minor, anyway.

Or who am I kidding, Leveling a Mesmer.

Imo it’s too early to theorycraft builds. Also, I hope they change some things before they are actually patched in.

@Balekai:
You don’t have 4 options, you’ve picked one of the minor traits everytime.

They gave MM some love. I do hope they fixed the minions’ sudden rigor mortis in the middle of nowhere, when you attack or get attacked when your minion team is still far behind.

Elite line – ???
Spite – Bitter Chill, Death Shiver, Unholy Feast
Soul Reaping – Soul Marks, Vital Persistence, FitG

Staff, GS, berserker, pizza, chillomancer?

I’m going to be conveying builds to people using t/m/b for top/middle/bottom. I care not a whit if I’m the only person that does -_-

Hey, that method works too.

Power Necro:
Spite V^o
Curses VVV
Blood Magic oo^
Soul Reaping Vo^

Soul reaping grants stability, 5% damage, and increased fury uptime.
Blood magic does lifesiphon damage on every hit from every skill + extra life siphon damage on crits and well hits. Life siphon damage ignores armor, so it would add up. Not sure which is better, but leaning towards soul repaping for the stability.

Bitter chill and Chilling darkness and Well of darkness would stack vulnerability quickly along with chill and blindness making well of darkness amazing.

^ you can only use 3 trait trees.

Roe.3679:

^ you can only use 3 trait trees.

I know. Sorry i should have been more clear i meant: I would always uses spite and curses and choose between blood magic and soul reaping based on situation. I think the life siphon damage from blood magic MIGHT make up for that 5% bonus + extra 20% fury uptime you get from soul reaping, but soul reaping also gives stability. But it would depend and might take testing to see? In the end, its always spite and curses. Likely taking soul reaping. Maybe that set up for blood magic would be better that that set up for soul reaping. That is what i meant by the 4 lines i listed.

Its really hard to theory craft a real build right now, as opposed to seeing a few small synergies between traits, without being able to see them in game, see how the damage is, the new stats, etc.

Ex: on one hand I’ll probably be playing a cleric MM build, but there is a good chance that it won’t bring nearly enough personal damage with Death Nova gone to be able to fight on point. Might be worth grabbing something else. On a side note, I really wish they’d introduce a few more stat combination in PvP.

flow.6043:

Imo it’s too early to theorycraft builds. Also, I hope they change some things before they are actually patched in.

@Balekai:
You don’t have 4 options, you’ve picked one of the minor traits everytime.

Totally misunderstood how it works then lol. Thanks flow I will fix them.

Edit:

Bhawb.7408:

Its really hard to theory craft a real build right now, as opposed to seeing a few small synergies between traits, without being able to see them in game, see how the damage is, the new stats, etc.

Ex: on one hand I’ll probably be playing a cleric MM build, but there is a good chance that it won’t bring nearly enough personal damage with Death Nova gone to be able to fight on point. Might be worth grabbing something else. On a side note, I really wish they’d introduce a few more stat combination in PvP.

True, you can’t get into the dirty details since we know so little about condis changes and how concrete trait placement really is. However, we have enough to see where Anet is going with things and theory crafting builds in a general way is possible (Of course, trying to theory craft anything that would include the specialization is impossible). It may even help determine where improvements and trait placements should be in a clearer fashion, when we brainstorm various builds using current trait setups.

As for Cleric MM, Death Nova is still there as far as the DM screens go. However, even if you didn’t take it (or if it got dropped), I think being able to go 6/6/6 in Spite, Death Magic and Blood Magic and the various changes can help a bit.

For example not having to take Training of the Master allows for Chill of Death so there’s not as many boons to DPS through. Or you could take Death Shiver and pulse 6 stacks of area vulnerability every 3s in DS. The changes to Siphoned Power (hopefully with a reduction in the 5s CD) might help as well.

Anyways I think a power MM could take advantage of all the HP threshold traits fairly well.

I’ll probably try out a Soldier Retaliation build sometime, just to mess around in PvP. Or laugh at mobs that actually attack quickly in PvE.

Spite – Spiteful Talisman, Axe Mastery (Which will be useable by the time it hits live or so help me), Spiteful Spirit.
Death Magic – Putrid Defense, Deadly Strength, Death Nova
Blood Magic – Bloodthirst, Quickening Thirst, Vampiric Rituals(?)

Axe/Dagger, Dagger/Focus for weaponry. Heal is Well of Blood because I’m terrible, Utilities are Bone Minions, Corrosive Poison Cloud, Epidemic. Elite is ???

The idea is to have high AoE uptime of poison and weakness on all enemies, while also managing 100%+ uptime of retaliation. With at least two opponents, that retaliation uptime should be easy. Bone minions are there because blast finishers with Death Nova is weakness application.

Wear your opponent down with Axe / Dagger, occasionally rush in for a kill attempt with Dagger / Focus. (Spinal Shivers, Reaper’s Touch, Dark Pact?) This build isn’t intended to generate or even use much life force, since for maximum Spiteful Spirit you only spend about 4 seconds in Death Shroud.

This is sort of a theorycraft but it’s basically an upgrade of my existing build…

Curses: Weakening Shroud, Banshee’s Wail (or path of corruption. I think Banshee’s Wail would make me near unkillable though… and a 3 second AoE daze is just wow), Terror.
Death: Shrouded Removal (became one of my favorite traits to pair with warhorn), Reaper’s Protection, Unholy Sanctuary.
Soul Reaping: Soul Marks, Spectral Mastery, Foot in the Grave or Dhuumfire. I think I’d end up going with Dhuumfire for more damage, since I didn’t grab Path of Corruption, but Foot in the grave would synergize with Unholy Martyr. I dunno.

If they made Soul Marks baseline, that would open up the Adept slot in Soul Reaping, which would allow one to take Speed of Shadows (30% DS cooldown reduction). If this happens… boy oh boy…
Banshee’s Wail for extreme sustain, Furious Demise more often, for more crits and thus more bleeds from Barber Precision, Shrouded Removal (on a 7 sec cooldown, also synergizing with Unholy Martyr), Beyond the Veil (very nice protection uptime, also synergizes with Unholy Martyr), and if one grabs Foot in the Grave… you get the picture. With Soul Marks as baseline the build would go from “wow” to * drop the mic and walk off stage because you’re too beastly for your own good*.

The second build I might play with is
Spite: Bitter Chill, Chill of Death (nice boon removal for sPvP, along with vulnerability) OR Death Shiver. Death Shiver is more reliable in terms of applying vulnerability which is also AoE and helps allies… it’s also a free (and consistent) condi cover. Tough Choice imo. And Unholy Feast for another condi cover (cripple) some nice retal and AoE boon removal. I see potential with Signet of Locust, but not in this build.
Curses: Chill of Darkness with dagger off-hand for chills + vulnerability from Bitter Chill. Would work on Plague as well. Path of Corruption for more boon removal and Terror. Lingering Curses would work here as well because it would make the chills and vulnerability unbelievable long. If Chill of Darkness remains at 2 second chills, that would make it a 4 second chill with Deathly Swarm. Ice Sigil would also be 4 seconds… The condi output with Plague would also double… Tough choice.
Soul Reaping: Anything… with Soul Marks. If Soul Marks is made baseline, there is no need to really go into Soul Reaping.

I also want to try the New Unholy Martyr with sigils of generosity.
Blood: Mark of Evasion, Transfusion, Unholy Martyr
Death:Shrouded Removal would work nicely to clear condis before going to DS to pick up more (lol). Greater Marks and Unholy Sanctuary.
Soul Reaping: I think Speed of shadows would really work great in this build. If not, then Soul Marks. If Soul Marks was made baseline, then you could have both. Soul Marks would also synergize with Mark of Evasion… and if Mark of Evasion was affected by staff cooldowns (which it currently isn’t)… moar synergy! Spectral Mastery would make you a tank, but so would Vital Persistence. I dunno which would be better. The last trait would depend on whether you’re power or condi.

This last build would probably be some kind of tank Necro that’s in the frontlines taking hits with their second health bar oh oops I mean Deathshroud ( ).