Guild Wars 2

I’ve had full rabid (Cond,Prec,Tough) armor/trinket/weapon from the time I hit 80 on necro. I use scepter/dagger and staff and traits are 0/30/20/20/0. 1745 condition damage without food.

Honestly I’m kind of wondering if this is the best build for what I want.

In WvW I LOVE the survivability of high toughness (1858) and the idea of wearing people out (not burst damage). But my conditions often get removed in long fights. Being that I have absolutely no power, the rest of my attacks do little damage. It’s also disconcerting when I agro everything in dungeons.

My questions are:

Does condition damage lose it’s scaling power after a certain amount? Is there a certain number I should’ve aimed for?
If so, I’m wishing I bought carrion.

Also considering changing to dagger mh and using wells and shroud more for a vampiric power build. Does anyone have any suggestions for gear and traits? Again I do not want to be squishy, so full berserker would be out of the question. Maybe knight’s…

I don’t believe that there is a cap on condition damage. Only condition duration can be capped.

As far as carrior gear is concerned, I highly recommend it. It has the power to deal a decent base damage while keeping your condi damage high. The extra vitality is great and it adds a little more life force for you to play with. Very good when trying to escape an enemy zerg. I use staff and scepter/dagger and both damage wells for AoE vuln and boon removal. Great for tagging of dealing alot of damage in camps and big fights. From someone who doesn’t like to commit to a full zerker or rampager on the necro, I think you will like how it feels.

Lexvia.4087:

Does condition damage lose it’s scaling power after a certain amount? Is there a certain number I should’ve aimed for?

The scaling for Condition Damage never changes:

Bleed 42.5 + 0.5 * Condition Damage
Poison 84 + 0.1 * Condition Damage
Fear (With Terror trait) 362 + 0.3 * Condition Damage

The more you have, the more damage your conditions do. If you have trouble with Conditions being removed it’s possible to go for more Condition Damage at the cost of Condition duration (If you haven’t already)

Also considering changing to dagger mh and using wells and shroud more for a vampiric power build. Does anyone have any suggestions for gear and traits? Again I do not want to be squishy, so full berserker would be out of the question. Maybe knight’s…

Gear choices:

Berserker/Valkyrie mix
Soldier
Soldier/Berserker mix

Traits:

30 XI, X, XII
0
0
30 II, XIII, XII
10 VI

Would be a good starting point (Doesn’t rely on crits so can use the tankier Soldier gear)

You could look at my build in the builds thread, its the second to last one posted.

Here is my suggestion real quick

30 II, V, XII
10 IV
0
30 II, V, VIII
0

Gear:
Bezerker/Soldier mix (karma soldier armor, berzerk everything else)
Rune of the Pack or Thief or Eagle if you are loaded.
Superior Sigil of Blood on main hand
Superior Sigil of Accuracy on off hand
Sigil of perception on Staff secondary
Mixed Berry Pie and artisan maintenance oils

I am making a short video showing the healing potiential. Will edit this post later.

Storm of the Ages.9076:

I don’t believe that there is a cap on condition damage. Only condition duration can be capped.

Taril.8619:

The more you have, the more damage your conditions do. If you have trouble with Conditions being removed it’s possible to go for more Condition Damage at the cost of Condition duration (If you haven’t already)

Thanks all for your advice!

I think I meant to say, is there a point where it’s not so beneficial anymore to trait into condi damage. I read somewhere 1100 or 1200 condition damage was a “sweet spot” to be at, whereas mine is almost 1800. I’ll definitely think about carrion now for the condi wvw build.

As for power/dagger mh build, do you all think knights or berserker/knights isn’t advisable? I’m so used to the high toughness on rabid that I was kind of scared to give it up.

If you run around in WvW, please don’t go glass cannon. Knight’s is definitely a much, much better option than Berserker’s as your main item choice.

And when people mention “sweet spots” for Condition Damage, that is usually in the context of a hybrid build. Depending on how you go about your WvW, you’ll want to maximise your burst, over sustained damage, more often than not.

Here’s the video of my build as promised.

And guess what? I AM going around in wvw as a glass cannon. What’chya gonna do about it?

I would suggest going for a mix of both rabid gear and carrion gear. Add a piece or two if carrion to your build and just go from there till you find a balance that suits you. With the good amount of crit you have from mostly rabid even adding a small amount of power will raise your regular damage from abilities by a noticable amount.

Ojimaru.8970:

And when people mention “sweet spots” for Condition Damage, that is usually in the context of a hybrid build.

Ooh, now I’m interested in what these hybrid builds look like …

Bryker.5719:

I would suggest going for a mix of both rabid gear and carrion gear.

Cool, I’m gonna try this!

Lorelei.3918:

Here’s the video of my build as promised.

Nice visualization of what the vampiric line looks like/well-healing. I heard the heals weren’t that great on siphoning though. Do you recommend using sigil of leeching?

Have you tried this build?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Fear-is-my-weapon-6x-fear-WvW-build/first

Leeching’s issue is at most it’s a heal every 10 sec, but in normal play you don’t swap weapons that much. I prefer putting preception or bloodlust sigil on my staff offhand so when I am in a zerg I can hang back and build my stack while still getting bags. As for heals not being great: no one siphon is great. It takes multiple sources. Food, Sigil, traits. Siphon on hit and siphon on crit are independent heals that add up to about 100hp. Berry siphon is 300ish. Life siphon is a 300ish heal per tick + trait siphons + food siphon. The result is a constant little stream of incoming hp. It may only keep you alive a few seconds longer, but those few seconds count. In 1v1 siphons can turn a fight around, because you can essentially burst and heal at the same time….

May I ask why you use mixed berry over omnom?

Poverty mainly. Also the slim hope it doesn’t have a internal cooldown. The wiki isn’t clear about it(says some do like omnom, but not others).

Lorelei.3918:

Poverty mainly. Also the slim hope it doesn’t have a internal cooldown. The wiki isn’t clear about it(says some do like omnom, but not others).

Hrm. This requires testing! And I shall do so forthwith.

EDIT: Ofc I just realized for ideal testing purposes I would have to achieve 100% crit chance and be hitting something that will not die, can be crit, and will not kill me whilst I stand there attacking it with my dagger all willy nilly….when I figure out how to do the latter (as the former is entirely possible with a Warrior present) I will post here for posterity.

Cheby Shev.4671:

Have you tried this build?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Fear-is-my-weapon-6x-fear-WvW-build/first

Thanks for this, I’m trying 20 in Soul Reaping instead of the mediocre traits of Blood Magic right now and so far so good!

If its just Toughness your after there is alot of easy to access Cavalier armour for Power users. Something like this would make a great solo roamer/ havoc team.