Guild Wars 2

Has anyone experimented with this? I’m 25 points deep in Curses for my group PvE build currently and am considering dropping some points elsewhere to pick it up, but 25% proc on crits for 3 seconds seems a little low. I mean, the 66% on bleeds can stack up pretty quickly even with their short duration so I have no doubt that it will have a noticeable impact, and I believe that weakness is underrated, though I am unsure on NPC crit chances. I can imagine that popping into death shroud for Life Transfer (since you will have fury) will stack up weakness big time on everything around you, which is great. I’m sure the damage reduction will be palpable, but I’m just wondering of other people’s experiences with it.

Ive tried it with axes before. It’s pretty easy to keep a constant weakness condition up. is a second here and there it wont proc right away and may tick down but for the most part it works often enough. Personally however, I’ve never really thought much about what kinda build you would want to use it for. Ideally it would probably be daggers/axe….but it would work as a condition add on for builds with scepters ( the 33% increased condition duration is not overly needed…it is a tad overrated )

I have 45% crit chance, and as far as I read a few post most people will argue that necro doesn’t need high crit chance etc. etc. but still back to the topic. I think it really demends on the weapon and overall gameplay, personally my style of play is to put as much conditions as I can on enemy, so this trait was musthave for me. So far I’m pleased with this trait, maybe it doesn’t give you consistent weakness on enemies, but together with corrosive poison cloud it can really extend the weakness duration (+prolonged condition duration from spite trait). Because of that while enemy is weakened almost till it’s death damage output from him reduces significantly, and therefore my survivability.
But then again, maybe it’s not the best choise for low lvl crit chance, or if you’re using staff due to it’s slow casts.

My build is a split power/condition, focused on debilitating enemies as much as possible with conditions (not necessarily bleed stacking only, but I do that too.), reducing the damage the group takes significantly, while dishing out lots as well. Since I run Axe/Dagger Dagger/Focus I’m also in range to soak up hits quite a bit.

Currently I’m playing
10/25/0/15/20, but I think I’ll move 5 points from soul reaping into Curses to try it out. I think I lose the least by that.

As far as other justification:
10 in Spite mostly for the condition duration and power gains, but the first tier trait isn’t half bad. Reaper’s Might is probably the most practical, since I get to double dip with might stacks (35 condition/power each stack).

25 in curses, initially gunning for 20% reduced corruption CDs for Blood is Power and Epidemic Spamming, both very powerful abilities. Only shaves off a few seconds each but very easy to shoot them off whenever they’re up. Normally try to prep a few seconds in advance with my most powerful single target conditions when I see epidemic coming off it’s 12 second CD. Focus 4/5, Dagger 3 is a great combo (AOE immobilize!) before epidemic, I also like to hit dark path if I can before it too.

15 in Blood for Life Transfer heal on allies, and for Vampiric trait, 25 hp per hit per target hit adds up fast and contributes significantly to survivability in my experiences.

20 in soul reaping for the boost to Death Shroud, and mostly for Spectral Armor at 50% hp. I pick up Adept Traits only and neither is ESSENTIAL to my build, which is why I think these points will be the easiest to sacrifice.

I have 50% crit rate.

This sounds encouraging though, I think I’ll definitely have to try it when I get home. Currently my only weakness comes from Dagger 5, which while I use it lots, as I indicated is lower priority (than it probably should be for me).

Withering precision is an extremely useful trait in pve and pvp – sure, you can argue about 25% being high enough or not, but as is it’s very easy to keep perm weakness on a target.

My build in WvW runs around with 76% crit chance, and does 5 hits per second when I’m fighting a single person if I set them up right, and combined with the 10s+ of weakness from enfeebling blood (the ds trait one), it should be no trouble to keep in on all the time. Obviously it’s most effective against low crit chance builds, but the endurance reduction alone is extremely useful to secure kills.

In pve it’s even more significant since mobs don’t (as far as I notice) crit, which makes a significant damage reduction. Combined with perm aoe protection from a guardian and a shout warrior, my dungeon group can usually just facetank most fights.

Would be awesome if crits became normal attacks as well, then then I guess it would be very OP since it would be main countermeasure against crit-based characters.

I’m not sure why the damage reduction doesn’t apply to crit hits, as it gives crit builds a distinct advantage over non crit builds, oh well.