Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I’ve only used this build in hotjoins so far, so I’m aware it’s not the best representation of this build’s potential.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmebrtx4G2bTcMUS/BTQ3GZAcAU+ETBA-TZBCwAAOBAZOEAQeCAG3fIcZAA

This build has proven itself in my eyes as surprisingly effective. Out of the last six matches I’ve played using it, I have been downed (not defeated) just once, and that was a very, very prolonged battle where I stomped several players. Granted, I was not the only one on my team there, but I was still getting right into the middle of everything without a break as the enemy team kept repawning (we were right outside their gate on Khylo).

What I’ve found is that with its new functionality, Unholy Sanctuary lets me play a lot more aggressively than without it. The high Protection uptime and high life force generation contribute to prolonged amounts of time in death shroud whenever I need it and the dagger/warhorn + zerker amulet provide plenty of damage output.

So far, color me pleasantly surprised with the buff to this unliked trait. This will probably be my PvP build for the forseeable future.

I’ve noticed in particular on Skyhammer that the build is actually a capable bunker at points A and C, due to the curved walls around half the point. And, more than a normal bunker, it’s capable of handling assaulters on its own.

I tried a similar build. It’s a very fun Cheat Death effect. What’s that, mister thief? You think I’m at low life? Think again!

I might recommend:
Playing around with Soul Marks. Obvious reasons.
Dumping Curses and pushing more points into Soul Reaping for something there; possibly Foot in the Grave.

The only thing I would recommend is (don’t kill me for this) is using reapers precision.

It’s a spectral build first as well as a ds build he has plenty of lf regen from the duration increases effectiveness increase and cooldown decrease of the spectrals skills, he takes persistence to stay on ds longer. This build seems pretty optimized for what it’s supposed to do I wouldn’t recommend changing anything other than possible using reapers precision and your sigil choice isn’t what I would go with.

I considered using Reaper’s Precision and will try it later. Sigil choice was for extra sustain while out of death shroud (since every build has some time outside of death shroud). Blood still adds extra damage when it procs in death shroud as well. Generosity instead of Blood works stupidly well, too.

I’m very interested in how much you think the Unholy Sanctuary change makes a difference.

In theory, if you are so low on health that you could eat a killing blow, wouldn’t you already be in DS if you had enough LF???

In theory, if your DS is on cooldown, that means you just got out of it. Are you leaving DS with LF remaining? Are you building up enough LF during the cooldown period for this trait to even make a difference if it procs?

I guess it’s a trait that, in theory, makes playing a little more brainless. However, this trait has a cooldown, so you would still have to keep track of its cooldown before totally ignoring your option to go into DS on low health.

In a typical game, how many times does this automatic DS on killing blow proc for you?

Interesting, but you can make a lot work in hotjoin. Have you taken it to solo or teamQ at all, or plan to?

SPESHAL.9106:

I’m very interested in how much you think the Unholy Sanctuary change makes a difference.

In theory, if you are so low on health that you could eat a killing blow, wouldn’t you already be in DS if you had enough LF???

In theory, if your DS is on cooldown, that means you just got out of it. Are you leaving DS with LF remaining? Are you building up enough LF during the cooldown period for this trait to even make a difference if it procs?

I guess it’s a trait that, in theory, makes playing a little more brainless. However, this trait has a cooldown, so you would still have to keep track of its cooldown before totally ignoring your option to go into DS on low health.

In a typical game, how many times does this automatic DS on killing blow proc for you?

It lets you pull a few tricks. This build is capable of building life force extremely quickly, so even if I leave death shroud, I can build a good amount back up for Unholy Sanctuary to do some work, especially if someone holds their burst until I leave death shroud. Also notable is the ability to flash death shroud right before death to double-up on the DS entry traits.

As for how many times it procs, typically two or three times a match. Considering that’s usually two or three kills my opponents didn’t get, I’ll count that as good.

@Roe: I’ll take it into solo que eventually. I don’t have any friends interested in team que.

Yeah generosity would be cool I really just mean the leeching sigils, not the health steal on swap, are kind of not optimal for a build that spends a lot of time in ds.

How are feeling when facing a condition build? (necro, engie, hambot axebot & dd ele too)

NeXeD.3042:

Yeah generosity would be cool I really just mean the leeching sigils, not the health steal on swap, are kind of not optimal for a build that spends a lot of time in ds.

The way I see it, sustaining death shroud alone is not enough. When you’re not in death shroud, you need to get in your healing, too. Sigil of Blood heals for more than Sigil of Water (discounting ally heal)and adds in a damage kicker besides. This plus Consume Conditions plus Life Siphon decent health sustain. Sigils are the least important part of the build, however.

Flumek.9043:

How are feeling when facing a condition build? (necro, engie, hambot axebot & dd ele too)

Wasn’t aware Axebow or DD ele were condition builds :p

Strangely, I haven’t run into any yet. I was predicting a bunch of at least condition Mesmers to be in hotjoin. The other necros I ran into were all on my team. While I don’t have evidence, I would think they won’t be a problem, since I’ve done fine against condition builds using only Consume Conditions for a cleanse in WvW.

Okay, just played a couple of solo que games and lost both times (both were close, though). Took me a couple fights to get into the difference, and all I can really say is that his build hates Thief+Ranger. Especially Rangers that run those stupid rock dog runes.

1v1, this build seems to be able to handle anything, though I still haven’t seen a condi build save one possible Mesmer (I kept getting these single torment stacks in that match). Actually, even numbers period and this build does really well. Against multiple highly evasive foes, however, it doesn’t hold up long.

Condition is damage over time.
To live through this time all DoT builds are tankier than direct burst builds. Following this basic design philosophy makes

-rabid necro engie a burst proffesion ( condiburst with bad sustain)
- all those celestial conditioneers, cz they have the sustain and same condie pressure over time

Jokes aside, ive been recently playing with regular rabid 04406 with fear dur. and stability. Its decent.

Ill try your when i get back to usual power necro.

Yeah, I couldn’t tell if you were joking or just being incredibly dense there.

Still, the total lack of condition builds even in solo que right now is confusing, given the buffs Mesmers got in that area.

I’ve given this a try as well and I found that whilst you can still play in deathshroud, the key is to spend as little time in deathshroud as humanly possible so that when you’re indeed going to die, it procs the Unholy Sanc. Basically, take everything to the fast as much as you can and dodge the hits you can as well, use deathshroud to open up opportunities but use it sparingly.

And it Works well.

Since it’s on a 30s cooldown, I’ve found that it is almost always up. The only time it really won’t function is when you get downed immediately after using it.

It’s an interesting idea, a berserker/DS build with actual sustain! Won’t have the raw damage of the meta build but that’s kinda gimmicky, too easy to lock down and destroy. And it’s fairly flexible too: I guess you could make it tankier by going Knights or Cavalier’s (in fact, because of the Death 25 trait, you’d only lose a minimal amount of power if you swapped to one of those two! ) or burstier by dropping 10 points from Curses to get Deathly Perception. Less life force (marginally) for more burst. Oh, or you could use Valkyries and use that healing power, since you’ll be healing literally all the time you’re in DS. Not that the regen scales great.

Also occurs to me that if you went for DP you could also drop Curses completely for Reaper’s Might or Spiteful Spirit. Both would benefit from the boon duration, though it’d be slightly less defensive with the weakness gone.

SPESHAL.9106:

In theory, if you are so low on health that you could eat a killing blow, wouldn’t you already be in DS if you had enough LF???

In theory, if your DS is on cooldown, that means you just got out of it. Are you leaving DS with LF remaining? Are you building up enough LF during the cooldown period for this trait to even make a difference if it procs?

Well I guess the theory is you get knocked out of DS due to LF running out, pop your spectrals, eat a couple hits in the face to build LF up again, and then when that last hit that would’ve killed you lands you get popped back into DS even though it’s on cooldown. And remember, he’ll have regenerated a bit of health while in DS due tot he trait (pathetic amounts though, the healing aspect of this needs a buff), so he won’t be a total sitting duck when he comes out.

I really feel that Spectral Attunement is a necessary component of the build. The longer duration of Spectral Armor/Last Gasp and Spectral Wall especially are important. Remember: Spectral Wall grants 5% life force (5.5% with Gluttony) every time an enemy comes in contact with it, so fighting a melee opponent by running through it constantly does wonders to keep you high on life force. This is not a bug, it’s just not in the tooltip. It got added to Spectral Wall when it got changed to apply Fear.

The real counter of the build (and really, a weakness of necros in general) is S/P thieves. Between Headshot and Pistol Whip, you accomplish nothing.

Experimented at all with Spectral Grope?

I tried it last night, with Spectral Grasp subbed in for Spectral Wall (my luck with it’s been atrocious lately). It’s a fun build, as simple as that.

Tried different variations as well, with Traveler’s Runes subbed in for the Vamp Runes, and with 2 pts out of Curses to get GM in Soul Reaping, first used Death Perception and then FitG.

Results were, Vamp’s mist form serves (if nothing else) as an excellent “reminder” that you’re about to have DS proc; my best mileage came from face-tanking in DS and allowing LF to deplete, then when mist form procc’d, hit SA and SW (and if able, Locust Swarm) right before unholy sanctuary kicks in. From mist->DS is usually 2 hits, the first one grants the required 10% LF to allow DS to proc, then you have several seconds of the assault you’re facing to charge your LF bar to max before it starts to degen as opposed to it melting from the get-go.

Death Perception granted nice big numbers, but didn’t really help overall. Similar with FitG.

Spectral Grasp is a fun addition to this build. As said, my luck with Spectral Wall is non-existent so the guaranteed 20% LF with grasp is welcome as opposed to having to hope I score 4 or more hits with the wall. In addition, it’s always fun to Grasp an opponent off a cap point

There’s more variations I would like to try with this build (because if nothing else, I’d like to think I’m one of the few necro forum users who doesn’t care about min/maxing) but couldn’t get to yesterday due to time constraints.

TL;DR: Drarnor, this build is fun as hell, trying different variations to see what it can do.

Also, I apologize for any horrid grammar in this post. Work day just started and my brain’s still a potato.

[Edit] Forgot to mention I subbed Reaper’s Protection with Death Shiver first (to no real effect) then Spiteful Vigor. Vigor seemed to work better than with RP, simply because I found myself in the middle of a 4v1 (with multiple mesmers and Guild theives) quite often. The retal itself isn’t enough to do much of anything however it’s more than the vuln granted by Shiver, and the damage accumulates with Tainted Shackles and Life Transfer if you hit DS immediately post-heal.

I think you need to have more healing power for this trait.

I’ll actually have to try out Spiteful Vigor, since the biggest build counter I’ve found is S/P thieves with Pistol Whip. Retaliation is very nice against them.

Also, discovering that you can use death shroud while in the Vampire runes Mist Form helped me pick them in the first place.

I’ve ran a very similar build the past few days and I had a similar experience. Mostly done soloQ. Can’t say if this a meta-worthy build as I’m only a sub-top player at best, but if anything it feels at least close to it. This is what I currently use (tried a celestial amulet as well as traveler runes at first, but this feels like it does better):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc0UbbfNu2whbCehS6A4Am3IvgOgyvINA-TpBFABCcCAA+QAgwRAol9HqqMAAPAAA

With some tweaks (both from the player side, i.e. finding out what variations work best, and from the dev side, i.e. balance), I could see this become a solid and fun build in the future. It feels pretty ‘active’, in that you’re not just plain tanky and unkillable without doing anything, but you can survive very well if you manage your cooldowns and CC properly. (A bit like there’s a world of difference between a guardian that just does random stuff and one that manages his tools well.)

Let’s call the build “Spectral Sanctuary”! (Come on, you know you want to )

Edit: forgot to change the utilties

Runes of Hoelbrak seem like a waste on your build, since the only source of Might is themselves. Tried Melandru instead?

And Spectral Sanctuary could work as a name. My WvW version I’m calling Grenth’s Zealot :p

Yeah, you’re probably right. I switched to them when I was still using celestial amulet and fights would tend to drag out longer, so the might they proc on their own really added up. But now that I use berserker’s, it’s probably indeed time for something different (not sure if that’s Melandru thought :P).

I think it’s all ogre now.

Fair enough. Really, a lot of runes can work. I need to try out Runes of the Grove for more Protection, for example.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Also notable is the ability to flash death shroud right before death to double-up on the DS entry traits.

As for how many times it procs, typically two or three times a match. Considering that’s usually two or three kills my opponents didn’t get, I’ll count that as good.

Flashing DS near death to double up on certain DS procs actually seems like a nice use – kudos. However, because it doesn’t proc at a certain health level and requires an actual KB (plus it has a cooldown), I just wonder if you’re playing with fire trying to gauge it this way.

One question…if you’re stomping out of DS and you receive a KB mid stomp, does the insta-switch to DS stop the stomp? I suspect it does, but if it didn’t, then I think this aspect of the trait would be more useful.

Also, if it’s proccing 2-3 times per match, are you saying that it actually changed the result of the fight or did it just prolong your death a bit longer.

The hard part I’m trying to get around is…“Who has any meaningful bit of LF left when their health is near death?”. It’s just so counter-intuitive to how you should play a Necro that’s it’s weird that THIS is what they came up to buff the trait.

SPESHAL.9106:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Also notable is the ability to flash death shroud right before death to double-up on the DS entry traits.

As for how many times it procs, typically two or three times a match. Considering that’s usually two or three kills my opponents didn’t get, I’ll count that as good.

Flashing DS near death to double up on certain DS procs actually seems like a nice use – kudos. However, because it doesn’t proc at a certain health level and requires an actual KB (plus it has a cooldown), I just wonder if you’re playing with fire trying to gauge it this way.

One question…if you’re stomping out of DS and you receive a KB mid stomp, does the insta-switch to DS stop the stomp? I suspect it does, but if it didn’t, then I think this aspect of the trait would be more useful.

Also, if it’s proccing 2-3 times per match, are you saying that it actually changed the result of the fight or did it just prolong your death a bit longer.

The hard part I’m trying to get around is…“Who has any meaningful bit of LF left when their health is near death?”. It’s just so counter-intuitive to how you should play a Necro that’s it’s weird that THIS is what they came up to buff the trait.

These are my thoughts as well.

Most of the time I die with any meaningful life force, it’s because I was getting zerged down and would rather respawn with life force instead of delay a few seconds and respawn with none.

SPESHAL.9106:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Also notable is the ability to flash death shroud right before death to double-up on the DS entry traits.

As for how many times it procs, typically two or three times a match. Considering that’s usually two or three kills my opponents didn’t get, I’ll count that as good.

Flashing DS near death to double up on certain DS procs actually seems like a nice use – kudos. However, because it doesn’t proc at a certain health level and requires an actual KB (plus it has a cooldown), I just wonder if you’re playing with fire trying to gauge it this way.

One question…if you’re stomping out of DS and you receive a KB mid stomp, does the insta-switch to DS stop the stomp? I suspect it does, but if it didn’t, then I think this aspect of the trait would be more useful.

Also, if it’s proccing 2-3 times per match, are you saying that it actually changed the result of the fight or did it just prolong your death a bit longer.

The hard part I’m trying to get around is…“Who has any meaningful bit of LF left when their health is near death?”. It’s just so counter-intuitive to how you should play a Necro that’s it’s weird that THIS is what they came up to buff the trait.

The double-proc is not something I aim for, it’s a “well, Unholy Sanctuary is about to proc, might as well double up on entry benefits.” Not a goal, just a perk.

Annoyingly, yes. If Unholy Sanctuary sends you into death shroud, it does interrupt the stomp/revive. But, also thanks to the trait, you can continue the stomp/revive when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

If you read my first post, I said that I only actually got downed once in the six matches. If it was proccing 12-18 times over the matches and I only got downed once, well, I’ll let you figure that one out

Three words: burst life force. This build is capable of gaining sufficient life force rapidly, then sustained life force for several seconds after DS entry.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I really feel that Spectral Attunement is a necessary component of the build. The longer duration of Spectral Armor/Last Gasp and Spectral Wall especially are important. Remember: Spectral Wall grants 5% life force (5.5% with Gluttony) every time en enemy comes in contact with it, so fighting a melee opponent by running through it constantly does wonders to keep you high on life force. This is not a bug, it’s just not in the tooltip. It got added to Spectral Wall when it got changed to apply Fear.

The real counter of the build (and really, a weakness of necros in general) is S/P thieves. Between Headshot and Pistol Whip, you accomplish nothing.

I don’t believe it’s that important. You can gain a lot deathshroud in other ways. Just making sure you have at least 15 point in the soul reaping line is good enough.

V 1.2: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmebrtx1G2bTgLUS3Dxw+C5BEAU2GxBA-TZBCwAAOBAZOEA42fAyTAIcZAA

Swapped points in Curses to Spite, picking up Spiteful Spirit and Chill of Death. Losing Spectral Attunement caused a switch to Runes of the Grove to help recoup some of the lost Protection duration. Runes of Earth are also acceptable, but Grove makes the healing more effective.

Getting a reliable source of Retaliation should do wonders to help punish Longbow Rangers and Pistol-whip thieves; the two builds I have had the most difficulty against with the first version. Going to test this version now.

I tried it the other night as well, and you’re right about rangers: they just pinball you about like crazy and you can’t even hit them. It’s like a hard counter to the build.
Was also kinda disappointed with the damage against warriors. Takes ages to kill them, which really should not be the case with a berserker amulet. Everything else melted.

manveruppd.7601:

I tried it the other night as well, and you’re right about rangers: they just pinball you about like crazy and you can’t even hit them. It’s like a hard counter to the build.
Was also kinda disappointed with the damage against warriors. Takes ages to kill them, which really should not be the case with a berserker amulet. Everything else melted.

Most of the Warriors I’ve been facing melted pretty quick. The tankier ones were probably using Soldier’s amulet.

Rangers and S/P thieves seem to hardcounter the build’s first version. I need more experience with version 1.2 to say more.