Utilities and PvE
Simple answer is no. I run around with wells and signet of locust or spectral walk in pve. Blood is power good for might stacking, spectral walk is a good stunbreak and spectral wall is good for vuln stacking when LoSing groups in dungeons.
The only utility combo that i have found useful in dungeons is plague signet and taking consume condition and/or condition transfer. Keeps conditions off of your teammates while you deal with them yourself.
Also blood is power + well of power gives vigor. But thats not worth it, two utilities to get a few seconds of vigor is wasteful.
We also have multiple ways of removing boons from boon heavy bosses. Unfortunately mesmers do it way better.
(edited by spoj.9672)
If we are talking PvE, I have enjoyed Corrosive Poison Cloud. It is effective at what it does, stacking up weakness, probably one of the most useful conditions in PvE. It greatly reduces the incoming damage and since AI is stupid and won’t avoid circles you can dance in the middle of it all day. I rock a MH Dagger so that all my enemies have to come to the middle of my bubble.
I simply wish I had more options underwater for my syphon build. Everything underwater is geared toward minion or conditions.
If we are talking PvE, I have enjoyed Corrosive Poison Cloud. It is effective at what it does, stacking up weakness, probably one of the most useful conditions in PvE. It greatly reduces the incoming damage and since AI is stupid and won’t avoid circles you can dance in the middle of it all day. I rock a MH Dagger so that all my enemies have to come to the middle of my bubble.
I simply wish I had more options underwater for my syphon build. Everything underwater is geared toward minion or conditions.
Underwater weapons on necro are both incredibly powerful with power builds. And the vampiric swarm scales with healing power. Combine that with life siphon traits, you get really strong burst heal because of the double or triple heals on proc.
If we are talking PvE, I have enjoyed Corrosive Poison Cloud. It is effective at what it does, stacking up weakness, probably one of the most useful conditions in PvE. It greatly reduces the incoming damage and since AI is stupid and won’t avoid circles you can dance in the middle of it all day. I rock a MH Dagger so that all my enemies have to come to the middle of my bubble.
I simply wish I had more options underwater for my syphon build. Everything underwater is geared toward minion or conditions.
Underwater weapons on necro are both incredibly powerful with power builds. And the vampiric swarm scales with healing power. Combine that with life siphon traits, you get really strong burst heal because of the double or triple heals on proc.
I realize with the spear, spear is fricken awesome. I rock my spear all day long with its pulls and death roll of fricken doom. Its the utilities that we are left with underwater, the grumble of the OP topic and header. They are completely counter intuitive to my playstyle and I only get half the sustaining power my build gets on land without all my access to weakness.
I love my necro weapons, except trident, I have yet to get any real enjoyment out of the trident.
I’d echo spoj’s comment that Necros can be amazing underwater.
In terms of PvE utility skills, I’m partial to the Flesh Wurm. It provides a 100% projectile finisher, it can attack inanimate objects, it can provide an escape, and it maintains health well — either because it’s out of range from mobs, or because you can drop Mark of Blood’s on it when its (melee) attacked. It can also provide a needed distraction for you.
If you get used to the playstyle, Spectral Wall can also be useful. It can keep protection on you for 10 seconds (33% less damage), and if you can drag a mob through it twice you’ll be doing 20% more damage to them for 10 seconds, with a 20-stack of vulnerability.
If we are talking PvE, I have enjoyed Corrosive Poison Cloud. It is effective at what it does, stacking up weakness, probably one of the most useful conditions in PvE. It greatly reduces the incoming damage and since AI is stupid and won’t avoid circles you can dance in the middle of it all day. I rock a MH Dagger so that all my enemies have to come to the middle of my bubble.
I simply wish I had more options underwater for my syphon build. Everything underwater is geared toward minion or conditions.
Underwater weapons on necro are both incredibly powerful with power builds. And the vampiric swarm scales with healing power. Combine that with life siphon traits, you get really strong burst heal because of the double or triple heals on proc.
I realize with the spear, spear is fricken awesome. I rock my spear all day long with its pulls and death roll of fricken doom. Its the utilities that we are left with underwater, the grumble of the OP topic and header. They are completely counter intuitive to my playstyle and I only get half the sustaining power my build gets on land without all my access to weakness.
I love my necro weapons, except trident, I have yet to get any real enjoyment out of the trident.
The tridents damage on a beserker build is insane aswell. The auto attack isnt amazing but its still pretty strong and a small aoe. The #2 hits pretty hard. But the real damage dealer is the #5, it does huge aoe damage while applying vuln and chill to enemies around you. The damage is insane.
So my question is this: which utilities should I be using? Are there skills more beneficial than the damage wells? Are there any specific situations where a skill combination is really effective?.
For almost all PVE I strongly prefer (I’m scepter/dagger and staff):
-Blood Is Power
-Epidemic
-Locust Signet
BiP followed by Epidemic is a very strong AoE and unlike wells, it doesn’t require the mobs to sit in a fixed circle. Epidemic also lets me leverage conditions placed on a mob by other players. BiP also has a notably lower cooldown than wells.
I rarely/never use the active on Locust signet, I just use the passive for the speed buff.
For single-target, mostly stationary bosses (e.g., Nageling giant):
I’ll switch Epidemic/Locust to Corrosive Poison Cloud and Radiation Field (I’m Asuran), and maybe BiP to Flesh Wurm or a well.
If we are talking PvE, I have enjoyed Corrosive Poison Cloud. It is effective at what it does, stacking up weakness, probably one of the most useful conditions in PvE. It greatly reduces the incoming damage and since AI is stupid and won’t avoid circles you can dance in the middle of it all day. I rock a MH Dagger so that all my enemies have to come to the middle of my bubble.
I simply wish I had more options underwater for my syphon build. Everything underwater is geared toward minion or conditions.
Underwater weapons on necro are both incredibly powerful with power builds. And the vampiric swarm scales with healing power. Combine that with life siphon traits, you get really strong burst heal because of the double or triple heals on proc.
I realize with the spear, spear is fricken awesome. I rock my spear all day long with its pulls and death roll of fricken doom. Its the utilities that we are left with underwater, the grumble of the OP topic and header. They are completely counter intuitive to my playstyle and I only get half the sustaining power my build gets on land without all my access to weakness.
I love my necro weapons, except trident, I have yet to get any real enjoyment out of the trident.
The tridents damage on a beserker build is insane aswell. The auto attack isnt amazing but its still pretty strong and a small aoe. The #2 hits pretty hard. But the real damage dealer is the #5, it does huge aoe damage while applying vuln and chill to enemies around you. The damage is insane.
so going back through wiki, I have discovered the source of my hatred for trident, I misunderstood the skills. Mostly its my fault because I didn’t bother reading the discriptions. I assumed like other classes the trident was a ranged caster. The only thing truly ranged is the auto. I will definately have to change up my rotation to incorporate more staff action.
I still stand by my resentment that a good chunk of the utilities I typically use are not possible underwater.
Thankfully, minions are actually very, very good underwater. Even if you don’t like using them on land, I would suggest giving them a shot underwater.
Now that you’ve mentioned stunbreaks it seems like Necromancers don’t really have any great options. Spectral Walk is ok, but nothing compared to some of the utilities other classes have.
Overall a lot of the utilities seem lackluster, or extremely situational. The wells are really nice, but outside of the damage dealing wells, the others appear to be suited for certain encounters. Epidemic seems like it would be great for condition stacking, but most of my conditions don’t last long enough to be spread in time(I’m probably not using it right?). Spectral Armor is kind of sad compared to ele’s Armor of Earth, and is Spectral Wall a sick joke or is it useful sometimes? One thing I am going to try is Corrosive Poison Cloud as somebody mentioned upthread.
For the utilities that apply conditions onto yourself, how do you remove the condition? Send it away with Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm? Or just eat it with Consume Conditions?
Now that you’ve mentioned stunbreaks it seems like Necromancers don’t really have any great options. Spectral Walk is ok, but nothing compared to some of the utilities other classes have.
Overall a lot of the utilities seem lackluster, or extremely situational. The wells are really nice, but outside of the damage dealing wells, the others appear to be suited for certain encounters. Epidemic seems like it would be great for condition stacking, but most of my conditions don’t last long enough to be spread in time(I’m probably not using it right?). Spectral Armor is kind of sad compared to ele’s Armor of Earth, and is Spectral Wall a sick joke or is it useful sometimes? One thing I am going to try is Corrosive Poison Cloud as somebody mentioned upthread.
For the utilities that apply conditions onto yourself, how do you remove the condition? Send it away with Plague Signet or Deathly Swarm? Or just eat it with Consume Conditions?
Spectral wall is actually very good for LoSing groups of trash in dungeons. Instant 10 stacks of vuln when they walk through it. Plague signet is good for keeping conditions off of teammates, you get better heal by having them on you so in a way your helping yourself and your teammates with that combo. Unless you get 25 stacks of bleed on you and lose all your hp while channeling your heal.
Spectral Wall is also very good in WvW. No other skill can prevent so much damage to a zerg., and it’s still the best skill for granting long Protection to allies short of an auto-attacking Hammer Guardian.
But yes, our stunbreaks suck hard due to either long recharges or the pre-casting necessity of Flesh Wurm (which still has a decently long cooldown)
I’m a condition build at the minute using Scepter/Dagger and a Staff but I’ve not played any other professions proper so I don’t know how we compare as far as utility slots are concerned But I found that there are some fitting to most condition builds for example;
Blood Is Power – This gives you 10 stacks of might for a nice amount of time and also bleeds your target for a very long time with 2 stacks but also bleeds you for a shorter amount (you are not a happy bunny about this!) I have this on for all combat encounters though! because of course you can remove the bleed of yourself with Consume Condition (healing skill) or Putrid Mark (Staff skill 4)
For AoE I always make sure I have up my Epidemic but I make sure this is never on my bars for boss fights but it pairs very well with Signet of Spite and Blood is Power. This spell gives 3 stacks of vulnerability but as mentioned earlier we can lose our conditions easily.
Signet of Spite is also on my bars most of the time as it pairs very well with Feast of Corruption (Scepter skill 3) and is very handy for survivability with the freeze and blind!
And my favorite skill that I only use in single combat is Plague Signet. Plague Signet is very handy because it transfers all conditions from yourself onto your target after gathers all conditions from nearby allies. This skill pairs really well with Blood is Power because it instantly removes the 2 bleeds stacks you have and puts them on your target.
In short I would recommend try Staff and Scepter/dagger with utility skills of Blood is Power, Plague Signet and Signet of Spite for single target and for AoE I would switch out Plague Signet for Epidemic.