Guild Wars 2

I#ve recently created a Build in sPvP to be used in pvE and sPvP. It’s a power/tough build based around Life Siphoning.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAodWjQah6VaeaM8JApCYP9g7xFH6xu56MA;TsAA1Ctocy4kwJrTOnkOtgYEy0BA

I neglected Precission in favor of extreme Power and Toughness.
In PvE geraing would be full Soldiers on everything, except for Trinkets (obviously) which would be Clerics.
It would allow me some serious survivablity with Siphoning as well as decent dmg (in sPvP-playtesting I was getting 1,25k noncrits with Life-Blast).

Should I maybe inves tin precission more, with berserkers Weapons and 10 points in Curses instead of DM ormaybe even 10 points in SR to get extra longlivety?

I really like the idea of some kind of Vampire-Knight, was even thinking about getting Knight’s equipment (Tough, Power, Prec) for more ciritical chance, but every 1% of Critical Chance statistically adds only 0,5% to my total damage output and I also want to make an experimental tank+support-build with this one.

Any suggestions?

When and if they scale life siphoning to be something useful to the health a necro has I think it will a good build. Right now siphoning is barely moving my health and if its a burst class its not going to help even delay the damage really.

I did have a issue with bad link for that build but coping and pasting to new tab fixed it.

gamefreak.5673:

When and if they scale life siphoning to be something useful to the health a necro has I think it will a good build. Right now siphoning is barely moving my health and if its a burst class its not going to help even delay the damage really.

I did have a issue with bad link for that build but coping and pasting to new tab fixed it.

Thats site always eems to get bad link, sorry.
Well Siphoning indirectly scales with toughness, since with every % of dmg-reduction you have, every lifepoint you HAVE and GET is increased by 1% mathematically speaking. So Toughness right now is required for every Life-Siphon build.
At least htat was my reasoning. Would you recommend going further into crit?

I like the “Vampire-Knight” idea, but I also don’t see siphoning as currently being effective enough.

Although I am more condition + DS than I am power, yesterday I did go with Knight’s armor to have a more well-rounded (aka “not great at anything”) character. Runes of the Undead add more cond dmg and toughness.

I do find that the Precision has made my DS1 much more effective. Although 1% crit change = 0.5% direct damage makes it sound weak, if I boost my crit chance by 20% I boost my damage by 10%, which isn’t shabby.

I have to say that I am not sure if the toughness is really making me less squishy, which is disappointing.

My current build (for PVE):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQRArY4YjMat7VaSb87JgJFZPe0DiHOZKFrXOA;ToAqmMNJay2krJZTrKGLsJYSA

(The “bad link” issue is due to Anet’s inability to accept semicolons in an external URL.)

I just tested this build on sPvP pub matches (I know, that doesn’t say much) but I’m positively suprised how well I did. While I was not capable of dishing out much damage due to range-issues, I was very well able to hold myself against 2 Thieves or Warriors.
Biggest problem is still getting close to enemies and binding them!
Still like to see how it works out in Dungeons., especially if switching traits to accomodate support play (like Faster Staff and Life Transfer)

Yeah that build will do fine in spvp and pve, mobs and low skill players tend to stand in the wells.

Very close to what I run as my power build.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW4djQaV6ZaeaM8JApHPfN2TK+ecIF5qLA;TsAA1CtoQygkAJLSOkkItKYUw+DA

A fun option is dropping well of power for blood is power if facing a team with little conditions.

side note: did you play a warlock on azgalor?

I tuned the build to now use Knight’s Equippment, Tough, Prec and Power.
Though Power is now secondary, Precission is now in it to, leading to a good 36% crit chance, making Vampiric Precission viable (although I still like Vampiric Rituals+Ritual Master)
The Gear can also at least particially switched with Cleric, giving a good ammount of Healing to fill a support role.
@Xom: I dont know what Azgalor is, but probably no.

You won’t survive explore modes relying on life siphon.
Currently I run full power/tough/vital, double daggers, death magic for boon duration, reaper’s might, and 3 set piece bonuses for +20% might duration.
Use daggers to stack soul force, go DS, stack might to ~10, swap out, use blood is power for 10 more might, 20s duration per stack, poke things really hard.

Try it.

Ok so Life Siphon isn’t strong enough to make me a tank, sadly, but in Solo-Farming and small groups it is incredibly usefull, allowing to quickly gian health and actually become unkillable for a good 15 seconds min when counting DS into it as well.
Full knights set has a good deal of damage reduction, taking very few damage even from ravagers in Orr, the biggest Pain DD-wise.
Still, i think this build is severely limited by Vampiric traits being grossly UP.

As I stated and sorry about replying to this so late, the siphons just do not restore enough health to cover the life we will loose while being in range to channel the skill in ether pvp or wvwvw setups. Almost all other class’s will hit necros to hard to cover the damage they will recieve. It might and that is a slim chance it will buy you time for DS to finish the 10 second cooldown or maybe a few seconds for our heal but that’s all it does for now. Now even with all the traits to siphon health or restore health traits, armor, weapon sigils, and runes that restore health, we might be a ok vampire build but we are devoting everything to it.

Ill admit i didnt think it would buy to much time in pve instances but open world pve it should be fine since you will not be getting hit for 7-8k from 1 boss AoE every few seconds.

Actually it’s not even doing fine in PvE.

As I said: just Farming.
I went back to going 20/30/0/0/20 and saying that a Carrion/Rampager setup has almost the same survivability simply because everything falls over while I’m in death shroud is embarassing to a bunker/vampire build.
I’ve always loved Vampiric/Hemomantic classes, i’ve played a BloodMage in Vanguard (where the complex systems around targetting could make it possible to directly transfer health from an enemy to an ally) and I played a Vampyr in DaoC and i really hope that Necromancers can be made into Vampires/Hemomancers.
I won’t giv eup on the build, I still have the full Rare (bought) set in the Bank and I WILL try again as soon as they fix/tweak the mechanics (not getting 50% extra on vampiric rituals is probably a big dealbreaker, as well as not getting the promised 155 Health per Vampiric Precission) but for now, I’m back to my Cond/Direct Damage Hybrid.

I must echo the other players here who say that if Life Siphoning is fixed to scale with +heal power, then this might be a viable build.

Until then, you’ll get better mileage by pumping out more damage and avoiding the enemy burst by simply… killing them. By putting trait points elsewhere, like Spite or Curses or Soul Reaping.

Healing yourself for 28 pts of life on every hit won’t sustain you when thieves can pump out >5k damage easy with a simple heartseeker. To put that into perspective, to erase ONE CLICK of a thief, you’d have to hit him 178 times.

Good luck with that.