Guild Wars 2

Attrition is great! If you like to play that way, try a thief.

AirWick.1769:

Is it good or is it junk?

Maybe its fine the way it is or maybe it could use help of some sort.

Feel free to even compare how well it is compared to other professions or how much of a burden it is.

I want to know what the community thinks of attrition.

What build? What gamemode?

In WvW any build that has toughness in all of its stat components will have tons of attrition.

In general PvE this is also the case due to ho easily things die and allow you to hit them.

In dungeons/boss PvE, it depends on the situation and your build. But generally speaking attrition here is much easier than it is in say sPvP (since a boss will gladly let you hit them in the face with all your skills without dodging), so whatever innate attrition your build has will get upgraded significantly.

In sPvP, attrition depends fully on build. MMs have amazing sustain, tanky builds can also get really strong sustain (although at the moment are too weak to be viable due to lack of weapon support), and DPS builds don’t have good sustain much at all because of how easily they die to focus fire, and the lack of “multipliers” on their sustain.

Bhawb.7408:

In WvW any build that has toughness in all of its stat components will have tons of attrition.

Well, to be fair that’s a rather generous definition of attrition. If having high defensive stats is all it takes to make the cut, all classes have potentially good attrition. Of course you’re right about WvW necros having access to better resource stacking (primarily through Dire gear). We still can’t reliably renew those resources though.

ManaCraft.5630:

Well, to be fair that’s a rather generous definition of attrition. If having high defensive stats is all it takes to make the cut, all classes have potentially good attrition. Of course you’re right about WvW necros having access to better resource stacking (primarily through Dire gear). We still can’t reliably renew those resources though.

Simply put, death shroud. I was zerging yesterday in full rabid gear, I would use DS, go through a full DS 5/4, fear someone and jump to them (or do the reverse if stability was up), and say, have 5k LF at the end. By the time my DS was off CD it was nearly full again, almost every single time I did this. I was easily getting what would be comparable to 5-7k “healing” (through LF generation) via deaths every 10 seconds. That is massive sustain equivalent to healing signet at its most broken state, just through the profession mechanic and minor traits (soul comprehension and gluttony, parasitic bond if I had 1 in spite).

We have insane sustain in WvW because of how strongly we get free healing and through it defensive stats via deaths. Each death in my build gives me 12% LF, which is equivalent to 1601 LF, and people die a lot. Its a crazy amount of HP coming back in constantly, with my 2.7k armor build. Its not the armor that gives you sustain, its the high amount of effective healing paired with really high armor.

Bhawb.7408:

Simply put, death shroud. I was zerging yesterday in full rabid gear, I would use DS, go through a full DS 5/4, fear someone and jump to them (or do the reverse if stability was up), and say, have 5k LF at the end. By the time my DS was off CD it was nearly full again, almost every single time I did this. I was easily getting what would be comparable to 5-7k “healing” (through LF generation) via deaths every 10 seconds. That is massive sustain equivalent to healing signet at its most broken state, just through the profession mechanic and minor traits (soul comprehension and gluttony, parasitic bond if I had 1 in spite).

Agreed, our sustain is good in large scale fights. In fact it gets even better if you’re playing condis, due to Parasitic Contagion actually producing good results under those circumstances. That’s in zerg mode though. Roaming will get very different results. Try being part of a small scale havoc group in WvW, then tell me what you think.

If anything I believe the huge amounts of life force necros have access to in zerg fights only shows how erratic a mechanic player deaths actually is. Its efficiency can vary widely, from near useless to borderline OP, and you can find yourself at the end of either extreme of the spectrum depending on what you’re doing.

ManaCraft.5630:

Bhawb.7408:

Simply put, death shroud. I was zerging yesterday in full rabid gear, I would use DS, go through a full DS 5/4, fear someone and jump to them (or do the reverse if stability was up), and say, have 5k LF at the end. By the time my DS was off CD it was nearly full again, almost every single time I did this. I was easily getting what would be comparable to 5-7k “healing” (through LF generation) via deaths every 10 seconds. That is massive sustain equivalent to healing signet at its most broken state, just through the profession mechanic and minor traits (soul comprehension and gluttony, parasitic bond if I had 1 in spite).

Agreed, our sustain is good in large scale fights. In fact it gets even better if you’re playing condis, due to Parasitic Contagion actually producing good results under those circumstances. That’s in zerg mode though. Roaming will get very different results. Try being part of a small scale havoc group in WvW, then tell me what you think.

If anything I believe the huge amounts of life force necros have access to in zerg fights only shows how erratic a mechanic player deaths actually is. Its efficiency can vary widely, from near useless to borderline OP, and you can find yourself at the end of either extreme of the spectrum depending on what you’re doing.

yep. sure is. in fact i find it’s the only time i survive fights. i’m currently running d/d and i’d say i’m pretty good, however i’m just not seeing attrition on the power side of necro. dagger’s cooldowns are monstrously long.

For power attrition try building for DS and life blast might/vuln stacking. Daggers are great for killing the crap out of someone fast and getting some health back; but I found it was easier to outlast people in power using staff/axe+warhorn and camping in DS as much as I could in between consume condition recharges. The range lets you vulture from the edge of the fight until you get enough lifeforce built up. And once you are in DS, the longer the fight goes on the more might and vuln stacks are active and thus the harder you hit.

I will say this for a Class aNet wants to survive on Attrition instead of “escape tools” we sure lack Boons. And without Boons there is very hard to be an Attrition class. We have tools to give us this some Regen, Minions, Ritual of Protection aso but they are all spread across in diffrent Traits with no possible of a pure “attrition build”.

Necro is the Class with least amount of self Boon and this just makes me wonder why Anet calls us the Attrition class. Add to that the in sPvP and WvW alike Necro is usually the enemies first Target to focus, if we were so hard to kill & had so high attrition then why is that the case ?

Fact is Anet the attrition u have given us sofar dosent come close to make up the fact that we lack escape tools, and every Mesmer,Thief,Warrior,Engi out there knows it.

Ravezaar.4951:

snip

Boons are not necessary for attrition, if anything condis are far more important (due to the existence of chill/poison and no equivalent boon). The issue is most builds cannot get a strong enough combination of reliable healing, LF generation, non-damaging condition uptime, consistent damage, and high defensive stats that are needed to be truly attrition.

MM manages this, some power builds manage this, and some game modes innately enable this (via deaths), but the lack of options for other builds really hampers things overall.

What do I think of attrition? I think it’s a great idea. Let me know when they finally add some to the necro profession

Bhawb.7408:

Ravezaar.4951:

snip

Boons are not necessary for attrition, if anything condis are far more important (due to the existence of chill/poison and no equivalent boon). The issue is most builds cannot get a strong enough combination of reliable healing, LF generation, non-damaging condition uptime, consistent damage, and high defensive stats that are needed to be truly attrition.

MM manages this, some power builds manage this, and some game modes innately enable this (via deaths), but the lack of options for other builds really hampers things overall.

As I said we lack the tools for it and “the combination” or as I said spread over traits-line. I dont agree with Book argument with u tho but dont need to go further into that. We just isnt the Attrition Class that Anet makes us out to be. They really need look over the trait-lines, Life Siphon and Deathshroud Traits/Skills if they want us to be more in line there image.

Tanky ranger regen build = attrition
P/D thief with shadowarts healing = attrition
condi/power necro = burst

Even a condi necro without dhuumfire or signet of spite is bursty. Terror alone is 1k/sec. It simply does not work without siphons. I also think chill cripple poison and the other soft CC conditions are underpowered or cleanses are OP. They just do not seem to actually have a major effect in battle. It seems like Condi Necro is load up on bleeds/burn/torment and the other condis are to hide our DOTs then blast em away with fear. Soft CC was meant to be our attrition but it does not really work.

if the question is in regards to the necromancer being an attrition based class , then id say yeah they work wonders in other mmos like daoc , eq , eq2 , eqoa , in gw2 and gw1 attrition on a necro is a myth .

lorndarken.3702:

if the question is in regards to the necromancer being an attrition based class , then id say yeah they work wonders in other mmos like daoc , eq , eq2 , eqoa , in gw2 and gw1 attrition on a necro is a myth .

I’d agree with all of that except the GW1 reference. With regards to attrition, my blood necro from there makes my GW2 blood necro look like a bursty glass cannon clothy with 10K health and no damage mitigation whatsoever.

Oh, those were the days! And it wasn’t due to some gimmick build which passively survived by simply sitting there and converting damage to healing. Which seems to be the fear and misunderstanding that neo-ArenaNet 2.0 appears to have with regard to giving necros in GW2 true attrition and sustain.

No, to the contrary, that version of blood necro in GW1 required constant vigilance and active play to manage energy levels, health, and skill cool downs to stay alive. This was no mere bunker; it was edge play of high risk/high reward where one missed or incorrect skill cast, one mistimed Blood Ritual, or losing sight of one’s energy level meant death. Stand still and do next to nothing and you were toast; you had to be constantly in motion and on your toes to succeed with the build. The reward – when played skillfully – was you could walk through the proverbial fire and come out the other side alive.

Sadly, it’s all gone now

what is attrition? I see it all over the forums but I don’t get it. can someone explain the term to me?

Xhean.3452:

what is attrition? I see it all over the forums but I don’t get it. can someone explain the term to me?

Basically it means to kill your enemy slowly by outhealing them, out tanking them, out playing them whatever your class can do. Necromancers were conceptually meant as an attrition class, slowly killing your enemy with reapplication of conditions, while you tank burst and other damage with your shroud and other skills. Sadly, other classes are much much better at the attrition game. Take a CnD thief, constantly backstabbing you, taking your health chunk by chunk. Yes, you can heal, but your heal is always a little bit less than what the thief has taken from your health. That is a game of attrition, wearing down your opponent bit by bit.

Death shroud is a very bursty mechanic. Its not all that different from warrior adrenaline.

I never go how this was supposed to be a attrition class.

nekretaal.6485:

Death shroud is a very bursty mechanic. Its not all that different from warrior adrenaline.

I never go how this was supposed to be a attrition class.

Sadly – despite ArenaNet’s marketing spin to the contrary – it isn’t. Necros have been transformed into condi-burst mages in GW2. Sure, there are other builds available; but nowhere near the variety that GW1 had and with a decided bias towards condi-builds in GW2.

Attrition builds were quite viable in GW1; GW2, not so much. There’s a multitude of reasons for this, but I’ll touch on the two I feel are the most pertinent:

1) In GW1 you could use your health as a resource. Sacrifice a set percentage of your max health now to get really good regen for 7 seconds and an even larger self-heal 7 seconds from now (Blood Ritual skill).

Outside of the monk profession, necros had in this skill one of the strongest heals in the game on one of the shortest cool downs, allowing them to stay in a fight as long as they had health available to sacrifice.

Though on paper Consume Conditions sounds comparable, given the faster pace of combat in GW2 and the longer cooldown of Consume Conditions (25 seconds), it doesn’t come close to the kind of sustain that Blood Ritual afforded a necro in GW1.

2) Multiple life siphoning skills were available to the necro in GW1; you could practically fill an entire skill bar with nothing but health stealing skills if you wanted. What’s more is, each of these skills returned approximately 10% to 15% of your health and you could keep rotating through them with almost no down time so long as you had enough energy. With each cast, you’re healing yourself while damaging your opponent, chipping away at them in much the same way psygate described a CnD thief doing in this game.

In GW2, we’re limited to dagger #2 Life Siphon returning ~10% of your health on a 12 second recharge if you equip dagger mainhand, Signet of the Locust’s active returning a variable but not astronomical amount of health (depending on number of enemies present) on a 60 second recharge, a few traits in the Blood Magic line which siphon with each hit or critical hit but are pathetic in the extreme (around 0.15% to 0.175% of max health; that’s less than 1% by a fair margin), and that’s about it.

I won’t even include the failure that is Signet of Vampirism since in its passive state it doesn’t even siphon health from an opponent:

“I’m reducing the damage of each incoming strike by approximately 10% while doing no damage in return (unlike GW1’s Insidious Parasite skill)? Woo-F’ing-Hooo! I can really feel the sustain kicking in now!!!”

The key to life stealing being an effective attrition and sustain mechanic is that the player doing the siphoning is benefiting while simultaneously hurting their opponent. There’s two ways to approach it for it to be effective:

1) Do massive amounts of life siphoning infrequently.

OR

2) Do lesser – but not insignificant – amounts of life siphoning frequently.

Instead, GW2’s life siphoning amounts to lesser amounts of life siphoning performed infrequently (in the case of the dagger #2 Life Siphon and Signet of the Locust) or completely irrelevant amounts of life siphoning performed frequently (the Blood Magic traits Vampiric and Vampiric Precision).

What’s interesting to note – and as I’m sure Bhawb will confirm – is that the Vampiric Master trait allows minion masters to actually fulfill in GW2 the attrition and sustain role previously occupied by blood necros/vampires in GW1. When examined more closely, this isn’t really all that hard to comprehend.

Vampiric Master siphons health each time a minion strikes a foe. If you have an army of minions, you have multiple sources of siphoning on a near constant rotation. Hmmm, where have I seen that before? Oh, that’s right! GW1 where the classic blood necro/vampire was able to use dedicated life siphoning skills in a near constant rotation to keep themselves alive (provided their energy held out).

Unfortunately, for those of us who have no desire to play minion master, there aren’t really any viable alternatives for necromantic attrition and sustain in GW2. Yet there it is, staring ArenaNet right in the face; the template for how to return necromancers to their rightful position as masters of attrition and sustain. They just have to break it free from the constraint of being limited only to minion masters.

The only thing barring attrition builds from working in GW2 is the lack of weapon options. There is entirely the trait/utility support (although not if you want a full siphon build) for sustain and attrition, but our weapons right now really suck for this purpose, as you only get one weapon set for it.

at·tri·tion
1. the action or process of gradually reducing the strength or effectiveness of someone or something through sustained attack or pressure.

Basically, whoever can stand strong the longest wins the war of attrition. It’s not about escape. It’s about pressure; withstanding and dishing pressure.

Guardian attrition is done with boons, healing, and blocks while applying pressure with hacks, slashes, and burns.

Necro attrition is done differently, namely by generating LF to use DS as a 2nd health bar and siphoning health, while applying pressure with conditions and minions.

As long as the tools designed to make attrition possible work properly, everything is good. No matter the combat design, I think stability is important for any class designed for survival by attrition. Being able to stand tall requires being able to stand. Stun-locking shouldn’t be possible. The health siphoning could be better imo. A I think minions should have just 1 or 2 more dynamic traits, similar to Mesmer clone interaction.