Guild Wars 2

Even with the heavy nerf on Consume Conditions, I’m still using it because the other healing skills are still worse.

They at least should reduce the CD of Consume Conditions back to 25 seconds, 10 stacks of vulnerability already is insane. this skill doesn’t deserved a double nerf. And the trait is really bad.

To Signet of Vampirism the passive should be changed to heal when attacking, but keep the heal and cooldown. In this way would be more reliable.

And the cooldown of the Well of Blood should be reduced to 30 seconds to be viable. Not even traited worth.

I run minions currently, so I use blood fiend. Even though it can get focused quickly, it’s still a sixteen second cooldown while you continue siphoning health. Of course, it truly is terrible with any other build

I use blood fiend in my minion master build. Honestly the 10 stacks of vulnerability aren’t that big of a deal.

SoV is really nice right now, even better than blood fiend in MM builds. CC is still okay sometimes though.

Due to the nerf of CC and buff to wells, I have opted to run well of blood and condi cleanse well on my wellomancer (before it was CC and an optional third skill). When traited WoB is 32s cd which is good enough compared to the new 30s CC… and it give 4s of protection instead of the stupid 10% more damage taken – which I could live with, it doesnt last long. But the cooldown on top make it pointless. I do miss old CC.

Still using Consume Conditions..
If I’m being honest…. I felt no impact from Consume Conditions nerf…
I only played WvW once with Necro thus far but it felt the best the Necro has felt in a long, long time (back when Spectrals had no internal cooldown)… but I still didn’t test it there for long enough.
But in sPvP… I just did about 20 sPvP matches… and I dunno if my MMR dropped down to the gutter or more people are trying out sPvP… but Necro felt the best it has felt in so….. long. Didn’t feel the increased cooldown from Consume Conditions at all and people literally melted to condis with easy 140 bleed ticks per second which is crazy… cuz bleeds used to tick that high only in WvW.

I still use Consume Conditions. I lose a condition whenever I go into Death Shroud anyway. Heal, pop DS, go on with my life.

In PVE, depends on which build I’m using.

Condi: Signet of Vampirism.
Melee Wellomancer: Well of Blood
Deathshroud Build: Consume Conditions

I run a condi transfer build using signets & spectral skills.

Between the signets, staff dagger off hand I don’t mind the vulnerability stacks.

I just transfer them along with whatever else is on me to my enemies.

MethaneGas.8357:

If I’m being honest…. I felt no impact from Consume Conditions nerf…

The 10 stacks of vuln are less of an issue than I expected.
However, the extra 5 seconds cooldown are very noticable to me. It kinda throws off your inner stopwatch in Death Shroud, like when you have a lot of chilled on you. Sometimes I drop out of DS thinking Consume is ready to use, but nope, couple seconds left, and a few times that mistake killed me.

I play PvE and I made the switch to Well of Blood. Love it with the Vamperic Rituals trait ^^

CC is still super strong. The CD can be lowered and hte 10 vuln is only 4s and you take 10% more damage which is negligible. It still removes poison and is the only heal that isn’t affected by poison which is still very strong.

Still using consume condition with reduced cooldown, i don’t mind the blind on heal, it just requires me to think a bit just after healing and not spam stuff in the air.

Either run the signet or well. Sigent is especially decent with clerics and high weakness uptime since it negates a lot of damage. It allows you to attack into people and come out with a net gain of health.

Our heals are so terrible. CC is the only one any other profession would remotely want and that’s because most can disengage before they use it so the cast time and vuln don’t hurt as much. I don’t know why people are trying to make it sound like it’s not all that bad. Luckily atm atleast vamp sig procs our signet trait otherwise we’d be even more useless after this patch.

And I’ve been running vamp signet, since our tanky signet build is the only remotely viable thing I’ve found.

I still use CC vs players SoV as always for PvE for obvious reasons.

Well if you use death magic, taking putrid defense or shrouded removal will take care of the extra vul really. But still, it’s not very fun to have to fight against your own heal. And taking master of corruption applies a blind which is harder to get rid of.

For PvE I use SoV (as I did pre-patch), but more as an additional damage skill than a heal skill. The passive heal is still terribad. It really should be changed to “on hit” rather then “when getting struck by a foe”. The ICDs on both passive and especially on the active effect still somewhat cripple the skill. You´ll pretty much never be able to reach Vampiric Mark`s full potential. I think either the duration of Vampiric Mark should be increased to maybe 10-12s, or the ICD on it should be removed altogether.

As for sPvP, I´m still not sure how good WoB actually is in builds with Vampiric Rituals, but as it stands I´ll probably stick to CC regardless of which build I´m using and despite the very annoying CD nerf.

Overall I´m not very happy with our heal skill situation. Having to choose between “at least it does damage”, “meh”, “bad” and “terribad” is not a fun choice.

Imo what they should´ve done instead of nerfing our only good heal, leaving us with a bunch of substandard/mediocre heals, is buffing WoB, SoV and BF a bit more, giving them more utility/situational usage (like the Thief heal skills e.g.) so that they can somewhat compete with CC.

Skoigoth.9238:

For PvE I use SoV (as I did pre-patch), but more as an additional damage skill than a heal skill. The passive heal is still terribad. It really should be changed to “on hit” rather then “when getting struck by a foe”. The ICDs on both passive and especially on the active effect still somewhat cripple the skill. You´ll pretty much never be able to reach Vampiric Mark`s full potential. I think either the duration of Vampiric Mark should be increased to maybe 10-12s, or the ICD on it should be removed altogether.

Imo what they should´ve done instead of nerfing our only good heal, leaving us with a bunch of substandard/mediocre heals, is buffing WoB, SoV and BF a bit more, giving them more utility/situational usage (like the Thief heal skills e.g.) so that they can somewhat compete with CC.

Honestly “when being struck” is better than “on hit” because if the enemy blind spams you or CC chains you, you aren’t screwed out of a heal.

That ICD is necessary for SOV imo because it would otherwise be too strong.

striker.3704:

That ICD is necessary for SOV imo because it would otherwise be too strong.

I’m sorry but how is it necessary? It’s only 400 heal when you get hit and doesn’t work while in DS. It’s just a funnier version of warrior’s healing signet right now.

Consume conditions with master of corruption. Blind is pretty easy to clear especially if you have good condition transferal (dagger #4, staff #4, plague signet), as you should with master of corruption.

Tried the other heals but just not the same so had to build around the new CC.

I don’t see myself returning to consume conditions. The game plays out at a much more faster pace now. Every second matters, and the increase in damage across all professions only reinforces this. Signet of Vampirism is now my preferred choice. The added damage for me and my teammates plus the added healing just makes it the more team-oriented option. I just had to explore other options for condition removal, in which, as a necro, we don’t necessarily lack. There is a reason why the signet build is a no brainer, at least for me. It provides good sustain with not one, but two heals. Good condition management with at least two removals of up to 5 conditions each. Good consistent (spread out, not all at once) boon-hate by corruption of at least 8 boons. The very build itself just screams attrition, something the necros have been missing for the last 3 years.

I have honestly been swapping heals around at least twice a day.

There are traits that help handle conditions and I find myself using them frequently. Cosume Conditions is not too awful but the blind seems to be least offensive running scepter. WoP is the best for group support, especially when trained and combined with other condition or heal support traits. Blood Fiend still sucks but it hits reliably where most other minions do not. SoV still feels like it is the worst heal, even with signets trained and as much condition management as I can get. Only a signets build seems somewhat workable because I find myself using SotL and PS a lot. SoU is still a waste.

I swap between SoV and WoB depending on my trait tweaks from match to match, but more times than not I’m running WoB with the Well trait. It’s insanely good right now, and does so many things for being only one skill.

- Pulsing heal? Check.
- Combo light field? Check.
- Protection? Check.
- Life siphon? Check.

When placed at the correct time (Condition burst), you end up coming out of the fight looking like a D/D Ele with all the buffs on you. It also turns a mediocre team into a group of beasts during team fights on points, especially if you strategize with them. Not bragging but, it was few and far between that I’d carry games with Necro pre-patch, but the new Powermancer is incredibly potent and it’s just about all I do now.

I’ll give another try to Signet of Vampirism with my Signet build and the Well on my well build (only If use the trait).

The main problem of Necro heals is because seems like they are only viable traited.

If Vampiric signet was instant cast, I would use it over Consume Conditions, or create a build around it.

The fact that the vampiric signet can be interrupted just as easy like Consume Conditions makes it an unreliable, inferior personal heal. However, it is a strong offensive tool and team support skill. But as a personal life saver, no.

WhiteCrow.5310:

I’m running WoB with the Well trait. It’s insanely good right now, and does so many things for being only one skill.

- Stun break? Check.
- Pulsing heal? Check.
- Combo light field? Check.
- Protection? Check.
- Life siphon? Check.
- Condition removal? Check.

When placed at the correct time (Condition burst), you end up coming out of the fight looking like a D/D Ele with all the buffs on you.

Interesting. Apparently there’s a way to combine Well of Blood and Well of Power into one healing skill.

flow.6043:

WhiteCrow.5310:

I’m running WoB with the Well trait. It’s insanely good right now, and does so many things for being only one skill.

- Stun break? Check.
- Pulsing heal? Check.
- Combo light field? Check.
- Protection? Check.
- Life siphon? Check.
- Condition removal? Check.

When placed at the correct time (Condition burst), you end up coming out of the fight looking like a D/D Ele with all the buffs on you.

Interesting. Apparently there’s a way to combine Well of Blood and Well of Power into one healing skill.

Lol whoops. Sometimes I stack them. Pay no attention to me, I really need to go to bed.

I’m using SoV right now and really enjoying it. I try to keep it on passive most of the time, using it only when I need a burst heal or more DPS (I don’t trait for signets). I’m actually using Life from Death as my burst heal instead, because its an instant 1.5-2k heal with a cele amulet. When I don’t need to stall in DS (my DPS comes from dagger AA), I flash it for the heal (7 s CD), so it ends up being a ton of health over time. This strategy is viable because Unholy Sanctuary will put you in DS even when it’s on cooldown, so you won’t die from flashing at the wrong time.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V54-8c;0o2GF014ZJkJ0;9;489A;0158138246;4JJV7J;17V-17V-10I
(Rune can be any power rune)

WoB for wvw in my full wells build, CD reduction plus extra protection and siphon is really nice running inside zerg. Condis are not problem with ds removal trait and and new defense stacks from dead magic line.
For pve I run SoV with SoV trait, work well.
For pvp I still run consume conditions.

WoB is not that good but it costs less, now, to trait and CoCo got double-nerfed needing corruption for ICD and coming with self-inflicted conditions.

met.9653:

WoB for wvw in my full wells build, CD reduction plus extra protection and siphon is really nice running inside zerg. Condis are not problem with ds removal trait and and new defense stacks from dead magic line.
For pve I run SoV with SoV trait, work well.
For pvp I still run consume conditions.

What lines do you use?

As Wellomancer, I tried Spite / Soul Reaping / Curses, then I was going into Spite / Soul Reaping / Death Magic and then I changed to Spite / Soul Reaping / Blood Magic. Is really hard to give up on Spite or Soul Reaping for both Death Magic and Blood Magic as Wellomancer. And the well healing is only worth with the trait.

Consume Conditions.

The self vulnerability isn’t keeping you from OOC healing, and the heal of burning stacks is needed.

striker.3704:

That ICD is necessary for SOV imo because it would otherwise be too strong.

I didn´t say the numbers should stay the same I just don´t get why Thief e.g. has no ICD on Stuff like Signet of Malice and Invigorating Precision, but we have to deal with this crap.

Currently I’m using well of blood and Signet of Vampirism depending on the build I’m running in PvE. SoV is kinda weak, but I’m getting allot of healing from life stealing on my signet condi build that its not so much of a problem. But I probably wouldn’t run it without blood magic. Well of blood is for my power build and its the same way. I wouldn’t run that without blood magic. Vampiric ritual reduces its recharge to 32 seconds which is reasonable enough. But if I’m not using either of those, Prayer of Dwayna is surprisingly powerful.

Currently I wont touch CC even in PvE. Its horrendous is in its current form And I’m not a fan of running blood fiend without other minions and since I’m not running minions until they fix their horrible AI that’s out of the question. Although I don’t have a problem with the ranged minions, the melee minions are causing a problem.

I suppose I’m just lucky I chose a human. For elite I’m running Lich and Avatar of Grenth. Hounds of balthazar aren’t bad but their recharge is too high for me at the moment. Plague is just really bad especially since I have a a ton of bleeding duration on my condi build and on power I just have a lot of self sustain from blood so in both cases its either not needed or just a terrible option.

Still CoCo with some newly added carefulness after the fact. You know the vulnerability is coming, prepare for it and change your strategy accordingly. The change still sucks, but the added level of difficulty is so far managable.

Salamander.2504:

I’m using SoV right now and really enjoying it. I try to keep it on passive most of the time, using it only when I need a burst heal or more DPS (I don’t trait for signets). I’m actually using Life from Death as my burst heal instead, because its an instant 1.5-2k heal with a cele amulet. When I don’t need to stall in DS (my DPS comes from dagger AA), I flash it for the heal (7 s CD), so it ends up being a ton of health over time. This strategy is viable because Unholy Sanctuary will put you in DS even when it’s on cooldown, so you won’t die from flashing at the wrong time.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V54-8c;0o2GF014ZJkJ0;9;489A;0158138246;4JJV7J;17V-17V-10I
(Rune can be any power rune)

That actually looks really interesting. I’m a fan of flashing DS, and kinda’ miss an old build I used to run at times that focused on it. The old trait lines enabled you to effectively cast or buff 3-4 different things on a 6 second CD each time you flashed. This build you have looks like another good use of Celestial so I’ll have to give it a go.

Axe/Focus is interesting; How effective are they? I’m wondering if Axe would be worthwhile with Corrupter’s Fervor for building stacks, unless it only works on different conditions and not applying multiple stacks of the same one. I haven’t messed with it yet.

TheLastNobody.8319:

striker.3704:

That ICD is necessary for SOV imo because it would otherwise be too strong.

I’m sorry but how is it necessary? It’s only 400 heal when you get hit and doesn’t work while in DS. It’s just a funnier version of warrior’s healing signet right now.

without that icd the active would end up being a huge burst in PvP for both healing and damage and would be quite OP. in a 1 v 1 scenario, if you got in 25 small hits within 6 seconds, that’s a potential 9800 HP healed (13800 if you also include the base self heal) and 5025 damage before healing power and power are taken into account. At minimum using dagger and warhorn you can at least get about half those hits in that time easy.

400 healed per weaker hit would also be ridiculous without an icd on the passive. You would end up healing more health than damage done to you by any class that uses a multi-hit attack (such as axe 2 skill), which is a big no-no in game design as it can grind the match to a halt.

I’d say if anything, make the passive siphon from the foe when they hit you instead of just healing you. So instead it might deal, lets say 200 damage to the enemy and heal you for 400 instead of just 400 base.

WhiteCrow.5310:

Salamander.2504:

I’m using SoV right now and really enjoying it. I try to keep it on passive most of the time, using it only when I need a burst heal or more DPS (I don’t trait for signets). I’m actually using Life from Death as my burst heal instead, because its an instant 1.5-2k heal with a cele amulet. When I don’t need to stall in DS (my DPS comes from dagger AA), I flash it for the heal (7 s CD), so it ends up being a ton of health over time. This strategy is viable because Unholy Sanctuary will put you in DS even when it’s on cooldown, so you won’t die from flashing at the wrong time.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V54-8c;0o2GF014ZJkJ0;9;489A;0158138246;4JJV7J;17V-17V-10I
(Rune can be any power rune)

That actually looks really interesting. I’m a fan of flashing DS, and kinda’ miss an old build I used to run at times that focused on it. The old trait lines enabled you to effectively cast or buff 3-4 different things on a 6 second CD each time you flashed. This build you have looks like another good use of Celestial so I’ll have to give it a go.

Great, I’m eager to hear how it works for you. Yeah, I messed around with that too; it’s definitely a loss that you can’t trait for Enfeeble and Furious Demise with only 3 trait points like we used to, but I feel that DS flashing is actually even better now since the Beyond the Veil trait was introduced and you can pair it with Unholy Sanctuary. That said, I initially went with the Curses line for the perma-fury and weakness, but they ended up being less important than the condi clear from SR, protection from BtV and power boost from Deadly Strength (all in Death Magic), stability from FitG (Soul Reaping), and healing and extra flash from LfD and US (Blood Magic). Cheers.

WhiteCrow.5310:

Axe/Focus is interesting; How effective are they? I’m wondering if Axe would be worthwhile with Corrupter’s Fervor for building stacks, unless it only works on different conditions and not applying multiple stacks of the same one. I haven’t messed with it yet.

Starting a fight with Axe/Focus can actually be really effective (get axe 3 or focus 5 off first), but A/F are really the subsidiary weapons; most of the time you’re going to want to camp D/Wh. I’ll switch to A/F if I need to back off or they are running/kiting hard.

The build as-is doesn’t cast conditions frequently enough to maintain Corrupter’s Fervor stacks, so I switched CF for US during testing for the extra sustain. Corrupter’s Fervor is a great alternative, however, if you take the Curses line for the extra bleeds on crit and Enfeeble trait (and then you can get enough bleeding to switch in Blood Bond over Quickening Thirst), so it’s definitely viable in a variant of the build, but the sacrifice is real: Losing Blood Magic removes a ton of your healing and support, and losing Soul Reaping removes your stability and 7s DS CD. I didn’t find the weakness and CF stacks to be worth it in this build, especially since the extra 300 armor at full CF stacks is only ~11% damage reduction with cele (2480 armor) as opposed to ~14% if you used Marauder amulet (1920 armor).

I use Well of Blood on my MM build. It scales very nicely with healing power and the large cd isn’t much of a problem for me since:

—Huge burst heal that can be shared with allies (and minions) and provides a combo field.

—Foot in the Grave, Beyond the Veil, Unholy Sanctuary, Speed of Shadows and Life From Death means I flash in and out of DS for regular healing (more than blood fiend or SoV can even do for me).

—Life Siphon on dagger and constant regeneration from mark of blood (dodging and Staff 2) are decent enough heals for up-keeping my hp when I’m still low on LF.

—If I end up taking a fatal hit before Well of Blood is done recharging, I simply pop up unholy sanctuary and can soak up 350hp/sec in DS, not counting life siphoning hits. As soon as my LF is depleted or the pressure is lost, just pop out of DS and Well of Blood can insta heal me back up to full hp easily (seriously, it heals so much).

I use Consume Conditions on my signet build since I take curses instead of soul reaping (it ends up being Spite/BloodMagic/Curses) and so I’m able to take Master of Corruption. Honestly, the 10 vulnerability and self inflicted blind are annoying to deal with; however, 20sec cooldown massive condition cleanse + heal makes the heal still viable in spvp for me. I don’t take Signet of Vampirism simply because Consume Conditions is a much better heal in solo queuing imo (less organized and less teamwork available to use SoV to its fullest extent).

Skoigoth.9238:

I didn´t say the numbers should stay the same I just don´t get why Thief e.g. has no ICD on Stuff like Signet of Malice and Invigorating Precision, but we have to deal with this crap.

That has an effective CD, it is how quickly the thief can deal damage, and it only scales up to at most 5 targets. With no ICD SoV will be balanced against targets like Necro with Locust Swarm, Dagger auto, wells, axe 2, etc. hitting for multiple times per second and would be worthless against other damage. Its much better with a 1s ICD (should be per person hitting you) where it can be balanced against normal damage amounts, as DPS tends to be consistent while hits per second isn’t.

Bhawb.7408:

Skoigoth.9238:

I didn´t say the numbers should stay the same I just don´t get why Thief e.g. has no ICD on Stuff like Signet of Malice and Invigorating Precision, but we have to deal with this crap.

That has an effective CD, it is how quickly the thief can deal damage, and it only scales up to at most 5 targets. With no ICD SoV will be balanced against targets like Necro with Locust Swarm, Dagger auto, wells, axe 2, etc. hitting for multiple times per second and would be worthless against other damage. Its much better with a 1s ICD (should be per person hitting you) where it can be balanced against normal damage amounts, as DPS tends to be consistent while hits per second isn’t.

B-b-but… pretty much every other class has access to some really broken stuff right now… why can´t we have some broken stuff as well?? :´(

Edit: To clarify this, from a PvE perspective, what I want is SoV´s passive to heal us/siphon for a small amount with no ICD when we hit stuff and the active to either have its duration increased or its ICD removed. Numbers would need to be lowered of course, but I´m pretty positive that the skill can still be balanced that way without being super op, ruling out CC and the other heals completely, in sPvP.

Our stuff is the only stuff that is not broken because Necros were the only ones really pushing hard for maximum condition damage. Putting condi gear on Ele or Engi, now, makes sense.

CoCo even un-traited, sadly, is the best option for Necro in WvW. Unless maybe you have Warrior and/or other condi clear support with you during combat. Condi’s are having their day in the sun atm. Especially burning. Burning is so op now that I haven’t heard a single complaint about plex in a week almost

Consume conditions still. I feel people overreacted to the nerf. Yes it is a bit harsh, but the heal is still very strong. I personally dont like SoV in high level pvp due to the fact it leaves you very vulnerable. It is very good with a team that communicates though…. im noticing that not only do you have to protect the cast like any heal, but you also have to make sure it lands. Cc you dont need a target, nor worry about it missing….just need to protect the heal which you should be doing anyway

JDjitsu.7895:

CoCo even un-traited, sadly, is the best option for Necro in WvW. Unless maybe you have Warrior and/or other condi clear support with you during combat. Condi’s are having their day in the sun atm. Especially burning. Burning is so op now that I haven’t heard a single complaint about plex in a week almost

You hear complaints about me?

Infect.2738:

Consume conditions still. I feel people overreacted to the nerf. Yes it is a bit harsh, but the heal is still very strong. I personally dont like SoV in high level pvp due to the fact it leaves you very vulnerable. It is very good with a team that communicates though…. im noticing that not only do you have to protect the cast like any heal, but you also have to make sure it lands. Cc you dont need a target, nor worry about it missing….just need to protect the heal which you should be doing anyway

Definitely agree that people overreacted about CoCo. I think they forget that it’s still a heal that is unaffected by poison and which acts as a FULL CLEANSE. Vamp signet is sort of OK now that signets have their own build, I guess that if you use it with Locust you get an offensive boost and don’t sacrifice too much healing. Well of Blood is pretty bad, even with traited wells. Blood fiend is a bad joke compared to the other 3.

The biggest problem with CC for me is not even the vulnerability, but kittening Blind when traited with MoC. It makes my old Shroud dancing Power build completly unbearable.

ANet, put even 10 stacks of bleeding on me, but no kittening blind…

Rym.1469:

The biggest problem with CC for me is not even the vulnerability, but kittening Blind when traited with MoC. It makes my old Shroud dancing Power build completly unbearable.

ANet, put even 10 stacks of bleeding on me, but no kittening blind…

Shrouded removal takes care of that blind as soon as you pop into DS.

SoV or WoB for PvE.