Guild Wars 2

Because necro can’t spam burn
Simple

Cool story bro.

You can totally spam burn, anytime you want burn on someone just find a guard or ele (really easy to do imo). Eat all their burns, and run through their fire fields then send it to someone.

zapv.8051:

You can totally spam burn, anytime you want burn on someone just find a guard or ele (really easy to do imo). Eat all their burns, and run through their fire fields then send it to someone.

Yeah except those burns use their condi damage instead of yours.

In general though OP I think cele works only because of spite-might. And even then the build isn’t very good outside of 1v1ing eles and condi classes.

560 condi dmg is nothing if you can’t burn.
560 condi dmg with many burn stacks start being noticable.
Necro can do anyting but burn.
Having 25 might stacks doesn’t change much either
the bleed and poison dmg is low, on burn again it does.

RevanCorana.8942:

560 condi dmg is nothing if you can’t burn.
560 condi dmg with many burn stacks start being noticable.
Necro can do anyting but burn.
Having 25 might stacks doesn’t change much either
the bleed and poison dmg is low, on burn again it does.

I do wish I could get rid of the condition damage stat but it’s no reason to call the build bad even if bleeds and poison had higher damage I doubt it would matter but I guess that depends on what happens to scepter.

The thing is cele basically only matters on professions that can use all the stats, which includes a lot of baseline burning application. Necromancer doesn’t really do well going hybrid, signet is one of the only exceptions because it gets a lot of benefit going hybrid due to corruptions.

Generally speaking celestial only works on professions that have high base burning even while running an otherwise fairly tanky power build. Guardian (in theory at least), Elementalist, Warrior, and Engineer all fit this, but Necromancer doesn’t.

OP is basically right.

Condition damage scaling on bleeds and poisons is minuscule & Dhuumfire is a bad trait.

Healing power scaling is pretty bad too. It’s needed but barely existent on the siphons.

nearlight.3064:

Yeah except those burns use their condi damage instead of yours.

Pretty sure that’s not right? Whenever we multiply or send conditions to someone it uses our condi stat, that’s why epidemic is actually useful.

Condition transfers scale off foe’s stat, not ours. That’s why it’s Celestial, not Condition amulet.

Gerrark.9870:

nearlight.3064:

Yeah except those burns use their condi damage instead of yours.

Pretty sure that’s not right? Whenever we multiply or send conditions to someone it uses our condi stat, that’s why epidemic is actually useful.

You’re confusing two things here: transfers and copying.

Transfers (Plague Signet, Putrid Mark, etc.) simply move the condition, and as such use the original applicator’s stats.

Epidemic, however, is currently the sole instance of copying in the game. What the system does is check what conditions are on the target and saves their stack quantities, plus stack durations. The Necromancer then applies an equal number of conditions of the same type, stack quantity, and durations to those affected by Epidemic.

nekretaal.6485:

Dhuumfire is a bad trait.

I know that, but I think given that the Reaper AA is pretty fast (could even be 15% faster by traiting for it) and cleaves, I think that trait will be really good for Condi/Cele Reapers…
Even though I hate condition builds, I hope that gives me some reason to play Cele on my necro as well

So cele singet necro is bad cause burning is op and we don’t have enough of it got it.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

So cele singet necro is bad cause burning is op and we don’t have enough of it got it.

You summed up OP’s 6 word post in 19 words. I got a giggle out of that.

Isn’t cele signet necro supposed to be good in spvp?

Cecilia.5179:

Isn’t cele signet necro supposed to be good in spvp?

Only because there are so many boons and only really a major counter to cele ele, besides that it isnt super stellar, because as many have said, we lack reliable burn access. This may change with reaper but for now..

Tarkan.5609:

nekretaal.6485:

Dhuumfire is a bad trait.

I know that, but I think given that the Reaper AA is pretty fast (could even be 15% faster by traiting for it) and cleaves, I think that trait will be really good for Condi/Cele Reapers…
Even though I hate condition builds, I hope that gives me some reason to play Cele on my necro as well

You would lose 1 really good line though I love Spite and Curses Soul Reaping is a must just like every unique line. I don’t see cele reaper being better than cele necro and no Dhummfire is not a bad trait it’s just wet trash with Life Blast.

After doing some rudimentory testing, I discovered that cele necro dagger autoing a golem does roughly the same physical dps as a clerics necro. Golem tests aside, that opened my eyes to how worthless celestial is on necromancer, as we have said, those bleeds/torment do very little to boost that damage so the spec relies on spite might.

Cele also doesn’t really work on warrior/engi anymore either even though they can make it work offensively, because after the June 23rd match, running cele isn’t enough to handle zerker thief/mesmer bursts and coordinated focus fire in teamfights. The only way you can make cele work defensively is if you can heal through half of your health every 9 seconds with oodles of blind and prot (ele) or if you can spam weakness and life force generation to survive (necro, but this fails as soon as you do anything besides 1v1s).

I think that blood magic oriented builds are the way to go now, because you can, you know, not be worthless in teamfights because you can heal/rez people. Since theres a signet in blood magic, I’ve found much higher success revamping the cele signet build into a crusader build with blood over curses. I can still beat condi bombers 1v1 no problem even without plague sending, while I can actually help out in teamfights. I also take flesh wurm over spectral armor for good measure, so I can run away should the enemy team grow a brain and focus me.

So thats what I’ve gained from this discussion. The SR variant MM build (I take corruptor’s ferver since I can’t train my brain to not press f1 when unholy sant is about to proc) is similarly a good build because it has great healing and support even when minions die, and it handles 1v1s very well since you can overwhelm most non-moa users with AI spam.

Anyway those are the builds that I think are best for necro right now. Crusader signet and cleric MM.

Sagat.3285:

You would lose 1 really good line though I love Spite and Curses Soul Reaping is a must just like every unique line. I don’t see cele reaper being better than cele necro and no Dhummfire is not a bad trait it’s just wet trash with Life Blast.

This is true as well. You need spite might to deal damage with cele, you need curses to spam weakness to mitigate burst damage, you need SR to get burning for RS, and you need Reaper to be… a reaper.

This is 3 traitline syndrome at its finest. If you drop even one of the four traitlines, the build literally falls apart, so I think its fair to say that celestial reaper won’t be great, and my inital testing in the last beta confirmed that as well. I swapped to the soldier’s amulet so fast its not even funny.

Necromancer forums are weird… A few weeks ago, Cele Signet Necro was the main reason we felt that we don’t need very many buffs, but now we have a thread where everyone is admitting that it isn’t that great. Poor Gee probably doesn’t know what to think of this.

Cecilia.5179:

Necromancer forums are weird… A few weeks ago, Cele Signet Necro was the main reason we felt that we don’t need very many buffs, but now we have a thread where everyone is admitting that it isn’t that great. Poor Gee probably doesn’t know what to think of this.

Though even then we said that the reason Signet Necro was good was that the other condi classes were so often used and op Seriously though, I said it then and i say it again now : Being basically a “mirror” for conditions, aswell as being able to corrupt a massive amount of boons is perfectly fine, IF they would actually let the damage of transferred condis scale with either your or the opponents condi damage (whichever is higher). That way you would even “reflect” the low damage bleeds etc that come from a power class with good damage if opting for condi gear, but still the more than decent condi-counter in cele etc. gear that the build is currently.

Although you have to keep in mind that there might very well be a stat-set coming in HoT that fits the Signet Necro a lot more than Cele.

Op wants to do this with a cele amulet.
https://youtu.be/TI9nZVg3-Is

nearlight.3064:

After doing some rudimentory testing, I discovered that cele necro dagger autoing a golem does roughly the same physical dps as a clerics necro. Golem tests aside, that opened my eyes to how worthless celestial is on necromancer, as we have said, those bleeds/torment do very little to boost that damage so the spec relies on spite might.

Now that we have more stats detail at the end of a PvP match, I had a look at the condition-direct damage ratio of my cele necro. Condis are about 30% of my damage output (a bit less than a third). With corruption + staff + condi transfer, you end up giving a very decent amount of condi and cele makes sense.
Also, I haven’t done the math, but if you use 50% added crit in DS, the extra crit damage from cele may be better than the extra power.
Finally, the reason cele works on classes like necro that can stack might is because after 25 might, the extra power is a lesser increase than the extra crits.

Cele is the best amulet on necro currently, scales best with signets which are our best utilities currently. Works best with might stacking, gives the best defensive stats for very generic scenarios, and staff+curses and boon corruption makes the condi damage worthwhile.

Nearlight noted that clerics dagger auto and cele dagger auto spam do similar damage. That may be true, but cele will get more out of the might because it has higher base crit chance and ferocity. At the same time your losing out on condi damage. You will be a little tankier no doubt, but the damage levels aren’t even close. Soldiers would have the same problem, as would knights, crusaders etc. More offensive options like carrion might get around the same or even more damage, but won’t be as tanky. That’s why cele works, it is generic and always good instead of being decent in specific scenarios, or against specific specs.

Silverkey and zapv, you are correct that might stacking holds the build together offensively, but I still don’t think that the build holds itself together very well outside of 1v1s for the reasons that I have mentioned. Cele necro can’t 1v2 at all and doesn’t end up doing much in team fights. The ways to remedy this are by taking other skills and trait lines that often move your build away enough that other amulets work pretty than celestial with it.

nearlight.3064:

Silverkey and zapv, you are correct that might stacking holds the build together offensively, but I still don’t think that the build holds itself together very well outside of 1v1s for the reasons that I have mentioned. Cele necro can’t 1v2 at all and doesn’t end up doing much in team fights. The ways to remedy this are by taking other skills and trait lines that often move your build away enough that other amulets work pretty than celestial with it.

I’ll give it a try. I had somewhat planed it anyway since I am for odd reasons in a very supportive mood. Currently playing mainly interrupt-bunker mesmer, bunker guardian, cele necro and even having fun with an awful no-stealth support thief build (in preparation for the beta). And I started to feel like my necro rezzing/healing abilities were on the low side so I started looking at blood magic.

nearlight.3064:

Silverkey and zapv, you are correct that might stacking holds the build together offensively, but I still don’t think that the build holds itself together very well outside of 1v1s for the reasons that I have mentioned. Cele necro can’t 1v2 at all and doesn’t end up doing much in team fights. The ways to remedy this are by taking other skills and trait lines that often move your build away enough that other amulets work pretty than celestial with it.

Unblockable aoe interrupts, boon corruption, plague, locust swarm, plague signet, signet of vampirism, doom and tainted shackles are certainly not nothing in teamfights. Also, winning 1vs2s isn’t gonna happen against anyone good and cele necro can stall them plenty long enough. It is currently the best build necros can offer and it mitigates our weaknesses better than anything else. Also, curses, spite, and soul reaping are still our best traitlines in pvp, so dropping them isn’t really worth it imo.

Anything bunkier than cele and you no longer fill a role other classes can’t do better. Glassier and you’ll be fodder under focus fire even more so than cele nec while still being outclassed at burst by thieves and mesmers. Cele necro hits a middle ground of offensive pressure, sustain and utility that isn’t matched by any other builds I’ve seen (outside of cele ele, which is an even matchup).

Cecilia.5179:

Isn’t cele signet necro supposed to be good in spvp?

It is awesome against 1v1 but it suffers from zerking the necro, if you play ranked/soloq you can find yourself 1v1s you will dominate.

If you go with zerk not so much.

I play with cele amulet but dont use that build,if im not cced i can hold point prety well aginst 2 ppl,paired with a guard i had moments of 2vs4-5 holding point in ranked(by this i mean holding it 20-30 sec till support comes).
Question is would that be the same with better oponents?
Truth is i dont know ,im not some super player ,it could be i was just lucky,but this wasnt one time occurance either…

It is certainly bad just as the OP said. That’s why there is alot of Cele Necro out there because people like to play bad build. It is true, you can gauge the output of Cele Necro by AAing golem in the mist. It is also true, Berserker Amulet is OP and broken because it can AAing golem to dead in the fastest time record but we don’t really use it because we are all nice guy.

Anyway, why do we need to prove to him that Cele Necro is good just like how Ele saying their Cele Ele is balanced? Come on, get in the game and put on your Cleric Amulet and see if you can kill anything that move.

zapv.8051:

nearlight.3064:

Silverkey and zapv, you are correct that might stacking holds the build together offensively, but I still don’t think that the build holds itself together very well outside of 1v1s for the reasons that I have mentioned. Cele necro can’t 1v2 at all and doesn’t end up doing much in team fights. The ways to remedy this are by taking other skills and trait lines that often move your build away enough that other amulets work pretty than celestial with it.

Unblockable aoe interrupts, boon corruption, plague, locust swarm, plague signet, signet of vampirism, doom and tainted shackles are certainly not nothing in teamfights. Also, winning 1vs2s isn’t gonna happen against anyone good and cele necro can stall them plenty long enough. It is currently the best build necros can offer and it mitigates our weaknesses better than anything else. Also, curses, spite, and soul reaping are still our best traitlines in pvp, so dropping them isn’t really worth it imo.

Anything bunkier than cele and you no longer fill a role other classes can’t do better. Glassier and you’ll be fodder under focus fire even more so than cele nec while still being outclassed at burst by thieves and mesmers. Cele necro hits a middle ground of offensive pressure, sustain and utility that isn’t matched by any other builds I’ve seen (outside of cele ele, which is an even matchup).

All of those things that you mentioned can be done in various forms in builds that aren’t celestial. Make your own builds instead of blindly following Nos. he’s a great player, but he could honestly play any necro spec he wanted and still win because his teams rotations carry them each time despite the fact that their their team fight mechanics are quite weak compared to the few teams running team fight comps that have managed to take maps from them.

That’s why in recent tournaments against radioactive, he’s been running variants of his build with flesh wurm and even the bugged Rez signet. And that’s because even he realizes that the meta version of his build lacks support and disengage ability, so you have to change things up for it to work.

Anyway I hope you understand my point. I merely believe that while celestial necro is a good build, it fails when you aren’t 1v1ing. You can change this by changing your utilities and traits to remedy the issue, but that also means that cele loses viability because if you drop any of those 3 lines, the build fails, meaning that another amulet is better if you try to make a similar build that doesn’t rely on curses.

Siva Mira.3546:

It is certainly bad just as the OP said. That’s why there is alot of Cele Necro out there because people like to play bad build. It is true, you can gauge the output of Cele Necro by AAing golem in the mist. It is also true, Berserker Amulet is OP and broken because it can AAing golem to dead in the fastest time record but we don’t really use it because we are all nice guy.

Anyway, why do we need to prove to him that Cele Necro is good just like how Ele saying their Cele Ele is balanced? Come on, get in the game and put on your Cleric Amulet and see if you can kill anything that move.

People play this build because they blindly follow a combination of Noscoc and metabattle and haven’t developed the ability to think outside of the box. The cele-cleric comparison I made was just to show people that the build is overly dependent on mightstacking and DS to do any damage because its base power is so low. Unlike cele ele, cele necro has only one damage modifier and can’t spam burning even if it can do a lot of other things. All of this, along with other weaknesses of the build that I’ve mentioned before has lead me to believe that cele necro isn’t as ideal as we all thought it was.

And cleric MM is probably one of our best builds right now, since the minion AI is good enough to let it kill things, and blood magic traits lets it heal and rez everyone even when all of its minions die. The only problem with it is the popularity of moa engis.

I’ve been playing Carrion Signets with Epidemic and unless there’re 3 AoE condi clear builds on enemy team, it performs really decently and is a lot of fun. I wouldn’t call it super powerful given current state of Scepter, but worth trying for keks and stupid amazing dowstate abuse- certainly.

I fail to see how burning is op. Burning guardians are an easy kill, burning rangers are an easy kill, engis are def an easy kill… only issue is ele, which necro pairs up well with.

Burning isn’t op at all, the problem is drakes breath and how short a cd it has for how much burning it can apply.

Azure.8670:

I fail to see how burning is op. Burning guardians are an easy kill, burning rangers are an easy kill, engis are def an easy kill… only issue is ele, which necro pairs up well with.

Burning isn’t op at all, the problem is drakes breath and how short a cd it has for how much burning it can apply.

Yeah, im on for that. The problem isn’t burning itself but how classes have access to them on a short CD (burn ranger, drake’s breath ele and burn guardian.)

Burning has 2.5x stronger scaling, and 6x stronger base damage than bleeding, and multiple professions can stack large amounts of burning. Guardian can hit 25 burning, which is like getting hit with 60 bleeding.

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

Sigmoid.7082:

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

I hate the lack of crit chance and ferocity with soldier. The healing power is okay but I really wish I could replace condition damage for any other stat. I’m starting to think condition damage wasn’t intended for necro.

nearlight.3064:

All of those things that you mentioned can be done in various forms in builds that aren’t celestial. Make your own builds instead of blindly following Nos. he’s a great player, but he could honestly play any necro spec he wanted and still win because his teams rotations carry them each time despite the fact that their their team fight mechanics are quite weak compared to the few teams running team fight comps that have managed to take maps from them.

That’s why in recent tournaments against radioactive, he’s been running variants of his build with flesh wurm and even the bugged Rez signet. And that’s because even he realizes that the meta version of his build lacks support and disengage ability, so you have to change things up for it to work.

Anyway I hope you understand my point. I merely believe that while celestial necro is a good build, it fails when you aren’t 1v1ing. You can change this by changing your utilities and traits to remedy the issue, but that also means that cele loses viability because if you drop any of those 3 lines, the build fails, meaning that another amulet is better if you try to make a similar build that doesn’t rely on curses.

The amount of roles cele necro fills cannot be matched by any other necro build, you might do other individual things better, but as a whole you won’t be as good. Also, I was playing cele necro months before the june 23rd patch and I was playing cele sig on the day of the june 23rd patch (as in, I had figured out the build existed before it was widely posted everywhere). That whole part about nos is just ad hominem illogical bs, and if your argument had more real merit you wouldn’t be resorting to that.

Yes, people change things up constantly, doesn’t mean cele is any less powerful. You say the build lacks support and disengage, but people aren’t running necros for their support or their disengage because other classes do that far far better.

My point is that outside of that build, necros are still outclassed by other classes at the roles you seem to want. Why take a necro for burst, mobility, support, or tankiness? Other classes still do those things better.

Sagat.3285:

Sigmoid.7082:

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

I hate the lack of crit chance and ferocity with soldier. The healing power is okay but I really wish I could replace condition damage for any other stat. I’m starting to think condition damage wasn’t intended for necro.

I play Condi Cele Sig Necro and I think Condition Damage is there for a good reason.

zapv.8051:

nearlight.3064:

All of those things that you mentioned can be done in various forms in builds that aren’t celestial. Make your own builds instead of blindly following Nos. he’s a great player, but he could honestly play any necro spec he wanted and still win because his teams rotations carry them each time despite the fact that their their team fight mechanics are quite weak compared to the few teams running team fight comps that have managed to take maps from them.

That’s why in recent tournaments against radioactive, he’s been running variants of his build with flesh wurm and even the bugged Rez signet. And that’s because even he realizes that the meta version of his build lacks support and disengage ability, so you have to change things up for it to work.

Anyway I hope you understand my point. I merely believe that while celestial necro is a good build, it fails when you aren’t 1v1ing. You can change this by changing your utilities and traits to remedy the issue, but that also means that cele loses viability because if you drop any of those 3 lines, the build fails, meaning that another amulet is better if you try to make a similar build that doesn’t rely on curses.

The amount of roles cele necro fills cannot be matched by any other necro build, you might do other individual things better, but as a whole you won’t be as good. Also, I was playing cele necro months before the june 23rd patch and I was playing cele sig on the day of the june 23rd patch (as in, I had figured out the build existed before it was widely posted everywhere). That whole part about nos is just ad hominem illogical bs, and if your argument had more real merit you wouldn’t be resorting to that.

Yes, people change things up constantly, doesn’t mean cele is any less powerful. You say the build lacks support and disengage, but people aren’t running necros for their support or their disengage because other classes do that far far better.

My point is that outside of that build, necros are still outclassed by other classes at the roles you seem to want. Why take a necro for burst, mobility, support, or tankiness? Other classes still do those things better.

The only role that cele signet necro does better than anything else in the game is dueling eles and condi builds. That’s literally it. The thing is, other necro builds can do that almost as well as the cele build, while bringing other things to the table.

I believe that the heals and rezzes from blood magic are quite good if you have even a little bit of healing power in your build. Yes a guardian is better for rezzing, but a guardian can’t fill the dueling niche that necro builds can not can they do as much damage.

I actually ran a variant of the cele build that took flesh wurm and master of corruption for disengage, and trained plague, and corrupt boon for more survivability and the ability to disengage focus fire. It worked really well and then I realized that it worked even better when I dropped curses for blood magic and took the the crusader amulet (death perception lets it work). I suggest you try that build and earnestly compare it to your cele build and try to see which one does which things better. If you pay attention, you’ll probably realize that the extra power makes up for the loss of condition damage several times over.

Siva Mira.3546:

Sagat.3285:

Sigmoid.7082:

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

I hate the lack of crit chance and ferocity with soldier. The healing power is okay but I really wish I could replace condition damage for any other stat. I’m starting to think condition damage wasn’t intended for necro.

I play Condi Cele Sig Necro and I think Condition Damage is there for a good reason.

I’m just not experiencing it since I’m not running in Blood Magic anymore I even replaced my geo sigils with hydromancy one wich fits much better and add more pressure. Conditions damaging or not are here as extras to weaken,bother and debuff the foe. You say condition cele necro which is weird what I get from that is you taking an expired scepter and an overweight OH for 2 obviously better options and possibly Terror for the cherry on top of the build.

Sagat.3285:

Siva Mira.3546:

Sagat.3285:

Sigmoid.7082:

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

I hate the lack of crit chance and ferocity with soldier. The healing power is okay but I really wish I could replace condition damage for any other stat. I’m starting to think condition damage wasn’t intended for necro.

I play Condi Cele Sig Necro and I think Condition Damage is there for a good reason.

I’m just not experiencing it since I’m not running in Blood Magic anymore I even replaced my geo sigils with hydromancy one wich fits much better and add more pressure. Conditions damaging or not are here as extras to weaken,bother and debuff the foe. You say condition cele necro which is weird what I get from that is you taking an expired scepter and an overweight OH for 2 obviously better options and possibly Terror for the cherry on top of the build.

This condi build is pretty good. I like hybrid build and this build do just that. To make scepter works you need warhorn and Banshee’s Wail. Terror is weak if you don’t build for it, especially when I only have 2sec of Fear from my entire build. It is much better to use Path of Corruption.

Sagat.3285:

Sigmoid.7082:

I tried the build with soliders and it seemed more fun to play with.

I hate the lack of crit chance and ferocity with soldier. The healing power is okay but I really wish I could replace condition damage for any other stat. I’m starting to think condition damage wasn’t intended for necro.

Average damage is higher really because of the huge difference in power. Only reason you would need it if for procing things that are on crit like the signet trait but with enough conditions and fury you have no problems doing so because of flat % crit chance increases.

Cele signet is not bad but has nich role
I also switch to crusader and blood magic and it works better
Also necro as usual can shin if the group support him or else he is useless no matter what the build

I have wondered myself whether the Signets of Suffering necro might be better off running Soldiers. You’ll have less damage outside DS (if my maths is right: the extra crit chance from Celestial just about edges out the extra power), but I think you’ll have slightly better damage in DS if you took Pack runes: with decent fury uptime and Deathly Perception, your crit chance will be about 75%, and the extra power will make up for the lower ferocity and crit chance.
I really don’t think that the lack of healing power would hurt survivability that much. Life Siphon scales amazingly well with it, but the signets not so much. Plus it’s true that the condition damage from corruptions is not a big concern.
BTW are you folks sure that transferred conditions use the condition damage stat of the person who originally applied it? I was sure it used your own.

manveruppd.7601:

I have wondered myself whether the Signets of Suffering necro might be better off running Soldiers. You’ll have less damage outside DS (if my maths is right: the extra crit chance from Celestial just about edges out the extra power), but I think you’ll have slightly better damage in DS if you took Pack runes: with decent fury uptime and Deathly Perception, your crit chance will be about 75%, and the extra power will make up for the lower ferocity and crit chance.
I really don’t think that the lack of healing power would hurt survivability that much. Life Siphon scales amazingly well with it, but the signets not so much. Plus it’s true that the condition damage from corruptions is not a big concern.
BTW are you folks sure that transferred conditions use the condition damage stat of the person who originally applied it? I was sure it used your own.

Transfers use the condition stat of the one who applied it originally. In fact the game treats it as their damage, so there’s even a game breaking bug in which people can rally off of transferred conditions.

Your assessment about soldiers necro with signets was correct. It’s so much better in team fights and the damage is very similar to celestial since it he twice as much base power and the same might stacking. It depends on what trait lines you take though. Curses will always be better in 1v1s and blood magic will always be better in team fights.

I also made a crusader version of the build as a middle ground between the two that has blood magic support, and as usual meta snobs berate me for playing it, saying that cele is undoubtedly better when they’ve never even played my build.

I also prefer to take flesh wurm over spectral armor in general so I can have a chance of escaping focus fire or disengaging if a 1v1 gets plused.