Guild Wars 2

As many of you know i run full Axe direct damage Necromancer for WvW. Recently Blackgate moved up to Tier 1 in the rankings and as SoR had been fighting them for 10 weeks straight a deathmatch night was arranged for everyone to 1v1.

Heres the clips of my duels, hope you enjoy!

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRLcvSTTjhTBMLA6xu66ckCkXm+Q5A;TkAKlMKJUyqkTJpSLRGiMJA
(Copy & Paste)

Well done on those fights, it looked really fun and you were pumping out some really nice damage.

If you don’t mind me asking what armour and jewellery do you use?

Im looking to have a more damage build as an alternative for my char as at the moment im more Bunker so it would be nice to have a change for when needed and your build definitely looks fun.

I use full Berserkers (power, precision, critical damage) armour, weapons and jewelery except my earrings which are Beryl (power, vitality, critical damage) If i change the build i always use 50% critical chance without fury as my baseline (45% statted +5% from sigil)

You’re getting quite some protection if I’m not wrong… Where’s that from?

Last Gasp 15 point Soul Reaping trait, 6 seconds of Protection & +3% LF per hit taken every 60 seconds (when falling below 50% health)

Alot of people underestimate the trait but its a must-have in any power build IMO and the simple fact this trait has a shorter cooldown then the utility skill itself (both normal and reduced cooldown) is a added bonus.

Thanks very much Ascii for the info.

Last Gasp for me is a very underrated trait. I try to make sure and grab it in my builds when I can because not only do you get the protection benefit but ive also noticed if chained with another lf building utility (spectral walk) you can top your DS bar back to full or near enough.

Why do you call it Axe build, looks like a Staff build!

Could you rate the average skill of your opponents? Some of them are really headless chicken, when you pop Lich Form (Almost a death sentence) They just flee instead of finishing you, others stand in the wells and don’t dodge the Axe 2 or DS 4 (?¿?¿), thiefs actually attack you while inside of marks (Any good thieve would wait, reaper’s mark, the only useful in that case is 40 sec cooldown :S) Most don’t interrupt your healings, never, I’m clueless.

One tip that has worked for me when using marks against thiefs: Bad ones are always at your back, always, good ones wait or use ranged attacks, but hey they’re also usually at your back. I tend to save reapers mark and dodge right when they trigger a mark, otherwise I have a big trouble, good ones attack you with their finger over the stun breaker to avoid fear.

Anyway, it’s a nice cheering up video and you’re a good player

PS: How does the build work vs multiple opponents in Wv3 (Zerg vs Zerg)?

If you ever get to join a death match like this again, please try the dagger

Cempa.5619:

Why do you call it Axe build, looks like a Staff build!

Did most of my damage with the Axe, Staff was only brought out for stealthed people and when i knew my rotation was on CD so id double switch for the purify & 6 stacks of might.

ratmanduohana.6824:

Could you rate the average skill of your opponents? Some of them are really headless chicken, when you pop Lich Form (Almost a death sentence) They just flee instead of finishing you, others stand in the wells and don’t dodge the Axe 2 or DS 4 (?¿?¿),

PS: How does the build work vs multiple opponents in Wv3 (Zerg vs Zerg)?

Some of the guys wernt great yes, some of them in the video beat me a couple times too.

Lich Form is far from a death sentence if your referring to my side, with almost double base armour, additional health, stability and an almost instant channel CC & chill Lich Form has saved my butt many times, and the 105% critical chance 114% damage hitting 5k #1’s helps too

Hellgaunt.1734:

If you ever get to join a death match like this again, please try the dagger

For me dagger is a sPvP weapon. i didn’t change up my WvW build for dueling i run that spec all the time and daggers range just puts me in too much danger all the time. Axes 600 range maybe small but it a far enough safety distance.

Ascii.9726:

Lich Form is far from a death sentence if your referring to my side, with almost double base armour, additional health, stability and an almost instant channel CC & chill Lich Form has saved my butt many times, and the 105% critical chance 114% damage hitting 5k #1’s helps too

Indeed, but there was a couple of times you pop it with low health and some of them started to run away or dodge, If they had faced you they might have had a chance, also at the times I used Lich I found my self in a pretty bad situation if the enemy just dodge my number 3 into my back. Maybe I should give it a try again.

Another question, with the Life Force at 0% at the start of the fight how would you see your odds? Has a Necro (Any Build) any chances 1vs1 in that situation in your opinion?

Thanks.

ratmanduohana.6824

with the Life Force at 0% at the start of the fight how would you see your odds? Has a Necro (Any Build) any chances 1vs1 in that situation in your opinion?

Thanks.

Any good Necromancer will keep there LF 100% always, in WvW with the amount of critters around its not hard to do and any fair duelist will allow you to start on 100% LF. Why would they ask you to start with a handicap when all other classes start with theres;

• Engineers automatically have there F1 – F4 toolbelts
• Elementalists start with all 4 atunements off CD and there passive effects.
• Guardians start with there passive F1 – F3 buffs and actives.
• Rangers start with both pets full.
• Theifs start on full init + steal.

only two classes that need to build are;

• Warriors, build full adrenaline with one heal anyway.
• Mesmers have no clones out to begin with, but its not like they don’t use them in a fight… lol.

Ascii.9726:

Any good Necromancer will keep there LF 100% always, in WvW with the amount of critters around its not hard to do and any fair duelist will allow you to start on 100% LF. Why would they ask you to start with a handicap when all other classes start with theres;

• Engineers automatically have there F1 – F4 toolbelts
• Elementalists start with all 4 atunements off CD and there passive effects.
• Guardians start with there passive F1 – F3 buffs and actives.
• Rangers start with both pets full.
• Theifs start on full init + steal.

only two classes that need to build are;

• Warriors, build full adrenaline with one heal anyway.
• Mesmers have no clones out to begin with, but its not like they don’t use them in a fight… lol.

I agree with you in the fact that is more a fair combat with some life force, maybe not 100%, but about 50%.

The problem is that when arenas and duel arrive I highly doubt we will start them with anything but 0% Life Force.

One of my concerns if the fact that a lot of people you were fighting were honorable enough to not loose time in their advantage, with wells in cooldown and little Life Force a thief could just wait to recharge initiative while putting some distance and then try again.

And, if It doesn’t bother you, I would like to ask again: How does this build works in Zerg Vs Zerg environments?

Thanks again.

If i started on 0% LF, i think it would be a challenge but i could still manage to win them duels. I would probably change my spec from 30/ 20/ 0/ 5/ 15 to 30/ 15/ 0/ 5/ 20 taking greater marks generate 3% LF and start off on staff.

I use my LF to play aggressively as possible, warriors for example don’t typically expect you to be all in there faces 24/7, causing them to pop there immunity + quickness > hundred blades only to have the damage be burnt out by DS turns the fight massively for a Necro. Some people don’t like the fact DS is a massive “yohoooo come attack me” button but i love it, it causes people to panic and blow there CD’s.

Zerg vs Zerg is were it excels, the build is speced for that actually and not 1v1’s. With a 100% LF bar you can safely drop down two wells and DS-4 out taking no damage, with the amount of death flying around i rarely drop below 50% when i need a quick shield.

Staff even without greater marks makes for easy pickings and Axe 3 + DS 3 sec retaliation gives 18 seconds of retaliation, which reflects an average of 320 damage per hit taken and isn’t affected by enemies armour.

Retaliation is a really underrated boon for Necromancers, your average lul quickness hundred blade Warrior has around 2179 Power, which will reflect 2,890 damage when they use the skill.

I run a very similar build, elites, weapons. (In sPvP, I use Spectral Walk for a little more utility and build LF versus using Darkness well.)

Video is nice, but it really just featured melee heavy duels. This build does have issues with range that aren’t as likely to take any damage from the wells/marks.

For example, you can sit on a mark and be sure a thief will hit it. However, your targeting has to be very skill-full and sometimes lucky to get even half the use of your wells/marks against a good range. In fact, good Rangers can dodge so much that they are near kryptonite for this build.

I agree with you that the protection trait is very handy.

If you find it helpful in lots of duels, you may want to try equipping “of the Forge” runes. You do lose some crit/power, but you gain toughness and over 18 seconds of protection after you fall below 50% health (rune gives you 12 seconds and trait gives you 6). The fact that you can get this protection once every 60 seconds makes it a viable option to consider.

It can actually offset much of the glass-cannon aspects of this build.

15% Critical damage & 36 seconds of Fury every 60 seconds (& 1 seconds for 15 spite Fury)
vs.
165 Toughness & 19 seconds of Protection every 60 seconds (& 1 second of burning)

For me its no choice, the 15% damage & almost perma-fury offers much more in offensive utility then the Forge runes do in defensive utility.

Skale Venom’s amazing on our Channels, isn’t it Ascii? ;p

70% Critical chance with two channeled skills hitting x8 & x9 and then two wells pulsing x5, yea lol. Skale Venom works wonders. Just a watered down version of Withering Precision.

Not bad fights at all. One of my guild mates (the norn thief) fought you twice in that video. Necros aren’t very common in WvW so I rarely get a chance to fight them.

I’d like to duel you later, if you’re willing, while our servers are still in the same battle group.

Ascii.9726:

15% Critical damage & 36 seconds of Fury every 60 seconds (& 1 seconds for 15 spite Fury)
vs.
165 Toughness & 19 seconds of Protection every 60 seconds (& 1 second of burning)

For me its no choice, the 15% damage & almost perma-fury offers much more in offensive utility then the Forge runes do in defensive utility.

Fury coming from DS right? And your runes?
On another note, what is the skale venom some of you are mentioning?

Skale venom is a consumable that stacks with all other consumables from a little quest chain out in the normal world. Gives 1 stack of weakness and vuln on crit (sometimes). Not sure the % proc on it, but it is pretty often and has a fairly short or no internal CD.

I liked the video first of all. I was really hoping to see you duel a DD elementalist. I think pretty much every thief in that video suffered from “GOTTA KILL HIM NOW” syndrome. A good pistol thief should have made short work of you or any dagger/dagger : sword/dagger willing to take his time in the fight. It was almost like they just said screw it, and tried to HS spam through your wells and DS and marks. Easy to understand, as that is the normal way to deal with a necro.

Did not see a shatter mesmer or a confusion mesmer in that series of videos above, which also would have been interesting to watch (there was a mesmer, but he died so fast I don’t know what he was doing). You have excellent control of your toolkit, and landed pretty much every lich form knockback, which is why everyone seemed to “run away” when you poped lich form.

I especially enjoyed the thieves chaning up their builds to include thieves guild in hopes of bursting you down. The warrior fights were generally lack luster, but that is a class I think normal condition necros handle easily anyhow.

Hey Ascii, I bookmarked the video for later since I’m at work right now, but I have a question about your build/gear. How do you compensate for the lack of toughness? Good positioning + overwhelming offense? My experience in WvW is that I need a lot of toughness to stay alive. Maybe I’m just bad :-) haha.

I liked the part at the end where the wee asura thought it was open season as you were standing with around half health. Only to discover that even with half health and in the middle of typing you still managed to take him out.

Im also impressed that you were managing to do alot of that by what looked like mouse clicking the utility skills and not key pressing. Only reason im assuming it was mouse clicking is occasionally I would see the tooltip appear, of course you could be switching between mouse and key presses. But it was very good seeing the fights and watching how you placed your marks and made use of your utilities.

I like this build and will give it a try as I have berserker gear already but for some strange reason the one thing im going to miss most is my greater marks. The reduction in toughness and vitality I can compensate but losing those greater marks is tough when your used to the extended radius of your marks.

Dietzen.6127:

Fury coming from DS right? And your runes?
On another note, what is the skale venom some of you are mentioning?

6 seconds coming from entering Death Shroud and 36 seconds coming from the 5% chance to proc apon being hit, which happens ALOT.

As for skale venom if i had to put a tooltip on it, from my tests it would be:

“5% chance to inflict vulnerability and weakness for 5 seconds on critical hits.”

Rennoko.5731:

I liked the video first of all. I was really hoping to see you duel a DD elementalist.

It may actually surprise you but i was at that event for about 4 hours and i only ever saw 1 enemy D/D Elementalist and he refused/ ignored my bounces requesting a duel. All in all i did about 30 duels losing about 8 of em, one was to a full regen Guardian which is just impossible to burst down with this build, a couple to some Mesmers and one (kinda) to a P/D Theif as i downed him and he got me with a downed throw.

lettucemode.3789:

How do you compensate for the lack of toughness? Good positioning + overwhelming offense? My experience in WvW is that I need a lot of toughness to stay alive. Maybe I’m just bad :-) haha.

Typically i abuse death shroud as much as i can. I use it as a aggro meter, if its full i know i have about 30K excess health and i can afford to dive into a group for well-bombing and backout with DS-4 but i think the main reason is Ive gotten use to squeezing as much damage time out of my necro as i can pushing my HP usually down below 2k before attempting to kite or heal.

Warhorn’s #4 is a nice get out of jail free card too, with VIII in Spite its a 4 seconds fairly large daze. I usually try to force my enemy to blow there long CD utlities or toolkits and heal (such as warriors quickness or rangers 0 damage stability) before i turn round and war-horn #4 into a lich form #3 and get 4 seconds of free deathly clawing.

When it comes down to it though i think the damage the build can deal really forces people to play defensive, my play-style is really aggressive saving my heals for the very last moment as long as i have a DS pool to dive into.

Scarran.9845:

Im also impressed that you were managing to do alot of that by what looked like mouse clicking the utility skills and not key pressing.

Yes mouse clicking my 7 to 0 skills is something ive been doing forever, its a habit from my previous game were the battle speed wasn’t as fast paced as GW2. I’m trying to get out of it but in the heat of the moment i do end up just clicking.

Scarran.9845:

I like this build and will give it a try as I have berserker gear already but for some strange reason the one thing im going to miss most is my greater marks.

Believe me i toy with the build and idea everyday to try to fit greater marks into the build, its a very good trait for Necromancers but the issue is any change to the traits results in a loss of perma-swiftness or spectral armour, both of which i think are vital in wvw. Im sure the idea will come to me one day but as for now greater marks is something for spvp/ tpvp for me.

Ascii.9726:

Scarran.9845:

Im also impressed that you were managing to do alot of that by what looked like mouse clicking the utility skills and not key pressing.

Yes mouse clicking my 7 to 0 skills is something ive been doing forever, its a habit from my previous game were the battle speed wasn’t as fast paced as GW2. I’m trying to get out of it but in the heat of the moment i do end up just clicking.

I find if it works then why change it and it definitely appears to be working for you as your winning alot of duels/matches etc. I know a few guildies who are in the same boat who are used to clicking their skills, because ive always been a keypresser its easier for me to adjust. So its enjoyable playing a game where I don’t have 4 toolbars filled with skills and having to work out a method of combining my keys with mouse clicking.

Ascii.9726:

Scarran.9845:

I like this build and will give it a try as I have berserker gear already but for some strange reason the one thing im going to miss most is my greater marks.

Believe me i toy with the build and idea everyday to try to fit greater marks into the build, its a very good trait for Necromancers but the issue is any change to the traits results in a loss of perma-swiftness or spectral armour, both of which i think are vital in wvw. Im sure the idea will come to me one day but as for now greater marks is something for spvp/ tpvp for me.

I did have a look myself to see if there is anywhere that I could shave points off in order to get greater marks. But like yourself the same conclusion was that anything I took away just made the build worse rather than better. With lack of toughness and vitality the 15 points soul reaping is a must to help keep your characters sturdiness, and anything else is then taking away damage which again makes it worse off.

Few things you should (at least consider to) change if you are into PvP:

*Backpedaling – I suggest you unbind it (maybe even bind a skill to that button) and strafe (A and D) instead.

*Clicking – just not the way to go, your mouse is used for camera. Bind the right side of your skill bar to buttons like S, Q, E, R, F, etc., basically buttons that are close to your movement keys; maybe even use shift, alt and ctrl in combo with those, but don’t click.

*Wasting heals – in some cases you use your heal skill too early while you’re not even in danger resulting in an overheal and opening up a window for your target (who now knows you won’t heal for the next 25 seconds) to burst.

There are more things, of course, those three were just noticeable right away, props for making a video, though.

Razor.9132:

Few things you should (at least consider to) change if you are into PvP:

*Backpedaling – I suggest you unbind it (maybe even bind a skill to that button) and strafe (A and D) instead.

*Clicking – just not the way to go, your mouse is used for camera. Bind the right side of your skill bar to buttons like S, Q, E, R, F, etc., basically buttons that are close to your movement keys; maybe even use shift, alt and ctrl in combo with those, but don’t click.

*Wasting heals – in some cases you use your heal skill too early while you’re not even in danger resulting in an overheal and opening up a window for your target (who now knows you won’t heal for the next 25 seconds) to burst.

There are more things, of course, those three were just noticeable right away, props for making a video, though.

Most of those comments are nit-picky at best. Yes, clicking isn’t optimal (I use ZXC for my utilities for instance), but it isn’t going to make or break him in PVP. Backpeddling is fine as long as you are using the mouse to turn frequently enough to avoid serving your back up as the primary target. I dodge backwards frequently, so losing the back button would be difficult for me personally.

The heals thing I believe in his case is more of a bait than anything. He removes a few conditions, tops himself off, and says “BURST ME”, and as evidenced in the video, everyone tries to do that, where he pops into DS to absorb most of it, or baits into wells.

The problem with waiting until the optimal time to use a heal, is that you open yourself up to a strong interrupt chain, which you would have to absorb in DS, now leaving you with little to no DS, little to no HP, and a heal that is off cooldown, but impossible to get to without asking for another stun/fear/interrupt. Pre-emptive healing gives him the best chance to have that spell off cooldown when he really needs it later on in the fight, while getting rid of the opening salvo attrition.

Rennoko.5731:

Yes, clicking isn’t optimal (I use ZXC for my utilities for instance), but it isn’t going to make or break him in PVP.

It does just that, it breaks you in PvP. Having proper keybinds not only speeds up your reaction time, but also allows for more flexibility with movement while using abilities.

Rennoko.5731:

Backpeddling is fine as long as you are using the mouse to turn frequently enough to avoid serving your back up as the primary target. I dodge backwards frequently, so losing the back button would be difficult for me personally.

No, because http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_speed
I’ll give you the dodge roll, though, it does have it’s uses in GW2.

The heals thing I believe in his case is more of a bait than anything. He removes a few conditions, tops himself off, and says “BURST ME”, and as evidenced in the video, everyone tries to do that, where he pops into DS to absorb most of it, or baits into wells.

The problem with waiting until the optimal time to use a heal, is that you open yourself up to a strong interrupt chain, which you would have to absorb in DS, now leaving you with little to no DS, little to no HP, and a heal that is off cooldown, but impossible to get to without asking for another stun/fear/interrupt. Pre-emptive healing gives him the best chance to have that spell off cooldown when he really needs it later on in the fight, while getting rid of the opening salvo attrition.

While the optimal time to use a heal really varies, you shouldn’t overheal just like that, because skilled people will use that to their advantage.

The whole “bait” argument is weak here as people on the video are just not experienced. I mean who jumps into a mark/well bomb just like that, really? That does not happen vs. good players. In his case it did work, yes, but how do you know how skillful your opponent really is to waste a heal that early? You don’t.

Agree with Rennoko. If your heal is off CD and you don’t use it, you are wasting it. Obviously you need to judge how many conditions are on you, how much health you’re missing, etc. But the sooner you use it, the sooner it’ll be off CD again.

If you want to get nit-picky, neither of you are right about heals.

The optimal time to heal with this build is just after 50% when protection kicks in. Many professions have abilities that increase damage at <50% and <25% health, so it’s true that you don’t want to wait til the last minute and give your opponent ‘free’ damage. However, using it prior to triggering your protection is also wasteful.

As for mouse clicking, there is no justification for it…period.

If you click and know it is bad…so be it…but anyone trying to justify clicking needs to L2P.

Sure, the best players know to not do stupid things like dive into wells, but about 95% of the population would do what the players in that video do, which is jump right on in. A wise thief/mesmer knows he controls the pace of the fight, and can bide his time as he pleases. Comparing what the absolute best players would do in any scenario against a necromancer is going to end in the necromancer getting obliterated.

Luckily, the number of top notch players is a finte one, and you will likely rarely run into someone like that in wvw, in a 1v1 scenario. It is easy to pick apart why the people in that video were not great, but think about every thief interaction you have had personally in the past month. How many have played it smart and owned you? I can’t think of any.

If I was in the mood to draw curves and charts, I would do so to illustrate the point, but once you get really close to the top end of the skill bar, the difference in the class toolkits start to really hurt those that lack target breaks, mobility, powerful regeneration in 1v1.

In regards to the mouse clicking vs. keypressing, i never said im just gonna click forever infact i said im working on it as i go, just trying to find the right keys to rest my hand on.

I played a MMO for around 5 years before GW2 were mouse clicking was the normal and the combat was slower.

As for the pro-players don’t stand in wells, if you watch the video again you’ll notice quite a few of the players get out the wells quickly but still get clipped by them because of the chill/ cripple. I tend to use wells more as a gap maker when fighting melee classes because i know any good player will instantly deaggro and get out the wells.

I only ever double wellbomb when i see them committing to a skill combo and they will be stuck in the spot for a few seconds (Hundred Blades, Blurred Frenzy, double Heartseeker ect.)

Hi Ascii,

Please, when I go to see your build, a message say me : Bad link.

You can to share it again please ?

And thanks for your gameplay and the share

great video and awesome skills better than me by far. but i got some question ; why are you only dueling the same people over and over it seems like theyre using the same builds to, and no fights against guardian, engineer ranger elementalist or another necromancer id like to see how you fight these. +1

Awesome build and great video!!

I’ve been sitting on a level 80 Necro for a while with no idea how to play it. Blew my gold buying condition damage gear to attempt a scepter build and was just disappointed.

Luckily, I’ve got gold on my alts, and I’m now very much looking forward to trying a full zerker’s axe build!

Heranel.5402:

Hi Ascii,

Please, when I go to see your build, a message say me : Bad link.

You can to share it again please ?

And thanks for your gameplay and the share

I had the same problem. For some reason, those links only work if you cut and paste them into the address bar instead of clicking. That’ll get you around the “Bad Link” error.