Guild Wars 2

Just wondering if anyone is running a con/power hybrid build. Im aiming for bleed doing 100 pr tick and find a balance between crit/power and toughness or vit.

MysticoN.5068:

Just wondering if anyone is running a con/power hybrid build. Im aiming for bleed doing 100 pr tick and find a balance between crit/power and toughness or vit.

Oddly enough I just did some testing on this last night. So here is the deal. I was testing using SPvP so will take it from that perspective.

When you swap out the Rabid for the Carrion amulet (i.e swapping crit/tough for Vit/Power) you see a large drop in crit rate (obviously), and you do a lot more damage with your power attacks. Your DS hits a lot harder. All your direct attacks do almost double the amount of damage that they did before. Sounds great except for the fact that they don’t really do that much damage anyway. For example, Necrotic Grasp hits for about 500 as opposed to 300 without the extra power.

Here is why I would stay full condi with the higher crit rate. Firstly, because my crit % sits at 50% every second attack I use hits for the same amount as if I had the extra power. Secondly, I use the Sigil of Bleeding (is that the name?), anyway – the one that gives you a 60% chance to stack more bleeds on a critical hit. I tested it last night on dummies and in nearly all cases that I critically hit I stacked extra bleeds. BEcause my bleeds hit for 106, and last 14 secs, then I am doing 1400k dmg PER BLEED. This adds up to be a significantly more amount of damage, than if you are relying on extra damage on half of your (not very powerful) power attacks.

So in short it is viable, it would be more viable if you utilised DS more, which you can’t if you go condi/power because all your points will be spent in the top two tiers of the tree. But I still feel you get more bang for you buck with a full condi build.

The last factor to consider is the gear that gives crit plus cond dmg has toughness vs gear that gives power has vitality. In my opinion, a Necro’s worst nightmare is heavy burst damage. Try to draw out a long fight with a Necro (i.e Guardians etc) and your going to die. Toughness is better equipped at dealing with this burst damage, whereas vitality is better for a class that can’t deal well with conditions. Well a Necro has plenty of ways to get rid of conditions, thus I’m not sure if vitality is the better stat here. Although, it does increase HP in DS. Again, power/vitality seems to be a great combo if you want to getter better use out of DS, but this won’t work if you put your points to increase power/condition duration in the necro tree as you will have no points left to make the most out of DS. I would rather have the extra trait points in DS and use the few skills I use more frequently ( chill + bleed, & fear) than be able to use all the skills, but can’t use them as often.

Hope all that rambling makes sense.

For PvP, it’s not. Toughness is too important for a necro to lose. As a necro you don’t want to think about the raw damage that you do, you want to be thinking about staying alive for as long as possible to apply as many conditions as you can, let thieves/warriors/mesmers worry about the raw damage.

Aga.8641:

For PvP, it’s not. Toughness is too important for a necro to lose. As a necro you don’t want to think about the raw damage that you do, you want to be thinking about staying alive for as long as possible to apply as many conditions as you can, let thieves/warriors/mesmers worry about the raw damage.

I saw someone on Twitch TV last night who was effective as a power/condi build. It is viable in PvP. Although I personally tend to agree with your reasoning for why not to drop toughness for reasons I have already stated. .

I was thinking more for WvW mainly and some PvE. Im kinda new to this class, it was the first class i rolled at release but i jumped over to Guardian when i was lvl 30. Now i have dinged 80 on my guardian and found out that WvW was my thing i whent back to necro.

I havent played my guardian after i dinged 80 :/

How much con power is needed for bleed to tick for 100? Think my bleed is around 75 now. My goal was to focus mainly on power (DD) and have DoT more to finish ppl off (and i do love my Epidemic to much not to use it)

Frizz.6704:

Aga.8641:

For PvP, it’s not. Toughness is too important for a necro to lose. As a necro you don’t want to think about the raw damage that you do, you want to be thinking about staying alive for as long as possible to apply as many conditions as you can, let thieves/warriors/mesmers worry about the raw damage.

I saw someone on Twitch TV last night who was effective as a power/condi build. It is viable in PvP. Although I personally tend to agree with your reasoning for why not to drop toughness for reasons I have already stated. .

It was Powerr, the thief/necro for PZ.

lettucemode.3789:

Frizz.6704:

Aga.8641:

For PvP, it’s not. Toughness is too important for a necro to lose. As a necro you don’t want to think about the raw damage that you do, you want to be thinking about staying alive for as long as possible to apply as many conditions as you can, let thieves/warriors/mesmers worry about the raw damage.

I saw someone on Twitch TV last night who was effective as a power/condi build. It is viable in PvP. Although I personally tend to agree with your reasoning for why not to drop toughness for reasons I have already stated. .

It was Powerr, the thief/necro for PZ.

Yes. He had big problems with survivability though. I still prefer a full condi spec but the power hybrid was still viable.

MysticoN.5068:

I was thinking more for WvW mainly and some PvE. Im kinda new to this class, it was the first class i rolled at release but i jumped over to Guardian when i was lvl 30. Now i have dinged 80 on my guardian and found out that WvW was my thing i whent back to necro.

I havent played my guardian after i dinged 80 :/

How much con power is needed for bleed to tick for 100? Think my bleed is around 75 now. My goal was to focus mainly on power (DD) and have DoT more to finish ppl off (and i do love my Epidemic to much not to use it)

For me I wouldn’t settle for less than 100 per tick but I want to be a full condi build as that is my playstyle. For SPvP the carrion amulet (the one that replaces precision with power) has the same amount of condition dmg so your tick dmg should be the same. I checked for WvW and the Carrion armor has the same Condi dmg as the armor I am using, it just replaces precision with power (once again). So carrion armor would seem a good choice if you want to go power and have condi dmg.

I still thoroughly believe hybrid is the way to go for a necro. It benefits death shroud the most and all of our abilities. Crit is worthless imo. The sigils on crit are far underwhelming at the rate we attack at compared to other fast skills from other classes. And most of our stuff on crit traits are underwhelming and don’t proc nearly as much as we’d like.

And for necros vitality and toughness increase the effective health the same. Toughness is made better if you have better heals but necros have terrible heals. And deathshroud is increased by vitality while not with toughness. Conditions bypass toughness. % health traits are more effected with toughness compared to vitality.

If there was a precision/condition/vitality I ‘might’ give it a shot. But it currently kittens the death shroud too much, and thats why I use carrion.

Also power’s build is based on team fights. The build is terrible in 1v1’s, and against thieves because he lacks defensive utilities and no stun breakers. He also isn’t traited into soul reaping for marks for life force to generate more life force for more defensive shrouds. Instead he built it for maximum damage during team fights sitting off point.

Berullos.6928:

but necros have terrible heals.

…
….
…..
……

Necro has 2 of the best heals in the game (and the worst…) Consume conditions is so amazing in 1vs1, removing all conditions and healing you for a large amount. WoB is also extremely good, better for team fights, the aoe heal scales very well with healing power. The only heal in the game I would trade either of those 2 for is Healing spring, as a 15sec water field is op.

Aga.8641:

Berullos.6928:

but necros have terrible heals.

…
….
…..
……

Necro has 2 of the best heals in the game (and the worst…) Consume conditions is so amazing in 1vs1, removing all conditions and healing you for a large amount. WoB is also extremely good, better for team fights, the aoe heal scales very well with healing power. The only heal in the game I would trade either of those 2 for is Healing spring, as a 15sec water field is op.

Consume conditions of course is a fantastic heal by itself. Its probably one of the top #6’s in the game. However you need to look at necros as a whole. We lack any other forms of consistent additional heals. Well of Blood is good, however I wouldnt trade it for Consume conditions. The CD on consume is good, full cleanse.

Regen on mark of blood, heal on crit trait, siphons in general are terrible, heal on death shroud drop is weak.

Most classes have easy access to regen so thats out. Heal on crit is a siphon which is static and not +healing based. All siphons are not +heaing based. So thats minion siphon, well siphon, basic 15pt blood siphon. And the heal on death shroud drop has terrible +healing scale.

So toughness is best paired with healing, but as necro scales terribly with healing its not worth it.

Look at other good healing classes, they have numerous other forms of healing that scale extremely well.

Additionally healing classes usually have access to loads of boons to make that healing even more effective. In the form of protection and whatnot. The runes benefit boons and healing the most. Guess what class has the least easy access to boons? Necros.

Its ok in WvW as a marks builds with good blood duration. In spvp and tpvp the insane burst or other classes makes it on the weak side.

When I make builds I keep to a rule of having at least 1700 toughness as a necro anything else and you are dead from the insane burst classes.

MysticoN.5068:

Just wondering if anyone is running a con/power hybrid build. Im aiming for bleed doing 100 pr tick and find a balance between crit/power and toughness or vit.

In WvW? Definitely. Probably the best setup imo.

Power/Toughness/Vit gear, Undead runes, Power/Vit/Cond weapons (for scepter/warhorn or dagger at least), and a mixture of emerald, chrysocola and pvp accessories (and mixture of upgrades in those accessories).

You’ll have around 1700 power, 1500 precision, 1600-1700 toughness, I think 1400ish vit, and around 1100 condition damage with food with the typical condition build. I think my crit is around 30%.

Marks (#4 hits for 2500), wells, and life blast (up to 3k crits) do impressive damage thanks to power. Your bleeds will tick for about 95 so that’s nothing to sneeze at.

100 per tick is more like full conditions. Anyway. This is probably the most viable one there is. Since conditions alone will make you useless at boss fights and power will get you killed from the range, hybrids are a healthy mix.

Since they added a 5 sec internal cooldown on the bleed on crit sigil precision does very little to increase your condition damage. The bleed on crit minor trait in the curses line applies 1 tick of bleed, so we’re talking an extra 100-115 damage per crit.

Running power instead of precision increases your physical damage significantly without really hurting your condition damage. You can still run the bleed on crit sigil even, since it’s a 60% chance to proc and you’ll still crit fairly often from the precision you get from the curses line.

Condi/power definitely more offensive pressure, but you lose some survivability in sPvP since you’re also giving up toughness in the bargain. If you tend to kite and position yourself out of harms way I would definitely go power/condi. If your playstyle is to run in and go full agression dropping mark of evasion and geomancy sigil in melee range you might prefer the extra survivability from a rabid amulet.

celeron.3469:

MysticoN.5068:

Just wondering if anyone is running a con/power hybrid build. Im aiming for bleed doing 100 pr tick and find a balance between crit/power and toughness or vit.

In WvW? Definitely. Probably the best setup imo.

Power/Toughness/Vit gear, Undead runes, Power/Vit/Cond weapons (for scepter/warhorn or dagger at least), and a mixture of emerald, chrysocola and pvp accessories (and mixture of upgrades in those accessories).

You’ll have around 1700 power, 1500 precision, 1600-1700 toughness, I think 1400ish vit, and around 1100 condition damage with food with the typical condition build. I think my crit is around 30%.

Marks (#4 hits for 2500), wells, and life blast (up to 3k crits) do impressive damage thanks to power. Your bleeds will tick for about 95 so that’s nothing to sneeze at.

^ this. And I also agree with brickforlife. Corrupt utils are a fantastic core of necros, BiP is also a good way to squeeze every last drop out of power/cond hybrid build

i.e Drop BiP, transfer last two stacks, use the might stacks with dagger and autoattack until the stacks drop. You’ll use up a great amount of condition damage from the bleed stacks, then apply 1v1 pressure to your opponent with dagger up close action and recommended spectral utilities like grasp/walk/wall