Guild Wars 2

Given the patch preview, a lot of people were rather upset with what got changed on the necro. I, instead, decided to see if I could make a decent build that makes use of the buffs.

So, here is what I’ve come up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRIQNBIhZakjmebrtx1G2bT8LUS/CBQ7GZEcBUmFjBA-TlCCABZcIAwZ/hrU65lygxUCCwJAgUdBlq+TJaBg4JAEAAB4mxm3MgbezjezjezSBM2YA-w

I am still assembling the last of the gear (notably the staff and some infusions), but that should be ready by the patch. If I can figure out how to record my play, I will be either streaming the results on Twitch or posting on Youtube (or both) to show how it actually pans out in practice. It does play very differently from my normal roaming build, however.

So, onto what I picked and why I did.

First off, the three major buffs were to Unholy Sanctuary, Spectral Armor, and Last Gasp. As such, using all three of them was something I wanted to try, especailly since Unholy Sanctuary has good synergy with Spectral Armor and its position at the end of the boon duration tree gives good benefit back. Spectral Attunement was chosen to maximize the efficacy of Spectral Armor/Last Gasp and Spectral Mastery brings it to a nice new 40 second cooldown on both.

Other traits were chosen to help amplify damage, since the build doesn’t have a ton in the way of Ferocity. Death Shiver can be swapped for Reaper’s Protection if I find I’m getting CC’d too hard, Shrouded Removal can be swapped for Staff Mastery without pain, and Weakening Shroud can be swapped for Reaper’s Precision.

Since I already had full traiting for spectrals, I went with Spectral Wall for its general utility and more Protection and Spectral Grasp for massive life force gain (22% on a 24 second cooldown) and another interrupt/chill/gap closer. These two also transfer well when I need to run with a group instead of solo.

Dagger/Warhorn was chosen because it’s fantastic at generating life force and will pump out good damage besides that. Staff was picked just for general utility and range. Axe/Dagger is another option I will try out, which will add some occasional boon stripping and more frequent condition transfers at the cost of an AoE interrupt and range.

Primarily Zealot’s gear was chosen because it offers a good mix of damage output and sustain. For the jewlrey/backpiece, Zealot’s is not an obtainable option, so I had to pick other options. The Cleric’s amulet is there to bring Unholy Sanctuary to over 200 HP/second. Rings and trinkets boost my crit chance very significantly.

Runes of the Grove were a surprisingly easy pick. I would already have decent Protection uptime, and the addition of these runes make it very, very good. I chose these over Runes of Earth because I wanted the extra healing power and the high Protection uptime actually favors the healing over the toughness. Plus, the random roots you can get from these are hilarious. Finally, they’re dirt cheap on the trading post. You can get a full set of them for less than 14 silver.

With this setup, each Protection source has the following uptime:
Runes of the Grove: 6.4 seconds on a 30 second cooldown (21.3%)
Spectral Wall: 12 seconds on a 36 second cooldown (33%, unlimited group size)
Spectral Armor/Last Gasp: 14.4 seconds on 40 second cooldown (36% uptime)

Above 50% health, that’s up to 90.3% protection uptime. Below 50%, it’s 126.3%

Actually playing the build, you need to spend as much time in death shroud as possible, only dropping out when you need to use a particular skill, and using Life Siphon and Protection to help you stay healthy until you can get back in. Life Force builds very quickly with this build, so you shouldn’t have much difficulty getting enough to hop back in. Because of the Zealot’s gear, you should actually be hitting decently hard.

Again, I haven’t fully tested this yet, but I do plan to find out how it all works out. I’m not sold on the food, though, so who knows what happens there. Birthday cake is always a viable backup.

I have been trying out something similar but more condition focused in PvP using Settlers Amulet. I have been pleasantly surprised with Unholy Sanctuary. By no means is it perfect but with 3k armor you do become ridiculously tanky.

I think it can work the way you have it set up. I think vital persistance is key to a Spectral/UnholySanctuary build. Unyielding Blast/Death Shiver seem too weak to me. In a condi build you can opt for Reaper’s Protection which is great against CC. Which brings into question whether or not FitG is a good choice for this type of build.

Spectral Attunement/Mastery with Unholy Santuary and or FitG for sure has grabbed my attention for post patch theory crafting

For a condi build where life force doesn’t flow as easily from weapons, I’d agree with you on Vital Persistance vs. Unyielding Blast. For a Power build, though, it’s a little bit of a different story, since Life Blast hits harder and life force is more plentiful.

I’ll try it both ways, but Unyielding Blast certainly makes multi-target scenarios much easier to deal with.

a condition version could run soul marks to increase LF gain.

I dont want to be mean but i dont think condition builds have that good of a synergy with builds that want to stay longer in DS. You lose alot of damage in DS as condi build.

I would rather go for direct damage or hyprid.

The question is: Will I be able to land constant pressure? Will I have enough time to lock down and kill my opponent ?

Because solo roaming professions on WvW need to be locked and bursted down, to be honest. Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Ranger – these professions may just run away and reset if they find your constant damage and survivability too much. And they’re most popular among roamers.

Another thing – 1vX. Finding situation when you face other competent player, 1v1, has become the greatest challange in itself. That’s why roamers are usually packed with tricks to deal with more than one player. DS sustain and health with sustained damage might not be the greatest option. For Necro, facing 1vX is a timed race. It goes down to killing them before they roflstomp you.

This may work okay. But I think that it may be hard to roam with such build. It would be better in PvP, but you can’t achieve such stat distribution there, sadly.

Rym.1469:

The question is: Will I be able to land constant pressure? Will I have enough time to lock down and kill my opponent ?

Because solo roaming professions on WvW need to be locked and bursted down, to be honest. Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Ranger – these professions may just run away and reset if they find your constant damage and survivability too much. And they’re most popular among roamers.

Another thing – 1vX. Finding situation when you face other competent player, 1v1, has become the greatest challange in itself. That’s why roamers are usually packed with tricks to deal with more than one player. DS sustain and health with sustained damage might not be the greatest option. For Necro, facing 1vX is a timed race. It goes down to killing them before they roflstomp you.

This may work okay. But I think that it may be hard to roam with such build. It would be better in PvP, but you can’t achieve such stat distribution there, sadly.

Lockdown should be achievable via Flesh Golem, Locust Swarm, Dark Path, Dark Pact, Spectral Grab, Chillblains, Runes of the Grove 6, Tainted Shackles, Reaper’s Mark, Spectral Wall, Doom, and Wail of Doom. Plenty of CC there and ability to keep someone in range/keep them from using skills to escape. The real question is how well it will deal with multiple foes, which thankfully is getting some help with new dagger cleave.

If someone can help me get the recording set up, I’ll test and post preliminary results Sunday. The build will definitely get better post-patch.

Tested a variant on the build in hotjoins earlier tonight and was pleasantly surprised on how hard I was to kill while wearing a Zerker amulet. I had swapped Spectral Grasp for Corrupt Boon and Runes of the Grove for Runes of Vampirism (turns out, Death Shroud can still be used during the mist form from those runes). Sigils on the weapons were different was well because I forgot to change them, but I’ll do more testing tomorrow.

Yeah, I know, in hotjoins, anything can work. I was still putting out strong damage and being ridiculously tough to kill.