Guild Wars 2

Sooo, here’s my build i’ve been trying today: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQJAWRnc0A12g92AG3A0bilgBLuIuEjiUXhvQvKKBEAKXA-TJhBwAAuEAU3fIzTAocZAA

Its a hybrid power/condi build, using chill / fear as sustained damage and reaper for burst. The idea is that almost everything you use triggers chill (both fear and blind trigger chill), and also both chill and fear deal damage. You also have a high chance to crit in shroud.

So, in sum: blind and fear trigger chill, chill and fear deal damage, pretty high crit chance in shroud, very fast shroud recharge, plenty of CC (fear, chill, blind and pull), plenty of stun breaks (2 utilities and stability on shroud #3), reasonable mobility, high condition damage, high condition duration (chill is reapplied the entire fight), low health / toughness, and good shroud sustain.

all of the folling will apply chill: staff skill 3/5 deals chill (and 5 is awesome, because you are going to chill and fear, and both deal damage), GS skills 4/5 (and third AA, but you probably wont use it much), Reaper skills 5/3/2, as well as utility #8 and elite. You also gain life force by attackin chilled opponents (and this works in Reaper mode as well, so you can restore reaper health by doing your normal rotation)

The idea behind 3 spectral utilities is to gain life force like theres no tomorrow, so you can sit in Reaper and burst / negate damage (since the amulet provides no health/toughness, so you can’t facetank). Using this I was able to 1v2 and even one 1v3 (if you position spectral wall well enough), and win most 1v1 (unranked)

Your usual rotation starts with staff 3/5 (you can leave 2/4 on the ground somewhere before engaging cause you will probably take some time to return to staff), then switch to GS, pop utility #7 and #8, then 5 / 4 / 2 ( you can use GS#5 to pull enemies to the spectral wall if they are smart enough to avoid it. Its also a good idea to put it very close to you to avoid stealth attacks ). GS#2 on top of GS#4 uses leeching bolts, which is nice to recover some lost health.

At this point you should have enough shroud, so pop it and go for 5/3/4/2/3 (burst). 5 is awesome if it hits, 4 on top of 5 uses chilling bolts (and 3 gives you stability to make sure you can finish your 5 channel), and finally 2 adds even some more damage. If the enemy isnt dead yet I usually just auto attack for awhile till im confident to pop out of shroud and heal (you probably have a ton of conditions on you at this point, so just consume them all).

spectral walk and chilled to the bone I use as I need them. Spectral walk is awesome to get to points and also gives you some disengage, and chilled to the bone is great for team fights.

GS#4 is good to finish downed enemies or in shroud #3 for stability.

Hard enemies to counter are P/P thiefs (can 2 shot and finish you in about 5 seconds, two of them together is a kitten nightmare) and Guardians (plenty of blocks and condition removals).

I actually play it using Viper or Sinister amulets and Superior Rune of the Berseker, but there’s such options in the builder atm so I choose the closes ones.

You can exchange spectral walk for Suffer (kinda similar but inferior to elite), Well of Darkness (similar but better than GS#4) or Well of Corruption (easier to kill stability heavy builds). I like the mobility on spectral walk though.

Im not too sure about sigils or runes. Maybe there something better?

Anyway I had lots of fun playing this build. Suggestions are welcome!

Have you tried playing with Dhuumfire instead of Death’s Perception? The 50% crit in shroud is nice but with that condition damage the burning will be pretty potent and works well in sustained DPS which is great against heavy condi clear groups. I’d also suggest fitting “Rise!” into your build… it’s 50% damage reduction for 25 seconds on a 40 second cooldown(can be 26 if you trait it and fighting other necros or mesmers). They also body block a lot and add damage. So P/P thieves for example? complete joke.

Thanks for your comment! I started playing this build with dhuumfire, but I decided to swap it for perception because I felt that my pressure was greater with skills #4/#2 doing more crit than adding fire on #1 because of faster burst damage. I also feel Reaper #1 has to low range to be that useful, and with Reaper’s many AoE enemies tend to no flock to close. But indeed, it does add more sustain damage and does pretty good damage, gonna give it another go later.

I hadn’t tried “Rise!” yet, thanks for the tip, will try it instead of spectral walk and see how it goes!

Any tips on Sigils/Runes? Im completely lost with those!

I always suggest Hydromancy. In your build it would work very nice. And myself, I like to use a fire sigil on a cleave weapon to really know when I’ve hit a stealthed enemy. Though that’s mainly for WvW. Energy, Intelligence, Doom, Fire, Hydro, Air, Blood are all good. I haven’t tried Ice for a chill build yet. But it might be worth a test.

Edit: Forgot to add, I’d try Strength Runes with your build.

I’ve been running a build nearly identical to this since BWE1 with a lot of success.

As far as sigils go, I use Ice/Torment on staff and Hydro/Geo in GS. With Terror, Deathly Chill and Ice/Torment, staff becomes a weapon that can put out some serious ranged pressure.