Guild Wars 2

So i will explain axe power builds for everyone and then i will explain why it is the best option.

The Build:
30/20/0/20/0

Spite: II, VII, XI
Curses: IV, IX
Blood Magic: V, VIII

The Gear:
All Power, Precision and Crit damage ARMOR, STAFF AND ON AXE/FOCUS.

I am using 6 Superior rune of the scholar. Sigil of blood on my axe, sigil of intelligence on focus and sigil of blood on staff.

My stats are:
Power- 2470
Precision-1811
Toughness-916
Vitality-1116

The utilities:
Well of corruption, Well of suffering, signet of spite and lich form.

Explanation of why its the best:

Believe it or not Necros are supposed to have a lot of power. Axes, daggers, staff damage, wells, marks from staff, Lich form, death shroud ALL BENEFIT FROM POWER. The lower your power level the lower the damage you will do, its that simple.

If you want to participate in karma farming, world boss events, better loot from mobs and chests when your running dungeons, then you have to have a power build. The developers said that the more damage you do to the mob the better the reward. When you run a condition build and everyone else puts up a full stack of bloods on any mob it limits you to the few conditions necros have WHICH MEANS you will get bronze medals, crap loot and no gold or karma from events.

You have to do DIRECT DAMAGE. I can out dps ANY class in dungeons, i can take down any class in wvw and pvp.

Condition builds only work if you are soloing everything and that rarely happens in end game content. People are slowly finding this out though but i am trying to help you guys out.

Axe is also great because you are not up close to the person like a dagger but you are still dealing hardcore damage. If i am buffed i can do about 12k+ damage to another player just with axe 2.

If you want to see this build in action (hes using warhorn instead of focus, still same build) then watch this guys video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Oq5EkYYTCs

If you have in questions add me in game or ask me on here, i am happy to help anyone that wants to learn.

Indeed it is a build for dummies, because that’s what you have to be to play axe…

I have no idea what build you’re referring to, but farming events is at the bottom of my care list….Axe builds are useless, scepter and dagger will both do more dps.

instead of just making a statement so simple as “axe builds are worse than condition” i would rather hear you reasoning behind that. So if you would please state your case.

With this title, prepare for hostile responses (as seen already).

I’ve been wanting to try a build like this lately, though I’m focusing on gearing my condition build right now and enjoying that quite a bit (I don’t have any trouble getting gold on events so ha!). Plus I hate using wells, I hate using skills that have a cooldown much more than 30 seconds if I can help it and I feel like I can never keep enemies in them long enough to make them useful.

I do have a few questions:

What is your Crit Chance and +Crit Damage? I imagine they’re quite high but I didn’t see it listed ankittenoo lazy to look it up right now.

Why Signet of Spite? It only adds 90 power and the active is pretty meh especially when coupled with the massive cooldown. If you want extra power I’d recommend Blood is Power. The 10 stacks of might gives 350 Power and I feel like 12 seconds is enough to get most of your damage out.

This build seems squishy, even with the added range of the axe. You don’t have any stun breakers so I imagine that up against a CC heavy opponent that you could be killed fairly quickly. Do you find that this is true?

And 12k damage from axe 2? I’ll have to see it to believe it.

Thanks for the info though, this will be a good starting point when I try out my own power build.

You changed the title of your thread?…

But anyway, I was just trying to help you out by informing you that axe is incredibly bad and you’d do better with any other weapon. So if you don’t want to accept that fact I’m not going spend time trying to convince you, it’s your game, if you want to play the worst MH weapon possible that’s up to you.

I think you’re confusing the word “Axe” with “Wells”.

And no, you aren’t getting 12k with Ghastly Claws.

Even in WvW against a lvl 1 naked char with a zerker set completely buffed lvl 80 necro with 25 bloodlust sigil stacks 30/20/0/0/20 traits and 25 stacks of vuln/might
I doubt you’ll get 12k, with ALL of that, maybe, but I still doubt it.

Also, WvW is an awful example of dictacting balance, especially because of my example above, PvE stats are inflated compared to Spvp, and there’s alot of lowbies you’re fighting in WvW.

That video showed how good wells are at pumping out aoe dmg and that’s it.

Axe is bad and needs help, all you’re doing is possibly impeding progress.

Must of us all know wells are good at doing damage if a player will stay in them for all the pulses which seldom works. Wells also have a really long cooldown to the time they are actually up. Power and crit based builds even do better with the well damage but being down for at least 35 seconds for 6 pulses of damage at most is not that great since again you have to be in them for it to work.

Is not approved by Grenth in my HUMBLE opinion,

1) Your movility as necromancer sucks, most people will be able to close distance or keep you at range, or just run away, I never tried this build, but i think that any decent melee clases will tear you apart and range clases will avoid you easily,

2) I’d add some toughness to your build, so much critical damage as general rule (except thiefs) ends in no critical damage at all,
(any necro should use some toughness due to our high vitality),

3) I would use lich form as elite in this build instead of the golem,

4) I would use BIP instead signet of spite, 10 might stacks helps a lot, but it’s discutible

5) I would use signet of the locust instead spectral walk,

6) I would use a warhorn instead a focus just to improve your mobility with locust swarm, plus the focus will not synergizes well with this build

I’ll try this build anyway, just for curiosity

Regards !

And just to test it.

In the mists on the squishiest dummy.

2304 Power
1760 Precision (44% Crit/198% crit dmg)
10% Bonus dmg x6 Scholar Runes
16 Stacks of Might
11 Stacks of Vulnerability
Started at 49% Hp (Another 20% Bonus Dmg = 30% overall)
No sigils.

I was getting an average of 5500-5800 Ghastly Claws.

With 25 might/vuln I probably could’ve gotten close to 7k-7500, maybe.

So no, I don’t think 12k is even close to possible, even in WvW.

And FYI, that’s how much a single phantasm can hit for in a phantasm build in Spvp.

TanMan.1374:

When you run a condition build and everyone else puts up a full stack of bloods on any mob it limits you to the few conditions necros have WHICH MEANS you will get bronze medals, crap loot and no gold or karma from events.

And that’s why anybody with even half a brain uses epidemic. Congratulations.

As most people say, this seems hardly viable…

In my opinion necros shine at conditions, that’s the most effective way to play it even with so many balance issues, equipment hard or even imposible to get (as trinkets), and bugs

PD:

“When you run a condition build and everyone else puts up a full stack of bloods on any mob it limits you to the few conditions necros have WHICH MEANS you will get bronze medals, crap loot and no gold or karma from events.”

I ALWAYS get golden medals in group events

Make a video showing us what you say is true & not just a statment that has no real evadance then I will give you a thumb’s up & maybe even try it, till then I will stay a condition/well build necro & keep watching those numbers fly.

I swear it feels like I’m the only one who uses an axe necromancer. I tried going with conditions in sPVP and it just didn’t work out. I didn’t do damage fast enough or have much of an impact in the battle no matter where I went or what I did. So, instead I went with a power build that used axe/focus, dagger/warhorn, and it works out great. The Axe Training trait is just awesome, and lets you throw out Ghastly Claws every 6 seconds, and Unholy Feast in a group can put retaliation on you nearly permanently.

I use Axe/Dagger & Staff. Power/Precision/Toughness build. Awesome tanking build. My Gf plays a Condition build with Scepter/Dagger & Staff. We both do just fine. Power build doesnt beat Condition or vice versa. It depends on the enemy your attacking. Power vs Toughness and Conditions vs Vitality. Obviously it works to have the Conds hit higher tough – lower vit enemies and the power hit lower tough – higher vit ones.
Axe is awesome because I use DS alot and skill2 adds lifeforce. And I spec for power and vulnerability and Axe skill1 adds both. And DS is spec’d to add vulnerability like crazy. Well of corruption is amazing for fast vulnerability stacks to get through that armor.
Those bleeds add up but i like seeing my 3k+ dmg land with the axe hits.
Not sure what the OP is getting at with that build. You prolly stumbled upon it messing around and it was better than the last, but there’s better ones out there. Especially axe builds that make you feel like yur melting butter.
If youre going to throw out a build and say its amazing, please have some proof why other builds arent better than it.
For instance… in WvW i’d crush you. Youre closer to the glass cannon side of the spectrum with little support outside of DS popping. My toughness (2347) would laugh at your dps as I bounce out of DS, pop spectral armor, stack lifeforce as I apply vulnerability, ghastly claws you, pop back into DS, pop fear, drop DS again and ghastly yur kitten again. DEAD.
PvE, yeah that build works fine, but PvE is a joke. I can solo Champion Dredge in 13m with my toon. Yeah conditions wreck me but thats why I save dagger offhand skill 1 to throw those bleeds back on you.
please retort with something viable

Shame on you for being so close minded and giving us power necros a bad name.

12k Axe2 huh? kitten. Enough said.

Engels.8537:

Is not approved by Grenth in my HUMBLE opinion,

1) Your movility as necromancer sucks, most people will be able to close distance or keep you at range, or just run away, I never tried this build, but i think that any decent melee clases will tear you apart and range clases will avoid you easily,

2) I’d add some toughness to your build, so much critical damage as general rule (except thiefs) ends in no critical damage at all,
(any necro should use some toughness due to our high vitality),

3) I would use lich form as elite in this build instead of the golem,

4) I would use BIP instead signet of spite, 10 might stacks helps a lot, but it’s discutible

5) I would use signet of the locust instead spectral walk,

6) I would use a warhorn instead a focus just to improve your mobility with locust swarm, plus the focus will not synergizes well with this build

I’ll try this build anyway, just for curiosity

Regards !

In regards to yur number one, I believe necros are pretty good at manueverability in an abstract kind of view. DS/fear skills/Spectral walk prove this argument. Let’s say you are being attacked by a necro and some of his friends. He pops mark#4 and fears you. You run. As soon as that fear drops, you turn to assault but that necro is now DS’d and pops #3, more fear. You run again. Ok, necro needs to die, let’s smash his head in…
Come out of fear, necro already dropped his DS to save lifeforce. You chase him, he runs and pops Spectal Walk. as soon as you pass his Point of Origin he hits SW again and appears behind you. Not only that but as you were chasing him he dropped that pesky blindness well and…kitten… he’s spec’d it for chill as well. Now your out in the open again, blind and chilled. being played with. And the Necro now has full DS and fear skills again.
I do this in WvWvW and I’ve had toons Rage quit. Necros have amazing mauenverability. Especially if you dodge a couple and you have the sigil of endurance (or whatever it is) you dodge here and there, it regens while fear/ds is going like normal. In a tight spot? switch weapons to get it back to dodge quickly again.

Here’s me before buffs from food/boosters/potions.

Armor is Knight’s w/ 6x Runes of the Doylak for Vit/Tough? n Regen
Full Knight’s jewelry with Back piece being Guild defender trans’ed w MK book and
fitted with exotic emerald jewel.

Power isnt near 24xx because Vulnerability closes that gap and lets me have that 3k defense in light armor. Dont like Vit being so low but need that Precision for dmg and procs.

Simple way to prove this build is not what you think it is : swap axe for dagger and hit a dummy.

Srlsy i don’t enjoy conditions and i’ve been working on a power/crit build, axe simply fails. I know that dagger is suposed to be stronger, since it is melee, but i don’t see any thing good on axe, skills 2 and 3 are too kitten easy to avoid and skill 1 is worse then the staff 1 which has way longer range and pirce.

I still believe in power builds, but i gave up on axe, and ai sincerely see no hope to it, i mean they can’t buff the damage that much without screwing dagger.

Ps: even if some one came up with 100 GB of images of a necro hitting 12k in axe 2 i won’t believe it ok dude?

Axe has it’s perks in its utility. Applying Vulnerability, life force and slowing the enemy down. Luckily we can carry two weapons and staff can come along for the ride when needed. But in comparing Staff and axe… Axe #1 attacks much faster. Those certain situations, like needing to kill those death blossoms in TA exp as you run through the tunnels are proof. But you would’nt use axe against the nightmare tree, you’d use staff. I enjoy the little range axe gets. All the atks can be done 600 away from the target at least. Allows for that extra split second of reacting from charges or extra distance needed in a retreat.
Plus, in regards to S1 Axe, its applies vulnerability, which not only helps my dps output, but that warrior or ranger who’s about to drop into you as well

Knights gear is better, but any build and gear works in pve so its pointless to debate.

I use axe in pve at times, btw 25 spite for the extra damage based on conditions works better. You always have 4-5 conditions on the target so 8-10% more damage. I have even went 30/30/10/0/0 for the weakness on crit in a pve build.

Anything works in pve regardless even axe, but if you want gold rewards for sure.

Go dagger with knights gear and wells.

I ran Dagger with my build and wasnt liking it. I really prefer the skills and their synergy adding to my play style. Not saying Dagger doesnt work, just not my taste.
I run that sigil that adds power in PvE, but in WvW/PvP it doesnt work. Everyone drops sometime and those stacks go away before you even get to 25 most of the time.
As for Spite tree, i just use 30 to get the 300 power and axe speed/dmg.
I’m not basing my facts on PvE at all, they are WvW relevant. You cannot fight and rage quit others in PvE unless I missed something.
Besides the PvE aspect you have, what about the competative side? What do you run against people?

My conditionmancer melts everything in the area… Stack about 10-15 bleeds / Poison in a matter of seconds on a single target pop BiP (insta 10might) then Epidemic, lay down a CPC and watch the hundreds flood the screen. Sure my Ranger SB is going to do more damage on a single target faster, but the conditionmancer really shines with a lot of targets and I believe will put you at the top of damage charts in large fights. Not only that with Perc/Tough/Cond gear you have high crit to start the chain faster scepter still hits very hard on single target auto attack because of all the crits and you have survivability. I play a 20/30/10/10 condition build.

PS: I would never use wells in there current state.

Why are people slating the way others play? It’s about choice for god sake, not everyone wants to run around as a conditiomancer.

I personally have found that running axe/focus might build, stacking vulnerability, a lot better and seem to clear dungeons a lot faster than when I’m running a condition spec.

I am building 2 sets right now.

(completed) Conditionmancer – Full kebron’s gear (Cond. dmg., toughness, percision) add in some vitality, up duration a bit. Purpose – slam as much conditions as you can fast, epidemic (spread). continue.

(in progress) Power – using a full arah set – transmuted from either WvW armor (power, tough, vit) or Knights (toughness, perc, power). Hit hard, fast, lich form, wells, dagger (or axe), and staff.
—- some survivability with high toughness, good crits (if you go knights) etc.

(Being evaluated) presently I run a hybrid build (mixed kebron, arah/knights, wvw armor). get about 1750 power, 1200 cond dmg, 1600 perc, 1300 vit/toughness. Not bad in wvw, can swap utilities for condition skills to wells etc. Scepter/dagger and staff (also swamp in axe sometimes if im bored. I find that scepter is better in hybrid because im doing condition damage and decent his. crit for 800-1k, which is not bad considering i stack bleeds for 105 – 122 (with bip) and 210 for poison.

As far as axe, I would like to see its damage upped a lot because it just does not compete in most of my builds for staff, and in the power build, I just think dagger does so much more (though I still dislike dagger because of the range). In hybrid, I just go for scepter. High crits, and im still bleeding.

With respect to power builds, the axe in pvp does only one thing better than the dagger and that is aoe retaliation… so I can’t see why people are still vouching for it? The weapon’s not terrible as some necros say, but the auto attack is weaker than the dagger, and I would not use it in the type of build the OP suggests

Unless I am running a lot of toughness / bunker where I want to stack retaliation with the #3 skill + staff / bone minion blast finishers, I can’t see any reason to use the axe over the dagger? I guess the 900 range is nice

edit: also there seems to be a misconception regarding Ghostly Claws / Life Siphon. The last number that pops up above the enemies head is the total amount of damage you did. So your 12k damage is probably more like 5-6k

Firstly so everyone doesn’t have to troll through the whole post reading the build i took the time of 2 seconds to design the build on GW2Skills.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAndWjMaV6ZaGbM8JgJFePO0jc115IFHPMA;TkAKuMcJ4yyljLJXLMGYM5A

Next, im glad you liked my video and yes it is true Axe isn’t as weak as people make it out to be when used correctly but it does have some work to do.

As for 12k damage with Ghastly Claws… ima have to attempt it, but you wont be hitting that with your set up because of the loss in critical damage.

sorry man, but power build needs a good DS——> reaping tree
needs a lot of critical damage—-> reaping tree
needs a lot of LF ( staff, but without greater marks is useless )

something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQRBHhhG1IjWlenm2GDfiA6xuevziUUshRpAerD;TEAg0A

but, wells have rediculous CD, axe has one good skill,
with this, i use the staff, with greater marks:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQRBHhhG1IjWlenm2GDniQqwzgesr37soCFjSx6YHA;TEAg0A

the last one, i guess is that with 20% reduction of wells CD
i don’t see any other build

HEY GUYS I FOUND THIS BUILD THE CLASS IS SAVED YOU CAN ALL GO HOME.

Jk other classes still do the same thing better.

why dagger power build is better than axe.

No explanation necessary.

Biggest problem I see with dagger build… Dynamic Combat Environment.
We’ve seen the numbers thrown out again Axe vs Dagger against a dummy in Spvp HotM. But seriously…. anyone who has even attempted this knows that fighting a moving target face to face is much harder than fighting a stationary dummy.
Yes, dagger does deal more dmg, BUT you need to maintain that close proximity IOT deal that dmg. Axe gives you that 600 range as well as some vulnerability to close the gap on that dmg. Unless you are so amazing at PvP and you can stick to yur enemy like glue and all yur dagger hits land (i’d love to see the vid) than IMO axe wins.
Go ahead and hate me for saying it, but axe is simply better because it hits more often. Dagger forces you to get up into the enemy’s face where more often than not he has the skills supporting his fight and most of yours are ment for the contrary. Like I said, and Im saying it again because tis the most important fact in the axe/dagger arguement… Axe has that 600 range that dagger does not. Unless you are fighting a stationary noob in Pvp (which is nothing to brag about) than that range really does matter.

My build is better than yours /wave

@Embershard

If you’re not sticking to your enemy like glue, you’re not playing the class as intended. They want you to be a unstoppable death machine chasing down your foe.

This is where I list the skills I guess.

Spectral Grasp – reliability is ok but if it catches, it’s a 1 second interrupt and you can wail before they get up.

Dark Pact – glue for a couple of seconds, usually they’ll fumble around with keys if they’re not pro.

Dark Path – Instant projectile despite the warm up. Use it and DS out and wail or combine with Dark Pact.

Doom – Basically makes them useless for a couple of seconds while you run at them.

Locust Swarm – Gives you swiftness and cripple every second, very useful for catching and killing.

Deadly Catch – Pull.

Dark Spear – Pull&disable

Sinking Tomb – Disable

I don’t get which part of getting to your enemy and sticking is hard. Usually they’ll come for you.

Toughness-916
Vitality-1116

Thieves will love you and try to hug you all the time when you run this in any kind of PvP situation. Thief hugs hurt.

Ebs.6280:

Toughness-916
Vitality-1116

Thieves will love you and try to hug you all the time when you run this in any kind of PvP situation. Thief hugs hurt.

basicly this.

also good luck trying to get a guardian down with your axe

TanMan.1374:

You have to do DIRECT DAMAGE. I can out dps ANY class in dungeons, i can take down any class in wvw and pvp.

Am pretty sure this is a troll post but anyways.

… I am sure you can… as long as the player is AFK.

Just to prove you wrong:
How do you outdamage a dagger necro? (and Dagger Necros do far from the best dps)

i tryed axe in pvp.. the positive thing is that u haven’t to reach ur enemy.. but, range sux, damage sux and vulnerability sux!! what the mess!!
dagger is more usefull than axe, but, u have to reach ur enemy with auto attack, the third skill is situational and in the end the only usable skill is the second one.. with a poor range..
really donno.. necro wasn’t created to do DPS.. of course, is very funny to do ( finally use DS and Liche form ), but u haven’t right weapon skills, u haven’t right utility skill ( talking about wells?? no thx )…
better axe or dagger?? better staff surely

You lost me at “axe”

I don’t understand why people reply that Power isn’t viable?

I used to play a condimancer, but I switched because I thought people had too many option to remove condition in pvp. I’m not saying it’s useless, it’s still really good. But it was annoying me.

So I went powermancer, even if people said it wasn’t viable.

I WvW a lot, I doesn’t even have half my gear as exotic, but it still kick kitten I have no trouble with any class.

I have low hp, low toughtness, so Thieves can 3-4 shot me. But they still have to HIT me, if you react fast, they will have a hard time reaching you.

I think powermancer are viable and a lot of fun, stop the hating.

And by the way, I too, find the axes are lacking. I tried them again yesterday, 10 min after I switched back to dagger.

I nobodies take Axe Training over the other traits in power build. 15% damage and cooldown on 3 skill over 20% damage at 50% hp on ALL skill, no brainer for me!

I like power necro, but axe is terribly underpowered. Even scepter does more damage with a power build than axe, and dagger 3 has great synergy with wells.

@hexd: axe sux cause don’t do nothing.
r u happy now?

As demonstrated in a different thread, the trick about axe is that the main damage is not from 1 but 2. Something that is backwards from just about every other weapon skill set out there.

6k damage in 4 second?? lol!!!