Guild Wars 2

Not calling nerf here, but I would like to know what the weakness of this build is. I play a tanky necromancer with exotic/ascended soldier gear, wells, lifesteal, etc. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to deal with these guys in WvW.

-I can’t kill them because of Troll Unguent. No surprise as I don’t do a whole lot of damage and with natural vigor they can dodge most of my gap closers. Staff does laughable damage so staying at range is just as much a joke. The lowest I can get them is 50%, if that, then their health skyrockets back up.
-I can’t tank them because they stay at range, outside of wells and lifesteal range.
-I can’t run from them because they just swap to Warhorn to match my swiftness and/or concussion shot stuns/crossfire just bleeds me out.

Is there any exploitable weakness here for me to attempt?

Thanks!

I run this build pretty much so I can give you the weaknesses:

-Squishy. To get the “most” out of a traps build you need to run Rabid (or maybe carrion) which leaves you with one defensive stat. Consistent burst can quickly take you down, a long protracted fight is much easier to win because I just regen it all back and can outheal most “low” dps attacks. The problem here is probably “tanky” necromancer, you’re there to tank and outlast your opponents, there’s no way you can really do quick burst. Another thing is conditions – rangers don’t have that much “reliable” condition removal – signet of renewal requires the pet to be alive, and essentially kills the pet, and empathic bond, while really good, is on a long cooldown and doesn’t protect from condition spam – it only removes three. Rabid, which is what I run, doesn’t protect from conditions very well (toughness) so if you were able to layer on massive amounts of conditions a trap ranger would go down quickly. Also vulnerable to plague signet, because of the amount of conditions a ranger can put on you.

-Mobility. Strangely enough, guardians are arguably the easiest class to kill as a trap ranger because they just don’t have the mobility to get out of traps consistently, especially if it’s tpvp and they’re trying to bunker a point. I understand Necromancer is not good in this respect but you probably want to save Dark Path for if you get imobilized by a trap.

-Adds. Mesmers and minion master necros, strangely enough, are arguably the hardest class to deal with as a trap ranger even due to the level of AoE. Clones, phantasms and minions all proc traps, essentially “wasting” them because the real target isn’t taking damage. I know whenever I see another trap ranger the best strategy is to send my pet at them first because it will proc all the traps and then I’ll just waltz on up and put my own down.

-Lockdowns. A trap ranger will often sacrifice stability and stunbreaks for more damage. Getting chain lockdowned really hurts, your survivability while using sword or gs comes quite a lot from evades and blocks, and you can’t use these while stunned. Regen doesn’t protect against getting bursted down while stunned.

-Don’t turn your back. Ranger shortbow only bleeds from behind or the side. Without this the only damage you can do outside of ~200 damage autos (retal outdamages it) is an on-crit chance for a 1 second bleed for a whopping 120 damage and a sigil of earth proc which can only proc every 2 seconds. It’s often extremely frustrating when all traps are on CD and I switch to shortbow to chase something down, and he just turns around and attacks and outdamages me and I can’t find a window to get to the side.

-Kite the pet. Seriously just keep moving, the pet is a BIG chunk of damage/utility, especially if it’s a bird – those things won’t hit you at all if you keep moving.

-Poison. Poison reduces the effectiveness of healing skills and regen by 33%. If you can’t interrupt the troll unguent animation then your best bet is to put on poison repeatedly and hope empathic bond doesn’t remove it.

Who wouldve thought. A how can i deal with a ranger post. Rangers are so broken its impossible!!!!

Ok joking aside. Kill his pet. If he is rubbish at pet management his pet will die easily. This will take pressure off you. You should have enough hp to survive long enough to do it.

However, if you rely on wells for damage you are already at a disadvantage. A good ranger will never stay inside one. You may have to tweak your build a little.

KensaiZen.3740:

Who wouldve thought. A how can i deal with a ranger post. Rangers are so broken its impossible!!!!

Ok joking aside. Kill his pet. If he is rubbish at pet management his pet will die easily. This will take pressure off you. You should have enough hp to survive long enough to do it.

However, if you rely on wells for damage you are already at a disadvantage. A good ranger will never stay inside one. You may have to tweak your build a little.

O.o
Seriosly??

You want a necro who is struggling to deal 20k dmg to a player to try to run threw 2-3 pet lifebars!
and then kill the ranger???

I mean if the guy is a dedicated tank that deals no dmg short of the pet… sure… but a trap ranger… dodge roll the spike trap, face him during shortbow attacks, if its a feline pet, catch it in dark path or a chill or in a well and kite/mess it up, if its a canine watch out for the howls and leaps.

If the ranger is keeping him at range he wont need to worry about the traps. The OP’s build uses wells and lifesteal as primary attacks.

The ranger stays at range and stays out of wells and out of lifesteal range. Necro should have silly amounts of HP so can weather conditions for a while. Kill the pet. Reduce the pressure from the damage. Make him waste his pet cooldowns and Troll ungent to keep the pet alive. When cooldowns are on, switch to attacking the ranger. You should have a big enough window to deal with the ranger.

Trappers are quite glassy. Just pray it isnt a hybrid bunker.

garethh.3518:

KensaiZen.3740:

Who wouldve thought. A how can i deal with a ranger post. Rangers are so broken its impossible!!!!

Ok joking aside. Kill his pet. If he is rubbish at pet management his pet will die easily. This will take pressure off you. You should have enough hp to survive long enough to do it.

However, if you rely on wells for damage you are already at a disadvantage. A good ranger will never stay inside one. You may have to tweak your build a little.

O.o
Seriosly??

You want a necro who is struggling to deal 20k dmg to a player to try to run threw 2-3 pet lifebars!
and then kill the ranger???

I mean if the guy is a dedicated tank that deals no dmg short of the pet… sure… but a trap ranger… dodge roll the spike trap, face him during shortbow attacks, if its a feline pet, catch it in dark path or a chill or in a well and kite/mess it up, if its a canine watch out for the howls and leaps.

I laugh everytime someone is dumb enough to attack the pet. Easy kill.

swiftpaw.6397:

garethh.3518:

KensaiZen.3740:

Who wouldve thought. A how can i deal with a ranger post. Rangers are so broken its impossible!!!!

Ok joking aside. Kill his pet. If he is rubbish at pet management his pet will die easily. This will take pressure off you. You should have enough hp to survive long enough to do it.

However, if you rely on wells for damage you are already at a disadvantage. A good ranger will never stay inside one. You may have to tweak your build a little.

O.o
Seriosly??

You want a necro who is struggling to deal 20k dmg to a player to try to run threw 2-3 pet lifebars!
and then kill the ranger???

I mean if the guy is a dedicated tank that deals no dmg short of the pet… sure… but a trap ranger… dodge roll the spike trap, face him during shortbow attacks, if its a feline pet, catch it in dark path or a chill or in a well and kite/mess it up, if its a canine watch out for the howls and leaps.

I laugh everytime someone is dumb enough to attack the pet. Easy kill.

If he is using wells he doesnt have much choice. Assuming the ranger was running a bird or a feline, the pet is laying down decent direct damage. The OP is a necro and should have decent enough HP to weather the condition damage but not both.

If its a melee pet, stack wells around yourself and the pet will take massive damage.

Life steal from pets is also a good idea.

Attacking pets is a change up on tactics. It will throw the game off for some people. Especially beast masters.

If pet is dying and is swapped? Well that was the aim of it. Now he has wasted a cc and cant use another cc for another 15 seconds.

No point being an idiot and just do the same old thing time and again. Never fight on their terms. Take control of the fight.

Draehl.2681:

Not calling nerf here, but I would like to know what the weakness of this build is. I play a tanky necromancer with exotic/ascended soldier gear, wells, lifesteal, etc. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to deal with these guys in WvW.

-I can’t kill them because of Troll Unguent. No surprise as I don’t do a whole lot of damage and with natural vigor they can dodge most of my gap closers. Staff does laughable damage so staying at range is just as much a joke. The lowest I can get them is 50%, if that, then their health skyrockets back up.
-I can’t tank them because they stay at range, outside of wells and lifesteal range.
-I can’t run from them because they just swap to Warhorn to match my swiftness and/or concussion shot stuns/crossfire just bleeds me out.

Is there any exploitable weakness here for me to attempt?

Thanks!

You’re a necro, you should have no problem with trap rangers. Run through his traps, collect the conditions, and throw them back in his face with one of your many, many condition transfers (eg. staff 4, dagger 4, plague signet, etc.). Rangers do strong condition damage but unlike necros, they have horrible condition removal, so if you can transfer the trap damage back at them they’ll just melt. I run a trap ranger in sPvP and I promise you necros are bad news for me.

It’s a condition war. Proper condition management is a key to success, and if you are good at managing fear (with the trait that makes fear do damage), you can kind of “spike” rangers down. This is due to a necros ability to maintain poison (which mitigates how useful troll unguent is, because it means it ticks 10 times for a total of only about 5.6k health return, which you can then outdamage).

Normally, I would tell any other class complaining about trap rangers to just watch the obvious animation then avoid the traps, but because you are a necro, as somebody mentioned already, eat the traps, return the damage. The biggest source of a rangers damage is a burning, followed by high stacks of bleed. Bleeds don’t tend to stack high for the typical trap build unless you allow the ranger to flank you, and burn is only applied by torch offhand and flame trap. If you can learn how to minimize those conditions on you (or remove them entirely), then you will win the attrition war because of a superior health pool and superior range and style of condition application.

Of course, this is taking into account that I am thinking of a specific build for necros (some variation of 0/30/10/0/30 or 0/30/20/0/20) with scepter/dagger and staff, generally with 6x runes of nightmare (or a mix like 4x nightmare 2x lyssa, there are other viable options) to increase damage and duration.

Personally, I think against evenly skilled players, the necro has the “easier” time in the fight, which is largely influenced by the health pool, the condition removal heal, and the condition transfer options.

jcbroe.4329:

Personally, I think against evenly skilled players, the necro has the “easier” time in the fight, which is largely influenced by the health pool, the condition removal heal, and the condition transfer options.

Death shroud is almost more of a weakness than strength for most necro specs against at very least, my ranger.
I can stack up conditions against the guy to hell and back while they are in it, forcing them to have to either land a putrid mark or heal skill or die… nothing a well timed interrupt or dodge roll can’t deal with.

The main thing is just know the empathetic bond timer and to instant death shroud fear the heal skill if the guy is weak.
Empathetic bond removes 3 conditions every 10s, so if you stack up your kitten at the 9s mark it just goes poof, but if you do right after the tick, unless they are running one signet, they pretty much have to eat the conditions.

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

Personally, I think against evenly skilled players, the necro has the “easier” time in the fight, which is largely influenced by the health pool, the condition removal heal, and the condition transfer options.

Death shroud is almost more of a weakness than strength for most necro specs against at very least, my ranger.
I can stack up conditions against the guy to hell and back while they are in it, forcing them to have to either land a putrid mark or heal skill or die… nothing a well timed interrupt or dodge roll can’t deal with.

The main thing is just know the empathetic bond timer and to instant death shroud fear the heal skill if the guy is weak.
Empathetic bond removes 3 conditions every 10s, so if you stack up your kitten at the 9s mark it just goes poof, but if you do right after the tick, unless they are running one signet, they pretty much have to eat the conditions.

Necros have so much condition damage and manipulation that EB is hardly a problem, not to mention that you have to have 30 points in Wilderness Survival and sacrifice Barkskin to even have that trait. My main is ranger and secondary is necro, and I guarantee my necro would eat my ranger for breakfast if I pitted them against each other. In fact it’s the easiest match-up for me in sPvP as so many rangers run trap builds, I reflect all their condition damage and they can’t wipe it.

Draehl.2681:

Not calling nerf here, but I would like to know what the weakness of this build is. I play a tanky necromancer with exotic/ascended soldier gear, wells, lifesteal, etc. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to deal with these guys in WvW.

-I can’t kill them because of Troll Unguent. No surprise as I don’t do a whole lot of damage and with natural vigor they can dodge most of my gap closers. Staff does laughable damage so staying at range is just as much a joke. The lowest I can get them is 50%, if that, then their health skyrockets back up.
-I can’t tank them because they stay at range, outside of wells and lifesteal range.
-I can’t run from them because they just swap to Warhorn to match my swiftness and/or concussion shot stuns/crossfire just bleeds me out.

Is there any exploitable weakness here for me to attempt?

Thanks!

Troll Unguent is extremely weak to poison as it is over 10 seconds. Since most will run empath bond (first life the condi cleanses come on 0’s) you can broadcast it, also take note of kill time for rangers then add 5 seconds that is the new “time” for their condition cleanse.
For the rest of it we would need to know what type of ranger it is you are facing to help you. Also warhorn is a terrible condi weapon, the only thing I can think of is he is BM shrug

I doubt going for the pet is a good advice here. As mentioned just applying poison will remove 33% of his health pool over the duration of the fight. In the end unguent doesn’t heal much more than the other heals, the only difference is that the healing is over time allowing you to precast it. You can take advantage of this circumstance with poison or applying your damage tactical in general (for example just wait a bit for all your cooldowns being ready when he used it and let himheal, then damage him when it is about to end and maybe even land a fear on his next cast).

It’s rock-paper-scissors. If you run a bunker build, your weakness is conditions. Sounds like that’s the match-up for the OP.

The game is not balanced along 1v1, so don’t expect that you can beat EVERY possible class out there, no matter how skilled a player you are.

Short bow condition rangers are also the bane of other bunkers (like a Mesmer staff/condition bunker). However a glass cannon will mow down the same shortbow ranger (like a Mesmer GS Power build).

I think we need more data to fully understand the scenario.

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

Personally, I think against evenly skilled players, the necro has the “easier” time in the fight, which is largely influenced by the health pool, the condition removal heal, and the condition transfer options.

Death shroud is almost more of a weakness than strength for most necro specs against at very least, my ranger.
I can stack up conditions against the guy to hell and back while they are in it, forcing them to have to either land a putrid mark or heal skill or die… nothing a well timed interrupt or dodge roll can’t deal with.

The main thing is just know the empathetic bond timer and to instant death shroud fear the heal skill if the guy is weak.
Empathetic bond removes 3 conditions every 10s, so if you stack up your kitten at the 9s mark it just goes poof, but if you do right after the tick, unless they are running one signet, they pretty much have to eat the conditions.

Yeah agreed, necros that overuse DS are going to have a tough time. DS in the only build (0/30/10/0/30, and picking up the grandmaster that gives stability when entering DS) I really use is going to be mainly used as a free way to absorb incoming CC/stuns.

Slightly offtopic, I actually think troll unguent could go for a slight buff. Nothing serious, just a categorization of being a Survival kill so that it is affected by the cooldown reduction. This isn’t for a direct comparison balance reason, this is mostly because, unless I’m mistaken, rangers are the only class where the heals aren’t affected by a cooldown reduction trait.

KensaiZen.3740:

I think we need more data to fully understand the scenario.

You’re probably right here. I’ve seen a couple of comments about how much condition damage Necros have when that’s clearly not the deal.

Here’s my build
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmVMcm9coCMGMoCMGMa0xx0VMmoMRb

Force Sigil in Dagger. Hydromancy on Warhorn/Staff.
Soldier Crests for raw stats.

Definitely not a full-on bunker due a decent amount of power from Soldier gear, more of a “bruiser” build- above average tankiness, no slouch for sustained damage, but zero burst. I like to think I’ve gotten the low-hanging fruit on both the damage and survivability fronts. It’s pretty much built for dungeons (Swap Spectral Walk out for Well of Darkness in Dungeons) and to roam w/ perma swiftness either solo/small groups behind enemy lines to cap camps/yaks/waypoints. A small bit of shroud dancing for condition removal/retaliation.

Above average in most everything I’d say, aside from burst.

The only necros I was having problems with were using that transformation elite skill with some decent burst. That’s it.

The truth is, there is no way for your build to deal with a trap ranger, other than maybe putrid marking some conditions back and DPSing them down a little with autoattacks.

The ranger can outheal your damage, and your damage requires you to be in trap range, and with no way to mitigate large amounts of conditions, you are at a complete disadvantage.

So in a sense, a condition build is a counter to your build. I’d wager you’ll run into the same problem with an HGH engineer, the only difference being that HGH is less evasive than a ranger so your damage will land more reliably.

Nothing against you or you’re build, it’s just more of a build wars type thing (a reference to the fact that ideally its one big game of rock paper scissors lizard spock).