Guild Wars 2

Awesome, this helped me out with my warrior!Q

Hey there and welcome! I would say take a look at some of the guides around and see if any of them are of any particular interest to you and/or tickle your fancy in terms of what you’re looking for!

Nemesis has some great ones in the sticky at the top:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-tutorials

Lopez also has a few guides that I think are very well-written:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Guides-for-condition-necromancer-Updated

And if you’re wanting something a bit tougher, take a look at another one I like:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Juggermancer-Final-Blog-Link

Of course, there are more, just have a glance through the forums.

Overall, I really enjoy my Necromancer! I havn’t gotten much into Thief myself, so I can’t give you too much good info there, sadly. What sort of aspects were you wanting to get into with the game? Anything that you particularly tend to like to do (i.e. Glass Cannon bursts, longer games of attrition, etc.)?

I’ve had a lot of fun with my Necromancer and it’s probably my favourite of the bunch that I’ve played. It’s a different feel from my others — my Guardian and my Mesmer, but I really enjoy it.

Though I do miss the way Mesmers can yank hordes of people off of walls and we’re stuck with just one yank at a time.

That’s actually kind of a neat idea! There’s a lot that they could do with minions and I do love the concept of minions. I sometimes wish I could just run around with a ridiculous number of skeletons or some-such shambling after me.

All in all, I think a bleed cap of 25 per player would be a nice thing. After all, I had read something from ArenaNet awhile back where they were consciously trying to eliminate the sense of irritation you might get at seeing another player (e.g. kill-stealing, stealing resource nodes, etc.). Unfortunately, I think the global bleed cap is something that goes against that philosophy and I often find myself frowning more than expressing camaraderie when finding a group with another condition necromancer in it.

I can definitely appreciate that! It’s a really enjoyable guide to go through though, very easy to pick up even for someone relatively new to a Necromancer.

Also, probably one of the cutest necromancers I think I’ve seen!

Ah, good deal. I suspected that’s what it was, but it probably wasn’t the clearest. Like I said, I’m new to my low level Necromancer and currently have trouble getting to 10 bleeds by myself.

I’d actually say your explanation above would be perfect, it really clears it up! Thanks guys.

Very nice guide! I’ve just made a necromancer the other day and am finding it to be very different than what I’m used to and am having a blast, even if there are other considerations I’ve never paid much attention to (condition caps, for example).

First, though, I found a tiny typo, where the bolded letter should probably be ‘VII’ instead:

I also had a question regarding Condition Duration and the Bleed Cap! In your guide you say:

The problem with condition duration is the bleed cap. Even if the condition necromancer is the only condition-focused party member, other party members can and normally will stack accidental bleeds on their own just by doing their normal rotations.

Second, if Epidemic is used to double bleeds on a focus target — something that can be done a lot — then the bleed cap can be reached without any other party members stacking bleeds.

Bleeds lasting longer doesn’t mean much if the extra duration just makes it harder to stack another bleed, so it’s better to maximize the damage from possible bleeds on a target instead.

You’ll have to forgive me for any naivety, I’m quite new to the Necromancer and havn’t had a chance to play a high level one yet! However, I think the last part of the quote is what confuses me a little bit. Intuitively, it would seem as though I want to try to keep as many bleeds up as possible and that anything less (or more) than 25 would be suboptimal.

Given this, wouldn’t we want to aim for something that keeps as many bleeds as possible on the target? This is purely from the damage perspective, mind you. I can certainly see the argument that Spite traits don’t generally benefit condition necromancers and that the utility gained by Death/Blood magic is substantial. It’s mostly that you seem to want to steer away from increasing stacks of bleeds and I’m curious if there’s something I’m missing there (like, perhaps, weird behaviour at the Bleed Cap).

Thanks!

My biggest concern other than what you mentioned about massive coordination (which is, definitely, a big hurdle) is that it also requires a substantial amount of time in which a portion of the party is not attacking whatsoever. If you could pull it off in PvP, that’s definitely going to be a big thing! However, given the monstrous amount of hitpoints most things have in dungeons, do you think it’s actually worth the effort?

My experiences thus far have been that leaving it to chance has largely been ‘good enough’. I’ve seen roughly 5-7 seconds of Basilisk Venom simply from folks having dodged or using a slow-hitting attack at just the right times (and, thus, refraining from attacking for a couple seconds). Naturally, this is unpredictable. But at the same time, my instincts would have me believe that in PvE you’re just best off trying to unload on stuff as much as possible!

Still, I’m glad that people have read and taken note of the things mentioned in that post!

Steelfang.9164

I feel like I’m one of the few thieves that actually like Basilisk Venom the way it is now.

It’s my friend who’s running this spec, but from my perspective, the group basilisk venom is great!

Stx.4857

Personally, I dont like healing power as a stat for the thief. Even with 1100 healing power, my hide in shadows, regeneration boons, and assassins reward heals barely seemed to heal me for more than what I normally get with only 250 healing power.

To give you some comparison numbers for how it works with Leeching Venom:

• 300 Healing Power: 385 per heal
• 1388 Healing Power: 603 per heal

That’s a pretty sizable amount, but it ultimately depends on what you’re trying to achieve, I’d say, and whether or not the ~57% increase is worthwhile or not.

Judas.5432

Question: Why use Dagger/Pistol instead of Pistol/Pistol? It seems like close quarter combat is something you want to avoid with this build.
I like the idea of it and will happily give it a try.

While it’s my friend who runs it, I think I can help shed some light as to this one! Basically, the short range of the Venomous Aura (seems to be about ~240-300) is pretty restrictive and the nature of the build means that you’ll want to be wherever your party is. This usually means close-quarters for the usual group composition my friend and I run with!

That said, I’d still be interested to hear if you end up preferring one set of weapons over the other when you get it a shot!

Have a look at a little write-up a friend of mine did (which I posted) for a Healing/Support thief:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/PvE-Healing-Support-Thief/

She gives some pretty handy information regarding the topic, might be worth a read!

Yup, they do!

See here for more detail:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/PvE-Healing-Support-Thief

(Posting this on behalf of a friend who has a bug that prevents them from accessing the forums!)

PvE Healing/Support Thief

I came up with an interesting build for thieves that I found to work quite well in dungeons at both debuffing enemies while also keeping your team topped up on health. Naturally it comes with some disadvantages as well as it’s advantages which I’ll try to outline in my post.

The Build

30 Deadly Arts. IV (Venomous Strength), VIII (Quick Venoms), XII (Residual Venom)
30 Shadow Arts. III (Shadow Protector), IX (Leeching Venoms), XII (Venomous Aura)
10 Trickery. V (Thrill of the Crime)

Pros

• Provides some good healing to the team via Leeching Venoms.
• Can constantly apply Weakness to mobs via Poison.
• Can keep up Blindness on groups of mobs via Black Powder.
• Is great at keeping up Might.
• High Toughness.

Cons

• Low damage for a Thief.
• Small health pool if focused on Healing Power.
• Requires you to be close to your teammates to apply venoms. (Roughly 300 units)

Weapons, Utilities and Gear

I personally like to use Dagger/Pistol + Shortbow with this build. With these weapons it’s easy to apply AoE blinds (via Black Powder) which can really help against lots of elites mobs, and it can also apply AoE Poison with Shortbow, which paired with Lotus Poison from the DA tree makes it an amazing way to stack Weakness on groups of enemies. Dagger’s primary attack also applies a poison, and so weakness as well, which is handy for single targets.

For utilities, the build is based around healing via your venom skills. I take Skale Venom, Spider Venom (simply for the 6 procs of heals it’ll bring), and I take Shadow Refuge which when geared for healing can easily provide 2k+ heals plus a Life Leech field for projectiles. For the Elite I use Basilisk Venom, which when applied to your team can stun any kind of boss mob for upwards of 5+ seconds, depending upon the spread of your attacks.

For gear I went with straight up Cleric’s gear. Cleric gear adds Power, Toughness, and most importantly Healing Power. Coincedentally enough those are also the stats you get from your trait lines, so it all works out!

The Role

Your role with this build is to help keep your team’s HP up with your venoms, while also constantly keeping Weakness up on the enemies, providing significant damage reduction to your team. You can also provide awesome blinds via Black Powder to elite mobs, making their attacks all but non-existant. Blinds are only 10% effective on champion/boss mobs however, so focus on Weakness for those. Aside from the healing, your venoms also provide some great conditions and with Thrill of the Crime you can apply a bit of Fury and Swiftness to teammates as well.

With Venomous Aura, all the venoms you use also apply to allies within about 300 units from you. However it also applies the benefits that your traits adds to venoms as well, such as Leeching Venoms and Venomous Strength. That means if you give Spider Venom to your team, you’re giving them 2 stacks of Might for 20 seconds, plus 6 attacks that will heal them for about 600 HP per attack (varies based upon healing power).

The healing people get from the Leeching Venoms depends entirely on your own Healing Power, not theirs. I find this to be outstanding, as I can stack healing power and someone who’s traited for pure DPS can still benefit greatly from my venoms.

Tips

• Don’t overlap your venoms. If you stack all three venoms overtop of eachother, the next attack will only heal once, but take away a charge from all three venoms. It’s a waste of healing, so spread out your applications to provide the best overall effect.
• Choking Gas (the Shortbow poison AoE) applies 4 ticks of poison throughout its duration. This applies 12s of Weakness to enemies in the field, which can increase your team’s survivability significantly.
• Healing provided to your teammates by Leeching Venoms is also determined by your own Healing Power.
• Basilisk Venom’s stun does not stack in duration, but if you hold off on attacking for a short time after your teammates have stunned the mob, you can then stun it immediately afterwards to prolong the effect. With timing and teammwork, you could potentionally stun a boss for 10 seconds.
• Basilisk Venom seems to ignore champion mobs CC immunity counters. It stuns everything!
• A well-timed Skale Venom provided to your team can apply up to 20 stacks of Vulnerability (+20% damage taken) to a boss for a few seconds.
• Don’t underestimate the strength of Weakness!

That’s about all I can think of for now. What do you think?

Red Falcon.8257:

First off, protection gives 33% dmg reduction which is like having 33% more health.
Second, Guardian isn’t meant to be a gimmicky passive tank based on health like other trash MMOs, you have a ton of active defenses that you need to time well.

When you get good with a Guardian you realize health has little effect, it’s all about timing/managing your defensive CDs, dodging and positioning.

This does cover some pretty good points. I would even go so far as to say that 33% less damage taken is even better than 33% more health — we have a good amount of constant healing and regeneration coming in and protection means that these, too, are 33% more effective!

Looks interesting!

From looking over it, though, my thoughts would be that the trait build itself is fairly inconsequential, so long as you have the -20% to shout cooldowns? That and the better recharge time on virtues that might help! But otherwise, it strikes me that the traits are otherwise personal preference.

Have you tried playing with a Hammer using improved Symbols at all? Reason I suggest that is that it is also permanent protection, but does give you more room to add other things in your utility, if you so desire! It is also permanent protection for everyone who stands in melee range of whatever you’re smacking about — I havn’t played with your spec, mind you, but my thoughts would be that the reliance on ‘Save Yourselves’ to keep protection up would mean that your party won’t benefit from the spec as much as you!

Keep in mind that Retaliation actually gets better the more you can keep it up on a group. As an example, if you have two Guardians keeping up Retaliation, that’s two hits of Retaliation you’re doing for a single melee attack of an enemy, if you two manage to position yourselves well!

This can be a surprisingly effective thing and fun. How effective? Effective enough to work, at least! But I don’t think we’re looking for the Ultimate Build here!

I seem to recall an interview in which it was mentioned things like proximity (or the lack of such), the weapon type you use and even your RACE all affect how different mobs react.

I’ve definitely noticed that there are times where I can run into a big group and hit everything and they stay on me while my Thief friend beats on them with her shortbow. Other times, I run in, beat on them and on her very first volley, ALL the mobs start chasing after her instead.

Ha!

Maybe move the 5 points in Zeal to Radiance? Might help with spamming Justice and, therefore, more retaliation that doesn’t rely on you dropping to 25% health!

I can already tell you that this challenge would not be for me! I use the Guardian’s defensive capabilities and survivability as the perfect excuse to charge in on things head on with little regard for personal safety!

There’s nothing quite like feeling that you are the head of a charge. And the rewards are always so very worth the risk!