Guild Wars 2

The necromancer already isn’t in a great spot so I fully believe more added utility to the staff (without nerfing other aspects) is justified.

Staff
Necrotic Grasp _ projectile tracks chilled or crippled targets_
Damage: 269 (0.666)
Might (5s)
Number of Targets: 5
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance)
Pierces
Range: 900

Mark of Blood
Recharge: 10s
Damage: 187 (0.33)
Protection (3s)
Bleeding (x4): 5s
Life Force: 3%
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Blast Radius: 300
Combo Field: Water
Range: 1200

Chillblains
Recharge: 16s
Damage: 222 (0.55)
Chilled: 4s
Poison (x3): 5s
Life Force: 3%
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Blast Radius: 300
Combo Field: Ice
Range: 1200

Putrid Mark
Recharge: 25s
Damage—Three Boons: 578 (1.50)
Damage—Two Boons: 413 (1.25)
Damage—One Boon: 248 (0.75)
Damage—No Boons: 165 (0.50)
Boons Removed: 3
Life Force: 3%
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Blast Radius: 300
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 1,200

Reaper’s Mark
Recharge: 32s
Damage: 111 (0.275)
Blind: 6s
Fear: 1.5s
Life Force: 3%
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Blast Radius: 300
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 1,200

Traits
Soul Marks Marks grants might, transfer conditions, and are unblockable
Might (x2): 6s
Conditions Removed: 1
Unblockable

Thoughts-
I added Might and created a conditional homing projectile on Necrotic Grasp (I wanted other professions to know what it’s like to not be able to get away) reducing its range. Mark of Blood had its Regeneration changed to Protection (increasing its recharge and Bleeding stacks[but reduced duration], and added a Combo Field: Water [eww]). Chillblains was changed to Combo Field: Ice (otherwise like the skill). Putrid Mark… I’ll save for later. Reaper’s Mark I added Blind and a Combo Finisher: Blast (I believe utility weapons should be able to self combo which is why I added Water and another Blast). I wanted Soul Marks to have more utility so I added Might and condition removal (only allies in the mark when it triggers gain this effect). This caused overlap with Putrid Mark so I moved a modified Spinal Shivers (I also think the focus should be reworked).

Any discussion would be appreciated.

I agree that Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption are in a good spot. The other three not so much. And I play mostly spvp so I don’t have experience in WvW meta.

I want to like them.

I think they have a lot of potential and I like the interaction with Rune of the Chronomancer.

I’ve been messing around with this in spvp (unselected traits/util optional) and it’s been pretty fun. Frustrating at times. But fun.

So I’m going to try to start a discussion on Wells. What do you like? What would you change? What builds do you use them in? And everyone’s favorite, design-an-elite-well (that’s-probably-broken™).

This is what I’ve been running since the nerf.

Feels pretty good.

Starfall.6425:

I like that. I will try it, but switch out the heal for vampirism or your soul is mine.

If you’re not expecting condition pressure then signet of vampirism or “your soul is mine” is a great choice.

On a side note, I’m still running this build and it’s still a lot of fun. I’ve switched out sigil of doom for sigil of hydromancy. And sigil of ice for sigil of agility. Agility helps a lot for a quick Consume Conditions/Feast of Corruption/Spinal Shivers/Executioner’s Scythe/“Chilled to the Bone”. I don’t know how I necro’d without it!

So my build looks something like this now.

This is what I run and it’s a lot of fun.

Focus is surprisingly viable on this build. My only wish is Focus 5 had a shorter cast time. 3/4s would be plenty. Might uptime is really high with Rune of the Aristocracy, very easy to maintain 15+ stacks.

I expected nothing and I was still let down.

Signet Condition Build

Advantages-
1762 Base Condition Damage
Good Boon Corruption
Good Vulnerability Uptime

Disadvantages-
Low Mobility
Average Might Uptime
Hard Countered by Ele’s Diamond Skin

Reasoning-
Condition necromancer’s have a hard time stacking conditions; so the conditions that you do put on better hurt. This build tries to maximize that with stacking might, corrupting boons, and applying vulnerability.

Variations-
Consume Conditions instead of Signet of Vampirism
Summon Flesh Wurm instead of Signet of the Locust
Runes of the Nightmare instead of Runes of the Undead
Runes of the Aristocracy if we had them (anet plz)

With 10-15 stacks of Might and 10-15 stack of Vulnerability Terror/Dhuumfire puts out A LOT of damage.

Hey guys, we were OP during a beta weekend and really strong for about two months two years ago. That must never happen again.

The great-sword is slow. The Reaper specialization isn’t inherently slow. Taking reaper doesn’t force you to take great-sword.

I will be taking Dagger/War-horn and Staff on my Reaper and going Reaper and Soul Reaping. Not sure whether I will take Spite or Curses though.

It is curious that both the necro and ele are getting shouts. After seeing this reveal I’m wondering if the ele is getting the shouts and the reaper gets something different. Or if anet just plans to give both shouts. Without seeing the final numbers I can’t say for sure which are better, but given anet’s history of balance, ele shouts will probably far outclass the necros.

The patch notes gave me an idea how to buff dhuumfire without making it broken when reaper releases.

Increase the burning duration and/or stacks based on distance from the target.

We did it boys (and girls)!

Plague: This skill no longer inflicts bleeding every second while it is active. Instead, it inflicts 10 seconds of bleeding when it is first activated. When traited with Master of Corruption, it inflicts 4 seconds of poison.
Consume Conditions: Lowered the number of self-applied vulnerability stacks from 10 to 5.

I’d still prefer the prepatch version, but this should help. On a side note I’m going to miss my perfect world 35s of vigor from Well of Power/Plague combo.

Chilling Darkness: Added a 5-second internal cooldown to this trait.

What.

Here you go. Standard wells power necromancer.

Your runes/sigils can vary. Vampirism runes/leeching sigil will give you some extra sustain. If you want full damage go Runes of the Pack/Ogre. Hoelbrak runes are also good to help stack might/lessen condition duration.

Muchacho.2390:

Ashur.6403:

If Focus 5 had a lower cooldown it would also be viable because focus stacks vulnerability well.

I think you mean casttime. Cooldown is fine in my opinion.

Yeah, I meant cast time.

Couple things. I’ve been running Signet of the Locust instead of Corrupt Boon. It’s a little less boon hate, but AoE boon hate and it’s a decent heal when CC is on cooldown. Also I’ve been running Sigils of Frailty/Earth on Scepter and Frailty/Energy on Staff. Finally, I’ve been taking Speed of Shadows because of the great synergy with Weakening Shroud. I don’t miss Soul Marks because I didn’t take them beforehand.

It ends up looking like this. I’ve also been messing with runes of the krait. Haven’t decided what I like better though. If Focus 5 had a lower cooldown it would also be viable because focus stacks vulnerability well.

If you look at my comment history I’ve only said that the CC and Plague change were bad.

I am still saying the CC and Plague change were bad.

Whole time you were underwater I kept yelling for you to use DS2. That kitten spams AOE 7 blinds. Our underwater DS is so much better than our above water DS.

Should Signet of Undeath be remade into an elite signet? How would you change it to fit the elite slot? What new signet would you create to replace it?

As required by every post, please undo the changes to Consume Conditions. Also I would like to see Terror/Fear of Death/Reaper’s Protection combined into one trait.

Zin.6170:

Add in the 2 seconds it will take to activate it and you can apply it every 14-18 seconds.

It should behave like other trait procs and have no activation time.

As sad as it is I will still be taking Consume Conditions.

I will just be making my condition build around it. I will start with this and adjust accordingly. I’m hoping the added corruptions and condition transfers makes up for not having Terror.

This will be my alternative Terror build if the first one fails.

I don’t even have a response to that. It seems so unfathomable that happens in the engi forum that I am in denial.

I started playing GW2 the beta test after necromancer’s reigned supreme and I still feel like I missed a golden age. I got to feel what it was like to be wanted in a group, not just tolerated, for 2 months after the dumbfire change.

But because of dhuumfire we started bleeding bleed stacks and Terror damage was reduce 17%. Even after dhuumfire was tied to DS1, and no one used it, we didn’t get reverts. All we got is silence.

If a dev is reading this I hope you understand how disheartening it is to see things like this.

On-paper™ a condition necro traiting in spite should™ be able to build a decent amount of might with Siphoned Power and Signets of Suffering (and I guess Reaper’s Might).

That said, I would like to see Runes of Aristocracy come to spvp as it might provide build diversity. Would it be too strong… on engineers (obviously not on us)?

Roe.3679:

I agree about the barbed precision change, totally unnecessary. But I think we all knew that lingering curses wouldn’t stay. I mean, every chill from chill of darkness would be 4 seconds. You could leave plague with a minute of chill on a target, as an aoe. It was too strong and it was going to be nerfed.

The quick change is make it read that Lingering Curses makes your damaging conditions last longer (doesn’t affect Terror/Deathly Chill).

This has got to be the most hilarious post I have ever read. Thanks for the laugh.

I haven’t lost all hope on this subject. I think all this feedback on the forum can get the devs to reconsider the Consume Conditions nerf.

They should either revert the nerf and remove consume conditions as a corruption skill or switch Terror and Parasitic Contagion and buff our other healing skills. I’d prefer the second option, but realistically with only a week until release, the first option would be much more likely.

Anything less than that is a severe disconnect between the devs and actual necromancer players and that doesn’t bode well for the future.

Sorry, I thought you were saying that Consume Conditions was buffed when using Master of Corruption because you could use Plague Signet to transfer the extra conditions. Traited Plague Signet does look decent. The only problem with it is the weird invisible projectile bug.

ImdA.4701:

Yup , Plague Signet will be uber strong post-patch.

Traited, CD will be 24 seconds. 24 seconds for an instant 5 condi revert, plus the additionnal one with the trait. Its kinda a nice buff tbh.

Blowing one of your stunbreaks to transfer 4 seconds of vulnerability and whatever random kitten condition they decide to add to it. Brilliant strategy.

The change to Consume Conditions isn’t anywhere close to a buff. Either you take Master of Corruption, get the 10s recharge, and lose out on PoC or Terror. Or you don’t, and now the cooldown got nerfed 5 seconds while giving10 stacks vulnerability for 4 seconds. Using any condition transfer for this a terrible idea let alone blowing a stunbreak.

Silmariena.6205:

On the wind of changes maybey someone think about add new weapons pls? Like spear as mele twohanded weapon and maybey some irrational thinking : give us choose weapon skills?

Check Dulfy.net the necromancer specialization Reaper is able to equip a 2-Handed Greatsword.

I spent my free time at work looking over the necromancer changes and I just kept getting more and more angry as time went on. Anet did put some thoughtful changes with death and blood magic, but then kittening hammered us back down with stupid kitten like the consume condition nerf.

And that is what it is, a straight up nerf. It forces us to take Master of Corruption for a skill that already had counterplay. Taking Master of Corruption then forces us to give up Terror. Giving up Terror forces us to take Reaper because Dhuumfire is garbage without it and we will need Deathly Chill. For the love of grenth anet please switch Terror and Parasitic contagion.

I know I sound bitter in this post and I am sorry, but I think it is warranted.

I’m just happy I get to see them before I go to work.

The area of mark skills has been increased to 240. Mark skill recharges have been reduced by 20%. Mark damage has been increased by 10%.

What

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

WHAT THE kitten

Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

WHAT THE kitten IS GOING ON. Can someone please tell me another elite that actively hurts you while using it.

After reading everything I think I will be trying Spite/Curses/Blood Magic in spvp.
Something like this with this.

I am cautiously optimistic. I am hoping they took the feedback we gave them from the last ready-up and did meaningful changes. I’m cautious about that because the last time we got (condition) buffs we got slammed with multiple nerfs.

As another person said necromancers are not balanced by what is fun for us, we are balanced by whats fun for other classes to play against.

OreoWolf.9564:

Anet has already stated that each new Elite Specialization will have it’s own runeset.

Interesting. Thanks for letting me know. I missed that.

OreoWolf.9564:

(1) +25 power
(2) +10% chill duration
(3) +50 power
(4) +15% chill duration; 10% chance when hit to chill nearby foes for 2 seconds (30 second cooldown)
(5) +100 power
(6) Gain Frost Aura when you enter Death Shroud (20 second cooldown)

That would be crazy strong. I like it.

I doubt anet will add a reaper rune set when existing rune sets already have reaper synergy.

Runes of Grenth for condition builds
Runes of Ice for defensive builds
Runes of the Elementalist for hybrid builds

The only one I could possibly see something being adding is a pure damage build. But even then people would just run Strength/Ogre/Pack runes.

It’s almost as if we had another weapon set that wasn’t scepter. So the condition durations are not completely wasted. Even if I take Lingering Curses I will be taking Runes of Grenth in a reaper/curses/soul reaping build because it will be needed when using staff.

Sigmoid.7082:

Ashur.6403:

Sure burning does more damage, but with Reaper, chill uptime is more important.

Explain why..?

Lingering Curse will give you plenty of condition duration for dhuumfire. As others have said the synergy between reaper traits and chill uptime can’t be understated along with how debilitating -66% movement/skill recharge can be. Finally staff has a good chill application and having Runes of Grenth would be more important for that reason alone.

If condition spec is viable in pvp the argument between Runes of Balthazar or Grenth, I think that Grenth wins out. Sure burning does more damage, but with Reaper, chill uptime is more important.

My hope is they don’t make Chilling Force have an ICD. Necromancer’s need an OP trait and this is a perfect choice for one.

Sigmoid.7082:

Depending on how long you stay in reaper form sigil of Ice would be better than hydromancy.

Yeah, I agree. In the other thread I put I planned on running Staff (Energy/Hydromancy) and Scepter/Dagger (Ice/Hydromancy). I just forgot to change it here. Thanks for reminding me.

Spvp Condition Reaper
Staff (Energy/Hydromancy) and Scepter/Dagger (Ice/Hydromancy)
Carrion Amulet, Runes of Grenth
Consume Conditions, Flesh Wurm, Spectral Walk, Corrupt Boon, Plague

I will most likely skip Terror in favor of Lingering Curse.

I think I am going to try Runes of Grenth. Even if someone has decreased condition duration, Runes of Grenth and Lingering Curse should give perma chill.

My build will end up looking like this.
Staff (Energy/Hydromancy) and Scepter/Dagger (Ice/Hydromancy), Carrion Amulet, Runes of Grenth
Consume Conditions, Flesh Wurm, Spectral Walk, Corrupt Boon, Plague

At the very least it will be annoying as hell to fight against in spvp.

flow.6043:

Rym.1469:

In fact, Stability to this skill is fairly recent.

June 25th, 2013. ;P

That is only like two dozen months. Practically yesterday.

Now that Terror won’t be a largest chunk of my damage I would much rather have Vital Persistence over Master of Terror.

This is what I plan on running
Staff and Scepter/Dagger
Carrion Amulet, Runes of the Nightmare, Sigils of Geomancy and Hydromancy.
Consume Conditions, Wurm, Spectral Walk, Corrupt Boon, Plague Form.

I’d even consider going “You are all Weaklings” if the might duration were slightly longer. Still 6s weakness and a stunbreak with a 25s cd isn’t terrible.

If these traits go live the way they are, it is going to be a slaughter.

If I was redesigning dhuumfire I would make it apply 1 stack of burning to nearby foes when entering death shroud. In addition to LB applying burning, targets hit by LB with X burning stacks explode blinding nearby foes.

It is rather upsetting when you compare dhuumfire to other gm traits. It is even more upsetting when you compare dhuumfire to the engineer gm burning trait (which still has it on crit AND a burning duration increase).

I have a feeling that dhuumfire will never be properly balanced because of anet’s tendency to balance around the best case scenario. At worst it will probably end up just being a cover condition and at best it will melt faces like it used to (depending on dhuumfire’s final numbers).

In the traits preview dhuumfire was a base 1 stack of 3 seconds burning which leads me to believe it’s supposed to balanced as a cover condition (assuming they had 0 condition duration armor/amulet).

I doubt anet will give it any reasonable amount of stacks because of the terror/dhuumfire combo obliterating people. They also can’t give it a reasonable duration because it would be used as a long duration cover condition with Lingering Curse. A build like this could also get a good amount of burning stacks if dhuumfire gets a decent duration.

The only solution I can think of is combine dhuumfire with Lingering Curse, Parasitic Contagion, or Terror and then balance it from there. I’d hate to see it become another underwhelming trait when it has potential. I just don’t think it will ever be properly balanced where it currently is located.

I’d like to hear other peoples thoughts on this.

I think I am going to try a non-terror build when this gets released.

Some of my (random) thoughts:
I still feel that dhuumfire will be completely underwhelming which is a shame. It has potential in the soul reaping tree, but not with the duration that it currently has when it is also tied to life blast. Even if lingering curse affects dhuumfire I still find it underwhelming because of it being tied to life blast.
The Weakening Shroud change kind of irritates me as it’s the change that the devs pushed for, but the community railed against. Its current iteration isn’t better which is also a shame because I really liked the original trait.
Quickening Thirst… I think I actually like. It no longer differentiates the bonus movement speed based on whether you have 1 dagger or 2. This could be very good for kiting with scepter/dagger. The second part of the trait is kittening weird though. 75% seems like an arbitrary number some dev put in as he wanted to go home early for the day. Note that if weakening shroud procs this trait I would always take them together.

I’ll probably be trying 0/6/0/6/6/x as I’m not expecting the greatsword line to have great condition damage synergy.

Something like this:
Curses-
Minor: Barbed Precision, Furious Demise, Target the Weak
Major: Weakening Shroud, Path of Corruption, Lingering Curse

Blood Magic-
Minor: Full of Life, Vampiric, Blood to Power
Major: Mark of Evasion, Quickening Thirst, Unholy Martyr

Soul Reaping-
Minor: Gluttony, Last Gasp, Strength of Undeath
Major: Soul Marks, Spectral Mastery, Foot in the Grave/Dhuumfire (depends on dhuumfire’s final numbers).

Czerny.6530:

DS glitching?

It’s not a glitch anymore. You can DS then start the stomp, no need for the weird double hitting of hotkeys like before. I run 0/6/2/0/6 and take FitG, the stability doesn’t cover the stomp 100%, but it’s close enough that I can normally secure the stomp. I save plague for rezzing or if there are multiple people and FitG won’t work.

Back to the original question, I have played around 100 more games with Corrosive Poison Cloud and I believe it will be my go-to 3rd utility skill.

I’ve been asking this question myself.

I’ve kept Flesh Wurm on my bar because it allows repositioning not possible by Spectral Walk I’ve been switching between Spectral Wall and Corrosive Poison Cloud and I cannot tell which one I like better. If spectral wall lasted a little bit longer without the trait I would for sure pick that one. As it is I’ve been leaning more on CPC which gives a 12 second poison field and is big enough to hit then entire point. Also more than once I’ve been saved by dropping it on myself when getting focused.

That said I’m not sure what the most optimal choice would be. I would think it would depend more on the situation you expect to face. Certainly CPC is far from meta, but I suggest giving it a try because it can truly change a fight on point.

this is what I have been running.

I forgot to mention that the combo field:water from your healing skill and the blast/leap/projectile finisher can heal for a surprising amount.

Additionally this build has very good uptime on fury giving a total of 70% crit chance.

This is what I have been running on my spvp ranger since the march update. Truthfully I don’t play a whole lot of ranger, but when I do this is normally what I run.