Guild Wars 2

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Fynd.4890:

Needs to be a white item to break the soulbind attribute.

Works with blue items too.

And you can transfer it to another character via bank afterwards ? If so, that’s good tech.

Needs to be a white(basic quality) item to break the soulbind attribute. Derrak (the armorsmith) in Lion’s Arch sells level 10 white hats on the second sale tab for ~80 copper to a low-level char. Just go to the Armorsmith icon (steel helmet) on your map, it’s sort of near the bank. Remember that his items scale to your current char’s level, so make sure to buy the hat on your nab char. Transfer money from your main to your bank if you don’t have enough copper.

Hi, Lopez – fancy meeting you here.

Used to play with you back in 2004 on Mannoroth when you were on your undead mage and I was on my undead rogue, Grep. Funny that now in 2012 we’re both maining necromancers.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that I don’t agree with your disregard for Terror strictly on a mathematical basis. It’s guaranteed burst that can only be mitigated with stun-breaks. The 4.5*level base coefficient and the .30 condition damage coefficient is huge.

Reaper’s Protection, Doom, and Reaper’s Mark are pretty much guaranteed to go off, and you are well aware that with Path of Midnight and Master of Terror , shroud-dancing to flick out Doom multiple times in one fight is key to victory against skilled mesmers and thieves. With big dick pizza (40% duration) and a master tuning crystal, Terror ticks approach 2k. Before the terror buff, I’d lose some 1v1’s against mesmers; now I don’t lose any 1v1’s. However, I do stalemate against a few thieves that run a good amount of +healing and with shadow’s embrace / shadow’s rejuvenation , they’re extremely hardy (and a huge waste of time).

Even though I started out with a nitpick, your guide is well-written and I agree with most of it. In WvW, I’ve been running Corrupt Boon/Epidemic/Spectral Walk for ages. The only reason I haven’t switched to Locust is because mid-air cliffjump jukes with spectral return still fool people on a daily basis and I get thief skull feared like 10x a day, so I stun-break that. I’m fine with shrouding Basilisk Venom and dooming the thief out of 1-spam after they’ve landed CnD/Steal/Backstab, but I’m not too fond of eating 4 second fears right after said burst. If I’m 1v1’ing a lot (jumping puzzle battles), I actually dump Epidemic and replace it with Locust for the combat mobility advantage that you mentioned.

Edit in regards to:

Yeah, a lot of people wish pets were better. It’s kind of weird not a single necromancer pet bleeds targets.

Jagged Horrors apply bleed each time they bite someone ! Ironically, the only on demand way to get said bleeding pets are via our power-based elite, lich form (4-skill: Mark of Horror ). Then, if you get one from reanimator, you’re minion capped at 6. Which isn’t really a problem, since popping Lich form will despawn all your current minions, anyway.

Archonis.7249:

I have never said anything about Mesmers being overpowered. I think that I mentioned once that the Shatter bug is pretty strong and I don’t think that Anet intended that. I never call nerf on a profession. Never have and never will. I defend the Thief often because there are numerous “OMGERD THEIVEZ IZ OP!” and plenty of incorrect information about Thieves OPness.

Never calling nerf on a profession is bad judgment, there’s nothing to be proud of with that, “Never have and never will”, statement.

You also contradicted that entire statement by mentioning Shattered Strength. It was a buff and if you wish for it to be reverted, that’s asking for a nerf.

You seem really heated over a game man. I might suggest that you take some time off and spend it with your family this holiday season.

My family was killed by Unknown in stealth, you insensitive clod.

KirinDave.6451:

For example, thieves with auto-attack on don’t land backstabs reliably and tend to break stealth.

Failed attacks(aircutting) don’t break stealth. Auto-attack in stealth = backstab. It’s virtually impossible to not land a backstab when stealthed unless your foe evades/blocks/becomes invulnerable.

Archonis.7249:

Fynd.4890:

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about Thieves. I don’t think reading this will help you understand what I am saying.

PS: Not a wall of text, I used proper sentence and paragraph structure along with punctuation and capitalization.

Nice troll attemped. I give it a 6/10 and you were a little pitchy dawg.

Based on your previous hyperbolic posts about thieves, you defend them in every single thread and then you kittenpost in every mesmer thread to deflect attention from your baby: thief.

Best burst, best mobility, best survivability, most evades, most vigor, most condition removal, best lifesteal, most healing, most offensive abilities combined with invincibility(evades), most stealth(mesmer has 2 less), most off-cooldown abilities, most teleports, second-most stun-breaks. Thieves have it real hard. I play my thief in sPvP just to remind myself why the game isn’t even close to e-sport ready.

I’m not trolling, I’m waking you up and debasing the garbage you keep feeding to people that read the forums.

Archonis.7249:

Well. I am just going to reiterate what I put on your YT vid, plus some.

First off, you created a situation that was a perfect storm for the Thief to pull this off. If this was actual gameplay in a SPvP match, then you have a lot more to worry about than a Theif doing this combo. What I mean by that is you were just standing there, doing nothing. Not on the point and from what I can tell you were built as a bunker Gaurdian, where you should of been. You weren’t panning your camera, so awareness wasn’t to be had. Also your camera was tight on your character. So to me, this is all a set up. Especially seeing that your combat log was the only thing open in conjunction to all of the above.

With all that being said, that this is a setup. The reason that I am so negative on this is because. You can make any situation look OP or imbalanced. You can make an Assault rifle look OP to a Tank. Let the tank just sit there not moving and unloaded with the flap to the driver open as the person with the assault rifle unloads it into the compartment.

This combo has been around for ages, as one person in this thread has said. To say that Thieves in general aren’t aware of Heartseeker is just hilarious. Why has it been nerfed so many times and so much? (Though as a Thief I do agree with the nerf, it was slightly OP and benefited too much from spamming) It was nerfed because Thieves consistently used it and had tons of outcry. Also to the individual that said Heartseeker was channeling, that ability is an instant. Not a channel, as soon as you hit 2 the animation and damage normaly happens within about .5 secs and under the influence of Haste, it would be .25 secs.

Now after that TLDR that I made. I will get to the heart of this issue. What I think happened here (talking about the combo itself) is that every ability sans the Stealth animation was affected by haste. If the Stealth animation was tied into the haste, then you would of seen the Thief completely as he Heartseekered you and got you with the Coupe de Grace that put you in the down state.

Now, even more important. That fact that you couldn’t see the Thief because of the Stealth animation running at normal speed, didn’t mean that you were going to be any less dead. You were dead as soon as you got hit with the Basilisk Venom. The haste just sped that up is all. If the Thief didn’t use haste, then you could of easily avoided that opener. I personally think that Haste is the worst ability that they have in the game to be honest. I think that the ability makes strong openers too strong and it should be removed. After all that, even with the Thief using Haste. You could of still avoided this burst opener, simply by being aware of your surroundings and play more defensively.

So many people play their builds outside of their roles and don’t take the time to understand thier builds strengths and weaknesses. They see a youtube video or see someone posting a build that they are really successful with and people copy/paste it to their character and expect the build to carry them without any thought of the meta involved. Also there is a lot of players that create the uber deeps and uber tank builds and get destroyed, because they are fighting their hard counters. Those people need to learn that composition of a team and also making a balanced build is much more important in PvP. This is prevelant in all professions.

70% of the players in this game have very low skill, about 20% have moderate skill, 8% have high skill and 2% are the elite. When you listen to the 70% in terms of balance, you will have a serverly imbalanced game. I hate to sound elitist, but you never hear of the higher skilled players complaining too much about balance. You always hear it from the people that are playing at a low skill level or those new to the game and finally people that are just playing FOTM builds.

People need to take the time and learn from their mistakes and look critically at themselves before posting on the forums about this or that being OP. When I get beat. I look at what I did and then what the opponent did and see what I could of done differently to win. I check did I dodge effectively? Did I manage my initiative properly? Did I land abilities at crucial times? Is my build tight enough to help me deal with situations that I am weak against? If I am fine in all of those areas, then I come hear and constructively create a thread about it and either there is a bug or someone tips me off to something I didn’t know.

People need to leave their egos at the door in PvP. I know that it is hard to, but that is what separates bad players from great players.

Guess I will end this now, since I don’t want to crash the servers with all this text.

A+ lifetime thief apologist wall of text, will read again.

Kylex.5962:

after the initial opener of C&D/Steal/Backstab majority of people are below 25% hp or dead. so that heartseeker makes it 100%

almost certain that not many thiefs know this..

Pretty sure every thief knows this. If it’s a bad thief that does this combo on you, they will spam Heartseeker forever after the combo is over if you’re still alive because they’ve never failed to kill someone with the opener/heartseeker, so they’ve never had to do anything else after Heartseeker or 1-spam.

Occasionally you’ll meet a good thief and they’ll only heartseeker twice after the opener and if that fails, they’ll switch to shortbow to finish things with a cluster bomb or trick shot spam.

sorrow.2364:

Oozo.7856:

Awesome gameplay! Amazingly tense fight full of moves and counter-moves. The jockeying for positioning and fakeouts were just incredible from both sides. You couldn’t really tell who was going to win until the very last second there.

Probably that wasn’t supposed to be a gameplay video, but it is just to show how that combo works?

Yes, it’s just a proof of concept, but this happens to me over 5x a day in sPvP and WvW. It’s extremely tiresome when you can’t target a thief to retaliate before you’re already at such a deficit that a loss is guaranteed. They need to make thieves immune to being culled in WvW if they ever want this to be fixed, and this video was taken in sPvP, which just makes things even more sad to think how much worse it’d be in WvW.

They could have simply learned from the success of GW1: not giving stealth to their assassin class, or any class for that matter.

Stealth is a horrible, horrible headache for any network gameplay programmer due to the increased strength of stealth when combined with any modicum of latency; any form of competitive GW2 is dying because of it.

No amount of monthly, iterative, baby-steps buffing/nerfing balance changes are going to fix the fundamental problems with this game: stealth.

No, it only works on direct damage / power skills. Condition damage is uneffected. It’s also +20% more damage.

So far the only +% trait that affects conditions is Terror

XiL.4318:

Why did I even ave to explain this to you?

Because necromancers only have 2 sources of Blind(that actually proc Chilling Darkness) and that hardly makes the trait worth taking since it will only be a benefit to you once every 18+ seconds if you use Deathly Swarm on recharge and slot Well of Darkness.

Derk.3189:

Actually, fearing people back into a well is a decent use of fear, particularly on dagger builds. Terror is still a bit gimmicky though, I agree.

Fear always makes the target run directly away from your current position, so it’s hard for me to see how you fear people back into a well, especially if you drop the well at your feet or even if you have Focused Rituals , it will run them out of the center. Imagine a vector line that went from your character straight to your foe, then continued through their body to infinity. That’s the path that fear will always send them on until its duration ends. So if you dropped a well at your feet and wanted to fear your foe into it, you’d have to run/flesh wurm teleport, or dodge roll past them out of your well, then fear them back into it. This is fine and all, but there’s just many other practical decisions you can make to kill someone more effectively than this circus move.

Chilling them before the fear, on the other hand, would serve to better keep someone in a well, but you must realize that dropping a Chilblains mark(3/4s cast) on them, then shrouding and hitting Doom will take ~1 second to accomplish, so that’s the foe’s window to use a travel ability or dodge to get out of the well. Actually, you mentioned Dagger mainhand, so Dark Pact would suffice to immobilize them in a well, however its cast time is rather hefty @ 1s and, once again, most people dodge out before that cast would go off, and the dodge roll would make that cast fizzle.

Fynda Uthis.7694:

That movement speed increasing signet is bugged. It should passively give us 25%, but when the passive activates, it only gives 10%. The tooltip on the signet is ok, it’s 25% there, but when I have my cursor on the passive buff, it only shows 10%.

This is strictly a buffbar icon tooltip issue, you are getting the 25% runspeed bonus in-game properly like stated on the Utility bar tooltip. They neglected to update the buffbar tooltip text for Necro, Ranger, and Ele. Since it’s just a text change, they probably won’t release an emergency build for it, it’s just a shame that it passed by QA testing unnoticed.

Brujeria.7536:

I always wondered: Does normal +10% Condition duration from weapons and runes apply to fear as well?

Yes, but Fear – like all damaging conditions – will need a duration increase to the next second to gain an extra tick of damage.

For instance, Reaper’s Protection is a 2 second Fear so it will tick twice. With Master of Terror trait, Fear duration will become exactly 3 seconds and it will tick 3 times. If you get 10% condition duration on top of that, it will increase the duration of the fear effect, however it is not enough additional duration to make Reaper’s Protection roll over to 4 seconds of fear for that last tick of damage. You would need to stack much more condition/fear duration-extending runes/food to achieve the game-capped +100% condition duration for the 4 ticks of fear damage from Reaper’s Protection, 2 ticks from Doom , 2 ticks from Reaper’s Mark , 4 ticks from downed Fear , etc.

shizo.5698:

5400 attack power in lich form with only 15 might.

3850 attack power every 30 seconds.

hmhm, putrid explosion hit for 7k XD

Power has no effect on minion abilities. Their damage scaling is strictly based off of level and traits ( Training of the Master ). So yeah, about that 7k Putrid Explosion …

Brain and eye pain incurred @ “bad players would still complain because it’s in a 4D environment”

I edited my post to reflect the 4.5*level coefficient for Terror base damage and to Arcades Sabboth, the +50% damage works in both PvE and the mists/sPvP. I tested in all 3 areas last night.

For new players that struggle with traits or just want to try a new build that was made more potent with this patch, here’s some Terror builds for you. Please realize that these must be condition damage builds due to the Fear having the highest condition damage coefficient in the game, so you want to play to the strength of the Terror trait and your other damaging conditions (Bleed/Poison).

Armor, Runes, Sigils, and Jewelry will be included on the spec pages to further help you.

Terror Builds:
sPvP solo roamer / team fighter:

1. http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-34FKlHFC0r3oIkJ0;9;5JJ9J;115-17-2;028-S-V8Y;1jwmAjwmA2FO (Copy Link Location and paste manually since GW2 Forums usually truncates certain characters in URL’s, like question marks and semicolons)
   Note: Mark of Evasion version w/ Undead Runes(Cond/Tough) and Rabid Amulet/Carrion Jewel(Tough/Vit)
2. http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-34FKlHFC0r3oIkJ0;9;49JJ-J0;015-17;228-S-V8Y;1gk1Agk1A2Vu
   Note: Death’s Embrace version w/ Necromancer Runes(Cond/Vit) and Rabid Amulet/Rabid Jewel(Tough/Tough)
   Description: Strong in 1v1’s due to stacking enough toughness via runes/amulet/jewel and medium strength in team fights since you’re sacrificing direct damage on marks w/ low power and no targetable wells, only true build weakness is losing either Lingering Curse / Foot in the Grave , since you cannot go 30 deep in either Curses/Soul Reaping due to taking Mark of Evasion in the Blood Magic tree or Death’s Embrace / Condition Duration in the Spite tree.

WvW generic build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-34FKlHFC0r3gJkJ0;9;5JJ-T;115-17;228AS-V8Y;1jwmAjwmA2Fs
Description: Strong 1v1, strong ramparts clearing with epidemic, strong corpse bomber, weak siege/object destruction, strong stomps w/ death shroud stability. This is pretty necessary for guaranteeing wins when you 2v1 people. If you can’t get a stomp off successfully the first time, you will lose. With rare veggie pizza usable in WvW, not much need for extra condition duration, unless you want to get Reaper’s Protection to tick 4 times, then you need to take 10 points out of Soul Reaping and dump them into Spite.

My experience to verify validity and/or whether I know what I’m talking about:
I exclusively did sPvP and tPvP for the first month and a half the game was out. I stopped at around Rank 30 (Wolf). Then I got world completion, dungeon master, r20+ fractals, etc. to experience the rest of the game; now I mostly WvW(tier 1 & 2 on Blackgate) with some occasional sPvP.

Final Notes: Although these Day-0 December 14th Terror Builds are fun and solid, they do restrict build variance since the MUST TAKE trinity of traits are:

1. Terror
2. Reaper’s Protection
3. Master of Terror

With that said, other builds are still potent in the current meta, like High Power Lich Warp Nukers (Mesmer Time Warp + Lich auto attack that splashes), Glass cannon team-kill necros (30/30/10) w/ targetable damage wells so they can drop 4 dmg marks, 2 damage wells, 1 scepter dmg AE and 1 offhand dagger AE, Bunker/Stall condition necro’s w/ toughness runes (e.g. Grove), etc. So, Terror builds are just the current 0-day meta and are more of a “balanced” build approach w/ medium-high survivability, high condition damage, low power damage, and low mobility.

Last of all, in every build I linked, feel free to swap Hemophilia for Weakening Shroud depending on your playstyle/preference.

//Edit: All the sPvP builds I linked will get you 780 dmg Fear ticks w/o another condition on target and 1170 dmg w/ another condition.

All runspeed signets were given 25% runspeed behind the scenes and they updated the skill tooltip properly; they just neglected to update the buffbar icon tooltip appropriately for the Signet passive buffs.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Nuhj.8372:

It is 362 base damage plus 30% Malice. As with all other condition damage ticks it will trigger every 1 sec after being applied.

It’s 2 + level * 1.5 + 0.3 Malice which means 122 base damage.
Source

As I’ve state elsewhere I think this is fine, now even better. Also I think they should give us the opportunity to increase our Fear to at least 2 seconds without sacrifice an entire build (eg. Master of Terror should give 100% or our fears should last at least 1.75s)

Order of operations :

Base damage for terror is:

• 2 + (level * 4.5) = 362 @ 80
• it is not (2 + level) * 1.5 = 123 @ 80

Buff bar icon mouse hover tooltip for both Signet of the Locust and Signet of Air still read 10% even though the skill tooltips are correct and the skills gives the proper 25% runspeed increase. I haven’t seen any Rangers yet, so I can’t comment on their buff bar tooltip.

Thanks for the corrections, Alanis and Rennoko; I’ve updated the wiki entry for Terror to match the in-game tooltip and I fixed the incorrect coefficient / base damage note.

Another cool thing to note is that since Doom has a tiny direct damage component to it which can crit, if your Doom crits a mob, it will proc a Barbed Precision bleed, then you’ll automatically get the +50% dmg for having a condition other than Fear on the mob. Same thing applies for the direct damage from Reaper’s Mark if it crits.

alanis.6094:

Fynd.4890:

Rennoko.5731:

The terror trait is a trait that makes fear deal damage. I get how you could read it the way you have implied, but logic states they just buffed the fear damage…. Consequently I have no idea why they would do this, as it is already the most powerful condition the game…. pre-buff.

Burn is still the most powerful duration-stacking condition in the game in terms of both base damage and after the {condition coefficient*condition damage} is added.

Base Damage @ 80:

• Burn: 328
• Fear: 120

Coefficient Damage @ 80:

• Burn: .25 * Condition Damage stat
• Fear: .15 * Condition Damage stat

I’ll do some testing in-game now to see if the 50% is applied pre or post coefficient calculation.

Either way it’s still going to tick less than a burn since burn’s base is 273% greater than fear @ 80 and Burn’s coefficient applies 66% more condition damage than Terror does to Fear, pre-patch. A 50% flat damage increase shouldn’t dethrone burn.

I know it’d be comparing apples to oranges, but Confusion damage in PvE/WvW is still the king of all conditions. Dealing over 8k dmg per tick on a 25-stack w/ 1350 condition damage.

That formula for terror that you got from the wiki isn’t correct. Its 30% malice + 364 base.

That makes sense, just tested in-game. Updating the numbers in my previous post accordingly – Rennoko is absolutely right, like always – this makes Fear the strongest duration-stacking condition in the game by a decent margin !

Just tested in the mists naked.
w/ 200 condition damage, damage per tick was 422

• .3 * 200 = 60
• 422 – 60 = 362 base
• 362 = 2 + (4.5 * Level)

w/ 1393 condition damage, damage per tick was 780

• .3 * 1393 = 418
• 418 + 362 (base) = 780

w/ 1393 condition damage, damage per tick when mob has a condition on it was 1171

• (418 + 362) * 1.5 = 1170

I’m on the fence on this one.

On one hand, fear has this weird duality property unlike the other conditions in the game. It’s both a condition and a control effect.

Defiant is meant to prevent control effects (stun and daze). Fear was and is classified as a condition because it can do damage (Terror trait). However, it did mess with the AI of some bosses and did make them get stuck, etc. So now they’re treating it as a control effect against bosses rather than a condition.

I don’t mind this that much, however this change severely limits the usefulness of the Terror trait in boss fights. Since the fear debuff won’t even apply to the boss, all the damage of the trait is lost on the boss.

Just finished testing in-game (Gendarran Fields [scaled to level 31]). The 50% extra damage is applied at the very end.

• Mob w/ no conditions: 186 dmg per tick of Fear
• Mob w/ conditions: 280 dmg per tick of Fear

186 * 1.50 = 279

The math is simple and works.

Khalifahaze.6045:

Once again I look at the necro patch notes and am just unimpressed.

To be honest, I look at every class’ changes and I am unimpressed for a month’s worth of work.

The changes and number tweaks that rangers got could have been done in a day’s to two day’s work.

Rennoko.5731:

The terror trait is a trait that makes fear deal damage. I get how you could read it the way you have implied, but logic states they just buffed the fear damage…. Consequently I have no idea why they would do this, as it is already the most powerful condition the game…. pre-buff.

Agreed, Fear damage is now the most damaging duration-stacking condition in the game.

Base Damage @ 80:

• Burn: 328
• Fear: 362

Coefficient Damage @ 80:

• Burn: .25 * Condition Damage stat
• Fear: .30 * Condition Damage stat

Not only did Fear deal more damage pre-patch than Burning, but the new Terror truly makes it shine.

I know it’d be comparing apples to oranges, but Confusion damage in PvE/WvW is still the king of all conditions. Dealing over 8k dmg per tick on a 25-stack w/ 1350 condition damage.

I just ran at one guy to attack them, then all of a sudden my entire combat log is getting hit by 10+ unknowns.

Before the rematch, this would have never happened. I would have culled these enemies and I wouldn’t have charged in.

I am extremely accommodating to trying new things as i beta-tested the new FoV for widescreen monitors before it was implemented, but this is the first beta change that I just can’t stand behind as an improvement.

Please do not be discouraged, though, Habib Loew and all those responsible for working on this ! We appreciate your correspondence and your earnest efforts to give us players the best culling experience possible for WvW – keep trying !

For a PvE power build, I find Dagger/Focus with the Spiteful Talisman trait to be the best combo.

Sprawl.3891:

Rennoko.5731:

I have put a lot of thought into this over the weeks, in trying to figure out for WvW what is really valuable and what is not. Necro’s on these boards talk about hybrid builds and how they are pretty good etc, but for WvW, I find there are just too many people that run around without condition dispell to ignore maximizing conditions/epidemic.

My personal opinion if you plan to be a condition based necro, is that the spite tree is worthless (outside of Spvp). Runes have very little effect for a condition based hero in general unless you take the duration runes. Even runes of the undead only give a marginal increase in condition damge.

Taking two Krait/Afflicted, and two Mad King/Lyssa will give you 40% increased bleed duration and 10% condition increased duration. Factor in the good food (40% duration), which isnt really that expensive to make if you buy order lower end pizza’s, and you are at 80% bleed 50% conditions.

In the curses tree now you can take Hemo (20%), and be at 100% bleed duration. I also take master of fear (50%) from the DS tree because I like the double length fears.

In any condition build, having that 100% bleed duration is so important, not because you want your long lasting bleeds to be longer, but because barbed precisions crit will now tick twice instead of once. So each crit that procs that short bleed now has double the effectiveness.

If you can get to 100% without spite, I say do it. The control that I get from the longer fears and reapers protection (which I just recently on these boards discovered is amazing), makes the skirmish fights in WvW tons of fun.

People die fast in WvW which is why hybrid builds are more popular. How often do you see your conditions running full length or getting high stacks before the person dies? not often. That’s why I prefer a crit/condtion/power build so you still have some burst and your only source of damage is not long running conditions.

tldr: condition duration is quite worthless in wvw

Precision is one of the more poor stats in the game for necro’s. The fact that it’s the primary stat on Rampager’s just self-nerfs your offensive effectiveness potential via condition damage/power. If Precision were a secondary stat on Rampager’s and either Condition Damage or Power were primary, it’d be a different story. To take Rampager’s over either Carrion/Rabid or Knight’s/Soldier’s is a poor decision, in my opinion. To take Rampager’s and die using it because you have no Toughness also decreases your effectiveness.

I’d rank necro stat importance something like(discounting Magic Find):

1. Condition damage
2. Toughness
3. Power
4. Vitality
5. Precision
6. Healing Power
7. Critical Damage

The only reason I’m listing Precision lower than Vitality is because:

• Vitality synergizes with the Soul Reaping tree in affecting Life Force pool capacity.
• Barbed Precision duration .
• Low base damage across all abilities.

Furthermore, at one time I’d have agreed slightly with you that Condition Duration is worthless in WvW and sPvP. That was until Terror was buffed to deal 50% more damage per condition damage stat than Poison.

For frame of reference, here’s some Duration-Stacking Condition coefficients listed in descending order of magnitude:

• .25 -> Burn
• .15 -> Fear
• .10 -> Poison

Then Intensity-stacking Condition coefficients:

• .15 -> Confusion (PvE / WvW)
• .075 -> Confusion (sPvP)
• .05 -> Bleed

To further explain, Rennoko above has done extensive experimenting with condition duration and maximizing how many damage ticks he can get out of our numerous fears. Fear spec is rather amazing in 1v1’s due to condition duration that is only attainable in PvE/WvW. Fear spec loses efficacy in sPvP due to lack of rare veggie pizza, master tuning crystal, etc.; but that’s an entirely different story.

Mammoth.1975:

You’ve got a real problem if you think mark of blood comes up short compared to all those traits. The only one that’s better is deceptive evasion.

Give necro Uncatchable, vigor, and endurance return on dodge; then see what happens.

Seragi.5910:

Fynd.4890:

Seragi.5910:

Fynd.4890:

Seragi.5910:

Lets talk about staff ele and staff necros shall we? am I the only one who hasnt forgetten both of these classes absolutly destroy people standing on a node? your entire skill line up is aoe that cover the entire node!!! Stop crying about thief cause they have 1 AOE you nubs dont know how to counter

Once again comparing apples to oranges. Weapon skills to offensive AoE trait procs on dodge roll.

If you’re going to compare Uncatchable to anything, let it be Mark of Evasion and Evasive Powder Keg .

Im sorry you dont know the thief skill but the dodge roll you are refering to is a fumble and 2 stacks of bleeds…. the “OP” skill your thinking of is a Utility on a 30s cd. learn to play the class b4 you make ignorant accusation about the trait… at best specc’d right a thief can dodge 4 times in a short period thats only 8 bleeds… and OMG 1 skill poof all 8 are gone GG

It hurt my brain to read this post, but I’m going to do my best to stay constructive and reply to the points you attempted to make.

I know what Caltrops is, and I know what Uncatchable is, if you look at my post, I said Uncatchable.

You mention Uncatchable being a fumble(I assume you mean Weakness) and a bleed that ticks only twice. This is false, the conditions it applies is the same as caltrops – a bleed and a cripple – which should tick 4-5 times, as it(Uncatchable’s AoE) lasts 4 seconds. Some AoE’s tick once on creation, then once for each second of the duration.

Caltrops’ tooltip does not state that the bleeds stack twice per tick – Uncatchable’s bleeds stack once per tick, but compound.

So by your logic, with Uncatchable alone, assuming you were able to get 4 dodges off before the first Uncatchable’s 4 seconds duration fades, bleeds would stack 4x per second, for a grand total of 16-20 bleeds on crippled opponents in 4-6 seconds. If the Caltrops utility is thrown in the mix, you’d simply hit bleed cap(25) on all targets. The cripple component is being played down here, but should not be overlooked.

Realistically, you’d get 3 Uncatchables off simultaneously with Caltrops, then just keep maintaining 2-3 Uncatchables infinitely with Vigor and Feline Grace . You’re aware that this is offense output while immune to abilities (Dodging), then stealthing and getting Vigor if you run low on endurance, however some builds will use Signet of Malice instead of Hide in Shadows.

the caltrops that drop from dodge roll trigger once then disappear they dont stay on the ground like you r assuming…. doesnt matter how many you lay or how often you do it… you get 2 stacks and 1 fumble/cripple form 1 dodge roll end of story

the dodge roll caltrops do not stay on the ground like the aoe elite skill thats what im trying to tell you

Go test this for yourself, Uncatchable stays on the ground for 4 seconds and they compound, and stop saying fumble. Also, you must mean “utility” instead of “elite”. Once again, reading your post hurt my brain.

Saschare.2049:

Oh, “Ghastly Claws” has a definition "Summon spectral claws to slash your foe in a quick flurry of strikes, gaining life force per strike. " Should not be 8% LF for strike, so it would 8% x 8 succesful strikes = 64% LF? Before it was 4% LF per strike, but it was for full used skill. If it was 64% of LF on Ghastly Claws I’d be happy about my necro, if it’s bugged please tell me

You gain 1% life force per strike of the channel(8x strikes). The tooltip before the November 15th update read, “4%” which implied .5% per strike even though it actually provided 8% life force gain if the full channel landed. It was strictly a tooltip change and no code was edited.

Revx.1497:

i dont think it needs a buff but i do believe its needs to be fixed.

mine is missing 90% of the time again, ive been point blank on a guardian hitting him with all other spells and it misses.

it acts more like it was doing before they fixed it last time.

I use it daily and it’s working fine for me, only thing I can think of is that the trajectory window is 180 degrees and said guardian is either walking behind you or they’re evading.

Miseris.7498:

The ICD is pretty annoying, considering it only appears while you’re in combat and the dodge bar is already a limiting factor, I can only contribute it to a design philosophy of deliberately keeping Necromancers complex and with limitations, but that ultimately results in them just being flat out weak.

My necromancer whoops kitten in every facet of the game. The large amount of bug fixes we’ve gotten has increased the strength of the class greatly.

You also have to consider that Regeneration stacks in duration and Mark of Evasion + Mark of Blood will potentially both stack on you during most engagements.

UndeadPriest.8632:

So even if it has the same projectile speed, it doesn’t counter the argument that the Staff in the hands of a Necromancer, is not perceived as fun or effective as it should be in comparison with other Profession/Weapon combos to many players.
Some have argued that this is due to the Flight Speed of it’s projectile
(An Argument, which while I’m not convinced is true,
I accept to be as valid as any other for what could be altered to make this skill feel more worthwhile)

Everyone I know that mains Mesmer and Guardian scepter complains about the sluggish projectile speed of their scepters and wish they’d get buffed again. Of course necros are going to feel the same way. In an ideal world for people that main “X” class, they want “Y” weapon to shoot kittening lasers that hit 20 people with one projectile and destroys all their siege/gates.

UndeadPriest.8632:

No, not necessarily, my point was simply your
argument for being able to hit multiple targets
making it better than other auto-attacks, wasn’t really valid
when you actually compared it with other Staff Auto-Attacks.
As I said before I’m more or less fine with the status quo on number of targets and damage values, as long as the fun and utility of wielding a Staff as a Necromancer
is on Par with other weapon/profession combos.
Which right now I would agree with others that it feels lacking,
I simply have a different idea for the solution.

I still feel my argument is valid that Necromancer staff auto-attack is where it should be in comparison to the other light armor staff classes.

Elementalists’ Fireball edges Necrotic Grasp out in damage and velocity – this is expected from a class whose archetype being the master of ranged direct damage.

Mesmer’s Winds of Chaos isn’t that great if you’re not within 600 range for the bounceback and I’d rate it on par with Necrotic Grasp.

UndeadPriest.8632:

On a more serious note, If I changed anything with the auto-attack, I would likely decrease it’s activation time to .5 to put it more in line with the scepter skills you mentioned,
but that’s assuming that the changes I suggested to the Mark skills were also implemented, otherwise I don’t think it addresses the main issues with utilizing a staff as a Necromancer

So as I stated before

I think the more import failure is with the Marks (staff skills 2-5) and their recharges (i.e. your spending most of your time auto-attacking unless you swap weapons)
If the recharges on all the marks was decreased
say by like 30-40% (a very rough estimate) than this would make it so Staff wielding Necromancers were not spending so much time relying on their auto-attack
(Except Mark of Blood, I think it’s recharge is at a pretty good point where it is.)

The mark recharge times are fine and well-tuned, you’re acting as though necromancers don’t have a weapon swap. Your staff marks are on cooldown ? Swap to scepter and throw Grasping Dead / Enfeebling Blood – stack some bleeds/poison, then go back to staff.

Lower the cooldowns on any marks and tPVP team fights will get utterly dominated more than they already do by necros.

Malicious.6742:

Open a topic “How is shadow refuge stacking stealth not broken?”

Feel free to open it yourself; out of everyone I’ve known that has quit this game, shadow refuge is the top reason for them quitting and not coming back to the game.

Seragi.5910:

Fynd.4890:

Seragi.5910:

Lets talk about staff ele and staff necros shall we? am I the only one who hasnt forgetten both of these classes absolutly destroy people standing on a node? your entire skill line up is aoe that cover the entire node!!! Stop crying about thief cause they have 1 AOE you nubs dont know how to counter

Once again comparing apples to oranges. Weapon skills to offensive AoE trait procs on dodge roll.

If you’re going to compare Uncatchable to anything, let it be Mark of Evasion and Evasive Powder Keg .

Im sorry you dont know the thief skill but the dodge roll you are refering to is a fumble and 2 stacks of bleeds…. the “OP” skill your thinking of is a Utility on a 30s cd. learn to play the class b4 you make ignorant accusation about the trait… at best specc’d right a thief can dodge 4 times in a short period thats only 8 bleeds… and OMG 1 skill poof all 8 are gone GG

It hurt my brain to read this post, but I’m going to do my best to stay constructive and reply to the points you attempted to make.

I know what Caltrops is, and I know what Uncatchable is, if you look at my post, I said Uncatchable.

You mention Uncatchable being a fumble(I assume you mean Weakness) and a bleed that ticks only twice. This is false, the conditions it applies is the same as caltrops – a bleed and a cripple – which should tick 4-5 times, as it(Uncatchable’s AoE) lasts 4 seconds. Some AoE’s tick once on creation, then once for each second of the duration.

Caltrops’ tooltip does not state that the bleeds stack twice per tick – Uncatchable’s bleeds stack once per tick, but compound.

So by your logic, with Uncatchable alone, assuming you were able to get 4 dodges off before the first Uncatchable’s 4 seconds duration fades, bleeds would stack 4x per second, for a grand total of 16-20 bleeds on crippled opponents in 4-6 seconds. If the Caltrops utility is thrown in the mix, you’d simply hit bleed cap(25) on all targets. The cripple component is being played down here, but should not be overlooked.

Realistically, you’d get 3 Uncatchables off simultaneously with Caltrops, then just keep maintaining 2-3 Uncatchables infinitely with Vigor and Feline Grace . You’re aware that this is offense output while immune to abilities (Dodging), then stealthing and getting Vigor if you run low on endurance, however some builds will use Signet of Malice instead of Hide in Shadows.

Seragi.5910:

Lets talk about staff ele and staff necros shall we? am I the only one who hasnt forgetten both of these classes absolutly destroy people standing on a node? your entire skill line up is aoe that cover the entire node!!! Stop crying about thief cause they have 1 AOE you nubs dont know how to counter

Once again comparing apples to oranges. Weapon skills to offensive AoE trait procs on dodge roll.

If you’re going to compare Uncatchable to anything, let it be Mark of Evasion and Evasive Powder Keg .

Kill.6973:

I was just stating the problem with it, i don’t believe its my job to make a solution. Last time i checked i’m in the medical field. Dislike is a word you used to belittle this situation. I’m just upset, like most, that other classes such as an ele have a decent auto attack staff speed.
Staff, to me at least, is my primary dps output and to see it being avoided most of the time with its speed is disappointing, let alone its damage is weak but that’s not what we are discussing atm.

If all classes were defined by their auto attacks, this game would be in an even more sad state than it currently is. Spamming 1 for your main source of DPS is poor gameplay, that’s why Dagger mainhand will always be a disaster to balance. Devolving necro into a shortbow ranger just spamming staff 1 at range would be a detriment to the class’ current playstyle, which – in my opinion – is in a good state. Necro just needs the last of their bugs fixed.

Kill.6973:

Fynd.4890:

TheWalkingDead.7298

Just admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, there was no speed change to necrotic grasp and no reason why a scepter auto should be on par with a staff auto attack wise.

I know exactly what I’m talking about regarding anything related to necro ; I’ve been reporting class bugs / editing the wiki / keeping track of class changes since BWE1.

If you want to continue your inquest against me with your buddy Kill.6973, do it elsewhere – I’m just here to help.

Stop crying and saying people are out here to be against you, from what i see you are the only one calling out people by saying “enjoy your journeys to Azeroth”.

There is one simple argument that most people on this thread agree and stressing.
tehdirtyfivethirty.3507, UndeadPriest.8632, TheWalkingDead.7298, XiL.4318, and lettucemode.3789 are the only ones pretty much discussing this “issue”. 4 out 5 are saying to not compare a scepter with a staff.

All I’m asking is that you explain how you wish for necro staff(more specifically Necrotic Grasp) to be fixed. You’re stating your dislike for it, but no solutions to the supposed problem.

Aleth.9630:

Fynd.4890:

• If you use it (it’s instant) and they evade out of it, you deserve to be punished by the skill going on cooldown, and you being stuck with the poison debuff.
• If you use it and the target is out of your LoS (obstructed), you deserve to be punished…
• If you use it and the target is out of 1200 range, …

The thing is, Blood is Power has the same mechanic but it doesn’t bleed you if you miss it. Oh and I think you know about random “Obstructed!” messages appearing as well. So yeah, you deserve to be punished for an annoying bug with their collision checks.

Which mechanic do you feel should work upon failure to land ?

1. (+ & -) Corruption self-condition does not apply, but skill goes on recharge.
2. (- & -) Corruption self-condition applies, and skill goes on recharge.
3. (+ & +) Corruption self-condition does not apply, and skill is recharged for reuse.
4. (- & +) Corruption self-condition applies, but skill is recharged for reuse.

Currently, all Corruptions (save for Blood is Power) behave like #2, however, Corrosive Poison Cloud should be excluded from the discussion due to its inability to miss. Meaning you choose where you wish to place the corruption field. Blood is Power currently behaves like #1. Pillow wishes for Corrupt Boon to behave like #3, which would break Corruption consistency.

The October 1st patch added the anomalous behavior for Blood is Power, and I personally feel that it’s a bug that it does not apply the self-bleed on failure, but instead rewards you with a 10-stack of might just for using the ability arbitrarily. I would be pleased if a middle-ground on Blood is Power were reached, i.e. it always applies the might, but on failure to land on an enemy, the self-bleed corruption is applied to keep all Corruption skills consistent with each other.

Kardiamond.6952:

You are welcome to try my friend

If he sent them back, I will just consume them. And good luck to him for consuming my not existing condition.

Deathly swarm is bugged, it doesn’t throw back every conditions.

Powermancer can’t rely only on damage, you have to use every tool you have to make up for the lower damage output. DS being one of them.

Our top sPvP player is a Well-o-mancer after all. well it was, not sure he still is!

NA sPVP server 99 – come duel.

LastDarkness.7390:

Rune of the Mesmer 6th Point adds +33% Duration, Each point of the Spite Trait Tree adds +1% Duration and the food http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rare_Veggie_Pizza adds +40% duration, Banshee’s Wail trait adds a unknown amount to the duration(Possibly 20%).

So 33+30+40 = 103% Duration + Banshees Wail if you have it traited for around 4 Seconds of Daze. (You also get at least +70% Fear Duration too unless thats traited for +50% then thats +130% Fear duration)

no wonder Dagger/Horn are the preferred crowd control weapons in pvp.

Daze is a control effect, not a condition – condition duration has no effect on it.

Fear, however, is classified as a condition and is affected by condition duration.

Kardiamond.6952:

That’s why I’m not using the condimancer build.

When my friend fought me in sPvP. I had my well-o-mancer and he had a condimancer.

He started throwing everything at me, got me to 10-12 bleeds and others cond. I used my #4 mark, and sent them back to him. Everything he did was wasted by a single skill. He tried to do it again, when he was about dead, I used my CC heal. Finished with full HP and he was dead.

Yeah condition!

He could have sent them right back on you with his Putrid Mark or Deathly Swarm. A moderate-to-high Toughness Condition-spec’ed Necromancer should always beat a power spec Necro given equal player skill. Necro power abilities start with low bases and no amount of power is going to bring their damage up to the direct damage of classes with higher bases.

Numot.3965:

Evasive purity, evasive arcana (10s for each spell triggered), and fleet of foot have a 10s cool down. Uncatachable, power of inertia, expeditious dodger, and companions defense all last for a really short time (2s).

Uncatchable lasts for 4 seconds and isn’t a defensive boon like the other two that last 2 seconds – it’s the closest comparison to Mark of Evasion, along with Evasive Powder Keg – the dodging player leaves behind an offensive ability that does not require their physical presence to remain where the dodge roll ended.

Personally, I feel that Uncatchable needs an internal cooldown, at least in sPVP(conquest mode) – but as for the current state of Evasive Powder Keg (the AoE circle not matching the smaller detonation radius, low damage, no additional crowd control effect), it does not need an internal cooldown.

TheWalkingDead.7298

Just admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, there was no speed change to necrotic grasp and no reason why a scepter auto should be on par with a staff auto attack wise.

I know exactly what I’m talking about regarding anything related to necro ; I’ve been reporting class bugs / editing the wiki / keeping track of class changes since BWE1.

If you want to continue your inquest against me with your buddy Kill.6973, do it elsewhere – I’m just here to help.

As Corrupt Boon currently works, it’s perfect.
The only bug it had was that Aegis would block it completely rather than Corrupt Boon flipping that to Burning, and the skill would go on recharge without doing anything. That was fixed back on October 22nd (Halloween patch)

• If you use it (it’s instant) and they evade out of it, you deserve to be punished by the skill going on cooldown, and you being stuck with the poison debuff.
• If you use it and the target is out of your LoS (obstructed), you deserve to be punished…
• If you use it and the target is out of 1200 range, …

Corrupt Boon is immensely powerful, and Necros that slot it are a huge boon to whomever they’re playing with due to it. It absolutely trashes people that run Lyssa runes[6-piece bonus] (many thieves running Basilisk venom elite and warriors running Signet of Rage elite), it completely stuffs Dagger Storm in one click AND fears the thief away, it destroys guardians that use Contemplation of Purity at the wrong time, mildly hinders a mesmer once their Chaos Storm ends and they’re all buffed up. If you see an opposing necro pop either elite transform (Lich or Plague ), it flips stability to fear and they can be easily CC’ed, kited, and bounced around while they have no ability to heal.

These are just some situations where having Corrupt Boon slotted as your utility pays back massive dividends – in its current form. Due to its immense power, it NEEDS to have the ability to fail. If the risk of failure with Corrupt Boon is removed(recharge refresh on player error), then the reward is cheapened.

The downed person gets the bleed stacks.

Once a player is downed, all debuffs are cleared from them and they get a very quick Invulnerable buff. That’s why I mentioned swapping immediately to scepter/dagger and using 2 then 5 on the corpse – not only for the direct damage, but for the conditions, then you can hit epidemic to spread said conditions to anyone nearby that may attempt to rally them or is in the process of.

In WvW, my most favored way of clearing the ramparts when assaulting a tower/keep is to stack as many conditions on a Veteran Archer as possible, then – since they’re immobile – your epidemic on them is guaranteed to land and spread all over(since most other players will back out of LoS of epidemic if they get a nice condition stack).

Kill.6973:

Fynd.4890:

If you played the game before the November 15th patch, then logged in on the 15th, you would notice that Necrotic Grasp velocity was changed along with the scepter speeds and not documented like they were.

Never happened without ANET confirmation. Even if they so called changed it, it is still one of the slowest auto attack in the game….there is no point for the “change” because it is pretty bad.

I think you are confusing between the speed and the range. Range increase? Perhaps.
The speed at which it travels, same old.

I’m done repeating myself. Enjoy your journeys in Azeroth.