Guild Wars 2

Yep, working as intended since the corruption happens as the vampiric signet stacks are applied and the way the stacks work is that they can’t be dodged or otherwise evaded as to not make the heal skill complete and utter garbage. So by extension the corruption also follows through. Only time it is somewhat negated is when a person is invuln, and then the signet only strips the boons rather than convert them to condis.

The only thing that might be problematic is the infinite-ish range that corruptions go while the 25 vamp stacks don’t…but yeah.

Lynnie.7213:

This doesn’t look like a nerf to me. More like a fix. And the increase healing is very welcome!

Lol “doesn’t seem like a nerf*”. Yes removing the only way we could get support from allies as a necro while in shroud isn’t a nerf but a fix instead.

Necros have been asking for heals in shroud since release, we finally get it through this trait in a heavily gated way behind boons and its removed 5 days after the expansion launch. There wasn’t even substantial time for people to settle with it and immediately its considered “too strong.”

It was our only pseudo scaling defence and it was removed already. The entire point is its not just about this trait, its about what is in store for necros in the future and with this it just seems like necro will always be unable to be supported while in shroud.

This is just a joke lol. Reaper has to go in melee to be effective and every class has ways to kite it. When under focus no amount of boon application on the reaper would save it since the healing/LF you got would be capped. We have no vigor for extra dodges, no blocks, no invuls. We have to soak and face tank everything and in a team setting it would make sense that our allies would help us through this limited scaling option. Now that’s gone as well. The other traits have their uses. One is for condi builds and the other is for max DPS. Not sure why this had to be touched at all.

Its like everything is balanced around 1v1 for necro but not so the case for everyone else. Why not reduce Rev buff application to allies for example? The amount of boons they output by themselves is already arguably OP but nope… Reaper is at fault cause of our sustain trait lol.

The logic….its painful

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

See, I play guardian. Guardian is one of my mains. its number 4 on my most played professions. And defenseless wouldn’t cripple a guardian at all. Especially not a dragonhunter. If you’re relying only on blocks than yes, you’ll be destroyed by this little bit of counterplay. But the guardian has chill, knock backs, projectile destruction/reflection, ward skills, blinks, leaps, blinds, and invulnerability. Its not “Only invulnerability” that defends against this. So they try to burst you down from range? Great, Shield of Absorption just negates that time. Trying to get close to you? Line of warding or Ring of Warding to hinder their progression. Oh, you also have bow to lock them down, traps and scepter which can all help. If all else fails you can blink to an ally or just leap away. You also just get projectile destruction on shield of courage. Technically its a “block” however, that isn’t the type of block that defenseless talks about. Its referring to blocking skills such as shelter or static shield not projectile blocks.

So yeah, it slightly hurts 1 type of defense the guardian has. Thats great, they have 10 million more they can use.

You can’t take all of what you listed at once, and yes sure all of what you said applies to a small skirmish. Try living with an unblockable debuff in a huge fight on mid point.
But again in a 1v1 with NCSY as a reaper I demolished any type of guard/dragonhunter. Blocks are just too vital for them to allow party wide unblockable.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited, give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill 100%. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

You must hate Chronomancer well builds then. They can give their entire team unblockable. And aren’t limited by range from wail of doom or capable of dodging out of it like with Well of darkness.

Yes I do hate them in fact, and I do think they’re broken. It’s a difference of opinion I guess but taking my PvP experience in to account, having this will be unhealthy not just for guards, but for necros (from all the hate they’ll get) and every other class that has some form of block.

I think people are underestimating what a debuff of “defenseless” to one target will do for coordinated teams. It doesn’t matter if its a small window of 3 seconds. That’s plenty. NCSY is 5 seconds for a single target and it was enough for me to shred guardians on Reaper. The reason why I’m also bringing guardians up so much is because their most abundant defence and coincidentally the defence they rely on the most are blocks. A well timed Shelter can negate coordinated teambursts because its a well timed shelter. That is counterplay. Guardians need such mechanics to stay alive. 13k hp on a bunker is not a lot people. Removing their active defense as “party wide support” will make them useless. Blocks are what keeps them alive. They have no other “counterplay” because there is no counterplay to unblockable. If one person has unblockable they can be kited and that’s fine; but give access to unblockable to your entire team through the form of a debuff and that’s a guaranteed kill for you especially since its a debuff and not some raidius bound aura or buff. Meaning you can apply it to the enemy and now a ranger from 1500 range can just unload for free on anyone. Dodges are limited, they have 1 invuln and using that means they lose the point. A change such as this I have to admit I want and is super cool just won’t be healthy for the game from a pvp perspective because it homes in on guardians too much.

Just look at it from the opposite perspective. Imagine if guards got an ability that was cheesily named “True Light” and it gave the guard’s allies the ability to ignore death shroud.

If that’s too much for you then just limit it to “Does not give necro Life force when hitting through Spectral Effects”.

This is all hypothetical of course but its to show that implementing a mechanic that overfocuses on a specific class’ defensive mechanic will not be healthy nor fun to play against. If necro’s shroud is ignored they have no other way to soak up damage (since they don’t really mitigate it) and they die.

If guard can’t block attacks they CAN’T soak up damage cause of their low hp pools and then they die. There just is no viable counterplay to unblockable because it goes through the last line of defense.

I’m all for making necros more unique and giving them some cool new mechanics but an unblockable debuff on a target will just be out of control. This will just cause people to hate facing necros even more and I’d rather avoid that considering right now necro is on the radar for nerfs for some people ever since Ele got toned down slightly.

Lily.1935:

Genesis.7693:

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

I don’t think so. Necromancers already have a ton of ways to strike through defenses without a problem. This just turns the tables. It could also make Shelter less popular in PvP. This isn’t enough to remove Guardians from the meta. Trust me on that one.

Considering PvP is what I do exclusively its really hard for me to trust you on this simply cause your proposed change was PvE focused. Yes, necros have ways to hit through unblockable but not with direct damage.

We have an unblockable #4 and a set of staff marks that can cancel shelter sometimes but the guardian still has counter play through stability. During the BWE3 I tried NCSY against guardians and every guardian simply melted. Bunker Guard or not, being able to ignore the defence they most rely on to stay alive considering their small hp pool will absolutely break them.

Corrupt boon is also unblockable which also adds more pressure on the guardian. Simply put a well played necro is already able to put great pressure on a guardian through their defences and that’s without being able to deal direct damage to them.

With Nothing Can Save You I was walking all over them and thats an unblockable buff only on me. Giving that to your party members through a debuff means a guard is just going to be paper thin with their measly hp pools and completely invalidate the role they’re trying to do.
It will also apply to any aegis or blocks they give to their allies. It just completely negates ANYTHING a guardian will try to do and is simply too large of a counter. It will most definitely take them out of the meta.

This is not including the other classes that have access to block such as warrior or engi, soon to be mesmer with chronomancer and Revenant/Herald and Scrapper. It will just be too much unblockable access in PvP.

Sounds amazing in my opinion, however I can’t help but be concerned that this single ability/trait or however else its implemented into the game would be single handedly responsible for wiping out guardians from the PvP meta. It might be too strong in that gamemode.

Jelzouki.4128:

nearlight.3064:

Flesh wurm is perfectly viable, you just have to use your brain and know a good spot to set it up before a fight.

If you have a free spot on a build and the point of your build isn’t to stall and die on a point with Unholy Sanctuary to keep it from being decapped, then wurm should always be considered.

Please don’t be condescending i.e telling others to “use their brain”

Back to the topic, wurm is never considered in any of my builds because of how unreliable it is. Maybe if I’m on battle of khylo thats about it. I would much rather have spectral armor, walk, well of power or plague signet to keep me alive in order to win the fight and support my team better. The only reason it is not considered is because it can be destroyed and its as simple as that.

This.
That is the primary reason why Wurm is absolutely garbage. Anyone decent that has ANY awareness of the game will seek out your wurm and kill it, effectively rendering that utility slot useless. Why would you play with 1 less utility slot? Considering that a necro’s current and most useful role in a team is point holding and 1v1s Wurm is probably the worst utility to use. It’s a counterable stunbreak. I never let any necro running Wurm EVER port to it. Or I keep tabs on it and I know where he’ll port to at all times. It’s the kittentiest form of escape since its a big-kitten brown beacon of “HEY I’LL BE TELEPORTING HERE WHEN I GET PRESSURED” and if you have to escape from a fight using it then you may as well stay on point and die and you’ll be more useful. Considering a that basically anything but a warrior/engi won’t give a kitten about the crappy wurm port you just used you’re better off using something that will allow you to sustain and stay in the fight for longer.

Life Siphon (Dagger #2) should be more like:
Transfusion; Vladimir’s Q skill from League of Legends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxYhRIoeB04
I’m not necessarily saying that it should become instant cast but it can have something like a 1/2 – 3/4 second cast time where it then hits for a substantial amount (Probably something like what currently a full channel would be) and heals for half of that amount since now the healing would be done instantly instead of over the extended period of 3.5 seconds.

So for example if a realistic siphon currently would be around 4-5k damage over 3.5 seconds with healing of 3-4k depending on your healing power. You’d still hit the same amount, over 1/2 – 3/4 seconds, but instead you’d heal 1.5-2k. I’d say lowering the cooldown would be fine as now it would be a single shot skill and the trade-off would be that it can be FULLY negated more easily. It would just be a needed improvement to the dagger skills so that now it could actually be used in the DPS rotation instead of just autoing.

Also in case this may seem OP to some, keep in mind that now while yes it becomes a bursty skill and not a channeled one what this means is that it can be more easily blocked, evaded or otherwise negated meaning you wouldn’t get any partial effect like you would with the current iteration of the skill.

Siva Mira.3546:

Then the skill function need to be changed. Otherwise we would lose Plague for a weak Elite.

- Makes the passive 1% LF per sec.
- Removes the cast time on the active so it will be instant. But the effect won’t be right away so you have to wait 3sec after you have casted it on the ground. This would give Necro the possibility of self-rez. It would be nice if they make virtual effect looks really stand out like they did with Glint. Something like Grenth standing above the ground target with his scythe animation count down time. It would give enemies time to react and properly counter it, and also to my ally not to stupid enough Mist Form or Teleport away from the mark.

We should push the theme of controlling life and death more with this signet and make it really an Elite by also allowing it to finish off downed enemy players on top of ressing downed allies. Could retain its 3 min cooldown if that is allowed though 2 minutes also seems to be fair.

Not anymore….waiting on those axe buffs :c

Been busy lately so it took a while to get this montage out, but hope you guys like o/

This time I run 2 builds, 1 is basically the equivalent to my previous Celestial Killer build using Marauder ammy and staff instead of what I used before which was axe/wh.

The other build uses knights and is a lot more sustain-y while still retaining decent damage.

I’ll most likely update this post with the builds and the video’s description in the near future o/

Anyhow, enjoy and leave any suggestions, comments or criticisms either here or in the video comment section
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr7gmzJYzOA

- Edelweíss

Sandrox.9524:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

All I see is people blowing all their defensive cooldowns to mitigate damage. Which means you’re free to burst them down after Lich has run out.

Don’t use Lich for damage use it for baiting.

this and that you dont even try to burst them,you just standing still and shooting in same direction rather than use the knockback or teven to turn and face them while they on your back

Lich claws are omni-directional lol…they hit even if the target is behind you, there’s no need to turn. Reason why I don’t use Chilling WInd is because its buggy and there’s no use if I can’t see them or they’re blocking or have stab, etc. Sometimes it has its uses sure, but the point of this video was meant to show that Lich can be countered by the mechanics that are in place for every class.

- Also, yes people are blowing their defensive cooldowns but, at the same time they’re dealing damage to me, after Lich is over the fight is not entirely in my favor. Also Lich is a 3 min cooldown, while none of the defensive cooldowns are that long. But again, not the point of the video, its just meant to display the plethora of counters available for every class to deal with Lich, provided the user doesn’t panic.

Nilkemia.8507:

Well, that was amusing.

I hope reaper’s really good. But if not, will you show a video for that too?

Sure, why not =)

But this time the video is called “How to: Outplay Lich with every class.”
Since the first video was well received and I got asked to make a version showing how Lich can not only be trolled, but can also be mechanically outplayed I used the remaining footage I had of exactly these types of scenarios and made this

Compared to the satirical Lich OP video this one is meant to show how other classes can handle Lich with relative ease while taking minimal damage.

In the end its why in my opinion this Elite is lackluster and either needs buffs (especially with the 5 sec duration nerf) or a complete rework. Plague is also in the same boat.

Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOoFJnbz8TM&feature=youtu.be

Anyhow, hope you like and I’m always open to comments, suggestions, criticisms etc. =)

- Edelweíss

Jelzouki.4128:

You could have portrayed the ranger fight better by actually moving but then the ranger would pop his greatsword block, stealth on longbow and signet of stone.

That’s for part 2 of the video where it will actually show how to mechanically outplay lich. This one was more for fun than anything x)

Rym.1469:

That Plague vs. Plague tho…

Who won?

Plague won, yep.

Sandrox.9524:

Axelwarrior.9084:

If you are “dominating” Thieves in 1v1, you’re playing aganst bad thieves (or worse than you, at least). End of story, that’s all there is to it.

nope,power necro after patch kills thieves easly cause thieves got nerfed hard.

You have no idea what you’re talking about lol….thief got nothing but buffs and now they hit harder than ever. Any half decent thief that doesn’t just sit and eat your damage will spin circles around you and destroy you. Don’t be disillusioned because you play against less skilled opponents.

Bottom line was necro fell behind comparatively to other classes simply because power creep didn’t hit us as hard. We do 20-30% less damage than before with a marauder amulet compared to old zerk for a net gain of 8% extra crit and 3k hp. If you decide to go zerk ammy then good luck surviving Mesmer burst or thief backstab with that base 19k hp. You’re basically asking to get insta-bursted even if you have full DS.

The people here that can’t draw parallels between Rampage and Lich amuse me.
1. Lich doesn’t deal more damage than rampage. Not after the 30% damage buff.
2. Lich lasts 5 seconds less compared to rampage unless traited for a WHOPPING 2 extra seconds of duration compared to what it was prepatch.
3. Lich can actually be stunlocked since it only has 1 stack of stab. Only realistic way of stunning rampage is with a boon strip.
4. Rampage has skills that can be used in multiple ways, either for stunlocking a single target, interrupting multiple targets or even using it for a burst of mobility to escape or chase. Eg #5 and then #3.
5. “Blinds and other condis counter rampage” I find it nice how everyone conveniently forgets that any half decent warrior will just use Berserker Stance and Endure pain and now, some even throw in frenzy for the quickness BEFORE going into rampage to make themselves practically invulnerable to CC, damage AND conditions for a good 1/2 of the duration of rampage which essentially is as close to god-mode this game can get. Literally the ONLY viable counter is Moa, but then again. You can moa anyone at anytime and now with the fact that Moa is a signet you can just pay attention and dodge it with the big tell it has.

I play both warrior and necro and without a doubt a zerker warrior in rampage will just walk all over a power necro in Lich form.

Rampage needs the same treatment Necro’s Lich form got. Lower potency of skills, lower duration that can be brought up if traited. As it is rampage is literally an “Oh kitten button” that baddies use to actually get kills on zerker warrior.

Can we not ask for nerfs based on a single duel against a class necro counters?
Wait until you see duels against a shoutbow warrior or a medi guard, or anything but an engi. When you see the necro get bursted down by a mesmer in 2 seconds then we’ll see if we’re OP or not.
Though I agree about the cancel casting thing. It most likely isn’t working as intended.

Grim Reaper CZ.9274:

I wouldn’t even mind the additional conditions if the skills were more powerful. For example CC would have much better healing(at least 100% more), BiP more might/duration, CPC added one more damaging condition, etc.

Corrupt Boon should corrupt all boons on a target not just 5.
Epidemic should transfer up to 50 stacks of all condis.
Plague should have a bigger radius and AoE transfer condis that are applied to you.

If we have such extremely hefty taxes on our normal utilities then we need proper compensation in the form of skill power.

Cmon guys. No taxation without representation!

Meh an inaccurate representation of where necros stand simply cause we saw 2 pros face each other off in an unfavourable match up. Condi necro basically wins out vs engi like 99% of the time lol even with the ridiculous nerfs.

mistsim.2748:

wanna try it out first before crying? necros are all up in arms over there, yet Nos managed to crush all of Chaith’s engie builds 25-2 or something.

Yes, because 1. Chaithh had a lot more builds to try out and experiment with which he hadn’t optimized yet while Nos basically stuck to his normal condimancer
2. An equally skilled engi vs an equally skilled condi necro means the engi will almost always lose since a condimancer is an engis natural counter.
3. Chaithh afterwards said that he was able to beat Nos’ power necro but not his condimancer which is normal.

Pro 1v1 duels aren’t an accurate representation of the class balance. There’s a reason why engi subforums are ecstatic while necros have grabbed their scythes and pitchforks.

The OP may have a valid reason to complain in the end but we’ll know after tomorrow.

Throw in Corrupt Boon which is the offensive version of Guardian’s Contemplation of Purity.

Corrupt Boon – 1/2 sec Cast time, Convert 5 boons into Conditions. – 40 Second CD
Self-Applies Poison – With the new trait Cooldown could be lowered to 27-ish seconds but we’d get a 2nd condition applied to us. The skill is unblockable. However it can be dodged or negated with invulnerability or blinds.

Vs.

Contemplation of Purity – Converts ALL Conditions into Boons; is a stun-breaker. Cooldown 60 seconds. With Traits which meditation guardian’s obviously take the cooldown can be lowered to 48 seconds and it can be made to heal for 2k.

I’m not sure about you guys but if corruptions are supposed to be these strong utility skills that warrant some drawbacks for their uses, how come there are similar skills that are even stronger without any sort of drawback. On top of the fact that now there will be new conditions/boons added and guardians will be able to convert all of them while necros still get to only move around 5.

If Guardians are the masters of boons and ally support how come Necros fall short of the masters of conditions and enemy control?

The whole problem with the corruption tag is that it is the only skill type that has a negative effect on the caster. I understand it comes from gw1 and they wanna keep their necro theme or w/e….but its an old and archaic design that used to work in a game that’s not this one. Imo corruptions aren’t strong enough to have to be “balanced” by this negative effect. I’d say remove all negative effects completely OR if the negative effects must stay then buff all corruptions substantially so that it actually makes sense to use them with their drawbacks.
No one wants to feel punished for using a mediocre skill….like wth lol.

Bhawb.7408:

Aseity.9152:

Other than Blood Magic, I really don’t see much- especially with Necromancer’s mobility, axe issues, and amongst many other things. There were also unnecessary changes made, something the community never asked for and is now dealt with frustration.

Necromancer mobility will never change.

What we did get:
Axe’s trait got fixed as we wanted it to
Terror and LC no longer conflict
Curses now has use to non-condi builds
MM builds have a straight line through DM
DM also has another non-MM trait like we wanted
Blood magic has better support and a vampiric group buff
Plague was made a corruption and lich was a spectral
Signets had their CDs lowered
Staff now only has one trait and had a lot rolled into its baseline
Bloodthirst became baseline

And that doesn’t include the things that were already answered like we asked for in the first set of core specialization changes. I probably missed something in that as well.

I’d say quite a bit was responded to.

A lot was responded to yes, but the problem isn’t the amount of things they responded to, its HOW they responded to it. For example, yes for the most part people wanted Plague to be a corruption and Lich to be Spectral, but why do they inherently have to come with nerfs?

They shaved 5 seconds off of Lich form and gave it 15% life force once you exit but most of the time if you go into Lich you get focused down and die unless you kill the other side first. They basically made it so that if you take Lich you’d want to take Spectral Mastery to bring the duration to the same amount as it was before but Vital Persistence is a trait that’s just too good to pass since the decay rate of DS being slowed is extremely useful.

We did also ask for them to fix the axe trait and they did, but we also asked them and keep on asking them to fix the weapon itself but they haven’t.

Signets had their cooldowns lowered but their effects were reduced as well. Like for Plague Signet. The patch will introduce new conditions like slow making the amount of conditions that can be stacked on a person higher, but they instead reduce the number of transferable conditions to 5 at a time. Same treatment that Corrupt Boon got way back when. I don’t see Anet doing the same thing for things like say Guardian’s Contemplation of Purity. That skill is a stunbreaker, it heals, AND converts absolutely all conditions on the guardian to boons, yet we can only convert 5 boons to conditions, or transfer 5 conditions at a time. These comparisons show that something is wrong with how they balance us vs everyone else.

Sure Necros will probably be in a better spot come the new patch relative to themselves, but so will every other class, and we have to compare how much we get with this patch compared to everyone else and then we’ll really see that we’re being gutted…yet again.

Yep, I’m on board with this as well. When I saw this change I was quite baffled by it lol
I’ve never even imagined Anet would think that making a heal put you in combat is a good idea. The entire premise of the skill is to remove conditions but here it is applying more….it’s so counter intuitive I wonder how they thought this was a good idea. Not just that but the trait that is supposed to essentially make it better also punishes us because it amplifies the condition…We’re literally the only profession that gets punished for healing AND for traiting. Meanwhile we have Shelter that’s just “fine” and universal. Not even sure what to say at this point aside from REVERT IT and KEEP IT THE SAME.

Also inb4 the argument of “just transfer it”. Wasting a transfer on self-inflicted Vuln (which btw also increases condition damage now, so if you have poison or something from a corrupt boon or w/e, yay we’re killing ourselves even faster now) AFTER you just cleansed a bunch of condis is the dumbest thing ever. That’s not synergy, that’s us trying to fight our own mechanics yet again.

Update: After thoroughly reviewing the upcoming changes to necro I decided to see how my build in that video would fare and if it would still be viable come next tuesday and I feel like overall it will still be in a good spot.

New Build:http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBlAKUBeg~ this is what I came up with on Dulfy’s calculator and it seems to keep the same feel and improve on certain things.
Some traits now compete with each other like Signets of Suffering and Close to Death but overall there’s more flexibility and I’ll spend some time testing things out to see which is most optimal. Another choice that we may have is taking FiTG over Death Perception since now the curses line will give more crit chance through Furious Demise and target the weak which will net a hefty amount of crit chance once someone is spiked down with Signet of Spite.

Some changes that might be necessary would be switching Lich for Plague since to me it seems that taking Spectral Mastery isn’t worth it over Vital Persistence in the Soul Reaping line and since we want to keep CC as a viable heal we take Master of Corruption for the CD reduction which then makes it so that taking plague instead of Lich will give us more benefit. Overall it feels like the build will be a truer hybrid than before with more synergy.

Either way we won’t know till next week but this is my current idea of how this build will transform with the new traits and skill changes.

Hey guys, I just read the upcoming changes to Necros so what better time than to post my new sPvP montage

It’s been almost two months since my first montage and this one took a while to finalize but here it is finally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Wpsv6YYD8

I decided to dub my build “Celestial Killer” since after playing it for over 2,000 games I’ve noticed that it tends to deal with the celestial heavy meta quite well, be it engis, eles, warriors or w/e else. It has insane boon-hate/strip, a lot of life force generation and condition manipulation and coupled with its reduced DS cooldown if you can dance in and out of DS you become quite self-sustainable as I have hopefully shown in the video.
And here’s a link to my build: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2IHNl32YjnNc4mAXogeBCgWIqPg62IMeWA-TpBBwAfeAAdOIAAOBAF3fYzRAocZAA

Now one thing to note is that I can’t exactly predict whether or not this build will still be alive and well after the changes hit since it gets changed on a lot of fronts being a hybrid build. Plague signet being a staple of it gets its cooldown reduced in half but now it only transfers 5 conditions. Then we have Consume Conditions heals, the signet trait competing with the close to death trait and etc etc. but overall I am hopeful and I will try to make it work post-patch and I’ll release a new montage ASAP. Possibly even a WvW one as well.

Regardless I hope you guys enjoy the video and leave any comments or suggestions for future videos or builds down here or in the comment section of the video.

Thanks for watching and if you have any questions about the build or just wanna say hi in-game feel free to whisper me or send me a mail if I’m not on =)

Have a good one!

- Edelweíss

The problem is when this skill bugs after you’ve killed the pet but then the ranger can still use lick wounds and the pet becomes invulnerable. That needs to get fixed.

Thieves have poison and weakness on auto attack, Guards have burning, now Necros get chill. Which is actually easier to remove than any of the other conditions since its part of the movement impairing conditions which classes have built in traits or skills that either reduce their duration by huge amounts OR just outright remove them like a thief’s withdraw for example. Another major counter is simply shoutbows existing. Any way you look at it applying and keeping permanent chill on all but the most condi-cleanse lacking classes will be hard if not impossible. The only thing I can think of would be a mesmer but then they’d just blink away anyway so there’s that. Overall it just isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Sure it CAN be strong, but its easily countered.

Sigmoid.7082:

It will get lowered to a lower duration since with runes, sigil and food 100% chill duration is a thing. 8s of chill every 3rd auto..

Yeah and on the receiving end with runes, food and traits you can reduce chill by 100% as well, so I don’t really see a problem.

Quickness only affects your character’s actions’ speed. Or in other words your animations. What quickness would affect is how fast you place your well down on the ground. Since quickness is a 50% speed up instead of dropping your wells in a 1/4 of a second, you’d drop them in 1/6th. However because wells have a set interval of pulsing which is 1 second, quickness won’t affect it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Of all the Signets, Signet of the Locust is the best one to proc automatically. It doesn’t care if you have a target, and the effect is never wasted.

For example, if Signet of Spite were the proc, let’s say you just got backstabbed by a thief. You don’t have a target on him, so the proc is completely blown for no effect. Or let’s say you have a Zerker stance Warrior as your target. Ummmm, nada.

Signet of the Locust is the best signet they could have thrown in there. Even if you’re blinded or poisoned, the proc isn’t actually wasted. If you were blinded, then that Blind gets cleared without stopping any of your active skills. If you’re poisoned, sure, the effect is weaker, but you still get healed when you’re below half health at no action from you.

Yes I agree it is the best active to proc automatically, but my argument is asking why is it even there? It feels like they put little thought into it and said “Lets slap on an active signet effect, and move this to grandmaster status.” It makes absolutely no sense.

Also yes the active can easily be wasted. The radius is 480. A necro using axe can outrange the active proc lmao, thats hilarious. Now imagine a power ranger pew pewing at 1500 range. You drop to 50% hp…bam signet proc completely wasted. An Ele is on you and uses obsidian flesh and brings you down to 50% hp. Signet proc wasted yet again. Not to mention in a 1v1 you heal less than 1k. With poison that drops to like 600-700 hp. This is negligible. Its like 1 auto attack from a full bunk build….this completely doesn’t warrant a grandmaster slot AT ALL.

It does next to nothing for your survivability as a necro in any situation, whether it’d be a 1v1, a small skirmish or a full teamfight. Necro’s lack of scaling in outnumbered fights and the norm of “Focus a necro first when you see one” means that you’ll be dying just as fast with or without this signet. Even if you maximize the heal you get from this signet with a leech from 5 players that’s still like 4k-5k heal tops…You won’t survive for a second longer when you’re under the focus fire of 5 players.

My point is if no one is using locust signet with its active now why would it somehow be good as an added pseudo 4th utility all of a sudden? The closest thing we have similar to this new trait is the auto activation of Spectral Armor at 50% hp and thats a Minor Master trait. A utility skill numerous times more useful than SoL that provides Life force Generation, protection AND a free stun break. SoL is a crappy heal that’s just countered by range lol…. Signet of Locust can’t compete for a slot on your utility bar for a reason, and it definitely can’t make Signet Mastery’s 20% CDR on Signets compete for a grandmaster trait slot. Especially against the Close to Death GM trait.

Really wondering what Anet was thinking with this change. If it stays the way it was and its not changed all they succeeded in doing was kill more necro builds.

Bhawb.7408:

Genesis.7693:

My personal gripe is in the spite tree where they made Signet Mastery a Grandmaster trait just by adding necro’s weakest active signet to the mastery.

Signet of the Locust heals for 970(0.5) per person hit, on a 24s CD. This is just short of the healing you can get from an actual healing skill if you hit 5 targets, and it is on a 24s CD, and you can have two of them. It is entirely possible to heal yourself for 8k per skill use with healing power investment.

We’re talking 480 range here. You can have a plethora of classes attacking you from anything but melee, and when you hit 50% hp the active procs, and awesome you just got healed for 0. The estimate of 5k is like when 5 warriors are on you which is super generous, not to mention you can get poisoned and if you only face one other player you get healed for less than 1000 so its the equivalent to a sigil of leeching…..this does not warrant a grandmaster spot in the spite traitline at all. Also the other 3 signets are actually better than SoL. They literally put the worst signet active on this trait and called it a Grandmaster. Definitely not the right direction for necros.
Also I haven’t heard of healing power necro builds to try and take advantage of the hypothetical “8k” healing from SoL and a necro in a teamfight when focused down (which is the norm) cannot even hope to live 24 seconds. When you get focused the active SoL from the trait will proc, you’ll heal for like 2k, and die 0.5 seconds late which sounds a lot more realistic.
This is NOT worthy of a grandmaster trait, it just needs to get looked at again and get buffed in the proper places like baseline reduction of signet cooldowns, and potentially increasing the might stacks or adding a separate boon on each signet for activating. Eg. Spite would give more stacks of might to make up for the passive bonus of 180 power that is lost, Plague would grant Fury maybe, Undeath could maybe give Protection and SoL Regeneration or swiftness or something.

PS: Sorry for repost.

Bhawb.7408:

I feel like the only thing holding it back is the lack of other signets being very good. The SoL activation alone heals for 970(0.5) (according to wiki) per person hit, which is a 5k heal, up to around 8k if you have high healing power, and can be activated up to twice every 24s. In teamfights you’re looking at having two extra healing skills available to you.

We’re talking 480 range here. You can have a plethora of classes attacking you from anything but melee, and when you hit 50% hp the active procs, and awesome you just got healed for 0. The estimate of 5k is like when 5 warriors are on you which is super generous, not to mention you can get poisoned and if you only face one other player you get healed for less than 1000 so its the equivalent to a sigil of leeching…..this does not warrant a grandmaster spot in the spite traitline at all. Also the other 3 signets are actually better than SoL. They literally put the worst signet active on this trait and called it a Grandmaster. Definitely not the right direction for necros.

Also I haven’t heard of healing power necro builds to try and take advantage of the hypothetical “8k” healing from SoL and a necro in a teamfight when focused down (which is the norm) cannot even hope to live 24 seconds. When you get focused the active SoL from the trait will proc, you’ll heal for like 2k, and die 0.5 seconds late which sounds a lot more realistic.

This is NOT a grandmaster trait, it just needs to get looked at again and get buffed in the proper places like baseline reduction of signet cooldowns, and potentially increasing the might stacks or adding a separate boon on each signet for activating. Eg. Spite would give more stacks of might to make up for the passive bonus of 180 power that is lost, Plague would grant Fury maybe, Undeath could maybe give Protection and SoL Regeneration or swiftness or something.

No Pulse.2967:

I have been running your build with great results in solo q. What do you think about replacing Corrupt Boon with Well of Darkness (traited for chilling)? I found it giving me way more survivability. And since you camp axe and swap to dagger for bursting, wouldn’t sigil of Blood be better than Leeching on your a/wh set?

Edit: Opinion on Plague in power builds (with the chill trait)?

I like well of darkness but personally I find that it is countered too easily by range, blinks, or just simply not standing in it and attacking the necro out of the well range even if you’re physically standing in it. Also this build uses the long weakness uptime through your utilities (13 seconds from Signet of Spite, Corrupting their might for another source of long weakness, I believe it is 5 seconds, and then plague signet for both removing weakness on you and reapplying it on them keeping the same duration.) for the active defense. I personally consider weakness to be the strongest condition in the game because not only does it decrease their offensive potential but also their defense because of the reduced endurance regeneration. You also transfer blinds from your plague signet and you get a blind from signet of spite so it is not like you’re completely lacking blinds. As for the trait Chilling Darkness it is a viable option as well since extra chill is always nice to have, but since you already have it from your DS2 and Focus 5 I don’t find it that necessary and just prefer to bring more weakness through weakening shroud since its a decent counter to backstabbing thieves.

As for plague form on a power necro its just not worth it. Plague is more for holding points and this build is mostly roaming and dealing with skirmishes. In skirmishes Lich is just the better pick simply because you can usually deal with focus from 2-3 players and roll over them….plague won’t provide too much in a fight like that and in bigger fights a power necro in plague if focused will die regardless so its just better to go Lich in any case.

Sadly it seems that with the new upcoming changes this build might just become completely obsolete since now Signet Mastery and Close to Death will be competing for a spot in the Grandmaster portion of the traitline and honestly signet cooldowns and utilities are just as important as the damage increase so this really kills the build =/

Running a signet power necro build I personally am opposed to this change because now Close to Death and what used to be an adept trait are competing for a spot effectively killing the build. No matter what they add to the Signet Mastery trait it will never be worth a grandmaster slot. This change made it master at best, but the change of adding Signet of The Locust active doesn’t really improve anything. You mostly use the signet for the bonus movespeed and even then barely anyone runs it in PvP. They added a worthless active to an adept trait and moved it to Grandmaster? It makes zero sense. Against 1 person the active proccing a heal is negligible, against 5…well as a necro you’re going to be the main focus of those players so a larger 3-4k AoE heal will still do you no good. This is not what necro needs for active defense and not to mention its hampering build diversity.

My personal gripe is in the spite tree where they made Signet Mastery a Grandmaster trait just by adding necro’s weakest active signet to the mastery. Signet Mastery is currently competing with Death’s Embrace and on the build I run which is a Signet Power Necro both traits work well but I prefer Signet Mastery because of Necro’s insanely high signet cooldowns. The 3 stacks of might are nice, but nothing major. I also take Close to Death as my Grandmaster and with the new changes it effectively has to compete with basically the same amount of utility as when it is an adept trait but in the Grandmaster portion of the spite traitline? ESPECIALLY against Close to Death? This change effectively cuts either my build’s direct damage or my personal utility.

Honestly what I expected they’d do with signet mastery is make the CD reduction Baseline bringing signet cooldowns to either 45 – 50 seconds and then Signet Mastery would reduce it again by the standard 20%. This way it would bring necro’s signet cooldowns more in line with other classes keeping the cooldowns at around 36-40 seconds. The might stacks could also probably use an increase to 5 might stacks on necro signet use similar to the thief’s signet mastery. I don’t think we need a kitten auto-activated ability on this mastery, just something that makes signets more useful and not something that yet again destroys our already limited build options.

L Step.8659:

My problem with this build is it doesn’t really seem to have a role. Yeah you have nice damage, but a lot of it is single target. It seems like other classes would do what you’re doing much better. Is there a reason a team would want a necro with this build? What’s the benefit of this over the traditional powermancer with wells? Not trying to be rude or anything, I’m honestly just curious.

Well, I can’t really say this build would warrant a spot on an organized team, I mean even a well powermancer isn’t exactly a first pick on a team simply cause of the amount of babysitting his team has to provide for him. This build is mostly for solo q where you can’t really rely on your PuGs all the time and you can be a solo roamer knowing that you can basically take care of yourself vs any class. It’s also a great counter to the boon/cele heavy meta so it makes your job easier at shutting certain classes down. But yeah like what you were saying it doesn’t necessarily warrant a spot on a good pre-made team. Just like most of anything on a necromancer….its still sub par for organized competitive play =/

@Hollts Yeah it’d be cool wrecking some people as 2 necros xD
Though for the spectral armor utility I already get it through the master minor trait in Soul Reaping when I hit 50% so its like a pseudo 4th utility imo. Taking it again as a utility slot seems inefficient imo. Especially when it can be countered by stripping the protection and then just doing minimal attacks/not attacking or just LoSing the other necro for the duration of the spectral buff you can deny their life force generation because its ultimately up to you, the attacker how much life force to give them. Plague Signet can only be countered by invulns, blocks or just insanely lucky dodge rolls. Even blind doesn’t counter it since it gets transferred over to them, but again as you said it is ultimately up to preference. For my play style and build I just find plague signet more versatile =)

Czerny.6530:

So I tried this out and it works great 1vX and for holding/taking points by myself. Single target damage is through the roof with Axe 2/3 into Dagger and SoS + CB is hilarious against Ele/Guard/Engie. Are the condis from CB calculated off my own Condi damage?

The only thing is that I lose all my AoE and Cleave potential in teamfights where Wells+Marks+DS/Lich auto is so powerful.

Yeah, this build came about when I was getting frustrated that wells weren’t as effective as I thought they’d be a while back. Since I mostly solo/duo queue I can’t really rely or trust PuGs to look out for me since Necro in general requires immense amounts of peel so I prefer to go for smaller skirmishes like 1v1s 2vs2 up to 3v3s. Also yeah Corrupt boon scales off your own condition damage however plague signet transfer scales off of theirs, so any condition based builds can effectively melt themselves if you let them stack it on you then transfer their entire condi spike, and watch those bleeds/burns/poisons tick for the same as they did on you. It’s pretty satisfying :P

Yep, thats usually how the rotation goes. If you can land everything properly you melt d/d eles in seconds. Shoutbows die quickly as well, anything that isn’t tanky usually just dies to Dark Pact > Reapers Touch into a Chill of Death Proc.

And Since currently the meta is basically nothing but boon heavy classes, Medi Guards, Eles, Engis, Even thieves when they steal (Giving them weakness on their stolen might really screws them over) I feel that this build can just hold its own vs most encounters.
I’m in the process of posting it on MetaBattle so we’ll see how that goes

Plague signet is your stunbreak a long with a 2nd instant full condi clear in the form of a transfer. Your first condi clear being your heal.

@Hollts we were in the same guild for a bit [SwAg] but we couldn’t queue together since you were on EU and I was on NA xD
Though I disagree about the utils, signets provide so much offensive pressure that in turn they provide defensive utility. Though Utilities are mostly preferences I’ve found that for my playstyle these 3 utils just work far better than any others.

@Tim as for my sigils they’re Rage/Accuracy on Dagger/Focus and Air/Energy on Axe/Wh.

Hey guys!
I just made a montage playing my power necro who is by far my favourite to play in PvP (I have close to 2000 games on it out of 2500 total lol)

Anyway thats about it for intros. Hope you enjoy the video and I plan on making more PvP Videos/Montages even WvW Roaming in the future.

If people also have questions about my build or anything I’ll probably post a link to a build creator or just whisper me in game.

Hope you like it and enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oM_R_iOIMw

Here’s a link to the build used (I might also put it up on MetaBattle and see how it is rated)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2IHNl32YjnNc4mAXogeBCgWIqPg62IMeWA-TpBBwAfeAAdOIAAOBAF3fYzRAocZAA

Main character name: Edelweíss
Account name: Genesis.7693
Favorite game mode: By far PvP but I do everything anyway.
Server: Gate of Madness
Number of Necromancers: 1