Guild Wars 2

My norn necro is named Volguus Niflheim.

Niflheim fits both the class and the race : refers to death and nordic mythology.

Volguus : like Volguus Zildrohar, also known as Gozer in the movie Ghostbusters. I also think its sounds quite “nornish”.

spoj.9672:

Whoever last applied burning deals the damage from it. So your condition damage will be overwritten by the last person to apply burning. Seeing as 1 guardian can apply permanent burning your going to have trouble keeping the burning to scale with your own condition damage.

Basically it will be overwritten by the guardian and do low damage because guardians dont stack condition damage. You wont get anything out of it except the odd single tick of damage in pve. However Dhuumfire is very strong in pvp and wvw for hybrid builds.

Really ? I tested fire with my engi and a friend of mine’s guardian.

First test : I applied burning with blowtorch and right after than he applied burning. He did not see any tick from his burning until mine had ended.

Second test : he applied burning first and I applied burning right after him. I did not see any tick from my burning until his burning had ended.

So I do not think that the last burning applied overwrite the burning that is already applied on the target.

Volguus with The Crossing and with Corrupted Skeggox & the Anomaly :

Volguus Niflheim :

Nemesis.8593:

I LOVE YOU ALL !…

Incoming builds… many… many… many…

30/10/0/0/30 builds work really good now thanks to the new trait in “soul reaping” that allows 100% crit chance with DS skills and “axe training” that can be add to “Close to Death”.
Il like “focused ritual” in “curses” to land the well while at 600 range.

Nemesis, we’re talking about necro’s own dps… With a 30/30/0/0/10 build a necro will have a better DPS than with a 30/10/0/0/30 build thanks to target the weak and MOAR (as you say) crit chance → overall you do more damage by doing smaller crits but at a higher frequency.

Now the utility skills can be changed at will when you are out of combat. That means if a grab or more vulnerability/protection is needed you can use spectral wall and specral grasp even with a 30/30/0/0/10 build.

The changes we can see in the so called leak show, if they are true, that you were wrong : a 30/10/0/0/30 build lacks crit chance so Anet add a new trait that provides 50% more crit chance when in DS that can be add to Close to Death. The fact that we’ll be able to take both axe training and near to death shows that axe damage had to be improved.

spoj.9672:

I have now also changed my opinion on signet of spite. I will be running it instead of WoC unless i need extra aoe/tagging.

So I was right about “target the weak” and “signet of spite”. ^^

I run a 30/30/0/0/10 build with WoS, BiP and Signet of Spite for several weeks now instead of the 30/10/0/0/30 I used to run before… The damage is definitly higher.

Playing mainly with an axe and DS is fun but it is also frustrating because it deals less damage than a dagger. So I now play with dagger/focus as my main set (I use staff or warhorn alone as my second set of weapons depending on the situation).

Volguus Niflheim :

I farm the island with a friend of mine. I just take the MF boost from the NPC while my friend takes it and has MF gear and food so that he has over 400% MF bonus.

Until now I’ve found 2 supply crates. So has he. I’ve found several pieces of rare quality gear (4 rare weapons the last hour we’ve played), he has not found a single one…

Hi, Nemesis. I’ve tried your condition, hybrid and GC build and that’s the one I find the most fun to play.

There is something I wonder : in this build we hardly ever use the dagger (axe/Life Blast rotation at range does great damage and is much safer) so wouldn’t it be better to use “Axe Mastery” instead of “Close to death” ? I mean AM’s damage boost (+15%) also applies to Death Shroud when you enter it with an axe in your main hand, so wouldn’t it be better to have that damage increase on the skills you use the most during the whole fight rather than a 20% damage boost on all of your skills but only in the last part of the fight ?

Too bad it’s a 5 seconds CD… :/

Thanks for the informations! I should change my sigil in that case… ^^’

What about the superior sigil of blood ? It hits not as hard but it heals and it has a 2 seconds CD instead of 5. Does anyone test it ?

I also think you have enough ways to put bleeding on your target to take another sigil.

I used to have Frailty on my axe and dagger but I now use Force. The fact is Force gives me a permanent 5% damage boost which is more than can offer Frailty (30% chance to proc is too low to give 5 stacks even with almost 80% chance to critical hit).

But I do not know if this is a good choice for PvP or WvW…

@ Dasboba

That’s right, our builds are quite similar. ^^
I understand all of your choices as you play in WvW (more toughness with gear, ground targeted wells, etc…) except one : why the superior sigil of earth on your dagger ?

I must be a masochist myself since my main is a grenadier which can do more DPS with more defense and support but I just love playing my glass canon necro… My engie is both more complex and easier to play than my necro. More complex in the sense that I have more things to think about and do (healing turrets + 3 kits) but easier in the sense that as I can stay at max range and use many skills to heal, regen and protect me on top of more toughness so it is easier to stay alive. Playing a glass canon necro is so much fun and also a greater challenge than playing a grenadier… And necros are so stylish. ;p

About Spite, it is not that the traits suck but I would not have been so high in Curse if Furious Demise and target the Weak had been in Spite instead of Death to Life and Syphoned Power…
Death to Life could have been in Curse with that effect : 10% of your condition damage is given as a bonus to healing (since when you go for a condition build you take 30 in Curse and 30 in Blood Magic).
Furious device in Crse makes no sense since you do not need fury in a condition build : you do have enough precision with rabid gear and 30 points in Curse.
Target the Weak makes no sense in Curse since it is a boost to direct damage which is not what you looking for in a condition build.

Also you made me think of thomething so I just edited my build and its description : I forgot a very important thing : Reaper’s Might as an alternative to Spiteful Spirit. The later is useful for PvP/WvW/farming but the former is a better choice in dungeons and PvE in general since with no armor reduction at all you’d better not get hit. ^^

As a powermancer playing mainly in PvE, I love Death Shroud. Life Blast hits like a truck (+ pierces + applies vulnerablity + gives might if traited), Life Transfer is not that bad for AoE (as far as a glass canon build is concerned) and Doom can be useful even in PvE.

I used to run Nemesis glass canon build for quite a long time : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqLt4dD93pU

I find it both effective and fun to play.

Now I run “my own” build : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Build-Another-glass-canon-build/first#post1995211
Death Shroud is very, very useful in my build too for the reasons I explained in the thread.

For a “conditionmancer” Death Shroud can only be useful as a life saver, I think.

I assume fights take some time because that is for those fights you need a good build. A boss or a champion is more of a challenge than some random mobs.
Also, a trait like “Close to Death” shine more in long fights : the longer the fight, the more you can benefit from it.
Then a high crit chance with both high power and critical strike damage is also welcome in short fights.

I already said why I do not like the 30/25/0/0/15 build.

I agree with you about the 30/10/0/0/30 build : it is really a great one.
I also agree that condition duration is usefull for a glass canon build because of vulnerability stacking.

You do not have any condition spec player in your group ? Not even an engineer with grenades kit ?

Anyway, even without any condition spec player, it is common to see bleed, vulnerability, blind, burn, weakness, cripple on the target. Doesn’t matter if the DoT do damage since you get 2% more damage for each of them. Even a 10% damage increase during all the fight sounds good to me. My numbers will be not as big as yours during the last half of the fight but they will be bigger in the first part.
Take in account that several classes/builds have some damage boost when the target has less than 50% damage thanks to traits and runes (5% more damage for some traits and superior rune of the eagle, 10% more critical strike chance for an engineer, etc…) which means the second half of the fight, when the target is under 50% health, last less than the first part. So in the end you’ll benefit from “Close to Death” for less than half of the fight.

50% critical strike chance is enough for a condition build since it is only useful to trigger some conditions. But critical strike chance is never enough in a power build. At least until you reach 100%. ^^
Critical strikes do 50% more damage than normal strikes so if you have 100% more damage thanks to your traits and gear it means that a skill that does 1000 damage with a normal hit will do 2500 damage if it criticals.
So if I take this exemple with 50% critical strike chance over 10 strikes :
- 5×1000 + 5×2500 = 17500
Now with 80% critical strike chance :
- 2×1000 + 8×2500 = 22000
So with the same power and critical strike damage you do more damage if you have more precision/critical strike chance.
The fact is with the stuff I have (full berserk) and Nemesis glass canon build (with 10 in curse rather than in Blood Magic) I have a base of 2333 power, 106% critical strike damage and between 45 and 57% critical strike chance depending on hwo many stacks I have from sigil of perception. With my build I have a base of 2374 power, 106% critical strike damage, 57% critical strike chance without “Fury” (which is the most I can get with the other build) and 77% critical strike chance with “Fury”.

Signet of Spite is not pointless at all to me. It means 180 power all the time. Blood is Power gives you 10 stacks of Might (that is 350 power so 170 more thant with SoS) for 12 seconds with a 30 second CD which means that you spend 18 seconds without any power boost (that is 180 less than with the Signet of Spite). So all in all, SoS gives more power on a whole fight than BiP (even if you use it each time right on cooldown).
Also, as you mentioned it, BiP means you have 10 stacks of Might to get your power, which means that if some of your team members give you like 20 stacks of might and you have BiP on, 5 stacks are wasted. But with SoS I do not use Might to get my power boost, so I can benefit from the maximum Might stacks my team can provide me.

@ spoj

As I already said, I do not use focus #5 that much. In fact I only use it when I need to kite. Focus #4 is what makes it that nice for a powermancer.
Sure off hand dagger would provide some conditions for “Target the Weak” but I cannot pick an off hand weapon just for that. First I can apply bleeds by other means and it is the most shared conditions, so in donjons (where “Target the Weak” really shines) the target always suffers from it. Even if I really like dagger #4, I would not trade it against focus #4.
Concerning warhorn, I answered above but I forgot to say that I do not find Life Force regen of #5 very useful : at close range I only use Death Shroud for the buffs it gives (perma fury and retaliation) by switching it on and off immediatly. Also dagger auto attack, focus #4 and Spectral Wall give me enough Life Force.

I do think target the weak is that strong in PvE. Also I do not have less power in my build than if I had 30 in Spite : with only 15 in Spite I lose 150 power but I get 180 power from Signet of Spite.
As I said, Close to Death is indeed a great trait, but the 20% boost it gives only triggers when the target is under 50% HP, which means before that it gives no boost at all. In donjons, a target as several conditions on it right from the begining (bleed, vulnerability, burn, poison, cripple, etc…) so the boost may be not as huge but it will be here from the begining to the end of the fight. 5 conditions on a boss is common and it gives me 10% more damage, so with that number in mind we have in the one hand we have 10% during all the fight and on the other hand 20% during half of it. And there can be more conditions on the target for a higher percentage.

As I said in my first post, Takarazuka found a 30/25/0/0/15 build that was not bad but that reduced the effectiveness of Death Shroud. So he took some points from Soul reaping to put in Curses to get “Target the Weak” just like you did. But I do not like a power build without 30 in “Soul Reaping” and here is why :

- you get both “Close to Death” and “target the Weak” but you lose the 5% damage boost from “Strength of Undeath” and 20% critical strike damage. The former is active in permanence and the other is also permanent on criticals which represent between 58 and 78% of your hits (depending on if you benefit from Fury or not).

- you lose “Near to Death” so you have “Fury” 50% of the time at best when I can have it up to 100%. Mors crits = better DPS

- you lose “Last gasp” which is not wonderful but a minor trait that gives Protection for 6 seconds and some Life Force on top of that is kind of welcome.

- you do not have “Unyielding Blast” wich applies vulnerability (so damage boost again) to all targets it hits. As it pierces it can hit up to 3 targets for kind of AoE damage.

About your traits :

- “Well of Corruption” synergies well with “Target the Weak” except that its CD is much too long, that mobs rarely have any boons on them, that most conditions I will get with it would already be on the target thanks to the other players in the group. So I prefer Signet of Spite wich gives me more power than what misses in Spite in my build. This well has a better use in PvP or WvW.

- “Spectral Grasp” is not as strong as “Spectral Wall” as it does not provide 10 stacks of vulnerability (or even more if the target crosses the wall several times) and it does not provide protection for me and the other players. So it gives less DPS boost and less protection. Concerning Life Force regen I also have it with “Spectral Wall” thanks to “Spectral Attunment”.

If I should pick 30 in spite I would definitly run Nemesis glass canon build (as I used to for many weeks) since it makes more sense to me than the other builds I’ve seen on the internet.

@ Panhauramix

I’ve tried warhorn again and I’m really not a big fan of it… #4 is useful when fighting other players but not that much in PvE. Locust Swarm does some AoE damage but I miss the possibility to apply at least 3 stacks of vulnarability on my target even with the dagger in my right hand.

I’m not found of off hand dagger in a power build… It sounds more usefull for a condition mancer. I mean #4 is useful for defense at it transfers conditions to the target and blinds it at the same time, but #5 is not useful to me as I already got that spell by going into Death Shroud (“Weakening Shroud”).

But Locust Swarm sounds interresting enough so I’ll give dagger/warhorn a try. Thanks for the help.

You’re right, I only have the focus to have access to vulnerability stacking even when I have the dagger in my right hand. Also focus #5 applies chill which is a way to benefit more from “Target the Weak” but it takes so long to cast…

Do you think it would be better to have a warhorn along with the dagger to have the locusts doing some damage and filling my life force while I’m at close range (also cripple for “target the Weak”)? (and the daze for a little bit of defense)

I use this build in PvE.

Concerning the staff, as it is more a jack of all trade weapon you cannot DPS much with it. I still have one in my bag for some specific situations.

[EDIT] I discovered a “small detail” that make this build a fail… Signet of Spite is not taken into account when in Death Shroud. That means it is still interresting while using the dagger or even the axe but Life Blast is too weak and Life Blast is far too important for a power necro to not be used (dagger #1 is way too risky to be our auto attack). T_T

Hello, everyone.

I came here to share my current necromancer PvE build. I’ve discovered many interresting builds by reading Tararazuka’s posts on gw2guru and watching Nemesis (thank you so much for your videos!) channel on youtube. I used to play Nemesis’s glass canon build with a few changes (10 pts in Curse rather than Blood Magic and different sigils) but recently a guy named Clinton Poovan made me rethink the build a bit more. So by mixing Nemesis, Takarazuka and Clinton Poovan’s ideas I came up with this :
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|7.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|8.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8g.67|f6.p4a.0.0.u46c|0.0|3r.4d.49.43.4e|e

In fact I only use one focus and only change the weapon in my right hand when swapping. Also you have to manualy add 90 in power to get the right numbers since the singet gives now 180 powers and not only 90 anymore.

I know it looks odd to make a power build with only 15 in Spite, but the Signet of Spite give us 30 more power than would have going 30 in that line.
I do not benefit from “Close to Death” but I do benefit “Target the Weak” : no more 20% more damage when the target’s health is lower than 50% but in dungeons a boss has between 5 and 10 conditions on him from the begining to the and of the fight, which means between 10 and 20% more damage from the begining to the and of the fight.
Takarazuka used “target the Weak” in one of his builds but he took points from “Soul Reaping” in order to have it. I did not want to lose my 30 points in “Soul Reaping” because Death Shroud is too useful : I did not want to lose 15% crit damage and I did not want to lose “Near to Death”. Only 5 seconds CD for Death Shroud means I can use it more frequently to :
- damage foes through Life Blast when I’m not close enough to use the dagger
- protect myself by letting Life Force take the damage instead of my own health
- being under the effect of Fury more often, especially when using the dagger since I switch to Death Shroud and immidiatly switch back to my normal form just to maintain fury 100% of the time.

Concerning traits :

Spite :
- Reaper’s Might : best trait for the mid range rotation with Deatn Shroud, to my opinion

Curse :
- Weakening Shroud : weakens the target and also applies 2 conditions that boost my damage thanks to Target the Weak
- Spectral Attunement : Spectral Wall is very useful and this trait makes it stay for 16 seconds instead of 9 (so more occasions to apply vulnerability on foes and protection on allies) and also gives me Life Force on use (as I do not use Spectral Grasp this helps).

Soul Reaping :
- Spectral Mastery : lower CD for Spectral Wall for more vulnerability/protection but also Life Force.
- Unyielding Blast : more vulnerability and the ability to hit up to three targets at once for more damage
- Near to Death : for more Death Shroud and more Fury

About the gameplay :
- at mid range it is just like Nemesis glass canon except the use of Spectral Grasp
- at close range : aplly vulnerability when it is up and trigger Fury by double tapping the Death Shroud button while you auto attack with the dagger
Of course it is not always that simple but you get the idea.

That’s all. ^^

Thanks for reading and please forgive my english since it is not my first language. ^^’

Again I would like to thank Tararazuka for sharing his builds, Clinton Poovan for his commentaries on Nemesis’ channel and most of all I would like to thank Nemesis himself for his videos which are extremely detailed and well explained with some humor I really appreciate.