I think this is a huge nerf. I didn’t take Greater Marks for the size, I took it for the unblockable aspect of the trait. Great for Reaper’s Marking through blocks and continuing your damage. Now I have to invest 20 points into the tree when there are better 20 point traits and no worthwhile 10 point traits (for me, anyway).
The funny thing is, necros have been asking for this type of change since last patch. “We didn’t need a damage buff we needed a survivability buff!” Well there you go. You gain 10 more points into the Toughness tree and you lose 10 points from your chosen damage tree. Happy? 
You didn’t by any chance choose that piece of music just because it says “wonderwall” did you?
Yup. I actually can’t stand that band, which is why I thought it would be funny to use it.
He probably chose it to lock out us Germans
And I’m at work, so I wouldda watched it without sound anyway…
I asked on the PvP thread too if you have any suggestions for getting around that I’d upload another version to bypass the GEMA restrictions. Like a list of approved music, no music at all, or a version with in-game sound if preferred (though with how short the clips are it would sound obnoxious).
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
Posting here as well for those who don’t go to the PvP forums:
Necros have gone almost a year without really having much use for Spectral Wall. Now that they’ve made the spell useful, everyone is crying for nerfs. Friends, I’m here to prove that this spell simply cannot be considered overpowered based on the fact that as long as you don’t walk directly into it, it cannot harm you. I spent a few hours over the weekend deliberately placing Spectral Wall at easy to avoid moments just to see how often people would ignore game mechanics and stand in the fire. Fear not, I’ve also included footage of people rendering Spectral Wall useless. No offense intended to anyone who might be in the vid, just having some fun.
Necros have gone almost a year without really having much use for Spectral Wall. Now that they’ve made the spell useful, everyone is crying for nerfs. Friends, I’m here to prove that this spell simply cannot be considered overpowered based on the fact that as long as you don’t walk directly into it, it cannot harm you. I spent a few hours over the weekend deliberately placing Spectral Wall at easy to avoid moments just to see how often people would ignore game mechanics and stand in the fire. Fear not, I’ve also included footage of people rendering Spectral Wall useless. No offense intended to anyone who might be in the vid, just having some fun.
It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness.
I thought this was a typo in your first post, but since you mentioned it again now:
Enfeebling Blood (and therefore also Weakening Shroud) gives 2 stacks of bleeding.
Please note the next things:
Dodge mark gives only 2 stacks of bleed instead of 3 according to wiki.
Enfeebling blood is 2 stacks of bleed.Thought weakening shroud enfeebling blood was applying 3 stacks but was wrong heh.
I knew this at one point, apparently I forgot. Thanks for pointing it out, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. Appropriate corrections have been made.
This makes sense. Second question. Why not master of corruption instead of hemophilia? Don’t get me wrong.. i just think hemophilia isn’t realy good when it comes to pvp
The majority of my damage is coming from bleeds, so the 20% increase in duration is helping me 100% of the time during combat. Master of Corruption is ONLY helpful if you’re using the abilities within the time that the spells have been reduced.
Corrupt Boon becomes 32 seconds (from 40) and Epidemic becomes 12 seconds (from 15). If both spells are on cooldown and you don’t use CB within 8 seconds of it being available, or Epidemic within 3 seconds of it being available, Master of Corruption has now effectively done nothing to help you. Both spells are generally saved for important moments so it’s not like you’ll be spamming it the second it comes off of cooldown. Overall, the benefit of +20% bleed duration in a build devoted entirely to bleed stacking helps me more often than -20% cooldown on two situational spells that I reserve for specific circumstances anyway.
Btw: you could improve your build by using a warhorn, banshee’s wail (instead of hemophilia) and a 15% stun duration sigil on your wh. A 4sec aoe Daze realy is something you want in pvp + swiftness and cripple helps your mobility and kiting.. because you have no mobility skills like spectral walk. =)
Getting rid of dagger offhand gets rid of Deathly Swarm which is not only huge for survivability in terms of a 3 person blind and a condition transfer, but the condition transfer is also a damage source, as the build has high condition damage. It also gets rid of Enfeebling Blood, an AoE 3 stacks of bleeding plus weakness. This would completely hinder the theme of the build, which is rapid AoE bleed stacking.
Putting a +15% stun duration sigil on my offhand gets rid of Sigil of Minor Corruption which, at 25 stacks, loses me +250 condition damage (1742 total condition damage with a full sigil)
I run Flesh Wurm in this build and never have a problem with mobility. It applies poison, has a steady auto-attack that does fairly decent damage, is on a shorter cooldown, gives 10% lifeforce on Necrotic Transversal, and can get me through walls and up onto different levels. Spectral Walk is 20 seconds longer of a cooldown, only gives lifeforce on hit (which, when popped, usually means I’m running away/toward something and not getting hit), and swiftness is easy to shut down. Plus if you use it to run away from a losing battle, you certainly won’t be using Spectral Recall as it would just put you right back where you started. Don’t get me wrong, I love the spell. Just not in this build. Unless I’m using both Flesh Wurm and Spectral Walk for teleport stomps, of course!
Like I said above, you don’t want to spread your strategy too thin. If you try to make a build that thinks it can do everything at once, it will just be mediocre at everything. I’ve run primarily a dagger/warhorn well bombing build for a long time, usually with thief runes but I’ve definitely done the banshee’s wail + mesmer rune combo. The thing is, when the build is designed around condition damage and bleeds, giving up condition damage and bleeds for other utilities—albeit useful ones—waters down the concept of it.
Hope I explained that well enough, sorry my writing is so verbose. This is just my own personal reasoning behind my decisions, hopefully I made it clear that while your suggestions may not fit with the goal of my build, they’re perfectly acceptable strategies to incorporate into other builds (and of course, you can do whatever works for your playstyle with this one as well!).
Thanks for the discussion.
1) Terror is awesome WITH Master of Terror
2) Mark of Evasion Vs. Foot in the Grave / Near Death…No contest at all max out Soul Reaping
3) Curses: Weakening Shroud is great in sPvP if you are being trained, reduce cd on Corruption for Boon strip its amazing…You don’t have any condition duration increase so why take Haemophilia?
1. If I was running 0/30/20/0/20 with Nightmare runes and Reaper’s Protection I would have taken MoT over Soul Marks, but this isn’t a Fear build and spreading your build strategy too thin reduces effectiveness. Soul Marks provides HUGE lifeforce generation, combined with Rabid jewelry and undead runes plus the double regen from the 10 points in Blood Magic gives substantial survivability. Like I said, the premise is to be able to continue your offense while being defensive which is why I focused on survivability and bleed applications that come secondary to defensive maneuvers (ie: bleeds when dodging, bleeds when going into DS, bleeds when swapping weapons). Terror is fine on its own. I tried this build with MoT and still felt more durable with Soul Marks but of course everything is down to preference.
2. Near to Death doesn’t work well with this build other than flashing for permanent Fury. I originally started this build with Foot in the Grave but it’s just too situational and I lose ~5% crit chance and 100 condition damage plus one of several good Curses traits. DS stomps were the best part about it but there’s no point in choosing that AND Weakening Shroud; you want DS activation to be offensive AND defensive, not just defensive. I find myself reserving DS use with FitG to interrupt control effects, thus Weakening Shroud becomes a secondary objective and that’s not the goal of this build. Mark of Evasion, however, fits well with this build’s goal of attacking and defending simultaneously. With regen at 90% health, 3 stacks of bleeding and regen on dodge, plus staff’s own Mark of Blood, I have almost constant regen as well as 3 stacks of bleeding AoE. I’ve played 0/30/10/0/30, it’s a perfectly fine build (it’s what I use in WvW). This build is a different build with a different theme.
3. You have no idea how hard of a choice it was taking Hemo over Master of Corruption considering how much I love CB. I’ve never run a condition build without MoC. Like I said earlier, Hemo has just worked better for me in THIS specific build. It’s not like you use CB and Epidemic the second it comes off cooldown, they’re reserved for specific circumstances, so a shorter cooldown is only helpful sometimes where as 20% bleed duration is helpful all the time. I wouldn’t give up Weakening Shroud in this build because, like you said, it’s useful when being trained and, like I said, the entire focus of this build is bleed application continues even when you’re being trained.
No build can do everything, they need to have a specialized focus to excel in certain areas. I made this build with the mindset of, “When I’m getting focus fired, I need to be able to keep up the damage while trying to survive the attack” because I felt like my offense was strong when kiting, and my defense was strong when defending, but my offense was garbage when being focused. I gave up more common trait choices used in other condition builds in favor or the ones that focused on constant 3 stack bleed applications. Also why I gave up Sigil of Earth for Geomancy. Most condition builds only have 3 ways of AoE bleed application: Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood and Mark of Blood. The first two have interruptable 3/4 sec cast times and the third is on your support weapon. The above build adds three more 3 stack AoE bleeding abilities attached to actions that you do constantly throughout a fight (again: weapon swap, DS activation and dodge roll). You’ll not only see enemies who are attacking you die from your AoE bleeds but by combining dodge, weapon swap and DS with other bleed abilities in rapid succession, you can play very aggressively by stacking bleeds quickly. Getting rid of any of these limits the effectiveness of the build’s strategy and turns it into one of the many other condition builds. All of them are pretty equally effective in my experience, the only reason I chose to showcase this one is because the play style is enjoyable and surprisingly effective.
Thanks for the comments.
(edited by Hanzo.9624)
