Guild Wars 2

What do you think about Revenant Hammer 2 (Coalescence of Ruin), competitively?

Here is a full description of Revenant Hammer 2 (CoR):
Damage First Impact: 246 (1.00)?
Damage Second Impact: 369 (1.50)?
Damage Final Impact: 492 (2.0)?
Number of Impacts: 3
Number of Targets: 5
Range: 1,200
Cast time: 0.75 seconds
Cooldown: 2 seconds
Energy: 5

And for comparison, here a description of Guardian Hammer 2 (Mighty Blow or MB):
Damage: 647 (1.75)?
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 180
Combo Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 300
Cast time: 0.75 seconds
Cooldown: 5 seconds

For those who are unaware, the numbers in parenthesis are damage coefficients that are multiplied by power.

Those two skills share similar damage output, but differ in a few areas: Range, Cooldown, Impacts, and Energy. The range of CoR is 4 times farther than MB. The cooldown of CoR is 2s compared to MB’s cooldown of 5s. CoR has 3 impacts, while MB has only 1. CoR requires Energy, while MB does not. The required 5 energy for Coalescence of Ruin could be argued as a hindrance to the skill, however it’s currently too small of a value to effectively encourage energy management. These differences makes Coalescence of Ruin over twice as spammable, and with 4 times the range, miles more versatile than Mighty Blow.

During a long fight, Coalescence will simply out-damage Mighty Blow, especially when considering certain Revenant traits such as Malicious Reprisal (When one of your attacks is blocked, your next 2 attacks will be unblockable), Cruel Repercussion (When one of your attacks is negated, your next attack will deal 50% bonus damage), and Roiling Mists (Critical-hit chance has increased effectiveness when you are under the effect of fury aka +40% crit chance from fury as opposed to +20%).

Another interesting thing to consider is that Guardians have a lower base health pool than Revenants, which allows Revenants to gear with stats more towards damage output, while Guardians have to generally gear with stats more towards survivability.

This is just one comparison of potentially many out there. I chose CoR vs. MB, because they’re both #2 skills on a 2-handed weapon.

So, what do you think? What are your opinions on CoR, from a competitive standpoint?

Mathematical truth isn’t required to prove the point. Although, you are right that it applies to specific professions: Thief and Mesmer. All you have to do is be a somewhat experienced player and then run a power build 1v1 against a condition built mesmer or thief who knows what they’re doing and you’ll understand immediately. Stealth is balanced when used with power builds, but heavily imbalanced when used with condition builds because of the insane survivability from combining stealth, Dire, and survivability traits/skills (Example: Prismatic Understanding, Hide in Shadows, Chaos Armor, Blinding Dissipation).

Dire is still very overpowered, but perhaps it’s best to first focus on balancing thief and mesmer condition based skills, and leave other professions out, because stealth is balanced with power builds and shouldn’t have to be altered.

Unless they could code in a way to extend the distance of mobility skills while under the effects of quickness, I would also prefer that quickness entirely ignored mobility skills.

Stealth, while difficult to deal with, pales in comparison to the strength of conditions. Anyone who roams or 1v1s in WvW knows that you’re simply dead if you’re running a power build and encounter a condition build.

Power builds require 3 main stats for damage: Power, Precision, and Ferocity. Conditions require 2: Condition Damage and Condition Duration. Power builds have to sacrifice and balance their power, precision, ferocity, vitality, and toughness in their gear. Condition builds do not require this balance. Condition duration is limited to only weapons and nourishments, so condition builds only need to focus on Condition Damage in their gear. This allows condition builds to run full Dire (Condition Damage, Vitality, and Toughness) with Giver (Condition Duration, Precision, and Vitality) weapons. This results in condition builds acquiring both incredible survivability and damage output from their cookie cutter gear sets. Condition builds can then make double or more mistakes versus power builds, while power builds have to make even less mistakes than they do versus condition builds than they would versus other power builds. The only sacrifice condition builds have in comparison to power builds is the reduction to conditions applied to them which most power builds run. This is hardly a sacrifice at all, and actually encourages that condition builds be used to counter other condition builds. What this ultimately becomes is that condition builds have become the best versus both power builds and other condition builds. This is incredibly unfair and unbalanced for power builds.

Tone down condition damage using one or more of the following methods:

1 – Lower the strength of condition damage and/or duration, especially on certain conditions like Burning and Confusion.

2 – Require condition damage to incorporate precision, ferocity, or both to force condition builds to balance their survivability similar to how power builds do.

3 – Alter the stats of Dire. Dire is currently so overpowered. Imagine the power equivalent of Dire which would be gear with Power, Precision, Ferocity, Vitality, and Toughness with no reduction to their stat values, because Dire gives both maximum damage and survivability unlike any gear set in the entire game.

4 – Buff condition removal and/or reduction across the board. All traits, gear, utilities, and weapon skills that remove or reduce conditions can be near doubled in effectiveness and condition builds would still do very well.

There is no arguing that condition builds are overpowered compared to power builds. Something needs to be done, or power build roamers will fade and either switch to condition builds or quit playing.

Warrior issues:

1. The quickness boon halves the distance of every mobility skill – This is far more detrimental than any condition like cripple and chill. Savage Leap, Earthshaker, Rush, Whirlwind, Seismic Leap, Dash, Bull’s Charge, Shield Bash, and Eviscerate are all halved. That’s 9 skills. If you’re familiar with warrior play, then you know that that’s HUGE. Mobility is far too important for a warrior to be hindered by something considered a “boon”. Add cripple or chill on top of quickness and you have a warrior that’s going nowhere. This has just recently become a major issue with the introduction of the new Heightened Focus trait which grants 4 seconds of quickness when striking a target below 50% health.

2. Rush misses 90% of the time on moving targets – I’m not exaggerating. 90. Percent. Of the time. I know that there have been efforts to resolve the issue with Rush by extending the distance of the attack animation, but that is not where the problem lies. The problem is that the final attack animation comes to a complete stop before delivering damage. Savage Leap does not suffer from this because the damage of Savage Leap is delivered slightly before the mobility animation is finished. PLEASE MAKE RUSH DO THIS.

3. Earthshaker misses targets that are vertically lower or higher than the warrior – Example: if I’m trying to Earthshaker someone who I’m chasing down a hill, Earthshaker completely misses the area which I have targeted, because it is lower in altitude than the area which I was standing when I executed the attack. This has been an issue since the beginning of gw2, and I’m extremely confused why it hasn’t yet been resolved. Is it impossible to extend the vertical hit box to the effected radius?

As a competitive player I am so frustrated at these inconsistencies. I have missed thousands of player kills because of them.

You have a chance here to redeem yourselves as an awesome company. Personally, I’m not really into the SAB, but to witness so many players outside the box filled with hype, and then to witness that hope and excitement die out before me, frustrates me in a way I can only compare to cruelty. It’s as if all those players were kids before Christmas, anxious and excited to wake up to a bunch of gifts, but only to wake up and find nothing. Please, for your own sake, justify the reason for denying this gift to the players who so eagerly wish for the SAB’s return.

I have this problem, too. Toggling invisible and back doesn’t fix the problem, for me. My other guild chats are working, but my main guild says, “You are not in a guild.”

You tech guys may already be aware of this. A cmd ping test has isolated a latency issue to one or more servers on your end. Sea of Sorrows is unplayable at this moment.

Necessary stats to maximize raw damage: 1. Power, 2. Precision, 3. Ferocity

Necessary stats to maximize condition damage: 1. Condition Damage

Balance! \o/

Here’s a more detailed description. I’ve also submitted this an in-game bug report:

If a necro allows his Death Shroud to deactivate upon losing all life force, and then activates the instant-cast elite skill Plague within 1 second, Plague will automatically cancel itself.

It would seem that the game is checking and canceling transformations an additional second after exiting Death Shroud. This is to say that there are two cancelling functions in the program code. The first one cancels Death Shroud, but the next second after leaving Deathshroud there’s another cancelling function which will catch and cancel Plague, if Plague is active.

This is an extremely annoying bug and has consistently gotten me killed in game. Please look into this.

This is a huge issue for me, and I hope it gets resolved. It’s destroying my ability to play competitively.

The current WvW lockout may or may not make one group of people happy and definitely angers another group of people.

I understand that people are upset about the capitalization on season rewards, but you all have to understand that people transfer for many reasons not just “winning the WvW season.” Example: A fairly new guild of players are switching servers in hopes of finding strong WvW and GvG competition during their prime time. Imagine you’re one of the people that only plays Gw2 for WvW, and then imagine being locked out for 2 whole weeks after transferring. That’s a pretty long time to be kept away from enjoying the game. It’s comparable to being banned, and in truth, I actually feel like I’ve been banned. I feel like I’m being treated like I’ve done something wrong.

There needs to be something more reasonable for both sides of the argument like: double the gem requirement for transfers during the weeks of the WvW season, lockout consecutive transfers for 2+ weeks, or anything that doesn’t take away from the actual in-game experience.

In conclusion, I honestly cannot believe someone approved this lockout idea. It openly encourages certain people to stop playing GW2 for at least 2 weeks, if not forever, and inquire into its competitors. I am hopeful that someone with intelligence and authority over there reconsiders the consequences and challenges the ideas of dated solutions such as this both now and in the future.

Only reason we blobbed down LLK is because TW, ONE, and FEAR were combined into a massive blob, beforehand. We and BG got tired of that crud. When we called for help, TW, ONE, FEAR all hopped map. Blame them for leaving you to defend it alone. Ty for locking down the spawn side, BG. Ty SoR warriors for bannering lord enough times to allow a farm that filled our bags twice. We had to drop merchants inside, during the siege!

We’d really like to get a confirmation on whether or not there will be a break between seasons, how long it would be, and/or if it would be the same matchmaking as it was before season 1.

What is the plan for matchmaking after season 1? Will it go straight into season 2? Will there be a break? Would the break be the old matchmaking system? How long would the break be?

Our guild is considering a transfer to a lower tier server in hopes of finding better opponents in our league. Our decision to transfer is dictated by the future matchmaking system post-season 1. If the matchmaking reverts to what it was before season one, which, in my opinion, was not a particularly well designed matchmaking system, then our reasons for transferring will be in vain. If the season goes straight into season 2, then the transfer will be our best choice.

Is there any information that can be shared about this subject? If the plan is to, “See how the season goes, and, if it does well, then goes straight into a second season,” then that would be enough for us to confidently go forward with the transfer. Please give us a little insight into what the future plans are for the matchmaking system after season 1.

Achievement – Seasonal Mists Defense Restorer
This achievement requires players to repair gates and walls multiple times using supplies. The issue with this is that roaming players are encouraged to drain structure (towers, keeps, and castles) supplies to repair gates and walls, because it is the easiest and fastest method to complete the achievement. This is counter-productive in the large scheme of WvW. Supplies are also necessary for upgrading structures. Example: The castle is being hit with trebuchets. An upgrade is in process. The team understands the upgrade needs to finish, but several players are taking any and all supplies within and repairing structures that are currently under siege, solely for their personal achievements. This postpones the upgrade indefinitely, which ultimately hurts the team. In a sense, this current achievement encourages griefing.

Possible Solution
Alter this achievement to something else like, “Defend X amount of towers, keeps, or castles.” While it does not address the problem completely, (because repairing a wall or gate, while the structure is contested, counts towards the defense of that structure) it would be far less encouraging for players to take supplies from structures than the current achievement.

Let’s not forget the immobilize bug where you are skill-locked entirely, especially when leaping.

1. Map Variation
2. Skill Lag
3. Server Population Imbalance

Why does warhorn sometimes sound like this? It seems to be inconsistent, too. Some guildies have helped me test it. As far as I know, the sound cannot be heard from the perspective of the user.

I often hear people use a warhorn with a much deeper-in-tone version of the traditional warhorn. Does anyone know which warhorn makes that sound? It is not the Super Warhorn nor the traditional sound. I’ve asked multiple people and bought many warhorns, but I can’t seem to figure it out!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7;4NFV40J3RG-90;9;54TT4;435A18A;1L-V4;2CqNYCqNYn-FW0-X5;3w-fa62gaH_ga2iVGk3T;9;9;9;9;9;9;0V8-6P

This is a great build for starting out, once you hit level 80. Adjust your knight’s and sentinel’s to fit your play style.

And I’m not talking about thieves’ Shadow Step or Infiltrator Strike. The behavior I’ve been witnessing is indicative of legitimate warp hacking.

I want to help identify warp hackers, but the in-game report feature provides no such option. Are you kidding me? Why is there no in-game option for reporting hackers!? This is so kittening frustrating! Recently, I’ve been seeing them more and more in WvW. Couldn’t an option be added to the report feature concerning hackers?

I currently report hackers as “Scamming” and “Botting”, and I’m certain that hundreds of other players are as well. Does this help identify them? Is it not more convenient for players to have a separate category for hackers, so that we do not dubiously combine them into other categories? Every mmo I’ve played prior to GW2 has always included the ability to report hackers in-game. Please provide and justify the reason(s) for not including an in-game option to report hackers.

1. Reintroduce Orbs of Power, but swap the effects with the Outmanned buff. The orbs were fun and being the runner felt awesome. Please bring it back.

2. Disable breakout events for t1 and t2 matchups or for home BLs. It feels out of place and somewhat exploited.

3. Shorten the length of enemy invader names so they are less easy to see. If enemy or myself are hiding behind sizable rock, I can still see a yacht sized text like SANCTUM OF RALL INVADER stretched across the screen. How about SoR Invader or just SoR?

I’m under the impression that I have not conveyed my opinion well enough. I love the idea of breakout events and what they are trying to do. It’s just a little rough around the edges. Those who view breakout events as a terrible idea, or that they are super amazing, are both wrong. They lean slightly more to the negative side from my perspective in tier 2 WvW play.

If you cannot understand the reason why breakouts discourage invaders from attacking one another, that’s Ok. However, as a commander, it has entirely removed my desire to move across the ruins and cap out the opposing invader. Not only that, but it is clear that the enemy teams treat it similarly, and they avoid attacking our tower. This perspective is coming from tier 2 WvW. There’s a significant element of tactics that suffers from the breakout event is all I’m saying.

I am pleased to see that most of us believe the breakout events are doing just as much harm as good. It’s not that we want the breakout events removed, just better toned out so they are more balanced. I cannot get over the idea that it discourages the two invaders from attacking one another now. That used to be such an interesting aspect of the map. I hope a dev finds this and understands what I mean.

I don’t believe the Breakout Events need strong changes, unless my suggestions are viewed as strong? I’m not dismissing the Breakout Event. I like the concept, but believe that they’ve done too much to influenced the opposition of the 2 invading teams from attacking each other (with exception to the southern center camp Champion’s, Hero’s, Victor’s). I love the idea of double teaming, but that opportunity should swing in favor of any team that is on the map. Either invader should be able to consider moving across the ruins to the opposing invader’s tower, and not be discouraged by the presence of a Breakout event. It did once before, but no longer. I like the idea, but, in the interest of strategic play, it narrows the options of invading teams.

Personally, I’m ok with the idea that full capping should be discouraged, but I am not ok with the event discouraging attacks between the 2 southern invaders. Having a strong offensive event take the nearest tower is a solution that neglects the original map’s strategic design.

No. My first server was HoD. I did not pick it for any reason other than my friends wanted to go there. I did not participate in WvW until HoD was spawn camped on every map against Blackgate. If I was not able to switch servers, I would have quit Gw2 months ago. Free server transfers are to congregate people like you and me so we can find better populated, dedicated teamwork and players. I suggest you consider transferring to a different server if yours is not performing to your liking. I did not like the idea of leaving my home server, but now that I have, I could not be happier! There is no reason to hold pride onto a server. All servers have the same exact features.

The goal of Breakout Events is to allow players a chance to retaliate against being full capped in any borderland. I believe in its current state, the Breakout Event is doing more than just helping teams escape being full capped.

For one, Breakout Events are quite difficult to fight against, especially if you just capped the tower. Let’s say you’re the green team in your home borderlands, and you finally pushed red team off the map by capping Redlake. Oh crap… blue team is attacking the bay keep! 8 players stay to defend Redlake and the rest head to bay keep. Less than 5 minutes later Redlake is under attack from a Breakout Event. Many run back to Redlake to help reinforce the defense. By the time reinforcements arrive, both the wooden gate and wall are already destroyed! There were 8 people defending the tower with 3 arrow carts and a ballista, but never stood a chance…

What happened? Well, the green defenders at Redlake were incapable of inflicting any damage to the attacker’s siege under their protective bubbles. As a result, the Breakout team destroyed the defensive siege essentially for free. An attack on foot was out of the question, because the Champion hits like a truck on top of infantry damage/conditions. This means that the only counter to Breakout Events are LOTS of infantry. Far more infantry than is worth investing, if it means pulling defenses from elsewhere on the map. This introduces a new problem.

Is attacking the Breakout tower actually worth it? The fact that “no” is the answer, when the enemy has enough to activate the Breakout Event, is enough to consider that Breakout Events may be imbalanced. The Breakout Event discourages teams from full capping against invaders, because investing in a successful attack requires far more supplies and infantry than a Breakout Event.

The Breakout team can simply ignore attacks on their home tower knowing that the option to Breakout is available at virtually any time. They can use this knowledge to cap supply camps which will divide the home team forces across the map. It will ensure the Breakout Event has almost no chance of failure. So far it sounds pretty ugly, but this is not the largest issue of all.

Breakout events discourage the two invading teams from attacking each other. This is the most game breaking difference that Breakout Events have introduced. The two southern teams will avoid attacking one another, because either one has to invest far too much in a successful attack which is easily recapped by a Breakout Event.

That about sums up the impact of Breakout Events, and in my opinion they are too strong. If I had the power to influence the design of Breakout Events, I would only change a few things to help bring better balance:

1. Tone down the duration of the protective bubble. It currently discourages making any defensive siege, because the bubble’s duration is enough to destroy any and all defensive siege located inside the tower.

2. Lower the damage output of the Champion commander. He hits for at least 7k every 1 to 2 seconds against max toughness builds. Throw that into the equation against player focus fire / conditions and you got yourself a serious problem on the ground.

3. Increase the time gap between activating Breakout Events. I’m not sure the exact current time gap, but it feels like less than 10 minutes. A more balanced time gap would be 30 minutes.

I’m interested in your thoughts of Breakout Events. Please refrain from ranting or flaming. Thank you for reading.

As the title suggests, which three-stat gear set best suits a mesmer in a WvW scenario with sword/focus + Greatsword?

As the title implies, I’d like to test the new moa out. Whisper me in game if you’re on TC or CD and we can exchange MoA somewhere.

I was raging when I posted those. I’m almost convinced that it’s an exploit, and I’m going to try and test out whether or not I can do the same on my mesmer tomorrow. If I can, I’ll record it and provide it for both the community and devs. It’s too serious a problem to be ignored. You should have seen it. I’m not trying get the person who did it banned, I just want to how and why it happened. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. In the name of good sportsmanship, I will get to the bottom of it!

That sounds pretty complicated. Now that I’m more calm, I think that she must have used blink to pass through the gate while the gate was swinging. You know how the gate swings when it’s being hit? Well, if you’re using a catapult to hit a gate, sometimes while the gate is swinging the catapult projectile will actually go through the gate. That suggests that other things have a chance to pass through the gate as well. I’m going to test this out tomorrow.

This matchup is definitely great. Forgive me for raging about a TC mesmer coming through our tower gate. While that does indeed suck, it does not change that this matchup is currently very fun, competitive, and dramatic. It’s a pleasure to compete with you all.

I doubt it was a hack. If that were the case, she could have just disappeared again after laying down the first portal inside the tower, but she did not. I actually went after her ,and she slowly walked up the stairs crippled and jumped off the side of the tower. The situation had “exploit” written all over it.

Don’t believe me? Fine. My guess is that it’s an exploit. If I’m right, then it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows about it. I’m just so angry that it happened, I had to find out if anyone has seen or heard of this. I literally watched it happen.

So, I was just in a WvW situation where an enemy mesmer was able to pass through the gate of our tower. She somehow got through the gate, layed a portal, jumped out of the tower, and then there comes 20+ enemy through the portal. The tower was free. I was aiming an arrow cart at the very spot she entered the gate. There is no mistake she passed through the gate somehow.

I want to know. Is there an exploit that allows mesmer to pass through walls maybe with blink? That was some bull kitten.

FISHY STUFF

Just now in TC borderlands, a TC mesmer from [MOON] passed THROUGH the gates of both Bluebriar and Redlake. What the hell is that?

@ Dacromir

That Spite build looks very good. It certainly takes frost and direct damage to a higher level than mine. My only real complaint is that it sacrifices too much condition damage for direct damage. It gives opponents who have max toughness, if not max vitality AND toughness, a far greater advantage than with the build I’ve posted.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not looking at that Spite build with a mindset of, “What can I find that’s wrong with this build?” I’m looking at both the weakness and the strength that it suggests. My overall conclusion is that while it is a very effective build with higher direct damage and condition duration than the build I’ve posted, it sacrifices too much versatility in comparison mainly because it lacks condition damage.

Thanks for posting it. I had to think pretty hard about what it would be like to play with that build. I was trying to incorporate some of its strengths into mine.

@Kuldebar
While it’s true that Spite is probably more effective for offense, there’s a survivability factor that needs to be sacrificed to go Spite instead. It depends on your playstyle. I prefer to use 50% reduced fall damage which is extremely underrated in WvW when properly used. It can be used to bait enemies to follow you so that they suicide or take massive damage. It can allow you to escape from zergs as well. Spite also sacrifices the additional 5% life force on use and effective durations of Spectral Walk and Spectral Armor that come with Spectral Attunement. I suppose you really have to be on top of your game in order to maximize the effectiveness of Spectral Attunement. However, now that I’ve witnessed the difference Spectral Attunement makes in both survivability and mobility, I’m hooked.

Good gracious can you imagine what it will be like with +20-30% more life force hps? I feel pretty powerful as is with DS, and now we’ll be getting more hps in DS? Woooooot! I sure hope it based off of your base hps aka includes vitality in the multiplier.

@Dacromir
I’m very interested in seeing this build you speak of, but unfortunately it says that your link does not exist. There are always sacrifices made in order to transition into a different build, and I’m concerned with what exactly that would be with the one you’ve mentioned. If you can post a different link, I would love to see it.

@Sirge
That build name is quite clever! The build is a bit more spectral than frosty, but it definitely utilizes frost to a high degree.

Hit and run tactics work great. You can rambo from a distance with Spectral Walk, quickly spam all your marks, and then use Spectral Recall to get outta there. Enemies often becomes slightly confused and increasingly cautious. This will most certainly slow them down. Spectral Walk can also be used to run away from battles when you’re low health in order to get out of combat for hps regeneration. Then, you can immediately pop back to the location of battle while regenerating to full hps!

@alanis

FYI- You can switch out the Warhorn for a Focus anytime you’re not in combat.

I’ve edited the post to include a link to a build generator. Thanks for the suggestion, Teknomancer!

@ Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS, I’ve experimented with Spite rather than Curses, and it is truly effective. However, I’ve decided that condition duration is hardly a problem especially with Super Veggie Pizzas on hand. The traits in the Spite tree are ok, but I personally like the extra cond damage and utility that the Curse tree provides. An extra 4 seconds and 5% life force for Spectral Walk from Spectral Attunement is certainly a powerful attribute!

Traits – 0/30/20/0/20

• Curse traits – Toxic Landing (I), Spectral Attunement (X), Lingering Curse (XI). There are so many cliffs in WvW maps, and Toxic Landing allows you to escape many situations down cliffs and can allow you to get around easier. Spectral Attunement is extremely helpful for gaining life force and extends your survivability. Lingering Curse, in combination with pizza type nourishments, will make scepter your best single target dps outside of DS.

• Death Magic traits – Greater Marks (II), Staff Mastery (V). Greater Marks not only makes it easier to hit enemies, but also allows you to hit enemies and siege equipment on hard-to-reach higher grounds such as tower walls and cliff sides. Staff Mastery is going to help regain life force, improve dps, and raise condition uptime.

• Soul Reaping traits – Spectral Mastery (IV), Soul Marks (V). Spectral Mastery is the key to maintaining infinite swiftness with the help of warhorn 5. Soul Marks is the most important necromancer trait in my opinion, because now you have 5 weapon skills that grant life force as opposed to just 1.

This build honestly makes me feel like I’m the most powerful profession in WvW. I can 1v1 almost anyone, and in large groups I’m doing very high damage with Epidemic and incredible utility with frost, high ground marks, and damage absorption. Thanks for reading and feel free to ask questions!

I’m not sure why this shows as a Bad Link for me, but if you encounter the same problem copy paste it into the URL and it should work. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNBmWDbkRLcvdTbjfPBIp45rjeIsyJTpAe2B;TEBgyyuEcJ5S1liLKhM/I+xWkTIZRrKGkittenYDxrCA

Many of my friends have requested I share my Necromancer build so I’ll describe and explain it here. I’ve got 600+ hours on my necromancer. Let’s get to it!

Stats, Runes, and Sigils

• Power / Vitality / Condition Damage. Power isn’t too important, but it does help. Power will improve your DS damage and mark damage, and it helps take down siege structures, not to mention kill enemies faster. Vitality, on the other hand, is the most important stat for necromancers, because it increases your hps both in and out of DS greatly improving your survivability.

• x2 Rune of Lyssa (10% cond duration), x2 Rune of Grenth (20% frost duration), x2 Rune of Ice (20% frost duration). Hit an enemy with Staff 3, Focus 5, and/or DS 2 to accumulate a high frost duration on your target. Then, if he’s got friendlies nearby, hit him with epidemic. You’ll have 6+ targets frozen for a duration that can exceed 10s. Thieves are one of necromancers’ greatest threats, but frost is one of thieves’ greatest threats. Over 50% of the thieves that jump me immediately regret their decision to engage me. If they’re frozen, it will be difficult for them to escape and maximize their dps.

• Sigil of Force (5% damage) for Staff; Sigil of Earth (60% bleed on critical) for Scepter; Sigil of Corruption (Every kill stacks condition damage) for Warhorn. Sigils are less important than runes, so you can choose whichever ones suit you best. I choose Sigil of Force for increased damage especially for DS skills and Sigil of Earth on scepter for improved single target dps. Sigil of Corruption for the warhorn is going to significantly improve both your single target and group dps. The 10% freeze duration sigil is another good choice to put on a ocus.

Weapons and Skills

• Staff and Scepter/Warhorn. The staff will prove to be the strongest necromancer weapon by far with the trait setup below. As for the other weapons, you may use an axe if you wish, but in my opinion neither the axe or dagger compare to the scepter simply because of their ranges. Maximizing your range, especially on melee professions, is extremely important for survival. The warhorn is mainly for maintaining swiftness with Spectral Walk. You can swap out to a focus if you feel the extra swiftness isn’t necessary for your situation.

• Consume Conditions – It’s got a low cooldown, and being able to both heal yourself and remove conditions with one skill puts the necromancer in the category of “Hard to Kill.” Removing frost, cripple, vulnerability, weakness, bleed, and burning all at the same time while healing yourself should be a no-brainer.

• Spectral Walk – With the traits below, Spectral Walk and Warhorn 5 will grant you infinite swiftness. The traits will also grant Spectral Walk life force on use and a longer time to use Spectral Recall. This is great for running supplies, escaping, and utilizing rambo style distractions.

• Epidemic – Epidemic is extremely powerful in WvW and spreading 10+ seconds of frost to 5 more enemies is incredible.

• Spectral Armor – With the traits, Spectral Armor is granting life force on use, faster cooldown, and longer duration of life force absorb. There will always be a time in WvW when multiple enemies will try to focus you down. Hopefully you’ll be in DS when that happens. When you’re about to drop out of DS, spam that Spectral Armor so that it’s used immediately when DS wears off. You’ll often regain 100% life force allowing you to reenter DS again and absorb a huge chunk of damage. It can buy you enough time to escape and give friendlies a chance to help you.

• Plague – It’s an instant cast stability with incredible buff to stats, most notably the defensive stats (Vitality, Toughness, Armor). When Spectral Armor is on cooldown, DS cooldown is too long to reactivate, or you see an opportunity to tank a group of enemies, pop this baby and use area blind. You’ll become incredibly difficult to kill.

“Necros have so many viable builds!”

1. Trident 1 cannot be obstructed. Find an enemy, hide behind a wall or rock, spam away!

2. You can pop DS to absorb fall damage. However if you take enough damage to remove deathshroud, you’ll take full damage on your main hps.

3. If you trait Spectral Mastery (IV under Soul Reaping) you can keep infinite swiftness by spamming Spectral Walk and warhorn 5.

4. Super Veggie Pizza

5. Kill critters to gain life force

6. Switch to staff when in DS. You’ll do more damage.

The best solution is to have bosses drop tokens, which is what they’re considering. Give the player a better reason to fight him, then they’ll fight him.

Source – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/4-hours-of-Arah-EM-and-no-shards/first#post396424

(Scroll up the post, for some reason the link throws you in the middle)

phooka.4295:

- You don’t need 6 pieces from the same dungeon unless you’re keen on the runes.
- If it’s “universal tokens” you want all you get is “universal dungeon skin #1 – #8”.
I don’t expect to have everything handed to me as a reward for exactly what i’m willing to do anyway.

As a Dungeon Master, I can assure you that a diminished universal token (DUT) would be quite opposite of that. Try to imagine doing Arah once for 60 tokens, and then spending those 60 tokens on 20 DUTs that you transfer into 20 TA tokens. That’s not exactly a good trade-off. In many situations, you’d be making dungeon tokens worth less. Nothing would be “handed to you as a reward” for doing dungeons outside your desired dungeon.

I’m not the kind of player to turn down a dungeon, even if that dungeon has nothing I want. I met a lot of good players that I added as friends while doing dungeons, but consequently removed them all because bringing together a group of them was impractical due to their individual gear goals. I’ve also got 1000+ tokens from dungeons that I have no use for.

Even if we can’t agree on DUTs, we must at least agree that there is a flaw with the system that HIGHLY discourages grouping with friends. I just think that a partial DUT system would greatly improve that.

Jaha: “Mike, let’s do some dungeons mang!”

Mike: “Alright. Let’s do CoF I want a few of those weapons.”

Jaha: “I’m trying to get weapons too, but there’s nothing I want from CoF. Do you want anything from Arah?”

Mike: “Nah, I got what I want from Arah. How about CoE?”

Jaha: “Nope…”

Mike: “Hmm…”

Jaha: “Arright, well kitten.”

A moment of sadness occurs…

Mike: “Uh, wanna play Battlefield 3?”

Jaha: “Yup. Let’s go!”

The End