Guild Wars 2

Heh, you can’t choose to not be in wells when you get immobilized, crippled or dazed or chilled or whatever else and then ran over by a flesh golem.

A good necro won’t use well of darkness until you actually attack him. Most will drop offensive wells, you run away, he starts capping, you run back in, well of darkness, have fun with the blind.

Necros are an amazing 1v1 class. The only better duelist is a mesmer.

The worst animation we have is the warhorn daze. It does not help you at all with trying to use the skill. I’ve only realised how big and how useful that skill is after a ton of trial and error.

Read and ye shall find!

These things have been said.

I’d make life siphon an AE nuke like signet of the locust and change signet of the locust active to swiftness + stability + something.

I’d make the basic attack hit 3 front cone targets like most other melee attacks in GW2.

I love all the dark pact suggestions. It could really use some more flavour.

I’d just like to say that the warhorn gets a bad rap. The AE daze and damage + cripple + lifeforce gain + swiftness is actually really underestimated. The graphic on the cone REALLY needs to be changed to show its actual size.

Swarm of locusts is a totally baller skill. The damage is good, the lifeforce gain is crazy and the cripple + swiftness is perfect for staying on an enemy in melee range.

I do use focus too and I am trying to work in more dagger, but once you get good with that warhorn daze it’s tough to play without it.

definitely a L2P issue.

I play a power/toughness/precision/vit well build with mostly dagger + warhorn and I have no problems in 1v1s ever in WvW. I use to have trouble with mesmers and thieves but I dominate pretty much anything now.

Necros have some problems with traits and bugged abilities and some very dumb design decisions but we are one of the 1v1 kings.

Necros, IMO are one of the best WvW classes in the game.

Go power, precision, toughness gear with some power toughness vitality on 3-5 pieces.

Go 30 spite, 20 curse, 20 blood. You need ground targetted wells and reduced well CD. Use a dagger + warhorn and a staff.

Practice enough and you will both be a 1v1 (2v1 even) monster (especially if human and you have hounds of balthazaar) and still be very good in large fights with staff + GT wells. Run well of suffer, well of corruption and spectral walk. Once you have practice you’ll learn when to switch to different skills in different situations.

PROTIP: Use well of corruption while running away to turn the switness boons of people chasing you into cripples!

Not going to make me take wells or spectral walk off my bar for WvW.

I can definitely see uses for it in sPvP though as using it + wells when a melee class comes for you will be devastating.

The culture has changed in the way MMORPGs are played since WoW showed up on the scene. People play more now, rush for endgame faster and generally try to finish all the content as fast as possible. The WoW release wasn’t like that at all.

When WoW came out people played a lot. A few people rushed to 60 but I was in the top 5% (first 60s) on my server and I took almost a month. Playing a lot when WoW came out is NOT the same a what people do now. Now people often take time off work for MMO releases and spend a CRAZY amount of time playing these games. When WoW was released I played 8+ hours a day and that was insane. Compared to today’s hardcore that is peanuts. 12-16 hour gaming days are the norm for the hardcore.

Not only do people play more but they also rush for endgame and try to bypass content to get there as fast as possible. How many people were escorting Dolyaks for exp? Dozens per zone per server. How many people grinded mobs to level as fast as possible when WoW was released? (yes pure grinding was faster than questing believe it or not) Hardly any at all. Even when the first 60 appeared (and told everyone grinding was faster) people STILL didn’t go to grinding for levels. These days it would have been a full on switch from questing to grinding and people being called noobs for doing quests.

These days people spend 16 hour days gobbling up content and finding the fastest way to finish everything possible. The drop-off in players is un-avoidable as it is simply impossible to create enough content to keep those players happy.

What I think people miss about GW2 (and is causing the sky-is-falling posts) is that people can comeback or play casually after the initial crazy push and also that overflow mechanics make the need for new servers much smaller than with a traditional MMO.

WoW only needed as many servers as it had from 6pm to 12am EST. There was a 6 hour window when stuff was jam packed (and lag was terrible) and 18 hours of moderate to low populations.

GW2 with it’s overflow mechanics can handle the crazy primetime while not leaving servers deserted the rest of the time. This is what confuses people. Servers are not added because they are not needed for performance. Modern MMO releases have HUGE declines in playtime after release because people stop being on MMO vacation and have to go back to work/school.

Arenanet have done a great job to jam pack servers to the gills so that modern player tendancies will not impact the population in a negative fashion so you can get groups and play PvP/PvE easily even after the initial rush of players dies down. The lack of monthly fee means that there should be a steady flow of people coming back while other people go play something else.

TLDR: overflow is the reason more servers haven’t been added.

Jumping on a cannon or arrow cart is by far the best way to rack up kills. If you have a group of people to play with, a team coordinating cannon fire is absolutely devestating and the badges will positively flow.

Organise alarm clock raids guys. This is what people did in DAoC. The enemy has held SMC all week? Organise a few guilds to get up at 4am or 5am with a bunch of golems, sneak over to it (IE avoid taking any other objectives) and bull rush it with an insane amount of siege when the enemy population is lower than primetime.

Then roll in the karma and experience when the enemy tries to take it back.

There are very few servers that have a queue at night and I’m betting this would work in most matchups (it certainly would against my server, Fort Aspenwood) and would cause all the crazy upgrades to disappear making it much less of a rock during primetime.

This, however, takes organisation and a willingness to go to bed early in order to wake up early and play before work instead of after. It was a semi-regular occurence in DAoC (even had alarm clock defenses when intel got leaked) and is part of a persistent PvP world.

It’s still early days yet. People will figure it out and matchmaking will get better. An alarm clock zerg can make an absolute ton of exp and karma.

Malas.9425:

Apotheosis.3786:

Malas.9425:

Rizzy.8293:

Um… we call it vitality
If you want HP and defence try going for Carrion gear.

And stack your traits on vitality and toughness lines.

I was just trying to put things in perspective to WoW, and yes I know it is Vit. Just seems no one has it lol.

Some people want to play the glass cannon role. The game kinda forces you to play like everyone else though.

Glass cannon works if you can dodge everything lol. You see Anet wanted YOU to make the choices of how much of each stat you have, I view pure class cannon builds as PvP builds for the simple fact that you are going to get hit in a dungeon.

Heh, I fight lots of people with glass cannon builds in WvW and they get destroyed. Glass cannon is ok if you’re sitting in a keep but in an open field fight you’ll lose pretty bad most of the time.

Thieves and to a lesser extent mesmers are the only ones who can pull it off very well because they have a multitude of escapes.

This is my necro.

Except that the damage you lose for stacking vulnerability is far more that the damage gained from stacking vulnerability.

If the damage gets any higher I’m pretty sure we’ll be OP. Considering the only classes you compare to are warriors and thieves (the 2 best burst classes, and my guess is they’ll be nerfed) I think we’ll be fine. Mesmers are the only other class that can give me trouble but that’s just because they’re awesome duelists, which I don’t have a problem with give their relative lack of AoE.

I tried some sPvP today with a build and gear close to my WvW build and did very well once I got use to the flesh golem. I managed a 270 score on one map and was top score 3 out of 5 games. tPvP I can’t talk about but with only 5 players per side there’s always going to be certain classes that aren’t wanted. I personally think wells are so stupidly strong that you’ll start seeing more power builds out there.

The problems for power necros are: staff auto is way too slow, axe is 100% useless and some traits are bugged or bad.

The problems for condition necros or minion necros are actually much bigger. The biggest thing IMO for condition necros is DS is horrible for them. Lifeblast should get a bleed added to it from the curse line. That would be a good start.

I’m just worried about power builds getting buffed too much and then nerfed into oblivion afterward. I shouldn’t have started playing sPvP though, gonna take away from all my WvW time….

Axe is useless, completely useless.

Stop playing with conditions. GT wells with a power build is where it’s at in WvW.

Grab the karma and invader gear from WvW (power, toughness, vitality) add a power + precision rune set (I went with “of the pack”) and run GT wells and you’ll have tons of fun and will be impossible to insta-gib. The only thing that can really kill a necro easily is warrior or thief burst specs. If you survive the burst you’ll beat them 100% of the time.

Seriously, my girl just wants to feel like part of the team. WTB guild logo lower back tattoo.

This is my favourite MMO since DAoC. WAR almost got it right but just screwed up with city sieges, a bad gear grinding system and bugs and OP/UP abilities that persisted for months.

WvW is a blast (I REALLY hope they expand what you can do and make every borderlands map different) and I hope to start doing some dungeons soon.

I spend almost every moment I have in game in WvW though. I really hope they fix the queue system and make all loot in WvW auto-loot.

DAoC was a game that had much smaller rewards at endgame than most though. I personally enjoy that but I know a lot of people won’t.

Daggers do by far (like double anything axe does) the most damage of any of our skills in the game. If you aren’t using it with power/crit/crit damage you are seriously missing out.

A guy in my guild rolled a necro from a ranger because of what he saw me do in WvW.

We have problems (tons of bad/bugged traits and condition builds are a trap because they suck with DS) but necromancers are very powerful when played well.

You really don’t know what you’re talking about. The only warrior that kills me is a hundred blades lolwarrior when I’m not paying attention.

I don’t think you realise how much damage dagger and lifeblast put out against people who go for insta-gib builds or how much survivability you have compared to the damage you put out.

Every situation you pose is easily countered by good DS use and dodging. This is where necros have a huge advantage, our highest DPS attack has no CD. Dagger 1 does probably the most single target auto-attack damage in the game.

If you think a guardian can ignore a power necro you are sorely mistaken. Well of corruption strips them of all thier buffs and the vulnerability you stack will make them hurt. They cannot do much to hurt you back unless they spec for damage in which case you will destroy them quickly.

People are quick to trash power builds when they haven’t played one extensively. A person in my guild switched from ranger to necro just because of what he saw me doing in WvW. He is extremely happy about his switch.

If you make a power build and don’t go 30 spite for +20% damage when the target is under 50% health you’re an idiot. Casting spinal shivers on targets when they hit 25% health makes a kill pretty much guaranteed.

Pure power + crit builds don’t work in PvP as you need toughness and vitality. We scale incredibly well with toughness because of DS and our high base HP. Use that to your advantage.

Dagger + focus is your main weapon set. Generally a staff 2ndary because marks are too good to pass up and the main attack does OK damage with a power build. Axe is BY FAR our worst weapon, avoid it at all costs.

Well of Suffering and well of corruption do big damage in a power build. If a melee character wants to fight you in either well you will win.

The key is using dodge and DS to avoid the crazy burst skills out there. If you dodge the initial burst you will win any fight.

All I’ll say that is if you think power builds are bad you need to learn to play. Necro power builds are not glass cannon builds. You still need some toughness and vitality.

With my current necro in WvW I am dominating. The only classes that give me trouble are mesmers and the occasional thief or warrior. As I get better using DS and dodging though, these fights are becoming easier and easier.

I use a power + wells build using mainly dagger + focus (warhorn swap for swiftness when travelling around) and a staff. Dagger + focus is the best at catching runners and the vulnerability from #4 really ups your damage. With a well of suffering you can easily have people at 12-18+ stacks of vulnerability.

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/1169-power-wels

With such a huge number of people running glass cannon builds with only 2000 power I regularly hit crits of 2000-2500 on my third dagger strike. My lifeblast regularly crits for over 3k when my lifeforce is high. Hounds of Balthazaar AE also crits for over 3k. Since I have much more toughness and HP (over 30k when we hold 3 orbs) than most people I have no problems killing them.

Now WvW is a different beast than sPvP but I imagine this build could work there as well. I would probably run with flesh golem instead of hounds for the awesome charge ability. Also GT wells could probably be swapped out or curses avoided alltogether and points put into soul reaping.

My stats are ~2k power, ~1600 precision, ~1300 toughness, ~1500 vitality, 10% crit damage. I use runes of the pack and sigils of force. If I could I’d up my toughness and drop my vitality a bit. We scale really well with toughness because of our high vitality and deathshroud.

Now as far as using DS properly, it is both an offensive and defensive tool when you play a power build. For offense, life transfer and lifeblast both hit very hard and it can be used as a way to dive into a zerg and put down crazy AE (wells + hounds + life transfer) and absorb any burst punishment. In smaller skirmishes you can use it to kite while lifeblasting for big damage. When you get good with it you can use the #2 to chase, swapping out of DS while it travels and appearing on your foe with daggers ready to blow them up.

DS is a very good tool when you’re a power build and very bad when you’re not. I personally think condition builds on a necro need some serious love because of this as our base mechanic doesn’t work for them.

If power builds get a buff (which it seems they might) I can tell you 100% right now necromancers who know how to play a power build will be OP. Even now I feel on the verge of it. sPvP they don’t shine as much because you don’t have sieges or zergs to bust but I think that people just are trying to go glass cannon and/or aren’t very good at dodging and using DS to escape damage yet.

Yeah the fights are decently balanced when I play (NA primetime) but the queues are just so stupid now. I got DC’d last night at around 9pm and didn’t get to play WvW again. I was queued for over 2 hours for a borderland as were 2 other guildmates.

Let’s just say this combined with auto-loot in WvW would make the game much less frustrating.

/signed

travosaga.6089:

Crystal Desert seems to be pretty nice. Middle ranked server with 5-10 minute queue times. WvW scores remained fairly even throughout the weekend but I haven’t been able to see if some destructive overnight force managed to ruin everything for everybody yet.

Are the queue time like that even NA primetime? I know CD has a good overnight crew.

Seriously. I logged onto to Fort Aspenwood briefly this morning and it had a queue for EB at 7:30 AM. There has never been a queue at that time of day on a weekday EVER on this server.

Why, do you ask? Well, we are demolishing Sorrow’s Furnace and Sanctum of Rall because we have an OK night pop and they have nothing.

Unfortunately the nice 15-30 minute queus for WvW that we had on Friday are now taking hours. My guild already moved to FA from JQ. Clearly there have been a ton of transfers to FA over the weekend simply because we’re winning and it’s now destroyed the possibility of my guild being able to play together at all in WvW.

Are there any balanced WvW fights out there with short queues or have they all been wrecked by bandwagon transfers?

I’m doing very well in WvW with a dagger/focus/warhorn + staff necro going 30 spite, 20 curses and 20 blood with both well traits.

The only thing that kills me 1v1 is a 100 blades warrior that catches me off-guard. My dagger’s 3rd hit crits regularly for 2k+ (1 chain hits 3-5k) and my lifeblast can crit for over 3k. I can drop GT wells + hounds of balthazaar + life transfer and put out an insane amount of AE on a door.

The key is the WvW gear is actually really good for necros. Get precision and crit damage on runes but for main stats you want power, toughness and vitality.

With so many people running glass cannon builds a durable necro will win unless you’re not paying attention.

I haven’t played much sPvP yet though so I won’t comment.

Condition damage is a trap on a necro IMO though. The highest damage option is by far the dagger. Nothing else is even close. For AE the best option is staff and wells which power is also better for IMO.

The bleeds were nerfed too much. Until that gets changed I really suggest people run a power build.

Wells are fine. They just need to make them ground targetted by default. That’s as much a necro trait issue as a well issue though.

They are incredibly powerful in WvW. Add some power and precision and the AE damage for clearing towers and gates is insane.

Daggers require a power/percision build to be worthwhile. The auto-attack does very good damage. With extremely mediocre gear in WvW (1900 power) I often crit on the 3rd attack for over 1500.

Melee necro is not easy to play but very rewarding when you figure it out.