Guild Wars 2

I dropped those ten points when I dropped Deathly Invigoration, there’s nothing worth having after Life Transfer’s heal and the Well cooldown reduction.

Chilling Darkness works just fine on your blind circle, even if it has no effect on Plague. It’s very good for pushing and keeping foes in your buddies’ AoE circles – as well as having more attacks miss you. I recommend trying it.

In my opinion all siphoning and that mark damage box are nonfactor traits.

If you actually WvW on our server, you’ll notice when our WvW guilds are active in the evening that we always beat the other servers by a long way. However, late at night and during the day we lose out because we simply don’t have the people in WvW. We have the population, but they don’t join the WvW zones. So when someone asks for people with alternative play times to help us, it’s not actually a bad idea.

The general view from roleplayers is that pvpers are all pre-teen griefers and elitist, yes? It’s worth considering that many roleplayers come across as obnoxious and greedy as they try to claim a server all for themselves – despite Anet saying all servers are for all playstyles. Not to mention taking offense at the attitude roleplayers always show us.

Anyway, I assume you’re a troll, but my points remain valid. Sharing is caring, even with servers.

And moving on, roll on night cappers and day cappers for Piken Square.

Recently some of you may have heard rumours that we’re secretly funded by the mafia. I’d like to take this opportunity to deny everything.

P.S. Recruitment continues.

Mhm, don’t take Deathly Invigoration – then you’re set. I dropped it on my support build a long time ago.

Well of Power converts them one at a time once per second for five seconds.

I’m never standing still. Practice moving and placing ground targets and you’ll understand. Practice not just relying on your auto attack to stack conditions. Get to level 80 or go to the Heart of the Mists – don’t judge Necro by low level, under traited and undergeared gameplay.

2x Krait/Affli/Lyssa and 3x Krait/Affli are fairly even in my opinion. Personally I’ve opted for 3 and 3, which will benefit you more if you have a lot of bleeders around pushing the 25 stacks, whilst 2/2/2 is potentially better for longer fights, where you are the only bleed stacker. Either way, the difference is minimal.

Toughness/Prec/Condition damage is far better, but harder to get. Carrion stats will do to begin with.

With Curses you get a 66% chance to apply bleeding when you crit, and with a sigil of Earth another 33% chance for another extra bleed from all attacks that crit. That’s why you take Prec gear.

Toughness beats Vitality every time, simply because Toughness provides more survivability against normal damage whilst Vitality protects you more from condition damage which ignores armour. Necromancer starts with high base health and you should have 2-3 ways to remove conditions from yourself.

I’d say your spec is okay, but it’s nothing special. Glance over the signets and the Spite tree and see what you can come up with.

I’d just like to voice that it’s my opinion that no Necromancer using Cleric’s gear has decent DPS.

However, kKagari, I strongly disagree. Necromancer has some of the best healing for others, outside of Guardian’s elite and Blast spamming Water fields. Life Transfer, Mark of Blood and Well of Blood are nice to have and you’d lose a lot by not having them. The second issue is what you claim we should focus on removing conditions and applying boons – we’re very limited in boons and our condition removals arn’t anything special.

And to then agree with Sundial, pure healing is a waste. You need to blind them, you need to make good use of your combo fields and finishers (area weakness or area retaliation in particular), you have an area daze if you take the warhorn, fears, snares and much more. The best kind of support Necro, the one we play, will tank, heal and debuff all at once.

Some half decent builds here, but some flaws. Starting with the OP, the 15pt box in Spite and 25pt box in Curses are not worth it, go get something good instead. Your skills on the toolbar are fine.

The Axe will grant more Vulnerability than giving up a utility for a Well and have no downtime, keep it – it also has half decent range, enough to keep you out of melee. Standing in melee range of many enemies and bosses is suicide. However, the 600 range attacks still count as melee and so they’re not reflected or blocked by any projectile affecting abilities and walls.

Sundial has good input, even if I disagree with much of it as well. One key part he does have right however, that I’ve yet to see anyone other than myself do for a support spec, is pour 30pts into Death Magic. My advice is to take all the same boxes as he in that line.

Finally, I find Sigil of Water’s proc to be very, very low and uncommon as well. I’ve changed to Sigil of Life on my staff and second set’s mainhand, and Sigil of Energy on my second set’s offhand. Twenty five stacks of the Life sigil, which you should nearly always have up unless you manage to die a lot in this tanky spec, means 250+ healing power. That’s tasty – if you keep 30pts in Blood Magic, something I’ve not done, it will mean 800+ heal ticks on Well of Blood and 340ish ticks on your regen. The other sigil gives you an extra dodge on weapon swap.

This is all assuming you’re in full exotic Cleric’s gear.

All professions remain welcome, although in particular we’re looking for another active Mesmer with some good communication.

We also killed Stonemist.

Yes, it sucks. Since they fixed AoEs to steal life, I’ve noticed my staff skills healing enemies for ticks of 25. And all I have is the 15pt box in Blood that I can’t skip.

New servers matched up, new victims. And also, new upgrades.

I agree with most of Berullos’ link and post.

Be aware that your staff’s marks are only going to go off if an enemy is in them, but to get any positive bonus from them (e.g. support) you and your team will need to be in it too. This leads to me leading the charge and fighting up close despite 1,200 range, making sure I have perma regen, get all my conditions cured with the 4 skill (Putrid Mark) and further snare placement (Chillblains+traited Well of Darkness). You ought to be a great tank, and can pop Plague as needed for 40k+ health and insane Blind spam to help the group.

What I’d suggest is you drop any falling damage traits, because quite frankly, you don’t need them if you actually look before you leap. Take the previously mentioned trait that makes Well of Darkness snare (Chill) as well as Blind – it’s called Chilling Darkness, and makes all your Blinds add a Chill except for Plague’s.

Your heal circle, Well of Blood, should be healing in 7-8k in total with proper healer gear. Kind of a big deal. Life Transfer, traited with Transfusion, will be a large AoE heal with several 292 ticks to heal for about 2600. That and all your regen, and your two condition cures (Putrid Mark, Well of Power) will make up the majority of your direct support to allies.

Otherwise you have the blind circle (Well of Darkness) and the Plague elites blind spam on the 2 key (Plague of Darkness), to lower the damage your friends take. As I mentioned at the beginning, your AoE snares can make a big difference too with poison (heal debuff) and chill (snare+ability recharge reduction) on Chillblains (staff 3).

The final bit I’ll add is combo fields. Your Staff has a Poison field. Your Well of Blood has a Light field. Your other Wells have a Dark field. Your allies can trigger them, sure, and so can you. The staff has all your finishers – projectile and blast. Projectile finishers don’t matter much, especially with these fields, but the blast finishers on Putrid Mark are tasty. Putrid Mark or another blast finisher triggered in your Dark field wells means area Blindness, but I don’t recommend it for that. The two ways I use my blast finisher is in Well of Blood’s Light field, for area Retaliation (damage reflects back at the enemy off of people buffed by it) or by dropping in Chillblains for a poison field, then putting a blast finisher strait in it for an AoE Weakness condition.

Have fun.

Yes, Support Necro can be groovy in WvW. I’ve little time so I cannot yet go into details, but you can see it in action here – http://www.youtube.com/user/RhelexKarther

We’ve had a few new Mesmers join the team, but we’re still after some damage and support toons. Get in touch.

Although recruitment remains open for everyone, we’re short of an active Mesmer and a couple of AoE DPS professions. Shoot me a tell if you can fill either role.

Riz, you just spam the key whilst moving forward until it goes with fast casting

I use it. Once I knew how big my AoEs were it sped things up considerably.

We’ve nearly achieved the numbers we’ve been aiming for, with 10+ people in WvW per night. Recruitment remains open for now but will be closed in the near future once we achieve a more stable core.

If you want to get in on the action give me a shout.

Daecollo.9578:

Spectre:
1. a ghost; phantom; apparition
2. a mental image of something unpleasant or menacing: the spectre of redundancy

I don’t think a normal necromancer could just eat his own conditions and gain health, but one who learns spectral magic could.

That is one of the most roleplay thing I’ve read in a while. Unfortunately, game mechanics take priority over roleplay.

There are already plenty of Spectral skills and Consume Conditions is great as it is.

Karandor.4201:

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.

That’s a good point, I too have noticed this 600 range large CoE looks as if it only hits a small space in melee range. Very misleading.

Hey guys, I’ve been considering rolling an Engineer for a little while.

The problem I have is that, from previous attempts, I feel Engineer is very lacking in damage. It’s a damage dealer I really need.

I am a pure WvW player, so I need to know if Engineer can put out some serious numbers at max level. Runes and exotics are no issue, they’ll be maxed.

In WvW the PvP always comes in a group. This means anything from fighting five players to fighting thirty.

Can I do real damage against a small number, and make the difference in a 5 vs 5?

Can I blast an enemy zerg and help push them back?

Any help on this matter will be really appreciated. I need to know, ofcourse, if it will be viable and furthermore on roughly how it can be viable – gear, skills, traits. It’s all good for me.

Cheers.

Ah right, well. Another bug for another fix – atleast this one isn’t harmful unlike our other hundred.

I would be fine with ears showing if they didn’t stand up in combat, which looks absolutely ridiculous.

In short yes, let’s hide our ears!

Actually, Chillblains -is- .25 instead of .75 – maybe this was always there to help us as it’s a snare circle? Or maybe they really did buff it.

Either way, I’m not complaining.

The idea of keeping Marks and Wells as they are for the confusion has occurred to me, but in all honesty I don’t think that should happen. Every other profession has very distinctive abilities.

Identical abilities can also be harmful.

An example of it being harmful is the fact that two of our Marks and two of our Wells help allies. Our allies don’t actually know which circles they should be stepping into and which they don’t need to.

The point is, Staff #1 is shared by about five abilities. The shadow-scythe on the staff is easily one of Necro’s best looking graphics, but the claw that it shoots is far too overused for the profession. I think another good looking projectile, if the staff one ever gets changed, could be just as rp too?

Cheers, much appreciated everyone.

Crows and ravens are a fitting idea. I’d suggest an ability where they swoop down and attack a foe, but Ranger has it already.

A pity. We could have called the ability A Murder Of Crows. Never would the term have been so literal.

Thanks Artaz and Kaiem, I’ll pass the gear info on.

Lyonell, for WvW I’m looking for some more AoE based gear. Do you, or anyone else recommend anything for that other than the classic Runes of Divinity?

That’s a good point, many are just underwhelming in general.

An example I touched on before is Scepter’s 1 skill. It has no effect on the first and second part of the combo, but even the third part is fairly weak – it’s just a small dark green flash. Since Scepter is the second most popular weapon for Necromancer an update would not go amiss.

It just works with Greater Marks now as far as I can tell, meaning it properly Chills and Poisons in a bigger area.

It’s bothered me for a while, but today it has become especially apparent Necromancer skills are all made up of recycled sounds and graphic effects. Even NPCs have a better deal than us in many ways. It comes across as really, really lazy.

This thread is only intended for the looks and sounds of skills, not bugs or balance.

So has anyone else noticed the extent of this? Are you bothered by it?

I’m hoping some attention to this might do us some favours.

The list that follows is made up of a quick 2 minutes of trying all abilities. Some things are recycled even more, but they were either only for very minor things that I didn’t feel were worth noting or simply couldn’t be bothered to add to the already long list

The list:

Jagged Horrors are just smaller Bone Minions.

Staff’s 1 skill looks identical to Lich Form’s 1 skill, Lich Form’s 4 skill, Spectral Grasp and Death Shroud’s 2 skill.

Staff’s 1 skill shares the exact sound of Focus’s 4.

Lich Form’s 1 skill shares the same sound as Focus’s 5 and, on further research, is shared by every minion summoning and most minion command skills as well as Poison Cloud among other skills.

All the Marks look very, very similar. Some are identical, like the 3 and 5 skill (also shared by the Mark of Revival trait). The 3 and 5 skill are also shared by Lich Form’s 2.

All Wells look very, very similar.

The Well of Power icon on the boon/condition bar, when you’re in it, has the same picture that Well of Blood has on your skillbar. Very confusing.

Scepter’s first and second part of it’s three part #1 skill combo have no effects whatsoever.

Dagger’s 1 skill is in three parts, the third and final part of the combo is shared by Scepter’s 3 skill and Axe’s 3 skill.

Dagger’s 1 skill (final part), Scepter’s 3 skill and Axe’s 3 skill is shared by many undead NPCs, all of the NPC versions have the same graphical effect hit three times one after the other, which also looks far better.

None of Plague Form’s skills show anything happening whatsoever.

….

I also tested Underwater skills and I’m not sure what to make of them. About six or seven of them (out of ten) are recycled Necro sounds, but I believe that the graphics (aside from one) are all fresh. Underwater Deathshroud was the same with repeated sounds but new visible affects and animations.

…

Now, the undead NPCs (Risen and the like) can easily beseen to have some better skills than us. After having a quick look I’ve found many abilities that suit us which we don’t have to use, yet NPCs do. Since NPCs have so many of our abilities, it seems strange to me they have so many unique abilities we’re missing and in their place with have repeats.

NPC names and skills:

Risen Plaguebearers use the previously mentioned effect of Dagger 1 (Necrotic Bite) and Scepter 3 (Feast of Corruption) among other skills. It’s far more distinctive than any of our single biting copy and pastes – their version, with multiple bites, is called Flurry of Bites.

Risen Corrupters have Vapor Blades (and an underwater variant of the ability that shares the name and effect, but has a different colour). Vapor Blades shoots out three greenish magic blades that fly forwards then back to the caster. Necromancer has nothing like it, it looks great.

Risen Corrupters have Cone of Corruption, where they breathe out eerie green flame that does five lots of damage. Necromancer has nothing like it, it looks great.

Risen Preservers have called Water Bolt, firing off a bolt of Necromancer-green water as an attack.

Risen Preservers have a skill called Corrupted Geyser, causing an AoE circle beneath you shooting out corrupted green water.

Risen Presevers have Wave of Corruption, which shoots a large blast wave of corrupted water from him in a PBAoE.

Risen Rotmouths shoot out green orbs that fly up into the air before splashing down on you.

…

Thoughts? Opinions?

I think Focus #4 used to be the ability on Staff’s #1. The Focus skill is called Reaper’s Touch and shoots out a scythe, the Staff skill shoots out a copy paste of Lich’s #1 but forms a scythe upon the staff.

Along with the copy and paste graphics, the sound probably got overlooked and rushed or something of the sort. I don’t mind it so much, there’s hardly ever a situation I’ll ever be spamming it, but I agree that the skill lets the weapon down a lot.

If Spectral Wall blocked or did anything much aside from grant Protection, something I can get on all of my Wells from a single trait box, I might actually consider spending a utility slot on it.

In the other hand, the Well merge idea is no good. The Well of Power is defensive, Well of Corruption offensive. One you drop on yourself, one on the enemy. Charging the enemy to cure your conditions, or letting all the enemy boon to condition convertion go to waste isn’t going to happen.

If anyone has any questions feel free to get in touch either by posting, by private message or ingame in a tell.

Don’t be shy, we only bite gently.

Can anyone else help?

This looks like a troll thread created to stir up the Necro forums, yet why a troll would put his toon in his sig I don’t know. Perhaps I’m mistaken.

In other news, Necromancer has actually had many more bug fixes than most professions, our list of bugs was the first one they looked at and stickied and they have also noted, even before launch (during late beta), that Necromancer needs some love and they are going to keep working on it.

Keep up the good work, Anet.

Alrighty, thanks!

Can anyone else offer some input too?

Hey guys, a guildy of mine is looking to update his gear. We’re a WvW guild so his gear needs to be chosen for that – basically, group PvP in melee range.

We’re thinking Beserker’s or Knight’s, but unsure which. Beserker’s obviously offers more DPS, but will it make him too squishy? Knight’s loses the Crit Damage but has Toughness.

Also, I’d welcome any tips on what tactics, utilities and elites to use in WvW, since my own Warrior experience is very low.

Cheers.

I stand corrected then, thanks Daiva. Either way, Deathly Invigoration is underwhelming.

I think the point is you fear someone about to stomp your bro, then rez your bro. Very doable, although you do may have to chain it with your staff fear in order to pull it off. Also it’s a 20 second cooldown from Death Shroud, or the AoE fear from a astaff is 40 secs (32 with traits). An instant interrupt that works through stuns, or an AoE interrupt, both of which also move them a little, are useful. Surely everyone can see that.

Also in a reply to someone on the first page, I meant exactly what Alanis said after me, I just said it in less words. We might not be the best at one thing such as direct damage, but the other things we bring with our direct damage such as various conditions, makes as as useful as another profession overall.

I disagree with 2 and 3. Or rather, I point out our health does not melt although Guardian’s are far tankier to the point of being overpowered, which is somethnig I’m glad to avoid being. And just because we’re not the best at something does not make us not as useful. The phrase goes along the lines of not putting all of your eggs into one basket.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RhelexKarther/feed?filter=2

merch.1026:

would you consider that a good thing karther I would like to get both condition and support necros thoughts on DS

I consider it a bad thing, Merch. I stack healing power in all my gear. Armour, jewellery, backpack, weapons. The fact that two Necromancer traits get no boost from them is a bit of a slap in the face.

The Life Transfer trait that makes it an AoE heal is still worth it because all the ticks combined mean it heals roughly 2600 in a 600 range. However… Guardians that stack healing power get a 3k heal from their staff that also gives 12 might with exactly half the cooldown. But then, there’s nothing Necromancer can do better than Guardian except put out conditions.

Otherwise for support, the only other really useful skill is Doom. Someone casting a Finisher on your downed comrade? Unelss they have Stability, the 1 sec fear will interrupt them. I also use it to interrupt other casts such as Meteor Shower and 100 Blades, as well as combining it with the staff fear to guide foes off of cliffs. It’s especially great for jump puzzle griefing.

I use the 1 key for Life Blast sometimes, purely because it’s my best damage ability I have in support spec. I only really use it in 1 vs 1s and then only usually if I’m totally sure to win or if I’m being kited. Overall, there’s no support to come of it – but there’s no support from the 1 skills on my regular weapon sets either, no big deal.

Dark Path, the 2 key, is another matter. I use it for the same reasons as Life Blast but it’s flawed heavily by the fact it takes forever to hit a target and it’s ridiculously easy for enemies to obstruct it partially because of that and the fact it’s not instant. I can’t think of any Thief, Warrior or Guardian gap closers that fail this hard, having played them all. When it does land the Chill is really nice, but it’s a matter of when it does. Again, like Life Blast, no support there.

If you fancy, there’s two vids on my youtube page of me playing Support Necro in WvW. The older one is the better one for displaying the profession and use of Death Shroud, but also worse quality. I really ought to make a new one that combines the better quality with better content – I’ll get around to it at some point: http://www.youtube.com/user/RhelexKarther/feed?filter=2

As a pure support necro, I know it heals for about 725 standard. It’s like Life Transfer’s traited heal in the way it doesn’t actually seem to scale at all with Healing Power.

Good stuff happening in Eternal last night, tonight we’ll be there again to tell the other servers to GTFO . Throw me a tell and I’ll get you involved.

Jason, do you realise that’s just the blank sheet you linked?

Death Shroud skills are fine in general.

1 is probably Necro’s highest ranged direct damage ability, although unfortunately it has little use outside of Power/Crit specs.

The 2 key chills (snare+ability recharge debuff) AND -bleeds- them. Oh snap. Death Shroud sucks for condition Necromancers? Wait, what? There’s two conditions right there on one skill. And it’s a gap closer.

Granted you don’t want to close a gap into an enemy group in WvW or a powerful melee profession (Warr, Thief) for example, but in small scale (sPvP) and one vs ones, as well as PvE, it’s very useful. The bleeding isn’t massive damage, but it’s decent. The Chill however is fantabulous. As in, fantasically fabulous. Stacking conditions you’re going to have say… 8 seconds duration on that Chill. That means eight seconds of them moving at 33% speed instead of 100%. That means eight seconds of their abilities recharging at 33% speed instead of 100%. Tasty.

The 3 skill is a free interrupt you can use whilst stunned/feared/knocked down. Did I mention you don’t even have to be facing your target? And it’s instant. The duration sucks as a fear, but regardless it’s still an extremely useful ability I use all the time.

The 4 skill is not a heal as someone mentioned. Regardless of your spec, it does good AoE damage. It’s one of Necro’s most powerful abilities. Unless you have a crazy high bleed stack going, this will probably do more damage than your conditions whilst you’re channeling it or near enough, while allowing your bleeds to tick too. Take it with a Power/Crit build and it’s really good. Take it with the Transfusion trait box that makes it heal allies and you’ve got a brilliant support ability.

If they need to change anything, they could add a bleed effect onto the 1 skill, but leave it with it’s direct damage too. That way the Power/Crit stackers and Con stackers get decent damage out of it. And both get it buffed too, and after the nerfs I think it does need a general buff.

I’d hate to see all the skills on it change with weapons, I like what we have and constantly use it as it is to great effect.

Ranger recruitment is reopened, so now we’re recruiting all professions again.

Necromancer is good in WvW, there’s a few viable specs. After reading your entire post, Drakor, you come across as new to the game/Necro/WvW. You also list a pro under one of your cons, about healing, then make out like there are no pros at the end of your post. All in all, a new spec may help you a little bit but a new attitude and gaining some experience will help you even more.

I feel you’re expecting too much and may benefit from trying other professions in WvW to compare, and need to practice to become more familliar with Necromancer. Necromancer can be a great help in groups and great in AoE situations. One vs one you won’t be, but that’s really not the point of WvW to begin with.

Keep in mind Necromancer is one of the harder professions to play in this game, whilst Thief among others is easier to get into and better at solo play. You might just be better off playing as a different profession due to your playstyle and preference.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-October-7th-2012

Thank you, Anet.