Guild Wars 2

Ah… I don’t play PvE so I wouldnt know

rogerwilko.6895:

Scepter = slow life force generation, or am I mistaking?

Technically, with Nourishing Rot, you get 5% lifeforce when you remove/corrupt a boon… which makes scepter 1 spamming pretty decent for lifeforce regen >

Can confirm: Scourge is AWESOME

Guys… I had no idea that Dhuumfire would work like this in Scourge. I REALLY hope it’s intended because my god…. the burns are in-sane. Parasitic Contagion… is…. insane….. even in sPvP.

Not only do you constantly burn people around you when you use your F-skills (because shades, including you, use the shade auto attack whenever you use any of your F-skills and this attack counts as F1, so…. you cause AoE burns whenever you use any of your shroud skills)… and your Desert Shroud pulses burns like crazy. I honestly don’t know if it’s intended but it’s… O_O. In sPvP, with Balthazar Runes, Scourge is actually very, very dangerous. I had moments where I popped Desert Shroud + the new Scourge Elite on top of a group of enemies and things just… died, on top of that, Parasitic Contagion heals were just… massive. Sadistic Searing + Demonic Lore, try it

Vitali.5039:

A good thing is that Garish Pillar is istant and will not be possible to interrupt Transfusion effect on Scourge.. right?

Yes

Sigmoid.7082:

Not sure if you guys are intentionally not noticing that the ability is only healing him for 207 HP since that is a) exactly how much the bleed is doing to him and b) exactly the amount that returns him to max health.

Oh snap… I didn’t even think of this. I wish they showed a bit more of how much it heals… but that’s a very good point. If it’s above 200ish health, that will be very good. If it’s 300ish health, that’s easily 2.1k heals. And transfusion scales nicely with healing power too. IF it still scales like it says in the wiki, 1,000 healing power would bring the pulsing heal to around 600 per sec. *drops the mic * sprinkle in some regen in there (now there’s no shroud so we can make full use of regen) and we can get pretty nice heals. With 1k heal power, with transfusion + regen, you’d get close to 850 heals per sec.
Guess we’ll see tomorrow.

Recursivision.2367:

If the healing is only 200 per tick, that means it’s significantly reduced for scourge. While the number of ticks differs between reaper and base necro, the heal value stays the same.

Might be a sign of how difficult it is to balance necro, that even base traits values have to be modified when selecting elite specializations. It’s not something I see happening with other classes.

Yeah this is true… but also consider the fact that now you can get heals from this trait, so in a way it warrants less and slower healing because it gives you sustain which Necro/Reaper don’t have.

Personally, I’m interested to see how Scourge sustain will be tomorrow. Taking Blood Magic (Transfusion + Life From Death) or Parasitic Contagion… all of those seem like they will work well with Scourge, and + Scourge will get heals from allies 24/7 now… so we’ll have to see.

Yes I’ve seen this as well. If you check this time stamp, you’ll see the Necro pulsing with heals every second after using shroud #4 (the fear). It seems to last about 7 seconds? So 7 pulses and each one heals for about 200 health. So basically you get 1.4k health over 7 seconds.
https://youtu.be/ZhBf1Q6gTnY?t=31m57s

So you could get this heal every 15 secs for basically 50% uptime. With Vital Persistence, the fear has a 12 sec cooldown. So you’d have close to 60% uptime on the heal… which is not bad support for allies and yourself. I really hope it stays this way and the pulsing heal wasn’t a bug.

Relwin.7569:

It’s a victory on it’s own as community for so long asked to make it baseline. I actually feel much happier with baseline 25% than trait 50%. I can use other than soul reaping trait line

Exactly. Ok, sure, someone who used to take the old Vital Persistence is still missing the 25% slower shroud degeneration…. BUT now they got 5% faster shroud cooldowns AND 180 Vitality, AND longer Spectral Armour (it now lasts 8 secs). I’d say it really nicely evens out. Not to mention that other Necros who didn’t use Vital Persistence just got a nice, well-needed buff too.

I also wonder how this would be in a Signet build. With Signets of Suffering trait, Signet of Vampirism: Healing when struck has been increased by approximately 50%. So that would bring it around 500 healing when struck, which works while you’re in shroud too. I think this has a lot of potential.
In addition to the above… Spiteful Renewal (heal for 1k, remove 1 condi) now works when you use your healing skill too. So this is another source of sustain we could get. Couple this with Runes of Vampirism or Scavanger…

Have any power Necros even tried the new Lich, because from what I saw, Lich just got lots of AoE lifesteal (700 per sec per target, I think? so roughly 3500 health per second if you hit 5 targets?) and it has a teleport?

@steelheart,
As far as I’m aware, guardians are one trick ponies that always engage with True Shot + Judge’s Intervention or Judge’s Intervention + trap, so I don’t really see how you would have both port available in the exact moment that the Necro uses wurm. Wurm is one of the best survivalbility tools that the Necro has available to it… you just have to be clever with it – it has the potential to completely remove you from the fight and aside from Spectral Walk (which is a lil harder to use), it’s the only Necro skill that can do that.

Both Spectral Walk and Wurm can work very well on a Necro. They are not as easy to use as point – click – teleport, but they can still work (thanks Anet for giving us such straightforward mobility). Nevertheless, they do work if used correctly. With Scourge portal + either wurm or Spectral Walk could be pretty strong (or take all 3 for the lulz).

Still optimistic about Scourge…. but I guess we’ll see when the weekend hits :P

Got it figured out!!! ALL on-shroud skills will trigger off of Desert Shroud skill (our #5 shroud skill). This skill puts you into a shroud (basically an aura that you have, you get Barrier and you pulse out condis and it lasts 6 secs). ALL on-shroud traits will trigger on this skill, and all of the traits that buff you while you’re in shroud (Deathly Perception, Shrouded Removal, Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Matryr) will now work while you’re in this new Shroud form for 6 secs.

Example with Deathly Perception – when you press F5, you’ll be in Sand Shroud for 6 secs. For these 6 secs, you’ll have 50% crit chance. Keep in mind you can still use your weapon skills, utilities…. etc. Does this open up a interesting possibilities for power Necros now?

Example with Unholy Sanctuary – when you press F5, you’ll get the heals for 6 secs. When you’re hit and are about to die, instead of the game putting you into Deathshroud or Reapershroud, you’ll be put into Sand Shroud – you’ll get the barrier and all that AoE.

Rym.1469:

Pretty good analysis Methane. This spec might be a bit tricky to evaluate due to all the Shroud removal and third part of our traits being related to Shroud. I expect the balance pass to come before the Open Beta for elite specs starts on 18th, so it may adress these issues.

I agree that the worst thing about Scourge is its Elite… which is kinda like a different version of Plague. I did see one thing that I found the most interesting – you actually DO enter shroud with ability #5. 20 sec cooldown – Enter Desert Shroud, gaining barrier, etc. So I’m 99% sure that this ability will trigger on-shroud traits, like Drarnor said. So potentially, with Foot in the Grave, this could be a free stun-break and stability since it has no cast time.. and could set us up to use our heal skill without interruption.
But yeah… 20 seconds is pretty nasty. Howeva’ with Vital Persistence, this goes down to 16 seconds, which is not too bad and not TOO far off to what we have now… considering that Necros don’t go into shroud exactly every 10 seconds anyway (you enter shroud, stay in there for 5-10 secs, exit shroud, wait 10 secs, enter shroud again)… so technically, 16 sec cooldown on the new shroud, or even 20 secs aren’t THAT far off to how frequently we enter into it now.

Also, Speed of Shadows reduces shroud cooldown by 30%, so this could reduce this cooldown even more, possibly. IF both traits work like this (which they should, since sand shroud #5 is technically a shroud), then this could bring down the cooldown to something like 11 or 12 seconds – basically same as our normal shroud. On top of that we’d get the AoE pulsing field around us for 6 secs, barrier… etc. so we’re gonna be super annoying for melee attackers. And Foot in the Grave would become a nice low cooldown stunbreak. * fingers crossed *

We will also get some kind of portal that apparently lasts 20 seconds which could actually be pretty nice (it also corrupts boons haha).

ALSO: The trait where we get boons we corrupt – if we corrupt stability, we get 2 stacks of stability for 5 seconds… so we will have an indirect way of having stability.

True, you won’t be able to use the whole shroud to tank anymore, and you can’t use Spectral Armour to help with this, or Locust Swarm.

But, you get Barrier from skill #3 (2.5k) and skill #5 (4.5k). There’s also a trait that makes you gain 2k Barrier if you summon a shade near you. We also don’t know what Barrier will scale off of (healing power? or nothing). Also… Transfusion could possibly heal us now as well (but that means taking Blood Magic… >_> ).

And Parasitic Contagion could work well with Scourge as well, possibly. We also didn’t see all utilities – I’m assuming one of them is a tele.
https://youtu.be/vV4dyXVjQIQ?t=23s

If you notice the effect the Necro has after casting this skill, it seems like the Barrier effect, so it’s likely teleport + Barrier.

Hello fellow Necros!

So…. today we have had a glimpse at Scourge. In short… it has no shroud, but it does have 5 F-skills, and the essential one if F1 which summons… ghosts called “shades” that combo off-of the other shroud skills. These skills are basically new shroud skills that you can use all the time by expending the life-force you generate.

I also love the dynamic Scourge adds to Necro – your shroud skills are affecting areas around you, but your shades as well… so essentially it makes Necros very versatile. You can kite your enemies and set up your shades in the enemy’s path, then use a shroud skill to affect the enemy without even having to face them… as they’re chasing. You can also target enemies which are in 900 range from you, and gives you realllyyy good area control because no one’s gonna wanna be around your shades. Barrier also seems like a very cool way to make up for lack of shroud, and also add a really nice and unique layer of support too. Anyway, I think this spec has a LOT of potential and #stoked

Personally though, I’m really interested in seeing how these traits below will work with the new shroud and how these synergies will play out. For example:

1) Transfusion – Shroud #4 heals allies around you. You don’t get heals because you’re in shroud… but… with sand shroud you’re always in normal form. So I’m guessing this skill will work off-of skill #5. Summon a field that lasts lasts 6s, pulses 7 times and does damage around you and shades (20 sec cooldown). I’m guessing this is where the healing will happen and you will be able to get these heals from transfusion. It pulses 7 times over 6 secs, so not a burst heal, but a nice heal nevertheless for you as a Necro :P …every 14 secs basically.. because it lasts 6 secs. Hopefully this will be the way it works.
2) Dhuumfire – shroud #1 burns enemies. So will this give your shades the ability to burn on their auto attacks? Or will this just cause AoE burns in the area where you summon shades? Either way, it’s an interesting combo for potential Burn Necro: torch and trait which burns targets that you apply torment to? Lots of burning
3) Path of Corruption. Sand shroud #2 converts 2 condi on allies to boons around you, and around your shades (same target cannot be affected twice by this). 5 ssec cooldown. Path of Corruption synergy with this could basically be a huggee. Your shades cover basically the whole battle and this could corrupt 2 boons in a very large area… every 5 secs O_O …. Yes please.
4) Vital Persistence – Maybe shroud skills cost less to cast? Reduced cooldown? Oh my… the synergy with the above traits.
5) Death’s Perception – do your shroud skills naturally have 50% crit chance, including your shades?

Honourable mentions: Weakening Shroud, Rending Shroud, Spiteful Spirit, Shrouded Removal, Beyond the Veil (protection when leaving shroud, minor trait in Death Magic), Unholy Sanctuary, Life From Death (heal allies and revive them a lil bit when exiting shroud), Unholy Martyr, Unyielding Blast, Foot in the Grave. And ofc there’s a few minors here and there…

All of the above traits have the potential to somehow interact with the new shroud. We will just have to wait and see how.

Last thing! I think I saw the Necro teleport in one of the videos… and this may be a Utility skill which we haven’t yet seen (hopefully). So Scourge will potentially have a teleport. Wurm, new teleport = nice mobility. Add in Spectral Walk and the jukes are real

It seems the new elite spec… will make full use of Parasitic Contagion.

@Helly, you’re missing the point here. When do you ever see another class being punished for using their class mechanic? Never. No other class is punished for using shatters, virtues or swapping attunements. Necro? Well… you use your class mechanic and you get no heals. Allowing Parasitic Contagion to work through shroud is not so much a buff, as it is something that should have been there from beginning. Sure, 15% is a lot if it works through shroud, but as others suggested, you can easily lower this number and all of the sudden you have a really good all-around trait. Or better yet, make it so you gain life-force while in normal form and gain heals while in shroud. Why not?

Sigh.. Anet. Hire me.

I was a lil intoxicated when I wrote my post… and this issue has already been discussed to death.

Maybe Sand Shroud will give us heals through DS :^)

I almost do:

How about a flashback?

https://youtu.be/5P0zq737sjA

Hello Anet,

Let’s have a conversation with the Necro community.

Why doesn’t Parasitic Contagion work in Deathshroud?

Honest question, from a balance question. Why isn’t it allowed? Is it coding complications? Is it “OP”?

If it’s OP, why don’t you lower it to 7.5% and let it tick in DS?

Thank you.

Taquero mucho <3

Spectral Wall can be pretty good vs. these condi bads :P

Taltevus.3289:

That’s not counter play. Saying you have to wait by default to take damage…and then oh you messed up continue to take that same damage is not counter play. It’s Broken by design.

What? If you get hit by a few attacks with power and take 10k damage, that’s fine. But if you take a few hits from condi and take 10k damage over 5-10 secs, all of the sudden that’s broken design? At least condis give you some time to react. You still got hit by a bunch of attacks and you should most definitively pay for it.

Taltevus.3289:

WRONG: You take 19 instances from rev torment in one hit. <——That’s not “slow damage”
Guard: 8+ burns <—-Not slow damage
Mesmer You take 3-4 instances per hit <———Not slow damage.
Necro you take all of the conditions in 1 hit. <——Not slow damage
Warrior same crap <—-Not slow damage
Ranger same crap
Thief you take 3 instances of conditions per hit/application.

19 torment in one hit? Please provide video. I play condi rev sometimes and while it can stack a LOT of torment, it takes a lot more than 1 hit (Maybe you’re referring to Unyielding Anguish? That requires someone to stay in the AoE circle for full 4 secs). And then we get to the problem that Condi Rev has – it has basically only Torment as it’s damaging condi. If you let him stack it on you in a combo and use a cleanse, suddenly all of his damage is gone. You wipe away his whole combo with 1 button or 1 sigil.

Same thing with Guard. While their damage can be really high with burns, it’s just that – a burn. They don’t bleed you, poison, etc. They have only 1 damaging condi and 1 button can cleanse all of it. Suddenly, when they use their full combo and you press 1 button to cleanse all of it… you realize that they’re just one trick poneys that are easily countered.

My main is condi Necro and I’m not sure what you mean but to stack ALL condis on someone, I have to either
1) try pretty kitten hard and it takes much more than 1 button or
2) the enemy has to be dumb and just lets you hit them freely.
Either way, it’s never one button, unless it’s Plague Signet… in which case feel free to blame your teammate for stacking condis on a Necro with Plague Signet.

Anyway…

Taltevus.3289:

How many times do you get to cleanse? maybe 2 or 3 times.
each one removing 1 or 2 conditions.

Either Classes need to be able to clear all conditions with 1 cleanse and need to have their number of cleanses increased by 2.
Or EVERY profession in the game needs to lose access to 2 damaging conditions and 3 non damaging conditions.

Most meta builds can actually deal with condis pretty easily. DHs, Druids, Ele, Thief, , Mes… Warriors… even smart Revs. On top of that, lottttss of cleanse is just AoE so while you may not have much cleanse in your own build for whatever reason, together with your team, you will have a LOT of ways to deal with condis – too much in my opinion… especially with an Ele spamming cleanse left and right.

In short – there’s lots of condis, there’s lots of cleanse.

Look at it this way – you fight a power build and you get hit. You take damage immediately and you know how to react to that. All is fine and all is good, even if you die in 2 secs.

With condi, you take LOTS of hits, but you take slower damage, over time (It can still tick high because you get hit with lots of attacks). Keep in mind if this was incoming power damage, you’d ALREADY been dead.
But this is condi… so what do you do here? You cleansed unwisely before so now you get caught with your pants down and suddenly you watch your health slowly degenerate down….and down.. and down… and you get irritated. Then you go to the forum and release your irritation into a “I hate condis” post.

In total, Plaguelands does:
-10 stacks of bleed (12 with Deathly Chill).
-9 stacks of poison.
-8 stacks of torment.
-2 burning.
Along with all the other non-damaging condis. All of that is AoE. The way the skill works is that each pulse adds a new condi ON TOP of ALLL pre-existing condis. So basically each pulse stacks more and more condis. It’s actually a very very strong skill, if used well. It can turn teamfights in your favour easily, and it can deny ressing or help you res an ally.

And no, it only gives you one bleed stack on yourself, not 2… unless you trait it, in which case you also get poisoned but not a huge deal. And if you get the trait… the cooldown becomes something like 80 secs… and it pulses for 10 secs…

It’s a good skill in sPvP.

Yeah… condi is OP… that’s why 80% of players you encounter in platinum are power. Makes sense.

Kuya.6495:

On the flip side, i only lost 7 points losing to nos and zeromis. I was more amused that the necro thought we were losing cause i sucked at ele, while our thf thought we were losing cause our necro sucked.

Ah…. the age old Necro debates.

Agreed with NeXeD… Necro can do fine in soloQ. The difference between Necro and other classes is, I think, is that Necro is generally harder to get used to. It has no blocks, evades, fairly poor mobility, no invulnerabilities, basically no “Oh kitten” buttons (now that Plague became Plaguelands). All the other classes have quite a bit of those. When someone goes from a class that has a lot of those, like Thief or… Mesmer to a Necro, it’s a totally different playstyle and having to rely on Shroud and basically take all the beating and CC that is thrown at you is hard to get used to.

Anyway, surprised to see so many Necros but #booncorruption <3

Lahmia.2193:

Skill history says nothing, so it is likely a bug. Anet will probably fix soon.

Let’s hope not because it’s pretty kitten good the way it is now. Actually makes it a powerful skill. They also updated the tooltip so I doubt it was a bug because they wouldn’t go through all that trouble. We’ll see tho.. .fingers crossed :P

flow.6043:

I’m not sure anymore now that you’ve made this post, but I think it’s always been 2 stack per pulse?

I checked from some previous video I had and saw 3 stacks. I can’t remember if this buff was done this last patch or not. No idea…… Either way… I’ll take it

Ramoth.9064:

Ew, you play with post-processing on?

Hello good friends from far and wide,

I haven’t kept in the loop of too much lately, and I’m not sure if this is old news or not, but since Anet nerfed stability of many professions I decided to try a good old Terrormancer in sPvP and I found something interesting…. not only did Terrormancer seem effective but…..

Tainted Shackles now applies 2 torment instead of 1. In total it applies 6 torment… AoE… which is pretty significant imo. With a proper combo, the enemy can end up with 13 torment.

Is this new or is this old news or stealth buff? :P

Holl.3109:

Oy Marin!!! Wow it has been wayyy too long, how are you my man? x)
Yea indeed, Plaguelands is amazing for PvP together with a 20 sec cooldown heal and CPC. Are you gonna make any new reaper videos?

well see you around o/

Haha doin’ good doin’ good. It has been too long *uses cane to walk * *coughs * ooh.. how the times have changed… jk jk. I miiiiiiiiiiighhhht start with new vids, not sure yet. I’ve been playing around with some new builds (terrormancer seems promising) so we shall see. Making a base necro sPvP video could be fun :P
Anyway…

Oy Hollts!

Very well played and nice video as always :P I’ve been experimenting with a really similar build as well (CPC, Plaguelands with low cooldowns) and it’s crazyyyyy. Plaguelands + CPC + RS#5 on a point is a perfect way to ruin someone’s day haha. Always nice to see a good Necro in PvP

Necro powa’!

(…I don’t like the change in WvW tho)

Well my mom plays on NA and my dad is a hardcore EU tryhard and I dunno… my mom is like top 10 and my dad is top 25. They still really love each other and I’m not sure but lately they’re fighting because when they duel my dad thinks my mom’s NA side is bringing out his EU esports epithellium to a supoptimal standard compared to her sister, who likes to casually PvE sometimes cuz shes like that, you know? So… i’m not sure. I think they’ll be fine, you know? We’ll be fine. Thanks.

I love you.

Mesmer is fine. It’s up there with all other annoying things you encounter. Being annoying is good. Being annoying is fun. I like fun.

Let’s have fun.

That was fun.

Nikkinella.8254:

I’ve got bad news for you. Even if they did speak English, 90% chance they wouldn’t understand what to do anyway. The majority of people you’ll meet in ranked are trash players regardless of what language they speak.

And 95% of players don’t even communicate. The 5% that DO communicate rage and QQ in map chat. gg

Shadowstep.6049:

Sigmoid.7082:

Shadowstep.6049:

Sigmoid.7082:

For some reason people see the words necro and buff and just moan without realising what is actually being discussed and what’s being questioned to be improved.

Please tell me how Improvimg death or blood magic as a defensive/supportive traitline to actually be defensive/supportive is an issue. Especially death magic who, as a traitline, has been under preforming for a majority of the games life. Same with core shroud. (Harder to fix it’s spaghetti code though…)

Please tell me how it will stop necro ele combo being unkillable? Are you into s1 bunker style?

All you have done is answer a question with a question. You haven’t addressed what I said.

And you haven’t addressed what i said. You just asking for unkillable bunker meta all over again.

Hi. If you played Necro, you would realize that without Spite or Curses, there is no such thing as “damage” with a Necro. Let me re-explain this again. You don’t take Curses, you don’t take Spite – your damage and pressuredrops significantly. Ok? Ok. So… if you don’t take Spite or Curses you will have much, much less damage. People are asking for a buff to Blood or Death traitlines so that they could be more survivable as a Necro. They would have to take these traitlines instead of Spite or Curses, and as was explained before, you’d have no damage then, but what you would have is some tanking potential. Poof. There we go. I guess we’re on the same page now.

You are a good player. You are in Bronze. You have 4 people on your team, 5 people on enemy team. You are a good player. You know how to play PvP – mechanical skill and rotations. You outrotate enemies, win 1v2s or 1v3s easily, and you win every single 1v1. You carry. You win. You rise.

AHOO! AHOO! AHOO!

In terms of people who play like 12 games and remain at the top while others struggle to rise – boo hoo. How long is the season? Three months. How long has it been active? 10 days? With time, all those who need to rise will rise to where they should be and will displace people who aren’t playing much.

I think placement matches also have to do also with how well you perform because I lost the majority of my matches and still got placed in Gold.

Oh my god you’re so amazing good job wow please * falls to knees crying real tears* teach me senpai!!sa@*$!I$I@O

This thread.

flow.6043:

MethaneGas.8357:

if Deathshroud does get buffs next patch

MethaneGas.8357:

I guess I owe everyone 1 copper. kitten.

You do?
Did I miss something?

Oh.. crap. Sry… early morning -_-
Edit: Gonna send a copper anyway $$$$ big money, yung money. Ballin’

I guess I owe everyone 1 copper. kitten.

They nerfed Dragonhunter though… what they did buff was base guardian virtues and staff skills. Let’s be real though, base guardian virtues are trash when compared to Dragonhunter and buffing them won’t really do much except maybe bring back a support guardian… and base guardians don’t even have the annoying traps… traps….. which now won’t even daze you now. Hallelujah.

I hope what this means is that they are looking at base specs so hopefully Deathshroud will receive buffs as well. Putting down a bet – if Deathshroud does get buffs next patch, I will give everyone on this forum 1000 gold.

(just kidding, maybe 1 copper?)

They’re slowly nerfing most OP things, which imo is a good thing. The process took a long @$$ time (1 year lmfao).

When entering shroud, evade attacks for 0.5 – 1 seconds while dashing forwards a small distance. 10 sec icd. Boom.

Jayce.5632:

MethaneGas.8357:

Very interesting choices. I’m really interested to know how the sustain is in this build. How is Parasitic Contagion in sPvP? How is the sustain without Soul Marks but with Blighter’s Boon to compensate? I think the choice of using Chilling Darkness in Curses is really interesting cuz you get easy chills from Death’s Charge —> sustain from Chilling Victory + Blighter’s Boon…

Sustain comes mainly from blighters and usually upon shroud entry, triggering from 6 boon stacks plus whenever stability pulses.

I do not miss taking the soul marks trait when I have blood is power plus weapon swap, when able, depending on how well I kite enemies. Instead of performing 4 actions to get 12% life force, I can preform 2 actions and get 14% life force. Besides, if I need unblockable marks, there’s always NCSY. Along with the horrible SOU, which gives 2% every 3 secs, I can leave spawn and arrive at the first point with 21%-24% life force with both blood is power and YSIM virtually off cooldown.

That sounds pretty ingenious actually haha. Lots of boons —> lots of heals and even lifeforce… and even when you use the shout heal, it gives even more life force because might and fury from runes.

Saw you a bit today in hot joins and was able to spectate a lil bit – was very survivable indeed. Fun stuff

Just as a random thought, have you considered Aristocracy Runes? It provides only 1% less lifeforce than Altruism and synergizes pretty well with all the might in the build. It could also increase heals (a lil bit) from parasitic contagion cuz more might = more dmg = more heals. Just thinking out loud

Interesting indeed. Do you take Signet of Undeath just for the sustain or as an actual res as well?

Have you ever considered using You Are All Weaklings in your build? It seems like it could be deadly with Chilling Victory and Blighter’s boon.. and so much mighttt… also adds up nicely with Blood is power. Carrion with 25 might, rest in peace haha.

Personally I use this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo3Gs4GwvGgeTscMYULhpwsKOH+DLiR9stVAA-TpRFABps/QBnAAAeAAnXGI5DBgCHBAA

It served me very well and can be altered depending on what you fight. Plague can be swapped in instead of Chilled to the bone if you want more survivalbility, Spectral Wall can be swapped for Spectral Armour if they have a lot of DHs, Spectral Wall can be swapped for Corrosive Poison Cloud or Corrupt Boon (in which case take Vital Persistence instead of Spectral Attunement). Runes of Rata Sum + Corrosive poison cloud can be hilarious too… sigil of geomancy can be taken instead of frailty for more burst.

Jayce.5632:

Curses/darkness, path, contagion
Soul Reaping/speed, vital, foot
Reaper/augury, chilling, Blighter’s
Staff + Scepter/Dagger
Sigil of agility + Sigil of battle
Carrion Amulet + Rune of Altruism
YSIM, BIP, PS or NCSY, SOU, CTTB

Sry, replying from phone

Very interesting choices. I’m really interested to know how the sustain is in this build. How is Parasitic Contagion in sPvP? How is the sustain without Soul Marks but with Blighter’s Boon to compensate? I think the choice of using Chilling Darkness in Curses is really interesting cuz you get easy chills from Death’s Charge —> sustain from Chilling Victory + Blighter’s Boon…

Are you…. talking about power necro? O_O

Personally, I enjoy the thrill of being in downstate…

(just kidding <3 )

Gwaihir.1745:

A lot of these posts are complaints about death shoud not matching up to reaper shroud.

Do guardian virtues match up in any way to DH virtues?
Do Mesmer shatters match up in any way to continuum split?
Etc.

Thread has become a place for people to cry not discuss balance.

The thing is… DH virtues didn’t remove anything from DH – they just got a straight up flat buff. They didn’t “lose” or “sacrifice” anything in terms of their virtues. Their F1 was buffed like hell. F2 heals like crazy and is a leap, F3 is a long @$$ block. Literally buffed.

Mesmer’s also didn’t lose anything. They were just gifted an additional shatter – F5. They lost nothing, just gained an extra shatter.

Rangers gain OP pets and cele form – straight up buffs.

Necro? Necro loses Deathshroud. It’s not like we gain an F2 for Reaper shroud. You lose 5 skills and gain 5 new, different ones, and that’s the difference. Sure, Reaper Shroud can be considered a buff, but we lose everything Deathshroud had to offer. And as it stands, there’s no reason why Deathshroud shouldn’t be buffed to provide a viable alternate playstyle. And it does provide a different playstyle but it’s not AS viable… which is why Reaper is the most honest of Anet’s elite specs – “providing a different playstyle” and not straight up buff… Anyway…

And people ARE discussing balance. Aside form discussing Necros in teamfights, Necro’s survivalbility, etc., the facts are DS does not match RS in its power. Same thing with every single other base profession – most suck when compared to elite specs. Saying that they suck isn’t really crying, it’s fact…

vicious.5683:

I disagree, it doesn’t need any buff, it need a total rework!!!

I’d actually agree with this. Completely reworking this skill could be amazing. Make it into a 3 second block? 3 second block that becomes an attack once you manage to block? Make it an evade or stealth? Absorbing attacks and gaining health? Create a black hole in the ground that immobs enemies and gives you lifeforce per enemy hit?
Guardian, Ele and Mesmer use focus and their focus skills are all defense oriented so I think some defense in the Necro focus could be very nice here. If this skill was reworked, it’d have sooooooooooooooooooo much potential….

Lordrosicky.5813:

The problem with shroud is that ds4 is just bad, it needs to pulse conditions. It should just pulse poison like repear shroud 4 and then we have something good there. And stability on ds5 as flow said.

The problem with DS vs. RS is that RS works equally well for power and condi and has lots of synergy with itself whereas half of DS skills work for only power or only condi and it has 0 synergy with itself. For example, in Reaper Shroud, you can RS #3 fear + RS#2 for corrupts, fear + RS#4 for easy burst land, fear to lead into RS #5 to lead into RS #4 or auto attacks with Dhuumfire, RS#5 then RS #2 for corrupts AND ice aura etc. Excellent synergy with itself.
Reaper Shroud also has a kitten ton of survivalbility built into it. Nice amount of chills —> gives you lifeforce and you take 10% less damage from chilled foes. We get a leap and some access to ice aura. We get a bit of stability too.

Deathshroud? Auto attacks are useless with condi (even with Dhuumfire). Slow….slow attacks that apply 1 burn stack if you’re not busy getting perma-CCed. Dark Path isn’t good for power builds really – it needs a boost to the power damage it does, imo. Life Transfer is terribad for condi but decent for power and it’s unbelievably lack-luster – it desperately needs a buff.
Finally… Tainted Shackles is decent for condi and sucky for power… and it’s ALSO lack luster – 3 torment stacks and an immob? Meanwhile Soul Spiral 11 poison stacks. lol… what the hell?
In terms of synergy with itself, the only thing Deathshroud has going for it is Dark Path + Doom for landing Dark Path. No juicy combos. Compared to Reaper Shroud, it has 0 synergy.

With all that though, I still think base Necro is very very close to being excellent. I do really well with it in sPvP and I think in some ways it’s stronger than Reaper and can lock people down better than Reaper… BUT it neeeeeds some kind of buff to its Deathshroud spells so that they’re equally useful for power and condi playstyles like Life Transfer pulsing poison. It also needs a bit of a survivalbility boost – Tainted Shackles giving stability per pulse, per enemy shackled? Or life transfer becoming an evade? Maybe Dark Path leaving behind a dark trail on the ground to your target and if you hit someone and teleport to them, you can press the skill again to teleport back to your initial spot? I’m kind of surprised they aren’t buffing or reworking these skills yet tbh. There’s so much potential in each of them…