Guild Wars 2

kdaddy.5431:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

While I agree in theory, there’s a certain amount of sense in just not playing when your team is just, well, hopeless. It’s pretty frustrating to see your teammates constantly fighting off point, mindlessly streaming to mid (and into the waiting zerg) while you don’t have your home point or more than one of them staying to cap an uncontested side point. If the team is absolutely doomed, then, really, what’s the point? So I can march out there and get melted for an additional five minutes? If I’m to “give it my all” and play to the end, then isn’t it only fair for me to expect the other people I play with to have spent the time to learn to play with basic competency?

thats good for your theory but i gave the circumstances. Im using a staff ele with over 2k wins and have entered pvp tourneys with guild mates and won matches in 5 vs 5 situations vs other teams with team speak. The guild mate i was with is one of those people. We couldnt get one fair match and its also not your place to say whether or not if someone fighting off point is doing nothing.

The rangers and thieves in our guild play full burst and there jobs is to range zerg fights and to catch people running from one point to another. There job is to literally fight off the point.

Your forgetting the importance of roles on a team. No matter the case your circumstance doesnt apply here since we arent players walking in without a idea and were not new to pvp. Not to mention we almost won 1 of the matches that were 4 vs 5. Too may times there are people screaming mid when they are focusing mid and the team is losing zerg fights. If you cant win the 3 vs 3 and 4 vs 4 fights you have to spread it out forcing a change in dynamic. Dont give me the why should i try excuse in this situation.

I’m not talking about your particular situation. I don’t know how you play and unless I’m on a team with you, I don’t really care, either. I’m simply talking about the idea that quitting mid-game isn’t the worst thing in the world given certain circumstances such as extraordinarily poor team play. If it doesn’t apply to you then don’t sweat it. These are just examples of types of bad play. You weren’t specifically named in any of them. No one’s accusing you of anything, man. No need to freak out.

Agree. It’s no exaggeration to say about 1/3 of my matches the other day were 4 on 5. It’s really bad.

Diamond Skin probably.

I have to agree that rangers have been nerfed into the ground. When Anet split Empathic Bond and Wilderness Knowledge, it really crippled the class’ survivability. Given the massive number of cleanses a class like the ele has, I’m not sure why this was thought to be necessary. It’s not like a flood of rangers were dominating PVP. In fact, most are of the pewpew variety that don’t bother with defense.

While I agree in theory, there’s a certain amount of sense in just not playing when your team is just, well, hopeless. It’s pretty frustrating to see your teammates constantly fighting off point, mindlessly streaming to mid (and into the waiting zerg) while you don’t have your home point or more than one of them staying to cap an uncontested side point. If the team is absolutely doomed, then, really, what’s the point? So I can march out there and get melted for an additional five minutes? If I’m to “give it my all” and play to the end, then isn’t it only fair for me to expect the other people I play with to have spent the time to learn to play with basic competency?

Love how indisputable facts come from itty bitty sample sizes.

DavyMcB.1603:

I’m pretty sure the people who are defending burn are pretty much the ones running it atm.

Either way, burnig is broken, that’s not even a question to begin with. Not only because it has high dmg. But because that damage also breaks the boundary between condition and dps. An afk rampager GD can stack 10-11stacks of burning in almost an instant. That’s around 3-3.5k per tick, that’s like 15k in 5 seconds. That’s what a dps spec is supposed to be able to do, NOT CONDITION which is meant to take more time to kill things with higher net damage per skill used.

Burning atm allows condi spec to become bursty as well. That’s just plain broken.

Why would you burn for 5 ticks? Where’s the cleanse? Besides, condi damage needs some help. The ramp up is too long in pvp. Still, burn is a bit out of control. It needs to be balanced for classes in a way that would make them sacrifice applying other condis and focus on burn if they want it.

Solori.6025:

You are all supposed to be hostile..
I am dissappoint :I

Fine.

Guards too powerful all meta no skill. Anet plz reduce medi heal to 2hp and add 50 sec cast time. Eliminate virtues replace with self-damaging, suicide move that destroys armor and cancels anet account. All symbols reduce to 1/2 second and inflicts 100 stacks burn to own team.

Also make mes shatters hit for triple damage and all inflict stun so mes can be competitive.

I see what you did here… XD

Well, aren’t all fights with condi builds like this? I mean, all damage from condis? The single source damage is actually easier to get rid of. I’d rather deal with this than a ton of cover conditions.

That being said, burning needs some work. I like how hard it hits but the duration should be cut drastically. This way, it might be a gap filler between condis and direct damage so that condi builds don’t need an hour to ramp up stacks to do damage to heavy builds.

Ithilwen.1529:

I adamantly disagree. In my 3rd year of play, this is the first time I feel on a relatively even footing.

Really? To me, the mesmer’s always been a strong class. It wasn’t meta or something you could just roll a meta build and play decently but it certainly wasn’t lagging behind the others if played well.

I’m new to the ranger so I’d like to thank the people who’ve contributed insight into this thread. I like the wolf for the CC but I find the fear a bit overrated at least for my purposes. For me, the spider’s combo of CC plus poison field is the thing that’s indispensable. A DPS bird might be fun or maybe a boar double CC…

Thanks for the tips!

I’ve recently started to play ranger in pvp and I have to say, I think it’s a very good class. It can be traited for excellent sustain while still dealing good damage at all ranges. I couldn’t believe the guy in this thread who said rangers have poor sustain. Perma-vigor that procs Protection, GS block, LB stealth, TU, SoS, plentiful condi cleanse… Oo Do other classes have a Permanent Immunity From Damage skill I don’t know about? Anyhoo, from what I’ve experienced so far, there isn’t much it can’t kill if played well and, at times, patiently.

The thing I also like is the versatility of builds as there are nice options for condi, power or hybrid damage so you can change things up when you want. I run a mesmer a great deal of the time (with its mandatory 4 points in the accuracy trait line) so this is refreshing to me.

In sum, nice class, fun to play and comes without a debilitating learning curve. Good stuff.

WilnerGW.3275:

Hey guys, ty for answers!

Well im playing just hot joins, then ill assume the rage messages are just from players trying to kill me and that got mad when they dont. I play only hotjoin, so the problem is not the team presenc on points or something else. Ppl just dont like to fight a pu condi mesmer, thats it.

About the chase ability, i play scepter/torch and i prefer sword/pistol instead staff anyways i was trying celestial amulet with those weapons, and thats fine too

I think a large part of the problem is that, honestly, a great many people aren’t very good in hotjoin. They really don’t know how to deal with the clone spamming and become confused and/or don’t run sufficient condi cleanse because, hey, who needs it, right? XD Decently played d/d eles, bow warriors or condi rangers won’t be bothered by fighting a PU mes. You really need to work to burn through the cleanse.

Also, giving up staff on a condi build is not a great idea. Winds of Chaos is the best attack for building up condis/stacking boons the mes has. The pistol can burst stack bleeds but it’s pretty easy to take out one phantasm to negate further damage. The sword is mostly for defensive blur and it’s largely useless for dealing any kind of damage, boon ripping is too dangerous and the immob is only really useful if you’re shattering which you really shouldn’t be on a PU build. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth giving up WoC, Phase Retreat, Chaos Storm and two Chaos Shield procs for.

Celestial is interesting and I’ve experimented with it a bit. Good sustain but I’ve found it pretty much needs to be played with a staff/GS combo to take advantage of the hybrid damage (as we’re not like eles who can slap conditions on as a bonus to high damage moves). You play the GS like a shatter mes, switch and set up staff clones and spam until they locate you then switch and shatter again. The lack of immob makes it harder to land but the play style is varied and you can actually take advantage of the torment shatter. Still, it seems less effective than either going full power or condi.

I run a few different condi builds from the standard PU to a bouncing death Illusionary Elasticity to a Power Block troll. I think they’re a bit more fun because the style of play is more varied than a shatter and the options for traiting are more flexible as power builds have only 2 points free to distribute. Cleanse-heavy builds can be a problem but it still does pretty well if you’re patient.

SonOfKrypton.4357:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sooo, a whopping 6 seconds of fear on a 32 second cooldown is “permanent” now? Very strong, yes, but nowhere close to “perma-fear”..

“Perma” in this case is relative, babe. The time frame I’m referring to is the time that I am alive to the time I am dead.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Even so, if you get caught in that setup and you don’t have an available stunbreak, it’s your own kitten fault for failing as a PvP player.

Alas, the train has reached the station much sooner than I thought it would. It’s always pleasurable to be early.

If I should have to have a certain counter to this available, then you should have to have a certain counter available to diamond skin.

Thank you for your time and co-operation, Drarnor Kunoram.5180.

Was an absolute pleasure.

G’byeeeee!

Jam xo

Hmm… Got caught not knowing uptime/CD ratio, tried to play it off with some lame excuse about things being “relative” and ran away.

It was fairly good trolling before that. The great trolls are better prepared and aren’t so sloppy with their word choices. The latter was where you really lost it. If you didn’t go “perma” you could have wriggled out of the corner and continued.

Overall, not bad. I’d say 6/10. The exit was flamboyant but we all saw the toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

On a more general note, I’d stop with the pet names. It’s not aggravating — it just makes you feel like you’re talking to a 50 year-old lady or a really bad caricature of an effeminate man. Either way, it doesn’t quite work. It feels forced… too over-the-top… If you’re trying to irritate someone, it’s a good idea to make it less obvious that this is your goal. This way, they focus on the conflict rather than being distracted by your antics. It’s the same thing that happens when writers go too far and break the audience’s suspension of disbelief. It’s jarring and makes you very aware that you’re watching a performance. This isn’t to say I don’t commend you on having a “trolling voice.” It shows you really care and that counts for something but given your command of the language and the intelligence I detect, I believe you can do better.

I was amused and look forward to your future posts.

The Game Slayer.7632:

alanis.6094:

The Game Slayer.7632:

ITS OUR TURN BABY!
this video can explain to you exactly whats going on.

PS: diamond skin has not shut down the necromancer class, just the necromancer condi builds. (just so that is clear)

You see all those points in the video where he discusses how “perfect imbalance” is good, but you don’t want things that are broken? Diamond Skin is what he is warning about.

No, youve almost understood it, many many people are going to use diamond skin (Including i), and then people are going to look to find counters against it. you can’t possibly say diamond skin is broken without giving it 2-3 weeks to settle in while people build to counter it.

I agree with this. The meta changed but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t available counters. If none are found, then it’s broken.

@Game
I’m kinda glad eles got a buff. That class had been eviscerated in the past so it’s only right that they get to make a comeback. It’s bad news for those who main a condi necro but fair’s fair.

Kazhiel.8194:

Stay alive and run thru the middle of things dropping wells and being annoying. I ran the build last night but with a few differences, had transfusion and I found I didn’t like the targeted wells and changed that trait to gain life force on crit so as much as I was critting I could be in ds a whoole lot lol. Worked fairly well but I need more testing. I think today I will switch out the axe and focus for a staff. At some point I’m going to get a soldier set and experiment with just being a strait up tank thru armor and vit.

Sounds like we have the same play style. XD

@Mad Queen

1. Agreed. Most people feel compelled to take Dhuumfire but it seems like no one really enjoys doing so. Since the skill has such a large impact on other areas of balance, it should probably be dropped.

2. Although I can’t speak to any PvE issues (I’ve never run a single fractal so my knowledge is 0.00) and do most of my roaming in WvW with my thief, I have to say, I don’t really see a problem with the necro’s defense — at least when it comes to large group engagements. With Foot in the Grave, a maxed LF pool, high toughness, Parasitic Bond and passive defense runes, my power well necro has massive sustain. Basically, the only time I go down is if my guild gets wiped or I do something incredibly, incredibly stupid.

I don’t really have a large problem with CCs either. Between shared guardian stability, a stunbreak and FitG, it’s rarely an issue. As for stunlock builds, well, they’re tough for most classes to counter. Stuns are plentiful (ye gods, the mesmers!) but stunbreakers aren’t.

And front line build necros don’t hide in a zerg — they lead the charge as part of the hammer train inflicting mass cripple, poison, blind, boon rip, chill, daze and fear. As part of a well coordinated attack, necros are game changers.

3. First, condi removal is meaningless against Plague as it reapplies them every second. No one has that much condi wipe. You’re going to be blinded, poisoned and chilled and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. But the point of it isn’t to inflict condi damage. It’s about the damage mitigation, the CC and the healing debuff. These things absolutely mess up zergs and create inequities in damage that your side can take advantage of.

Secondly, who spams conditions and dies? Plague gives so much added sustain (and with so much going on it’s actually pretty hard to see us) that with a few judicious dodges, you can usually run through the entire length of a zerg by yourself and come out in good shape.

But, yes, in a small group v. zerg encounter, unless you’re very clever with Flesh Worm or juked them all with SWalk, you’re going to die. I know it kinda sucks but, the way I think about it, you can’t really expect a single class to be able to do everything. The necro can 1v1, small group and zerg effectively. It can ramp up DPS to massive numbers or trait for heavy sustain. It can go condi, power and hybrid. It has a wide variety of abilities and can fill many roles but there are limitations and there should be. I think that as a class, we’re in a good spot. Instead, I feel sorry for classes like rangers who are absolutely incapable of certain functions or guardians who are locked into a single attack range.

@Jal
I figured ele stuns would be used in conjunction with the well bomb (and probably mes Null Fields, I’d imagine). Your guild must see a lot of feints as enemies try to draw out your initial boon strip rotations. If the hammer train gets hit by it, the fight’s pretty much over.

@Kopper
Your instincts are right. The staff has too much utility to not carry and without it you can’t help with basic necro duties like wall and siege clearing. But, if you like the dagger, don’t be afraid to run it. Axe 3 is great but IMO the dagger auto attack is better than axe 1 or 2 and synergizes with warhorn nicely.

@Kazhiel
The problem with this build is that it’s got massive healing with no group support skills, massive vitality with no toughness and massive crits without power. In short, it’s all over the place. But, that’s sort of understandable as you main a mesmer. The only thing I could optimize on a mes build is the speed at which it died. And I do.

I am the worst mesmer in NA.

In any event, the first thing you should do is figure out what you want your build to do. Necros are very versatile in the number of viable builds they can run but, generally speaking, there isn’t much versatility within a particular build. Necro builds pretty much do one thing. Zerg tanks don’t solo well, condi roamers don’t zerg well, etc. Once you figure out what you want, then you can begin to make a build.

@Mad Queen
I don’t understand why you feel that Dhuumfire is the only valid necro build. I run 2 condi, a heal, a quasi-mm, a hybrid, a fury-based semi-glass cannon and about 5 versions of the wellmancer and they all work fairly well. None of them is a do-it-all, but there’s a ton of versatility in the class. Much better than, say, a guardian.

Your dismissive attitude about defensive traits is odd, IMO. Sustain is the heart of every front line build and necros have it in spades. DPS crazy builds much of the time are simply rallybait that overvalue their contribution because of a few big numbers.

I have no idea about PvE (whatever I do in PvE, I do with a warrior because I world completed with it) but the fact that you feel the class is ineffective in WvW also strikes me as odd. Necros are middling roamers because of our lack of disengage skills but no class can solo nuke a camp faster which is invaluable if you need to flip one quickly to deny an enemy zerg a resupply. In large group play, as both back line and front line, necros bring critical boon stripping, CC and the almighty Plague, arguably the most effective skill in the entire game.

If it’s damage you’re after, you would have been better off running straight zerk gear with ruby orbs. Assassin’s is too precision heavy to maximize damage. If this is all that you change on your build, the expected damage is about 7% better. You can increase it to about 13% if you remove the orbs from the weapons and run Sigils of Force and Accuracy. Things get even better if you remove 10 from Blood and put it in Death as the 100 or so power gain from the GM minor becomes constant (and Nova is better than FC anyway).

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I dont understand why the Signet had to be when you take damage. It should have been when you DEAL damage.

Probably because necros have access to a million different skills that AoE. A properly traited well with a sig that healed on hit would make you practically unkillable.

@Mindx
How about sharing that build you’re using? I love to see diverse builds (although I’m going broke buying all the gear to test them out). It can be boring playing the same thing all the time.

Let’s all work together to reduce the number of 30/10/0/0/30’s out there. ^^

Jal.5894:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|6.5g.h17.0.0.0|7.1c.h1h.g.1c.hz.0.0.0|1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|2v.0.2s.0.2v.0.2v.0.2s.0.1c.67|0.k63.0.k68.u28b|15.1|3r.4d.4a.4b.4f|e

Bear in mind I play in an organised WvW guild that runs 20-25 in it’s raids. Timed burst etc is called for . I have’t made any videos myself, but you can see the kind of thing we do here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7stt5EAJyfs

POV is another necro in guild running very similar gear and spec – I’n in his group for a lot of the fights (Jalari) and you can see just how often I have fury/stab when needed by shroud dancing, then launching into dps cycles

This is sort of a damage-oriented well build. I like the way it tries to deal good damage while still trying to retain survivability through the passives like Lemongrass, its own stability and just enough armor to prevent it from being easy rallybait. It’s a bit to backline-ish for my play style (which is probably not as effective as this style, to be honest) but I can see how effective a few of these working together can be… a mass well bomb of boon strip, chill, blind. Wreck a hammer train. Personally, I’d be tempted to run SWall instead of WoS for increased disruption/dwell time on the other wells.

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

@Balekai
Thanks for the rundown on the Sigils/Runes of Torment. I was thinking about running these things but I’ve experimented with my build so much lately that I’ve gone a bit broke (not to mention I’m running out of storage space for all my gear). I liked the idea of adding another cover condition but wasn’t convinced that it was worth it. The effects sound interesting.

Insyder.3871:

I run spectral walk in wvw all the time, it saved me more times then I can count even from zergs. Traited it has 48 sec cd and 13 sec duration if I’m not mistaken. It can be used to escape. If you see that the fight is not in your favor pop spectral walk and run in one direction, use your defensive skills to slow or fear people who are chasing you, also I like to use death shroud 2 on mobs to get that “leap”. If people continue to chase you pop spectral walk when it has 1 sec left, turn your camera 180% and continue running.

There’s been quite a few times when I suddenly got attacked by 10+ people and I came out alive because I was able to survive for ~10-12 seconds running/dodging/using full deathshroud, marks and spectal wall and then returning to my original location and running in opposite direction.

^ This.

@Jal
You should put it into an editor so we can see it. Sounds interesting.

Ascii’s wellmancer is based on this.

Generally speaking, since this is a DS 1 spam build, you should be aware that the basic traits are Deathly Perception, Reaper’s Might and Unyielding Blast. Without any one of these, the build won’t maximize its potential. Also, for best damage, Axe Mastery is encouraged for the +10% damage which is added to DS if equipped when entering the mode.

Specifically, I’d say that if it were me, I’d stick with the conventional 30/10…/30 build. You’re losing a massive amount of damage (100 power and Close to Death) for the points you’ve put in Staff Mastery. 100 toughness won’t really help you and the staff stuff doesn’t go with a power build. You’re running so much zerk (and you should probably run more with rubies) that the only way to survive fights is to burn them down before you get burnt down. Maximize power or run significantly more survivability. A tiny bit isn’t going to help. If you’ll die in 4 shots running full zerk, a build that can survive for 4 1/8 shots doesn’t really help, you know?

As for changes, IMO it’s a good idea to run Blood is Power. It gives a big boost in damage immediately which helps because the idea is to finish the fight as soon as possible.

Finally, according to the linked build, you don’t get Furious Demise so you just do 96% crit chance which is fine.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I wouldn’t even be concerned about the lack of shroud-stomp/shroud res if they would take away mist stomp, distortion stomp, and tiny stomp (and their res counterparts).

Pretty much this right here ^

You want balance…well then balance. Don’t play favorites. No healing in those modes either, just like us. Then the playing field will be a little more even and they won’t have to jump through hoops to balance.

“Balance” and “the same” aren’t synonymous.

Besides, these are entirely different skills and not comparable. Unless, you’re also arguing that we shouldn’t be able to attack anyone in DS or only last for a few seconds? Or perhaps you’re arguing that you’d trade DS entirely for a slot skill like Mistform?

To me, DS works fine. It’s a very powerful ability and making allowing full slot functionality is tantamount to just giving the class 30,000+ untraited HP. Sure, I’d like to res people but it’s not that big a deal. And, shroudstop is a bit tricky to get at first but with practice, that works very well, too. Furthermore, I don’t really think ANet has the intention of giving DS skills the ability to provide massive life force regen. That would make the mode self-sustaining which is clearly not their aim. DS is a time out, a place where necros can go for a bit of offense, a bit of defense and generally stall while their skills are on CD. It’s not supposed to behave like your normal state. And, it probably shouldn’t. Using DS is about strategic management. If ANet gave us full functionality of all skills in it, they’d probably have to remove a lot of the interesting things like Fury or Weakening Shroud to compensate.

That would be pretty boring, I think.

I like this build. It’s basically the Ascii wellmancer but does a bit more damage due to the superior power. Whether it has less sustain is debatable. I think it’s probably a wash.

To tell you the truth, this type of build doesn’t hit very hard. It’s more of a sustain build. There isn’t anything bad about that but it happens to be the case.

To answer your questions the best I can:

Siphon can be very powerful but generally speaking, it is most effective in a zerg where the large numbers will proc it continuously.

Yes, you could be getting more damage if you used DS more but it works best when you have the proper synergy of Deathly Perception, Unyielding Blast and Reaper’s Precision (and Axe Mastery sends it over the top). This is basically the max damage zerk setup. The problem with this is that it completely dominates your play style and limits your defensive options. So, if you don’t like it, don’t worry about it. You may, however, consider running a build that features Foot in the Grave — a favorite of those of us who use DS situationally.

I run a power well build and I, too, run minions when I’m away from my guild. It lacks punch without Training of the Master but other than this, it works very well 1v1. Well builds are power based but don’t really have enough of it to be very bursty so we duel very poorly. Using minions allows us to leverage our power and siphon skills into something, er, not completely useless. The only thing I’d change is to keep Consume Conditions. The minion is terrible.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Imagine that the Devs said something like: We are thinking of a overhual for Death Shroud and its traits…What would you like to see?

What would you suggest?

Personally, i like the idea of Death Shroud. I just think it isnt done that well. I would like to see a bit more of the high risk, high reward set up. Such as some of the skills have that punish you but punish your target more.

Traits:

Gluttony: Skills no longer grant Life Force. Instead 25% of the damage you take is converted into Life Force. (You still take 100% of the damage but 25% of that damage is added to your Life Force)

Vital Persistence: Being in Death Shroud no longer drains your Life Force, However damaging attacks now take an extra 10% Life Force away.

Speed of Shadows: Gain Swiftness for 10seconds every 5 seconds, Swiftness is corrupted and turned to Chill for 10seconds after leaving Death Shroud

Soul Marks: Marks Deal more damage and conditions last longer the higher your Life Force is, Each Mark cast drains part of your Life Force

Reapers Might(Name Change?): You gain 2 stacks of Might for 10 seconds every time you cast Life Blast. You gain 1 stack of Vul for 5 seconds every time you cast Life Blast

Skill
(New) Heal : Signet of The Shroud
Not In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of Damage Taken is turned into Siphoned Health
Active: Turns current Life Force % into health (For example – if you have 100% Life Force, it is all drained and you are fully healed, If you have 50% Life Force it is all drained and you are healed for 50% of your total health)

In Death Shroud:
Passive: 25% of all damage in converted into Life Force
Active: Consume All but 1 health to Double Life Force and Fill it up.

What do you guys think? I am guessing Overpowered and i of course know it would need tweaking here and there. Main aim is to make it so that you can have “perma” Death Shroud BUT making it so that the longer you are in it the more risky it becomes – Such as getting inflicted with Vul every time you cast Life Blast but that gets countered by getting 2 stacks of Might.

So you can go full on and hope that you can nuke them down before your Vul stacks get to high or you can play it a bit more defensive and try to kill them using other skills as well rather than the Life Blast burst

You guessed right: overpowered. Amazingly overpowered. Gamebreakingly overpowered.

You’re new heal is basically suggesting ANet give necros access to endless life as long as we keep switching modes and time the use of the signet.

The new Reaper’s Might is OP. The vuln does not make up for it because the condition can easily be cleansed away. With a bit of boon duration, it’s an easy 25 stacks anytime you want it.

@Liquid
I didn’t know that swap thing worked. Thanks for the tip.

Liquid.9672:

When I do trait Reaper’s Might, I usually pair it with Unyielding Blasts and Deathly Perception for maximum impact.

Indeed, the holy trinity of damage for power necros. When I decide to run it, I usually give into the temptation of slotting Blood is Power for a ten stack head start. When I’m feeling especially silly, I slot SoS as well. No versatility but the Lifeblast damage is fun.

@Liquid
I have a homemade damage calculator and according to it, your build does much better damage than Ascii’s (about 4-6% depending on the weapons set). This calculator also shows damage optimality and it indicates you still have a bias toward precision. On Ascii’s build, this imbalance in compensated for by siphon procs but your build has none of these — it is very much a damage-centric build. As such, I’d recommend switching the Sigil of Accuracy for Bloodlust. At 25 stacks, it will increase damage by 10%. The added power also brings your ratios between power, precision and crit damage closer together. I worry a bit about the armor on this build being on the light side but it is very well constructed and achieves nice damage while preserving the passive defense combo of Melandrus and Lemongrass. Additionally, if you ran Reaper’s Might, your damage could jump to obscene levels for a tank.

Impressive work.

@Xenth
Your build does excellent damage that becomes outstanding with full Bloodlust. As far as optimality goes, it has a distinct bias toward precision — almost entirely due to (comparatively) low crit damage. If you had something near the 84% Liquid does, your numbers even out more. But, there’s give and take to everything, right?

While your build has more armor and slightly higher HP than Liquid, his has greater survivability thanks to FitG (which is also the source the extra crit damage) and 30% more LF points. But, you still preserve those passive defense items I love so IMO, I’d say that your survivability is still very high.

My only real criticism is that Signet of Locust is a bit of an iffy choice. Everyone in a zerg runs at about the same speed and there’s usually plenty of swiftness to spare.

Lastly, about Furious Demise, I think you’ve made a good choice in staying where you are. If you borrowed the points from, say, Death, you’d up your damage by over 10% while in Fury but otherwise hit about 3% softer outside of it. On balance, you’re ahead. However, if you do this while replacing Locust with SoS, you’d have an overall gain in damage while losing only 50 toughness to get it. This won’t be valid after the Dec 10th patch, though.

In any event, these are both superior builds, gentlemen. I think I’m going to steal a few of these ideas and test them out over the weekend.

Zikory.6871:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

As this thread is kinda related to my question i thought i would ask in here rather than make a new thread and clog up the forums:

Does the 25% movement speed for the Traveler runeset work in Death Shroud?

Yes, it also works underwater if you have a rune in your aquatic helm.

Probably shouldn’t say this but it also effects golems….

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaly? Now, THAT is interesting. Maybe buy a set to run on a thief as a roamer/golem rush driver?

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Signet > SW..
It makes you run as fast as other people.. yey.. just rememebr to swap it out when you see enemies..

I also tried to crank up my speed, i tried literally everything to the point where i could catch up with my spectral grasp (see 50% speedbuff patch)
But locust signet is still the best.. DD?.. meh.. runes.?. meh..Sw..? meh…. boons?…meh
Only reason i can think of where to use SW is in skyhammer/spvp.

Who needs the LF generation, misdirection capabilities, escape jump or stunbreak, right?

That reminds me, I once popped SWalk, ran and jumped off a cliff. The enemy walked to the edge of the cliff to see if I had fallen onto a ledge. I recalled behind him and feared him over the edge. The only bad part was, I bet he still doesn’t know why he died.

Bawi.9541:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Bawi.9541:

Just try to maximize effective power:
effective power = power * (critchance * (1.5+critdamage) + (1-critchance))
with critchance and critdamage as decimals (e.g. 54% would be 0.54)

Armor class does not matter, it scales the same for every level of armor.
And Ascii has done a good job in that regard

If you’re talking about Ascii’s build’s armor, I completely agree. It’s a damage sponge.

If you’re talking about its damage efficiency, I have to disagree It’s actually unbalanced with an extreme bias toward precision that far outpaces power. I think the reason it succeeds so well is because it leverages this high crit chance into sustain from Vampiric Precision and Sigils of Blood.

Oops, I mistook the link posted above as asciis setup because it had ‘his’ trait setup. You’re right, ascii uses power=precision… Either you’re right and/or he’s calculating with 20+ might stacks in mind at all times anyway (or I’m giving him too much credit and the gear setup sucks big time :>)

I think what he tried to do was raise damage through precision/crit damage while upping sustain via precision/toughness. It’s a valid strategy because of the healing procs. There are more builds with a lot more sustain and there are builds with a lot more damage but it is a build that finds a strong middle ground. It’s beautifully balanced, really (although he would greatly increase his damage by running Bloodlust instead of the Sigil of Accuracy).

That being said, although I feel that it’s a very good front line necro build (given enough guardians in the party to provide stability) I honestly think it’s a sub-optimal command build. IMO, a stronger command build would look something closer to this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakRrTvSTTjfPBIVA7pHePu4UPWH9zB-jUyAofBRCTgICgJwioxWGLiGryGT9mUNsgsBvIa1SBwkwI-w

I think a build like this is superior for commanding because it retains much of the precision that procs siphons while adding significantly to the sustain through the added vitality and DS pools not to mention Ritual of Protection. It also brings its own stability through FitG which adds another survival/command tool. It has sacrificed a bit of armor (less efficient than the HP, though) and a lot of offense (GT wells, staff CD, Banshee, etc) to get here but I feel the tradeoff is worth is. Commanding isn’t about getting the most bags or dishing out damage, it’s about sustain and leading the zerg where it needs to go and this build does that better, I think.

It is, however, hard to give up potential bags though. -_-

It seems to me, the foundation of a vampiric build is toughness to protect the HP pool thereby maximizing the impact of every point siphoned. Because of this, I think the problem with these proposed builds is that they’re extremely brittle. Dagger is a point blank weapon. You’ll have to go toe-to-toe with an enemy and without proper toughness, you’ll probably lose HP faster than you can siphon it.

IMO, siphon traits tend to work best in zerg builds where the number of enemies allows for maximum siphon procs (like Nay said, WH can be a siphon monster). I’m not sure if they’ll be effective in 1v1 situations just because you won’t be able to hit enough.

@Helios
SWall + boon strip fields is very effective and a favorite combo of mine. I once hit an entire zerg ball with it (plus WoS and WoD with chill) as it tried to leave NW camp through the narrow north exit. Hilarious. XD SWall is also great because it pulls double duty: fear/disruption on the enemy, 6 sec of protection for everyone on your side that runs through it. It’s nice to be able to buff everyone in the zerg.

I also understand what you say about having a preference for survivability. My humble server (SBI) is small potatoes next to the nightmare that is Blackgate but my guild commanders are quite aggressive so I have some idea about the demands made on builds by this type of driving style.

Bawi.9541:

Just try to maximize effective power:
effective power = power * (critchance * (1.5+critdamage) + (1-critchance))
with critchance and critdamage as decimals (e.g. 54% would be 0.54)

Armor class does not matter, it scales the same for every level of armor.
And Ascii has done a good job in that regard

If you’re talking about Ascii’s build’s armor, I completely agree. It’s a damage sponge.

If you’re talking about its damage efficiency, I have to disagree It’s actually unbalanced with an extreme bias toward precision that far outpaces power. I think the reason it succeeds so well is because it leverages this high crit chance into sustain from Vampiric Precision and Sigils of Blood.

I agree with Balekai (who, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is pretty much the resident expert on heal build necros) that CC isn’t great at healing when not cleansing condis but even so, it does the same base healing as WoB without pulses and has 7-15 seconds less CD. However, when fully traited, he is correct: it can become something rather ungodly. It is perfectly suited for those situations in a zerg engagement when the driver stops and calls for mass AoE damage on his tag. The combination of damage, protection, heal and combo fields (both dark and light) makes the area devastating for enemies but fun for you and five friends! In sum, if traited for properly, it’s very good (with some drawbacks), if not, CC is superior for the cleanse and shorter CD.

@Helios
I think a lot of us are looking forward to that +5% and will re-cajigger out builds to get it. ^^

@Roe

If this is for zerging, I’d drop Terror. Either Banshee’s Wail or Focused Rituals are better choices. If you don’t like either option, consider moving the points to Death to grab Staff Mastery which will help maximize your support and offense.

I wouldn’t run Well of Blood. It’s a poor heal for allies and can’t be used in rally stack situations as it will interfere with water fields. CC is a better option. If you want to help with healing, a weird idea is to run Bone Minions to blast water fields. Your build doesn’t really come into play here but it will drop a TON of heal (x2 blast) so it’s truly in the theme of support.

Anyhoo, there’s some discussion of heal builds here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-healing/

@Lorelei

Random observations:

The massive investment to get Deathly Perception is really nerfed by having low base crit and crit damage. I can see the reason for this, though. That being said, this is further exacerbated by not traiting for Reaper’s Precision — normally a mortal lock for DS spam builds (along with Unyielding Blast). DS builds really force you into a certain style of play so not maximizing your core skills is crippling.

Honestly, Quickening Thirst seems like a pretty bad selection. First, if this is a zerg command build, it really doesn’t need speed. All you will do is outrun your front line. Secondly, at the GM tier, this is an extremely high price to pay. Running Locust would get you the same ability as well as an emergency heal. It’s a slot but those 10 point could be used elsewhere such as the aforementioned RP trait or to grab well siphons for more sustain.

Running daggers in both weapon sets is a bit limiting. Running axe would at least give access to some Retaliation uptime. Focus is more of a 1v1 weapon. Given that you are basically a melee class, warhorn seems like a perfect weapon.

The build has a glut of HP to tank with only mid-tier armor and no passive condi management. As a commander, I’d opt for Melandru runes or Lemongrass food (optimally both) to help round out the defense. I do, however, like Ritual of Protection on these necro command builds. It adds lots of survivability, especially when you need to stand on ground zero to call for concentrated damage.

Interesting build!

I forgot to mention, in quite a coincidence, I’m also running a 5/10/25/0/30 build. Later this week, I’m going to try dropping 15 from Death into Blood to see how the siphon adds to the sustain and if it makes up for the -150 toughness. The -120 power will be a bigger loss, I think.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

^ That’s actually a really good point.

Our class mechanic for defending is to pop DS – however when we do that, anyone else who wants to help us out actually cant.

No healing in DS not only doesn’t work with our own healing skills and talents, but everyone else’s too.

I think this is the balance that ANet had in mind to ensure the class didn’t get a free second health bar or just give it 40,000 HP.

I think a better way of thinking about necro changes is to pretend that once any changes are made, you will be banned for life from playing the class. This removes most factors of immediate self-interest. So, the question becomes, are you willing to fight this upgraded version of the necro for the rest of your GW2 playing days without complaint? Or would you consider it too powerful?

@Bhawb
I’d forgo the pulse heals entirely if they just made it a water field with enough duration to summon and blast the two bone minions.

And perhaps the effects of light fields make sense but thematically, not really.

Just turn Well of Blood into a water field. The light field is unusable for rally stacks and the heal pulse is too slow to be used for anything else.

How the kitten did we get a kittening light field anyway?!!?!?!? Is that some sort of kittening joke?!?!??!?!?!