Guild Wars 2

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m a returning player, been away for almost 2 years, had all class 80 and lots of stuff, yet since I came back I felt lost with all the changes. This at least helps me focus instead of blindly trying to know everything at once.

Spectral walk and Wurm has me get accused of cheating once in WvW, because “necro can’t teleport like that”, they said.

Unfortunately, it demands foresight and a lot of luck. If they are going the wrong way, aka my escape route, I’m just a flashing green target with swiftness.

If I get gang up without those 2 preparations, I can’t use Spectral walk to get away too.

I already suggested way back that Spectral get his swiftness duration and cooldown cut in half, so that we can use the juke more often. It’s not like a instant teleport, it requires preparation and the swiftness does not justify a 60 sec cooldown. Some other class have access to instant teleport on shorter cooldown already. Then it would see a lot more play I think.

That trait would be better if they removed the “regen” effect and just plain allow us to receive healing from others sources, so that our other traits are actually useful while in it.

Parasitic contagion and Vampiric traits are all negated once in DS, and for me it’s a no go. Bring us synergy!

Ah the fresh bloods, with all their refreshing and utopic ideas We need optimist people like you, we really do!

But after playing that class since day 1 for almost 1500 hours, mostly wvw/tpvp, and then switching and now playing a mix match of all the other classes, I can assure you that necro lacks the exact thing you’re saying in the end of your post: Synergy with the rest of the team.

I can’t get heals while I’m focused (and trust me, they will come and get you, they won’t let you cast freely from the sideline) because my Defensive mechanic prevents other peoples from healing me.

I’ve tried a LOT of builds, lots of them my own, even with Signet of Vampirism (even beat some peoples with it, doesn’t mean it’s good or even close to been viable) but I always feel like a sitting duck when focused and even worse, a liability for my team. That is the killer reason I don’t play Tpvp with my necro anymore.

Others classes have more self-substain and less need of a babysitter to be effective, and they open a lot more combos (not just fields, actual combos) between teammates.

I can’t tell you to stop playing necro, because it’s really a fun class to play and I loved my ride, but I can say it was more of a stepping stone to bigger fishes now.

Well if they let necro start with 30% right off the start, we would not need to use such “cheap” tricks to be able to survive the first push. Right now a good team will focus necro right off the bat in a team fight and we’ll always be one step behind in the defense departement, still needing someone to peel for us or wasting time in Khylo sucking lifeforce out of crates before engaging.

You just have to be quick on the summons, and as soon as they’re summoned you swap them for your reals skills. Start with 1-2 to get the hang of it if you’re afraid to be stuck with a minion. Even 1 grants you the 10% needed to enter DS.

The thing is, Deathshroud is not a second healthbar, right now it’s just a buffer. IMHO it would only count as a second healthbar if I could use all of my skills within it (DPS drops a lot depending on your build/weapons when you go into it) and be able to access it whenever I can.

Right now, any invulnerability/block skill is stronger than DS, just because it can mitigate way more damage and also negates incoming CC. Some of those skills even allow the player to receive healing, use his weapon skill and utilities. A good player will CC/immobilize you the second you go in Deathshroud and you’ll quickly rename this second healthbar the “static Ping-Pong Ball strikes again”.

Once you’re out of lifeforce, the 10 sec cooldown doesn’t matter, you got nothing more to help you survive focus fire.

Having leveled a necro first, I felt like the real game of combos and tactics opened up when I started my engi and ele. Necro lacks synergy within his own traits/mechanics, and with other classes mechanic and powerful combos too. It’s a fun class, but really selfish on both end, giving and receiving.

Next time instead of filter by Top Skills, look at the timing. You certainly didn’t get hit with 18 sec of fear one shot by one necro. With Doom been the shortest cooldown Fear at 17 sec traited for a 2 sec fear (with condi duration).

If people are complaining that a 1k hit Fear killed them, any hit from a warrior AA should be nerf.

It has to do with Condition timer check. Your fear must be 1.9 sec, by adding another condition first (let’s say bleed), the game checks after 1 sec of the first bleed if damage must be done, if Fear is present it deals damage too.

There was a long post explaining damage timing with conditions, but I can’t remember where it was, just search for it if you want the maths in detail.

Colorblind here, and I would love this to be a option for me!

Real, understandable combat log is all I ask. For new people to come in pvp and improve instead of running away, they need to be able to understand what killed them.

Having a incomplete combat log and a death toll showing skills in a top damage order just confuse the hell out of them and make them come the forum asking for a nerf on bleeds and burning, when it’s a big combo burst that really downed them.

There’s different type of projectiles and ways for them to act, but for combo and reflect purpose, they all act the same.

Necro staff auto attack fires in the direction of the target, in a straight line, but does not track at all and you can just strafe to make it miss, while Lifeblast, Deathshroud autoattack projectile, can curve 90 degree or more to hit and you can only dodge it. Spectral grasp is a lobbed projectile that doesn’t home on his target, and Dark path is a straight projectile that can 180 in some case to follow his target.

Ranger’s bow are the same, you can evade them just by strafing.

Engi/warrior’s bullets seems to be homing at all time.

Mesmer’s staff projectile is homing, as is scepter auto.

Ele seems to act like a targeted AoE at the target feet at the time it was cast, mostly like necro. The farther you are from your target, the easier it is for them to strafe away.

So it’s a different behavior, not just a different animation. Some skills are even hidden projectiles, like Corrupt boon, that will be obstructed if something like a small bump is in the way of the cast, even if you have full line of sight of your target for others attack to hit.

I made a post way back, asking if anyone knew about which build the necro pvp npc is using. Sometimes I think we’re balanced around what he’s capable of doing.

He got lots of health/defense, use Axe #3 while wearing daggers, dagger #2 hits for like 5k. Even in his downed state, he seems to use an AoE fear instead of the normal single targeted one.

If I could be this man, I would be a bit happier, knowing that I can deal good burst while still been able to survive it.

They seem to have nerfed so much coefficients on our skills. Testing all classes in pvp/pve lately, and I can’t go back to playing a power spec on my necro, seeing what I can accomplish just by autoattacking with other classes.

Give us a real combat log, with real details and understanding about what kills us (not just the biggest damage dealer up top), and then you’ll see peoples actually try to understand, analyse what they did wrong or what the other did right and improve.

Well, in a utopic world, peoples should at least whine a little bit less…

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Panhauramix.2784:

Even minion-drawing-conditions trait should draw them from allies, so that you can help your group as a minionmancer and feel useful.

This actually is the case already. Fetid Consumption doesn’t only draw conditions from the master, but any nearby ally.

Wow, I was sure I tested this and it didn’t work. If it really does, it’s a good news for my MM pvp build duo.

If only those traits were made party-wide, I would be the first to create a boon duration build if only for almost permanent group stability.

Siphon numbers would now at least have a purpose been so low, if it heals everyone around (minions included when soloing )

I totally agree that necro right now are, while fun to play for map completion, selfish to the bone. Even minion-drawing-conditions trait should draw them from allies, so that you can help your group as a minionmancer and feel useful.

Same for lich, you dont see any numbers while spamming 1, and the ability normally even hits directly behind you. No miss, no nothing.

Using Well of Power, don’t stunbreak correctly and goes on 3 sec cooldown so many times it’s frustrating.

Just fought 3 lb/s-w warriors in Foefire in Team Tournament, and while in DS, consumed in conditions (pun intended), trying to get out of DS to heal, blank skills…. The conditions consumed me instead!

I guess I’m gonna be a condi warrior for a while, it seems to fit my attrition style more, and no such bugs are killing me and my gameplay. I could even brag after the match that no one could kill me…..

I know you must be just a troll and bask in the glory of this new Diamond skin (can’t stop thinking about a certain Rihanna’s song right now, and I don’t even like her that much. Diamond Skin what you make me do!!!).

Nobody here is asking to continue to faceroll, warriors are faceroll. Condi of every sort (Terror even better, being a stun and a condi) had a way to be countered.

We can argue all night long that Necros just dont have the damage output, in a condi build with condi weapons, to deal with and SURVIVE an ele in 1v1 right now. You can claim you can, but your view sounds really biased with a bit of tainted revenge in it, I only read : “Gotcha, suckers!”

The real point here is: This trait is not fun. I dont even think it will be that popular, no it’s not really an issue, but I think we must voice our opinions about traits that have a negative impact on the game, regardless of class.

Again, if necro had a Grandmaster trait that says: Immune to Direct Damage above 90%, (hell, make me have to take 2 grandmasters trait for this effect I would take them.) wouldn’t you think the sky would fall for all those zerk power lovers? Telling them go condi/hybrid or go home?

I play all classes, necro is not my main anymore, but I can still admit that this trait could have been something else, something to help ele, but not completely render them immune with no real skill involved (and yeah, Dhuumfire was also one of those skilless trait).

If you had watch the video, he tried Carrion amulet for a Power approach, unfortunately our damage coefficient on both our condi weapons are too low to even get near the threshold and counter his regen.

If it was a permanent reflect shield above 90% health and engineers/lb-sb rangers/ranged class were asked to just try to hit in melee to remove the shield, would you still say just change your weapon set/entire build and go melee?

Some peoples may still hate the necro for our Dhummfire era and want to see them eat dirt, but regardless of the class been played, those passive immunity traits are all but fun to play against.

We’ll come back from the grave one day, if Grenth allows it!

Well now that we can level characters from PvP, I’m using my Power necro to gain glory and finish level up my ele and ranger. I’m still a beast with him, and small fight PvP is okish for necro.

But as for WvW and PvE, he’s gathering dust and won’t be using all those OP skills (Mark of blood, Putrid mark and some others been called best skills in the game lately by red names) in a near future.

I’m just sad that I bought all those ascended trinkets for him on a whim and now I would love a refund for my new main.

In the past I suggested that marks should “lingers” on the ground so that evading through them dont completely negate them and fighting on them should be a bad idea.

Something like the scepter #2 from Twilight Arbor, with grasping hands that stack bleeds and cripple for 3-4 seconds if you dont dodge out, now that would be a good deterrent and people could dodge out of harm’s way to reduce the condition pressure.

I would go as far as asking for healing from other peoples too, and 100% of it. I’ve been playing mostly on my engi lately, and using a lot of water fields to heal everyone around.

It’s a shame that a necro can’t benefit from healing because he’s been focused and must stay in DS just to survive.

We are already a selfish class by not giving that much to people around, let us be able to receive help at least!

5x Perplexity for me in WvW, if only to add another condition to cover the real damaging one.

In PvE Undead would be the better choice for maximum damage I guess, but I always preferred aiming for a 100% condition duration build, with 4x Nightmare or Lich and 2x Lyssa.

Obstructed everytime you’re on a small elevation difference too.

Maybe reduce the cooldown by half/100% when it’s obstructed, kind of like thiefs that can spam their attacks in stealth and it doesn’t destealth them until they hit for damage. Less need for skilled shots, just spam until the ability does what it’s supposed to do

Was funny seeing 3-4 Unload on my blocking Engi but no thief appearing until it hit for damage, but this is for another debate on stealth mechanics!

Knowing how the game changes over time, I would have just left them dormant and wait for the day they put all this stuff account bound. They sold Minepick that were character bound and then changed them to Account bound later, I don’t see why they won’t change other stuff over time too.

The beauty of it is that you don’t pay anything for those changes, so I really don’t see why you would have to delete things that cost you your time, and your time only.

Necro’s utilities and heals have long cooldown. When you’re under focus fire, your only defense besides DS is 2 dodges. There are time were you need to stay in DS just to survive, and if the pain train can’t be slowed down by teammates, it’s better to let DS run out and use the Spectral armor trick to get back as quickly as possible in DS to wait for your heal/utilities cooldowns to pop back up. As for ping-pong, I was talking about Near Perma-Stability (on paper) that doesn’t work at all once on the battlefield because of resource management that can be out of your control.

The best trick to kill a necro is to make him pop his cooldowns/use most of his lifeforce, use any/every skills you can to run away and regen, then come back at him and burst him down.

All the Signets have 48/60 sec cooldown, same for Spectral Walk/Armor. Once they’re down/dodged, we’re pretty much defenseless with only damage as our defense.

I’ve played a lot on my engi lately instead of my necro, and I sure can run away from any necro every time, and I can come back full health in no time while they’re not ready to eat the same burst.

The decreased cooldown of DS is always 7 cooldown (30% of 10) even if shown otherwise on the tooltip. (Who trust tooltip anyway )

You can dip in, throw in DS 5, 2, 3, then when you get out, stability is gone and you’re still under pressure with a (normally) 10 sec cooldown on your only Defense skill. Again, the popular 30/20/0/0/20 build doesn’t have stability, and will not grab DS reduced cooldown as a Master trait.

A trick that makes us last longer is to bypass DS cooldown by letting Lifeforce deplete completely, then hit Spectral Armor and any other lifeforce gaining skill and re-enter DS immediately. For a reason DS is not on cooldown when fully depleted, regardless of the time you spent in it.

You can actually try an almost 100% stability uptime build with necro, 30 point in Death magic for 30% boon duration + any rune combo that boost it and the reduced DS cooldown. You will still be thrown around like a ping-pong ball because of the 2 limiting factors I’ve stated before. On paper it sounds crazy good, but in reality lifeforce generation of condi build is too low. (Which is good, it need to have weakness )

Anyway I disgress! Any condi build vs a prepared Condi necro is hard, but Stability is no staple of necro so use those CC the best you can.

You get to think it’s higher stability uptime on paper than any other classes, then you try it and realize that you have 2 pretty huge factors that come into play: Lifeforce and DS cooldown.

If a Condi necro use it to get stability, if he stays in DS, he loses all pressure. If he just swap in and out, you now know that he can’t prevent any damage for the next 10 second.

If he stays in DS, you can spam conditions on him/immobilize him to death, he can’t access any stunbreakers/transfer conditions while transformed. Just spam condi, wait for him to come out to either: heal or transfer condi, spam CC to prevent him doing so and collect your lootbag. He also lose all his lifeforce by staying in DS under pressure.

A condition necro doesn’t generate a lot of lifeforce, and to go into DS, you need 10% minimum, it is never accessible every 10 seconds except under scenarios where you have no pressure, so no real need for stability in the first place.

So yeah, a condi class vs condi necro is something hard to win because of transfer, but if done right, you can win and feel kitten. But don’t worry about stability. Those 30/10/0/0/30 build are power build, a condi build without Terror lose a big burst potential.

I totally agree with the fact that we’re strong 1v1, while fighting on a point or in a duel setup to fight it to the death. If someone is trying to stick with us till the end, it should go bad for him (wheelchair, slippery hill, boxing gloves)

But what is really happening in a non duel setting, they run off tail between their legs, get out of combat, regen, come back and take you down 1v1 again with no DS left and your utilities on cooldowns.

Necros can’t do that to other necro. We fight till the end, with nuclear bombs as knuckles. The first one to hesitate is doomed.

So who’s the easiest class to kill/down as a necro: Another necro. Of course it should be 50/50 against a equal skilled necro opponent, but it’s still far better than 30/70 or 0/100 against other professions that can run away.

I have to agree with everyone saying necro is the easiest to kill as a necro. On equal skills, it is the easiest class for me to bring down, it can’t escape nor evade any of my damage. You count 2 dodges, then bomb away.

We’re like thugs in a wheelchair on a slippery hill with boxing gloves, we fight till someone’s down.

Edit: @Flow: Other classes do have option to completely get away from us without retribution. Yes it count as a win for the necro if you fight on a point, but you didn’t won anything in the “Kill” departement.

OP’s asked who was the easiest class to “Kill”. Necro can’t run away, so it wins this by default.

Terror doesn’t hit for 2k a second, it’s around 1k (1,3k with almost max CD). Fear can be stunbreaked and cleansed.

Being CC to death by any class/stunwarrior (7-8 sec cooldown on their Earthshaker, hits for 3-4k on my survival build, saw numbers that were even higher) while taking a truck of direct damage from other source is no different than being feared and get hit by conditions damage. Except that in my case, Direct damage always hit for more, in WvW at least.

We would need a Tantrum type of skill. When used, we root ourselves in a bacon dance animation, but AoE-strip stability and push back (or fear) all foes around us. Tainted shackles, while being a good skill, is not really that scary for melee train to keep on hitting.

@Carpboy: This is pretty much my solo roaming power build too. You can switch one utility for Locust Signet out of combat instead of wasting Spectral walk to run, or just keep spectral walk/Locust Swarm on cooldown for almost perma swiftness.

I trade Vital Persistence with Piercing Lifeblast, they crit so hard that you can solo camps really easily by stacking them in a line. Vital Persistence is good but I would like it better in the next patch if they really boost it to 50%.

Without Foot in the grave, you’ll notice something not a lot of other classes suffers from: The Ping-Pong Effect. No block, no invulnerable, no stability. This may kind of throw a wrench into any combo you might be able to pull off on paper. Add long cast time to this and you better be born under a lucky star for it to complete.

In my WvW roaming I encounter mostly warriors (for a reason), Spectral wall and grasp won’t do no good against them. I personnally use Spectral Armor instead of wall and Well of Darkness/Locust signet. Blind can help a lot against Warriors/thiefs.

But then again, this is for solo/duo roaming. If you follow a zerg or duo with someone that can give you stability, your major problem is solved and you’ll have greater time against those CC spammers.

The only positive thing I see for long cast time, is that people dodge too fast for it, and the timing is perfect for hitting them right after the dodge. Lifeblast and Focus #5 are perfect for those evade spammers. But it is kind of sad to like those slow cast time.

A true way of fixing thing would be first to allow healing in DS. Our class has access to many regen options (plus Well of Blood ticking for 10 sec, DS #4 healing, Siphoning from any source) but we lose all those nice things upon entering our class mechanic.

Blood fiend could keep the same numbers if it worked while in DS, and we would see a mini competition with CC because he would be a good healing source we could use while transformed.

If you’re looking for a Rabid condition build, you can obtain most Rabid Exotics from temples with Karma and from WvW with badges. Exotics are good enough in WvW, although Ascended and buffs sure does put a stat difference there.

The terrormancer still works, but for damage, 30/20/0/0/20 is a pretty popular and effective build.

Look for posts from Rennoko, he showcase videos of Condi necro in WvW with Rabid, Dire and Celestial gear. That will give you a good example of what you can and can’t do.

If you want to zerg though, conditions aren’t always best there, peoples will melt before your conditions can even take effect, or will be removed too quickly with mass condi removal.

Before investing heavily in a spec, make sure it will fit with your WvW playstyle.

Been a necro that jumped to engi, tried your Engi healway build and loved it, I want to help

If you want burst, Wells are awesome combined with DS 100% crit or even more awesome with lich. To take camps and fight in doorways, it’s awesome burst. Lich form with Well of suffering and Well of corruption melt anything that stays inside.

You also don’t have anything to go faster, only warhorn’ swiftness. Spectral walk combined with Warhorn would almost give you 100% swiftness uptime, or just put Locust’s signet in when running from point A to point B, then switch to something more useful when close to combat.

Also as a rule of thumb from others berserkers spec I’ve looked at, the Berserker chest and pants are a loss of stat. Better to put something like Knight or Soldier in those slots. There is math somewhere in the Osicat mesmer forum that explains the stat allocation of Crit damage and how much chest and pants don’t give enough for the trade off.

Good luck in your travels! Power necro sure is fun, even in WvW where we can sometimes feel as a sheep among wolves.

Just a note to other necros: Use Spectral Walk and Wurm more often, I’ve just been accused of cheating in WvW because “Necros can’t teleport like that”. Gotta bust that myth! Peoples think we only have Signet of Spite and Epi as skills.

He’s on the Glass Cannon side, so I guess Ele or Warrior for additional control and get out of jail cards.

Thanks for your input, too much choice is like not enough sometimes. I’ll go gear both and test that out.

Hey all WvW Power/SD engineers!

I’m roaming mostly with my brother, who plays a Rifle Static Discharge build.

I have all classes lvl 80 except thief (lvl 67) and ranger (lvl 6 ), but I can’t seem to find the best profession that would synergize with what he brings.

I was mostly a condi necro, but when we encounter someone, he normally burst him down so quick that my conditions doesn’t have time to tick long enough to matter.

I’ve tried a condi engi (because of gear availability, would try power if I could) and it feels mostly the same as my necro.

My healway guardian works well with him, but I feel like I’m just a healbot that removes his conditions when needed and stomp whoever we managed to down.

What would be, in your opinion, a good Power based profession to team up with an engi, mostly to cover his weakness (if any )?

It should not kill minions, this is a technical issue from Transformation effect locking your skills a special way, thus killing minions in the process. We can argue all day that it’s a hard counter to MM, but I would like to add that some AI flaws, bump in terrain and melee issues if target is moving already count as hard counter to equip those skills in the first place.

If we can go in DS, get our skills locked and our minions stays alive, I dont see why we can’t transform into a moa, tuna, lich or plague and still benefit from our minions.

DS damage that does not depend on weapon’s Attack power, so that I don’t feel shafted when I use a dagger. Or give us a different DS depending on the weapon we have while transformed. This way condition or power build will find their F1 useful regardless of the build.

Receving Healing in DS (100% of it, don’t see why we should be healing for less in it, it is our only Damage mitigation tool) and I would even push it that we have access to utilities while in it. Maybe if it was more like a kit from engi, instead of a real transformation.

Removing the automatic lifeforce loss while transformed. I still think it’s a relic from our ancient downed form, where we weren’t supposed to last forever. Again, being our only mitigation tool, I would like to stay in it longer and use it as such.

Mixing and matching DS on land and water skill. I love DS #1 and #4 synergy in water. Would love to be able to do that on land. Make it a trait if need be.

Making it so we can interact while transformed without “glitching” it. I hate timing a crucial rez/stomp and miss it because of lag or finger’s muscle ache.

And last thing, please fix the bug where you get a 1 sec cooldown on #6-0 when exiting DS. I know it’s not all people that are “suffering” from this disease, but it still happens, and it’s not related to lag or zergzillas fighting each others. I’m on a low pop server, and even in small scale fighting with no one around it still happens, and usually means death.

If those things could be done, DS quality of life would be greatly improved IMHO.

Flame blast don’t put peoples on fire though, just raw damage, so you’re still stuck with a one target burning every 10 sec.

Your best AoE bet would be to go Balthazar x6 and use the burn on heal (#6), you burn everyone around you for 3 seconds.

I still think there are better options, but if AoE burning is what you want, that’s what I would be aiming for. (and Epidemic them of course )

If you see a Plague signet on necro and you’re a condi warrior, might as well waypoint and retrait . Bow #5 is tasty to send back right away, as well as any quick bleed stack/burning going our way.

They also activate on the charge, there is a ICD between summoning and charge of course.

Speed buff normally don’t stack. it’s just the highest one that counts. In your case, Rune #6 would give you the speed you want.

I think there’s one exception, with a rune that says +5% to swiftness or something like that.

Some nice epi bombs on downed players Gotta love when they all stack to rez, can’t even evade what’s gonna hit them. Sometimes it’s better to let someone die than to bother rezzing.

Good fights overall, you did well to prevent the DS skill lock bug from happening too much, some heals were spot on and needed to be cast now or never. Keep it going!

Dagger = more autoattack damage but less fun because everything else you do drop your DPS. You also have less uptime than axe vs good players. Best weapon against sieges/structure and the only weapon that can hit a stealthed foe and hint you were it is when the AA chain procs.

Axe = less autoattack damage, good burst however at range that can’t be reflected. DS skills hits for more with axe + trait, just because of DS interaction with weapon’s power instead of being normalized. #3 is better against group, more AoE than Dagger, although I wouldnt say no to a cleave on AA. #2 is a great way to kill soon-to-be stealthed foe, as it follow them even in stealth once it started spinning. #3 tells me if someone is near, when the Retaliation buff’s popping.

I’ve been testing both in WvW, and I find that with 30/10/0/0/30, I can solo camp way faster with Axe than with dagger with less risk. Maybe it’s just my playstyle however.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

Many of the necro’s conditions can be unblockable, on a short cooldown, and chained with a lot of single target CC. This is why, imo, the current condi necro is too powerful. Because the counters to all of these things are on far longer cooldowns less skill is required.

Thing is, the OP build at the moment doesn’t use those unblockable conditions (which only comes from traited marks as a cost of 20 points in Death Magic) and even a full rotation of staff skills won’t kill you.

Like I said before before, lack of knowledge of what the class can do leads to comments about a 30/30/30/30/30 necro who can 1-shot people with instant unblockable moves.

As a side note, I do more WvW than PvP, I consider myself a pretty good player and while we’re good door keepers and zerg-lovers, in small groups as a necro I’ve gotta pull my weight in gold just to be able to survive a couple more adds or a zerg. As any other classes, I can normally get out of jail for free, no sweat.