Guild Wars 2

8/10. Very nice looking and good color scheme, but doesn’t feel very necro like, I’d think it was a mesmer off the top of my head without the skills :/

I included the build so people have an idea of what kind if Necro I’m going for, and so people can make changes. I am asking for help optimizing that build with healing power.

Background:
Hey, I am a long time necromancer main and I have always used healing power (Cleric) Necromancer. Now, I am fully aware that healing power is completely destroyed by some other stats. For instance PVT gear, with PVT I gain around 200-300 dmg per hit, 6k health in comparison to cleric gear. Meanwhile on the other side of the trade cleric gives me a little over a thousand extra heal on consume conditions, +6 ish health per siphon, and normal gain on regeneration. Now this is of course, a very bad trade to make as I have been aware of for a very long time. Call it my ‘style’ but no matter how many other viable builds I try I find myself coming back to my good old stat-dead Cleric build, maybe with some PVT armor.

Which leads me to my question: How can I maximize the viability of healing power on a D/D A/F powermancer? It’s become obvious after a year and a but that I won’t be happy with switching builds, so I’m going to get all I can possibly get out of the healing power.

My current build, sometimes I sub out cleric armour for PVT to get better numbers for roaming. Cleric trinks always remain.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAoY3djMap7daKb07JApCNP9Ibu3G6xt16MA-j0BBUDgUBBiSAOJtIas1NFRjVNjIqWnEDA-w

One of the few incinerator necros. ;D Mixed gear and dyes. ;3

Bumpedy Bump Bump

Simple Request: Healing Power scaling buff on single-target heals.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one asking for some buffs to healing power, at the moment it’s a very niche stat that usually forces you to sacrifice a good amount of damage to obtain. That being said healing power IS viable, but only on niche builds that have LOTS of aoe heals, because the only thing that makes Healing power decent is massively aoe heal skills. I understand that ArenaNet doesn’t want amazing unkillable bunker HP builds, but I think that the scaling HP brings to single target heal skills needs to be substantially better to make it a stat worth running in any environment.

E.g. On my necromancer running cleric improves my heal potency by around 1.5k, and
my siphons by 4-40 per tick, while running cleric makes me sacrifice 8k+ health from lost vitality and around 300 damage per hit compared to PVT gear. Not worth it. I think a reasonable amount for 1500 HP to increase single target heals would be 2.5-3.5k on single target heals, and 75-100 on siphons. Of course it won;t be the same for every heal skill, and the ratio can change skill-to-skill, but I think a nice buff to HP like this is definitely called for.

A youtube commentary I made about cleric necromancer, featuring 1vX WvW fights. I made a fair bit ago and got a pretty positive response, so I thought I’d bump it once since it seemed to inspire a few people to try cleric necro. I hope you guys can take something from it, and go out and crush as a cleric necro! B|

Melee(ish) healing Necro sowwy. ;-;

The life siphoning traits do not scale, however dagger #2 does, but that being said yes it is basically to maximize regen. Necro is not a great class to go cleric on however for longer fights which I usually end up having I find having good regeneration far more useful than vitality. I have tried running P/V/T and was previously using it for a couple months before I switched to cleric.

Yeah, I’m really trying to improve on that, but I’ve been in the habit so long having trouble. xD Getting better w/ doing utils w. keys but wep attacks I’m still clicking a lot.

@Rashan
I try to use axe #3 fairly often for the retaliation. As far as DS goes I really don’t like it much so I mostly just use it for fear and a DPS absorber, or an occasional gap closer.

@Hammer
I dont see much of a point in having warhorn for me. I use speed signet as it also offers and active heal so I don’t need it for it’s swiftness. I don’t have trouble with kiting, and if I did I have chill and immobilize which are both better + you have to be close range for cripple so I have no need for #5. As far as #4 goes I prefer a bouncing blind and an aoe weakness/bleed to a 2 second daze.

Yeah, I’ve been trying to get out of that habit. xD

My build is now in video description, sorry forgot to do that. I use my necro for WvW and fotm both with this build. In fotm I have no AR so I kinda have to retain my healing power to make up for that but if I did have AR I would go more DPS. For most dungeons you would probably want something a little more DPS than cleric , but for harder dungeons it will keep you on your feet. It is designed for instances where you will be taking a lot of DPS and staying alive takes priority over how hard you hit.

This is a video of some fights I had in the last week, and I decided to commentate over it. This is the first time i have tried commentating so please leave some feedback. Subscribe if you liked it, I will be posting more necro and thief wvw vids.

Also in video description box. MSI afterburner, it can record in HD with no watermark and unlimited time, it’s a free download.

My build is in the video description. ^^ Nice kill. Just got my thief to 80 a couple days ago and having trouble getting used to it, totally different playstyle.

Mwahaha nowhere is safe. >:]

I have some much worse fights but I don’t show them because it’s just me getting instantly wiped cause my build can’t handle anything over 1v2 mostly.;)

You don’t really see many fail vids out there, so I thought I’d make one. Sorry if music or editing is bad still very new to making vids. xD

~ The reason I made this a crappy video instead of screenshots is because I needed to test my screen recorder. ~

Just a quick look at my gear and dyes. This is the best looking set I have found so far for my tastes in light armor and I love the dark red and pitch black.

Yeah I know people use it for the extra vitality, but what I was mainly confused at is why not use a constant stat build that gives you vitality throughout all your gear not just in your main 6? I see a very common theme of zerker weapons and trinkets but Valk main 6 armor, was wondering why it was so much preferred over full one or the other?

I am leveling a thief, and I am having a lot of trouble deciding what stat set to use. I’m planning on rolling a D/D stealth thief (10/30/30/0/0) and I want to lean twords more DPS. I see a lot of people with a similar build using Valkyrie with Berserker trinkets, and was wondering at the reason for why so many use this rather than going full one or the other. Another one of the issues I’m having with this is how valuable precision is going to be. As I’m playing a stealth backstab build I will include the 100% crit from stealth, and I believe backstab is where the majority of damage comes from. Seeing as I will have 100% crit out of stealth and backstab is where most damage comes from(???) I am thinking percision may not be as worthwhile to get, so I should focus more on Valkyrie or another alternative build to zerker. Any input on this would be much appreciated, as well as other trait builds and gear options for a stealth backstab thief:)

I just got my warrior to 80 and it’s whole purpose is for cof p1 farming. Can i get a pure damage build that works well with cof, including traits?:) It would help a lot.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

DD is considered a poor choice by most of us meleemancers. Dagger 4 and 5 are generally accepted as conditionmancer abilities.

Instead, try DF/DW (with SW for permaswift) or AF/DW (with SW for permaswift). When you switch to axe, use 2 and 3, then both focus abilities, then axe 2, then switch to dagger again.

I’m running DD and the reasons for including that second dagger are getting access to the aoe which does enough dmg to get you credit from mob farming or wvw zerg fights, and because the #4s blind is long enough to be good without duration increases so it’s useful for a power build, plus it’s bounces for more aoe.

I tried this and it didn’t work, however restarting my computer a second time fixed it so problem solved. :P Thanks for quick reply;)

Gw2 won’t launch if I click the icon, and I have tried running as administrator which resulted in a message stating that gw2 was already open so it cannot open again. Gw2 isn’t open and I still get the message, I run windows 7 64 bit. Any suggestions?

Am I the only one that wants legendary weapons with other stat choices? Or the option to pick before you create it? Also no ascended accessory other than the one including all stats have healing power as a main attribute. Could we see some other stats?

My one wish for D/D necromancer is that health siphoning will scale with healing power. I run a cleric stat build and it works okay, but necro D/D doesn’t have any options for regeneration, and even if I used D/F then the regen is only good for close range 1v1 with no mobs around. Right now I can get some regeneration by using runes of dwayna, but any other class can use those + regeneration and necro has no utility and 2 very limited skills that grant regeneration only in the right setting of enemies around and your position. Necro is supposed to be able to use siphoning health as a valid build, and if it scaled with healing power i would make up for our lack of regeneration abilities and make healing based necromancers far more viable.

Post any ideas you have to improve healing necromancers.

I’m not a condition build so staff is out, and thanks for the monk stuff but if I lose my 2 dwaynas then I have to give up regen every time I heal and +90 healing. Any1 else know some tricks?

Does anyone know good builds for a healing regeneration Necro? I have been power/tough/vit but I’d like to change to clerics and so far all I have found in the way of regeneration is using superior runes of dwayna. We have one mark and one focus skill that grant regeneration, but only to our allies not to ourselves and life siphoning doesn’t scale with healing power so are there any other little tricks out there to get good regeneration?

Please don’t change the dagger #2 lol it actually works.

Signet of Vampiric lust
Passive: Increase healing by 180 and life siphoning effectiveness by 10%
Active: Increase life siphoning effectiveness 100%

Casting .0001 sec
Recharge: 200 sec

And bump for any other ideas and opinion concerning DS.

Ok to clarify my previous points cause I think I’m coming off a little bit on the negative side:

DS is a viable tactic that is an amazing asset for necromancers, however I do not think that we should have to cater trait skills and have specific stat points to make the trait line for DS more viable.

I think people have brought up some great ideas to make DS better, and how you can use it now to great affect though again I don’t like having to be of a specific stat build to use the trait line properly. My favorite had to be DS skills change with weapon skills. This would solve the half DPS half CD build and give anet an opportunity to maybe even out skills a bit more. The life force regenerating at the same rate as ranger pets up to 25-50% I feel would also solve some issues of not being able to use it well if you had no chance to build up life force previously.

Also I have to say it one more time, I think DS is great and viable but we shouldn’t have to have specific stats to cater to the trait line more and it really doesn’t make us even with other classes. However it is very useful, if devs could manage to change it up a bit I think it could actually be the big save for necromancer that they make it out to be.:)

Yeah, DS can be put to really good use. I’m just saying I don’t think we should have to be of a certain type of build or have to fill out a trait line to make it do decent damage. I love DS and it is good if I need to stall for CD on heal but it really isn’t the whole revolutionary thing that makes us as good as warriors. :p

@Lettucemode
Yes the trait line for DS has crit damage, but that doesn’t make up for other power losses. For instance spite line increases power and condition duration as well as boasting more trait skills that increase damage. Or what if you had to take away from curses, then you lose condition damage and precision. Also there is the matter of critical hit chance, to even get crit damage to be worth getting compared to other stats you have to have precision to go with it. So it sounds like soul reaping trait would be okay for a glass cannon necro, but personally I’m power/toug/vit and have a crit rate of 5%. It also won’t work well for condition necromancers who don’t use their base damage but bleeds and poisons. So it wouldn’t hurt all that much if you were glass cannon, but that is an uncommon necromancer build and most prefer CD so DS’s trait line is dependent on you being a specific kind of necro that can actually use crit damage more than benefits from other trait lines.

I do run power and damage in DS still doesn’t do as well. I have had many great experiences with DS and it is a great alternate form however still not the amazing gamechanger that anet makes it out to be.

For a lot of the points you made you have to cater to DS in your build, which as I went over weakens you unless you are a glass cannon and even then you cannot access better power increasing trait skills from other trait lines.

For weakening skills I mean weakening your DS number one skill, not your normal skills.

For going out of DS at 50% to keep your #1 strong that is not being able to use your whole alternate health bar, adding a CD if you want to go back in, and you might not even start at 50+% life force.

True that if they waste all their dodges and knockdown on you whilst in DS it saves you from it in battle, but unless you have pre-built up life force going in you don’t even have the option to start off like that and you are likely going into DS at a last resort at low health so when you go out again you still weren’t able to kill them and they don’t need knockdown and dodge to kill 2k hp.;)

I’ll take a break on your CD point, I personally hate CD have tried the build tossed it in 15 mins so I don’t know all that much about it but seems to me it’s even harder for them to DPS in DS.

For your point that it is a pressure skill saving you from having to worry about knockdown and dodges in normal health again the explanation is can’t go into DS at the start in a lot of situations.

Finally yes I know it’s goal isn’t for DPS, but it doesn’t have any skills for protection or differing your enemy other than a 1 and 1/4 fear either.

@Darn Devil IV
I love your idea of regeneration to 50% when out of combat, makes it easier to build up and actually be able to do some mild DPS with it. Also I don’t care if DS if a defensive or offensive skill but right now it can’t do either so if anet would pick one that would be great.^^

@Hackks
The idea of wepaon sets changing DS’s skills is amazing, if they changed nothing else I would be happy with them changing this. Then at least the DS skills can match you’re build so it’s not some half and half that can’t defend or fight well.

Yes, but as I previously mentioned if you are going into a 1v1 fight with no life force already build up then you will not always go into DS with the highest possible damage on the autoattack, and even if you do have 100% by continuing to fight in DS you are weakening your skills. Also, while crits with the #1 skill can reach up to 3-4k that is assuming you are always crtitting and have very high crit damage, if you scaled other weapon autoattacks such as dagger so that it always crit and had high crit damage it would still scale to be higher than the autoattack for DS, and the power of DS autoattack diminishes significantly over time making it’s DPS even worse compared to other power scale autoattacks. Also it can be easily countered, it takes one second just to cast one auto attack so that gives your enemy more than enough time to see it coming dodge, knock you down, daze, get out of range, etc. On top of that the enemy doesn’t even need to keep doing this, only until you get a little lower on life force and then even in the 2nd highest stage of damage the DPS gets WAY worse and can’t hope to compare with normal damage. On top of that a lot of necromancers consider CD to be the most viable build for a necro, and DS doesn’t give CD necromancers a whole lot to work with. So basically you have to have power to make it do decent damage in it’s highest stage of damage and after the highest stage which can be easily avoided by waiting a few seconds DS has little power and is once again as I said reduced to a 10 second stall that doesn’t do much for the outcome of your fight. Make the auto have 1/2 or even 3/4 sec casting and make it not diminish with diminishing of life force and then it can make an impact. Then you still have the other 3 skills to work on, and as you said you can improve the DS skills by catering to them in your traits, but then that takes away from your normal attacks which is where the actual DPS is coming from. I’m not saying DS isn’t useful I’m saying it isn’t useful enough that anet can say it makes up for our DPS and is this amazing skill that necromancers can use to be an amazing class.

Okay, so one of the main ideas of anet for why necro isn’t actually underpower and weak is death shroud. I don’t want to slam anet or anything, personally I believe necro is an okay class, we don’t have the best DPS or survivablility but when minion AI gets fixed it won’t be so bad. However I have to call them on all their claims that DS makes us evened out. For starters if you enter into a 1v1 battle without any previously built life force it is very unlikely you will be able to build up enough life force in the fight to get close to 100% or any amount of extra health that actual helps you significantly. You could help this of course by putting trait points into improving DS, but then I have to take away from my DPS or other survivability. As a necro you need the DPS as we have very low attack capabilities and spending your trait points on toughness or vitality will be a much better use for survival. Yes vitality also increases your health in DS, but it still isn’t enough to give you the actual great advantage and amazing health that anet builds it up to be. Also personally I believe that survivability in the long run needs at least mild DPS to go with it, unless you are just running you need DPS to be able to take down your enemy before they wear down your health, toughness and vitality or not. This is another shortcoming of DS as the skills included in DS consist of:

One auto attack, which gives poor damage if you are fortunate enough to have full life force when you enter DS, and as the battle progresses the damage this skill does lowers significantly until when you are at low DS health you are basically poking at your enemy with ridiculously low amounts of damage.

One chill and bleed skill that teleports you to your opponent, offering low range, bleed, and base damage.

One 1 1/4 second fear which is a very low fear and is of little to no use unless you are knocked down, and even then it most likely won’t protect you for your whole down.

One 600 rage aoe that does low damage and barley makes any effect on the loss of life force.

So, if our amazing DS is so great why do we not have skills that can at least do 1/2 of our normal sets damage? Basically when you are in DS all you are doing is delaying your death, if you cannot DPS your enemy whilst in DS then it is just a little more health for them to rip away while you do maybe 5k damage to them, not changing the overall outcome of the battle. The only legitimate use for DS as it stands is stalling if you have allies 10 seconds away or using it to sit there and not have your normal health eaten away while you wait for a heal or attack to finish it’s cooldown. DS isn’t this horrible thing I wouldn’t dream of using, but it isn’t what anet builds it up to be. It doesn’t make our pvp battles more even unless you have allies 5 seconds away or your enemy has 2k hp left, it doesn’t improve our win rate without the DPS to go along with the slightly increased health, and it offers no way to do any kind of DPS an enemy might find semi-threatening. To me DS sounds more like a mediocre utility or a horrible elite skill that nobody would dream of getting than an actual form that makes up for our very low DPS and horrible survival rate compared to other classes.

If you actually wanted to make DS a legitimate form that actually helped necromancers you could:

Make the auto attack (#1) skill do consistent damage regardless of the life force amount and reduce it’s CD time to 1/2 or 1/4 of a second.

Make the #2 ability come with a longer fear + another condition perhaps chill to keep them away from you longer or bleed for some DPS.

Make the #3 skill have a longer range and do more damage.

Make the #4 skill add more life force and slightly increase damage.

Make life force not naturally diminish when in DS so we only lose life force if we are being hit. If anet is worried about necromancers just running around exploring in DS I don’t know why. It’s supposed to be our second health bar right? Might as well let us use it. If you are for whatever reason so opposed to us being able to stroll about in DS without losing life force you could make it so that if you are in combat your life force doesn’t automatically diminish without people hitting you, even though I can’t see why we shouldn’t be able to stroll around out of combat with death shroud up and not continuously acting as if we are a Jagged Horror and bleeding ourselves out.

Add some good DS improving trait benefits that aren’t all in one trait line so we don’t have to waste our trait points.

That’s all I have to say about DS for now, like I said I am personally a fan of the necro class (it is my main class) it’s just that DS actually isn’t really good for anything but running and delaying death 10 seconds without actual helpful skills that do more than the absolutely horrible damage they do now.

Yes, I love this class too. I understand why some people have problems with it, the main reason I love it I suppose because I don`t use minions or conditions which seem to be the things most people have issues with. I think the class is well done and if you play properly you can do well with it, I win well over half my 1v1 encounters with my build and hold up well in groups.:)