Showing Posts For Scott Lockharte.3412:
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Hey, Scott! I remember fighting you in WvW ages and ages ago. Are these the builds you’re running now or are you still in that heavy cava spec?
Right now i’m running this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZakjGapxaaw2G4vxhxQJDhguoj/cAMA0mIKmVA-TlSBABXcEAW4QAc1+Dk/AAwS5nlq/kvmgFVCineAAOBABAQAuZb2m3MwRP6RP6RPa38mH9o38mlCoKdWA-w
or rather experimenting with that, since one of my main issues with my other builds is that cooldowns/recovery time takes a bit too long, so curses helps with that. It’s really just another optional playstyle i wanted to experiment with
But i also run a variant of the cavalier/DM build consistently, often dependant on who i’m playing with or if i’m alone.
I actually will be starting up commanding after a hiatus soon, so i’ll probably end up working on developing something else with better commanding tools shortly
A small PSA for readers: Reaper doesn’t work very well for power builds for WvW/SPvP, and it’s not due to Greatsword despite what many say,
There’s actually some really interesting bugs with GS 5#, like the pull being able to be interrupted by a dodge or stun and still go off (Meaning it has no effective cast-time), And it can pull four times in a row up to 1400 range or so, on what i expect to be five targets (i’ve only personally tested it up to 3) doing all of its effects many times over giving you a good 50%+ LF
(The trick behind this is the same behind linecasting, dodge backwards as you pull and it bugs it out, i use this to great extent on slothasor slubs)
One other difference for the greatsword pull is that it goes straight over and through walls and can be abused very easily, anyway i’ll finish this off:
Greatsword is frankly a great weapon mostly because of the pull and it’s varying differences from other pull effects, The real issue is that reaper’s shroud is really bad if someone kites or ranges you and doesn’t do what it needs to, especially after its stability nerf i wouldn’t recommend power reaper to anyone for that reason, and why i’m sticking to base necro for anything PvP/WvW related.
Anyway, besides that rant i’d also like to mention damage numbers, The cav build pulls 22k-27k DPS in raids and on a dummy (personally tested), and is better if you don’t have a guaranteed source of might or that you need to use reaper’s shroud more often, for PvE, And the valk stat-capped build pulls 25-30k DPS depending on raid boss and if you take transfusion over well CD reduction (consistent 28-30k on VG with variance on a near perfect build and rotation), At this point i’m pretty much just rehashing what i’ve said in other posts, so i’ll end this text off here.
Guide and Power Reaper PoV for raiding soon! i just need to find a good editing program i like.
Edit: I just wanted to clarify something, the build i just linked is experimental, and isn’t something i’d actually recommend as a final product, i’ve been experimenting with other combo’s like Curses/BM/SR too, and i don’t really have a final result of my testing yet, so stick with the ones i’ve linked before if anyone’s copying it.
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Valk/BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjGapxaawyGYvxCugNN2aCVh4r4XcMCNACAtAA-TBCBABQcKAyS5HW7PwoSwAeiCAcgCuU9n8038NgAYQQIQIECr1atWdMChQQKgB2ZB-e
And http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjGapxaawxGYvxCugBNACAtApeQXbfFfF/ilRA-TxBBABep8DgTVQaKBD4JKkn+mLV/Br9H+GMAMEigIiYmZmpRERESBMwWL-e
Either of these are stat-capped, aim for that, GLHF
Scott, with Rise, I find I need zero toughness in PvE. You might revisit your Cavalier equipment – maybe toss a bit of Zealot’s or Assassin’s in for critical hit chance out of Shroud.
For the rest, I wish I could raid as a power reaper but the meta-pressure… Good job on challenging the norm.
I must admit to becoming addicted to shouts for their generally short cast time and cool down despite being weaker than fixed skills like wells or signets.
Without Rise and LF traits, power reaper would be so much squishier! It’s like being a blink-tank instead of a magic class playing melee just begging to be downed. (Ah, the memories of game release.)
Yes that’s definitely a option! There’s two real open-world shroud builds out there, Blood magic with rise / Valk, and death magic with Any utility / Cav (Usually plague or locust signet for me personally.)
The reason i say to go cavalier, is that shroud itself is a damage increase open-world due to the might stacks from Reaper’s Might in spite, and cavalier/death magic as a combo, adds 24% converted stats, actually giving you more overall damage AND other personal effects (shrouded removal!) while in shroud, since signet of spite doesn’t function there.
And DM gives unholy sanctuary, which is a godsend pretty much everywhere, and i’d argue that the DM build is better than other power builds on matthias due to it.
But either work, it isn’t such a big deal since it IS open-world, it’s just some efficiency differences.
Edit: didn’t respond to your first bit completely, The crit chance is 90% all the time, which is more than enough open-world and without spotter/banners, it’s 100% with the DM/Cav raid version (For matthias) regardless of spotter/banners and the valk/vitzerk version with furious maintenance oil is a damage increase over running actual zerker gear since you’ll have 100% crit regardless of anything you do due to a combination of decimate defenses (Decimate is 50%, base is 4%, fury is 20%, and just vitzerk trinkets is +26% or so.) and other things, you take accuracy/force sigils with the cav build, and air/force with a valk build, which puts you at exactly 90% for cav and OVER 100% for valk
Edit: Here’s the aforementioned builds:
Valk/BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjGapxaawyGYvxCugNN2aCVh4r4XcMCNACAtAA-TBCBABQcKAyS5HW7PwoSwAeiCAcgCuU9n8038NgAYQQIQIECr1atWdMChQQKgB2ZB-e
Quite a few traits can be swapped around, but this just gives you a idea, and i run both of these personally.
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To add my two cents, i do every type of content on a daily basis as a valk/cav or valk/vitzerk power reaper, (base Necro in WvW) and i’m fully geared.
In raids, i pull a consistent 24-28k dps depending on teammates and boss hp (+20% damage under 50%) and boss armor (VG/gor is a good 26k dps all the time with my guild group, unknown with pugs)
Open world (unpartybuffed) you can expect around 16k-18k, depending on how well you play and manage shroud, as shroud is actually a small damage increase due to personal might stacks open-world, and with cavalier trinkets/back, taking Death Magic (Surprise!)
I’m one of the few remaining theorycrafting power necros around, sadly, but it’s still a load of fun to play, and isn’t a liability in anything, really, despite what some say.
The reason for that is because it’s not something a group needs to worry about, res, or heal due to selfheals/natural tankyness, it provides good support for sloth from transfusion (i’ve prevented a few wipes!), gives some decent offhealing, and certaintly isn’t a crazy damage loss in most cases over a guardian or revenant, it’s just they provide totally different and arguably better ways of helping out.
Although i am a bit biased, but the main reason why my guild lets me stick with it is because i actually know what i’m doing, and the surefire way for success is mostly personal knowledge of game mechanics rather than class choice.
Oh yeah, my numbers doing dummy tests with half-real buffs are 22-23k with variance on a shroud rotation, 24-26k on standard rotation with d/w / gs.
If you have any questions, PM me, i know a few tricks with it!
PS: if someone looks at my post history, embarrassingly, my older shroud builds made a week after HoT came out, and slightly before raids were released, overkilled armor a bit, they still work totally fine, it’s just the softcap for armor is 2.8-2.9k, so it’s kind’ve wasting a bunch of stats, after experimenting valk/cav mixed with zerk weapons is best for open world/small content, and valk/vitzerk is best for raids because of the damage increase / furious maintenance oil.
Edit: Last edit, really! i don’t have as much experience in SPvP since due to the stats there, and the lack of foods, power builds are pretty much crap, and i usually use my guardian or rev for that.
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If you’re finding Plague to be less powerful than it actually is, (it is especially more powerful on base necro builds, and yes, those still exist) Here’s some semi-hidden quirks to it.
Life force generation is doubled due to your life force pool being doubled because of your health being doubled, meaning you can hit plague just before 50% and get 16% LF back from a automatic spectral armor.
Plague-stomping also gives double life force, and this has great synergy with the oh so regarded as bad trait Soul Comprehension, i’ve had quite a few fights where entering plague when my friends or i am stomping have been the difference between a loss and a win.
This counts for all deaths, Walk over a rabbit in WvW in plague and you get up to 24% LF back.
Also, to the OP’s suggestions, Plague can already cause chill off of blinding with Chilling Darkness, and in my opinion, having to trait for combos like this is a really good thing, i’d just like Chilling Darkness buffed a bit (small 2 second ICD reduction)
Plague is plenty powerful enough if you actually want to use it, my opinion is the real problem that it just doesn’t function interestingly enough for most, it doesn’t have any fun toys to use.
Hey there! Sorry I didn’t recognize the ‘he’ part. :P
And thank you very much for updated build as well.
VERY interesting indeed!
I think your build is quite close to what I was thinking about.
I will see if I can get closer to something like yours.Thanks!
If you want something close but cheaper, try changing to soldier armor with wurm runes. You loose 100ish toughness or so and about 8% ferocity, but you also gain 500 vitality.
Oh jeez, don’t do this, the stat loss is a lot lot higher than the skewed numbers you’re using, And exuberance runes would be a better choice anyway, however i’ve already tried both of these setups extensively over the past year, The only three runes worth using are Pack, Surging, and Scrapper,
and soldier is definitely a loss in damage/defense since it negates a lot of the point of using conversions so extensively to get as close as possible or higher than berserker damage with a defensive build, Whatever you do don’t do this.
Necromancers have always been able to be in the front lines, just don’t go beserker and expect to live. Been doing it for years.
Going full cavalier may seem like a good idea but you’ll need added vitality to live through condi-bombs. Mix in some soldier gear to be more effective too, what point is added crit damage if you’re dead. Yes, even with the Shroud cleansing you’ll still need more defense against condi-bombs.
Consume conditions is a must, in the condition heavy WvW we find ourselves in , anything else just doesn’t compare. Combined with " Suffer" and you basically have two full condi-clears.
Play smart and realize that you’re not invulnerable, no matter how tanky you build yourself, it means nothing being focused.
I have done nothing but roam, dueled, and commanded over many months for a good year overall, running full cavalier and at a time cav/berserk mixed, You do not need as much defense as you’re saying against condi-bombs, Yes it could help if you personally have a problem against them, and yes swapping 25% of the cav for valk and then taking corruptor’s fervor is a certain option and i’d recommend it for people new to all of this, but it is anything but necessary.
Consume Conditions is not as amazing as you’re making it out to be, Soul is Mine is on a very short cooldown with max targets and does just as much, If you’d rather be near-immune to cripples/chill/immobs Sure, go consume conditions, but i’ll argue that the Soul is Mine/Augury of Death combo is better even just for the cast time in most situations.
And you’ll find Suffer almost never works in a actual fight, so IF ANY condi clears, run Well of Power even though most would consider it atrocious, it at-least will do more than Plague Signet or Suffer (both fail in a actual fight almost 60%+ of the time, it used to be the primary complaint of Plague Signet until the cooldown was reduced and people stopped caring as much) and Suffer still needs buffs to actually be useful.
TL;DR cleansing sigil / shrouded removal do more than enough, don’t do this unless you’re worried about what is still a minority in fights, this is exaggerated, most of the damage you’ll take in a zerg will still be power-based.
If someone wants to chat about the difference between defensive stats, I’m game, talk to me.
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Sorry to interrupt.
I am also necro/reaper looking for optimization of all sorts.
Who is this ‘he’ who’ve posted the tank build, and which ‘tread’ or actual ‘post’ is this?
Not knowing who to search for in the Necro forum, needs a lot of scrolling…
Thanks!
Yo, That would be me, Here’s the actual link since the sites updated now
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQJARWnMbCV2gdbC22As3gFrBTKAEy+VxZwRYKkaFEDmUA-TRSBQBk7CAchjAQi0FYw9HQjSQPp+TXU+phDBAAeAABAQAu5Nzm3MwQH6QH6QHa3co3co38mlCQPtWA-e
Click on the “Show skill action” button above reaper shroud, that will show you something near the actual stats inside RS not accounting for crit from vuln (50%), or flesh of the master / corruptor’s fervor, This is extremely close to the maximum optimization you can balance in-between defense/offense.
The actual guide with a lot more information on rotations and a few tricks many may not be aware of with more technical information will be coming sometime later this month, (I’m not the best editor) So watch out for that if you’re interested in this stuff!
If anyone wants information sooner than that just message me in-game anytime they see me online (Add my forum name to the friends-list for finding me) I’ll gladly discuss anything i know about.
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- absolutely selfish play that offers nothing a reaper or revenant can’t.
Sorry, that first line just needs to be quoted here.
What are you on? Reapers/Necromancers have been complaining about a literal 0 support since launch, Even now we have nothing but damage, a projectile reflect, boonrips/condi control, vampiric aura which does a whole 30-damage / 30 healing per hit, break-bar smashing and being pretty tanky, most of which has been largely useless for 3 years now. Saying we produce anything but that is a flat out lie, there’s absolutely nothing else we do
And no, moving downed corpses isn’t majorly useful, yet…
-Random guy who hangs out in the necro forums
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I’m mostly talking about Brazil’s tank build. You know, the OP 100% crit chance tank build that everyone uses in the jungle, but other builds work fine too. How is our survivability in the front lines with Reaper?
You know his build is badly unoptimized for a tank build and you can do WAY better?
(Look up my big build post speal from a few days back on my name, it’s close to max-optimization for this role)
Anyway to the main point, Yes, it’s a thing, i’ve commanded and held front-line positions on even base-necromancer running a similar tank build to the reaper version for over a year now, it’s completely feasible to be the last to die everytime and still do fantastic damage, Give it a try sometime.
I do recommend staying away from knight’s, it’s basically the worst.
Edit: Since WvW died since HoT released i haven’t gotten any major zerg-fights yet (50v50), i can’t 100% say so, but i was tanking most HoT bosses with ease while warriors and guardians next to me were dying instantaneously.
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To answer OP’s question
Because the gw2 community is delusional, mixes up speedrunning and Progression, and thinks that speedrunning is what everyone does in this game, there’s a very small speedrunning community, and endgame community overall (Two dozen decent PvP teams, on NA specifically, and less than a hundred “speedrunners”, i can bet on that.)
Progression actually isn’t a thing yet, and no, fractals 100 scaling isn’t progression, get with friends and you can do it easily.
See, i’ve never seen a community that literally does “dungeon” content which is known to be a usual joke in every MMO, which was abandoned by the developers two years ago and think they’re cool for doing something that’s “dead” content a few minutes faster than the other minority group doing it, and then design all of their builds around it and then instruct the people who have no interest in it to do the same.
(Newsflash, berserker isn’t the best stat-set for HoT, if you’re at all considering HoT content hard, even before raids, Swap to cavalier, clerics, rabid, dire, etc, and you’ll do better in every way, there’s very little difference in damage numbers for a player with game-sense who knows how to build with a cavalier/other stat set, and you’re getting a lot more out of the deal, not that damage numbers actually even matter at this point, before or after raids.)
You can literally run any build and with a general game-sense you can get by anywhere, And i’m serious, literally anything, Roll with a all-corruptions build or a full nomads tank guardian and you can probably do anything in the game with a pug group, it’s nonsensical that people even look at speedrunning for dead content to choose which build they run with randoms or organized guild/friend groups that will take them anyway if they’re good (Doing your builds/mathing it out to them yourself is better in their eyes anyway).
TL;DR
Stop reading forums and information about a topic unheard of in other MMO’s (speedrunning) that a small minority do, and the general player will never see, and then designing yourself around it and the words of a extreme minority, Build for yourself and you’ll go much farther in what you’re actually doing, if you’re doing something with friends or guildmates, just do it yourself.
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The build is interesting, but I have misgivings about it dealing more damage than a valkyrie/spite reaper to enemies above 50% health. Taking deadly strength into account, you still have about 12% less power than a valkyrie/spite reaper. And you also lose the might stacking component of shroud 1.
That’s where furious sharpening stones come in, the total offensive conversion is 24%, the incredibly high ferocity makes up for the power greatly.
edit: So since i don’t think i elaborated on my theory, i will now, My theory is basically that with this amount of conversions (24%) you can achieve same-or-greater damage with no loss to defense, where losing defense is the norm with berserker.
Traits / party buffs affecting toughness also convert, By default, you’re getting 180 extra toughness thrown in to convert, and up to 700 (480 with just corruptor’s, 700 or so with a minions build running flesh of the master).
Say you have a guardian giving his passive buff, the guardians is 150 toughness, 24% of that is being converted to offensive stats when with a berserker build it would be 6% with ordinary stones, with near no difference to offense.
I’ve hit upwards of 4.5-4.6k armor with this fully-buffed, that is what i mean by not losing defense.
I didn’t know Furious Sharpening Stones existed, but now that I do, I might have to go back to some Cavalier action.
If you don’t mind spending ~4g an hour for 200-300 extra ferocity, by all means.
I’m not willing to throw away that much gold so easily however.
Sorry but where are you getting that number? Furious sharpening stones are about 20 silver each day-to-day, you can get 5 for a gold or so, and 5 for around 20 silver if you make charged quartz crystals yourself by using home-instance mining.
edit: The difference in crit damage is around 20%, Plus it adds 100 toughness, so i don’t know where you’re getting the other number either -.-
Screenshots to substantiate my numbers: http://imgur.com/a/H6n4v
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The build is interesting, but I have misgivings about it dealing more damage than a valkyrie/spite reaper to enemies above 50% health. Taking deadly strength into account, you still have about 12% less power than a valkyrie/spite reaper. And you also lose the might stacking component of shroud 1.
That’s where furious sharpening stones come in, the total offensive conversion is 24%, the incredibly high ferocity makes up for the power greatly.
edit: So since i don’t think i elaborated on my theory, i will now, My theory is basically that with this amount of conversions (24%) you can achieve same-or-greater damage with no loss to defense, where losing defense is the norm with berserker.
Traits / party buffs affecting toughness also convert, By default, you’re getting 180 extra toughness thrown in to convert, and up to 700 (480 with just corruptor’s, 700 or so with a minions build running flesh of the master).
Say you have a guardian giving his passive buff, the guardians is 150 toughness, 24% of that is being converted to offensive stats when with a berserker build it would be 6% with ordinary stones, with near no difference to offense.
I’ve hit upwards of 4.5-4.6k armor with this fully-buffed, that is what i mean by not losing defense.
If my theory is wrong, Then oh well, you have a build with a small loss to damage and a incredible gain in defenses, which is still incredibly useful anywhere
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Since this is the only thread i’ve read in weeks that hasn’t been filled with fools and incorrect information/bad players with bad builds complaining, I’ll add to the conversation with my ultra-tanky power build.
Don’t let that confuse you, it still has similar numbers to full zerk, or valk but it doesn’t die if you can figure it out. (Soloing HoT champions)
Oh yeah, since literally every build-editor isn’t updated :
http://imgur.com/a/Uq5K6
Food is Dragonfish Candy and Furious Sharpening Stones, Runes and sigils:
Scrapper Runes
Force/Rage on the GS
Intelligence/Energy or Bloodlust/Energy on the staff.
Stat set is full cavalier, Corruptor’s Fervor is optional if you swap out 25% of the cavalier for valkyrie, It doesn’t make any sense to use it with diminishing returns as high as 4.2k armor though, UHS is way better for most encounters anyway.
I’m pretty convinced the offensive stats are similar to a zerk reaper in a organized group providing might/vuln (100% crit, 233%+ crit damage 2700+ power with 0 might self-buffed) It also works perfectly fine with a necromancer wells build running DM/SR/BM.
I’ve also commanded with the base necromancer build on Ehmry Bay and more recently Darkhaven for about a year, it works perfectly in solo roaming, zerging, open-world PvE and will hopefully function fine in raids, as tank/brawler orientations are much more important there over zerk which is being phased out quite clearly by anet.
Lastly, if you’re curious why i’m not using Spite/valk as most are, it is because you’d die easier and do less damage when the enemy is above 50% health doing that, Compare this to say either of Brazil’s tank/damage builds, if you’d like.
Message me ingame whenever if anyone wants some more information on this, i’ll be putting out a actual guide within the month, but i felt like i needed to get this out there.
(More specifically i’d like to have a chat with Nemesis whenever he has some free time!)
edit: And yes, i’m counting reaper shroud numbers, this is a shroud-centric build so expect that, you can’t get this level of defense/offense balance otherwise.
Oh, and Happy Halloween, everyone!
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The general gist of what i’ve gotten here is that you’ve had a bad experience playing Reaper and necromancer in general, and are generally fed up with all of our weaknesses that are part of playing ANY profession, so i’ll just stick to asking build information to improve your situation and say this:
Could you provide some technical information on what you’re running, you say you’ve played 20 different builds, and they all didn’t work for you, but are you talking about condi reaper, hybrid, power, tank, vampire? just saying generally our weaknesses suck (range/speed evade/cc) isn’t exactly explaining anything, and i can say my experiences as many others are completely different in play, (Winning outnumbered fights repeatedly)
Reaper is designed as a complete juggernaut and it works as that perfectly, it’s slow, unwieldy, and works thematically as well as mechanically as this “movie monster” they like to portray, It can one shot if it catches you, and keep on going, I haven’t seen anything so far that has made this a problem, and i want technical information on why you think it is a problem, and I’m not saying Reaper isn’t flawed in some ways, there’s a lot of things that need updating and overhauls still, but it works 99%. (Corruption skills, bleh)
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I get it now. You’re trying to go for a death shroud build because you are folding in crappy all zerker groups.
Here’s the bad news. Adding toughness to your build actually makes you more likely to be the target of aggro. You don’t want that, it’s easier to lose your scholar bonus.
I ran scholar on the beta weekend on verdant brink and quite frankly it’s still viable. Most of the high damage moves halve your health or have the potential to 2-shot you in zerker, so you need to learn to dodge them and blind/CC the mobs because slightly increasing your toughness is not going to do much for you.
If you give up spite, you lose 5% damage against foes with no boons, and 20% against low health targets. If you give up soul reaping, you give up a 5% damage modifier, which that power from toughness isn’t going to make up for.
Death Shroud is already lower DPS than a dagger build. Reaper Shroud will be less DPS, especially at 50% health gravedigger spam levels. Building around shroud is a waste. Get rid of that crutch and learn to dodge the damage.
So if you’re going to give up spite/soul reaping and kitten your DPS, you might as well get some group utility out of it. Blood gives you reduced wells cd, which is actually the utilities you’ll be using (you’re all weakings is kind of a redundant shout might-wise in a group setting thanks to the existence of PSEA warriors). It gives you vampiric presence for your group or healing when coming out of shroud.
Death Magic not only gimps your DPS, it’s a SELFISH traitline. So you’re reducing your DPS at no added benefit for the group.
For curses it’s mostly weakening shroud, which is just a better version of you’re all weaklings, and Target the Weak, which allows you to build for even less crit. Barbed Precision is just extra damage on crits.
Death Magic is a minionmaster/pvp traitline, nothing else.
I’m sorry, but where are you getting this information from that toughness/death magic is not a thing for reaper builds? Raids are specifically said to play in such a way that you can’t stack/dodge completely through it in zerk, and they are supposedly designed in a PvP way, where you need to care a lot, the content you’re saying that doesn’t work with toughness/dm is current, not for the time period of when reaper is actually out.
Also, death magic comes up with one of the highest defensive values with minimal loss to power damage of most things in the game (Have you actually even tried cavaliers/furious sharpening stones/deadly strength in PvP/WvW content? it’s kind’ve on par with cele ele minus the supportness and is a viable build instead of cele signet necro), meaning it probably will be top-end necro-wise for what it can do for raids/new content, IF they come through with what they’re selling us.
tl;dr stop trashing a entire trait line, when you don’t even know if it will be meta or not for new content that you haven’t played which is supposedly designed completely differently from current-day dungeons/fractals, admittedly, i can understand staying away from it so you don’t end up tanking attacks, but it probably will end up being a thing, and you shouldn’t tell this guy to shy away from a entire line when you don’t have any information to back up your claims, Oh and, death shroud isn’t lower dps than dagger, Stop with this “meta” nonsense in the necromancer forums of all places.
Now onto the OP, this setup you’re going for is sketchy, most of what death magic is built around is shroud, and staying in shroud for damage/defense bonuses from deadly strength, dropping SR is kind’ve a mistake if you’re taking death magics conversion build, but it may very well work, it does depend on what armor set you go for, and i’m interested to see if it will end up working for raids.
You don’t need zerker to hit hard, I was killing people from 50% in soldier gear with one Executioner + CoD proc. But it isn’t OP at all either, in fact most of it is a bit on the weak side, there are a just a few things that are balanced already that feel nice.
I’m glad someone else is running Soldier, too, Bhawb. Suits Reaper overall. But, as has been said often, the attacks need a biiit more damage (rather, better coefficients) and reduced cast time (though CDs seem decent)
I am also running soldiers. I think reaper is made for soldiers or celestrial. Had the most success in pvp with those sets.
Don’t forget about cavalier or crusader! Both are just as strong right now (Death Magic or Blood)
Self-inflicted conditions from corruption definitely aren’t decreased by Corruptor’s Fervor, but that might be intentional (they’re self-inflicted rather than “incoming”).
Does this also count for Plague Signet / Unholy Martyr? does condition pulling from allies count as self-inflicted?
I decided on posting a big list of various issues with utility skills, but the original reason for this post (and the name) was that Well of Power’s behaviour changed, nerfing it considerably, read further down to see this.
Well of Power’s behaviour was changed, If you leave the well, the condition removal effect no longer remains
i’m unsure if this is intentional, but it is a definite nerf
I also believe the effect itself may not work sometimes (Could someone confirm this?)
On the topic of wells, vampiric effects, do not work with non-damaging wells if you take Vampiric Rituals
Signet of Spite does not apply the intended conditions, It only applies one vulnerability and one bleed, (Tooltip says 5 and 2)
Spectral Wall and Well of Corruption both give life force but the tooltips do not mention this. (Wall is 4% when a enemy walks into it, Well is 2% for every hit enemy per tick)
Flesh Wurm does not gives life force on it’s death, only on it’s sacrifice
Flesh Wurm’s sacrifice isn’t affected by Soul Comprehension (I just find this very weird behaviour, and what i think is new, since Soul Comprehension was bugged before the patch to affect all LF generation)
There’s multiple facing bugs with a very large portion of our abilities, ones to note are Plague Signet and Minor Signet of Vampirism from Blood Bond (Doesn’t even trigger a good portion of the time because it’s automatic and still has a facing requirement)
of course, everyone knows the many A.I bugs making certain minions (Flesh Golem, Shadow Fiend) not even do anything even on perfectly flat terrain.
Channeled effects do not actually begin doing their effects until over 25% of the channel is complete, this has significance since Life Transfer will not teleport immediately if traited with Transfusion.
Dark Path casts from the place where you initially started it range-wise, so it misses even when your current position is in range.
Wail of Doom has severe vertical/horizontal aiming problems, if the enemy is SLIGHTLY above it or to the side, it fails.
Almost missed this, Putrid Mark is larger than the Blast it produces, if you place it on the edge of a combo-field, it sometimes does nothing even though the edge of it is blasting “within” the field.
Banshee’s Wail does not affect the actual life-force gain effectiveness of Locust Swarm (Probably not a bug, but i included it)
I believe it was said necromancer’s would be able to heal themselves in death shroud, and a exception was even made to Blood Magic traits:
Spiteful Renewal does not heal in Death Shroud.
Parasitic Contagion does not heal in Death Shroud.
Blood Bond does not heal in Death Shroud.
[UPDATED] could anyone confirm if Corruptor’s Fervor actually does the condition damage reduction? it feels like it doesn’t:
Corruptor’s Fervor does not work for self-inflicted conditions -Credit to manveruppd
Minions with Sacrifice effects (Flesh Wurm, Bone Minions) Do not cause the direct damage component of Death Nova – Credit to Drarnor
Lingering Curse does not affect the condition duration of Grasping Dead -Credit to Ovid & manveruppd for bringing this to the attention of this thread
Feel free to post your own bugs you’ve found, i’ll add them to the main list to keep things concise.
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
I’ll tell you the secret of my most successful Necro build, I have tried basically every type of necro and this build BY FAR has the highest Win Loss ratio. But the thing is your probably not going to want to play it and lots of people are going to come here and tell me it’s crap but w/e.
I reduced my quote because otherwise all of this wouldn’t fit.
Few things,
1#, Dolyak Runes do not heal in Death Shroud
2# Water and Blood Sigils do not heal in Death Shroud
3# Blood Magic is a bad idea usually, it’s a waste of points.
You’re just killing time in fights running this stuff, there’s better ways to do this, these are really bad choices.
Let me start by saying the concept is good, the idea that enemies will instantly focus the necromancer and waste their time is cool.
However about everything with this setup is flawed, Barbarian Amulet isn’t good, pick one of the other defensive amulets (Sentinels, Soldiers, Cavaliers are all better options)
here’s some better trait setups.
this for a offensive setup
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAodWjc00WbPN22whbifhS6XIAaXoCTqzivIYB-TZBBABfcIAA4JAI4+DiXGIgTAAA
or this for the original tank concept you had, without doing any damage output, i threw this together just now, the other two i’ve actually played with.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmWbLux2G+bTgMUS3BRw2GZAUAUGFNBA-TZBBABfcIAUvMAAPBg+OBALt/AA
Lastly this for a inbetween setup that i can confirm works to a extent (My personal divine soldiers build i play with when i’m bored)
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjm2aLvx2G+bT8LUS/CBQ7CVYSdW8FBLA-TZBBwAfOEAAeCAx2fwcZgAnAAA
I’ll also point out the reasoning for using the shadow fiend, The on-use ability blinds and gives LF, it’s also a point-blank AoE, so you can get more than 10% from that, Next the pet gives 13% back when it dies, (26% if you kill it purposefully with plague), it’s a good source of ranged LF generation.
Obviously you can play around with these on your own, but this is what i could come up with for the idea, not that any of this matters by next tuesday.
It is nice to see another bunker necro around.
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
So?
what are you suggesting instead, because you just made a very long rant that could be summed up in a sentence:
Death Shroud has less keys than other mechanics so it’s predictable/weak and a bad mechanic
I’m just not sure why you started this thread, since it looks like you’re trying to explain to new people (Newsflash, New people don’t check the forums) what most already know and live with.
If what you’re wanting is a increased toolkit (Utilities are a common choice), we already have a few hundred threads about that at this point, so i’m hoping you have something up your sleeve here to surprise me with, and you didn’t just make a paragraph to say little to nothing.
Also, the changes are fine, so don’t get started on how they don’t fix anything, most if not all of our problems have been fixed and you’ll see that in actually playing it. no idea what most are complaining about, Sure at first glance it looks like a nerf, until you realize all of the many buffs hidden in between, and the cool things we can do with our nerfs (10+ vuln with offhand dagger, or triggering plague sending with corrupting ourselves to forcibly condi the enemy)
The only mistake i saw was putting cool synergy that could’ve been made all on the curses master line, but that hardly matters much compared to our new toys.
What are our reaper shroud skills underwater?
No seriously, i want to know, are we keeping the current edition of death shroud underwater? or are we getting something totally new, Necromancers are known to be a menance underwater, and i like the current DS version, it’s honestly the strongest profession mechanic underwater
Here’s a fun idea so DS is on par with RS on ground, The AoE “wave” fear from underwater DS on land to replace terror, it does 2-3k damage and aoe fears in a frontal wave, it’s pretty nice, although doom is currently really good, looks to be a question of instant vs cast with a better effect, thought i’d plug it here.
Thoughts?
AFAIK Dhummfire has a 10sec ICD doesnt it?
Not anymore, read the new version, since burning stacks, and it still applies with RS’s auto and even though the burning itself doesn’t last that long (3seconds?) it’s going to be a lot of consistent damage.
It’s also a major in the soul-reaping line.
Where can I read the new tooltips?
Dulfy has a build calculator made by That_Shaman, with the new info, Reaper hasn’t been put in yet though.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBqAOoBag~
That doesn’t have all the info though, dulfy’s core specialization page has more: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
AFAIK Dhummfire has a 10sec ICD doesnt it?
Not anymore, read the new version, since burning stacks, and it still applies with RS’s auto and even though the burning itself doesn’t last that long (3seconds?) it’s going to be a lot of consistent damage.
It’s also a major in the soul-reaping line.
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
For both condition and power, Reaper looks very interesting and very strong, Let’s look at some of the really strong combos
Chill is going to be on every fear, and chill will damage, Getting the enemy below 50% will cause double damage on chill, and it looks to be like it’l be quite a bit, so you could burst terror and this to do a massive damage spike.
That’s without even considering that our auto applies chill, and our auto in RS applies burning every hit, We’re going to be absolute monsters for terror builds due to this.
So our damage looks better on paper now, What about our defense?
Putrid Defense (10% damage reduction while enemy is poisoned)
Cold Shroud (15% damage reduction from chilled enemies trait)
+ Frost Aura (10%, and chills if you’re hit, for even higher burst, applied to self via RS)
Power is going to be just as interesting, a real consistent application of stability, Blood Magic working in RS/DS, So many more combo finishers / fields, and the shouts look really interesting and are competitive options for the slots, the future looks really good right now.
They said ignore the damage numbers with emphasis at least three times during the stream, So let’s do just that and look at everything mechanics wise, I do not see how this could all be put in while being this strong, I truly do not understand what people are underwhelmed by, or are complaining about on this forum, Could someone elaborate to me what exactly is wrong with this picture?
Seems like every line is really really good, i know i mentioned quite a few separate lines here, but the choices in-between them all seem quite competitive with each other after these changes.
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
CPC should destroy projectiles and the the self weaken should be changed to self poison. Or something that doesnt require an immediate cleanse. To be honest its one corruption skill that i think should have no self condi.
The weakness is fine, if you combo it with Well of Power, it turns into 3 might stacks, it’s totally worth it, besides that swapping the weakness onto enemies with one of our many skills that does that is really quite useful at range, The projectile idea is good though, i’d take that.
Here’s my small tweaks and life improvements i’d like to see:
Corrosive Poison Cloud giving a small amount of life force if enemies are hit when it ticks, and perhaps make it do a little bit of damage per tick similar to Radiation Field (1-2% Life Force per tick)
Our healing skills reworked completely, they’re all pretty much bad, i understand the idea behind Well of Blood not removing conditions on it’s own being that it’s a combo field that removes conditions on projectile, but we don’t have enough attacks counting as projectiles in general, nor or our minions projectiles worthwhile, a very nice change to see would be a 20% chance or so for life blast to count as a projectile to help with this.
A good change to see combined with this healing skill rework is the cast time reduced on consume conditions just slightly, it’s a little too slow right now and would be a major quality of life improvement if it was just a teency bit faster, say 1 1/2 instead of the current 1 1/4
We do need numerous bug fixes on certain skills not working at times, but i’ll leave that to the bug fixing team. (Dark Pact, Spectral Grasp, Plague Signet), What i will say is that plague signet should be unblock-able.
Tool-tips fall under the bug fixing agenda, Like Well of Corruption and Spectral Wall giving life force and not telling the user about it.
Signet of Undeath and signets in general are really weak right now, with the effect not functioning in Death Shroud, or that they just don’t do enough / are hard to aim in a fight, so a signet update would be great.
Spite being unblockable, or/and the power effect working in DS is a much wanted change.
Undeath doing 1% more, and perhaps having a additional effect as just the resurrect is very difficult to use, such as also healing allies that it’s used on by a certain amount, which would function in conjunction with the resurrection of them, another option being simply making the resurrect effect not ground-targeted and have it do it to whoever is closest, but that’s a poor man’s fix.
Just small tweaks such as these would greatly improve the profession, as i don’t personally have the opinion that it is badly designed, it’s mostly bugs and small tweaks that cause the death of us.
With that said, i don’t do high level PvE (Fractals) so i’m sure those players would want bigger changes as it’s common knowledge we’re unwanted there, but this would improve us enough on just about every other scene.
The new traits don’t seem to be as awful/weird as our current design, and Death Magic has a place for more survivable players
(People really don’t give Unholy Sanctuary as much credit as they should, it’s saved me personally thousands of times at this point since i run a death magic centric build in WvW),
My only requests on that front is that Death Nova has the ICD on Minion summoning reduced or removed/the minions themselves being bigger/not awful, and the Blood Magic Vampiric traits functioning in DS
it’s mainly the blood line that still needs a major fix.
There’s always been this one thing most players have wanted, Regen functioning in DS, I’d love to see this implemented somehow, so make sure that’s on the to-do list for ideas.
That’s all, hope you took a look at this wall of fixes.
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
They just fixed/made power necromancers to a state better than ever before, and conditionmancers will be even better now with the scepter 100% condition duration trait (Bet it stacks with normal condition duration too, 200% condition duration anyone?)
Spectral builds in Soul Reaping, Dhuumfire being ridiculus again and being in the Soul Reaping line, Automatic casting of axe 3 on entering DS for even more boonstrip, basically every DS trait rolled together.
What are you all seriously complaining about right now, because since we can take 3 grandmaster traits, we can be a tanky spite/death-magic/soul reaping SPECTRAL build that was never once possible before,
the glass-cannon is totally gone.
Look, if you ask me, the only negative change was Deathly invig doing nothing for us and being useless as a grandmaster (Numbers haven’t been shown yet though, might do 4-10k heal on all nearby allies/pets, we just don’t know)
(edited by Scott Lockharte.3412)
I use a Corsair Vengeance M95.
I’ve owned three razor deathadders during the years all three began to doubleclick constantly and had other major issues for me (Razer Synapse is actually terrible), so i was tired of all of their products breaking within 6 months of use when i’m gentle with them but continuous (Even the mousepad i bought came apart)
As a guy who games all day every day, eventually your peripherals get this kind’ve gamer gunk, razer had a massive issue with this when i used their products as they’re hydrocoating is less than optimal, i’ve never had this problem once with my corsair mouse, and the keys are so tightly interlocked nothing gets inside.
Look, this thing was the best purchase i made about last fall, this thing feels solid (metal chassis, not plastic) doesn’t get nasty, and the key feel / layout is pure beauty, i’ve been told by my friends with the logitech/razer high-end options about picking up the mouses to be a issue due to the side key design, so you’d aciddently hit the buttons all the time, this has none of that due to it’s ingenius design with a very nice thumb centralized layout.
My two gripes about my mouse were the software for full side button use, it’s unintuitive at first but actually works really well in theory (it does have some issues with overlap on mouse sensitivity settings with the basic windows controls)
And you must own a windows computer for it to be fully functional, the keymapping is saved onboard on the mouse though, so it’s useable on macs after initial setup.
All in all best mouse i’ve ever or will ever own, i will probably be using corsair for the rest of my life, highly recommend it.
I love using so called bad classes in every game and showing people up, just saying. when they find out I actually know what I’m doing usually it’s too late for them as they are in down state fighting for their life.
Profession not class*
Also most people can beat a necro unless they suck at the game, and if you are as good as you say literally all other 7 professions would be far better for you as you could actually be good for your team unlike the necromancer.
Necromancers are abysmal in PvE, PvP and WvW, unless arenanet somehow magically fix the necromancer in the upcoming expansion then they will see an even bigger fall of necromancer players.
you’re a fool, necro’s have been taken to most major PvP tournaments (Didn’t the china finals have three across all the teams?) they are in shambles and people know that, but they function extremely well for having so many sketchy design choices, It’s the same case in WvW, for zerging they’re very much needed due to wells and AoE pressure.
I will admit, they’re not in use in PvE zerk groups, but i’ve never been hardcore enough to care about speedruns, so i’ve never noticed, I haven’t once been kicked for being a necro, honestly i’m not sure where people are finding these groups that do this, but at the same time i don’t join zerker groups since it’s often the case they fail faster than defensive groups due to the snooty attitude.
Look, i’m in agreeance with the oP here, I’ve got a engi/guard/thief at 80 i play too, but i always come back to the necro, being both the worst and best in certain ways is my favorite thing and always will be.