My only complaint about Rise! as someone that only pvps is that its too much screen spam. Its very difficult to see whats going on when there are 2 necros in a teamfight. Added to the mess that is mes clones not despawning on death (after months if not years)and the extra aoes from HoT it makes for messy teamfights.
Dont use those sigils. Bursting is negligable damage in pvp and corruption stacks only really add up in games youre already stomping in.
Use a combination of geomancy, doom, and frailty. Since you arent using reaper that removes the viability of hydromancy and ice sigils. On swap sigils are great because they activate when entering and leaving death shroud.
Also, focus is a terrible pvp weapon. Use warhorn for the mobility and unblockable interrupt (breaks rev shield, interrupt heals, interrupt ele overloads). If you dont like warhorn at least take dagger offhand for condi xfer and aoe weakness.
I will say that ranked matchmaking sucks until around high sapphire and ruby. Every game i had was a blowout with usually a 300 to 400 point difference. I had a massive streak of games where I couldnt make any progress. Thankfully, I played some stronghold matches and broke tier 3 sapphire and from there all my games have been close and competitive if Im solo or duo queue. Seems like doing premade with more than duo queue sticks you against much more difficult opponents.
Try to stick with it my Ruby games have been excellent, even came back and won 500 to 499 in one of the games with a lucky tornado from elixer x to decap mid and win.
I believe vipers is preferred for raids, but zerker is best for short encounters like fractals and dungeons. I might be rong though because I mainly pvp these days.
I agree with everything in this post. The only games you shouldnt be learning from are absolute stomps in your favor where you are farming the enemy one at a time on far.
Another point I’d like to expand on, taking breaks. People are very quick to blame teammates, but the only consistent factor in your games is YOU. If you dont improve, youll only reach high levels by being carried there. If you keep getting a terrible team or unlucky comps, take a 10 minute break. They will have had. Their queue pop by that time and you will get different teammates.
The stick with one class is especially important. I only branch out and play different classes when i have no pips to lose, warming up with an unranked game or two first.
Drop marks around yourself, I usually do chill and fear. When they jump you just chain cc their hp will melt. If you can get a nice fear into reaper shroud 5 you can usually one shot them. If you are running curses and the weakening shroud trait popping shroud will give them weakness which will prevent their burst. Mostly its a skill matchup though, great thieves can take out a necro but its more or less learning what to dodge and what mannerisms to expect from the thief as a necro. They should have to outplay you to kill you.
Can you explain who “we” are? I’m confused.
He did, its himself and his wife.
The solution is to lower their innate tankiness and force them to use active defenses like most of the other classes.
I’ve mained necro since beta weekend one and in GW1 before that; I’ve been asking for active defenses rather than mindless health pool since day one. Unfortunately it would take a rather large rework. Right now necros are the strongest theyve been since dhuumfire first came out. Only real weaknesses they have is high burst combined with lots of crowd control.
I dont main thief, but its my second most played in pvp. Only buffs i would like to see would be build diversity buffs. But almost every class could use those, especially warriors.
This is the most enjoyable meta for me thus far. Fights actually require reaction time and knowledge of other people’s abilities. Teamfights can be a clusterkitten with all the reaper and dh AoEs, but 1v1s and 2v2s are the most fun theyve ever been for me.
You can call me biased because I main necro, but ive been winning with any build, glassy condis or full zerker greatsword. Ive also been playing a lot of thief when the teamcomps allow it, and that is by far the best thief has ever felt to me. Rev feels scaled down from last season, but more build diversity imo.
TL;DR: this is the healthiest meta as far as I remember with only mesmers and warriors being shafted (and those that dont own HoT).
To get better gear appearance wise you generally have to do some PvE. Doing the dungeon track lines can get you some cool looking armor, otherwise check dulfy.net under the fashion area to find sets you might like. Some things will only be available through the gem store but its easy to look cool without spending real life money.
The only pvp only set is the glory armor, which people have mixed opinions on, i personally like the set on human female medium armor classes. Cool classic necro gear would be the Arah armor set or possibly Twilight Arbor.
I disagree with this post. I often play fun builds like zerker greatsword necro and can win 1v1s against hard counters like daredevils and mesmers (high burst and blind wrecks zerker necro). There will always be straight counters to certain builds, just like there will always be meta builds.
Take one of the most popular games current LoL, where champions will be out of the meta for years at a time, and there might only be two or three meta picks out of a twenty champ pool.
Build diversity will always be an issue, but with practice you can still do well with non meta builds, it just wont be as faceroll. Also, if you arent having any fun anymore, just take a break. Theres no need to keep pounding your head against a wall if you arent enjoying yourself.
I use either mercs or vipers with my build. It is just the standard signet with reaper shroud that most necros are running.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Signet_Chillomancer
Im guessing you use corruptions rather than signets in your build, for that case wanderers is a great choice, and what i typically run with the corruptions build.
To answer your question, mercs amulet is a far better choice against tempests. Thats about it. You need that power to be able to chunk them below 75% hp so your condis will stick. I typically swap to mercs amulet and take the trait that increases crit chance when striking vulnerable enemies when i see a few tempests on the other team. Also consider taking sigil of frailty on scepter for the extra vuln and condition cover.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Signet_Chillomancer
IMO this is the strongest PvP build out there for necros currently. It gives you the tools to deal with any class, and does great hybrid damage while being pretty tanky. As far as weaknesses go, nothing class/build specific just 1v2s vs burst will wreck you (such as thief dh) combo. This build can beat any class in a straight 1v1. Swap last trait in soul reaping from dhuumfire to the 50% crit chance in shroud if youre up against multiple tempests or heavy condi clear.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Corruptionmancer
This one is a more condi heavy build with better burst if using wanderers amulet. Mobility kinda sucks on it though, so using flesh wurm is recommended on maps like kyhlo and temple. I also like corrosive poison cloud if you are a fan of teamfights. With cpc and reaper shroud 4 you can stack around 30 poison stacks on a group of enemies. Probably the best condimancer cleave available.
Weaknesses, mobility, sustain, and tempests with diamond skin (especially if using wanderers). Positioning is insanely important with this build or youll be bursted in seconds by a dh.
General advice for necros. You cant rely on invulns and quick escapes anymore without a wurm being pre placed. Dont just rotate through staff marks, many new necros do this to their detriment. Staff 4 and 5 are two of the best skills in the game if used properly, especially vs condi burst cheese. Pay attention to enemy boons, conversions can instantly change the fight in your favor. Lastly, never engage in losing fight, such as running to help a 1v2 when your ally is almost down, you wont be able to run away and its very tough to power rez in that situation as a necro.
Only chance you have as a Revenant is blocking or evading the reapers boon conversions. Or if you get really lucky and have enough boons that it doesn’t convert your resistance. As it stands though condition necro can deal with any condition class fairly easily unless they are outplayed. That being said, revenants have slightly favorable matchups against almost every other build, only being weak against heavy condition pressure and boon removal.
I just had myself and 3 other people on my team crash in a PvP match on Legacy. As far as I can tell some of the other team dced too, but they were able to get back in a little faster so automatic loss.
Thank you for taking the time to write out a response that hits on a few points we have had issues with for awhile. I’m really excited to play reaper this weekend and I hope that the community can come up with some solid feedback. I watched Grouch play it some today and the RS 2 actually seems to give some nice mobility, only wish we didn’t have to put our shroud on cooldown to close gaps.
Shouts actually looked pretty awesome in the demo as well; really loving the stability on “You Are All Weaklings”. The one change I found problematic (and it might feel fine when I play it) is the greatsword 2 losing its full cooldown refresh and only getting ~80%. Just seems like it will be clunky trying to cleave if you can only fit in around 1 auto between spins, especially in PvE.
Thanks again for responding Robert, can’t wait to see your ideas for giving scepter and axe some love.
First off, everything depends on your build and your spec. Thieves and mesmers just take some time to learn how to fight against them well, though mesmers are very strong atm.
In WvW for zerg based gameplay, just run full zerker armor and trinkets with either axe/warhorn and staff or dagger/warhorn and staff. Use well of suffering and well of corruption and basically stay on the backline dropping heavy aoe wells onto the enemy zerg in fights.
If roaming in WvW, I consider a mix of dire and rabid armor with scepter/dagger and staff or scepter/warhorn and staff to be the best build. Run things like spectral armor or walk, plague signet, and corrupt boon to help your 1v1 chances.
For pvp, the best build currently is the celestial signet build. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Celestial_Signet
I personally prefer taking terror in the curses line, and spiteful renewal in the spite line. Your signets will turn their boons into conditions, mainly use them for converting stability into fear if possible. Plague signet to dump a load of condis back onto your opponent, especially good against the burn classes (guard and ele) that love to dump 10 stacks of burn onto you within 3 seconds. I would also recommend using Consume Conditions if you don’t have much experience with necro and SoV as it can be hard to get used to the offensive heal skill. Signet of locust is a great backup heal and AoE boon corruption that can completely turn around teamfights while keeping you alive. Makes mesmers your best friend because each of their clones and phantasms you hit with it will heal you a cool 1500 hp (up to 5).
Learning to tank some enemy skills with deathshroud, and only dodge the important ones is the hardest learning curve of this class imo. We don’t have any blocks, invulns, evade skills, or stealth. You need to manage your energy well and remember to save your 4th mark for transferring a lot of conditions. Maintaining weakness on things like thieves, mesmers, and warriors is very important as well. With the signet build every time you pop into shroud it will drop aoe bleed and weakness near you, so make sure to shroud close to your opponent.
Good luck, and stick with it, this class can be very rewarding but it is hard to get used to being the primary focus in every teamfight.
The signet of spite issue is ridiculous. If they decide to give it the putrid mark treatment, I will be kittened.
Dont forget they have team support, more damage, lower cast times, and lower cooldowns. I want my pre order money back.
And they wonder why their comptitive pvp had never and will never take off.
This is so true. Sadly elementalist shouts blow the reapers away in every single catagory. I truly regret being dumb enough to pre order this game.
Elementalist shouts have lower cooldowns, more damage, team buffing utility, and roughly 1/2 to 1/4 the cast times of reaper shouts. Boy! Sure am glad I have a second healthbar to tank damage while lying on the floor. At least we get to look somewhat cool lying on the ground.
What the hell is wrong with the devs in charge of game balance? Reaper shouts are only offensive and still do roughly half the damage of ele shouts which also grant allies massive buffs. Literally all their shouts grant massive buffs to allies. Give me my kittening money back, or balance the kittening game.
This makes me sad as well. I died to stacks of bleed in a 2v1 vs a trap ranger and scepter condi ele last night. Didnt let me send the bleeds with plague signet because i as covered in other conditions. Ended up being left with 19 bleed stacks as my only condition, with no clears left on my bar.
Stronghold is definitely my favorite part of gw2 to date. It retains a lot of the things I loved from the Fort Aspenwood pvp in gw1 and lets each class and build play to its strength.
I too recently decided to try out a warrior.
I’ve never felt like more of a troll. It’s so ridiculously easy compared to anything else I’ve played in this game (I haven’t really played guardians, but I’ve got some experience with everything else).
And the worst part of it is that it feels so much more effective and effortless compared to every class I’ve PvPed on (which is everything except ranger). Necromancers are like pinballs when you’re playing warrior, just knock them around until they don’t get up anymore.
Maybe you found your calling in the warrior class
Also plague counters Rampage as well as it counters lich
Plague also has a much higher cooldown and doesn’t threaten the warrior at all. I definitely have not found my calling.with warrior. It feels like beating up bronzes in league with a 15 kill 6 item tryndamere that is somehow immune to crowd control as well as damage.
What I’m saying is a no skill cap class shouldn’t be able to crush opponents that are experienced and playing well. Not to say warrior has no skillcap, but if I (a complete newb to the warrior class) can dominate PvP against people playing their mains, than anyone can.
After playing stronghold all weekend on my necromancer main, I was getting sick of my low mobility and essentially being forced to bunker the lords room with the celestial build. Mesmers and Warriors would CC lock me constantly despite having 4 stunbreaks, so i decided to try out warrior for the first time.
Made a warrior and started doing pvp right after leveling some with tomes to get better rewards from loot bags. I just grabbed the meta GS/Ham build off metabattle and didn’t bother reading the traits or weapon skills.
The difference was immediately apparent. On warrior I’m tankier than my necro in the celestial tank build, have more damage output, and about 5 times the mobility. Constant 25% move speed boost without needing to use a utility slot for it. Two different immunity to conditions abilities, an immunity to damage ability (which is doubled by one from my traits) and of course stability with a stunbreak built in. Oh and let’s not forget Rampage which makes Lich Form seem like a useless waste.
In the first game I rapidly learned that it would require 3 players to really take me down. If I was stuck in a losing 2v1 I would just activate Rampage and kill them both with its massive crowd control and hitting around 5 to 7k with each ability. If rampage was on cooldown I would just swap to GS and run away using 3 and 5. It was amazing being able to both stand and fight without worrying about crowd control locking me down, and still be able to run from a losing fight. I still haven’t actually died from a 1v1 in about 10 warrior games played, I just run away if I’m losing, which is rare.
Let’s talk about Rampage. Not a single person was able to successfully kite my rampage, unless you count running through the gate back behind the wall, and usually that was ele’s in their downstate mist form. I was regularly hitting 7k and sometimes I would land 10k crits on light armor classes. It actually outshines thief backstab damage haha. You are also virtually immune to crowd control, conditions, and damage with your massive health bar. Let’s not forget that it’s only a 100 second cooldown after the ability finishes, all 20 seconds of god mode.
The point of this post is, why the hell have I been slamming my head against a wall trying to make necromancer work in PvP all this time when it’s this easy on other classes? It was 3 games before I actually read all my hammer abilities and I was still winning every fight. Granted in high tier, people will be better at countering and kiting than in the stronghold beta, but warrior is the easiest pug stomp I have ever played.
I guess I’ll be playing warrior until they balance this broken class, might as well get my Champion Legionnaire title while it’s this easy. Good luck my necromancer brothers, there isn’t a build out there that can stand toe to toe with warrior or mesmer in their current state.
If they want Reaper to be anywhere close to viable in WvW, we have to have a utility that gives us access to multiple stacks of stability on a reasonable cooldown.
My suggestion, remake the shout that creates jagged horrors (which is completely useless) into a shout that grants stabilty based on targets hit or something similar.
If it requires targets hit to give stability, it has to have a reasonable cooldown, like 60 seconds. Otherwise a longer cooldown but 100% of the stability stacks regardless of amount of targets hit.
Without reliable self stability, the Reaper will useless.
Its like no one on these forums has even tried buffed Dhuumfire. I’m getting 2k burning damage while in Shroud, plus the torment, plus condies I’ve already dumped on them. With epidemic in WvW and signet of spite it massacres 5 targets at once.
With the recent update, Plague is by far the most useless elite I have ever seen. It was always my go to elite on condition spec but now it is a suicide button. Remove this broken and useless transform and give us something that condition specs can actually use.
Can we please get a rework on this awful ability? It never did much damage and was only useful for surviving, but now that has been taken away. I take 500 bleed damage per second now during Plague with a full condition build, roughly 8k to 10k self inflicted damage while being unable to use any of my abilities. Note that that isn’t even with the poison damage from Master of Corruption, which would roughly double the self inflicted damage.
Elites are meant to empower, but this nerf has placed Plague in the trash tier of elites. It was never strong to begin with, and now it isn’t worth the spot on your bar. At least give me the ability to take a 4th utility skill instead of that junk.
Do you also complain when you facetank a churning earth or similar obvious channel skills?
No, people complain about anything and everything on these forums. When we sucked, they asked for buffs, they gave us Dhuumfire and people complained. This class is incredibly strong when left to its own devices in pvp. Necros are so strong in wvw because they have an entire zerg peeling for them. If you learn to use their mobility well, you wont need too much peel in pvp.
As far as pve, we have good damage but lack the utility of other classes. Ele, thief, war, and guard are meta for pve. That being said, skill>comp unless youre doing top tier pvp.
Necromancers are great in small skirmish WvW and pvp imo. They are definitely better than mesmer at zerging in wvw or eotm.
Pros: high damage, naturally tanky, massive cc, condition control, and 2 teamfight changing elite skills.
Cons: always focused, low mobility, low access to stability, no invulnerability abilities, and weak choice for high level pve content.
I just swapped to a 0/2/0/6/6 build designed for well bombing support and i really enjoy it. It isnt nearly as tanky as yours but i can still pull off 5 to 7k life blasts depending on might stacks. Your build looks like a fun frontliner.
The best way to deal with burst currently is combining.death shroud with spectral armor. You will get back around 1k life force each time you take damage.
If you check out nemesis’ dps tests between zerker necro and zerker warrior you will see they both get around 7k dps in a 10 second time frame without dodging. Dodging will massively drop your dps if youre running a power build.
Furthermore, all those numbers are from perfect scenarios where they have other classes buffing them and max might stacks. Also, imagine your condition damage with a good epidemic.
That being said conditions do still need a massive buff, but the dps difference isnt nearlythat large.
Well i have no clue on names but the highest dps staff build for wvw is 6/6/0/0/2 with full zerker armor and accessories.
I usually run 0/2/0/6/6 or 0/0/2/6/6 with a mix of zerker and celestial gear. Mixture depends on how.large of a group im in. For larger scale stuff i can go glassier, tankier for small scale or thieves can one shot you.
For utilites take arcane wave and a couple cantrips. I like mist form and lightning flash. Only reason for lf is so i can run in, start channeling meteor shower and lf mid channel back into my team. This method lets your meteor showers hit more than just their frontline.
I personally feel like minion master necro is only really suited for bunkering home in organized pvp. They lack the mobility to go far and the minions get bursted too quickly during teamfights, especially since staff ele became popular again. Due to the above issues, i rarely play mm necro. Condition necro is really fun in the mid fights if you have decent tean support. Power necro can out 1v1 most classes if played correctly with all your cooldowns up. If anyone tries to tell you thief counters any type of necro build, they arent playing it right or they didnt have life force to start the fight.
For pvp you want to gain as much life force as early as possible
I have the naga but i generally avoid using it for most of my skills because i learned without using it. For my binds i use 1 2 3 4 for attunements, and q e r f t for weapon skills. I use z x c for utilities. I find having my dodge and various other binds on the mouse is more effective. Things like look back, quick turn, etc.
Well im on my phone but for roaming i run conditions with a mixture of rabid and dire and runes of the undead. For traits i prefer 6/4/0/0/4 taking dhuumfire, terror, and extended fear duration. You can also swap the runes out for runes of Balthazar for extended burning.
For weapon sigils I’ve settled on frailty on scepter, bursting on my dagger, with torment and energy on my ataff. The frailty gives excellent coverage for bleeds. I use my staff mainly for defensive crowd control, so i picked sifils to match that.
For utilities i usually run epidemic, spectral walk, and corrupt boon. Epidemic has won me quite a few outnumbered fights with a quick burst of fear to follow it. I still think spectral walk is our best stunbreaker because it gives so much room to outplay people.
For pvp something like rabid or dire if thats an amulet.option. I really like 6/4/0/0/4 focusing on dhuumfire, terror, and fear duration. Dhuumfire is still really good, use it to pressure during fear bursts. Make sure to remember to auto attack when popping shroud to apply the burning.
For runes, take your pick fron nightmare, undead, and Balthazar for extended burning duration.
For sigils, I really love the new sigil of frailty for covering my bleeds. Geomancy and energy are good too, as is the sigil of corruption.
For another good build go 6/6/0/0/2 to grab path of corruption for increased boon conversion, i just personally prefer the damage output from dhuumfire and terror with increased fear duration.
It is so easy to murder thieves when they use their fear on you. Pop DS, hit your fear. They will get virtually no damage on you and doom will be up before their steal.
I personally use rabid conditionmancer for lvl 49 fractals, much easier to survive, can still does great damage. Also since the trash mobs have more hp you can generally get off fully loaded epidemics for massive aoe damage.
Another thing ia that unless youre really good, its pretty hard to survive higher level content at melee range in zerkers gear. For stuff like cof, coe, and arah i run zerkers though.
Dhuumfire is a gigantic issue in regards to balancing the condition necromancer. It provides incredibly high burst with very little possible counterplay. In my current tPvP build, the burning without me having any might stacks hits 674 per tick and is easily chainable with fear for a quick burst that many professions have problems with.
The proposed change to dhuumfire is also a mistake, tying it to life blast will still allow for that high damage fear chain burst. Necromancer is supposed to be an attrition and crowd control based class. Keeping burning as a necromancer condition is inherently flawed. Instead, give us more access to terror, a condition that screams necromancer, hell it was even developed off the necromancer forums, and is based on weaken knees, a gw1 necro hex.
As a temporary easy change to dhuumfire, make the burning torment and make it stackable on itself. Ex: 50% chance to deal torment (7 seconds) on hit (5 second cooldown) the numbers are just for show, but let us get around 3 stacks of torment from this trait alone. That would be keeping in the theme of necromancer movement control, without sacrificing much damage. These numbers would also need to be balanced for pvp, wvw, and pve separately to prevent it from being overpowered with food buffs. Also, in pve it should be able to achieve damage close to, or exceeding burning damage since conditionmancers are already weak enough in pve.
I believe that this change will be a small nerf to necromancers in pvp and wvw, though it will make us more difficult to deal with over long fights (torment will be more consistent damage than burning). Also it fits better with the necromancer class thematically, attrition and crowd control. I truly hope that this proposed change makes it to at least testing, because necros need more torment access and burning was just a mistake.
They are a very difficult class to fight, but the key to beating them is crowd control. They have a lot of counters to it, but if you can keep then at a distance you should be able to burn them to about half hp and burst them with a fear chain.
These fights will only be short if they are bad, just remember they have no burst healing unless they put healing signet on cooldown. You just need to whittle them down while staying at a comfortably safe distance.
This is from a conditionmancer perspective, havent had many recent power spec 1v1s against warriors.
IMO change dhuumfire to torment on crit, make it replace withering precision, and make it less of a cooldown, so you can get around 3 stacks just from critting.
Would make necro more in line with what it needs to be, whittling your opponents down by stacking crowd control and slow dots.
From what i can tell this guy is a cross between a preacher and someone who has no idea how to play the game or counter basic things like stealth. Amazed he hasnt been trolling mesmers in his recent post history for their stealth and clones
One of the points you brushed on is currently what keeps elementalists out of tournament play. Attunement swapping cooldowns actually punish players that swap to an attunement and dont blow all their cooldowns. In pvp i currently float between air and fire, only swapping to water or earth if im in danger of going down or facing burst.
Massively lowering attunement cooldowns is very important to bringing elementalists back into viability for tpvp play. Our skills already have cooldowns and our auto attacks are weak (for the most part).
Anyone who has played pvp past rank 10 should be able to anticipate when an elementalist is going to burst, and from there it is a simple matter to pop invuln or similar skills. The scepter fire burst is very strong, but also very telegraphed. If attunement cooldowns are reduced, we can begin our bursts, and cancel partway through if the enemy goes invulnerable, uses stealth, or stun breaks and evades out of our aoes.
I feel like the self buffs should be standard from lvl 1 on attunement swap. You should have a boon share to allies option at adept or master tier with a slight numbers buff, I.E. more stacks of might on fire attune, longer protection on earth attunement and so on.
The best solution would just be cleave. The reflect on spectral wall is something Id welcome. Also the wells idea seems alright but is probably a bit overpowered.
I would suggest making traits like spiteful spirit and furious demise grant fury and retal to the necro and nearby allies when entering DS. These traits should effect allies and they would instantly make necros more attractive in dungeons. Same thing could be done about blood is power. You bleed yourself to get might, so if you are bleeding yourself surely it should be a bit more powerful and give the might to allies aswell.
Strength of undeath needs to be buffed to 10% aswell.
Well i hate comparing traits between classes but elementalists have a trait at 20 arcana that gives aoe boons on attunement swap so I based it partially off that. Also this trait is potential master/ more likely grandmaster in blood magic.