Guild Wars 2

Should we re-open the Necromancer Guild’s post, maybe putting the new link as last message in this forum?

We will meet again on the new forum, guys

This is the GS/LB build i’ll use for PvP.
Even if “Sick ’Em!” will be changed I think it’ll be still useful in my build.

Here a WvW Leeching Lich zerg Build

Weapon and utility AoE boon removal
Acceptable Condition Management
Good revive potential and useful light field (sadly not for us)
Sustain via condition damage, on interrupt sigils, Feed from Corruption

Cave Rock.4869:

I tried but think I failed. My attempt was to build a Scourge with barrier and support in mind.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLbdG2JRvQTvYZvgXvAbvYpbwomAjgKw0DYjFA07pD1kKA-j1RDQB2R/DGV+VSlgSS9Hu9kCAwJVIK7PEAAB4oNaj2oN6RP6Rf0je0je0j21N6RP6RP6RP6RP6RLFgsq0A-w

You only need 1 on kill stacking sigil per weapon category

CptAurellian.9537:

Vitali.5039:

This can be very educational

Rather not, since knowledge on aggro mechanics in this game is ridiculously poor and the wiki doesn’t help at all.

Poor knowledge > 0 knowledge

I’d like an invite too

Vitali.5039:

Sylent.3165:

Who do you think is going to be the best new solo elite champ for open world farming, events and champions.

S-P/P Deadeye
Critical Strikes 3/2/1 – Trickery 3/2/1 – Deadeye 2/3/2

Minor build adjustement required to solo champions

Repost for Build Editior update:
Critical Strikes 3/2/1 – Trickery 3/2/1 – Deadeye 2/3/2

This can be very educational

Wintermute.5408:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Crinn.7864:

Brujeria.7536:

I hope we get a gear set with these Stats:

Mainstat Condi
Mainstat Healing
Substat Expertise
Substat Concentration

That would be near perfect.

swap the concentration for vitality. You’ll want it for LF management. Besides what the heck do you want the concentration for?

Concentration is great for your Might stacking, the boons you get from F2, Regen you apply with Staff or Focus, any and all boons from Feed From Corruption, etc.

And vitality increases your LF pool and your LF gains, since those are percantage-based.

> Concentration: better for WvW zergs
> Vitality: better for PvP and PvE

lighter.2708:

let’s say ventari goes to your home, so you going to ignore it and play far mid?
then they have spawn advantage, if then ventari goes to cap mid, you are going to go back to cap home? then you are going to lose far 4v4 because they have spawn advantage. if you don’t cap home and win far, they will have mid and home..not to mention if enemy team has portal. it will be even harder to out rotate, just because you decide to ignore rev

but imo biggest problem is condi thief, if condi thief doesnt exist, we can run power build and burst down ventari rev.

The trick to negate spawn disadvantage is to kill the one who can ress and let the others bleeding out.

3 ventari rev and 2 condi thief according to the forum

ZhouX.8742:

Lord Velar.1509:

Sifu.9745:

Necro or Reaper? Necros are strong but not that powerful as Reapers. Reaper has by far the best and easiest defensive tools in the game, just enter reaper shroud and laugh at your opponents, especially if they play condi builds, which deal zero dmg to you. You can easily 1 vs 1 anything (with exception of Warriors maybe), you can survive 1 vs 2 for quite long, your dmg is insanely op.
Would you be so kind, Anet, and nerf reaper shroud for additional 30%? Ty!

Ummm ,kitten no

With full health and a full life bar ive been taken down in a matter of seconds by just 2 ppl sometimes one

Yeah no, definitely a kitten no

Then you are bad at necro, sorry

It could happen when without endurance. For the “one people” maybe it was a power shatterer.

Blind gives chill (3 sec ICD) and chill gives bleed, so yes..
Blind also makes trash mob miss and GS can also be used to damage the defiance bar.

They really should make some changes to the ranked queue system like adding solo/team queue option and adding Stronghold with a separate leaderbord (with different ladder prizes) to tunnel the least interessed player in that mode for their happy farming and to give players to compete over something different.

Pro: challenging matches, players who want to win, guild friendly mode, no team required (you can have 1 + Quadra, 1 + 2x Duo and wtf!? why so casual? 5x Solo) but the ones who’ll join can face teams
Cons: we could encounter the same players, given that farmers will join Stronghold and casuals will join solo queue.

Axl.8924:

So i was told on forum about trapper/krait bonus 20% duration for all condis so i was aiming for it, but my guild leader told me not to go for this.

So what do you guys think? is trapper/nightmare rune a dps loss?

It’s a dps loss, we are not Scourges yet.

They’ll likely give to Blinding Truths 10 sec ICD and reduce Energy Expulsion’s knockback length.

Sifu.9745:

He he, do you see the point now? If you really need to do the testing to see the difference between 1200 Toughness and 0 Toughness that must be something wrong with this stat, right?

I mean when you PvP, do you feel any difference, cause i don’t. Ok, i’ve never enter arena with more then 900 Toughness, but i’ve never felt that i’m that tough guy who can take more hits.
Yes, with more Toughness you receive less dmg, but the difference is so small that is barely noticeable

With 1200 Power you don’t need any kind of testing: you can clearly see (you can feel it) how big the difference it between 1200 and 0 Power.

My point is: with zero Toughens GS Power Reaper would just three or four shot me (i am afk) . With 500 Toughness there won’t be any difference, he would still three or four shot me. With 1200 Toughness (who would take 1200 toughness anyway?) i could take maybe ONE more non aa hit, just one.
Now let’s do the “math” for attacker. Power Reaper with 1200 Power (+ 900 crit and 900 ferocity) would three or four shot you (you are afk), aa excluded. Reaper with 0 Power (+ 900 crit and 900 ferocity) will probably need more than 10 hits.

The number of hits means nothing, every moves deal different damage.
Toughness is all about mitigate power damage and it was so good with health regeneration that every toughness + vitality/healing power amulet was removed.

Even Tempests under protection effects can die in a blink of an eye if “afk”.
Its a good thing that toughness don’t make power builds useless.

To do a meaningful test:
1) do not have a build to prevent damage reduction modifiers
2) wear armor pieces and not wearing a shield
3) if the foe could have 100% crit chance the test will be easier
4) the foe shouldn’t have damaging proc into his build
5) the foe should always have the same amount of might
6) the foe should use only one move (no chain)
7) watch the combat log and compare the damage with and without 1200 toughness

Attacker Build
Skill of choice: Life Blast
Requirement: Always stay over 50% Life Force

shadowpass.4236:

It can drop someone from 100% health to 0% in 4 second just by spamming skills.

It is also ridiculously tanky for no reason.

For example, I 1v11’d in WvW within 2 hours of making a Scourge for the first time. I downed about 5 with the rest streaming in to try to rez the downed, at which point, I dropped them as well.

Kam.4092:

The average player in this game is absolute garbage, and just expects a free win for trying.

Kam.4092:

The main OP factor in Scourge is its AoE in WvW and PvE. In PvP it’s going to be a noob killer, which will get it a lot of hate.

Hey, John! Someone have just shotted Owen’s legs! We shall leave our position and go to resque him!

Your build have the tools to deal with those professions?
Can you post it here below?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Abazigal.3679:

Maybe it would be better if conditions were a health degeneration along time and not x damage every y seconds.
I.e you have 5 conditions applied on you, you have 20k health. Instead of receiving 4000 damage every 3 seconds, you will have a big health degeneration for 15 seconds or more.

If damaging condition would stack duration instead of intensity every piece of armor with “+ X condition damage” or “+ X expertise” will be trash.
Double trash when in the same piece.

Sifu.9745:

There is no difference! You can check it by yourself: go afk and ask your buddy Power Thief (or any other Power class) to burst you down.
With zero Toughness it takes about 4 – 7 seconds. More or less, it depends on class and how much health do you have.
With 1200 Toughness it takes, what a surprise, 4 – 7 seconds lol.
I guess i can just completely ignore this stat in PvP.

Now lets check the difference between 0 and 1200 Power. I think that we don’t need any explanations here, right?

Be my personal tester plz!

Wells & Minions
This is a power build. You should:
1) Unlock Quickening Thirst for the run speed
2) Unlock the minions you can use
3) Unlock the two damaging wells
4) Unlock Vampiric Rituals
5) Now that you have levelled up a bit pick Spite (damage) or Death Magic (survivability) as your second and third specialization slot.
6) make your way to lv 80

I have two questions:

How much damage could increase with realistic fury refresh and Remorseless?

Predator’s Onslaught will double its effect while in Soulbeast?

(I don’t have tested it yet)

The Walking Bags

messiah.1908:

Vitali.5039:

messiah.1908:

in eu the only one i see play this build is me. and i play for fun (1 game or less in a day)

only met another player and he fought me on my point….. other than that didnt see ventari rev at all.

probably us looking for easy build to play with. or new one as the meta build havent chance for a long time.

Today I’ve encountered 4 different players running it and I’m glad.. 4 easy match.

The sad thing is that when I fought a team with 2 condi thieves my team was chasing them instead of focus the necro and I end losing.
Peoples are kittened by mosquitoes and try to catch them while a wild tiger is next to them.. so, builds are “OP” just when someone don’t know how to deal with them.

nerf necros pls

I’m a necro myself and we are not OP (I know you were joking) in PvP but should be a simple stategy to defeat the defenseless boonkiller first.

messiah.1908:

in eu the only one i see play this build is me. and i play for fun (1 game or less in a day)

only met another player and he fought me on my point….. other than that didnt see ventari rev at all.

probably us looking for easy build to play with. or new one as the meta build havent chance for a long time.

Today I’ve encountered 4 different players running it and I’m glad.. 4 easy match.

The sad thing is that when I fought a team with 2 condi thieves my team was chasing them instead of focus the necro and I end losing.
Peoples are kittened by mosquitoes and try to catch them while a wild tiger is next to them.. so, builds are “OP” just when someone don’t know how to deal with them.

Mel.3064:

Good, if enough people abuse this build Anet may act faster

You should record a video where you solo a raid boss with a Ventari Revenant and make it pubblic, is the fastest way to nerf builds

Axl.8924:

Vitali.5039:

Axl.8924:

What about making dagger be useful for melee reaper? we got trouble closing gaps right? why not make dagger have utility for gap closing? it has life force regen and you could make para.Everyone wants condi dagger which i can understand but what about reaper?

Everyone who likes reaper needs something to help reaper in pvp.

Reaper can use greatsword, what about giving mobility to greatsword?

but dagger could be useful for getting a stun or something.Besides:Why does it have to be condi? Could it be used for pet classes in some way?

For pets? Uhm, I don’t get the question but no necro’s weapon’s move or skill can afflict minions, only our DM’s traits can. Ranger is the class with pet empowering mechanics.

While for the condi part, MH dagger actually is a jack of some trades and master of none, a filler weapon that don’t excel on power damage, don’t have (yet) direct damaging condition, can heal for a good amount but only from 600 range (with a target and with a insane casting time), is situational at 101% even on his dedicated trait.. is only good for who don’t have access to reaper, that I’ve heard it should be our power dedicated e-spec. And while a power buff could make it better than GS, our Reaper’s elite weapon, a condi buff can’t.

And “Necro’s” stun are all related to chill, while dagger is all about blood.

For every new Ventari nerf thread a new rev will spec to Ventari.

Axl.8924:

What about making dagger be useful for melee reaper? we got trouble closing gaps right? why not make dagger have utility for gap closing? it has life force regen and you could make para.Everyone wants condi dagger which i can understand but what about reaper?

Everyone who likes reaper needs something to help reaper in pvp.

Reaper can use greatsword, what about giving mobility to greatsword?

“All you need is chill”

Is https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Imbued_Melodies too strong? Yes, but only vs who can’t look foe’s boons bar.

Yes, staff need a buff to save us from the hard choice of weaponswap.

Surely the theme of our field control utility weapon is to give us good dps and to achieve that I suggest to make marks more like wells, conditioning repetitively every pulse (for the actual condition stack and duration and yes, even fear) and giving 4% life force on every pulse + unblockable while traited, staff is so underused in PvP and WvW and a buff is what it need! I’m sure that will not be OP at all!

Zenith.7301:

Vitali.5039:

Zenith.7301:

Lahmia.2193:

Zenith.7301:

KidRoleplay.3615:

Knowing the balance team, if they were ever to make blind work on bosses, they’d of course look into individual professions and skills that would allow permanent blind access by just one individual. As for thief being superior about it, that’s fine. I was mentioning a (very unlikely to happen) possibility of giving necro more viability in the PvE scene, but thief could use that benefit as well.

Mentioned it before, but perhaps having all conditions work the way they should when a boss’s defiance bar is orange and recharging might be interesting.

Balance team don’t do crap unless that thing is causing problems in pvp.

Well consider ghost thief was only nerfed when someone used it to solo the Slothasor raid boss, despite it being around in WvW for a few years.

They nerfed stealth on bosses, not the ghost thief skills anyways. Ghost thief still kitten in WvW, and it’s not like it was any good compared to the even worse Pulmonary Impact D/P daredevils that haven’t been touched.

So the damage on trigger for traps (to break stealth) was not a nerf to thieves skills. Ok.

Not significantly. A short reveal doesn’t stop from stealth abuse just as the 4 second revealed debuff introduced barely dented D/P thief.

Before the nerf it was 100% stealth uptime, it was a big (and good) change.

Zenith.7301:

Lahmia.2193:

Zenith.7301:

KidRoleplay.3615:

Knowing the balance team, if they were ever to make blind work on bosses, they’d of course look into individual professions and skills that would allow permanent blind access by just one individual. As for thief being superior about it, that’s fine. I was mentioning a (very unlikely to happen) possibility of giving necro more viability in the PvE scene, but thief could use that benefit as well.

Mentioned it before, but perhaps having all conditions work the way they should when a boss’s defiance bar is orange and recharging might be interesting.

Balance team don’t do crap unless that thing is causing problems in pvp.

Well consider ghost thief was only nerfed when someone used it to solo the Slothasor raid boss, despite it being around in WvW for a few years.

They nerfed stealth on bosses, not the ghost thief skills anyways. Ghost thief still kitten in WvW, and it’s not like it was any good compared to the even worse Pulmonary Impact D/P daredevils that haven’t been touched.

So the damage on trigger for traps (to break stealth) was not a nerf to thieves skills. Ok.

Axl.8924:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Axl.8924:

Do any of you guys go for spite line and use it to add turning boons into conditions?

I was messing around in WVW yesterday and i was thinking:Maybe i should betrading in for spite line for Fractals tier 2.

What do you guys think?

I almost explicitly take Spiteful Spirit when running Spite. That said, I wouldn’t take it in PvE because for mobs that matter, Close to Death is worth more. It’s easy enough to control boons in PvE with scepter autos, Focus offhand, Chill of Death, etc.

i suppose i could corrupt a few boons on a target at a time, but i was thinking of specifically:Cliffside tier 2 and 3 where boons are massive, and require more control when having multiple enemies.It can get pretty nuts.I’l have to test out close to death.

If you take Spite I suggest you to go power.. and then use Nightfall /
Unholy Feast and Well of Corruption

It’s a good thing that Bull’s Charge is now an evade and that paired with Whirlwind Attack DH’s traps aren’t a danger anymore.

Without Berserker we need another good source of stability but with another evade such as Bull’s Charge Endure Pain isn’t really needed anymore and Balanced Stance make its appearance. Might Makes Right it’s one of the better things happened to warrior recently and have it in strength line, where our damage modifiers and our best weapon have his trait, is a bless.

And that endurance regeneration with damaging dodges tho!
Warrior is “fine” at the moment even if not meta.

Tongku.5326:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

You don’t use all 6 Trapper runes, just the first two. The 4 and 6 piece bonuses are worthless for Necros.

When people say “Nightmare/Trapper” they mean 4 Nightmare Runes and 2 Trapper runes so you net +30% Condition duration.

Meh, sounds useful for PVE boss fights, but outside of that its a waste.

You ceirtainly don’t need anywhere even near 100% duration in WVW on anything other then your main DPS condi due to insane cleansing. Even on the DPS one, its only useful if not doing group stuff.

In PvE dinky and small mobs die faster then you get full stacks of everything on them anyways, again, full duration = waste.

In SPVP, I don’t know since I abandoned it after it got boring when A-Net made everything DPS only.

So whats the point of 4x nightmare + 2 trapper ? I’d rather take something that gives either extra stacks or even extra condi, or even stacks some power on top of condi. yea it will do less on things like raid bosses and golems and on paper, but its practical application throughout vast majority of the game far outweighs that.

The thing is that when mobs die before the condition expire any build could work against them, while vs the ones that don’t die as fast a high condition duration is good.
Without food and nourishment we don’t have capped condition duration, so we can achieve 100% duration only when needed.

In Open World a power reaper can destroy mobs (that could die before the last condition tick) faster than a condi one but will do poor damage vs champions compared to a condi reper. And long condition duration also help to transfer high condition stack trough Epidemic, so high condition duration isn’t wasted.

While FOTM and raids are always the same Open World is pretty situational.
But WvW and PvP are different beasts.

Ragmon.6350:

Hey guys.

Up till Tuesday this week I was doing perfectly in PvP 1 loss to every 5-6 wins for several days. The suddenly starting Tuesday I won 2 matches out of ~15 (I stop playing after 5 a loss streak each day), I have been using the same build same tactics…And most of the time its just a one sided fight.

WHAT THE F. HAPPENED?

PS: Was a few point from plat.

You were gaining rating and “lucky placement guys” were losing it.
Then you meet the “lucky placement guys” with similar MMR in your team.

In my country ther’s a proverb:
“Non tentare di insegnare a cantare ad un maiale:
sprechi il tuo tempo e infastidisci il maiale.”

Don’t try to teach how to sing to a pig:
you lose your time and make the pig annoyed

But I could try..

Obtena.7952:

1. The build choice argument is lame; there are not more builds opening up because of this simple suggestion; at most, a condition might give a player pause to rethink a trait or a sigil. By you’re own admittance, if you only put bleed on the last chain so it’s not a braindead bleed on target, then this is made even less effective as a ‘choice’ for condition build applications. Claiming we get all these new build options as a smokescreen to get this on dagger is dishonest IMO.

Maybe there will not be new builds cause someone have already tried all the avaiable combination but surely all those builds will be more viable while not becoming OP.

Obtena.7952:

2. Bleeding shouldn’t only be open to us with other means … but it already IS open to us from other means. Adding bleed to dagger is actually redundant and doesn’t make players think about how to take advantage of effective their builds give or think about applying effects their builds have. Maybe you think making the game dumber is a good thing; I do not.

Noone wan’t to play a dumber game here, ther’re too many dumb games out there.

Obtena.7952:

3. Any bleed added to auto removes any thoughtful execution of Dagger 2 that exists … if the target is always bleeding, the effect is always active. They might as well just buff Dagger 2 another 20% and be done. Adding an way to get a special event effect permanently is dumb.

And I that was certain that the only good thing about Life Siphon was actually the healing part that take advantage of the bleed the caster have on itself and not the +20% “overpowered damage”..

Obtena.7952:

4. It would be too strong; No, I did not say it would be too strong. I object to the thoughtless idea that putting a condition on a power weapon as an effective way to buff its DPS. Taking advantage of a condition on dagger that with different traits/skills/gear prefix would actually be a DPS loss compared to vanilla builds using dagger. This is one of the primary reasons I dislike this idea; condi buffing dagger is a dead end. That may change with Scourge but it’s speculative.

Noone will run a Dagger power build with traits/skills/gear grefix that would drop the overall dps only to have a little more damage from it. Oh, actually dagger isn’t even our best power weapon and neither the second.

Obtena.7952:

5. It would make Scepter irrelevant; No, I didn’t say that. People argued that they wanted a melee condition weapon because of a ‘gap’. I’m pointing out to them that Scepter used at melee range already fills that gap.

This is just a dumb thing to say, peoples aren’t asking specifically for a damaging condition weapon to use at close range but a fast life force building one also good for condition builds. If scepter could make us gain the needed life force noone would run dagger.

Obtena.7952:

6. Weapon identity. I think this is a strong point that people easily gloss over because they misunderstand what weapon concept is; I don’t blame them because Anet doesn’t explicitly explain them. Still, they exist and there are strong hints of what those concepts are. I haven’t got a problem if you want to propose dagger be something else as a concept. I do have a problem if you want to add an effect and claim it ‘fits’ what dagger should be.

Nothing to say here if not that we think about the concept of dagger differently.

Obtena.7952:

There are better opportunities to address these issues than the path chosen by this idea.

Such as boost power damage overshadowing greatsword’s dps?

If blind could work on things with defiance bar some professions could solo all the PvE encounters..

Odik.4587:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=JAKGVlVCf_o

Enjoyable video, sadly seem they don’t know how to deal with the build..
“They are probably rated higher and are likely better than you”
Worst Executioner’s Scythe Ever

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Obtena.7952:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Obtena.7952:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Obtena.7952:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

But not being in line with the intent of the weapon? The weapon already has a skill that wants your foes to bleed.

Again, I’ve explained why that’s a reason to NOT add bleed to dagger AA. The weapon takes advantage of bleeding foes; that does not mean it’s intent is to be a condition application weapon. Enabling the weapon to give the extra dagger 2 advantage without thought is a stupid implementation.

I love how you just ignored the part there about Axe having received a very similar change. In fact, it happened in the exact same patch as Life Siphon started caring about Bleeding! They’re even both #2 skills and channels!

I don’t see how the two influence each other’s concepts. Axe does both, doesn’t necessarily mean that dagger needs to as well. Of course, it doesn’t mean dagger can’t but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve given reasons I don’t think it should.

Your reasons have been…nonexistent, really. You’ve basically been saying “I don’t think it should have bleeding because then it would have bleeding and I don’t think it should have that.”

No that’s actually unfair and dishonest; there have been many reasons given for why I don’t think this should happen. Dismiss them as you wish, but they are well documented in this thread. Even my previous post gives one (of many) good explanation to why I don’t think bleed should be on dagger AA. You simply ignore them.

Oh, I’m sorry, I was only counting reasons given that weren’t directly addressed.

• would be too strong
  Strength of a damaging condition added depends on condition, stack count, and stack duration. Keeping these low ensures this isn’t a problem unless dagger is already where it needs to be on damage (you’ve said yourself that it isn’t.)

• Would make Scepter irrelevant
  Scepter has a massive range advantage and would still put out higher DPS in a condition build than a low stack condition.

• would encourage people camping dagger
  You weren’t able to back this up and actually immedietly backtracked when called out on it.

• would remove choice
  It would actually open up a new choice to condition builds

• would discourage swapping
  Low stacks=only using dagger for building life force/sustain. Swapping necessary for higher damage output.

• isn’t on theme for the weapon/against the identity
  Weapon already has a skill that wants the target bleeding. Giving it a way to actually accomplish that goal is called “synergy” not “lack of identity” or “changing identity.”

• bleeding on target would be braindead if added to auto
  To be fair, I haven’t addressed this one yet because I thought it was so obvious, but this would require completing a full auto chain before using Life Siphon. And I mean right before with a short Bleed, as in no time to do anything else if you wanted to maximize the damage. Considering Life Siphon has a range advantage over the auto of 470, this is hardly a sure thing.

• bleeding should be achieved through other means
  Why? Should Ghastly Claws lose its damage buff versus Vulnerable targets because the auto applies Vulnerability? Should Scepter not inflict conditions with the auto or Grasping Dead because Feast of Corruption wants conditions on the target?

Bring up a legitimate argument that’s not “I don’t like it” and I’ll answer it completely in 5 sentences or less.

^Pretty much this

Crinn.7864:

Lahmia.2193:

Yeah you’re right there, fair point well made. What do you think the amounts should be, if they were to add?

I think a single stack of bleed for 3.5 seconds on Necrotic Stab and Necrotic Bite would suffice. It would be just enough duration to get off life siphon, and also enough to make the weapon not a joke for condi builds, while at the same time not be enough to overthrow scepter.

Seems good for necrotic bite.

It will be likely Nightmare/Trapper if no new performing runes will be added.

Anchoku.8142:

I see you do not understand.

When you see a fire field, use your shroud combo finishers, Soul Spiral and Death’s Charge, but do not use Executioner’s Scythe because it leaves an ice field. Just exit shroud after using your finishers. I would not even use Nightfall on GS because it leaves a dark field.

You can play how you want but tell your static to watch out for your Necro-fields and not to waste a fire field over them or use skills with finishers before your fields expire.

Ice fields are a dps loss for every profession, elite, and Necro-build except condi-Reaper. They are only useful on break-bars in PvE and, even then, they are not needed. Alternatively, you could just take another profession to the raid.

The only combinations that significantly increase dps are from fire fields. This is a big part of why Necromancer is undesirable on group PvE. It drops a lot of fields that nerf dps. Ice is the worst. In PvP, WvW, and solo PvE an ice field can be good for the soft CC but not in instanced group PvE.

There are ways to not intefere too much with other fields and the greatest dps loss is when a necro miss the ice field with Soul Spiral.

To not whirl into ice fields while running a condition build is as clever as spam gravedigger under 50% only to proc fire whirl.

In a game where all professions can heal and cleanse of course DoT should be bursty to be meaningful.

Quickness + Greatsword’s 3rd AA = Tanky
Someone knows if beastmode procs “on swap pets” effects?