Greatsword was designed to be Necromancer’s power-cleave in PvE. Don’t expect it to be good in all game modes. It is best for spinning until you get dizzy and slowly working break bars with chill and claws.
There’s a difference between being good in all game modes and being usable in all game modes. And even in pve, it’s not that great. I mean Dagger auto attack damage is higher than Greatsword which is just embarrassing. Anyone that thinks Reaper Greatsword is in a good place at the moment is just kidding themselves.
Every single skill on greatsword is AoE, just like staff. It is not supposed to compete with dagger, which was, until recently, a single target power weapon and is still very much so despite the added 1-target cleave. Dagger dps 1v1 has to be higher than greatsword or it would need a buff very badly.
The biggest issue causing people to confuse dagger and greatsword is because Reaper Shroud is so much better than Death Shroud. If DS was not so inferior, I doubt very many players would take Reaper and greatsword in PvP or think of it as a big dagger.
Greatsword is not a dagger. It was designed to fill a huge hole in PvE because Necromancer had nothing MH with a decent cleave or AoE besides staff.
If you want to compare dagger to anything, compare it to axe, which is the ranged equivalent of a singe-target power weapon.
Greatsword was designed to be Necromancer’s power-cleave in PvE. Don’t expect it to be good in all game modes. It is best for spinning until you get dizzy and slowly working break bars with chill and claws.
It’s a feature. Marks are traps.
No, it is not a bug.
Not yet, anyway.
Due to high vitality and shroud, I think Necromancer would have to have a total nerf build to get stealth.
Think, “I have invisibility so I do sad damage.”
Warriors need to be squishier but they cry about dieing when they are doing more damage than anyone else. Other professions do the same.
Condi Necro meta keeps setting the bar versus power builds. I wish Arenanet would balance build vs build. Being forced to play corruption conditions just because Necro is good at it… orz. (T_T)
Greatsword seems tuned for good dps when in a crowd where its AoE damage scales up. Also, Necromancer’s low mobility and other weaknesses affect melee a lot more than ranged giving scepter a natural advantage.
Since the chill duration nerf, well…
Soul Eater needs help, too. I am thinking that something like “bleeds generate life force” and set the amount per stack small but significant when using a scepter build.
No more buffs to condi necro please. It already kittens on power necro enough as it is.
True, corruption Necromancer is Meta-necro in PvP and raids. Necromancer could use a buff that only improves condition spike damage but may tone down bleed stacking so it is not so lax versus mobs with low health.
Condition damage is lame in roaming – very lame.
Relentless Pursuit could add a distance increase to Death’s Charge and Grasping Darkness, maybe increase range of both to 900.
Soul Eater needs help, too. I am thinking that something like “bleeds generate life force” and set the amount per stack small but significant when using a scepter build.
Chak are fun to play with – endless fun! There are always more so it is like a bottomless barrel of monkeys… or acid.
^^ what Bearshaman said
Minions with Curses and Death Magic will allow you to wear any armor you want. Your minions do flat damage, most of which is direct, ensuring you have a hybrid build no matter how deep into condition damage and defense your gear goes. Taking Blood Magic will also allow you to heal your minions but that may eliminate SR or Reaper, which are also useful.
MM is definitely easy mode and I recommend everyone use it as a baseline HoT roaming build. I compare all of my HoT test builds to it.
Condi in HoT solo takes too long. Sure, it works, eventually, but kiting where more mobs may aggro or re-spawn is courting death. I charge in and put down HoT mobs as quickly as possible to get back out of combat and reexamine the playing field. Shroud and Rise are as crucial as being able to crit right from the start and as much as possible.
I lead off with Death Spiral for vulnerability, then Nightfall, often saving Grasping Darkness to interrupt enemy skills. I use shroud a lot and finish with Gravedigger once I see an enemy’s health fall below 50%. The combination of vulnerability, might, Close to Death, chill, and high precision and ferocity is what finishes fights quickly enough to solo roam. I need to be 100% committed to zerker-melee for this to work, though. The moment I start playing defensively, the build becomes a glassy death-trap. Kiting does not generate LF or do damage with this build.
Alternatively, if you want to use scepter, use minions to hold aggro. A MM build is the easiest HoT roaming build but your minions will pick up aggro and land you in combat more than you might wish. In that case, a dire or rabid setup for traditional condi-MM possible but does not beat full zerker-shout builds in effectiveness.
This is what I use for solo roaming HoT.
If I am in a group, then I switch out Spite for Blood Magic and use Transfusion and other healing skills. For zerging in HoT, I will also swap Berserker’s equipment for Cleric’s and focus on tagging and healing. In either case, I try to maximize the amount of time I am in Shroud.
Signet of the Locust can change to another shout or to Signet of Spite during escort events where there is plenty of swiftness and NPCs proceed slowly.
p.s.
Axe can be used in place of staff when roaming solo or with 1-2 others, as long as vulnerability does not cap and you do not need staff’s utility. HoT mobs can have boons so Unholy Feast is not completely awful. Trait axe and focus, of course, and switch Soul Marks to Speed of Shadows.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
If you plan on PvE leveling, use as much power in your equipment as you can get but do not worry so much about precision or ferocity as critical hit chance is lower. Take some defensive stats with power for a little more survivability but also do not fret if your equipment is not ideal. You will get equipment from drops, chests, and as leveling rewards.
Do your personal story, too. It gives great experience, as does exploration. Grab hero points as well. You will need them even more than experience.
For the hero points you have, first, prioritize getting 25% movement speed increase; either Blood Magic’s Quickening Thirst or Signet Training’s Signet of the Locust. Quickening Thirst reduces dagger cool down, which is not that important, but gives 25% movement speed when equipped with a dagger, your highest dps weapon. (Dagger-war horn or dagger-focus are good combinations for melee. Use staff, axe, or scepter for range and practice going in and out of Death Shroud to avoid damage.)
Second, put points into Minion Training until you get Summon Bone Fiend, at least. Minion Master is by far the easiest way to play Necromancer.
With your remaining hero points, I recommend looking at Death Magic, if you are running MM. If you are not doing minions, Blood Magic, Soul Reaping, or Spite are good places to put hero points.
Again, focus on exploring and obtaining hero points. They are what you need to unlock (utility) skills and specializations (traits). You will get experience just from running around trying to collect these points. Even after you get all the traits and skills unlocked, you will still want hero points to unlock the elite specialization’s additional skills and traits, if you have the Heart of Thorns expansion.
Personally, I do not have a fixed rotation.
Necromancer and Reaper are not mechanically complex but, because of the profession’s weaknesses, a number of the skills are meant to be used at the player’s discretion. For example, the highest dps for scepter and MH dagger is auto-attacking. The rest of the skills more for controls in response to your opponent.
Regarding weapon choice, I always take one medium or long range weapon for swap when taking either MH dagger or greatsword. There are few ways to close gaps on this profession.
Greatsword is an AoE power weapon where dagger has a single or double target design. Greatsword damage scales up for crowds much more than dagger so it has to be less reliable. It is very useful in PvE, almost as good as scepter-horror-Epidemic, but falls short on range and surety of hitting, which makes it better than scepter for normal mobs but worse for major bosses with adds.
Greatsword does best when its cleave is well utilized or when a boss is being tanked by someone, or a pet, with higher toughness when Gravedigger can be used uncontested and when Reaper has help maintaining 25 might.
I think it is fine for what it does, if I remember it is a power AoE weapon, but it is definitely not at its best when not used in a crowd.
Soul Comprehension needs to die in a fire.
Yes, it is only useful in PvE trash mob events.
Yeah. Death Magic is “useful” in PvE.
Also, in PvE you’re always so short on life force that the only way to survive is an extra 2% on nearby deaths.
The sarcasm is well deserved. I only ever use DM in PvE when I feel like trolling as MM and, even then, only need help with LF while camping scepter.
Perhaps if the trait gave more LF but only when wielding scepter it would make DM and core Necromancer more attractive. As it is, SC is either irrelevant or underwhelming for almost all situations.
Soul Comprehension needs to die in a fire.
Yes, it is only useful in PvE trash mob events. If I could change it, I would make it convert hits taken to LF like Spectral skills.
Check out builds on Metabattle.com
I find wells useful for Jormag, WvW zerg and siege, and maybe PvP in a more limited sense.
For me, luck has never paid off.
I have clovers, lots of exotic materials, and mat’s to make exotic weapons and hundreds of more clovers .
Arenanet’s RNG on the original precursors is a failure because it was never a measure of effort.
What frustrates me is the additional effort needed to bypass the toilet and RNG.
Sure, I could buy a precursor and be done with it but cost and effort seem way out of balance. It is not a reward for playing but a reward for lucky gamblers.
Try making a map with layer-wallow connections.
Event farm
Use food, utility, guild, and boosts.
Grind them
Phyrak, you have some original and innovative ideas. Thank you for sharing them.
For many, staff has good value as a utility weapon. Truly, your suggestions imply another weapon, or weapons, will pick up the utility of staff.
If you could design a long range weapon, what would it do?
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.)
The build looks good to me, though I am not an expert. Nice job.
Try this for open world solo roaming.
Substitute this for some champ events.
Or this
In any case, DS is clearly inferior to RS. I can understand if the reason is a design choice to reward characters with sufficient mapping and general PvE completion but the power creap evident in all profession elite trait lines is real and was supposed to be something the original game designers thought to prevent by not allowing levels past 80.
I guess I would like to see core and elite specializations balanced better as far as investment cost and return. It is reasonable to expect turning Necromancer into a melee powerhouse to cost something. Running only core Necromancer traits and weapons should not be such a penalty game.
They could easily take focus or horn for main hand, too. The weapon does not have to be new to Necromancer.
To have a dedicated healing build for each profession you need a situation where that build is necessary.
What I mean is that a PvE encounter must be more effective with X healers supporting Y damage dealers than having everyone on the offensive and taking care of themselves and their group as needed. Also implied is that dedicated healers increase the dps of dedicated attackers more than total dps would be with only attackers.
So what kind of PvE situation does that sound like? Escort events are one such situation.
Life Transfer hits 9 times. Soul Spiral hits 12.
Just guessing
Power-crit builds do far more damage than condition damage builds but at a cost of player risk (usually). The best thing for you to do is carry equipment for both roles and switch as appropriate.
Against high-value targets like bosses that have the capability to down you with a shot or two, condition damage becomes better because good dps can be maintained at a safer range. (Some bosses do not let you stand there and spin to win all day so power dps suffers from the need to take defensive measures more often and Necromancer does not have a weapon that allows high power damage greater than the radius of great sword and dagger. Axe is only useful to stack vulnerability and claim aggro before closing the gap to the target and staff is a utility weapon used mainly for AoE tagging and break-bars.)
Against lesser mobs in open world or major bosses that are less active, power builds easily do more dps than condition damage, even when discounting the time to build max dps on bleed/poison stacks.
A land spear was my dream weapon for years. It would fill the role of a melee condition weapon applying primarily bleeds to help maintain some of scepter’s stacks after weapon swap.
Great sword kind of took some of the need for a second condi-weapon away until it got its condition damage nerfed.
The other weapon I wanted was a single-target ranged weapon that could do things that staff is not good at – essentially, a dps weapon. Perhaps a pistol or a bow would do fine.
However, range for axe was increased and now I can almost use it as the ranged power weapon I was looking for. Unfortunately, axe still has that useless vulnerability that does not scale at all in events with more than a couple of players. Unholy Feast also loses value as range to target increases.
If axe’s Rending Claws and Ghastly Claws ablated break-bars, too, as a way to get around its vulnerability cap limitation and Unholy Feast was a 900 radius, 6 second retaliation shout, I think I could live with giving up either its corruption or its cripple.
Staff is very good utility weapon. It is not a dps weapon. If you try to use it expecting good dps, you will be disappointed.
Staff has…
Traps – 4 of them and the only ones for the profession!
One of only two regenerations for Necro
The most powerful condition transfer on a weapon
The only fear on a weapon, anywhere
The only projectile and blast finishers that are not on a minion and the auto attack pierces
It is very useful in PvP and WvW, and while not a good ranged dps weapon, staff has uses in PvE, too. Rather than expecting it to kill Teqatl with its auto attack, use it for tagging, laying a trap to alert you when mobs spawn, healing allies and clearing their conditions, and to hit break bars. Staff also helps generate life force, which is critical in PvP and not unwelcome anywhere else.
I think staff can be buffed a little, especially in ways that do not impact PvP, but see low odds of it receiving a dps increase or change from being a utility weapon. It is just too good at backing up main weapons.
As popular as staff is, I do not see it being buffed substantially.
Faster projectile velocity would be nice and Reaper’s Mark could stand a shorter cool down now that Elite traits boons, conditions, and dps dwarf Terror’s condition damage.
I will check if Giver’s is bugged, again, or secretly nerfed.
You can get might from Chilling Victory and precious LF from Blighter’s Boon. Scepter is short on LF generation, which I really need in HoT roaming. Keep in mind that might and vulnerability are essentially the same in solo play. Neither are all that valuable compared to Cc, defense, and dps skills.
To be honest, I have not found a condition damage build that comes close to a zerker reaper build in solo play for dps with sustain. MM is the safest solo dps build, though. I recommend it for all Necomancers just getting started in HoT.
I have been tinkering with condition damage builds for open world HoT.
Use Giver’s weapons for scepter and dagger rather than Viper’s.
Use Dire, Carrion, or Sinister armor. Viper’s armor gives less than 14 per cent duration increase where a pair of Giver’s with superior Sigil of Malice give 30 per cent all by themselves, as do food and utility consumables. Save Viper’s for your trinkets.
Rune of the sunless reduces incoming condition duration and adds a free fear/Terror to the elite shout.
CPC stops projectiles. Epidemic does its copy-paste thing. And Rise provides desperately needed damage reduction.
I wonder if HoT events should have more instructional NPCs that are invulnerable but do not fight leading the players through event strategy. There is a lot of guidance, already but more may help.
Things like telling players who die to go to this or that particular way point and place an arrow on the map to the chopper.
Regarding builds, helicopters could take players to a NPC explaining the need for Cc and what to watch for. Give players a minute to check their builds before leading the group in.
Elite Specs, Build Diversity, Balance Issues
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Anchoku.8142
From a Necromancer point of view, core offensive weapon skills are handicapped by either low cleave/AoE or low dps while heal, utility, and elite skills are handicapped by slow cast times or other ways HoT mobs reduce their effectiveness.
Greatsword may be slow but the AoE area and AoE dps beats dagger in a crowd. Axe is hopelessly ineffective. Scepter begs for Epidemic or some form of splash damage.
Shouts may not be strong but cast time is low and AoE is large. Mobs do not linger in wells and many times my wells just miss due to mobs’ more active play. Minions spend more time running about chasing targets, though at least they hold aggro or they would be a disaster. Spectral skills do not protect and CC as well as in core content. Corruption utilities are plagued by mobs disengaging and covering larger areas.
And, for a bonus, Reaper Shroud is superior to Death Shroud in 1v1 and vastly so against many. The Reaper trait line supports power builds better than Spite.
The capability of mobs in HoT play directly to core Necromancer’s limitations. I like that they are harder to deal with but it seems like they were designed to counter core Necromancer design with higher mobility, stealth, range, and hard CC. Reaper’s powerful AoE and first real mobility skill makes a big difference for me in game play.
One thing I would like to point out is that I feel like I am being funneled toward a very particular trait and equipment set when taking MoC. Wells, Spectral, minions, and shout utilities seem much more tolerant of build variety. Not so with MoC. When I take it, it feels like the trait defines the rest of my build.
This is a very general question: What trait sets, or trait lines, are you most reliant on?
I was messing about with builds, yesterday, and realized I had become very comfortable with pairing Soul Reaping and Reaper. Power-shroud has become my most common build in PvE.
Blood Magic for group support, wells, dagger, and general QoL was not far behind my habit of SR&R.
What trait lines do you find yourself running most?
Transfusion ftw. Reaper is good at condition damage but not great. It is very good at being a tanky condition build. Do a half-scritt job as a condition-mancer and res’ the dps so they can keep going. It is a team effort. Even if you do not do the highest dps, acting as tank and healer for the condition professions is good.
Reaper Cc is useful
Raids are so unpopular that they act as a concentrator of emotional and elitist players, like dungeons were. In other games, there are enough experienced and mature players to overwhelm and isolated players who over stress about mistakes.
“Bad raids” do not help sell the game. I would hope the dev’s and GMs would take more active roles in managing player experience. There are plenty of good mentors who do that work every day. More frequent discrete GM participation could help.
Crafting ascended mat’s certainly soaked up the leather. I remember trading stacks in when zhaitaffy was dropping everywhere.
Thick leather and silk are highly valued because of their use in ascended crafting but so are T2-t4 mat’s. This alone keeps maps alive. Bags and chests (opened by appropriate level mules) used to gain these mat’s take time most players would otherwise spend in end-game areas.
Go farm the L70+ areas like I do. Sometimes, I open chests on an 80, sometimes not.
Don’t fight the Fed… or the game dev’s. I craft a lot and gather most of what I need or pay others to do the rest. Ascended equipment is supposed to cost a lot to make.
The good news is that you do not need ascended armor or weapons in any of the game’s modes. Play as you like. I use exotic armor most of the time. It’s fine. Player skill is more important.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Probably Warrior: is a core weapon for that class which is both useful currently in PvP and WvW roaming and can be used with ANY specialization (Mesmer’s shield doesn’t, and neither Herald shield).
Herald shield also was nerfed, and currently doesn’t have any use in PvE (in which is replaced for axe to break defiance bar on champions and so). Engineer shield was a thing used for condi builds with pistol, but ages ago, and Guardian just doesn’t have a shield (their shield is called focus, instead).
Not sure if you’re confused or just don’t know, but the guardian does have a shield.
Shield. Go down to skills by professions.
I think he’s being facetious. The guardians focus skills are way more like the shield skills found on other classes, and the shield skills much more like the focus skills found on other classes. In fact it was suggested a lot for those two solid years the guardian shield went unused that the devs should just swap the skills around.
No doubt. But both guardian shield skills are blocks or protection of some sort so it wasn’t helpful.
Is Guard’s use shield odd, or is every other profession’s use of shield confusing? I have always found that debate interesting. It may be a relic of trinity vs anti-trinity.
We did get Grasping Darkness and Death’s Charge with greatsword and shroud is still available without greatsword. While not a mobility skill, Grasping’s pull is a fair gap closer.
Are you looking more for auras or for covering ground faster?
I do a lot of solo and small group stuff. Try a shout shroud build wearing berserker equipment and trade Decimate Defenses for Chilling Victory and Blighter’s Boon. Trait Augury of Death and add Speed of Shadows, Vital Persistence, and FitG.
I would also go Viper’s on ascended. You can change the stat’s in the forge but Viper’s is a much more expensive insignia. On ascended, you can move it around between light armor professions. There is much less cost to Berserker exotic, which you can get for all your characters.
They nerfed it because it was a kittenty idea to begin with. It was completely unreliable because it was constantly being overridden when anyone else applied chill (which was all too common). I can only think you’re talking from a pvp perspective. From a pve perspective, it is the best thing ever.
Honestly, they need to do this chill nerf to Fear and change fear into something that can’t just be condition removed, like taunt.
That is an interesting idea. Terror caused a number of nerfs, including bleeds on Mark of Blood. I would not mind if Terror was removed from Fear so Necromancers could get more access to Fear and condition damage could be tied to something else.