Guild Wars 2

Are the various item collections that worthwhile? Once in a long while I get something new that I have not seen before and there is a item collection or skin unlock. For the most part, these drops are mediocre at best. I rather wish the super rare drops were giant piles of salvageable materials.

Fully traited staff and wells is the way I zerg in WvW – red circles as fast as I can make them. It helps hold my blob and disrupt the other blob.
WoB, WoP, WoD, WoC, or CPC.

In the vitality and toughness debate, I would like to point out there are workable corner conditions that can throw the balance one way or the other.

Consumables and runes can convert defensive stats to something offensive. For example, Shaman’s armor and Exuberance runes on a 64040 wells build is pretty strong for being such a bunker. Cleric’s armor grabs healing without vitality but, again, traiting Blood Magic for wells means the armor’s toughness stretches personal heal value. Rabid armor and a consumable to convert toughness can make a staff condition build durable for low opportunity cost.

Synergy and recycling defensive stats into offensive ones can serve niche purposes. You will never get max dps but can reduce the dps penalty for taking some defense. It all has to work together, though.

I am not sure Necromancer is all that bad, especially in WvW zerging.

One reason Necro is easy to focus in zergs is because the traits and utilities selected for zerg support leave players exposed (even more than normal) in 1v1.

If you want to feel unhappy, run Mesmer in WvW zerg.

I do not mind the various nerf and buffs and Necromancer has become a lot more viable over the years but the shift away from condition damage bugs me, somewhat.

Necromancer might as well be heavy armor, now. We have plenty of conditions but not that impressive condition damage outside of scepter.

spoj.9672:

Its not because they are too good so they get focused. Its because they are too easy to focus and lock down and not good enough to do anything about it themselves.

This is a design goal that “…works as intended.”

^
Generally, PvE bosses do not fight like real players. Fix that, please, Arenanet. Newer content proves it can be done.

Balance PvE AI and skill set to better represent PvP. Old PvE bosses have to be extremely durable and strong because they are so limited. What if the new Tequatl moved to face the biggest blob?

I was playing with spectral skills last week and noticed Attunement had … irregularities but am not sure they are accidents.

I have no idea what Attunement does for Grasp. Wall and armor both last longer and I thought for sure I could get a second protect from wall. Swiftness on walk is affected by runes.

some clarification by the dev/balance team would be nice.

I hate to put it like this but minions are like training wheels for Necromancer. Despite their bouts of indolence, minions are like mobile turrets on auto attack. If you can position yourself to get the minions working, your own dps combined with theirs can be extremely high. When they get stuck, you have to move around to wiggle them free.

Minions have been balanced to account for their down time and the skill they require. You also end up with a very tanky build considering where many of the traits are located and the fact PvE mobs prefer to kill your minions, first. For that much defense, dps is very good.

Learn which minions to run on which events or in which dungeons and how their skills can further improve your game. Dedicated MMs are all over this forum to answer questions. However, minions never dodge red circles or big tells from bosses. If you are having trouble with AoE wiping minions, consider another build.

I guess I would have to disagree Necro is worst in game. in many ways it is not the best and in some ways it ranks pretty low but there are aspects where Necro is pretty good, maybe near the top.

In WvW, for example, Necromancer has the extremely valuable and wholly unglamorous job of zerg-busting. That is what the N in GWEN is for. The G is for trying to hold it together. G and N let W and E dps the snot out of people.

Necromancer is a decent trash mob farmer, too. It is not as hands-off as Ranger but Necro tags nicely; a great boon for crafters like me.

I will put it on my list to try out in PvP.

Mesmer is a blink-tank job using decoys to take hits and has evades. It is a ranged mage and develops dps through pets. It seems more similar to Ranger.

Necromancer has an invulnerability skill it has to charge. It has no evades and dps drops rapidly with range (except for MM). Guardian also has to brute-force it’s way through a battle and uses boon and condition spam.

In my mind, the two professions are very different.

If you have a target for CPC, the weakness is a powerful transfer. I have gotten to where I always use a Carrion build (regardless of armor stats) when building around corruption utilities.

I have been experimenting with spectral skills. Maybe it is time to do the same with corruptions.

It looks like 12% extra damage but it is 0% for the first half of the health pool and the first 50% seems harder for Necromancer. The average is 6%, of course. Cloaking is not much fun when health is low and Necro has no synergy with stealth.

Traveller frees up a utility slot and is always useful.
Ranger gives 7% all the time if you have a pet.
Scholar gives 10% all in one lump and also adds power and crit bonus.
Divinity is 78 on all stats. Done multiple times, Celestial can add up to something fair enough but not great.

P.s.
The rune has a lot more synergy with Thief, which can spike a huge amount of damage to get past that 50% trigger.

Corruption skills have their best synergy with OH dagger builds and Consume Conditions. You can either transfer conditions or use them to increase your heal. Hybrid and condition builds benefit but power, DS, MM, and well builds not as much.

The long gauntlet runs just do not need to be there. They favor high mobility and stealth professions too much. I know HotW, SE, and Aetherblades do not have this problem. The runs are shorter or not skippable.

Aside from Necromancer’s group utility, the problem of losing group members that run into CC chains or other AoE caused by lead skippers has to be the most annoying and unnecessary dungeon design issue.

It is absolutely true that a well organized group comprised of the right jobs has no problem but we have all had to go back and help those killed by the gauntlet or caught a face full of CC, ourselves. Take the right profession and you can watch the wrong ones struggle, or help them. The race is biased and not really necessary from a game design PoV.

Shaogin, spectral traits have significant opportunity cost so I do not think of them as highly as you might. There is definitely a trade for DS and dps to use spectral traits and, without the traits, spectral skills are not attractive.

Traiting wells fits better for power builds than spectral and offers team support.

Overall, I feel like specral skills need one more little tweak for a bit more defense or offense to pay for the opportunity cost. Wall is kind of a one good trick pony but a lot of professions with similar skills have that problem. Walk or Armor are candidates for a tweak, imo.

Walk, because it can be made redundant by SoL or horn, may be the better candidate for an additional effect. Perhaps an effect that is only enabled by taking both spectral traits. The opposite of Taunt comes to mind.

Does anyone use BiP with might duration runes just before Lich in PvE face roll? This seems to be my most common usage.

Please keep in mind I have not been arguing for more combat mobility, just something to help in the race through gauntlet. No Ele has ever dropped a fiery great sword for me. PUGs tend to fall into two categories: speed runs and casual runs. Neither one seems overly impressed with Necromancer’s slow pace. There are other professions that could use a reduction in the amount of “skipping,” too. Some dungeons just have long paths and/or mob types that cater to a few professions and punish the rest.

All dungeons can be done but trailing a group unconcerned with anything but not being the last through the gauntlet just in time for the AoE splashes caused by leaders’ aggro is a big deal to everyone. Stealth does not prevent CC so those falling too far behind can get the CC caused by those in the front.

I only request changes to specific dungeon designs to make the gauntlet less “I’m making a huge mess with aggro for the Necro in back to deal with. LOL”

CPC is so PvP and WvW focused that it would be nice to have some PvE-only use attached; some small modifier to Defiance, maybe. CPC is useful for mobs that heal but scepter is fine for single targets. This is what I meant by adding something to improve CPC sideways.

The highest priority for me is a way to assist in skipping content on these gauntlet runs, or change the gauntlet to be more equitable to Necromancer.

Dark path takes a very long time to complete so it is nearly useless outside of combat as a racing skill.

Flesh Wurm is another combat focused mobility skill with a long setup and completion time.

Everything Necromancer has as a gap opener or closer puts the player in combat but that is not the problem; the race to skip content while staying out of combat is.

I honestly have no idea, sorry. The return on investment for chill builds right now is kind of low. Chill by itself does no damage but I imagine it would be more effective in tower defense situations where red circles and Epidemic are less avoidable. If opponents are funneled through narrow areas, a combination of soft CC like chill and poison can be devastating. Battles become condition bombing and nuking versus cleansing and reflecting.

For fun, I have been running fully and partially traited spectral skills in PvE to understand the limitations better. Fully traited, Walk can allow OH dagger and horn without needing SoL to compensate. OH dagger condi transfer is very nice when conditions are everywhere and Consuming them does not happen fast enough.

Armor adds sustain to zerker builds and combined with WoP and other condition management to make power builds tanky.

Wall is just a toy in PvE but is on a shorter CD. In Orr with its zerg-like mob spawns, it can be fun to watch them bounce off the wall while other professions nuke them. Few other players bother, or remember, to run through Wall for the protection. Even fewer leap through so that it seems very rare to glimpse those bubbles of my envy.

I could like Spectral Armor more if it included a short bit of reflect. Traiting spectral skills has significant opportunity cost and SA has a longish cool down.

A reflect on AoE like Wall with its shorter CD is a bit much to ask.

CPC has more limited uses so something sideways from area dislike in PvP and WvW would be great.

I have never understood exactly why Necromancer had to have poor combat mobility as a design rule. It is not as if the profession’s design has followed that mandate to the letter and I do not see the connection to the DS mechanic that makes the handicap necessary.

Few forums gush over being meta all the time but I like to think those in the Necromancer section are more reasonable and contemplative. The profession is not bad but has weak areas, often by design, that we like to dicuss.

Most dungeons have “guntlet” runs where Necromancer’s lack of both stealth and mobility put it at severe disadvantage; TA has spiders and such, AC has skelk, Arah is rather long, and so on. In AC, for example, those in the forefront of the “race” set the skelk to preparing their AoE CC to go off on those trailing. In contrast, Aetherblade, SE, and HotW are less punishing for those with less stealth and mobility. SE, for example, has gates spaced across path one allowing any who fall behind to catch up while leaders work to destroy them. Automatic blocks, evades, and stun breaks are also deficient in Necromancer’s design. AoE fear, dodging, elite stability, and decoys help but Necro has a dearth of true racing skills.

End the race or level the playing field and Necro will be less unwelcome.

I would rather the current meta builds were nerfed. I was insta-kicked from AC as soon as I joined and they saw Necro. I say dungeon bosses should strip or corrupt boons, some mobs should see through stealth, and other mobs should counter mobility skills.

Dark Path has a .75 sec warm up before launching a claw that is dodgeable and trips over terrain. I would rather be the claw and at least get closer (and maybe have a chance at gaining an aura) than squatting and waiting in hope the skill finally completes.

Just one more finisher would be wonderful. Life blast had been mentioned recently in another thread.

Lots of great suggestions here but together they are OP.

Dark path cast time reduction is on my wish list. DP should also count as a leap because it takes so long. It would be better as an instant cast, slow projectile that looks like a blob of smoke. A big tell would make it dodgeable in exchange for its long tell and instant movement. Making it a leap finisher could give an aura, too.

I have mixed feelings about megaservers. On one side, they ensure an event will always have some population. It helps players leveling and event farming. On the other side, events can get over-farmed to where they cannot reset fast enough for the next group to run them. That is where instances and IP maps come into play.

Overall, making each event or quest do-able because there are other players on the map, if not in the same area, is better than ensuring zergs are separated from each other by their own maps.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I just want to reanimate stuff that’s all :/

So that’s where Orr gets their undead poultry and livestock.

The problem with chill is that using it prevents you from doing damage some other way. Staff has a slow CD and focus is … focus. Chill is bunker-ish. Even snow balls were less fun than I had hoped.

Chill on blind is fine for an adept trait and you can always increase chill duration. I have used it in the past for a build but the runes got reworked so mixing pairs is pointless and I have not run it since. I totally forgot about it this weekend.

I use giver’s weapons too, or, should I say, two. It works nicely for stacking condi’s. Dagger and axe do nothing for condition damage so they do not get bursting. One giver’s axe gets Peril while a giver’s focus gets Malice. Sometimes, there is a distinct lack of vulnerability on a target. Vulnerability should always, always be close to cap. When it is time for power, I can swap to d/f, d/w, or d/d for fire and lightning proc’s.

Both bleed duration and vulnerability duration are priorities. The traits that support them are in different lines but duration pays off for both. One scepter should have bursting, if you can afford it.

You may consider putting only 4 in Blood Magic for wells CD to allocate more in Curses or Soul Reaping but continue experimenting. Messing with traits and equipment stats keeps me interested in Necromancer.

Number 1 change is that women do not yawn and stretch.

Also, the September patch was buggy as heck but is mostly fixed. Minions became even dumber and something wonky happened with targeting that I am not sure is fixed.

Oh, and personal story is getting fixed (reverted to pre-September), soon, too.

Fundamentally, both axe and dagger MH are power weapons. Neither one does any condition damage. Consider abandoning Curses, or enough of it, to increase your power. Make up for the lack of precision somewhere else. Critical hits are modified based on your aggregate power so power takes priority unless you are running scepter and want to bleed them to death.

Edit: Your traits and weapon choices conflict with each other. Builds can still work that way, and my opinion is just that, but I have tried lots of crazy builds and Arenanet did a find job making sure there was no real “meta” for Necromancer. Also, that is just how I like it — variety is nice and not face-roll boring like some other professions.

I understand the OP’s point of view. Really, our minions should have gleaming bolts stuck out of their necks and suture scars all over them so our Shadow Fiend looks like a patchwork balloon with electrodes we can grab onto as hand holds to float over Orr.

With that, let’s subvert this thread to ask, again, for skins on our minions.

A full condi build is not the only one that works in SW. Either a Death Nova or a siphon MM build work as well. Scepter’s bleeds still deal with husks pretty well and you can equip scepter for the husks and even Epidemic for larger events, anyway, all without bothering to trait them.

If you do not have sinister armor, you can use carrion. Dire and Rabid have no power, which is useful as not every mob is heavily armored and weak to conditions.

When you get a chance, try a fear build, too. It is a lot more work but can make the grind less grindy.

After you get to L80, you will be able to crit frequently enough to proc critical hits and effects from sigils, runes, etc. so generally armor with power and precision is one of the standards to keep in your bags. A second set for Necro should provide plenty of condition damage for times when you need to kite and bleed or fear. One thing to remember about Necromancer is that actual condition damage comes usually from fear, bleed, and poison. Fears are almost all in DS and have cool downs. Likewise, bleeds are almost all on scepter, which has terrible direct damage. Staff and war horn are your other fear and bleed utilities but their cool downs are long-ish. That means your armor and maybe traits will determine what weapons you need to run and vice verse. It is easy to get equipment and builds locked together because without synergy, they tend to underperform.

Beyond that, there is a vast array of choices to provide more toughness, healing, vitality, and critical damage. Sometimes having some extra armor is good. Keep an eye on the rune choices you have, too. Some sets convert one stat into a bonus for another.

Toughness gets aggro and is somewhat negated in Fractals but otherwise does a fine job of reducing the amount of health you loose on a hit.

Healing is a challenge for Necromancers because Death Shroud means you will miss a lot of heals from your team mates while you avoid further damage hiding out in DS. Most team members do not wait for you to come out of DS for the heal so it is up to you. At any rate, sometimes you will just want more healing power.

Vitality just makes the bathtub of health deeper but Necro has trouble avoiding damage. It is a face-tanking role. You will go through more health on Necro than any other profession. That is why you have DS and more health to begin with.

Something always has to be traded when selecting armor. A full berserker build with armor, weapons, and trinkets does great damage but you have minimum healing and your only defenses are a couple of dodges, DS, and some utilities. None of the weapons have much in the way of defense and those weapon skills you do have, like a stun, blind, or fear, are on longer cool downs.

Power and precision are always rewarded and too much defense will take away from power. Critical hit bonus (on top of the standard bonus you get even with no investment) can be wasted if you do not have enough precision to proc a critical hit.

Likewise, vitality without healing just gives you a buffer. Healing is needed to restore the health you lose so having a larger pool of vitality is its own double-edged sword like toughness is with aggro. Fortunately, Blood Magic adds healing bonus when you put points there so losing, for example, a quarter of your health face-tanking a hit is as easily recoverable as if you had less healing and less health or else the Blood Magic line would be even less attractive than it is now.

Start with a set for a power build but do not hesitate to moderate it as you see fit for your own survival. Trinkets are a great way of making up for deficiencies. You can switch them without messing with your armor. For example, you may have berserker’s armor and a mix of cleric’s, valkyrie, and sentinel’s, or anything at all to give you a bit more defense without buying defensive armor.

While I am remembering it, if you have a boatload of karma, temple armor from Orr is a deal and those armors are all mixed stats. The runes are mostly not good for necromancer with the exception of Melandru’s but, hey, you might have been playing a while and just started your Necro. If you are new to the game, though, you will get rare and exotic soulbound armor for leveling and completing areas. That stuff is free, too.

I was in a number of PvE PUGs this weekend and celestial worked well enough. The added healing and armor were necessary. I checked out the runes on the trading post and they sell for only 40 s, now. Not too bad for a generalist’s set. They used to sell for 10 g +, iirc. The armor is a bit harder to come by due to the charged quartz but is not difficult, either.

I have used it in SE and CM on chill builds. Maybe I will run a chill build again this weekend.

I have a celestial set I often use in casual play for its generic utility. It is sub-optimal at everything but not bad at anything, either. I would rate it higher than 2/3 of the armor types but not as high as berserker or a few types matched with specific runes.

Celestial armor and runes are not bad, per se, but do not have great synergy with the profession, perhaps because of heal scaling and limited sources of condition damage.

Silverwastes rewards condition damage and condition management more than other areas but you do not need a max condition damage build. I have found power builds and MM builds work fine, too. However, mixed skills seem to suffer.

Scepter is handy against husks so keep it ready. You can use staff if you like and will not be punished for it. MH dagger is great for some mobs but watch the persistent poison fields. OH dagger can be useful for tranferring conditions. Axe has great range to keep you out of the soup and supports minions. WH bleeds and gives swiftness to free up a utility. Lots of valid choices here.

Conditions like poisons and binds are strong in SW so be sure you take some counters.

Right, I did forget it. I use WoP frequently enough in PvE PUG / event support that I should not have missed it. Thank you. Used it on Teq just a few days ago, in fact.

Edit: If Plague Signet had a fast enough CD or the passive removed a condition every few seconds per signet equipped, that could make taking SoV more attractive.

Consume conditions is really hard to beat in most game modes. The condition wipe is Necromancer’s most powerful condition management skill, imo.

After a fight in a dungeon, for example, there is usually nothing for me to transfer a condition to. Shrouded Removal (?) And anti-toxin spray are the only other ways to clear those pesky after-battle conditions so I can get out of combat and run.

SoV needs something like that. Necromancer’s heal and DS are the only ways to remove a condition without a target. Maybe SoV cannot be made stronger but it could sure be improved sideways.

I have a difficult time justifying it on anything but face roll PvE.

_ ^ ^ _ ?!!!!
(×_×)?

I have a similar Perplexity set but do not roam WvW with it. I use it for event farming in PvE like in Silverwastes. (Orr has too many targets of opportunity to miss out on Greater Marks and other AoE maximizing traits or skills so I use zerker scholar.) Proc’ing interrupts as often as possible using horn and fears is more of an experimental niche build for fun and variety.

A glassy build like yours is too risky for me in WvW. Sorry, I am not much help with your question.

Edit: Also, with Perplexity condition duration and condition damage are much less important than timing. Fear does not proc confusion if the runes are on CD or if a skill was not interrupted. Having fear available on demand for manual or auto proc is my priority.

There are a couple of WvW builds used and they serve different functions: one is for small group or solo roaming and, for that, you can use your favorite PvP or dungeon build while the other is specifically for zerg and siege support where staff and wells are heavily traited for maximum AoE support as if you are an arrow cart.

Of course, you can use your roaming build everywhere, even in a zerg, but the N in GWEN usually implies the role of area denial because of how effective it is in large scale battles. The mobile artillery role offers poor defense, though, so situational awareness, positioning, and allies are more important.

Condition damage and duration are generally not as useful in WvW because of condition clearing being spammed so frequently. Power, mobility, and defense, along with stun breaks, are popular investments.

Seeing some of the profession experts I respect most weigh in here makes me very happy. Thank you all for taking the time to commit your assessment to this thread.

I still hope to get a tag to leave some form of comment, whether to suggest a build or two I may have overlooked, or hint at some of the problems with the traits when reviewed by the balance team.

From my perspective, I see little reason why Bloodthirst and Vampiric Precision cannot be combined with the Master and Grandmaster minor traits, Vampiric and Blood to Power. Doing this might make that trait line less unattractive.

SoV might be more useful if it had some boon or condition management on passive or active. Perhaps consuming or corrupting boons on active and donating conditions on passive will make up for its limitations outside of casual PvE event zerging.

Experimenting with different builds is fun but this one continues to puzzle and frustrate me. I would like to make it work, even for outlier situations but am clearly missing something. Food and sigils, even mobs in Orr, all seem better at it than I can manage by stuffing points into Blood Magic.