I can support science but I am not especially skillful.
Llaaki
no skype but can get it
can record
played Necro since August
usually play some condi with other types mixed in – do fully-optimized builds less often.
somewhat poor in-game but like crafting
Another point supporting Renoko’s argument is that conditions are less powerful in PvP than in PvE because of all the cleansing. The actual damage is pretty low in a PvP battle compared to attack damage but their effect on mobility helps define the battle line.
Of course, an older suggestion of mine that was designed for Necromancer is a sort of boon eater that would either steal a few boons or consume them to create Stability. An example of this is to steal up to 5 boons from a target and convert them into stacks of 2 second Stability depending on the number of boons consumed.
This kind of Necromancer-centric skill is not what the developers are considering.
I, too, have long hoped Necromancer would get a unique condition but it does not look like it will happen.
Posted on another thread, I suggested a condition that reduces precision and/or power. This “Fever” would degrade dps, especially crit rate, for a several seconds and act as a defensive, rather than offensive, condition. For example, subtracting 150 precision in a 300 AoE for 4 seconds with a 1 sec cast time.
The fact that minion AI still isn’t fixed is honestly inexcusable.
AI is partly fixed. Minions will no longer go looking for trouble, I hope.
Oh, and why was it I paid extra real money for Mist Wolf and it remains a joke for an elite skill?
Like the AI change and the unblockables but other professions got a lot more. Remarkably few nerfs if I read that all right. Still not liking signets, though, with only one improved and no CD reductions. Still waiting for changes to the trait tree. Not sure what to think of the wurm and golem buffs. They may not actually matter. Wurm is more special-purpose and golem will still not dodge. Suspect other professions will run pets more, though. Overall, it seems other professions got a larger boost, today, except for a handful of very specific OP builds.
In fact, it is a good exercise reviewing each of the current conditions and boons and matching them to their opposites or to skills. For example, Chill’s opposite is Time Warp and Stability’s opposite is the various knock-downs and knock-backs as well as Fear.
If I really, really wanted to dream, I might suggest a condition affecting Defiant or Invulnerability.
You are correct this would do less against bunkers and healers. The suggestion was for a new condition similar to Weakness, Chill, Blind and so forth so I wondered what Arenanet might be thinking of. The gw2guru interview made it sound more like that sort of condition. Just because Necromancer is getting a new condition in the 5th DS slot does not mean it will be exclusive to the profession.
It occurred to me this morning that a condition which degraded precision would reduce the chance of critical hit. That would have a large effect on builds in all professions if the % reduction was not small.
Another related condition is to simply reduce the critical hit bonus by, for example, 2% per stack of this condition. Now, with Necromancer’s DS, I do not expect there to be stacks on anyone so maybe the reduction can be relatively large; like 20%. However, if that were to happen, then perhaps just reducing precision by, say, 200, for a few seconds may be simpler and fairer.
Here is a different idea for a new condition – reduce total attack or just power. Call it Feaver, if you like. It could effectively take a % off Power and/or Precision
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From the state of the game, Guardians are the measuring stick the developers are hoping to tune professions up or down to. Necromancer is not that far off. It is one of the harder jobs to play but ther were hints toward making easy jobs a bit more technically challenging but not changing damage output much at all, with certain exceptions like grenadier.
Posted on a similar thread, I would like a skill that works on enemy boons. Boons like Aegis and Stability could be stolen like a Thief giving better access for Necromancer.
@Nemesis: Like your suggestion very much. You put a lot of thought into it.
Necromancer does not need a lot of improvement in PvE but PvP could use help to counteract some of the class imbalance.
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After further consideration, I still like the idea of somehow getting stability off of #5 but also like the idea of healing the main pool of HP, as Nemesis suggests. Whether eating boons, conditions, or a little of both, getting a little heal and stability in wvw would help that aspect of Necromancer without doing much in PvE.
Many like I had complained quite some time ago about the lack of a unique condition only Necromancers would have, even if it was more of an annoyance to enemy players than anything else. I do hope that is true. As a profession with low combat mobility, we need something that forces other players away, like Fear. A new condition that, say, forces the enemy to lose target lock, or forces the lock onto an ally (again, just to be an annoyance), could change the game play in pvp without creating a damage or heal imbalance favoring Necromancer.
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It may be the best resurrection skill in the game but I want it to work on dead, not just downed, players; at least, ones that have not been finished.
Of course, I would also like it to work on enemy players, too, and force them to work for my team until they are dead, again. :p
Cannibalize Boons for skill #5. Necromancer has limited boons so, like Thief, I think the ability to steal boons such as stability would be awesome. I feel the +boon duration in the Death Magic line is sort of wasted but then that line supports too many core Necromancer skills already, in my mind, with staff, minions, and Reaper’s Protection and Death Shiver for DS.
A lot of other classes end up with piles of boons. That sounds like it may be toned down a little in the next patch but Necromancer has few ways to get them. Death Shroud when traited, staff 2, and Well of Power are about it, from what I remember, though Humes get Prayer to Lyssa, which pops random boons fairly often but with short effects. (I have used it a bit but the skill is a real button-masher with unpredictable results.)
Anyway, the Gw2Guru State of the Game interview made it sound like it would be a new condition; possibly an AoE. Maybe it will be a condition that counters Aegis.
Why 10 in Death Magic? You are trying to build a Death Shroud set. I would put the points elsewhere. Run Consume Conditions and eat conditions for HP recovery rather than trait for its removal. You will actually benefit from conditions applied to you.
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+1 for Kravick’s reply. Staff and scepter/dagger are the all-purpose weapon loads serving conditionmancers, which is the Necromancer’s primary design build. Axe/focus and dagger/dagger are for powermancers, hybrids, minionmancers, and other, more highly tuned, variants.
Staff and scepter are fairly easy in that staff is the longest ranged weapon and scepter is the next longest. Necromancer’s low combat mobility favors longer ranged weapons. AoE is also a central aspect of the profession. Use your AoE to degrade enemy mobility and damage output. It is the only way to balance Necromancer’s inherently poor combat mobility.
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@ Spoj – I agree. Combining crit and toughness and, theoretically, moving boon duration in it’s place, would totally imbalance the trait tree. it would probably create a one-build profession.
Agreed. Adding % crit bonus with greater marks and staff mastery, or on top of DS or minion buffs would make a DM build OP.
I wish Death Magic was not so crammed with useful trait skills. Staff, minion, and DS all benefit from that line. Spectral Mastery belongs there but there is no more room for it. Necromancer has a lot of weapons to trait so I wonder if two of the same funtionfunction weapons cannot have their have their mastery trait combined to make room. I would think staff belongs in Curses.
Death and blood magic should have Spectral buffs because spectral is a bunkering / combat mobility set of skills.
Have to disagree with you, Bhawb. People put points in DM because of the traits, not because they want a bunker with less damage.
The problem with the OP’s suggestion is that it would make that build OP.
I recommend Consume Conditions over Well of Blood for your heal.
You know there are little boots and sweaters for dogs? I want to buy clothes and accessories for my minions as well as skins to dress them up. Think about it. My bone fiend could have six little booties, a floral table cloth tied with a belt/collar that says “Fluffie” and a party hat. All of it could include minor stat bonuses.
Post your suggestions here for the developers to see and the rest of us to pick at.
Suggestion #1 (this one is an icebreaker)
Delete Reanimator, move Protection of the Horde down to Adept, and place Vigor on entering Death Shroud in the Master slot for minor traits.
Suggestion #2
Trade Spectral Attunement from Curses with Master of Terror in Soul Reaping
Lol! Fight’s on!
Seriously, though, I would like to see Arenanet work on sigils, first, followed by spectral skills.
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And downed state health
And the overloaded death magic line
And our heal/blood magic
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Practice dodging and attacking from outside the mob’s range. It is a lot of movement but you can do it. As Altroll said, you get at most 2 dodges before running out of stamina and having to recharge so kite the mob rather than standing in front of it. You can also distract it with minions but, if your minion dies, get some space between you and the mob fast.
If you are going for a bunker build that critical hits fairly frequently, sigil of blood might be useful for stealing health from your opponent but you might want sigil of force to help make up for low power. Sigils of air, earth, fire, frailty, and strength are also options. The nice thing about chill for Necromancer is because there are an adequate number of ways to apply it. Giving perma-chill to your opponent is pretty easy. Now, chill does not stack so do not overdo it and ignore other conditions and damage. Extending condition duration is generally less effective in wvw because people can clear the condition so re-applying shorter conditions or damage fast is usually better.
Even if you do not crit very often, most main hand weapons except staff hit frequently enough to proc so I still prefer that type of sigil. However, for PvE farming and large events, you might want one of the sigils that gain bonuses with kills. I farm with sigil of luck just to boost the item drop rate. In dungeons, WvW, and PvP, I do not bother because I can go down and lose the entire bonus stack. If your crit rate is too low, you might want to grab one of the sigils that proc on weapon swap like battle, doom, or geomancy.
For Runes, Undead is a good place to start because of their great value. You will need to decide which area needs improving in your stats. You can add condition duration, boon duration, healing, critical hit bonus, and other things but ithat all depends on how you are traited. Try playing different trait sets and looking for possible synergies or weaknesses that require improvement.
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Minions do not really care what armor you wear. Do you want them to blow up, or heal them so they stay alive longer? Check out Dulfy dot com for details on the sets. You can also purchase a mix from different temples and add new runes of your choosing. I built most of my power/tough/vit set from mixing temple gear.
But! Necro pets can explode and you can have 6 or 7 out at one time. Last night fighting Jormag, I was working on a champ ice critter, popped Lich and summoned 5 jagged rodents. I had a great time watching the little guys follow me around as I wove through red rings of ice AoE while critting the champ.
Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein could make his own minions. I want some of that. Hmmmm, body of a giant and brain of a jackalope. Hey, wait! That sounds just like a flesh golem!
Asynchronous rendering of the health bar and damage ticks. Don’t worry about it unless you are in a huge zerg battle or a major event and the effect is much worse just when you really need to see what is going on.
You may notice that happening to you, on occasion, too.
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1. Yes, you have that about right. Sure, Necro has swiftness but the only combat mobility skills are Fear, which is such a useless escape skill Arenanet decided to give it more damage through the Terror trait, Dark Path, which is a slow gap-closer that can be dodged, Spectral Grasp, another slow gap-closer that can be dodged, an immobile wurm for a finicky teleport under the best of conditions, and Stability on Lich form and way up the trait tree.
2. You got that right, too. However, Necromancer pets may still be stupid and as controllable as a cat but they are now on a shorter leash so they cannot wander too far away before being yanked back. They used to go gather a train of mobs and bring them to me whether my heals were off cool-down, or not.
3. So-so survivability is by design. Necromancer was given a large health pool so the developers compensated for it by giving poor combat mobility and escape skills. If you feel like a punching bag for everyone else to practice on, then I’d say you are getting the hang of it.
4. Staff is Necro’s all-purpose weapon but it leans strongly toward condition/support work. You will never see big damage numbers using it. The range is also shorter than some other profession’s weapons that you might be more familiar with and I do wish it were longer. Slot Epidemic as one of your utilities when facing a group and trait staff for Greater Marks, Staff Mastery, and Corruption for the Epidemic and you will start to see more satisfying damage.
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Has anyone considered a chillomancer hybrid build as a counter to the regen ranger? Superior sigil of ice on the main hand of both weapon sets and hydromancy on the off hand, along with traiting for 400 toughness when channeling if running axe/focus and dagger/dagger or scepter/dagger would crimp mobility and cool-down. Ranger would still have knock-back, though, so the staff and Chillblains might be needed.
Utilities could still be wells, as suggested, but I have also been considering boons, of all things. Humes have Prayer to Lyssa, which has a crazy-short cool down along with short base boon duration. If I eat +boon duration food, instead of my usual offensive feasts, and use runes that also improve boon duration along with a little Death Magic traiting, that might be enough to counter something like the regeneranger.
I have far too many sets of clothes and weapons right now but am toying with the idea of boon armor to see how effective something like that really is. I do not know if Giver’s armor is worth wearing but I picked up a Tahlkora’s set with vit+/heal/cond. With enough vitality, healing, and boon duration Necro might just embarrass the regeneranger.
Another variation on that idea is to toss in a couple of minions, keeping well of power and well of corruption or darkness but it is difficult to give up too much of our damage output because we have such a challenge there to begin with.
Even with a boon build, I wonder if the best thing to do at the start of that fight would be to pop Lich or Plague form, first.
In order to make the most of your crit bonus, you need to put a bunch into precision to make sure you get enough critical hits in the first place. Nemesis specifically spoke of this in his videos saying he likes to have about 50% crit chance (precision).
I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with toughness/health/crit bonus while taking only the base power and precision and running soldier’s gear. It seems extremely bunker-like so I am concerned you may not be doing much damage in return. Without even 10 points in Curses, you cannot even do chill-on-blind to improve your number of chills, if a bunker build is your objective. Sure, you could put a sigil of water or ice on your weapons and eat the best pizza for duration, if you are going for a highly defensive build, but then I wonder why put 30 in Soul Reaping and the rest in Death and Blood Magic instead of at least some Spite and/or Curses.
Speaking of Curses, in PvE, mobs do not cleanse conditions so that is another reason not to ignore what is the heart of the Necromancer design. In wvw and pvp your opponents will cut condition duration and, thus, damage so variations of power builds, including minionmaster, are more favored. Your soldier’s gear is perfectly normal in wvw but I would only use it in pve if you already have enough precision from elsewhere in your build. Honestly, if you look at the skills Necromancer has available, you cannot get away from applying a lot of conditions no matter how you configure it. Not improving condition dps (precision) or duration (power) just pulls the Necromancer’s teeth out. Even minions suffer without 20 points in Spite.
One of the most interesting and exciting aspects of playing Necromancer is that you, the player, get to choose which of your feet to shoot when distributing trait points.
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For learning dungeons, I recommend staff and scepter/dagger on a 10/20/20/20/0 build. It gives some bunker, conditions, wells, and a whole lot of flexibility so you can run minions, too. All of it at maximum range while you learn to dodge.
I agree axe is more useful when running several minions but scepter/dagger is not much of a nerf in comparison and its longer range is often handy as well as the all the bleeds. I certainly do not bother either with trying to keep minions alive in dungeons but, while leveling to 80, the weapon set the OP settled on is perfectly fine.
You are definitely not playing “wrong” for using staff and scepter/dagger. Put 10 points into Curses for Chilling Darkness or Terror to support your off-hand dagger or staff, respectively.
Demonic Spirit is right in that you should keep regen (staff #2) and putrid mark (staff #4) on minions you do not intentionally want dead (again).
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Play style is different. You will be tanky but have to face-tank more often, too. Lots of viable builds will seem confusing as you approach 80 but there are fewer “wrong answers” with Necromancer. You will also need to get used to longer battles while leveling. Necromancer is also a pet class; more pets than Ranger, even. It was not always this good as a pet class but the last few “balances” have fixed the minions, as far as I am concerned.
Necromancer is something of a jack of all trades and master of none. I have never been truly bored because there is no easy-button. Get used to re-traiting a lot. I do it just to mix the play styles. There are four main builds; powermancer, conditionmancer, minionmancer and bunker at L80. From those builds there are many variants, including a hybrid, which is a total glass build but is still durable enough for a every-day use.
The Death Magic (toughness) tree has a lot packed into it so putting trait points there won’t be wasted. Death magic has 3 builds it supports: minion master, conditionmancer, and critical damage (power/precision/death shroud.)
Staff and scepter/dagger are probably the safest, mainstream weapon sets. Staff is good for ranged combat and has a variety of uses, though none are even close to OP. Scepter is medium/long-ish range and hits pretty reliably. The off-hand dagger has a blind and AoE weakness, which is decent in minimizing incoming damage.
There are other weapons, of course, and I encourage you to try them out, as some are better in specific builds.
For utilities, minions and wells are pretty popular, for good reason. The only good signet is Locust, which gives 25% speed boost now as a passive. The rest of the signets are crap because they are weak, have long CD, or both.
Epidemic is an invaluable utility; especially for conditionmancers. Traiting for corruption (CD reduction) is very nice when facing multiple mobs either solo or in a group as it can melt the trash mobs.
PvE is very strong, though fights can still take a while to finish, because of how tanky the Necromancer is. WvW is less satisfying for many because a 1-shot kill is pretty near impossible. In a group, Necromancers are both squishy due to lack of mobility and escape, and game-changers because they can spam a skull-full of nasty conditions.
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I have to agree with Bhawb. Perhaps I am being contrarian but I do not think a Necromancer need be dark and gloomy, even if I also do not like the Winged and Feathered sets. My personal favorites are not the standard crafted sets of armor but the dropped sets and karma purchases or recipes.
The well animations are fine. I kind of like the puzzle pieces and lucky charms. One good thing about the wells is that they do not mess up my view of the situation like a glowing dome might. On the other hand, if the wells had cute skulls and cross-bones or a ring of dancing skeletons gangnam style…
Good tips, Hanzo. A Spectral build has always had potential but, for me, has never quite been good enough to run as an all-purpose build, which is kind of what I like to have when going from one situation to another. I need to try out ways to make spectral work in situations that are not good matches for it.
The problem I see with Spectral skills, even traited, is that they do not cut incoming damage enough. They need more up-time and, in the case of Wall which is good only if you can force someone or something to use it, to be broadened into a dome. Traited wells and a blind/chill build do more, I think, to reduce incoming damage than spectral skills and have outgoing damage where spectral does not.
The Death Magic tree is crammed with too many useful traits for me to burn them on a tank build that has only 25% incoming damage reduction without 100% up-time and no outgoing damage in exchange. Dodges, blinds, and chills along with DS do more to avoid damage than all of the spectral skills. Walk has the juke/teleport/parachute and Grasp is a dicey tele-pull that I use when the situation calls for it but that is about it, for me.
There are bosses and events where you just have to adjust your build. Be flexible in your choice of weapons and utilities. Do not feel like you must force your power/axe build to work on a boss where range is important. Switch to a staff and manage group conditions even if you are traited for power. Staff 1 is not too horrible even if your dps goes down. Sometimes you just have to trust other professions to pick up your slack. Being downed is more of a problem for the team than your damage being reduced.
Just keep leveling and trailing the zerg to stay as safe as possible. Do not worry about kill rate. Piggyback on wvw events and get the xp.
even if the stability given by spectral armor (if they buffed it with stability) was the same duration as foot in the grave it would allow us to secure stomps in 1vX fights without having to use an elite.
this would be a huge buff.
I see what you mean bhawb but I can still dream and hope ;-)
though id rather have 6s of stability than I would protection.
I hate to admit it but Stability would probably run contrary to the purpose of Spectral skills in the developers’ minds so the odds of it being added are almost zero. The reason for my thinking is that Spectral skills could make Necromancer extremely tanky; more so than any other profession. Stability may improve dps too much. The trade for being a better punching bag will likely be reduced damage output. Still, it is a good dream to have and the dev’s seem to like making Necromancer more like other professions rather than more unique. Spectral skills need a boost to bring a full build into mainstream use. Stability would go a ways toward doing that but I suspect CD timers will be the only adjustments and they really deserve priority, anyway.
My guess is that Spectral skills besides Walk will get shorter CD while Signets besides Locust will get stronger passives. Unfortunately, I suspect Necromancer will miss getting serious love this month, too, while other professions get focused on. Too many other professions have only one mainstream build.
Oh, yes. DS has several weaknesses built in to keep it from being OP. First, LF drains without even doing anything so it has a maximum duration. Second, it can be lost by taking damage and third, perhaps most importantly, it replaces the skill bar with a handful of other skills. Imagine if a Thief could only use Stab, Shadow Step, Haste, and Twisting Fangs while in a shroud meant to augment their low HP with a very temporary invulnerability. And, they would need to lose a bunch of mobility skills because now they have an OP “shroud mode.” Thieves would be so nerfed for that bit of tankiness the shroud would give.
DS is meant to be Necromancer’s limited invulnerability skill. It was much stronger in early beta and was subsequently nerfed to keep the job from being OP. Personally, I am convinced its primary purpose is for attack, rather than as a second health bar; not that it should not be used to soak up 100b if I miss a dodge and end up face-tanking. Consider that it has the only gap-closing skill Necromancer gets on land, a couple of pretty powerful attacks, and a Fear. If DS was meant to be an escape utility, the dev’s must have been smoking something awesome.
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Do not use DS just to absorb hits. It is a weapon on a timer. Lead with it. Use DS to port to your opponent, inflict chill and AoE, channel LF, Fear, then exit and curse the snot out of everyone before laying on the damage.
While many think of DS as a second health bar, the best use it a bit like Thief’s Initiative. Build it up, watch the CD, then burn it on a face-melting invulnerable attack. Exit, wait for CD, and so on.
Fear seems to rarely work, and I mean rarely, as an interrupt for a stop when in the downed state. Count on nothing so you can be surprised by a miracle.
Necro is supposed to lack mobility skills. A lot of people do not think of Stability as a mobility skill but it is. Enough said.
Do not think flesh wurm is buggy. Will teleport 1200 only if on flat ground, any change in elevation will cause a break. It does what the dev’s designed it to and nothing more. It is not a real teleport because of its limitations; no breaks in terrain (or changes in elevation). The tiniest bit of change in elevation will stop the port right there.