Guild Wars 2

I don’t agree Fear is useless in PvE. First of all you grind breakbars like no one, also the damage via Terror is not bad at all which you can synergize with Deathly Chill: this way you have a 1,4k damage from Terror and 900 from Chill (with medium values of Malice).

At the contrary of what most people say I think we have a decent access to Fear. I agree, though, that it’s usefulness is binded on specific build and situation while Alacrity or Quickness of other classes are more universally useful.

I tried Parasitic Contagion in my hybrid build yesterday and I realized it gives you life force while in shroud (and I hope its intended and not a bug). In most of my fight I could upkeep Shroud indefinitely with a Dhuumfire Reaper build. I wasn’t very convinced about the usefulness of this trait until I tried it, now I don’t want to change it by a bit.

Minions and Conditions don’t fits really well. This build is my suggestion.
This combinations will give you a lot of toughness (almost 2k) which is also increased for every minions you have on your control but also you don’t sacrifice power.
I added the rune I’m using but left the sigils and the agony infusions, this is up to your stile.

Two notes:
As you can see I don’t rely much on Might and I prefer raw damage, if you prefer the boon you may want to switch Bone Minions or Bone Fiend to You Are All Weaklings, which is better, in my opinion and fits better with Augury of Death, if you do this you may want to switch runes as well.

Don’t use Blood Fiend: this build is focused on using the Greatsword and having the minions as additional damage/toughness but the Blood Fiend doesn’t heal as much as the shout in close combat.

Minions doesn’t really adds anything to a Condition build except, maybe, Death Nova, but you also sacrifice a lot to have that trait.

Probably Artificer and Tailor since you can craft your own Ascended armour and weapons with them.
Jewellery is useful but not mandatory since you can’t “only” craft exotic trinkets.
Chef is also useful and as Jewellery not important as much as the first two.

Zetsumei.4975:

Why not take a mesmer instead?

Why? Can it cope the Necromancer in boon conversion?

I agree: removing her 25 Stability stacks at once is a bless, also we decimate breakbars very effectively. We have our spot.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Even Lv100 Mai hits for much less than old 50 Mai. Damage of mobs, especially bosses, has been nerfed into oblivion for the most part.

Are you sure? Have you reached level 100? It is possible but sounds strange to me.

I’m not even sure if consider it a buff or a nerf. Now that damage is the same with every enemy’s health pool it deals more damage overall but less per tick.

Anyway I like this trait: along with Terror is nice, I’m using it in PvE in a Sinister build. Chill and Fear are awesome to decimate break bars.

Afya.5842:

I haven’t done much fractal since HoT but from what I heard of the boss damage is even lower than 50 pre-HoT. And from experience in 50s they indeed became bigger hp-sponge. So I’d say just berserker. Or sinister.

Yes, I did fractals from 50 to 57 these days and I can confirm boss damage is lower and some mechanics are easier. However this is because they extended the maximum level: bosses health is now much, much higher which prevents you to burst everything in a few seconds and escape. You need to sustain longer fights and if this is true for level 50~60, higher tier will be even harder. Zerk, in my opinion, is not the way any more for (new) high level fractals (70+).

I always preferred condition builds and right now I deal damage pretty close to a zerk build. In fractals, which involve a lot of mechanics that makes you to move a lot, range damage (whether direct or condition) is preferred in many situations.

Infact: don’t. In higher level fractals mobs hits very hard so you need survivability. However, as stated in the past, a Cavalier/Zerk/Knight or variance with Valkyrie et simila, provides all the survivability you need without sacrificing too much damage. For condition builds Rabid or Dire works pretty well. I run Rabid, for example.

Berserker is still, of course, a valid option but nowadays things have changed. Rabid or Dire are valid Condition stats that provides a lot of damage, in my opinion as much as zerk if not even more in some situations.
However Necro shines a lot with a Cavalier/Berserker/Knight stats: you lose a bit of damage but greatly improve your survivability (there are variants with Valkyrie and similar).
Sinister is also a good option for hybrid builds and these days also the new Viper stats seems to provide another alternative.

I suggest you to look for the related builds because stats alone are not particular meaningful.

I use Spectral Grasp for LF generation and, with the overall fears, stuns and chills, I decimate breakbars with great efficiency.
I don’t use epicdemic because I apply few condition that doesn’t last much, Rise is a good AoE chill source which is very useful against masses of moss.

Spectral Wall is not good because it applies one fear but unless the mob is constantly walking towards it the wall applies no more fears, in my opinion it’s useless against bosses and it’s cooldown it’s too big versus trash mobs.

I’m testing these days with this build

The idea is to burst condition using Terror and Deathly Chill which works very effectively for example with Staff #5 and Shroud #3, then build condition with either the Scepter of with Shroud #1 and Dhuumfire.
I’m not using a greatsword because I still not own an ascended one however sceptre is really useful in many situations. This builds is kitten squishy so it’s not always possible to reach the target (for example: wyverns) and the Staff is not powerful enough in single target (or, at least, useless once you are out of marks), so sceptre/dagger is the best option.

I don’t understand why people are against the sceptre, it’s a very nice condition weapon. I may agree that it doesn’t shine in a hybrid build but it’s really powerful on a pure-condition one.

I really like this build which provides a lot of fun but it’s sub-optimal rather than a cavalier&zerk (pure direct) or a dire/rabid (pure condition) one.

This is my actual Fractral main build.

Please note that this build has been built before HoT so it may need adjustments. Compared to the other Malice builds in which you focus only on bleed this one has less maximum damage but a faster ramp since you can apply 13 Torment stacks immediately then you can take your time to build Bleeds.

I like your setup, it’s consistent.
What about using Terror instead of Master of Corruption?
Yes, Corrosive Poison Cloud is fantastic but it’s not really that helpful to trait it and it’s the only Corruption utility you are using (if we don’t count Consume Condition). The damage from Terror, on the other hand, is a nice damage burst.
Also I would use it Speed of Shadows and Fear of Death in conjunction with Terror: the idea is to enter Death Shroud more frequent but you don’t keep staying it too much, once all the burning is applyied you exit and use the scepter to add more conditions.

The captain in Ascalonian fractal, at the beginning he blocks some attacks, I’m unsure if he blocks more attacks later.

Scepter is fine as is. Look at this post

I just test it in the PvP lobby and you are kitten right!
Thank you for this, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this way before and I must remember a very very old behaviour.
Mistery solved then: your fear tick was very short.

Drekor.5217:

MAN.9046:

i’ve been having lots of success w/it too then i noticed the terror ticks…
1 tick is for 200, i wanna make a bug thread or sth but i dont believe the devs will actually see/repond to this, unless im somehow mistaken

Probably not a full second of fear… you get the full damage with 1 full second. If you have 1.5s fear you’ll get ticks for less damage to cover that 0.5s

There is no such reduction based on time on conditions. Wether your fear lasts 0.1s or 1s you get one tick so one damage.
From the wiki page on Condition

It is important to note that conditions only inflict damage over time in one second intervals and any remaining fractional seconds are inflicted either at the beginning or end of their duration.

The formula form Wiki is:
0.4 * Malice + 296 or
0.4 * Malice + 444 if the target already has one other condition.
You should, at least, get 296 with 0 Malice since it’s direct damage.
As far as I know the only reduction for condition is our Corrupter’s Fervor

I do level 49 and 50 fractals regularly, and I am always useful in some sort. We can debate a lot about the awesomeness of Corrosive Poison Cloud now (against the Golem in the Asuran’s Fractal, the ballistas in Ascalon, etc), the coolness of Transfusion when moving allies away from the hammer of the Archdiviner (in the Dr. Manhattan fractal) and more but belive me:
Spectral Grasp against Mai Trin is the real deal. Everytime I organize with the party to use it, afterwards everyone want a Necromancer for that fractal.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Arcades Saboth.5139:

As I said they failed a bit on creating Elitism, in fact we have the Berserker problem.
However they made a good thing preventing damage meters.
Overwolf have no damage meters at all, a lot of useful application but no meters.

Damage meters would give people more reason to shift the game on a specific class or build and ruin the fun (even more than now).
It is my opinion to have something that lets you test (like the Golem) gives no ultimate precise results.

People seem to already have enough reason to claim “No Necro/Ranger” in PvE. Real data exposes the truth, and the truth is always a good thing, for both the players and the developers.

Even if the results aren’t precise, people would use your golem test to discriminate against classes in PvE. Then other people would see that and automatically believe it, chaining through the community all on imprecise data.

People blame damage meters in every game, when they should be blaming the people. People will always find any way/excuse to tell you they are better than you. Right now, GW2 has no good method for you to prove otherwise. That’s a failing if they care about PvE.

You are kitten right and that’s sad. My hope is that a Golem or similar tests gives people the opportunity to help them improve ourself build, not blame others.
It’s impossible to play without a comparison meter: I want to know if my build is working or not! It’s part of the game to keep improving.
Or keep changing! I have 4 ascended armors on my necro because I wanted to change playstile, however I had to drop two of them because those were fun but not working.

As I said they failed a bit on creating Elitism, in fact we have the Berserker problem.
However they made a good thing preventing damage meters.
Overwolf have no damage meters at all, a lot of useful application but no meters.

Damage meters would give people more reason to shift the game on a specific class or build and ruin the fun (even more than now).
It is my opinion to have something that lets you test (like the Golem) gives no ultimate precise results.

Be careful with that program, even if it doesn’t touch the client doesn’t mean they can’t ban you.
I think they did a good job on avoiding addons and, specifically, DPS-Meters, it’s good because it prevents elitism which ruins the game (as it happened with WoW for example). However they failed for two reasons.
The main is Berserkers, now everyone wants a zerk build because is faster. Solving this problem, however, is a huge task and require another thread.
The other problem is while it’s good they want to prevent DPS meters they also didn’t give any other option to test a build which is, in my opinion, something that is needed. They could at lease leave the training dummies in Lion’s Arch.

Theorycrafting is good, gives a little bit of work to players but prevents them to reach elitist level or having a single build that is mandatory.

So, in the end, for me would be fine having the Indestructible Golem in PvE and nothing more.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

1. Different gear sets account for most of the difference in damage right off the bat. Need to normalize the gear

2. Necro’s dps is something like 95% conditions, 5% direct damage. They lose essentially nothing by having rabid gear instead of sinister. Engineer on the other hand is closer to 80/20 so they lose a good amount of dps without the secondary power stat and main condition stat.

3. It sounds like your friend just isn’t very good at PvE engineer. I’d try recruiting someone from the engineer forums who can pull off the rotation fairly well.

4. Might be interesting to repeat this challenge across many different professions and see the differences.

5. Do golems lose their conditions when they reset their health or does everything stay?

1) As stated before by Mor Gothic. There is no Sinister gear in PvP so it’s impossible to have a direct comparison, so results are just close to reality (but not too different).

2) Doesn’t really matter: the damage you lose on condition it’s gain from direct damage, since we obtain timings we are calculating the overall DPS. You can do the same test against a Berserker or any other build, what really matters is the time-to-kill.

3) No he isn’t but with that spefici build. As I said my results are not optimal, I’m sure a good Engineer that knows that build would beat my timings, but, again the point is to demostrate that the overall DPS is roughly the same and not, as someone wrote, that there is a DPS gap of 20k vs 8k (or whatever).

4) It is! A while ago I tested with few friends between various builds and classes to understand what is working and what not. Do this test yourself, you’ll be amazed of the results (which is: we are not bad in DPS).

5) No, the golem does not lose stacks, that’s why I “kill” him five times: to emulate a boss (which has a lot of health). One single kill is enough to test builds against trashes, two/three for veterans/elite and 5+ for bosses.

Mor Gothic.5692:

Now lets times that by 20 (we know that Engi can stack that many): 930

So for every second that the Engi has 20 stacks of burning they lose 930 damage by running Rampagers over Rabid.

Now add in the fact that this damage loss affects all the damaging conditions and you’re looking at an even higher damage loss….

First of all, as I’ve seen, it reach 20 stacks of burning only for a few seconds, then Burning and Bleeding tends to fluctuate, this means the 930 damage you mention is lost only for a fragment of the whole fight. But let’s say the difference is constant so the Engineer lost a lot of damage, it would give him a few seconds of difference, which is a big result, but still, as I said, this means we are still in par because the results are similar. Again my point is to demonstrate we are almost on the same level, not that one class is better of another due to a few stacks of this instead of that.

As I said there is no way to have a perfect comparison but I think watching at some numbers during a fight is not meaningful, if you have another way to test builds let me know or try your self in the PvP lobby and share with us your results.

Mor Gothic.5692:

Unfortunately, your test is flawed at it’s core. You can not test timed kills with two different armour sets. Especially when the set used on the Engi doesn’t even have Condition Damage as it’s main stat.

Sorry but this doesn’t make any sense: following your logic I shouldn’t even compare different classes. We are talking about DPS and Conditions, of course we apply them in another way. Also in my test I reach almost the same DPS with just Malice and no direct damage (since I was using Rabid).

I may agree, though, that it is not a good reference because Malice is not the main stat however between Rampager and Sinister the diffrence is small so, as I said, the results I have are more in favour of the Engineer but the whole point of my tests is to demonstrate that a difference, if exists, is not that large as someone said: like 20k DPS vs our ?k DPS.
I believe my tests are still valid and meaningful.

Damages fluctuates with the Engineer between Burning and Bleeding application, we used to have a constant bleed damage but now, as I’m experimenting these days, it’s fluctuating as well but with the addition of Torment.

Avigrus.2871:

Engineer pistol 4 along with the burn kick from the rocket boots minor skill does so much burning damage it is literally unbelievable. Recently made a Condi Engineer running PP and it’s fantastic.

That’s just a burt, not meaningful and not even the best one they have: Incendiary Ammo is much more powerful (as burst, with pistol 3, for example).

That would be awesome if the enemy cannot block and evade attacks.
Maybe a little too much in PvP but kitten useful against Karkas (and yes: we need more enemies that have active defences

I believe only in science but since there is no science (translation: a dps meter) available in the game I use empiric science.
When I want to test a build I go to the PvP lobby, there is a Golem there that resets its health when you “kill” it, it cannot die so it’s a good training dummy.
To test a build I take the time since I begin to damage it and until I “kill” it (reset its health) 5 times.
I asked a friend of mine to test that condition build with this methodology and I compared the results with mine.
A disclaimer first: Sinister is not available in PvP so we used Rampager, my build was, instead, Rabid, also we was not exactly custom to the build so his results are a bit worst than normal however it’s a good test ground nevertheless.
Engineer results (time total / difference between each kill):
Kill #1: 15.798
Kill #2: 33.243 – 17.445
Kill #3: 47.838 – 14.605
Kill #4: 1:05.859 – 18.031
Kill #5: 1:20.894 – 15.035
Medium time to kill the golem: 16.182s
Necromancer Results (time total / difference between each kill):
Kill #1: 21.313
Kill #2: 34.731 – 13.418
Kill #3: 49.034 – 14.303
Kill #4: 1:02.064 – 13.030
Kill #5: 1:14.984 – 12.920
Medium time to kill: 14,997s

As I said the Engi was with Rampager instead of Sinister and not really custom to the build which means there is room for improvements.

This means the Engineer is not doing that much DPS as described early in the post, I’m pretty sure he can surpass our timing but I don’t think of that much, meaning that the Necromancer is good as the Engi.

Also there are a lot of factor to consider in favor and in oppisition:
1) The Engineer is faster to build damage
2) But will lose terrain after a while
3) For shorter fights it’s may better (a.k.a. trash mobs)
4) But we have Epicdemic (yes: EPIC demic).
5) The Engineer needs to close combat using the bombs, this is not always possible
6) But we do this as well, I use Dark Path and Mark of Evasion to add more bleeds.
7) Now that we apply a good amount of Torment there is a fair amout of DPS loss when testing the Golem since he is not moving.
8) Sinister is much more squishy than Rabid, in a real situation a Necro could be better since it’s harder to kill
9) <add more things here>. There are too many factors to think about!

TL:DR; Necro deals as much as damage as the Engineer.

That moment in Molten Boss Fractal when the party wipes but you inflict enough conditions on the first boss to kill him and the whole party resurrect.

In my opinion Corrosive Poison Cloud is fine as is and I hope they don’t change the durations. I think the idea of self-corruption and giving ourselves condition is fine but what is not working is Master of Corruption: in a condition build the effect is negligible while in a power build, most of the cases, is best to leave corruption non traited.

While I’d love have something like these it’s not the solution. The problem is Death Shroud auto-attack is useless. In my condition build I enter Shroud just to quickly cast Dark Path and eventually Tainted Shackles, then quickly leave to keep stacking condition with the scepter. This is why Dhuumfire is not working overall: you need the Shroud auto-attack to build a (negigible) amount of fire in expense of the scepter auto-attacks which build bleeds a lot more effectively.

You want a damaging field to be a smoke one so you can insta-blink and get revealed the second after?
Sorry but: fail.

I tried different builds and while I still have to test with a proper Sinister gear I think the benefit of having a few stacks of burning does not compensate the loss while using them. Specifically if you are condition you are using a Scepter or a Staff, and entering Shroud prevents you from applying more condition of those weapons, on the contrary if you are a power user a few stacks of Burning does not compensate the Malice you used instead of another stat or the +50% crit chance you lost due to Dhuumfire instead of Death Perception.

So… meh

A setup like this works great in PvE, a few adjustment may works well in WvW however I can’t tell, I don’t do WvW and I’m not really sure a melee build with a Necro is a good idea.

There are a lot of things you can do but this is a good start, for example switch Reaper’s Onslaught for Bligther’s Boon if you want more heals or change infusions, runes and sigil… test and enjoy!

Here is the link:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNBhOD7kZTodTsbTwxGgDHs8LYSvgnW7K+IGFviQfpAwHA-TBCBABRqEURdDdp8rS1fA4JAwwFA489H24gAEAAB4jbMPWjBn8kn8kn8k9xN+xNuxPWKgIGaB-e

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAr4Yn0ICV3gd3AO3As3gDchaO2NxSAv6AYBibdHMCA-TByCABAcQAU4EAc8DAALlfXq+zM7PonehxUCGAABY3kYkYwEn4En4EnYTciTciTciFCYxaA-e

And it’s result in this picture:

This skill is the (very) lesser version of our first BWE elite Phylactery (kitten , they remove the page from the Wiki T_T).
Oh how I miss that skill! That elite was so strong…
Anyway I like it because if you think about this skill can last up to kittens (one per minion), with a huge damage reduction. It’s not strong as the Revenant’s new protection but in-line with our class (Revenant’s protection is a buff that last so teoretically it can reduce as many hits as it lasts while this new Dark Bond can theoretical lasts indefinitely but it’s limited to up kittens/minions).

I want to point that the fact minions are squishy and wiped immediately is a myth more than reality, while we cannot define them tanky I think most of the Necro population didn’t use them enough. In PvE, usually, bosses direct hits kill them but many AOE skills don’t affect them at all or damage is greatly reduced. Sometimes they are even immune to some bosses skills

While some cases are still indecent for minions (like the Arch Diviner that kills all of your minion with hit’s “stun”) in some other minions are really useful (for example they do not fall in the Thaumanova Reactor’s fractal).

As usual we all hope in an AI fix.

@Jerus.4350
Thank you, those are the datas I want to have. It would be nice to have build and rotation to understand how you reach it.

@Charblaze.6958
There are a few thoughts I want to share:
1) I’m not that impressed. Yes, 20k is a huge dps and probably we can’t reach (probably, that is something ArenaNet should think about because it’s unfair that we don’t have access to fire because Dhuumfire is a joke) however Burning has a higher ratio from Malice, a lot higher then Bleed, but you reach “just” 1k above my Bleed. Forgive my lack of modesty but this make my result a better achievement.
Also Bleed is more stable while Burning fluctuate a lot more, which means Bleed DPS is more consistent and less spicky (I admit: it’s not 100% true, every fight is different and everything can happen).
2) Conditions ARE useful and viable but due to their nature they have a smaller acceleration than direct damage. So for speed runs in lower dungeon a Zerk is best, for longer fight Conditions are good.
And in my opinion the Necro is fine both with single target condition damage and with AOE but he needs adjustments. For example: to have more Burning or Terror or Poison: we need another source of damage other then Bleed.

You are welcome.

By the way I managed to understand how I reached that damage. I kinda cheated: in Silverwastes it’s full of Guardians and Mesmer which gives you a lot of Quickness. That’s how I reached that damage.

In my opinion Sinister is the best middle between Berserker (in which you just deal direct damage) and Rabid/Dire (for condition). If you want to keep staying a condimancer (and I greatly support your choice) I suggest Sinister for Dungeons and open-world content (Silverwastes included). For difficult dungeon (like Arah) and fractals I suggest Rabid for the thoughness and focus only on condition.

With Rabid stats you have less acceleration, which means it’s good for high-health bosses but not for trashes (and in general low-health bosses).

Hello,
sorry for the late reply. You did a good math ehajgbo, and to be honest I’m confused too, I don’t really know how I reached it. I have other screens of 10k (like the one I attached), but, for now, I couldn’t pass over that 11k. I wasn’t also buffed by banner so… I don’t know!

Here is my build, which is pretty standard:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAr4Yn0ICV3g9sBW2As3gDchaO2NxSAv6AYBibdHMCA-TByCABAcQAU4EAc8DAALlfXq+zM7PonehxUCGAABY3kYkYwEn4En4EnYTciTciTciFCYxaA-e
This is the exactly build and equipment I was using when I got the screenshot.

I use two daggers off-hand because I found the Staff useless with my Rabid equipment, I use it on a Sinister build, but not with this one. using two daggers allow me to always have the the scepter which is the main focus on a Rabid. I switch between the two daggers when I have 25 stacks.

Now rotation:
1) Summon or Golem Charge to proc 6th bonus from Krait Runes
2) Scepter #2 Grasping Dead
3) Dagger 5# Enfleebling blood
4) Blood is Power
5) Dagger #4 Deathly Swarm
6) 2x Scepter #1 Blood Curse and Rending Curse but I interrupt Putrid Curse
7) Shrapnel Mine or Signet of Spite
8) Dodge towars my enemy to proc Blood Minor #1 Mark of Evasion
9) Death Shroud, Shroud #2 Dark Path
Note: it doesn’t really matter the order of Dark Path and Mark of Evasion, sometimes I dodge before, sometimes after Shroud #2. It depend if the enemy is aiming at me or not. It’s hard to land a good Mark of Evasion because it is cast at the end of dodge so I use it depending on the case
10) Shroud #5 Tainted Shackles
At this point, after a few autoattacks, Grasping Dead is ready along with Blood is Power and Deathly Swarm

I keep using Dark Path and Mark of Evasion from dodges whenever Death Shroud is ready but in some cases I have to hold and wait for a good opportunity.
Golem Charge can be cast everytime is ready to proc Krait Runes and since it’s the same cooldown of Shroud #5 I always cast this one and Charge at the same time.

I hope these informations help.

As I said in my previous post I do wonders with a condition build. It’s easy for a target to get a load of condition, not just from you, and let Epicdemic melt an entire wave.

The Husks are very resistant to direct damage so condition builds works really well.

Thank you Azure, that is really helpful.
Can you post a screenshot of those number if you can?
And explain me how you reach these values? I’m still new to the Mesmer.

I want to note that 11k was a spike but then my damage normalized to 9k~10k and was stable (until the mob died).
So I’d like to know if you can maintain those number.

@ehajgbo
I want to note the fact that there is not anymore the 25 stack limit except for Vulnerability, not even per each character. This mean we can apply more than 25 and it’s quite possible.
Also I agree with you: having a way to apply a lot of bleed as opening strike would be nice however, as I said, we are good at maintaining high stacks then applying a lot of them.

8k is an high damage I reach not too rarely but it’s more an exception then normal. As I said I reach 5k as medium damage, normal, damage without being too much buffed.
Anyway no, I can’t reach it without buffes (might+stacks), I mistated: I meant to say that in normal circumstances I can reach it without food and crystal buff (but, of course, with might and stacks).

Everyone state other classes can do better but I want numbers. Here is mine:

That’s what I heard a lot but I have no slot for a Warrior.
How much can the Warrior stack? Can he keep the stack? What’s the average damage?
I’d like to have these data to understand.

Hello forum,
a month after the patch we can definitely begin doing the aftermath, can’t we?

I think condition now works, pretty well and are a viable option compared to the usual Zerk everything.
I love my Necromancer and I practically always play this class and while boredom sometimes afflicts me I rarely change class.
Lately I tried some other classes and I was trying to compare our one to the others and… I really have miss something because I don’t feel all the problems, kittenstorm and yells we often read plenty in this forum.

Since I’m not an expert at all I’d like to have your opinion and share your experience about how other classes works well with a Rampager, Sinister or other Condition/Hybrid build.

I have a Guardian but it’s nonsense with those build, I have no Warrior nor Thief so I ask your experiences. I personally tried Elementalist, Mesmer and Engineer and soon I’ll try the Ranger. While the Mesmer is still fun and overall good (I tried mostly an hybrid with Confusion) the Elementalist has returned to Zerk immediately and I almost had the urge to delete my Engineer (please note, fellow Engineers: I like this class, I just don’t get it, so don’t start flaming).

I don’t understand: with my necro I have a median of 5k of Bleed plus other conditions with no food, my highest spike is 11k of Bleed and while it’s almost an exception (reaching 8k it’s not rare) I rarely go below 2k in the worst conditions… with the other classes I gasp to achieve above 3k with max corruption stack and might.

I’m surely have missed some point, and I definitely don’t know how to play other classes so… can I have your opinions and experiences? What’s your average damage and how you deal it? It’s valuable to have datas like how quickly you apply your conditions (because it’s true we are slow but I think we are very good on keeping the damage), and what kind of damage you deal (bleed, burn, confusion, etc).

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Sorry to bump this old thread but I have this exacpt problem. I tried to restart the quest by logging out, quitting the game, restarting the whole quest line, sacrifing a cow to some old god but Odgen still doesn’t give me the option to enter Gint’s Lair.

So: BUMP.

Yes, sorry for the confusion.
Mostly I’d like to understand whether Life Blast, Well and any Axe build really works and I’m a moron or people praise those builds but they are not really worth.

It would be also nice to have datas from other classes to have comparison.

Hello forum,
I don’t play this game since a while so before begin I’m not completely aware of the latest changes so please forgive me if I lack some information.
However the core of this topic shouldbe unaffected. Also, as I wrote in the subject, I’m talking about PeE. PvP and WvW require more attention and personally I don’t care

I have a question for you all: how do you test or measure a build is good or not?
Since we have no DPS counter or any other measurement system it’s hard to tell if a build is working or not apart from our personal feeling when using it.

Let me preface my system:
On the Heart of the Mists lobby there is a Golem which is Indestructible, if you damage it until it reaches 0 life points, it resets it’s health.
There are two of these golems close to the DPS trial waypoint.
So:
1) I check there is no one bothering me
2) I get ready my build and a stopwatch
3) When I begin with the first hit I start the stopwatch
4) When the Goleam resets it’s life I mark it and let the stopwatch continue
5) I repeat points 3 and 5 at least three times (possibly more).

Now I get the medium time and that’s how I measure a good build.
I tested condition builds, well, minion, hybrid and a lot more.
I also tested builds with other classes but I play mainly the Necro so I don’t have much data.

My results are:
1) Below 20s I have a fantastic build, this DPS is the best you can achieve and I reached it just my Ranger
2) From 20 to 24s it’s still a good build, strong DPS but not best
3) From 25 to 28 is still fine
4) Above 28s it’s a kittenty build.

I want to note I’m talking about medium time. I should get updated data but some time ago I asked a friend of mine to do the test with his thief and we had the first time of 18s, and he was already giggling with pleasure, but the next runs he reached 30s or so giving him a medium time of 24s (I don’t remember the exact value).

Ok, sorry for the long preface. I realize most of you already know the things I wrote.

Now real question: with my berkserker minion master build I have a medium time of 23s with no particula attention to details (I didn’t optimize it, didn’t used proper sigils and runes) and I found dagger have the best DPS. What are your timings?
I want your builds, your timings and explain me why the Axe is meaningful with it’s higher timings.

Another note: I understand axe is more useful becaue it stacks vulnerability and there are a lot of other variables, you are welcome to add them as a plus but note that extra seconds in this trial is a lot of damage lost and in general PvE it’s more important (of course, in my opinion).

Also I tried a Life Blast builds: from 30s to 40s. Is this build a joke? I mean: people really use it? It is me that I didn’t understand how to use it or it’s people that get fooled by the 5k or even 8k every shoot which is useless for the real DPS?

TL:DR;
Go to the Heart of Mists, kill the indestructible golem several times and get your timing of your build. Let us confront our builds.

Please note: I don’t want to have a fight of which of us have the bigger kitten, I just want to understand what I miss of other builds, find new playstyle, understand what is wrong and what is good of the Necro. It’s the only class I like to play.
And to be honest, ArenaNet after two years of playing the Necro I feel free to tell you this: you greatly fail in this game avoiding the trinity, the elitism and all the bullkitten that Warcraft and other games have. Removing the possibility of having a DPS counter didn’t help you cover your game design issues.

I was working in a similar build. At the beginning I thought to use an Apothecary build so give healing and some damage in form of condition with the main idea that you apply little conditions dealing some damage but not enough to bother another eventual condition user.
I tried it: I doesn’t work really well. However playing with traits I found both Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration provide a good form of healing. Note that Transfusion can’t heal you but Deathly Invigoration does (since it heal when you leave Death Shroud).
I’m working on this build and this is what I realized but it’s still a work-in-progress:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRIQNAndWn0ISLNWTD+0AHOm4aokKAmOCagEg6UYECWA-TBSDABOcEAwR9HDVCekyvCM/c3+DAcIASRfTAAEACisUAOtMC-e

I want to test Renewing Blast in favor of Signet Mastery and maybe drop one well in favore of Plague Signet but I’m not sure.
Or maybe I could drop Staff Mastery and use both but this trait makes the Staff #2 so quick that pratically you have permanent regen. Another alternative, maybe better, is to drop Staff Mastery in favor of Ritual of Protection

Saturn.6591:

4. Even without food, your bleeds will have a duration of 115%. With the food you’re suggesting, it would be 155%. Too bad that everything above 100% doesn’t benefit you at all; especially in PvE.

Side note: Lingering Curse can go over the 100% limit, if you already reach 100% on your own.

I think I’ve seen confirmation in one of the old video of Nemesis but I can’t find which one.