Guild Wars 2

I’m currently on level 32 fractals and i play my Necromancer as support conditions in instances.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBLhZakRrcvdTdjePRMVobQPul7dW0DiZskB

Epidemic decimates inside FoTM, and Corrosive Poison Cloud is also extremely handy for weakness spamming on bosses as-well as a perma-poison for others to combo off.

All of em are good in there own ways.

Blood Fiend is great PvE damage and healing when your not being focused, that you can also get down to 16 seconds with a typical PvE minion build.

Consume Conditions is one of the few reasons i still play Necromancer. For a top end heal amount, condition removal plus additional health per condition its just unmatched in PvP.

Well of Blood offers massive support as a bunker build, top end self-heal amount and +1,520 AoE heal +10 health per 25 healing power and can be brought down to 32 seconds with Ritual Mastery and a Light combo field for AoE retaliation and condition removal.

As an Axe/ Warhorn full PPC Necro i have never had an issue with a glass cannon Thief, eve., Unlike other classes we have an instant minimum 22k HP shield (assuming you keep LF 100% all the time) shield that can be cast through CCs.

Any type of CC and my instant reaction is F1 > 3.

Mesmer’s i would say its about 50/50 depending on there skills with shattering and D/D Eles i switch in Corrupt Boon and Master of Corruption and proceed with the rofling.

I’ve posted this before but seen as ANet are reading this particular bug thread heres a quick video i took alittle awhile ago showing pretty much the exact flaws in minion AI:

My first hit on boss is at 0:00, Bone Fiend doesn’t engage till 0:14 and Shadow Fiend doesn’t engage at all.

But don’t worry guys, Mesmer illusions engage 0.25 seconds now!

It is not considered abuse.

(picture link in email)

Playing as a Condition build in PvE, Direct Damage build for WvW and Tank Support build for SPvP i would rate my utilities as:

Heal
Consume Conditions: 10/10 – One of the few skills that makes Necromancers worth playing in PvP.

Wells
Well of Blood: 5/10 – Long cooldown and terrible healing scaling but light combo field and AoE support heals, good with Ritual Mastery.
Well of Darkness: 7/10 – Shuts down Heartseeker and Backstab Thiefs and works well with Warriors and Guardians. Must be run with Chilling Darkness trait though.
Well of Corruption: 9/10 – Very good for Guardians and Warriors, helps alot on zerg vs. zerg.
Well of Suffering: 10/10 – 10 stacks of Vulnerability x 5, very good damage and a dark combo field. Wreaks havoc in WvW.
Well of Power: 7/10 – Good for support builds, can shutdown condition based builds quite easily.

Minions
Blood Fiend: 2/10 – Dies too quickly in PvP to be effective and destroy heals too slowly for AoE events. Decent for farming damage.
Bone Field: 4/10 – Takes awhile for him to engage but when he does he does decent damage at a ok rate.
Shadow Fiend: 1/10 – Terrible AI, 90% of the time he wont engage at all.
Bone Minions: 8/10 – One of the best minions, good damage and exploding for blast finisher.
Flesh Wurm: 5/10 – Mainly used for the blink, would be better if the terrain didn’t stop blinking.
Flesh Golem: 6/10 – One of our few CC’s, regenerates health after fights unlike the other but takes his time sometimes engaging enemies.

Spectral
Spectral Wall: 4/10 – OK if you can land it, but its too easily avoided and lacks the decent effects other classes wall skills have (knockback, stealth, pull)
Spectral Walk: 10/10 – A must for pretty much any competitive build. Allows perma-swiftness, stun breaker, blink and good for LF building.
Spectral Grasp: 2/10 – Buff didn’t help it, its still very easy to dodge without even dodging and terrain still messes up pulls. Can also be blocked in between the hand hitting and the chill effect procing as its delayed till after the pull.
Spectral Armor: 1/10 – Stupidly long cooldown for what it gives, Guardians receive 3 seconds of invulnerability every 90 seconds with there Elite.

Corruption
Epidemic: 9/10 – Dispite the fix on its infinite range its still one of the best skills we have, can be on cooldown as much as 12 seconds with Master of Corruption and the target blocking the skill wont affect it spreading.
Blood is Power: 8/10 – Nice for spike damage, would be a 10/10 if the bleed duration wasn’t 2 years but it combos well with Plague Signet well in PvE.
Corrupt Boon: 8/10 – Very nice for Guardians and Warriors, does what Well of Corruption does but quicker in a 1v1 situation.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: – 6/10 – Use to think this skill was worthless but its saved my life in PvE so many times now. According to ANet it should be 11/10 seen as we inflict so many poisons…

Signets
Plague Signet: – 8/10 Very good for PvP and comboing with corruption skills.
Signet of the Locust: – 3/10 Purely for Speed, life steal amount is pitiful compared to other classes life stealing signets.
Signet of the Undead: – 1/10 Terrible LF generation, cooldown longer then most ultimates for something that rezzes down-state and not dead allies.
Signet of Spite: – 5/10 Nice for when you cant decide on that 3rd utility for the +90 power and would be a nice activate if the conditions lasted longer or the signet wasnt such a long cooldown.

JonathanSharp

AOE balance. We feel that in PvP some AOE builds are too strong for the opportunity cost, and we’ll be bringing those in line in the next few patches.

I think the key word in that statement is some this isn’t directed at Necromancers specifically but in general.

Epidemic has already been hit by the 5-cap AoE limit plus has a negative drawback for using so i don’t believe it will be changed with this said patch. I believe its aimed more at skills that can hit more then 5 people still such as Daggerstorm.

I think what makes this change the most unjustified for Necromancers is Thief’s Basilisks Venom skill still petrifies (stuns) bosses for 1.5 seconds through Defiance which is longer then any base Fear durations Necromancers had except downed state 2.

With Quick Venom’s Trait its a 1.5 second stun every 36 seconds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQFA3iMahbM8JAoHAAgzxHQmqA8A

I would say that’s the base build for Power-Critical Damage with Axe at least from a WvW point of view. Using a full set of armor that gives precision with whatever other 2 stats should put you in the 45-50% critical chance range with +20% from fury.

3.5) Staying and hoping ANet starts working on Necro problems, whilst probably playing a new class.

No reason to quit the game over, that’s just over-reacting.

It depends if you like close range combat or not. Dagger would be better in SPvP but Axe is better for WvW.

Snowball 5 skill hits downed people for 25k for me

Off the top of my head, all the possible builds for Necromancers are:

• Minion Master
• Power-Critical Damage
• Power-Condition Damage
• Downed State Terror
• Bunker Support
• Bunker Disruption
• Death Shroud

Most work well in hot-join SPvP and Tournaments, i wouldn’t say there’s a ‘Best’ all-round build though Power-Condition Damage would be my choice for the best out of them.

With the current state of Minions i would never use them in PvP, there mainly for leveling 1-80 in PvE.

They fixed the bugs with Daze and Fear interrupting even through Defiance stacks and made Fear now proc the Defiance instead of bypassing it.

Fear still appears as a debuff though for people who Terror, it just wont ‘Fear’ them if they have a Defiance stack.

The only recent change to Axe skills is 10% more damage on Ghastly Claws.

Scepter is still superior in power, power-tank and power-condition builds but not for power-precision builds.

vmoped.5024:

but you got some nice buffs to some of your skills from what I read

Show me, please please what ‘nice’ buffs we received? I don’t regard the speed boost on locusts a buff because every other class received it, Gluttony returns are still terrible (10% of a 33% chance for 1% LF) and Fear has always been sub-par unless you give up all your trait points, runes and sigils to make it from 1 second to 2 second.

Might i also just point out that you received a 30% damage nurf to Grenades, but opened up the possibility for alot more damage.

Just off the top of my head;

• Dual Superior Sigils of Earth for double bleed on critical + trait bleeds.
• 5% Critical damage, 5% damage (remember a critical is 150% base + critical damage)

The 30% damage nurf was required, or Grenade Engineers would wreak face but there damage output is more then before patch with the Sigil update, just need to know how to use them effectively.

And on an side-note; Flamethrower kit? pretty silly close range and even more-so now.

Now ive stuck defending Necromancers and ANets balancing system since betas but for me i think this update and there changes is the final straw as a Necromancer player. There poor attention to detail of the most vital bugs and compared to other classes is just terrible and heres what really did it for me this patch.

Necromancer Minion AI
Our minion AI is terrible, its a well known fact. The response time for them to attack there target is really long sometimes 5+ seconds and sometimes minions just decide not to even attack at all

Heres a quick example of that i recorded earlier with the Shadow Fiend just standing there doing nothing and the Bone Fiend not engaging for awhile despite me being 900 range from target.

Now as a Necromancer who doesn’t use minions, this doesn’t annoy me but the fact they buffed Mesmer phantasms time to engage and attack speed when it was not needed, is just a kick in the teeth for us.

• Phantasmal Mariner: This phantasm now attacks more often, but does damage in line with its attack rate.
• Illusionary Whaler: This phantasm now attacks more often, and now does a reasonable amount of damage.
• Phantasms now initiate combat after .25 seconds instead of one second.

Fear and Defiance in PvE
Now this is a real issue for me, being a lover of Fractals Fear was essential to surviving apon being downed. At 30+ if your downed unless your up right away you die from the boss just spamming Agony.

In my view Necromancers have one of if not the weakest downed state made even worse by this change, Fear was the only thing that kept us alive from boss just nuking our downed state body, and this now pushed Necromancers to bottom of the list for classes to run dungeons with IMO.

Unnecessary buffs with no change to urgent issues
Now out of the 16 changes to Necromancers this patch 8 of them was for underwater skills, why? A buff in general is nice but this isn’t what everyone is calling for, this isn’t the main issues making Necromancers close to unplayable in PvP and PvE.

It could of been the Re-animator change everyone is calling for, players are even asking to disable yes disable it, players asked to remove a trait a free boost a benefit because its so poorly designed.

Buffs for other classes, nothing for us
Just some of the buffs other classes received;

Warrior: Increased the velocity of arrows fired from Longbow skills by 30%.
Thief: Ink Shot Projectile speed for this skill has been increased by 22%
Ranger: Increased the velocity of arrows fired from Short Bow and Longbow skills by 30%.
Guardian: Spear of Light Velocity has been increased by 50%
Engineer: Engineer kits now inherit the bonuses from currently equipped weapon sigils.
Elementalist: Stone Splinters Increased range from 300 to 600 units.

Travel time for Necromancers staff Necrotic Grip at max range? 4 seconds.

Infact i think i can condense our actual, useful patch-notes down to this:

Necromancer

• Quickening Thirst: Movement speed increased from 10%/5% to 15%/10%.
• Terror: Damage is increased by 50% if the target has any conditions on them.
• Spiteful Removal: This trait now removes three conditions when an enemy is killed, but can only trigger once every 10 seconds.
• Gluttony: Life Force gain has been increased from 5% extra to 10% extra.

For me i feel rolling a Mesmer, Thief or possibly Guardian is the best outcome now as a serious PvPer and i dont think im the only one who shares these opinions, so whats all your thoughts and opinions

TL;DR: Scroll back up and read it.

At least you have some change in your brackets server wise, in Tier 2 its been BG vs. SoR vs. IoJ for 4 weeks going on 5.

If your looking for just condition damage, Khilborn’s Armor with is the set for you with Superior Runes of the Undead.

With the introduction of Fractals there is even Rabid statted jewelery now.

testpig.5018:

GREEN = 1st place server. has no real advantage towards SM, also has the most easily attackable lowlands keep. 2 watergates, main door which is placed far far from the inner, so you can’t really use the siege on inner to protect the outer, and basiclly all the walls can be easily walked to and knocked down. Thus making green zone the hardiest to defend.

Green actually can treb Stonemist, blue is the only side that cant. Green keep is like a fortress and impossible to take plus all 4 towers are in treb range of garrison making Green the most defensive side on the map.

With the exception of Ogrewatch, Red sides towers are too far north for any quick in and attack. Blue sides QL and DG are just sitting ducks for any side to take, both supply camps are so easy to travel too vs Rouges for example making them quick point targets.

IMO Green > Red > Blue and the positions of servers in the tier should be reversed.

1st = Blue
2nd = Red
3rd = Green

Scores @ 3PM GMT

Some IoJ people can be so bad…

[Moderated]

Wish they would fix the invulnerable zone at the base of a the spawn point cliffs to stop people abusing it and the classic ALT + F4.

Scores @ 10PM GMT

Scores as of 5PM GMT

Oldbugga.7029:

and the fact that they have already nerfed Epidemic

Epidemic was never nurfed, it was fixed. It was bugged to have no cast range with 600 radius rather then the 1200 range and 600 radius it was meant to be which meant you could land Epidemic from 1201+ range away.

As for the AoE’s it seems to be aimed at every class, not Necromancers so its unfair to say ‘Our’ AoE will be nurfed with its happening to every class.

I dont get it o_o

you could of done 4 things in that clip to ‘Maximize’ wells effectiveness:

• Waited on Dagger 3 cooldown.
• Feared the Guardian into the wells.
• Used Lich Form 3 from behind to knock them back into the wells & chill.
• Saved Chilblains to chill them after or just before casting the wells rather then just doing a generic 2-5 nuke with staff.

Critical damage grenade Engineer sounds like the class for you, possibely the highest DPS class in-game.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqSXHvSiF17IyYGd2EC+Ag95x81WQIA;TYAKuMcJ4yyljLJXA
(Copy and Paste)

Full Berserkers armour with Ruby jewelery, dodge roll backwards and then forwards, stand still and nuke from above with Elixer B and U and laugh as people collapse, Grenade Barrage is also OP broken.

Yes both skills that channel requiring a target such as Ghastly Claws and skills that dont such as Life Transfer will continue to damage anyone stealthed even if they stealth midway through its channel.

A small tip too is ones that require a target like Ghastly Claws will also follow the direction the stealthed person moves in. So if they run behind you and your still channeling, your toon will turn around.

viperior.2461:

The eternal war between SoR, BG, & IoJ continues. Meanwhile, in the jumping puzzle…

I like to watch Blackgate sleep at night…

Scores @ 3PM GMT

Blackgate – 58,938 (295)
Sanctum of Rall – 48,038 (235)
Isle of Janthir – 36,654 (165)

Kerithlan.1659:

Is there an achievement or title or something that has to do with building siege items (there is right)?.

Theres 3 Achievements for using supply in WvW;

• Realm Defender (Total supplies used)
• Repair Master (Supplies used for repairs)
• Master of Disaster (Supplies used on siege)

However all these of these titles can be worked on by building up burning pots of oil, cannons and mortars around towers & keeps and repair running in EB.

What this dude is doing is pure non-exploit exploiting and running down supplies in a garrison so its harder to defend when people attack it aswell as forcing the total map siege lock to trigger.

This is yet another reason why ANet need to start the 2000 gems to transfer fee instead of allowing it to remain free.

WvW is supposed to be the games way of taking money out the ecomony for thoes who dont gamble in the mystic forge, they will never allow the rewards earned over the average of all people playing to overtake the amount being spent on it.

With that being said, ANet have already announced they are revamping the rewards you get from WvW and improving on them. Siege for karma would make it too easy to get siege there has to be a sensible limit on how much siege you can get.

p.s. Someone apparently got the Zap Precursor sword from WvW not so long ago, 150 gold right there.

destoyer of lives.7963:

Could it be that they busted through and then the gate upgraded while they was in the tower. I have had that happen to me inside a keep and all of a sudden the walls would upgrade and you was trapped. If there was no siege around the gate or walls then you may have an argument but definately make sure there was no siege before saying exploits and reporting someone till you have all the facts.

Supply is at max out of max for a tower, if an upgrade finished the cap would of been raised and it wouldn’t be full, also i dont see any dead workers or quartermaster in the picture.

With a Charr you’ll get Battle Roar one of the few race skills worth half a something and big Charrs will make your weapons stand out much more if you choose to go for something fancy i.e. Legendary Bifrost staff.

A support build for me would revolve around abusing the Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration traits to keep a consistent heal on people around you. Building around Death Shroud for the tankiness aspect and using Plague Signet for ally condition removal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBLhZaESrZvTTcjfPBMpo7thPsL1jyZHdA;TkAqsMZJEzmlLLZWLQGgMZA

• Fast DS switching gaining retaliation and healing you & allies each time you cycle it, Life Transfer + cooldown reduction for more AoE Heals.
• Plague Form for the AoE Blind which helps zerg vs. zerg fights alot.
• Weapons is purely user preference, i would personally use scepter for bleed damage as direct wouldn’t be that strong and warhorn for mobility.
• High vitality, medium toughness for the tankiness. Vitality over Toughness for DS-HP as its 30% boosted too.
• Chilling apon switching runes i feel would be very good support runes and Stamina would help out in large fights for frequent dodging.

Just remember Necromancers returns on Healing Power is terrible, and isn’t worth focusing on over actual support runes/ utilities.

Stonemist is horrible to defend, and that’s the point. It gives the most coverage over Eternal Battlegrounds but takes pretty much all your resources to defend when a server is serious about taking it.

“With great power comes great responsibility” – some old dude.

To those Blackgate [Thai] guild that just took Hills keep in SoR Borderlands, kitten GOOD FIGHT. Our reinforced gate was at 99.999% completed and the yak bringing the final supply was just coming up the stairs, epic fight.

That yak was still determined to deliver the supplies no matter what the consequences!

Scores @ 5:15PM GMT

Scores as of 2:30PM GMT

Rez.2578:

I wouldn’t bet on it, they have some serious fight in them.

If by serious fight you mean Umberglade supply camp fetish, then yes, yes they do!

Good fight @ Stonemist HG, i was the person on the treb hitting your ones in Wildcreek :P

Scores as of 6am GMT

Creslin.1758:

Why? You can revive in stealth.

And seriously…you are DOWNED…you are basically on death’s door. Dying in downed without a chance of retaliation is really not a problem. Stability kills most prof’s downed state most of the time anyway.

Guaranteed stomp w/o being damaged by the downed player for one or two classes, nothing for everyone else. Seems fair.

• Necromancers arnt allowed to stomp in Death Shroud.
• Elementalists arnt allowed to stomp in Mist Form.
• No-one is allowed to stomp in a elite transformation.

No-one should be allowed to stomp in stealth.

Cant be any clearer then that.

Small changes that might help boost the general play-style of WvW:

• New, separate chat option & colour for Commanders.
• More of a requirement to achieve Commanders.
• Guild Upgrade requirement in “Art of War” (IV or V) to claim garrison rather then any guild being able to.
• “Hacking” or “Suspected Hacking” right-click report option rather then having to printscreen and manually submit.

Might be a good idea to actually start posting server points xD

Sad thing is, if the matchup this week is somewhat even like it has been for the past month, the matchup next week will again be identical.

So ive started using these bad boys in WvW and it seems any effect that regenerates health heals death shroud health instead of actual health.

• Omnomberry Pie & other life stealing foods
• Rejuvenation Booster
• Regeneration Boon
• Superior Sigil of Leeching
• Superior Sigil of Blood
• Vampiric & Vampiric Precision Traits

Another small annoying bug that makes any kind of life steal build less effective to play, anyone else noticed this?

Why not just Rush > F1 Death Shroud with Spiteful Spirit

Also works on Thiefs Backstab.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

Sorrow’s Furnace are doing pretty good in there bracket at the moment.

Raven Paradox.1860:

A few of us came in to told them not to do it anymore. Sorry it happened. One guy doesn’t represent the server. I’m sure our server will be talking with those that abused this issue. Again we apologize this happened. A vast majority of Blackgate never discusses using hacks or exploits to win and fight with honor. Every server has their bad apples.

Just please remember that this is a small group in our server. A lot of us have been fighting here for awhile now with honor and playing fair.

Seems alot of people from iCoa and other Hackgates took the portal and carried on the attack. Would be nice of you to find out who this person is so we can report them to the Mods and have him banned.

Wow… i just lost all respect for BG and iCoa, arguably there main guild on the server, i hope a mod sees this video and punishes pretty much all the iCoa guild for supporting this kind of low tactic to win WvW.

Hackgate all the way it seems.

Scores as of 11pm GMT

Thiefs have a very good burst and can abuse the current rendering issue to be very OP and Mesmers can kill you without even casting there 1 skill. Its something like double dodge roll + utilities 6 to 0 then /sit as there clones kill your enemy.

Those are the 2 most wanted classes for WvW atm.

I would go for Might Duration if your building a Might stacking Necromancer. We gain too little boons to make boon duration worth it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAod4YjMah7pbybM8JCoHvHXOLSByMGliytOA;TwAg0CnoyxEkIIrOuck6syYkxWkpIA

This build would give 75 Power & 60% Might duration and would be very good at bursting down single targets whilst maintaining 15+ stacks of might pretty much perm. BiP would have only a 4.75 second downtime.

Scores as of 5:45AM GMT