Guild Wars 2

Lordrosicky.5813:

There is definatly enough players in the eu to form a decent competitve scene. The problem is that the formation of teams is a pipe dream for most people. It is impossible to make sure people are on at the same time for regular play or to ensure people dont get rage or to ensure people dont fall out or to ensure people dont quit the game (team loses 1 guy then its hard to replace).

So there will never be teams in that sense. There will be good teams made of good players who regularly play together. But the “5 man team” thing to me seems unrealistic – although some might do it briefly. This is why I think a solo q would be cool. Then have weekly/monthly tournaments which are prestigious for teams who want to get serious as a team.

The hard part is finding a team, getting them on the same page, and working together regularly to do something competitive with it. This is one of the things we will be talking about.

PinCushion.7390:

Kardiamond.6952:

I still use Epidemic when roaming in WvW.

Having a group fight, and spreading mass condition on their entire team is a no brainer for me.

I hate the skill because it’s too famous. Anyone that cares knows what the cast animation looks like and dodges it, or they’re a baddie and die before the cast ends. The amount of times I’ve landed a solid Epidemic and really impacted the course of a fight is balanced by the amount of times I’ve missed it, it got dodged, or I cast it on dead people and accomplished nothing. This might be a L2Play issue, but I prefer to run almost any other utility skill despite the fact that it’s very strong on a good team. This is coming from a mostly WvW, hotjoin, and PvE player though.

That was my point, the cast time combined with the fact it can be dodged and blocked, and the exaggerated animation annoy me. It’s an incredibly strong skill to land, and pretty dang important in tournaments, but good players see that animation and simply dodge or interrupt you.

theodor.3480:

Thanks for the replies guys. I’m mostly aiming for pve. I’ll ceck Khalifa’s guide.

In pve, D/D is not strong, because it there is no synergy with power builds. Dagger/warhorn and dagger/focus are much stronger for pve.

Kardiamond.6952:

Epidemic is for Hot Join?

I almost laughed when I saw that, and then figured he must be a strict wvwvw player. The Epidemic change crushed it in wvwvw keep takes.

Ascii.9726:

@Bas

It seems to me you spam Shivers then rather then strip important boons such as Stability and Protection. As it was also pointed out by developers our class isn’t about crazy damage so a 1500 base + -3 boons + chill is a fairly decent tradeoff for 1.25s,

Except any semi decent player with stability and protection is going to interrupt your cast putting you on cd while they pummel you. Saving Focus 5 for stability means you would rarely cast it at all, which we don’t cast it much because of it’s ridiculously exaggerated animation and extended cast time, making focus essentially worthless in pvp. Corrupt boon is a better usage or the Well that swaps boons to conditions.

Ascii.9726:

Minions are pure PvE. There not PvP material because of there terrible UI and easy nukability not because of cast times.

They don’t have terrible ui, there is bad pathing period in the game that adversely affects minions. Their AI is easy simply and not at all complicated. Some players just can’t handle anything that requires them to not one button kill. The cast time issue I simply pointed out because it doesn’t make sense with the CD and how low their health is, I have no real issue with it, and I know quite a few players who use minions to great effect in tournaments. If you lose them all at once, it’s completely your fault. Bone Minions, flesh golem, and Flesh Wurm are becoming more and more common because of how strong their active is.

Ascii.9726:

Signet of the Undead has exactly the same cast time as Battle Standard.

Seriously? You are comparing a signet that does one good active with an elite skill that buffs your entire party, raises your entire party and can be used on the same CD as your signet, and calling that okay. Again all signets except Undead and Locust are awful, but I think you missed that part since I was saying EVERYONE BRINGS UNDEATH to tournaments. You said, no one brings them. I said everyone does.

Ascii.9726:

Epidemic in anything other then hot joins and PvE is a waste of a utility especially after the nurf and even still 1 second isn’t the end of the world considering what it does to pugs and the fact its a traited 12 second cooldown skill.

The fix of epidemic only effects world vs world vs world. It has no bearing on it’s usage in tournaments, and the fact that you believe it’s a waste of a utility reflects a lot more about your lack of experience in tournaments. There isn’t a single high level conditionmancer I have talked to who hasn’t said Epidemic and Signet of Undeath are mandatory for high level play due to how strong they are. The only change they made was LOS which has no effect on it’s usage in tournametns.

Ascii.9726:

Life Blast may channel abit slow, but again its the strongest auto-attack in-game. Even landing one that crits is worth it. Saying its useless because you get focused is like saying Fear is useless because people spam Stability.

It’s not even close to the strongest autoattack in the game. Dagger 1 auto attack chain alone can hit for 13k, Warrior GS Auto can hit for 3k easily, Warrior Axe Auto chain hits for over 9k, Warrior Mace Auto, Guardian GS, Guardian and Warrior hammer, I could go on, but you should really rephrase that to. DS is the only 900 ranged auto attack that hits that hard. Ranger LB auto hits harder as well ;p.

Quorum Of Four.6837:

Bas.7406:

My recommendation – check out Nemesis’ youtube videos, the SOACGaming podcasts, and CHIPS amazing encyclopedia of Necromancer abilities. For pure axe damage I would recommend Tak and kitteno’s Zerker build. It’s personally my favorite non-minion Necromancer build.

Don’t suppose you have a link to these handy?

SOAC Gaming Channel or http://sittingonacouch.com/category/gaming/

Nemesis Channel

CHIPS Channel

Click on anyone of those

Nemesis.8593:

After all the work i’ve done, people who aren’t very good, don’t play wvwvw, don’t play high end tournaments, and base their entire decisions on 100b ability to hit for 20k still think necromancers were and still are the worst class…

I fixed it for you. After speaking with numerous top end tournament players, high end wvwvw commanders, and numerous rank 40 plus players. The correct comment is people who don’t regularly visit the forums and play other classes at high levels think the necro can be extremely powerful, the epidemic change was necessary, and it’s only weakness is a lack of mobility in wvwvw.

Truth be told, Nemesis, CHIPS, and Bhawb are the major reason I kept playing my Necromancer. Nemesis and CHIPS have the best youtube video guides. SOACGaming has some fantastic podcasts, and all-necro events.

The community is the biggest change since you left thanks to the work of Nemesis, CHIPS, Bhawb, Rennoko, Andele, Talentless, and even the Dredlord. Our community has improved that we have even gotten appearances from Khalifa and Symbolic two of the top PVP Necromancers currently in the game. We have a more positive and helpful community than we did a few months ago, which has led to more build testing and a better feeling for the class.

As far as I can remember, the phantasm used to be op in beta mainly because no one knew how to handle it, than it was nerfed to worthless.

I used to say it wasn’t, and in pve and dungeons it’s still the least favorable option, but in terms of pvp and wvwvw it’s viable.

Take a look at Khalifa’s D/D build on the forums.

Lorelei.3918:

I didn’t know power rangers could do double well bombs… ;p

Red Ranger and Black Ranger can, the yellow one just dodges around infinitely and no one cares about the pink ranger :P.

Edited :P for correction

Nice I think we have a total of four Necros currently in FA so let’s try and set it up. I think the main issue is timing as most of us are on different times.

Oooo, that’s an awesome Idea Bull. I have been trying to talk to the Necros of Kaineng and the Necros of Tarnished coast to do a wvwvw battle in the middle of nowhere for fun.

Tristan.7430:

Sometimes,
when i go down, i get defeated in couple seconds, receving only ~8k dmg (from log). Also it seems I do not get invulnerability at all, when I go down. I have no deathpenalty and my toughness is around 1500 and 23k hp

No one knows why, but it has been like that for quite sometime. It’s happens to everyone randomly, the worst is when you are in DS at low health pop out and insta-death with no record of you being hit for anything bad.

My guess is it’s a A-net server error that registered damage to you but the delay just caught up to you ;p. I actually have no idea why and no one else does either. It happens so randomly and so wide between times that no one can accurately say what happens.

@Quorum – It depends on what you want to do. There are more viable ways to play as a Necro than any other class. The better question is who is on your team and what do you want to do.

My recommendation – check out Nemesis’ youtube videos, the SOACGaming podcasts, and CHIPS amazing encyclopedia of Necromancer abilities. For pure axe damage I would recommend Tak and kitteno’s Zerker build. It’s personally my favorite non-minion Necromancer build.

@Ascii -

Spinal shivers in tournaments at max damage hits for 1500. That’s ridiculous for the amount of time that channel takes. It’s easily interrupted, 3 boons is almost nothing, in fact a majority of players don’t even take focus and just pick up the spinal shivers instant at 25 percent health.

Minions there are still a few of us who use them just not in wvwvw.

Signet of Undeath is the most equipped utility in the game.

I like how you left Epidemic off Corruption skills ;P. It’s the most obvious culprit.

You must play WvWvW more than tournaments, Life Blast is great when you can hammer noobs who stand there and let you do it while not hitting you back. In tournaments, you jump into death shroud, the good teams swap and hit you to take it away. 1 second cast time while being hit = 3 casts at best before LF is out or your at 50 percent and need to jump out.

Apparently, most of our esteemed colleagues missed the part where the OP said Tanky ranger. This would be the GS/SB or Axe Ranger that wipes conditions and keeps a constant regen going.

If you are a condition Necro, it’s best to avoid the fight. While you can win it will take so long it’s not going to be worth it. You don’t have the burst to pressure them, and you won’t have the mobility to keep up with them. The tank ranger is incredible in terms of vigor and condition cleansing. Your biggest chance is with a fearmancer, but you have to time your fears correctly.

As a power-mancer, you wait until you force two dodges, you lock him down and double well bomb him, than pressure with dagger and use fears to keep him locked out. Even in this case the fight may take a few minutes.

As a bunker killer on my tpvp team with Mininons, this ranger is still an annoyance to kill. It’s best to kill him off with a buddy.

Lorelei is spot on with his advice.

Updated for Super Awesome Box All-necro run, sorry for those I failed to invite. Also I fail at jumping puzzles as you can easily see in the video. If you get sick watching this video it’s totally Andele’s fault!

CHIPS Gameplay and Podcast is now live

Karmasutra.9351:

P.S. I really hate having to wait so long to hear another show from you guys.

Keep encouraging them. I asked for the best they could do. Once every two weeks at the start, but I will say by the time it ended Pyro said, “Whoa, you were right we didn’t cover anything in that hour.”

I am hoping they will see the demand and go to once a week ;p.

themaster.9802:

I haven’t had problems with pets attacking on my ranger. They jump right to it and attack enemies. Minions however will literally do nothing and stand beside you before they jump into action about 5-10 seconds later.

The function keys are the only way to force them to attack immediately. Otherwise there is a 2 second delay, which gets even longer when you pet swap, because they are facing the wrong way and then you have to wait until they turn around.

Updated because I remembered the ele’s name.

If you have any questions you would like us to go over or answer please post them below.

I would recommend checking out the podcast by Khalifa and Symbolic, and once we get the EU and NA tournament updates rolling listening there as well for better tournament advice.

CPC and Wells are amazing in WvWvW and sPvP, but they lose a lot of value in Tournaments unless timed when a team goes to burst down a player by dropping CPC or WoD right on your teammate thus protecting him while focusing down the opposing player. It’s all about communication and timing. However, in tournaments there is no reason not to take both epidemic and signet of undeath for any condition build. so that leaves you with one free spot for whatever you want.

As for ele’s nerfed, probably not in the way you think. They are highly valued because of their mobility which is mandatory in tournaments for a roamer. If it’s simply must have’s then the following classes are in both EU and NA all the time.

Bunker Guardian, Bunker/Portal Mesmer, Balance/Bunker Ele, Condition/Hybrid necro

Everything else rotates, but your standard teams carry those four with a fifth being whatever they have. This is your current Meta. The reason is those 4 have great synergy, and almost all of them can fit into any makeup of a team without any heavy adjustments. If you run Burst Ele, 100bWarrior, Theif, or Power/Minion Necro than you have to build your team around the player to make sure they are protected. Because while they can do some serious damage they also face some serious issues if not protected by the right team.

Paul.2745:

Yup, and I’m very happy to hear that. I was worried that the intention for necromancers was for them to always use minions.

No, and don’t worry that’s a commonly mistaken. Death Shroud is our class trait and Our specialty is condition manipulation. We apply more types of conditions and Death shroud gives us a bit more health so building around all the fun things we can do is fine.

Let me encourage you to check out the podcast by Andele and Takarazuka if you are interested in some good PVE ideas.

Dylninja.4216:

I feel like Axe is meant to me used in a primarily DS build.
I use Axe as a main weapon when i want to just DS dance, when DS #4 is on cooldown i DS flip for the 5 second Fury and Axe #2 get some good numbers with it.

Dagger Auto and Staff Auto both build Life Force significantly faster.

They aren’t broken. All AI designed by Anet is just bad this includes NPC’s and Pet AI for every class even Mesmers.

The difference is that Rangers (outside of crappy spirit pets) have control keys to override the AI, Mesmers can simply put out a crazy number of clones to offset the bad ai ones, and Guardians don’t care about Spirit Weapons.

Minion AI is simple. Two single target attacks = threat on that target. The first attack has to complete it’s channel so Dagger 1 actually needs to finish it’s chain before it is counted.

Bhawb and I will be working on a Minion Tutorial video this week.

Rennoko’s Gameplay and Podcast is now live!

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Something I’ve yet to learn about GW2…..
Is cleansing “First In First Out” or “First In Last Out?” Do you cleanse the most recent or the oldest condition first?

Condition types are cleansed in order of application. At times that’s annoying because I will want to cleanse a Poison and instead I cleanse a bleed and vulnerability.

So that would increase the value of pulsing skills like CPC and Well of Darkness (traited for Chill) because it would ensure that Poison, Weakness, or Chill were always the “newest” condition and therefore would be less likely to get cleansed?

Yes and no. Well of Darkness is great if no one notices in fights that you are blind/chilling them. Once you get to a certain level of Tournaments players become too good at avoiding standing still for 5 seconds. CPC is the same, you drop it, you get a tick maybe two and they dodge out of it.

Haha, thanks for linking it here I can never seem to get mine to show up on here.

PinCushion.7390:

Something I’ve yet to learn about GW2…..
Is cleansing “First In First Out” or “First In Last Out?” Do you cleanse the most recent or the oldest condition first?

Condition types are cleansed in order of application. At times that’s annoying because I will want to cleanse a Poison and instead I cleanse a bleed and vulnerability.

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

The problem with extended duration skills in tournament or structured pvp is good players never leave up conditions for long so there are better runes to utilize.

Would they be decent to bait cleanses out of opponents? I don’t do tournaments, but it seems like that’s what they’re designed to do. I also get the feeling that spammable group cleanses are way more common than they ought to be.

It’s done all the time, but the rate at which condition cleanses are available in a good ele/guardian team means your goal is to blow a guy up with conditions in 2-4 seconds before they can drop a light field or ele regen bomb. Good teams wipe conditions extremely fast, so it becomes more about managing, interrupting and timing and less about damage or duration.

2-4 seconds?!?!

That makes most conditions in the game effectively worthless! Why even design them in the first place?

Bhawb has the numbers correctly it’s effectively every 5-10 seconds depending on team makeup.

Conditions are far from useless, as many condition removals can only remove one condition type at a time or three if they are lucky. This means massive condition stacking and spreading is an amazing form of damage.

Plus if you forced the opposing team to focus on condition removal, you have done your job because they aren’t dealing damage and are playing defensive.

PinCushion.7390:

Bas.7406:

The problem with extended duration skills in tournament or structured pvp is good players never leave up conditions for long so there are better runes to utilize.

Would they be decent to bait cleanses out of opponents? I don’t do tournaments, but it seems like that’s what they’re designed to do. I also get the feeling that spammable group cleanses are way more common than they ought to be.

It’s done all the time, but the rate at which condition cleanses are available in a good ele/guardian team means your goal is to blow a guy up with conditions in 2-4 seconds before they can drop a light field or ele regen bomb. Good teams wipe conditions extremely fast, so it becomes more about managing, interrupting and timing and less about damage or duration.

albotelho.2931:

How does But of Corpse works? Any necro from any server is accepted? Do I need to represent the guild all the time or we can just use it as a kind of secondary guild to meet with other fellow necros.

99 percent of the guild never represents except during All-Necro Events. The rest of the time they represent their WvWvW, tournament, or friend guild. Only 3 or 4 actively represent regularly.

Any Necro from any server is able to join. It’s simply there for other necros to find help and connect with other players or to talk shop with other necros. Just about every single member is more than willing to take some time to explain or just converse with other players via pm.

We only ask that you represent when we are doing recordings of All-Necro events.

Defektive.7283:

Will update this list later today with the numerous new responses around 6-7pm eastern.

I would like to remind posters that this list is focused around the Tournament structure and usefulness/how WANTED these classes are for a team. The want / usefulness is decided on overall class ability in a Tournament setting.

Tournament settings are largely dependent on area as well. EU values Rangers over Engineers, while the current meta at high end NA tournament (what few there are) is Confusion Engineer over rangers.

From the few teams on the NA still around, the current “Meta” which is really dependent on your team is as follows.

NA Tournament “Meta”

Bunker guardian
Bunker/Balance ele (30 Arcana) for either back bunker cover or as the roamer
Condition Necro (teamed with the Engineer or Condi ranger is extremely powerful)
Trap Ranger/Condi Engineer
Portal/Bunker Mesmer

Occasionally you will get changes such as Khalifa runs a power mancer or you will get a 100b or the new hammer guardian or support guardian or even the bunker ranger, but for the most part those 5 are the most commonly used because they are the easiest to synergize. While not having to focus around building around a single player. If you play with a 100B warrior, shatter mesmer, thief, Burst ele, or powermancer your entire team has to be built to support and help that player if they get in trouble, and a lot of teams don’t want to work to do something that requires communication it’s much easier to just stick to more universal classes.

EU Tournament (based on conversations with several of the top teams still around)

Bunker Guardian
Portal/Bunker Mesmer
30 Arcana Balance D/D Ele
Trap/Bunker Ranger
Condition/Hybrid Necro

There are hardly any Engineers, maybe two thieves, and a very rare appearance by a warrior. One of the top teams is starting to run a warrior because their warrior just returned, but he is one of the very very few.

As you can see there are a few minor changes between them, but the central players of Guardian/Mesmer/Ele/Necro are always there as they provide the cleanest synergy.

Updated for the epic Bas WvWvW video

Afya.5842:

Previously running Carrion. I stay alive pretty good with it but it doesn’t excel in either power/condition build.

So I went for Rabid build for more condition specs. I love the damage but the huge toughness gets me so much aggro that my current skill level (and lack of vigor) can’t stay alive very well.

If I go zerker/power instead. I’ll sure loose some toughness and aggro, but i’ll get hit harder. Also may have to stay melee more. I wonder if it’ll help my situation or worse.

Or can anyone provide me any tips to improve my survivability in Rabid?? Now I just kite, cripple, freeze, regen, blind well, heal, panic F1.

The first thing I want to ask is where are you playing wvwvw, pvp, or pve? I would also encourage you to check out SOACGaming podcasts as well as some of the great videos put out by Nemesis and CHIPS for beginners.

The biggest part about playing a Necromancer is learning positioning and how to effectively weave DS into your rotation.

subcrazy.1098:

Last update for a bit, not as much interest as before it seems.

Cheers.

It’s not that their isn’t much interest. It just seems like GW2 attacts a unique gamer who would prefer not so much to watch other people play as to read or hear something. I find it a fascinating because in most mmmo’s the videos are huge. I think it has a large part of their being no end game raids which is when you would usually watch videos while waiting for the raid to start.

The problem with extended duration skills in tournament or structured pvp is good players never leave up conditions for long so there are better runes to utilize.

Ascii.9726:

Cast times are fine, its the travel times of skills that needs a buff. (Necrotic Grasp, Dark Path and Spectral Grasp) Most people can outrun the travel time with Swiftness and have the skill fizzle away.

Focus skills have ridiculous cast times, so do signets, Minions, wells, and corruption utility skills. Plus we can’t forget the 1 second cast time on DS auto attack and slow travel of every single one of those projectiles as well.

Extended CD’s along with over 1 second cast times on many of our utilities is an annoyance that no other class faces to this extent.

Bweaty.9187:

I can’t get this to happen, as soon as I leave DS, It stops channeling 0 life gained.

It only works if you wait until LF runs out. If you channel and then exit DS it breaks the channel. Since you have no desire to stay in LF until it runs out this makes using Transfusion to heal yourself worthless.

carlvinmadarang.4130:

Anyone got a Necro Tank build? So far I’ve just specced into Toughness/Vit with self healing traits. I dunno what to choose for skills though. My minions are making me mad since they dont do anything but stand there.

Don’t use staff to start the fight use Axe Auto twice and the minions will attack than start your chain.

Bhawb and I will be working on a ten minute BOC presents Minion AI video this week.

WarMourner was referring to where are you taking this build PvP, WvWvW, or PVE when he asked what you are doing with it?

30 in Soul Reaping is fantastic depending on what your role and intentions are and where you are playing.

I personally prefer shortend CD’s on DS for burst damage builds in pve, but in sPvP and Tournaments stability on DS is invaluable. If you are using DS as a control mechanic than reduced CD on Traits is amazing with Terror. Spectral Mastery is never worth it unless you are running full spectrals (never recommended) and have the extended duration on it which btw is in the weirdest spot for spectral builds.

Plus if you are going for burst damage neither marks proccing LF or spectrals are the right abilities to bring. Wells plus Dagger are the way to go and you swap to staff just before you go into DS.

Drop your marks and wells than pop Lich Form and watch things die.

As you level, the best thing to do is just use whatever weapon you get until lvl 50 than start to specialize.

I am actually listening to this right now. I kind of zoned out during some of Pyro’s in depth explanations :P.

I like to listen to the podcast afterwards to look for possible improvements and pickup things I missed. It should be up on youtube today if Kyria cough, cough, cough. :P

Chopps.5047:

Xsorus.2507:

I suggested Michael Vicks should be the title ;o)

You’re just asking for trouble! On a more serious note, I challenge you to focus your discussion on traits besides wilderness surviva/beastmastery and even give durzilla’s carrion build a test run. It’s pretty effective to load your arrows with conditions from afar. But, yeah, obviously you’re known for wilderness survival / beastmastery. Rock on my man.

There were quite a few pretty humorously questionable name choices that made me laugh, but Arrow to the Knee was the one I felt both hit the Nail on the head for the struggles of the Ranger currently and something every ranger will get.

We will be bringing in a multitude of guests that cover various topics so that the there isn’t just one build discussed. In fact, when I spoke to Battosai and Jin Drake about the podcast it was one of the points they were worried about was that they a majority of what they knew was one line of play.

This is where our guests come in to bring a great perspective on the class.

guza.6170:

Oh i thought there were some organized tournaments that i didnt know about, anyway nice idea. Although i didnt know there are actually still any teams that play in EU.

They were fewer before the most recent patch, but I was talking to a few guys who were excited that a few of the better teams came back after the newest patch with MMR ranking.

Erwin.5603:

So… like a SOTG for sPvP?

In a general sense yes, but more specific to their markets, and we will be talking to the players themselves instead of the GW2 developers.

guza.6170:

What EU tournaments? am i missing something or what.

The EU tPvP players and the NA tPvP players don’t ever face each other. So asking an NA tournament player about tPvP only will get you half the story. There are twice as many European Tournament Teams as NA Tournament teams currently. They also tend to run a different “meta” game currently.

There are quite a few intricacies that the European tournaments bring that the North American tournaments don’t have and so on.

SOAC Gaming after bringing you But of Corpse (all-Necro Podcast) and Mesmerized (all-Mesmer Podcast) is proud to announce that on April 14th we will have our first EU Tournament Update Podcast recording which will be available to listen to on April 15.

We will have the following Tournament players who will do Monthly Updates on the current state of EU Tournaments.

Danto – Guardian
Battosai – Ranger
Symbolic – Necromancer
Denshee – Elementalist

We are looking for a few NA players to join Khalifa for the NA Tournament Update. If you know of anyone we should contact or that you would like to hear from please let us know.

Haha, I am forwarding these onto Dantos.

Dantos is on board for one host, and now we are trying to get ahold of one or the other possible hosts. We hope to lock down the second host next week, and get our first recording done before the 14th.

Necro Bump for our new Youtube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/SOACGaming