Guild Wars 2

I am working on that chips. It is on iTunes now so you can use that one as well. I think I can adjust the player as well to allow for pausing. I didn’t realize it was resetting until I tried to pause it myself. Thanks for the tip.

@targuil, The problem with sigil of battle is it requires weapon swapping every ten seconds to be effective since I am in Death shroud that’s not possible. Plus over a period of time sigil of superior strength can surpass sigil of battle.

I ran with 80 percent duration using sigil of hotel talk, strength, and fire. And only 20 in death magic. The difference between 80 and 90 percent on Reaping is still only one second there is no need to do the extra 10 percent because of casting time.

@haley For sake of argument the Life blast has a ver short CD. When casting and immediately dropping out of Death shroud, with no boon duration benefits I had 14 seconds left by the time I could see the boon so if there is a delay its minimal at best.
However when I went the full time in ds I can stack 14 without the sigil or boon duration. I would need to test how many I Life blast I casted in order to figure out the difference.

My point was to figure out how to stack 25 as efficiently as possible. So if you waited to use BiP until you dropped to 15 seconds, you would have be able to maintain 20 to 25 stacks as long as the fight continued.

Pendragon.8735:

Bas.7406:

Interesting tidbit 2: Might can only hit 20 seconds,

Not sure what you tested for this, but I use a Signet of Battle on my staff and with 10 Points in Death Magic, it lasts 22 seconds.

There is also a Might trigger on the Pirate Runes which I use for farming and that one lasts 30 seconds.

Totally my fault, on this one. The max duration, I could see is 20 seconds. It does last longer in certain instances. BiP was the only one I could see, and with 80 percent boon duration it was at 20 seconds.

The struggle with thieves is in open world vs world vs world. They can be a bit tricky in sPvP, but in tournament play they are much easier to handle because they isn’t as much space for them to get away too.

In tournaments it’s much easier to handle thieves and ele’s but in WvWvW thier ability to reset fights can really cause frustration. sPvP you won’t run into the really great ones, unless they are build testing, and even then there are so many people around that it’s hard for them to pop in kill and get away.

PVT Ele’s come in two methods Bunkers and Balance – bunkers do no damage and are spearheaders which means they charge head in and annoy you. Balance guys are more popular in roaming teams in WvWvW and tournaments where you want to disrupt caps.

What times did you want to kick start them Andele?

Last Night, just before recording the lastest GW2 Podcast, Bhawb and I decided to go out and test the Might Stacking Build suggested by Akame.1073. We both went to into the mists and started working with different versions of the build to find the best way to stack as quickly as possible and maximize your damage.

We tried several variations of the build, but the essential thought was to use Life Blast to stack might with BiP and/or Signets give might as offsetting abilities. We discovered some pretty interesting things along the way that really made the testing fun.

Interesting tidbit 1: Signet stacking might is not worth taking the cast time plus low up time causes it to be nothing more than a headache as it prevents you from stacking might effectively.

Interesting tidbit 2: Might can only hit 20 seconds, and since BiP is a short CD. You should use it after coming out of DS to boost your totals and not before going it.

Interesting tidbit 3: Life Blast Might is applied on cast so you have 1 second between each stacks. Since it’s a 15 might stack, you can stack up to 15 stacks with just Life Blast before 1 falls off without any boon duration traits.

We tested several times without boon duration traits and no sigils, if you used 50 percent of your Life Force with no trait for 25 percent you could get to 7 stacks of might every time with 25 percent increase I could get to 9-10 stacks before jumping out. 10 stacks if you went all the way through for both held true with no boon traits.

Bhawb took 30 points in death magic and picked up 2 superior runes of strength and 2 superior runes of fire giving him approximately 70 percent increase in boon duration if it’s additive which we figured it was. He was able to max out at around 15 with a build of 10/0/30/0/30 or any variation of that build with 30 in death magic 15 stacks before jumping out of ds.

We found that if the best option because of how the Might off LF worked is to save BiP until you dropped out of LF to maximize your stacks for a second before they start falling off. I felt you could get more if you really began to gimmick the build.

I picked up 2 runes of Hoelbrak, 2 runes of strength, 2 runes of fire, sigil of superior strength and sigil of superior Accuracy. I then went to 10/15/20/0/25 to max out the amount of buffs and debuffs I could get. Without BiP and these stats I was able to get to 22 stacks if I ran the full duration of LP. I would then wait until it dropped to 15 stacks PoP BiP and be back at 25 before going back into DS and hammering LP.

With the following build:
10/15/20/0/25
I was able to hover between 20-25 stacks of might without ever dropping below that number. Once I got to 25 I could do run to 50 percent pop out dagger hit the guy until I was back up again and keep going.

Myth: You can’t reach 25 stacks of might without doing signets or using BiP on a build

Verdict: Necro’d – it’s completely possible to hit 25 stacks of might with just LP if traited and specced to build might

Viability: In PvE, sure it would even be fun to see how hard I can hit with it. You can also do 25 stacks of vuln with this build as well without breaking a sweat. It’s gimmicky so it’s really only a pve build. In pvp, you can’t really stay on target as long as needed Remember you need the entire chain to get started first.
I wonder how hard it would hit in a dungeon where you got everything rolling, and use BiP to maintain those stacks.

If you have any other tests you would like us to try we would be glad to take a look at some other builds. We will probably be testing minion aggro theories next

Rennoko.5731:

It definately isn’t 120%…. 60% seems about right though based on what I found. I always assumed it was 100% of your normal out of DS life = 100% of your normal in DS life force… guess that was my bad.

I believe it was initially, but they adjusted it in one of the beta due to necro’s just stacking 30k health and having 30k worth of life force. It was incredibly difficult to kill even with the 25 percent slower trait.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Whoa, I would love to see that Bhawb. That would be fun me thinks.

Thanks for the input guys. I’ll be sure to fill out my registration papers for the club Bas.

I had planned on running a 20 Spite, 20 Death, 20 Blood spec with the extra 10 going to one of the three (not decided yet).

What do you think about the Sigil of Water for weapons to do extra ally healing. Also, opinions on the Runes of Lich for the extra minion summon the 6th slot provides?

Sigil of Water is not really worth it. Go with something to build your damage or Might on crit it’s more effective for pve. For Runes I got Ruby Orbs to maximize flat damage, but the absolute best team bonus is Rune of The Pack

Ionus.5467:

Hi all, new to Necro. Feel free to answer any or all. My focus is WvW and sPvP.

When you draw conditions on to yourself (plague sig), and then reapply them to an enemy, do they do damage based on YOUR condition damage or the condition damage of the opponent who gave them to your teammates?

The damage is based on your condition damage. Check out our podcast’s we covered a lot of these questions :P. http://sittingonacouch.com/category/gaming/

Ionus.5467:

Does plague signet take 1 condition from EACH ally every 10 seconds? Or only from 1 ally every 10 seconds?

It depends on how close they are to you, and I believe it’s 1 from each though I haven’t tested it because most of our signets are pretty awful.

Ionus.5467:

At max life force, how much damage does Deathshroud absorb?

The easy answer is all the damage you take while in Deathshroud. :P. No one has done the math to find the total amount of damage that can be absorbed because it really depends on how much vitality/toughness you have.

Ionus.5467:

Is the damage you take in DS still mitigated by your toughness?

I believe it’s based a percentage of your toughness.

Ionus.5467:

Is maximum hp in DS related in any way to your vitality? (guessing not, only life force).

Your vitality affects your HP though no one knows the exact number.

Ionus.5467:

During the FIRST encounter of a sPvP map, what are some fast ways to build lifeforce in sPVP as condition-mancer, so that I don’t get into too much trouble?

Hang in the back and apply conditions. This was covered a little bit in last week’s podcast with Symbolic.

Ionus.5467:

Wiki states corrupt boon turns aegis into burning, but the corrupt boon would really be blocked if they had aegis up right?

Trusting the wiki is scary. Corrupt boon can only be evaded or blocked without boons. If you have the boon aegis up, it gets changed.

[/quote]

Check out our podcasts at http://sittingonacouch.com/category/gaming/ and some of the great youtube videos by Nemesis. Some questions will be answered.

Rennoko.5731:

Actually looking at it further, it seems you are taking approx. 40% additional damage from attacks while in DS based on the changes in the DS % bar. Assuming 100% DS represents 100% HP (no points in DS this time). So I guess either the DS life bar is a much smaller actual raw HP value than your normal HP bar, or you take extra damage from attacks while in DS.

Something really funny though, if you try to test with fall damage, you actually take REDUCED fall damage while in DS. So a fall that should do 3200 damage will only use up 11% of your DS with HP at 26500, which would seem to indicate a higher HP pool of 29000.

I don’t think it’s ever been stated that it matches your health exactly. They said it’s like having another life bar, not that it doubles your effective health. My guess is that it is based on a percentage of your vitality.

@Nemesis – i find it funny that you get hate mail, and I rarely do. You are much nicer and more informational than I ever have. Your builds work really well for what they are designed to do. I don’t know who slarg is, but my guess is he is probably an angry jealous man of the respect you get from the Necro community.

BTW, I routinely send you hate mail (it’s title Minions rule, and you drool), and haven’t seen one response Haha!

Edenwolf.6328:

Bas.7406:

Edenwolf.6328:

Bhawb.7408:

DS 1=900 range power weapon.

Nice try, but no. Its funny atcually, its like necros are against having a ranged power option.

Every class is limited to a single 1200 range weapon without traits and a single 900 range weapon. All staves are utility weapons on every class, and for most classes the 900 range is a scepter . In our case we also have a 600 range weapon (axe/focus).

If you are confused as to how a 600 is ranged than let me direct you to basic math. When something is next to you we call it melee, if something is farther away from next to you it’s considered ranged. Since melee is considered anything within 200, and axe is at 600. Basic math says 600>200 therefore 600 axe = range power weapon. Since DS 1 > 600 therefore DS 1 = ranged

I’m sorry if you failed to read the rest of the thread, but I said long ranged power option.

Most of everything you said is also false, there is no rule that every class can have only 1 1200 range option, in fact, rangers have 2 1200 ranged weapons, and technically so does guardian. About the bit on staves being utility only, ele staffs deal heavy aoe dps, and to say necro staff is utility only is false, its a key compontent in dealing aoe condition damage. You should probly refer to basic class mechanics/abilitys and then edit your false information.

I will reiterate the part you missed (Every class is limited to a single 1200 range weapon without traits). Everything the ele is does is heavy aoe and it is well known that the staff is really their utility weapon. Your failure to understand this is not on me. The staff can be used in power builds as well as condition builds, because it’s key component is that it provides a lot of utility (condition removal, fear, chill, regen).

I have spoken with Andele (the BoC Dungeon Master), and we were discussing getting another run of these going. Since I have been swamped with getting my website up and running and the podcast, I have not been able to get these things going.

But of Corpse has a goal of helping fellow Necros with questions and answers, everyone in the guild is willing to offer a helping hand if you whisper them. There are 86 member currently with anywhere from 25-40 active at one time during the day. A large majority are more than willing to answer a question or help out fellow necromancers.

With this being the goal, we will start back up with a Daily Necro Dungeon Run. Each day, we will have a different dungeon that we will host as the All-Necro dungeon along with one wing of Arah. If you would like to participate you can message Andele on here or in game or simply be online when the runs are scheduled to start.

Once Andele gives us the start times we will update this thread.

Celwina.2598:

How come our class has a narrow scope of viable builds due to its badly arranged traits and poorly balanced utilities, yet our most viable builds are only comparable to mediocre/less than viable builds for other classes?

How come the only purpose Necromancers seem to have in pv kitten ome niche role like WvW Epidemic or condition stacking in tPvP, but lack the ability to be individually capable in pvp?

The podcast has already been recorded and is up if you want to listen to it. I think we covered a few of these questions in the podcast. You do bring up a common misconception by players that we are attempting to dissuage.

Edenwolf.6328:

Bhawb.7408:

DS 1=900 range power weapon.

Nice try, but no. Its funny atcually, its like necros are against having a ranged power option.

Every class is limited to a single 1200 range weapon without traits and a single 900 range weapon. All staves are utility weapons on every class, and for most classes the 900 range is a scepter . In our case we also have a 600 range weapon (axe/focus).

If you are confused as to how a 600 is ranged than let me direct you to basic math. When something is next to you we call it melee, if something is farther away from next to you it’s considered ranged. Since melee is considered anything within 200, and axe is at 600. Basic math says 600>200 therefore 600 axe = range power weapon. Since DS 1 > 600 therefore DS 1 = ranged

Lonewolf, welcome to the minion runners fan club. We meet for weekly grief counseling to deal with the abuse :P. On to your questions,

1. Staff 2, Focus 4, and well of blood are pretty much it, but the key is to just not worry about healing them, let them die and resummon them 24 seconds later.

2. Boons and minions are kind of an odd mix, to be honest, we aren’t a boon class and we have no real way outside of regen to pass boons on.

3. The only way to boost minion damage is with outside booster. Axe/Focus is the best weapon for this because you can stack vulnerability which improves minion damage. You can also run with a ranger and his spirit pets provide boosts. Outside of that there is reallynothing we can do.

Everything else is built around building your own damage. I run Berzerker while Bhawb run Knight gear.

The key to running a successful minion build is two fold: 1) They are only utilities and not the main part of your damage. Treat them as subjects and not a pet. 2). Use single target attacks to initialize fight (two in a row) to force yoru minions to attack. Do not begin with AoE attacks or it will cause them to not know which to attack.

BIG TIP: Ignore everyone who says they aren’t viable. Out of all the complaints the only valid complaint is in regards to Agony issues and Massive AoE damage wiping out all your minions in wvwvw.

CHIPS.6018:

Well I guess if you don’t mind dying, any class can roam. The question is though, when you roam, what benefit are you bringing to your server. For example, do you kill yaks better than thieves? Do you take camps faster than an ele?

When you think of this from the objective point of view, it makes little sense to roam as a necro.

Necro’s strength in wvw is in zerg fights.

Just to let you know we can take camps faster than an ele :P. The balanced guy is strong, but a good necro build can solo the camp incredibly fast. The problem is getting away if a zerg or 5 man group comes.

@kulde – In our last podcast, Symbolic pointed out that the main issue with running anything other than conditions in a tournament is the unreliability of power builds setup. Wells are easily avoided, and is an all in build whch can lead to serious issues in high end tournaments. In pve where things are more static or in wvwvw where you have a mass zerg of 20 people wells are strong and prove to be more reliable. However in tournaments they are very unreliable because of how active classes play.

In fact, I would say a MM has a better chance in tournament play then a well melee mancer.

In pve, they both face the same push. Wells show up better in aoe situations with static movement, and Minons show up better in situations where we can focus something down and we aren’t standing still getting hammered with continual aoe (fractals).

@zog – If you do that you lose the effectiveness for both. Unfortunately, minions are really an all or nothing build.

CHIPS.6018:

I keep the AoE circle on, because it is very helpful when defending towers. As many of you know, when you are on top of the wall, it is very hard to AoE foes below. Your own wall will block your field of vision. The only way you can tell is by moving your aoe circle around until it turns green.

I didn’t even think of that point Good Call! We have to get you on sometime CHiPs ;p. I will shoot you a pm about it.

Andele.1306:

Just finished watching, had great flow (and good tips with the Lich Well trick, so many people dont use it; btw plague works too since it gives a small boost in power), the boon talk was interesting.

Thanks we got really sidetracked and then I realized we were talking Ele’s and Rangers haha.

@reflexmonkey – The replies people have given you are thought out solutions to your desired changes. The problem is you think anyone who disagrees with you some random troll that just wants to smash you down. The Necromancer community is one of the best in the game in terms of helpful advice.

Your buffs are overkill. Spectral Skills are the least used utility outside of Signets. Minions, Corruption, and Wells are the most common utilities for a reason. They provide more than just niche specific play. Your decision to buff already strong tools and completely disregard any comment that attempts to show you a better alternative will get you trolled.

Spectral specific builds are a niche mainly based around bunker builds or DS LF generation builds. They are hit and miss type utilites and in high end tournament play you want to eliminate a lot of hit and miss type abilities which is why you see Meta builds. In lower end tournament play or wvwvw or pve you can run niche builds and do relatively well, but as teams get smarter than you see fewer spectral builds.

Yesterday Bhawb and I tested a Might stacking build thanks to Akame for the suggestion. I will probably do a video and discuss the pros and cons of it later today. It’s actually really strong build in pve, and the idea Bhawb floated to me was if it woudl be cool if we could do something like that in tournaments. We talked about bumping up the speed of Life Blast and how that would benefit, the problem we found was if they increased life blast I could keep a stack of 25 might and 25 vulnerability indefinitely, as it was I hovered around 15-18 stacks on a consistent basis in testing.

So you see how a simple “buff” could great an overpowered meta build.

So

Death is your friend as a roamer. I do it quite a bit, but you must be ready to die. Don’t fear it, accept it as a natural occurance of being a great Necromancer feared by many, loved by a few. Rennoko talked about roaming in wvw in the podcast this week. Check it out: http://sittingonacouch.com/category/gaming/

If you are solo roaming than glass cannon is just as viable as pvt since both will get crushed by the zergs. It’s best as a necro to find 3-4 friends to roam with. You are strongest when working with others.

In todays But of Corpse Update, Symbolic talks the state of the Necromancer in tournament play, why he chose a Necromancer, dismantles the theory of imbalance in high end tournament play, and debates with your favorite Minionmancer about Condition Spec versus the rest of the Necro builds.

Remember you can also subscribe to the podcast on itunes simply follow the link on the website.

BoC talks with Symbolic

For those of you waiting on transcripts and youtube captioning abilities. I will sit down this weekend and look over some options to get it. When I get the capability, I will go back to the previous podcasts and get them setup as well.

The podcast is now up and live: http://sittingonacouch.com/category/gaming/

Oblivion.8307:

Hey, this was really fun to do! I feel i might have made an issue with what I was saying that might have felt I meant every build other than condition was terrible. If it works for you, use it. I’m just giving my opinions on what I think. Don’t let that deter you from your playstyle!

Oblivion, you did fine. It sounded worse during the session only because I don’t like people telling me what I do isn’t correct ;P. Plus I was just giving you a hard time haha. When you listen to it today, you will see you explained why you feel the way you do very well.

Besides we will try to get a tournament powermancer on to give his side of view in the future.

CHIPS.6018:

The thread is about how “weird” the necro skill tree is. We do go off topic a lot. ^^

Haha, I thought this topic was about how awesome the warrior tree was compared to the Necro which made me laugh because I have an 80 warrior and that tree is a joke. Traits in odd locations, Abilities you would never use. Strong abilities early in the tree, and really weak stuff later on.

Elementalist have the same issue they have quite a few 30 point horrible talents which is why so many of them go 30 arcana or 30 water because those are amazing talents.

Kuldebar.1897:

Viable? Sure they are viable, but since when has just being viable been a standard to strive for? We should be speaking about reliable, predictable, and flexible.

Sure, you can say a given WELL might have cool down and the minion not as much, but the well stays where I want it and fulfills its job while granting a tangible benefit by its very existence and a detriment to the enemy.

This is a basis of perception over reality. Players who came from GW1 have a misperception of what a minion is based on their past experience with them. This is not the same thing. Minions are not a core design of the necro they are a special unique utility skill. They are supposed to die, they do their job.

They are reliable in attackign your target as long as you use a single target ability twice (preferrably auto attack). They do a solid amount of damage. I once did a rundown of the amount of damage a minion build projects too, and over a 5 minute period it is the highest damage build we can have if your minions never die (I know they die simply pointing out that if they didn’t they would outdps everything). They have responsive ai (not perfect), and have some very strong skills on short cooldowns.

What you perceive a minion to be (a core skill that the necro can build everything around) and what they are (a unique utility that is there to deal damage and die) are not the same thing. Until you change your perception you wil never see how strong they can be. There is a reason why they haven’t made any significant changes to Minions outside of the really nice buff to Blood Fiend’s heal. It’s because the guys who play them well already cause a lot of trouble. If they are buffed than something has to give.

Vamp Precision is a higher heal. If you take both traits, you get two heals every time you crit. You get the base heal, and the crit heal. If you really want to mess with people take Minions or wells siphon health, the siphon crit, siphon on hit and 50 percent effectiveness.

If you play minions, you get a constant stream of healing especially if you go with bunker builds :P.

You will be able to find us on iTunes as well

Except you can’t slap it whenever you want because you have at best a 45 minute cooldown where you are doing the same damage I am doing without my minions except my damage comes back up in 24 seconds and provides multiple forms of CC for single targets.

Simply because you cannot play something to the level you want too does not make them unviable. MM is a very effective playstyle once you learn how to do it. I think Wells are brutal because if I drop them in the wrong spot or someone dodges out of it or the boss gets pulled through it, I just wasted the CD. You never waste a CD with a minion if you know what you are doing.

The point about making minion scale with our damage is ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine how powerful that would be. With the flat damage, I can do as much damage as any other build can without my minions, but now I get added bonus damage for a majority of the fight while well and condition guys are waiting on CD’s to do their big damage.

There are a myriad of reasons not to run wells from playstyle to dislikeing the aoe factor to not wanting to be in melee.

I will do some testing, and find out. How it works in terms of damage taken.. I thought I read that it takes a percentage.

Kuldebar.1897:

Bhawb.7408:

Minions not scaling is the beauty of them. It means the necromancer can use any gear and still the minions have the same damage. It means my 27k HP, 3k armor necro can do similar sustained damage to builds with a lot more damage investment.

And give up Wells and other far more useful skills that actually do benefit from the Necromancer’s stats.

He wasn’t saying give up anything. He was offering an alternative and a reason why you can go MM. We are not arguing MM over Wells we are arguing that MM is a viable and effective way to play because of minions scaling.

@akame – haha, Wow, that’s a lot of questions. I won’t be able to discuss them all, because Symbolic is not a GW2 Designer so my questions will be limited to the Necro’s influence on pvp and tournaments. I do have some of those already on my questions sheet, and there are quite a few of good ones I didn’t think of.

Furienify.5738:

If I wanted to do smaller buffs/fixes, it would look something like this.

Class Mechanic
- Death Shroud UI fixed. You can now see what boons and conditions you are affected by.
- Life Force gained when in Death Shroud is equal to the amount gained when something is killed in regular form.

Spectral
- Spectral Armour cooldown reduced to 60 seconds.
- Spectral Grasp pathing tweaked. It’s now less likely to be obscured by smaller elevation changes and targets are more likely to be pulled the full distance.

Corruption
- Corrupt Boon now functions like Epidemic; it checks for LoS/targeting only at the beginning of its cast.
- Corrosive Poison Cloud now ticks every 1.5 seconds as opposed to every 3.
- Epidemic cast time reduced to 2/3rds of a second.

This isn’t touching weapon skills, bigger/more idealistic buffs, traits, or the abilities of other classes.

These are good and realistic changes, although I think that you would see an increase in the CD of Epidemic was brought down.

Bhawb, don’t answer haha, these are for the podcast haha!

Andele.1306:

I would ask a question (like is 30 into SR viable to give a source of stability, Lich vs Plague as elite and stuff), but since i dont bother with tournaments outside of leaving random game commentary in the background if bored and never even looked at what actual necro setups are used, i dont think it would be worth it.

those are good questions, and can help people in spvp as well.

Andele.1306:

Bas, do hold onto your dreams about minions, but nothing beats Well of Darkness and Plague Form when combined with the LF to DS that dead corpses from Corruption and Suffering are created in terms of tanking.

I agree, that in the moment you launch all of those things, there is nothing close in terms of damage. But there is 50 seconds of time between those.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

I’d like to hear what do you think guys but my level of spoken English is terrible and I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people like me so I have a suggestion!

Why not make a transcription too? If you have the time and want to do it, it would be pretty awesome and you will reach more people

This was suggested, and I am looking into finding a program that will do it, or using youtube to do it. If anyone knows of a good program let me know.

Because typing out a hour long podcast would take me 5 hours haha!

Ranged is usually easiest. What are your teammates running with? If you can check out Nemesis’s videos. There are some great commentaries.

The easiest build to see success with is a Carrion gear build with Conditions.

Dagger/Warhorn with wells is extremely powerful, but you run the option of getting clobbered.

I am the bunker killer for my team. The key is finding out what your teammates are running and then we can recommend what you should run with it.

CHIPS.6018:

I listen to the first parts of the podcast. It is good but a bit long. I think it should be kept at 15 minutes each and focus on one specific aspect or topic. You can make 4 episodes in one weekend setting. But release them over 4 weeks.

That was an idea we thought of, but the next thing I knew it was an hour into it. I am not skilled enough in my editing to break it down to 15 minutes. Plus with 5 people it’s tough. We may eventually break down the lower ones. If you look at The All-Necro Podcast it was 1:15minutes but I timestamped a list so you can skip to what you want.

I appreaciate the feedback, and it’s a good idea. Perhaps I can do a 20 minute short one and then someone can listen to the longer version if they want. To give you an example in the BoC podcast, we asked about Theives and the Necromancers, the answer took a good ten minutes. If we did only 15 minutes we could only cover one aspect of one specific function.

I am still trying to figure out a good way to do a short podcast. I may do a tip of the week, and make the tip a 15 minute podcast with a single player.

spoj.9672:

Just because im using wells doesnt mean im traiting into them at all. Its a complete waste to spec into blood magic when going bezerker. Im currently using 30/15/0/0/25. But i may change this when i finish getting ascended gear because the only thing i lack is precision. My crit damage is over 100% and my power is 2400 and i have 53% crit chance without fury and food. You really think you hit close to me outside of my wells? All my wells do is give me a nice extra burst of 24k damage over 5 seconds and apply vuln and corrupt boons. But most of my damage comes from DS spam along with contant rotation through dagger+warhorn and axe+focus. Plus lich form hits incredibly hard on this build.

What’s your attack? I sit at or around 3500 with 50 percent crit and 84 percent crit damage. :p, and I still don’t have the best trinkets.

Just as a reminder nobody answer the questions on here ;P. We will try to answer them in the podcast.

Dietzen.6127:

Bas.7406:

Dietzen.6127:

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated.
Just wanted to reply to the folks saying scepter doesn’t go well with power, which is just wrong Dagger range is so short that if you get immobilized you can’t do anything. I love the damage from it, and the lifesteal ofc also the immobilize. However I like the range of 900 scepter, which actually hits quite hard in a power build. Not to forget you get a long duration cripple (since 30 pts in spite), and a bite that hits for 2200 on crits.
So that’s my reasoning for trying out the scepter, as I did have dagger before but just got tired of not being able to be in range.

Axe is still better – I can hit 2200 on my auto well maybe only 1800, pluse Axe has seen numbers significantly higher with food. I hit 6900 on a high toughness guy the other day.

I AM running axe :-)
Axe/focus and scepter/dagger. I used to run d/d instead of scepter, but opted for range in the scepter and gave up on the dagger.

Wow, no staff? That’s crazy, staff is so versatile. I occassionally run D/W instead of staff to deal with the melee guys.

zaragoz.6351:

Well that’s good news, coming over from the engineer I know every single trait and which are viable and which are not, however I can honestly say when it comes to the trait lines on the necro I am at a loss.

Can you recommend a build or two that you think would be starter friendly for me and perhaps I could branch out from there?

If you are looking at learning the class there are two basic starters – Condition builds or Bunker Builds.

Moving into high damage builds initially are pretty tough, because you really need to get a hang of DS before you go berzerker or rampager gear.

Let me look at a few builds and recommend an easy one to start with. Do you want to play ranged or melee?

There are so many viable builds that it’s pretty funny. Just to give you an idea, there are four starting builds.

1). Conditions
2). Hybrid
3). Power
4). Minions

Then you get into such builds like fearmancer, You can do bunker, well, siphon life, Staff bombing, support, deathshroud damage, deathshroud bunker, deathshroud boon buff, minion boon stripping, minion bunker, minion glass, Fear bombers (with about 5 different versions of it), Chill builds, blind builds, Condition control, Condition damage, bunker killers, and so on…

The only thing we can’t build is a roamer class or signet build.

Dietzen.6127:

Thanks for the replies guys, much appreciated.
Just wanted to reply to the folks saying scepter doesn’t go well with power, which is just wrong Dagger range is so short that if you get immobilized you can’t do anything. I love the damage from it, and the lifesteal ofc also the immobilize. However I like the range of 900 scepter, which actually hits quite hard in a power build. Not to forget you get a long duration cripple (since 30 pts in spite), and a bite that hits for 2200 on crits.
So that’s my reasoning for trying out the scepter, as I did have dagger before but just got tired of not being able to be in range.

Axe is still better – I can hit 2200 on my auto well maybe only 1800, pluse Axe has seen numbers significantly higher with food. I hit 6900 on a high toughness guy the other day.

Tonight we will be recording the podcast with Symbolic of Team Paradigm. If you have any tournament necromancer related questions that you would like us to ask. Post them here or send me a pm or email podcast@sittingonacouch.com.

This podcast will be more general, but we will take some of the best questions or concerns that Necromancers face and ask him.

@kid – your link leads to a build with only well of suffering and mark of blood on dodge traits along with some very odd traits chosen. i think it’s not sending to the correct place.

spoj.9672:

Ok i was curious so I went and tested minion damage against well damage. Minions dont scale with stats and they do laughable damage compared to my wells even when im not speced for power at all. Yes their damage is better than i expected but the only way they could ever beat well damage is if you are in a fight for long enough for wells to come off cooldown several times. Which is not very often.

Minions are for survivability not damage. Plus i imagine you guys dont use dagger mainhand with a MM build so thats another reason my dps is gonna be leagues higher. Although this testing has made me think a little better of minions. For example in arah when we have pugs we tend to just range the whole time and i dont spec into focused rituals so i lose out on some damage on GL. So atleast now i know minions could be quite good in that fight. Thanks for the discussion, was enlightening.

Sigh, NO ONE IS SAYING THEY DO MORE DAMAGE. We are saying in an extended run, they can equal or do more damage. It really depends on grouping and how good you are at using wells at the right times to maximize damage. In the amount of time your double wells are up you do more damage, in the time your wells are down we do more damage. I could use dagger Mainhand and have used it, but oddly enough, Axe/Focus is optimal for minion builds thanks to vuln stacking.

You are correct, Minions with siphon health are amazing for survival.

spoj.9672:

Very much doubt your damage is the same as mine. And most bosses wont move when your entire group or the majority of your group is in melee range. Theres also the use of imobalize or timing to make sure your wells arent wasted. Only fight i had an issue with wells is the champion abomination in CoE p2 and p3. But you generally all range him so he doesnt stack frenzy or you just skip him. And even then Ive worked out a way to get my wells to do atleast 4-5 ticks on him consistantly. You also shouldnt need to soak up damage if you manage your dodges and have DS for the odd time you dont have a dodge.

I can guarantee, that our damage is really close outside of when you drop wells. My power is easily the same, the only difference (and I have done this with DS build players and well guys in the past). Is either 30 percent crit on full glass cannon (well builds are not) or 30 percent crit damage if you spec fully into the Soul reaping (the odds are in a well build you aren’t). So at what point does your damage differ from mine?

As for your other reasons they are symbolic of a player who has not used Minions in some time. Why would I waste DS as a damage soak, when I can use a minion for it, and use DS for damage? You see, I can counter your points easily. I was simply using a broad reason I use minions occassionaly to tank mobs (no damage to me or other players is awesome), sometimes to counter ranged spells I will move behind one of them and they hit it (wow it’s like a blind).

I like well builds, and think they our the hardest hitting abilities we have. The point you are missing is that Minions are completely viable in everything except Fractals over lvl 10 due to Agony wiping them out before they can do anything. Any dungeon outside of that I have used them on every single boss with little to no issue once you understand boss mechanics.