Guild Wars 2

Curses Line:

Toxic landing moved to spite line. Swap 1.
Remove spiteful removal (its complete trash in PvE outside of leveling and absolutely useless in PvP unless you’re in WvW and lots of trash stuff to kill) Remove 1

Dhuumfire is now grandmaster curse. Swap 1.

Terror is grandmaster. Up 1.
Lingering curse is master. Down 1

Withering precision is adept. Down 2.
Weakening shroud master. Up 1.

Banshee’s Wail should be in Spite Master (it is much more power mancer based with high amounts of control) Almost all condimancers go dagger offhand as it provides better condi control and weakening shroud for offensive/defensive pressure. Swap 1.
Spiteful Marks should be removed. The damage (as mentioned for marks is terrible. Mark of blood scaling is terrible for power so is Chillbains, the only one with good scaling is putrid

Master corruption down 1 to adept
And either reaper’s precision or chilling blindness to master. I would only move these to master if they got buffs to them though. As it is now, almost no one uses it still. Even though you ‘say’ they’re great. Like objectively chilling blindness is fantastic but in practice its trash. We do not have that many sources of blindness (outside plague, dagger offhand, and utilities). Chilling blind would need to be 2s of chill for me to consider even using it tbh. Reaper Precision I am fond of cause I just like the life force possibility even though the actual chance of life force per hit with rabids is about 10-14% which is fairly low considering our rate of attack. Reaper’s precision would need to be 66% chance for life force on crit to be master.

Hemophilia I think is in a good spot. Same with spectral.

Focused rituals is in a good spot. However this is the upside and chance of putting it in the adept or master spite line and forcing players to choose traits and also increasing build diversity. Currently the 30 10 0 0 30 DS Powermancer is too rampant as its the only build that hits all the good points. By putting focused rituals in spite you can open up more well builds that go deep into blood magic and then some into spite. Or the 30 10 0 0 30 build now has 10 points to move around as they like. Theres the chance of putting it adept and buffing some adepts into usefulness. Maybe increasing retalliation duration on spiteful spirit. Not sure lots of possibilities though.

Dhuumfire:
So this is the money trait at the moment. And I think in its current incarceration it should be moved to grandmaster and into curses. And by forcing people to pick it or terror, you can also theoretically rebuff dhuumfire to its PVE equivalent as there is no terror added damage on top of it. You can still terror someone but they’ll just be stunned while they have a burning on top of them. Which lots of professions can do, and do well. Looking at our engi brethren or condi warriors with longbow/hammer.

Now as the replacement for what would be the grandmaster for the spite line. I was thinking of a variable vulnerability proccing based on life force pool. This would be equivalent to an adrenaline burst skill but would count as the next on hit DS1 with an ICD of like 20s. 0 – 33 , 33- 66, 66- 100. First stage is 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10s, second is 10 stacks for 10s, last is 15 stacks for 15s. This trait also has some possible PVE implications too. This idea can be replaced with blindness, or chill.

Death magic.
I think this line should be about blind traits and minions. They seem the most defensive and inline with necromancers to me. Necros dont have enough blinds imo. Could do weakness but we already have plenty of that.

Oh the reason necros got viable is cause they just got massive overworked compared to all others during that vital patch back in June I think? I think the tipping point was the addition of more condi covers being DS5 and the burning. BUt the burning doesnt need to be there just additional condi cover instead of nerfing weapon sources of condi damage.

Based on Jon’s analysis and response. I can understand his decisions and why he thinks this way.

He wants at least ONE condimancer build to be viable. He thinks it ‘HAS’ to be at least dhuumfire + terror always at least. He doesn’t mind if other builds of condimancer are not viable just as long as a dhuumfire terror build can be played at high level so someone at necromancer can ‘get’ to high level with it.

This is thought process I think he has for wanting to move dhuumfire down and moving terror up. By moving dhuumfire down he thinks it will ‘improve build diversity’ when in fact it will probably lessen it and call for dhuumfire being used on ABSOLUTELY necessary for condi necros to remain viable as their bleed damage is being nerfed on mark of blood which did have a good amount of bleed damage pressure if already in a fight.

Mark of blood:
Why Jon thinks its the best skill in the game. He looks at marks and thinks as them as super versatile and can be used everywhere, on stealth, as traps, defensively, offensively, as instant cast. He sees their cast time, hard to dodge no easy animation and thinks it super good.

He looks at the skill objectively and not in real time when you play with a necro against high level players. Marks can be easily easily countered and have some of the lowest condi dps in the game. If you ever try to kill someone with only marks its absolutely terrible. They ‘can’ be dodged now and many top level players dodge them consistently. No one uses greater marks now making it much harder to hit. And a missed mark is a complete 0 in dps. And top levels never walk in marks that are dropped on the ground. Only new players do. They can be rolled into negating all the dps. Adds eat the marks for you. Ele summons, spirits, clones/phantasms. And staff auto is complete trash as a condi necro. It builds life force it hits things sure ( but high levels move around so much they almost never hit giving no life force) unless they are an add build which you need tons of life force for anyways. But at least 40-50% of the dps was from mark of blood. I would say 20% from Chillbains 15% from putrid (more if condis transfered) and 5% from reaper and the rest staff auto.

Weakening Shroud
While it is an incredible strong ability. I do not mind having the bleed entirely moved per Ascii’s post. I would love a 10ICD on demand PbAoE weakness. Or better yet PbAoE blind. Maybe a blind on shroud removal. Like Veil Lift or some darkness veil or something. Thatd be a cool mechanic. As our weakest moment is not when we enter shroud but its rather when we exit shroud. When we exit shroud everyone and I mean everyone who knows how to fight necros attacks you and then you’re on the ground, and then you die.

Terror:
I forgot about the suggestions the necro forum has had about having dhuumfire and terror being both grandmaster in curse line. Sure itd be an overloaded line but it would for sure increase build diversity. As while the 30 in curses would be mandatory to get one of the amazing grandmasters. The remaining 40 points could be spent elsewhere.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Berullos.6928:

The mark of blood change is another 33% nerf to our damage with staff. Just like it was a nerf with scepter. I don’t understand their reasoning for these nerfs. Its like they want to kill the builds that dont utilize fear or dhuumfire for condi damage. And because of these nerfs that dont favor builds who dont run those traits, it actually emphasizes and supports going for those traits in order to remain viable.

Things they could’ve done to fix it. Fix fear damage scaling. Or make dhuumfire proc poison or torment. And lower torment stacks. And if you nerf the damage with weakening shroud procs or mark of blood at least give us sustain like all necros want.

Currently the sustain is still bad as we require being near things in order to gain life force. IE: I need to hit you with marks or my attacks in order to gain life force. A smart player can already just engage disengage until you run out of life force and then kill you as you cant build the life force without somthing to hit.

People still get away from necros plenty easy if you wanted us to be hard to get away from. And siphons don’t work in shroud which is a major downside. Healing still doesnt work while in shroud either. And scaling for siphons is a joke.

The strongest builds currently are still going to be dhuumfire even after the nerf and fearmancers. And builds that don’t use those are basically nerfed harder than those specific builds.

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of times, when running standard Necro condie builds, the bleeds actually do a large portion of your damage if they are allowed to stack on a target. Burning is nice, and Torment can be decent, and of course Poison brings down opposing heals. But the Bleeds are where a large amount of the sustained damage comes from.

We want to bring down that raw dmg but still allow the Necro the ability to “shut down” targets. Notice we’re not bringing down Chills much, or Vulns, or Blinds. We don’t mind the Necro shutting targets down, we just don’t want them also doing a ton of condition damage on top if it.

For Dhumfire and Terror: we have plans on reworks for those down the road, but they won’t make it in for this patch. We have plans for those, but they’re a little further down the “balance” road.

Thanks for the feedback!

While I understand and know that bleeds cause the majority of the damage. Bleeds are only one condi so the whole stack gets cleansed if you have any passive condi cleanse which most builds nowadays have. Its the condi burst that gets kills far easier than it is by slowly wearing people down by condis. And most people when they start getting low and have a good stack of condis they just run. And necros dont have the burst nor the mobility to catch up. THey just reset and try again.

Bleeds are easy to see and counter and keep track of. The thing that kills people are poison due to the healing reductions and the bursts of condi.

I still think it is nerfing other builds that dont use those traits much greater than it nerfs the dhuumfire/fear traits.

Suggestions in the necro forum is move fear into the grandmaster line and swap with the weakness on crit trait. This would also instantly destroy the dhuumfire/fearmancer build as you could not get both AND the fear duration trait.

The mark of blood change is another 33% nerf to our damage with staff. Just like it was a nerf with scepter. I don’t understand their reasoning for these nerfs. Its like they want to kill the builds that dont utilize fear or dhuumfire for condi damage. And because of these nerfs that dont favor builds who dont run those traits, it actually emphasizes and supports going for those traits in order to remain viable.

Things they could’ve done to fix it. Fix fear damage scaling. Or make dhuumfire proc poison or torment. And lower torment stacks. And if you nerf the damage with weakening shroud procs or mark of blood at least give us sustain like all necros want.

Currently the sustain is still bad as we require being near things in order to gain life force. IE: I need to hit you with marks or my attacks in order to gain life force. A smart player can already just engage disengage until you run out of life force and then kill you as you cant build the life force without somthing to hit.

People still get away from necros plenty easy if you wanted us to be hard to get away from. And siphons don’t work in shroud which is a major downside. Healing still doesnt work while in shroud either. And scaling for siphons is a joke.

The strongest builds currently are still going to be dhuumfire even after the nerf and fearmancers. And builds that don’t use those are basically nerfed harder than those specific builds.

The mark of blood change is another 33% nerf to our damage with staff. Just like it was a nerf with scepter. I don’t understand their reasoning for these nerfs. Its like they want to kill the builds that dont utilize fear or dhuumfire for condi damage. And because of these nerfs that dont favor builds who dont run those traits, it actually emphasizes and supports going for those traits in order to remain viable.

Things they could’ve done to fix it. Fix fear damage scaling. Or make dhuumfire proc poison or torment. And lower torment stacks. And if you nerf the damage with weakening shroud procs or mark of blood at least give us sustain like all necros want.

Currently the sustain is still bad as we require being near things in order to gain life force. IE: I need to hit you with marks or my attacks in order to gain life force. A smart player can already just engage disengage until you run out of life force and then kill you as you cant build the life force without somthing to hit.

People still get away from necros plenty easy if you wanted us to be hard to get away from. And siphons don’t work in shroud which is a major downside. Healing still doesnt work while in shroud either. And scaling for siphons is a joke.

The strongest builds currently are still going to be dhuumfire even after the nerf and fearmancers. And builds that don’t use those are basically nerfed harder than those specific builds.

I just wanted to say thanks a bunch for the changes in necromancer sounds since launch so far.

This recent patch has the minion summon sound changed but wasn’t noted in the patch notes.

Some previous patches ago the staff noises were changed that was great.

Theres been some other sound changes but the two biggest offenders have been taken care of regarding necromancers.

Minion builds are strong. Fear builds are strong. But I think for high level play Foot in the grave becomes more and more important or else you’re gonna have a bad time against cc duel classes. Power builds can get insta gibbed. But if you’re skilled enough yo can do it.

The 30 is soul reaping is safer in pugs. Its also the more well known power build used in pvp cause again it has far more sustain with the larger life force pool and guaranteed crit chance for enemies when in small groups.

In organized play spoj’s build outshines. But this requires good play, extensive knowledge of all the bosses without having into go into shroud to protect yourself as much and staying in melee.

Yes, the extra crit is wasted in a fully buffed group. But if you’re pugging or with bad players or are not organized. 30 10 0 0 30 is actually more optimal dps. As you tend to rely on yourself more. Or you just like having big DS1’s and come from a pvp background.

Otherwise spoj’s build is the correct highest PVE dps build in the game bar none. However if he brought that build in spvp he’d get his kitten kicked.

I play pvp so I’m most comfortable with 30 10 0 0 30. Spoj’s build requires too much knowledge of the encounters for me to be bothered to learn. Being in shroud is safer.

ps. the 30 20 0 0 20 build looks dumb. 2 more seconds of CD on death shroud can’t possibly be better than 2% more per condi.

Oozo.7856:

It would only be exploiting if you consider dodgeroll jumping an exploit as well. Hitting two buttons at the same time isn’t exploiting. I don’t think it’s intended, however.

I made a thread on it after you showed the death shroud stomp. I don’t think its exploiting, as it hasnt been fixed for a long time. Additionally DS has no cast time so it should allow doing other things at the same time.

Thanks again for showing me Shroud stomp 9-10 months ago in that video.

Mammoth.1975:

Berullos.6928:

Cause Dhuumfire + terror hurts ridiculous amounts while also having you cc’d. They just need to turn dhuumfire into Torment and everything will be a-okay.

I keep hearing this idea, but it would actually be stronger in teamfights. Spirit rangers and engis already kitten burning, having a necro adding duration doesn’t make a lot of difference, one condi remove still clears the stack.

If you have a necro stacking torment every 10-12 seconds instead of every 34/40, and one of the others stacking burning, now you need even more condi removes to get clean.

Possibly. But really long burning is already scary as hell. And the thing is you can adjust torment damage easier with stacks much easier than burning without it being an ugly duration hack. And then torment fits necros thematically based on what the devs said.

And the biggest condi burst comes from after stacking up condis, going into shroud getting the fear for the longest terror possible and then also stacking up the chains. You so you get burning + torment + all the other jazz, so its tons of condis to clear. When you turn the burning into torment > its one less condi to remove.

But for my personal reason, I just think burning doesnt fit a necro. Torment seems better, cleaner fix than duration hack.

Btw, teamfights the burning gets procced randomly on any of the targets you managed to aoe, and then you get the ICD. So the biggest increase that dhuumfire gives is in a 1v1 or maybe 2v2 situation.

Acceptable.7384:

Hey everyone interested in looking into a team or solo-q pvp build. In game my name is Cryptographic, and I normally used to play the terror spec. Recently I’ve made a new build to further more assist my team play.. I’ve noticed that more and more necromancers have been running the terror/condi spec, and they are most needed in mid team fights. So in turn, I’ve made a build I’m calling the “Minion Master Foxhole”.. You have the ability to bunk 2 players and possibly 3 if a roamer could assist you.. and have enough dps to take even spirit rangers and roamers down quickly. If your interested in being given a lesson on how the build plays, then message me in game. I’m currently ranked 52(NA) for solo queue, and looking for a solid team to play with to up my team ranks more.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.5.1.4.21.18.33.33.5.5.106.113.114.112.129.8.8.30.305.309.0.0.0.0.333.340.0.347.352.356.0.0.0.20.0.20.30.0

Your role with this build is to hold home, or points in general.. If your on a team with a bunker/boon guardian, or a spirit ranger, you can allow them to go to the team fight to assist with there boons and team abilities. I don’t have a video recording software, so I cannot record at the moment, but like I said, if you want to learn how the build plays out, message me in game

~Cryptographic

This is not a new build. This is a long well known minion power build thats been out and about for a few months now.

Cause Dhuumfire + terror hurts ridiculous amounts while also having you cc’d. They just need to turn dhuumfire into Torment and everything will be a-okay.

spoj.9672:

If your going 30 in soul reaping for deathly perception and you want more survivability. Take valkyrie gear instead of knights (always have beserk trinkets). You will lose some precision out of DS but your damage will be just as good in DS. Plus you will have more hp and more lifeforce in DS. Beserker will allow you to consistantly do damage but for a deathly perception build you can sacrifice some crit chance without effecting dps too much.

Still if you arent worried about survivability, beserker with 30/25/0/0/15 does slightly more damage than 30/10/0/0/30 aslong as your target has 3 conditions on them. It out dpses it even more with more than 3 conditions.

While the single target 30/25/0/0/15 damage is fantastic, its not very flexible as you dont have the range like DS spamming does. And I find being in DS for dpsing is safer as it eats the damage for you isntead of being in your real HP.

This is if you run full zerkers gear, going a shroud build is safer. so 30/10/0/0/30. This especially better when in Fractals with tons of adds, as death perception makes your DS5 and DS4 all crit which does a BUNCH of damage for AOE and having your shroud take the hits.

So big scary melee bosses, lots of adds, a DS build is more flexible and safer. For max dps like COF runs, I would run 30/25/0/0/15. But even in COF, DS is nice especially for slave driver.

Scholar for max dps, otherwise ruby orbs are close enough and much cheaper.

You can stomp in shroud. You just have to time it right.

It makes the necro even more immobilize I feel like im so useless when I run it. Cause you eat all the immobilizes/chills/cripples of your teammates.

So as a personal preference I hate it. But as a dev stand point it ‘should’ be what the necro is built around as support. Taking in teammate condis and transferring it over.

If the signet didn’t transfer immobilizes/chills/cripples I’d love using it.

Andele.1306:

Works quite well in a zerker 30/10/0/0/30 setup with life transfer and wells, but its mostly a useless trait, just like the 25% slower degen and 20% bleed duration for its slot.

Bleed duration isnt that bad. The slower regen is useless though.

And for all the people that go 10 in curses for zerkers, personally I can’t give up the staff. Only 1200 range weapon we got, its good in PvE, and PvP. I love it too much.

Power necros are okay ish in spvp. In WvW its HORRIBLE. Berserker gear for thieves and mesmers just kitten on you, cause the only way to do decent damage is either zerks or knights. But they can just reset and reopen on you knights isnt even worth it. And you dont have the sustained damage nor burst to take em down.

Thievs and mesmers have zero downsides for going full zerks.
It just takes 2 bursts in WvW to kill a power necro. 1 to drain the DS, 2 to finish you off. Its so dumb.

And going soldiers for a power necro is just dumb, you do no damage.

My suggestion is Axe should be a 3 hit combo chain, with the first 2 doing vuln, the last doing cripple for 2s. That or increase the range to 900.

Dark path also needs to either be instant cast or the speed of the projectile needs to increase.

Phenn.5167:

I’ve found it functional in a 100%-crit DS build in PvE. Makes sustain in DS decently viable.

Beyond that, I can’t see the trait being worth a whole lot.

But why would you be in the condi line for a DS build? All that condi damage is wasted and you get a bigger dps increase going into the power line to get the Close to Death 20% if <50%.

Ie, 30 0 10 0 30.

And even still with 100% crit chance, getting a 33% chance to get 1%? You deplete faster than you shoot. Its still a trash trait and not worth even going 10 trait points into, you’d rather just go for more damage.

I think this trait is garbage.

“You have a 33% chance to gain 1% life force on critical hits.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper's_Precision

If you go rabid, you get ~35-50% crit chance.

So 50% crit chance, with 33% chance of a crit getting 1%.

So 0.5 * 0.33 = 0.165 so 16.5% chance to get 1%.

All of our attacks are horribly slow. So the rate of life force you could get is really bad.

Now the devs looked at this and saw that thers a potential to get tons of life force if you use dagger right? True, if this got buffed power necros would get buffed a bit. But it requires dropping 10 points into a condi line. And the thing with life force is its not always the amount of life force, but rather what kills us is that we cant enter death shroud fast enough. 10s is a long time to not be in death shroud, 7s if traited. But even still death shroud damage output is low unless you’re power. But the casting is so slow you can outrange or run around a pillar, and if the two big CD’s (shackles, transfer) are off cd then you lose a lot of pressure.

Power necros also usually got to get real close, either 130 or 600 range to do damage so you’re eating a lot.

And getting enough life force to get back into shroud in that 7-10s is not easy.

A condi necro loses tons of pressure going into shroud, outside of their shackles.

So I’ll look at amulets.

Rabid = this trait is garbage, going into shroud loses tons of pressure
Carrion = you have no crit you cant use this trait very well
Shaman = no crit
Rampager = lack of power and lack of condi damage makes it very lackluster, lack of defense as well (i’ve tried many times)
Berserker = this will be a buff for power necros if you go into the condi line
Knights = buff

This trait should get buffed as the devs were saying “more life force generation!” as they’re going to nerf the damage of terror and/or dhuunfire.

Suggestions are up to 66% of a crit so It’ll sit around 33% chance to get 1% life force if you have 50% crit chance. Or to just go 100% chance of 1% life force on crit. But that might be a bit too much, but you won’t know unless you test it, either internally or public test server or something.

Andele.1306:

Off topic:
Did you see Poplolita.2638s screenshot? Flesh golem is called Chair golem… i kinda wanna that to be a thing.

De chair. = flesh in french. His client is in french.

Druitt.7629:

flow.6043:

Aoe skills prioritize any proc or utility that comes with them on targets that are closest to the center and then going outwards.
So according to that order, once you proc Withering or Dhuum on one target the internal cooldown starts and can’t trigger on the next.

Thanks for the excellent explanation. It explains why, in my experiments with Dhuumfire and marks, I’ve only ever gotten it to proc on one target. Although I’m also not sure that I’ve ever gotten a mark to crit on more than one target. (I’m guessing at a minimum that each target rolls separately to see if it gets crit — against the caster’s crit percentage — rather than a single roll by the caster.)

Each target is its own seperate crit roll. Try playing a power mancer and you’ll see your Putrid Mark (staff 4) crit from anywhere between 2-5k on multiple targets.

Heres my norn pvp and pve.

Sororita.3465:

if youre wanting to do WvW, 1600 toughness minimum, itll suck if you dont atleast get some defensive stats behind ya.

This stat distribution works very well, enough offense to burst and enough defense to get out of a jam. 30/0/10/0/30.

Whatd you use to get that toughness? Knights armor sets, or zerks with mixed items and certain orbs/runes.

I’d rather have it a 3/4s cast time and keep it the way it is. Or if its 1s transfer 1 condi per shot.

I wouldnt go with well of suffering, I’d just add another minion. Also cleric does terrible damage imo even with a minion build. Once your minions are down all your dps is gone. And the only stuff that benefits from your heal is the Mark of bloods and your heals. The well of revival is such a long CD I don’t think its worth it either. kitten ICD and it only heals you for the initial and then people never stay inside for the 10s tics. I would just go minion siphons.

Best attrition classes are ranger and certain thief builds. Necros dont have sustain without severely gimping themselves, nor do we have enough life force regen. And even if we have the life force regen, we gotta wait for a long time to get into our shroud. And even when in shroud we can get cc’d tons so we dont do pressure. Not to mention all of DS is power, and best attrition we have as necro is condi.

Therefore the best attrition classes are those with access to lots of evades and enough condi clears and then enough healing to keep them up while still doing enough damage.

Necros lack of evades make the attrition quite bad as they cant keep up the pressure while staying alive, thus they dont ‘wear’ down the opponent. Necro cc’d loses all pressure and all attrition making it thus moot to think of slowly wearing people down.

Sustain builds with necro boil down to minion builds to maintain pressure, while having healing to keep themselves up. And this becomes counterintuitive to what devs should want people to do as a necro. Not to mention minions can get easily killed in aoe spams take for example a nades engi can EASILY blow them all up in the matter of a few seconds.

My suggestions would be DS should be 8s CD base, and with the 50% trait reduces it down to 4s. DS2 should be instant cast even though the projectile takes a while to travel i’ll be fine with that. Blink would obviously be better but devs said no already to that. So at least make it instant cast with a projectile travel time.

DS1 cast time needs to be reduced and should have a bleed attached to it or something at least, or similar to what they have underwater where they transfer one condi per shot.

Needs to be healing to go through shroud for sure. Maybe at 50% reduced healing or something.

Thing that bothers me with them is they take FOREVER to summon. After a summon, they take like 3-4 seconds to slowly pop from the ground, then they gotta catch up to you. And then the minion AI for them is the absolute worst of any minion. They take the longest to follow the target you’re attacking. Its so dumb.

I don’t like the 1s CD between explosions but I could live with it. I’d prefer no cd between explosions though.

Softspoken.2410:

Berullos.6928:

You know what might be the problem? I just thought about it, it could be the Lyssa runes just have an internal CD of kitten . And since charge is 40s it doesnt trigger if you use it off immediately off cd.

Ya I just tested it myself, it has an internal cooldown thats not listed in the tooltip. So its not a necro bug, its a Lyssa tooltip and rune bug.

Ah, I see. Yeah I think Lyssa has a 40s cooldown? So you can get the proc off the summon, but not off a charge immediately afterwards. But if the golem survives long enough, you get another proc whenever you order it to charge.

Yes.

Softspoken.2410:

Berullos.6928:

If you use Lyssa runes which gives all boons and removes all condis. Flesh golem which they fixed a bit allowed the charge and the summon to benefit from both.

HOWEVER, if you charge someone and don’t wait immediately and queue another skill or something, you do NOT get all the boons which sucks.

If you wait a few seconds you get the boons. This is really problematic especially when you need to rely on it for a stability stomp.

Berullos, are you seeing this in WvW, PvP…? As is, I currently can’t observe it in Heart of the Mists, unless I manage to cancel the charge with the skill I queue next. (I’m a bit hesitant to drop the 15g for a set of Lyssa runes, as well.)

sPvP. Its testable in the mists, just skill queue the charge followed by other attacks. The charge doesnt cancel, it still goes on cd, but the boons dont appear if you skill queue.

You know what might be the problem? I just thought about it, it could be the Lyssa runes just have an internal CD of kitten . And since charge is 40s it doesnt trigger if you use it off immediately off cd.

Ya I just tested it myself, it has an internal cooldown thats not listed in the tooltip. So its not a necro bug, its a Lyssa tooltip and rune bug.

If you use Lyssa runes which gives all boons and removes all condis. Flesh golem which they fixed a bit allowed the charge and the summon to benefit from both.

HOWEVER, if you charge someone and don’t wait immediately and queue another skill or something, you do NOT get all the boons which sucks.

If you wait a few seconds you get the boons. This is really problematic especially when you need to rely on it for a stability stomp.

Anyone who looks at you, you’re going to explode. You have no resets with invis/invuls and going to need someone to babysit you.

I’m a rank 43 necro. He could easily have been beaten. I see that you tried to trait to make your terrors scary. With a condi necro a long duration terror sure has nice damage but you don’t have the burst to make those fears really worthwhile. I would only go 20 in soul reaping for mark life force gain. Or not even dip into soul reaping at all.

Your toughness is terrible. You need as much toughness as possible if you’re using carrions. Also warhorn is bad if you’re condi. You don’t have the burst to scare/pressure people while they’re dazed. Dagger offhand has more aoe control. You need to dodge roll towards the thief more to get the mark procs. Corrupt boon/epi are strong however I feel it very situation and can easily be countered. You should pick utilities that are general purpose isntead of just against players that boon stack. Corrupt boon is also easily dodged/missed because its buggy. And getting a good epi off is rare.

You did not have your wurm out at all if you plan on using it. The wurm continuously fires against thieves once they destealth.

Also you want to cc chain to get the condi stacks doing damage.

Same as it always has been. Slow as hell.

Frostfang which looks cool, is unfortunately a really bad weapon for necros. 600 range is terrible, you might as well go into dagger range and do 2x the damage and pressure. If they buffed axe range to 900 I’d start using it more, but 600 is about 3 steps away from the target.

I suggest if you want to go power necro, go for the incinerator.

The problem lies in the fact, our gap closers are really slow. DS2 takes a while to move, and spectral grasp takes a while to come out as well. Not to mention it gets constantly obstructed all the time. Flesh wurm port takes 1.5s to cast so its not that viable for quick movement all the time.

Necro is really bad in WvW for roaming, its okay in zergs, and decent in siege defense/offense. A power necro generally has low toughness so it gets bursted fast, which is going to happen in WvW, and necros lack stability so you’ll get cc chained and ganked.

Power necros I feel its not worth it going into precision at all. The other secondary trait benefit is condi power which is useless as a power necro. And the traits are not suited for power. Warhorn is nice, however using 20 points just for that isnt worth it.

I would put points either in Soul Reaping for for bigger crit damage and stability on DS. Or more points into Death Magic for toughness. Or you can go blood magic if you want to try that.

If you want to increase the daze duration, use Runes of Mesmer + Sigil of Stun duration.

Additionally the thought of a chill necro, for a power necro doesnt make sense. Sure it slows people down, but doesnt do damage which a power necro is all high constant damage, and it reduces cooldown which is more attrition condi style. You want the condi duration for FEAR length. Since fear is a condition, and taking the 50% fear trait, makes your fears last ridic long.

Epidemic is mostly a condi users traits. Since the damage that is spread is based off your condi damage amount which as a power user, is really low or zero.

Also signet of locust, try it.

spoj.9672:

Either take 30/0/10/0/30 or 0/30/10/0/30 for target the weak. Or if you dont mind losing greater marks or avoiding the staff completely go 30/10/0/0/30 or 10/30/0/0/30. If your building like that I would recommend wells and spectral walk for a stunbreak. When you dont need a stunbreak take blood is power for extra damage.

You can provide some good condi support with a knights wells build. Plague signet + consume conditions. Well of darkness + chilling darkness trait. Weakness on crits aswell. Plus boon stripping on focus, well of corruption and corrupt boon. Only for when you need it though. Not many bosses/mobs use boons. These are all ideas from a dungeon stand point.

Yes, I would definitely go 30/0/10/0/30. Or 30/0/20/0/20. The former for max damage, the latter if you want to be able to get more staff CDs or minions when needed.

Might on DS1, Mark 10%, and 20% more when less than 50%. Greater Marks, DS1 gives vuln, marks give 3%, and Stability.

I would actually do a mix of berserker and knight. You just need the knights for the toughness that berserker lacks. While berserker will provide the majority of the damage in dungeons. You’ll get a nice 50%+ crit bonus damage. Your precision will be ~35-40% which is good enough. The 20% increased damage for less than 50% is huge for a boss. And the 5% increased damage ikitten0% life force is also huge in dungeons when you dont need to swap to DS anytime and just keep daggering.

I would do runes of Strength, consume conditions, blood is power, signet of spite, and last can be whatever, i do locust signet just cause mobility is needed versus some bosses and its convenient. All your damage is autos, auto like a boss. Boost auto damage with might stacks.

You’re really squishy for not that much damage. All that condi damage is wasted when you go into dagger. You have no crit to boost the dagger so there isnt much burst but just decently high normal white damage, non crit.

I agree when you look at the weapons, we were meant to go hybrid but this is not the build to do it with.

You have no defensive traits, and your toughness is nil, you’ll get bursted really easily.

More like nothing is wrong with focus 5 except for the ludicrously long cast time that makes it unviable. Focus 4 has its shortcomings because it has the random bounce.

The charge goes on full recharge, if you give the command while they’re ccd.

I’d have to look into the other signets of other classes if they disappear during transformations to see if its consistent.

Is it intended that Signet of Locust disables while in death shroud? Causing moving slow in shroud bothers me when I’m using signet if locust. The 15% movement trait while in DS is terrible and not worth picking up.

Also golem even though given stability during charge. If it is cc’d while you give the command it doesn’t queue up the skill and attempts to do the ability ‘while in the cc’ and it won’t charge.

Minions ‘thank god’ don’t desummon while in shroud so why should Signet of Power/Signet of Locust not have their effect. I’m not sure if the other signets work in shroud either.

Since minions are utilities and are permanent effects until killed, wouldnt it make sense for signets to be working in shroud as well?

I don’t understand while phantasms are cast time of 1s, can get tankier than our minions, summoned more often and more consistent.

Our minions should also be 1s also or the phantasms should be 1.5s like ours.

1. true.
2. true
3. Only in PvE. In sPvP this is not the case
4. True no tooltip

It makes sense why it could be a lingering effect. However, its probably too ingrained balanced wise to not allow healing while in death shroud, because itd probably make us ‘too’ tanky for the devs and we’d probably get nerfed again.

Practical solution. Don’t stay in death shroud long. Either stay in shroud to block a burst, or gap close, or insta fear, or the AOE channel and then drop out. Using DS1 is a waste of time and DPS AND life force, and you lose all pressure when you use it. Not to mention it gets dodged a lot.

If they made it so I can pop in shroud, shoot a DS1 and drop out, I’d totally do it. But currently it fires WAY too slow for it to be worthwhile.

I think my idea is pretty straightforward and easy to implement.

Condition: Defile
-Reduce duration of boons.

Boon: Purify
-Reduce duration of conditions.

Theres already gear in the game that can do these things so its already implemented in the game. And theres gear that can increase condition duration/boon duration.

Other suggestions: Reduce crit chance but we already have the ‘opposite’ which is blind in Anet’s mind.

You could also do reduce crit damage %. And a boon that increases crit damage %.

The only problem with the crit damage stuff is it starts going towards ‘weakness’ condition territory.

Move your deathshroud to a different key. I moved mine to my Caps locks which is actually to my computer thinks is a Ctrl key.

With traited 30SR you have stability for 3s (+boon duration) which will barely cover the stomp.

At 10s CD for 3s+ of stability we are technically the best stompers in the game if thats what your job is if you can master the deathshroud stomp.

The ONLY other one that can stomp as well as us is a Ele who has gotten the stability on earth switch. Ele class mechanic of switching.

You can stomp/rez in deathshroud. You can also stomp/rez in plague form. Start the stomp/rez and then go plague.

Bhawb.7408:

No, making a lower CD lowers the skill cap; there is barely any punishment for being bad already.

Focus 5 is the same thing, it is supposed to be a hard to hit ability.

Oh ya? Then whyd they give flanking strike/larc strike for thief lets you steal boons. The casting time of of focus 5 is too long. 1&1/2 seconds is horrible. 3 energy for an invul/evade and then 1 energy for a boon steal? How is that ‘not’ easy. Its also way better than focus 5 doing damage for more boons stripped. Not to mention it can be spammed since its energy dependent like all other thief skills.

You can port anywhere a thief/ele can port.

You can port from below battle kylo through the floor to the center mid point. You can port from below the trebs to above it. You can port up to the walkways.

Foefire you can port up both ledges its just really finicky.

Nilfel you can port up to the side ledges overlooking the mid poin if you’re to the side of the stairs just like a thief can port up with his arrow teleport.

The main drawback is its 40s CD. And the cast time is atrocious. I wish the cast time was like 1/4 or 3/4 at the most. 1 & 1/2 seconds to cast a minion is horrible. Who ever thought that was a good idea needs to die. And then you expect someone to try to use minions in pvp.

Hunter pets have no cast time in issuing commands or summoning/swapping pets.

Zenith.7301:

Death shroud you use for spike absorption, the fear, and maybe chasing with dark pact.

If you’re a power build, your life blast might hit hard but in that case your dagger auto hits harder.

You go into SR for the stability trait mainly or the half DS cd trait. No other reason to go into it.

You go in for stability and last gasp. Last gasp is amazing. And then the trait for LF for mark hit is also extremely good. I don’t know of any builds that do well with the 5s DS.

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Donedusted.9846:

Oh, so if the target has Aegis up then it will only corrupt Aegis? Erk. That’s really not great. So I would have to use Well or focus 5 first, then Corrupt Boon?

I can’t say what I told you is right or not. When I use Corrupt Boon I still get the “Blocked” faceroll message on warriors/guardians and they don’t get their boon corrupted.

Anyway a simple autoattack is fine before shoot Corrupt Boon.

It works versus Aegis. Its just actual block moves where they say “blocks next 1-3 attacks” will stop it. And you gotta see them do it , so you dont attack them while they have that up. Also gotta watch for dodges and the range.

And the main issue i have with it, like said above is the fact it actually has a cast time associated with it, but its not listed.

I did a massive post on it, and it wasn’t very popular/talked about.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-Shroud-Stomping-Reviving-Exploit-or-Bug-my-Hotjoin-sPvP-Match-video-inside/first#post592745

And yes, I’ve tried it Post November 15 patch. Death shroud stomping is still viable after the patch and I can do revives and stomps easily.

The thing is, after downed healths have been decreased to 75% of what they used to. Its not ‘as’ needed to death stomp.

The death shroud revival is still useful but the stability isnt needed and you can do that outside of the trait.

Here’s a quick tip for those not using the trait. Load the body up with conditions while people are ressing. And then epidemic the body so the person rezzing gets hit by kittenons of conditions. And then use blood is power, it makes all the conditions do massive damage. If you do this right, you’ll end up with tons of downed people cause they tried to res and ended up eating tons of conditions.

Methods of stomping vary in effectiveness.

Ranger haste stomp is easily the worst way of stomping. The pet swap for 2 seconds of haste is NOT enough to get the full stomp hasted. So while it does increase the speed of the stomp it can be easily interrupted by the Downed 2 ability. Quickening Zephyr will cover the fulll duration and make the fastest stomp, however that is a utility cooldown which you won’t always have access to.

Guardian stand your ground again is a utility, you wanna complain about Aegis stomps which is their profession ability. It can be used mid stomp, which can also be traited to give stability when using. That is only a MASTER trait compared to a grandmaster trait that we have.

Haste/Balanced stomp are both utilities. They are ‘probably’ the second worst at stomping. Their utilities at least give stability.

Thieves stealth stomp, and haste stomp so you cant really stop them. They can also teleport stomp, shadow step away, shadowstep back as the stomp lands. Additionally blind stomps with blinding powder and the likes.

Engineers, elixer S stomp AND the throw profession for them, but thats mainly it. The throw is unreliable and a fairly long CD, so they aren’t ‘that’ great either.

Elementalists are probably one of the best stompers if you trait for the grandmaster Earth trait of stability on 2 seconds. With 20 arcane, and max earth, you’ll be possible to stomp every 8-9 seconds. Attunement swaps can be used midstomp, mid everything.

Now necro, we can potentially be one of the top stompers besides Elementalist. Ours is grandmaster as well, but its on 10s CD and requires life force. THe benefit is the fact its not our ‘real’ health while doing it making it EXTREMELY good. Not to mention you can fear while stomping.

Mesmer distortion is their main stomping besides many other methods. I think they can chaos storm stomp as well, besides stealth stomping with Decoy.