Guild Wars 2

I’m just gonna go out on a whim and say this thread went terribly.

Also, I’m a necro, 23K deathshroud? they either popped their all spectral skills before enterring DS or you’re exaggerating.

Out of interest, did you ruin the necro in the next 8s with a further 23K damage?

I play p/v/t necro and have 17-18K DS tops.

just saying.

Really nice video OP.
thought I’d share what I’m running.

I’m currently using 0/30/10/0/30,
soldiers amulet and earth runes,
weakening shroud, banshees wail and spectral attunement, shrouded removal, spectral recharge, DS recharge and stability on DS.
Dagger/Warhorn and Axe/Dagger.
consume conditions, spectral armor, spectral grasp, spectral walk and plague form.
This is a brilliant build in my opinion, a real mix of CC, condi and power.
very rewarding if played properly.
In thr OP’s build I wouldnt use the DM trait to cause vuln while in DS, I would take either reapers protection or retal on heal.

I thought spectral armor was buffed recently to still be passively granting LF ‘on hit’ while in DS but after reading the tool tip it states that the effect is cancelled when you enter DS .

Is this just a tool tip error? Or did I just dream that Spectral Armor got buffed?

maybe the abominations in cursed shore? they never used to be that big when The game was released and they charge like the golem does?

the closest I could think of.

I would recommend a set up like this 0/30/20/20/0 for PvE conditionmancer.

main weapon set would be scepter/dagger, second set staff.

take enfeeble, master of corruption and lingering curses in curses, either shrouded removal or staff recharge AND greater marks in death, take mark of evasion and possibly dagger recharge reduction in blood.

I used that build for soo long back in the day. you can actually do a lot of variations within the 0/30/20/20/0 spec and choose mostly what traits you want.

I would advise running consume conditions, blood is power, epidemic and the poison/weakness field OR spectral walk OR locust signet.

this will enable you to stack high bleeds and spread it to everyone around (up to 5 of course)

if this doesnt work for you try a wells build, will give a bit more utility and a different dynamic to condi necro game play, though a condi necro should never be seen without epidemic in PvE

Luke.4562:

Hey thank you to remember us how to play Necromancer!

You don’t argue, or you just do it on things which are better for you, you just show something you made and other players LET you make.

Do you think this is the best way to make a name for yourself or…
Do you think this is a good way to contribute the Necromancer Community?

Again, your attitude is discordant, declare please what’s this thread about, please.

Trying to make a name for myself? I’m simply sharing my experience with the necromancer class and some tips on how to play it as a DPS attrition spec, are you trying to make a name for yourself? being so confrontational on a community forum, you got something to prove?

if I wanted to argue with you I would, but I don’t, so I will talk to the people that offer advice or ask questions before I speak to the likes of you.

I’m sure you’ll come back and say ’you’re contradicting yourself again, saying you won’t speak to me before you speak to others’ and to that I say… ‘Meh, here’s a gold star for your tremendous trolling’…

also to Spoj, thank you for your advice on the 15/25/0/0/30, I’m actually experimenting on my hybrid gear with your 20/25/0/0/25 build and it seems very powerful indeed! will get my zerk gear on in a minute and give it a real tester.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Attrition is not the same as taking the longest to die. It’s outlasting my opponents by chipping away their strength while preserving my own.

You also state : “it is the simple case of carefully picking your fights and positioning yourself intelligently, being smart with traits and utilities, and fighting on your terms as much as possible.” That’s the reason you die last, not because of class mechanics or utility skills.

Your arguments are contradictory.

Chipping away at their strengths?

whilst fighting boon dependant classes I can remove 4 boons on a relatively short CD.
whilst fighting mobility dependant classes I can soft and hard CC the enemy numerous times (dagger #3, focus #5, axe #3, war horn #4 and #5, DS #2 and #3 could even add #5 to that list too if you count torment as a soft CC) I can do all of this at range.
CC dependant classes (warrior I’m looking at you) are harder to deal with, but some well timed CC of our own and boon stripping to get rid of that stability they’re so fond of, immob them, get some space and LB them to wittle them down, dropping WoS, popping other skills to burst them down and I find its often a decent fight, not lost to many warriors in a 1v1 situation (not claiming to have fought the best of the best).

you have a fair point saying that the reason I die last is because I play in a somewhat smart manner, but I couldn’t play smart if my class didn’t allow me to,
what I mean is, I can afford to go full zerk on necro because of the change to vital persistence, and how my traits and weapons synergise to keep my LF full,
if I didn’t have the tools to kite my enemies while blasting them to death, I simply couldn’t do it.
not many classes have the ability to inflict 3-5k damage at 1,200 range every 1 second (truthfully more like 1.5 seconds) with access to fear chill and decent AoE pressure as they do it,
so I argue that the class mechanic and utilities are the reason I’m staying alive for the most part.

spoj.9672:

Question.

Why 20/20/0/0/30? You could improve dps so much by going 20/25/0/0/25.

I use 20/20/0/0/30 because the 100% crit chance in DS is too valuable to drop, if anything I’d go 15/25/0/0/30 but I’d probably be better off going 10/30/0/0/30 in that case and pick up spectral attunement aswell as banshee’s wail and reapers precision,

The 100% crit chance in DS is where I get my damage and survivability from, LB for 3-5k and life transfer for 4-6k. My survivability comes from the synergy between reapers precision and 100% crit in DS,

if I can see a burst attack coming my way, want to apply AoE pressure ‘on point’ or am looking to get more LF, I can prepare for it by using war horn #5, dropping my well of suffering, entering DS and using the #5 and #4 skills 1 after the other, this fills my LF bar surprising amount and if your being focused it will often (not always) mitigate the incoming damage to the point that by the time you are out of DS you can see enemy downed, using DS #2 intelligently to create the gap between you and the players ‘training’ you gives you enough time to heal, and start building LF again.

I also like being able to switch out my crit in DS to stability in DS whilst doing fractals if I need to.

that is my reasoning Spoj, I guess your build is higher DPS than mine, but mine would stay alive for longer.

I feel that necromancers are very strong, I see alot of threads complaining that we have no effective attrition, and thats not entirely true, if you know the class well enough and know your skills and their purpose, our attrition is actually veryy good (minus the lack of stealth, leaps and vigor).

playing my full zerk necro I find I am often the last man standing in PvP and the same in PvE.

Build: 20/20/0/0/30
the only defensive traits I take are reapers precision and vital persistence (PvP I take Spectral recharge trait instead of DS skills recharge trait)

it is the simple case of carefully picking your fights and positioning yourself intelligently, being smart with traits and utilities, and fighting on your terms as much as possible.

rant over.

I think this is a great idea.
As mentioned above, I think 10% would be a bit OP but maybe 5% would be fair and just enough to negate the incoming damage of the CC that landed.

Hello Tsang,

Thank you for your input it was very helpful, if sigil of water does get changed to ‘on hit’ I will run both renewal after after stacks.

I agree with you that life transfer is easier to land than well of blood but the 2 combined are great for you and allies when face tanking powerful mobs. I will see about build variations etc and see if I can make a DS centric healing build, if life blast healed when passing through allies that’d be a fun one to play with!

Thanks again

I would use protection on wells byt wouldn’t use targetted wells. as I am mostly melee ill be in the fray and could just drop the wells at my feet.

traits set up:

with minons – 20/0/20/30/0

without minions – 15/0/25/30/0

I get satisfaction out of coming up with different ways of playing my favourite classes, EVEN IF IT ISN’T OPTIMAL.

that being said, I was messing around with my necro last night and tried stacking as much healing power as I could, without any ascended gear I reached just shy of 2,000 healing power.

now lets say healing necros were viable and that DPS wasnt the only way to play this game, what would you use to maximise your healing output?

well of blood is an obvious choice, it’s 10s duration and close to 1,000 hp gained per second makes it great for group support.

the traits for healing on DS #4 (6,000hp heal for allies) and leaving DS ( 1,140 hp gained for you and allies) are also strong choices.

mark of evasion too? regen ticking at 394per sec is also nice for group support. or vampiric master? not effected by healing power but still strong.

im using dwayna runes at the moment, is this optimal for this spec?

also using axe/focus and dagger/warhorn, lots of LF regen and Hp regen too.
staff would be a good choice but is it optimal in a power support build?

what sigils would you take (after stacking sigil of life)? heal on weapon swap? heal when you kill a foe?

any ideas etc would be great.

I KNOW THIS IS NOT A GOOD DPS BUILD. JUST HAVING FUN.

maybe a slight modification to your idea would be any LF generated while in DS i.e. life transfer, enemy deaths etc will also affect your actual health pool for the same number or less dependant on balancing.
this would bring a new dynamic to DS knowing that when your minions or enemies die you could pop DS to heal up etc.
Just a thought.

I like the idea alot, though I think the numbers would have to be so small for balance purposes.
I know not many agree, but our siphoning is quite good at the moment if you spec fully into it and this would be pretty OP in my opinion coupled up with full minion siphoning and permanent regen, especially as minion builds generally run axe/focus and dagger/warhorn which are great at building LF.
for condi builds it would be underwhelming, power builds would be another story.

bleed, poison, cripple, weakness, fear, immobilise, blind.
all from minion actives and weapon sets.
of course you would be running scepter/dagger and staff.

Anchoku- Thats probably it!
I dont want to share too much but essentially the 20 traits you would normally place in spite, go into curses, in pvp this means you can still take (a low ticking) terror and in pve means you get a bit extra bleed duration and an extra way to apply weakness and a further bleed stack. I have played it with full rabbid gear too but I prefer it on apothecary spec, its very rewarding if played right.
the minion active skills are fun to play with too, the shadow fiend is a good LF generator and helps with stomps (blind) which everyone knows is an issue with pvp necro, the teleport from worm is incredible and has saved me lots of times, immobilise from bone fiend improves our kiting even furher, blasts from bone minions for near to perma weakness and helpfull in other fields and charge from the big guy are also great fun to play with.
I find its a compromise to the hybrid glassy spec everyone seems to be running, the player deals with applying the conditions and the minions deal the direct damage.

Lagerfueled – as a side note, axe/focus would be more optimal than scepter/dagger in a minion build due to the vulnerability application, but I find I’m likely doing more damage than my minions 90% of the time so I figure why buff their damage when I can do my lwn? buffing your damage as a collective rather than just setting your minions up to do the damage for you.
I find this a real asset in pvp as your minions arent always reliable (AI issues) its good to not be completely reliant on minion damage.

also play what you want to play, just because someone says something isnt optimal doesn’t mean its not fun.

I run full apothecary with undead runes when going MM. 1300+ healing power, 1200+ condi damage, 21k+ hp and 2800 toughness is nothing to turn your nose up at.
with the correct traits, sigils and a successful rotation I can hit a spike of up to 20 bleeds, with full minion utilities thats a hole lot of DPS with a surprising amount of survivability.
regen ticking at about 287 a sec and the passive siphoning from minions is more than enough to keep you on your feet.
I’m new to MM but a necro old timer and don’t know why I havent played it sooner.

I guess the reason you see everyone running soldier stats with MM is because its a strong bunker spec, you can run mostly any stats with MM spec and make it work in your own way if you know what you’re doing.

does it even matter?

it would make sense for them to put you in combat stsnce as they are meant to be used in combat.

is this a troll post?

Travlane.5948:

Bull Zooker.1672:

Travlane.5948:

lets drop the hypotheticals and look at what it is.

aint happening. if u dodge 2 of these you will have 85% hp and the thief 0 init.

this is a l2p issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIv0lboqzZg

except when one jumps you mid fight, you have 0 dodges and 50-60% hp after having a good fun fight with someone. then out of the blue you get jumped by a burst thief using nothing but heart seeker annd your previously fun fight is now a rather frustrating ‘I just got owned by a noob cos heart seeker is too powerful even when used by someone with no idea what theyre doing’ moment. (I dont think heart serker is OP but I think high damaging skills need to have some sort of cool down to separate them or a minimal level of skill to land, heart seeker has non of those things)

heart seeker spam literally makes me cringe.

as a result I try to avoid using it at all costs on my thief.

so what is wrong with this? you know how many times i caught eviserate to the face when i was at 40% after killing somebody? this is a case of kitten happens bro. not a OP issue. lol cmon. would u say the same if you had 5%? no of course not. its a circumstantial thing. would u say the same if u had 90%? no of course not. cmon now this is just silly

how often can a warrior hit eviscerate? how often can a thief hit heartseeker? no comparison.

also saying ‘kitten happens’ is great. except when there’s more kitten happening than anything else then theres an issue.

personally I dont have too many problems with thieves but I think the heartseeker effectiveness with very little skill needed is frustrating to see.

I spectated a thief and for the entire match I saw nothing but heartseeker. not a single auto attack. this thief was horrendous but still downed alot of players.

im enjoying my healing guardian with new symbol and meditation changes.

I main a necro, but dabble in most other classes and finding this fun at the moment. I can face tank most content with clever use of utilities and weapon skills, which is more fun to do on guard than it is necro.

bobross.5034:

Bull Zooker.1672:

Travlane.5948:

lets drop the hypotheticals and look at what it is.

aint happening. if u dodge 2 of these you will have 85% hp and the thief 0 init.

this is a l2p issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIv0lboqzZg

except when one jumps you mid fight, you have 0 dodges and 50-60% hp after having a good fun fight with someone. then out of the blue you get jumped by a burst thief using nothing but heart seeker annd your previously fun fight is now a rather frustrating ‘I just got owned by a noob cos heart seeker is too powerful even when used by someone with no idea what theyre doing’ moment.

heart seeker spam literally makes me cringe.

as a result I try to avoid using it at all costs on my thief.

Every class has a glass cannon build or 3 that can accomplish the exact same thing with a different skill / combo. Warriors with rifles, for example, could do it by one shotting you as you stomp – where’s the skill in that? Barely winning a fight and immediately having to fight again without a reset is almost like a 2v1…and so if the game is reasonably balanced, you will be at a disadvantage. There is no dishonor in losing an outnumbered fight. There is a bit of dishonor in whining about it.

the fact that a kill shot has a cast time, on a 10s CD untraited and you need the resources to fire it off and the need for smart positioning makes the skill balanced.

its the complete opposite for heart seeker, other than yhe minimal resources it costs of course.

im not whining about losing an outnumbered fight, that was an example of heart seeker spamming out side of the perfect scenario for the “victim”

also there in NO honor in playing video games.

Travlane.5948:

lets drop the hypotheticals and look at what it is.

aint happening. if u dodge 2 of these you will have 85% hp and the thief 0 init.

this is a l2p issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIv0lboqzZg

except when one jumps you mid fight, you have 0 dodges and 50-60% hp after having a good fun fight with someone. then out of the blue you get jumped by a burst thief using nothing but heart seeker annd your previously fun fight is now a rather frustrating ‘I just got owned by a noob cos heart seeker is too powerful even when used by someone with no idea what theyre doing’ moment. (I dont think heart serker is OP but I think high damaging skills need to have some sort of cool down to separate them or a minimal level of skill to land, heart seeker has non of those things)

heart seeker spam literally makes me cringe.

as a result I try to avoid using it at all costs on my thief.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

To put it in context: Axe 2 will generally hit for 4.8-6.6k, but LB on the same target is 4.0 to 4.4k (Orr mobs). Axe 2 has 2.25 cast time, DS is 1s.

I dunno – I think LB with 30/10/0/0/30 edges out Axe 2 for damage.

like I mentioned up there ^^ why not use axe #2 then life blast while axe is on CD? then you get both and its irrelevant which one is stronger.

I use life blast when my other skills are on CD or when im primarily melee and need the range.

my favourite thing about patch day is reading peoples reactions to it on the forums. honestly its hilarious.

though I do think they nerfed spectral skills with the 1 sec cool down.

I think the important thing to remember here is this game, is a game…

the only other complaint I have is how after each patch I feel like I need to re-learn building my necro.

MethaneGas.8357:

I don’t take burning or fear damage and I’m just fine

I wasnt either for a while. and thought id do my usual bleed spec and was doing well.

I then tried the burning terror spec in a couple hot joins. I used 30/20/20/0/0 with reapers protection for fear on CC and greater marks in death.

I got so many kills it was ridiculous -19 in first match and 16 in second. its VERY powerful. new terror damage was bearable, with all our other conditions adding to it.

anyone else taking plague signet now we have to pick some traits in spite? ive gone for spectral wall, epidemic and plague signet and the signet adds alot of opportunities in comparison to the usual spectral walk. though I do miss the swiftness and the “duking”

I made a bald norn thief last night, as small height-wise as he can be but as broad as possible, dark skinned with red tattoos and a ginger moustache, couldn’t be happier with my weird creation.

I like how the moustache is still visible when he wears his hood!

I have a charr and an asura.
I use the charr for my power builds i. e. axe and dagger main hand
I use my asura for condition builds i. e. scepter and staff mainhand.
I did this because asura are more ‘magical’ than charrs. and charrs are more menacing than asuras.

oh and cosmetically my asura uses tier 2 cultural because I like it, my charr has tier 2 cultural as well (I think) also the dry bones armor on charr and the karma set minus the head piece from straights of devistation (you can get this from wvw badge vendors)

theres not many nice sets for light armor but a few are pretty swanky.

HiSaZuL.2843:

This is like all the utube videos where people show off their amazing melting people builds. Against people with no clue and underleveled people. Some at least are honest that they pick off underleveled players because its safest.

Grandiose scenarios that people love to throw around how they solo 3+ people/the whole team etc. Yeah great… I also had moments when team balance went to kitten and in my team next lowest rank after me was 50. On other side highest was 6. And I managed to kill half the team solo next to their spawn then the rest moped up the ones that tried to go after nodes and entire game was basically 1 team killing the other at their spawn. Yeah… must mean necros are op.

If a competent thief that goes for max damage wants you dead in wvw you will die. Unless you are with a zerg and even then a good thief can manage to wreck you in the middle of zerg then stomp you and leave. We nether have stability nor enough spamable escapes to deal with a good thief solo.

If you are having fun trying to make this work thats good. Just don’t confuse people and give some bizzare idea thakittens going to be viable in spvp where you can’t outgear/outlevel people. Like I said a proper warrior with hammer will toss you around entire map and w/o stability you are nothing but a punching bag to him. And a proper guardian will simply move in, throw you out and you won’t budge him from there ever again.

Azure summed it up… anything you can “possibly” do a guardian,ele and even engineer can do infinitely better as far as bunkering and survivability solo in spvp goes.

Also… wells… are the biggest checks in this game if person you are fighting knows what they are doing or not. Someone that knows better will never get scared or even pressed by wells. They are the easiest aoes around to avoid because they are FLASHY as hell and have a gigantic cooldown while they don’t last nearly enough to justify their use in spvp. Its like a condition staff mesmer. Great… except when you fight someone that can tell the difference between a clone and not a clone. Then it instantly turns into not so great spec.

if you think this is one of ‘those’ YouTube videos boasting about how epic I am (which i am pretty epic :P) you are sorely mistaken or I have maybe not explained what I wanted to to the right effect.

I am trying to say how durable this build is, not how much DPS it has, so me holding 3 players attention for 3 minutes is great for my team so they have an easier time with the other 1 or 2 players. I never mentioned my raw DPS output wiping entire teams.

and the point about wells is irrelevant in my opinion as im using them as survivability tool, the only damaging well I take is corruption and if they want the point im sat on they’ll have to stand in it.

im not sure I understand what you’re saying in your post, I mean I get that you (and everyone else) thinks that eles and guardians are better bunkers, but it doesn’t mean necro cant bunker. if my spec was played by a very competent player it would be great. I am better than your average player and do well with it and im no pro.

ive not ‘given up’ on the bunker necro, but ive tried to make a very resilient debuffer and support build, 1500 healing power without stacks and an ‘ok’ amount of damage.

15/15/10/30/0

we’ve mentioned stability but you have to sacrifice too much and the whole idea around the build breaks down when we put 30 into SR.

the only difference in this set up is that ive taken consume conditions over well of blood. The extra condition removal is priceless.

anyways ill continue to try make a bunker but for now im having fun with this and annoying the hell out of everyone by being very hard to kill.

azuzephyr.7280:

To me there’s big issues with synergy in the traits around bunkering

Flashing for stability is going to make a big cut into the only two pseudo-bunker utilities you might spec for [spectral armor/walk], which reduces your EHP by big amounts. Other than that we have wells, and if you end up using wells then you are doing yourself a poor service by not running with a well-based bunker build.

The well build has much better synergy, but like others have pointed out, trying to bunker without stability is going to neutralise a point quickly. Taking the spec which gives us stability cuts away big amounts of EHP, limits our utility choices and takes away five damage/utility abilities.

Bunkering just isn’t our thing currently, for bunkering with deathshroud we’d need; healing in death shroud, access to utilities/heal in deathshroud, stomping/ressing in shroud. And honestly, I wouldn’t bank on those coming any time soon, or likely ever. Non-bunker specs do fine without them.

We do have some pesky/hard to kill builds using wells but there’s stilll currently no reason to want one over say a guardian who would also bring massive group utility or an ele who could put out big aoe healing and cleansing, both of which are infinitely better at ressing/stomping

the synergy in traits is exactly what im struggling with. I mean the synergy is great if you don’t want stability. but that is what seems to be necessary for bunkering.

trying to find a good compromise is proving difficult.

lettucemode.3789:

I was experimenting with a well/siphon build a while ago. Check my sig for the “watch the health bar” link. It’s very effective at staying alive, but like Mammoth said it lacks stability so at higher levels of play (which I don’t play in atm) it could be difficult to hold the point. There are a few clips where I get bounced around quite a bit.

If I ever try it again I would ditch the 10/0/30/30/0 build for something like 0/0/10/30/30, get boon duration runes, and flash DS while siphoning as much as possible. Solider or Cleric ammy.

Anyway, give the vid a watch and see if it helps you.

thanks for sharing the link lettuce, some impressive fights in there! I have improved my build a little bit by going 5/15/20/30/0 though the 5 in spite could probably be better used in curses.

the lack of stability is a real pain but I love the other traits so mich (targeted wells, lose condition when you enter DS etc) that I cant go that deep into soul reaping without ruining what I found works for me.

ive gone full clerics and 5 runes of the grove with 1 of water for extra healing.

the siphoning has improved so much since that video was posted, just think if we had more acces to stability we’d be unkillable.

sas.6483:

I run vampiric / wells builds similar to this in both WvW (0/30/10/20/10, used to run 0/20/10/30/10) and PvP (0/10/10/20/30). For both I choose to run pretty much all PVT gear, so I don’t run well of blood.

In WvW, vampiric is nice; it ups my damage by about 5-10% and gives a reasonable trickle of heals that is noticable and helps compensate for incidental damage. I don’t think 30 points for siphoning wells is worthwhile, considering their cooldowns. The 10 points in soul reaping is again noticable – the gain in life force and the reduced life force decay is nice. The lack of stability from not going 30 points into SR sucks however. I often wonder if I’d rather play 0/30/10/0/30, but then I think I’d miss the heals from vampiric, so it’s a catch-22.

In PvP, I need to caveat that I am a rabbit newb that runs solo hotjoin and then tries to bunker points, rather than roaming around in a zerg. I initially ran without 30 points in SR (0/10/10/30/20 if I remember right), and the lack of stability was terrible so I had to adjust. The 10 points in spite are for Weakening Shroud; for sitting on points targeted wells doesn’t seem to me to be required. Originally I ran with 3 wells, and am playing around with dropping one for Spectral Armor… it’s a work in progress.

Thanks to Mammoth for the build posts, I’ll be looking at those closely.

nice post sas thank you.

sounds interesting, I have been thinking about 2 builds focused around wells, 1 being with stability the other with serious protection up time.

last night was the first time in game I tested something and went and bought the gear straight away. for me I think clerics is awesome with all the siphoning well of blood etc.

I will play around with different traits etc and keep you posted idf I find anything to be a major success

you have a point. I run carrin on my necro as I feel much more survivable than rabbid. the conditions still hurt, but theyre more manageable.

the best way to test your theory would be to duel a condition class with both set ups andsee how you get on.

yea I was looking to move that 10 points somewhere else. maybe 5 more curses for fury and 5 in spite for heal on killing opponents.

though the chilling darkness is not necessary it would be great for plague as well. Would definitely miss the extra damage from suffering though.

I might look at making a spectral bunker build too as I love the spectral skills and that would enable me to pick up stability while having multiple stun breaks.

thanks for the input.

Mammoth.1975:

It’s not about being stunlocked down. That’s the least of your worries as a high EHP necro, even guards are easier to spike down in a cc chain.

It’s about being knocked off the point and getting decapped or being unable to stomp and revive with stability. These are the basic bunker functions that you need to be able to perform. Being hard to kill is pointless if you can’t control the node or contribute properly to teamfights, because no one actually has to kill you if you can’t do those things.

do you think a if I switched out well of suffering for well of darkness and picking up the chilling darkness trait that would go some way to resolve that issue? would help with stomps, mitigation etc.

Also thanks for your honesty.

any chance you could share the bunker build you find effective?

HiSaZuL.2843:

2 warriors and your bunker necro will turn into a ping pong. 1 guardian will throw you off node and then you will never step back. 1 thief will simply 2 shot you in your clerics gear thru ds while u sit in well of blood.

I had 4 people in a hot join trying to kill me for quite some time at ‘the mine’ including a thief, ranger warrior and guardian. I was far from 2 shotted and actually downed the guardian (mustve been a bad player)

give it a go before writing it off. bare in mind protection uptime is very good so 2780ish armor isn’t all that’s absorbing the damage.

I know the lack of stability is not good for bunkers, but I fought 2 warriors yesterday (not stun lockers) and just sat there and ate their burst and healed through it.

the lack of stability is why I took plague form so when I do get in trouble I have a OH kitten button.

I did suffer from lack of stability but my ability to heal constantly and consistently was enough to compensate. in my opinion.

also smart use of wail of doom is a great counter to telegraphed skills. (im sure this isnt news to you)

do you have any other bunker necro builds that are effective in your opinion?

auras would be awesome :-)

Anchoku.8142:

Aphix.9846:

Try and not build into a bunker necro, you become useless …

This is what I think Arenanet needs to look at real hard instead of buffing dps. Make the bunker-Necromancer useful.

I would disagree with you guys having made a very support oriented necro bunker myself. see my vampire bunker thread for details if you’re interested.

I can out heal incoming DPS (to a degree) convert my team mates conditions to boons while applying protection and also converting enemy boons. and the AoE heal on well of blood is very helpful in pvp when holding a point with team mates.

I haven’t moved BiP epidemic and spectral walk off my bar for a couple weeks (other than certain dungeon boss fights).

probably the best stun breaks necro has.

would appreciate some feedback on this, have you tried this before? Going from 3k hp back up to 23k in about 5s is sooo satisfying when the opposition think they’ve killed you.

the siphoning ‘on hit’ ticks for 50, the wells siphoning tick for about 60 and the dagger #2 ticks for 410 and my well of blood ticks for over 710, I think that is a big improvement on before.

any thoughts are appreciated.

thinking about moving the 10 in soul reaping, I may put 5 into spite for the extra occasional heal (when you and your team/zerg kill something) and 5 more into curses for some much needed crit chance through fury.

any suggestions from you guys where the 10 points in soul reaping could be moved to?

saying deathshroud limits your DPS potential makes me wonder how long you’ve spent playing the class… because of DS I can do about 16k – 20k AoE dmg by popping DS after dropping a well or two and life transferring. the new deathly perception trait is something I advise you play around with if you think DS limits your DPS potential.

in condition builds I use DS offensively too, stacking bleeds chill and torment.

DS is amazing.

I was playing around with bunker builds earlier as I saw multiple people complaining about how necro is bad as a bunker.

I went 0/10/20/30/10 though the 10 in soul reaping could go some where else.

used dagger/warhorn and axe/focus

all utilities were wells (I know, cringe) obviously well of blood, corruption, suffering and power. plague form elite.

blood – i picked up wells recharge, 50% better siphoning and wells siphon.

death – lose a condi on entering DS and wells apply protection.

curses – ground targeted wells.

soul reaping – DS degenerates 25% slower.

clerics amulet and earth or grove runes.

I was a very effective bunker in pvp and had very good sustain in wvw, though killing stuff isnt easy, about 4% precision… was fighting a group of 4 for about 5 minutes before my CD’s were up and they killed me.

pvp is vey effective as a point holder.

siphoning is stronger than I thought now, try it out and leave feedback if you have the time (and the urge to bunker)

bleed isnt removed first I have experienced this as a necro. my understanding is movement impairing conditions are removed first, I think poison is removed before bleeding too. theres an order to the removal priority I just don’t know it all.

I want to use stomp too. the CC in this game brings me so much joy!

death from above – best/coolest fall damage trait by far

how to kill a necro – focus DPS, and make them use their cool downs. when theyre out of CD’s they shouldn’t be too problematic