I agree with littlehorn, Soul Reaping. Going to focus on Condition damage? You’ll want dumbfire for sure. Power build? Death Perception. I also really like the vital persistence trait…. and all 3 of the mandatory traits. Its just a really versatile trait line that offers survivability through shroud as well as damage through shroud and works equally great for power or conditions
I think you would do more damage with runes that give +175 power. your gear doesn’t provide enough vitality for it for wurm runes to be worth it.
If you don’t mind spending some gold I definitely recommend Strength or Hoelbrak runes. We have strong might generation and I think overall those runes would net you a decent amount more damage
I’m using both the Dagger and the great sword, and it’s dandy. GS 3 gives me 24% crit chance and 12 stacks of invul. 4 gives me a dark field that I miss now that I don’t use wells, and 5 gives me a chill, damage and some LF. 2 is for executing. I don’t auto with it, that’s where the dagger comes in.
Surprised how everyone is dropping the D/WH instead of the staff. D/WH is amazing, of course GS is falling short when comparing it to that. For power builds is really not about GS vs dagger/WH, but GS vs Staff. Focus just got more viable too with the new chill synergies
I use to run a a very similar build to Viktorus (same weapons and traits) but two things I would definitely change are: Signet of spite- switch to a stun break, I recommend spectral armor or flesh wurm. I would also switch out lich form for Plague form. Plague lets you tank a point for a long time, whereas Lich you don’t gain too much DPS and you just get focused immediately.
Also, I might switch Leeching sigil for something else, healing isn’t efficient with our pitiful toughness (light armor + marauders) and I think a second air rune would be better with marauders. (leeching is great with soldiers or celestial with less crit and more toughess). Energy is great and possible optimal but I’m greedy and go air/fire in both dagger and staff. You want to try to be in Staff before switching to shroud as it has higher base damage and does ~10% more damage than shroud with dagger wielded
But yea that trait/weapon combo is as good as it gets for power based PvP builds available to Vanilla
Dagger + Warhorn. Great Damage, great LF generation, swiftness, Aoe Daze/cripple and immobilization. Considering switching to staff but that means I have to take the Marks generate life force trait, whereas dagger/WH generates more LF untraited. Yea and I need the swiftness so for WvW definitely sticking with D/WH
Don’t the bosses take long time ot burn down? That means a lot of time below 50% HP. With the Death trait line + Gravedigger I could see them being great for taking down bosses
I was going to run valk but decided on zerker anyway. The problem with valk is you are stuck with death perception and decimate defenses. If you don’t go the valk route you can take dhuumfire which ends up being like a 2.3k burn tick on top of your other power damage. It’s pretty insane.
True you get stuck with those traits but in return you get to free up a ton of stats for something other than precision. I don’t know how much precision it takes to get 50% crit but its a lot. With zerk trinkets and valk armor + weapons I have almost 30% cirt and ~28k HP and 220% crit damage. Full zerk you’d have more crit out of shroud, less crit in shroud, and free up the GM trait slot. Basically it comes down to whether you value the HP from Valkyrie or the traits. The vit scales with Shroud too (though its nto as dramatic as on your normal health bar)
Thanks for the responses guys. I decided I’m going to use All Valkryrie + 3-4 zerker trinkets.
I really, really wish there was a Power toughness ferocity stat set, if there were I’d go half that and half valk with a zerk piece or two. (Cavaliers but with with power instead of toughness as main stat)
Power, Toughness, and Ferocity probably wouldn’t work. Most boss/mob will target you if you have too much Toughness. Your goal is to stay in Shroud for as long as possible, so no Toughness.
Interesting, I didn’t know toughness helps determine aggro…. But I was thinking for WvW pruposes, it would allow us greater EHP and more efficient healing to mix it with Valkyrie with our high Base HP
Thanks for the responses guys. I decided I’m going to use All Valkryrie + 3-4 zerker trinkets.
I really, really wish there was a Power toughness ferocity stat set, if there were I’d go half that and half valk with a zerk piece or two. (Cavaliers but with with power instead of toughness as main stat)
I want to take advantage of “Decimate Defense” and “Death Perception” (as well as fury from outside sources) which means I won’t need much precision on my gear. I’m thinking full Valkyrie might be able to provide me with a lot of tankyness while doing similar damage to full zerker gear.
Thoughts? Worth getting a Cavalier/Soldier piece or two? Anyone tried full Valkyrie on reaper?
Really don’t feel like getting to 500 artifice just to make an ascended staff. Any necros out there NOT using a staff? My other weapon is a GS, was thinking maybe Axe to get with it for some range and LF generation. What do you guys think?
I plan on going a mix of valkyrie/zerkers. Necros with their DS/RS might be the tankiest class with dps gear. Also, necros scales well with vitality (more DS pool).
Valk all the way, necro scales nicely with Vitality and lots of ways to get free crit chance, I might have a zerk peice or two but most valk.
I prefer valk to cavalier because of power main stat. If was P/T/F gear I would mix the two but there isnt unfortunately.
Also, Ice runes with Hydro sigils. Wurm aint a bad choice either though if you can maintain really high crit %. Leaning towards Ice but wurm a contender
My prediction: After 3 months of infatuation with the new specializations people will beg for old or “classic” weapons sets to be buffed/rework to compete with the new ones
It was intended that Elite Specializations would be an alternative to standard builds, not a near-mandatory improvement over the base class. Still very plausible, though, as the Elite Specs got a lot of balance work over the BWEs, while e.g. base necro could still use some love.
Of course they say that elites are supposed to be balanced with the rest of the trai lines, but come on, we know that wont be the case at first. They have copies to sell and money to make.
Thats why you roll a Sylvari for medium armor classes. Thier T3 cultural is some of the nicest armor in the game for all weight classes, especially medium IMO. I agree though, medium has the worst choices for cool armor
I use vamp runes because it’s a life saver, I realized that with vamp I can pretty much beat any thief i face. The health leeching is also pretty nice. I mean I can hit incredibly high stats: high armor, high power, high crit, high ferocity, 15k vitality, but then you would have to use signets and critical strikes (trickery and deadly arts for d/p is pretty much a must, I feel like i need shadow arts for condi removal) :P so that isn’t really an option.
I play power mancer with Path of Corruption (DS2 boon rip) which pretty much destroys most classes 1v1. Feel free to eat a full shatter in DS, then DS #2 boon rip him. 90% will pop their good boons early at start of fight. Then 5>4> into 1 spam combo and as soon as #5 procs pop out of DS and finish off with dagger auto attacks.
Thats like perfect scenario but in general- Path of Corruption trait is awesome vs slippery mesmers and their boons, and almost every class, and bait/dodge/eat shatters in Death shroud. Dodging to take no damage is obviously ideal- but lets face it, we’re all human and sometimes the clones are coming from all angles and you dodge and get hit anyway. Don’t be afraid to just tank it in DS
Conditions I cant help ya, but for power necro PoC is the key to kittenting on people in 1v1s
Also, idk if this is still hte case, but I’m pretty sure DS does like 10% mor damage with a 2H equipped so try to time it so that you’re in DH with staff out, but when you pop out of DH ur daggers are up for max DPS
I agree that it is weak, but one thing nobody mentions is allies get the regen as well. Still not a great trait though. I also agree with DFhampyr about the ICD, Soul marks would be out of control otherwise. The should instead buff the values.
I believe in the beta weekends RS proced it on exit, same with all weapon swaps. DS does NOT proc weapon swaps
My guess is RS wont work on weapon swaps on release. Perhaps it was just quicker for them to code it as a hammer for now, but I find it strange and inconsistent for it to work on one but not both. As if there weren’t already enough reasons to go reaper lol.
My prediction: After 3 months of infatuation with the new specializations people will beg for old or “classic” weapons sets to be buffed/rework to compete with the new ones
Absolute Beauty- i bought it for my necro but will use it on my thief as well. Doesn’t fit he theme but who gives a kitten? It actually glows green and animated realistically when running with it. Matches my majory daggers too if I decide to run a dagger with it. It’s the most dope skin in GW2 under the 200 gold mark. If you insist on Legendary staff go for the Pigeon one
I have a feeling/kinda hoping that Reaper will be pretty broken on release, and be great in zergs. A Pull + stability + nice AoE damage/chill/vulnerability. As much as I want to try the Revenant, I think I may have to play around with Reaper for a few weeks first
Coming back for HoT after ~6-8 months of not playing. When I first logged on I was unsurprisingly dropped from old Guild.
I am an experienced tPvP player (1300 games), but have experience in WvW too. I plan on exploring all aspects of GW2 HoT and looking for a guild that doesn’t specialize in one area. I main necromancer, but I also play some thief and plan on checking out the Revenant.
Here are the two builds I use for WvW, it’s amazing for zergs:
greedy:
Dagger/Warhorn + Staff. All berserker gear. Necro feels very tanky with this build despite gear
6 in spite: reapersmight, chill of death, close to death
2 in curses: repears precision
6 in Soul Reaping: Vital persisitence, Unyealding blast, death perception
The more practical and less greedy variation is taking two from smite, and putting another two in curses and taking: Banshee’s wail for the daze duration and mobility.
Group Content – Here is the key where one class is clearly more suited than the other which is Elementalist – one of the best classes for stacking might and other boons – great class in WvW zergs with staff utilizing water fields and blasts to heal your teammates – Necromancer in general is a selfish profession with little to no group buffs/heals
While this is true, we are probably the best consistent damage dealers in zergs, even if selfish. You can do insane damage with piercing life blasts in wvw group battle
have you considered dagger over focus? Spinal shivers is great when it hits, but the cast time is horrid. I love dagger offhand in pvp; condi transfer, AoE weakness, 3 target blind. Great defensive weaponset to help cover the relative squishiness of using bersekers. I usually go d/w or d/d + staff, looking forward to watching this video when I get home to see how dagger + axe works
yea 6/2/0/0/6 for pvp/wvw I don’t pve. However, lately Ive been running 4/4/0/0/6 just for Banshee’s Wail for permanent swiftness and 3 second aoe daze. BW makes warhorn so good and I actually think its worth giving up the close to death trait (barely).
I’ve switched “Side Strikes” to “Practiced Tolerance” in the “Cristical Strikes Line”. “Signets of Power” is also a good choice, but imo only when you have more than one signet selected. With one signet this trait isn’t the best choice, especially when it’s the “Assassins Signet” with it’s rarely used active effect. For this one “Practiced Tolerance” is great, it boosts you health pool with over 1000 HP.
With the switch from “Signet Use” to “Quickening Haste” you are absolutely right. I’m going to try this!
I dont know your gameplay with S/D, but I prefer this kind of rotation:
1. Infiltrators Strike + Blinding Powder + Auto Attack + (Flanking Strike on incoming attacks from your enemy)
After I use the Infiltrators Strike + Blinding Powder the “Assassin’s Equilibrium” is a very nice trait in connection with your Auto Attack! But I also will try the Assassin’s Reward.
I agree with your argument about the condi removal – considered this in my new build.
I also switched “Sigil of Force” to “Sigil of Air” on the dagger and selected the “Sigil of Ice” on the shortbow. Then I switched the leggins and the boots to cavalier gear to get more toughness. In favour I switched the earrings and the back so berserker, but instead of exquisit ruby jewels I use exquisit opal jewels to get more preciscion – I think 55% is good rate. Runes switched to Strength becouse of the trait “Power of Inertia” in Acrobatics.
So, what do you think? :o)
Looks great, good choice on the strength runes, definitely optimal for damage, and the extra toughness should help a lot, particularly vs other thieves, which seem to be so common. I do however think assassin’s signet is a bit greedy, I like shadow step or agility signet there- but if you’re looking for the pure burst I cant argue with that. I actually go Shadow refuge, shadow step, agility signet, no blinding powder. But if you really like blinding powder I would replace the signet, not shadow step. Shadow sstep is too good- double stun break/teleport/3 conditions removed. Saves my kitten as often as shadow refuge.
Also, Assassin’s equilibrium is growing on me. Assassins reward heals for like 1k per bar of initiative, which isn’t bad, but a blocked stun can preserve you from like 7k damage in one shot. Also, I’m trying to use CnD as often as possible, as its more reliable than larcenous strike now, and I like getting the daze/blind procs as often a possible.
Not a big deal, and no matter how you slice it, the necromancer, both power and condition will be more powerful than most other classes in PvP and WvW zergs.
General playstyle: Strip boons,, stack conditions, and finish off rotations with scepter 3 into death shroud. Very strong build right now and has insane condition clear. You can switch the cooldown on staff trait for whatever you want. Corrupt boon is a must, and so is at least one stun break, but for even more offense Signet of spite or spectral wall is pretty good too. You can use agony instead of geomancy on scepter, it may be more damage i’m not sure but I like how the on swap is a controllable, instant 3 stacks. For example in a pinch you can swap before fearing in death shroud to proc terror trait.
But back on topic, The only zerker spec that shuts down a thief is “Medi Guard”.
Then NERF “Meditation Guardian” cos thief has no chance against that build. As you said every zerker spec should have a chance to equally fight vs other zerker specs right?
but ppl don’t use dps guard in tpvp , a serious team doesn’t…
but but but srs teams run only celestial bunker now not thieves
bingo… and we all know how thieves (anybody really) fair against celestial bunkers
Only NA nabs run bunker comps, EU is all about that roamer burst comp.
only nabs cry about thieves, probably the weakest class in all of spvp right now.
lol weakest class nice joke, I kill ppl on thief while eating a sandwich. And we both know who the nab between us is “YOU” before calling other ppl nabs, look at yourself in the mirror first. Lol turret engi player
I only play thief and necromancer. I was thief named Cam Ron on in temple of silent storm trying to teach you how to 1v1 that thief you kept losing to before coming here to post this thread. At first you were crying in map chat “omg can i plz get a 1v1” after the enemy team took advantage of your careless positioning. Then, when the thief 1v1’d you about 3 times in a row, you just talked map chat about how broken thief is., sealing the loss for us. Just annoying when my teammate’s ego gets hurt and they fail to take the rest of the game seriously
Ill get on my zerker necro, get on your Zerk thief and show me how thief shuts down ALL zerker specs besides guardian. Power necro kittens on thief to broski. After I smash you with 80%+ hp remaining, you need to go back and edit every post to say “except guardian AND power necro”
you seriously fell off since your hambow got nerfed lol.
Also, who told you thief shuts down Fresh Air ele? Fresh air ele atm is stronger than any thief spec. Haven’t played much ele and im terrible at it, but it’ll probably rock your thief as well
Question, oh pistol is that much better than having a dagger ?
For structured PvP? Definitely. For some reason cloak and dagger (offhand dagger #5) does only half the damage in pvp than it does in pve/wvw. Also, CnD, the main strength is D/D is weaker because stealth inst as useful in conquest (spvp, controlling points). skills 3,4,5 on d/p are supperior to 3,4,5 on D/D, in pvp.
In WvW, its about even. D/P has more stealth/survivability (because of stealth), while D/D has more damage. (cloak and dagger can crit fro about 4k). I prefer d/p for pvp, d/d for wvw (thoguh d/p is great wvw as well)
I push far all the time. If they send 2, I just run mid and we have a 4v3 there, if they send one, I can prevent him from capping, when the second guy gets there to help, I shadow-step and run mid, again creating an outnumbered scenario for my team.
Whats worse than 1 guy rushing far is what usually happens- the typical kitten solo q meta of 1 home, send 4 mid all kittening game as if its worth more points. It’s the most braindead thing ever yet it happens 80% of the time.
No.. I wish it happened 80% of the time – I would secure the team fight more often instead of wondering why the glass Thief is always in downed state at far
You may know what to do when pushing far as a Thief but sadly most do not – it is much better and safer to stick to 1 home 4 mid especially in solo q where communication and teamwork is non-existent
but 1 home 4 mid is soooo predictable, so if the other team is going to do it, why not 2 home 3 far play the sides? much better strat than to bash heads together mid imo. i only rush far with a thief because they escape and get to far fast, I’m not going for the kills or cap, just to distract and bait help over. I rarely die rushing far but when I do I realize its a huge failure. more often than not i can stop a cap for 20-30 seconds and draw another defender before shadowstepping out. i just think with the braindead 1 home 4 mid, 2 home 3 far would crush it. (or thinking outside the box in general)
you can’t anticipate when mesmer gonna pull you into hole on hammer platform because while you are loading into platform he already pulled you and you have 0 chance to react
then i go back to were i died with stability ready and kill him. sure its cheap that some of these people do these strategies, but is it really that much cheaper then using a bunker engineer to defend a point?
any real “exploit” mesmer on skyhammer is running nullfield (Or arcane thievery or both) + boon removal on shatter..
Wait, wat. When we (mesmers) do a pull, we have to put down a glowing purple line on the ground, LOL. If you’re being seen running towards Skyham gate and then loading in, sorry, but you are being too obvious by announcing your arrival and it’s your fault there is a pull waiting for you.
Also, nullfield and arcane thievery are some of the few condi clears we have access to. This is no exploit, pls. Boon removal on shatter is part of the regular shatter build!
If you’re having mesmer problems, stop getting rekt. Send another mesmer up to Skyham while you deal with point B. You can also send up a thief, engi, necro or even a hambow up there.
To be fair I think mesmer has the best tools for thee sky-hammer shenanigans. Everybody always lists thieves but all they have is scorpion wire (and fear if they steal form a necro) which is very unreliable, and requires more setup and positioning than fears/knockbacks. While I dont think mesmers are that much stronger than other classes on this map, I think their cc + boonrips puts them at the top of the food chain(on this map only). Mesmers can carry kitten skyhammer
I push far all the time. If they send 2, I just run mid and we have a 4v3 there, if they send one, I can prevent him from capping, when the second guy gets there to help, I shadow-step and run mid, again creating an outnumbered scenario for my team.
Whats worse than 1 guy rushing far is what usually happens- the typical kitten solo q meta of 1 home, send 4 mid all kittening game as if its worth more points. It’s the most braindead thing ever yet it happens 80% of the time.
But back on topic, The only zerker spec that shuts down a thief is “Medi Guard”.
Then NERF “Meditation Guardian” cos thief has no chance against that build. As you said every zerker spec should have a chance to equally fight vs other zerker specs right?
but ppl don’t use dps guard in tpvp , a serious team doesn’t…
but but but srs teams run only celestial bunker now not thieves
bingo… and we all know how thieves (anybody really) fair against celestial bunkers
Only NA nabs run bunker comps, EU is all about that roamer burst comp.
only nabs cry about thieves, probably the weakest class in all of spvp right now.
3 seconds of protection on reveal is incredibly OP, especially if there’s no ICD.
Being revealed by getting knocked out of Refuge is fine. There are fairly established play and counterplay mechanics to Shadow Refuge.
I think the better solution would be to give opponents the ability to see stealth targets instead of revealing the targets themselves.
This is what I always mention when posting on revealed threads, it would solve the problem when reveal is just an iWin button for the opponent while actually allowing them to see a thief. Even with longer durations, those skills would be fine.
I doubt anet is going to change how revealed works. That is why I am offering an alternative, to turn an iWin into a tactical choice.
That way, players will have to choose between revealing the thief at the cost of buffing them or leave them alone. Besides, Lingering Shadows does mostly what you guys want.
Although you suggested a trait that would literaly do the same, I’d still prefer revealed skills to be changed to invisibility removal skills.
The trait would become a must have for any thief to survive, anyone without the trait would be a toast just like now. Ofc thieves can build for no stealt specs, it still doesn’t justify why 1 utility can shut down so much a thief can do offensively and defensively. My main concern with reveal skill is no condi removal, which wasn’t as apparent when only rangers had access to reveal, with engies now it’s ridiculous.
A player who’d slot reveal skill against a thief with that trait would just waste his utility slot – 6s of invisibility removal is just not enough.
In most cases a reveal is used on me, it is to prevent me from condi cleansing. Either when a ranger is roaming with another player using a condi build or engi alone.
You can see in team fights when enemy uses stealth trap, that thieves just melt, while everyone else can ignore the reveal debuff on them.
even with shadow embrace condi heavy builds are still really hard for me- particularly necromancers, and engineers (burn+perma retaliation guards are no walk in the park either, but much less common). How do I beat these guys? Particularly necro, my first TWO CnDs proc reapers protection/nightmare runes, and by then im already at 50%.
thieves have all of the tools succeed in wvw, they just require more effort than most other classes and builds. For example, a guardian will mitigate damage with passive boon procs and such. Thieves wont have the same boon access, but they have more endurance, allowing you to dodge more. This requires more awareness and timing than just letting protection proc. I find it more rewarding
I lowered my crit to 37%, but it doesn’t matter I can get fury easily, with fury I will have around 60% crit anymore would give a diminishing return. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZEQNAoaVl0MhSnY5Tw7Jw/EHwEkPNnpN8eEjdoTQA2NA-TlCEABLqCjvKx8Z/BCOBAJq+wWKBZS5hBPAg20HAwRAIAwBwv9tv/G45nf+5nPvf/93f/93SBonSL-w