What does your killing rotation look like in that first build? I’m so used to shatter or phantasm builds, I’m trying to wrap my head around a different style of play. With shatter I play and up in your face style of play, letting the shatters damage my opponent. Yet, with phantasms I work on getting 2-3 out, then try to survive while they go to town. I want to try a PU build, I’m just trying to figure out how the rotation works.
Plus, you’ll now have torment on the scepter block. I roamed with a modified version of this build in wvw with sw/p-gs. This actually makes me want to pick up a scepter and try your version.
I tested it in the mists. It does 4 hit the heavy golem much more consistently. I had 1 4 crit during my minimal testing (based on number of bleeds on target). With zerker amulet, ogre runes and 20/25/0/25/0 spec, the 4 crit hit for just over 5k.
IDK what I’ll do tbh. Sooooo many nerfs. Logic tells me to play my necro, but I don’t know if I like the game enough anymore to actually re-gear, yet again.
Nope. I never have the GS trait in my build, and earlier this week I had a 10k hit with mine which nearly gave me a heart attack. But like Levitas says, I occasionally will get a big hit like that, but normally even 3 crits are in the 2-3k range. I never know what I’m going to get w/that phantasm. Doesn’t matter to me atm, as I’m back to Staff/s-x shatter builds.
I run an offensive phantasm build when I roam in WVW these days. It’s very glassy and sloooow, but packs a mean punch. It’s basically Pyro’s build, I just happen to use GS. I still have all my shatter gear for when I want to do that. I run GS-S/P (10/30/0/25/5), but that changes depending on what I’m doing. In a zerg, I’ll swap out my pistol for a focus, and take the reflect trait, and usually dump the phantasm signet for veil or feedback. I’ve run the numbers and I get much more effective power by going 10/30 rather than 20/20. I don’t feel like the cooldown for GS is worth it. My goal is to usually open with my iDuelist, swap to GS (3 stacks of might for swap), #2 for vuln, iZerker, then kite until I can swap back to s/p (3 more stacks of might), then cast another iDuelist. Depending on what iZerker feels like doing, the fight will be over or I’ll cry. I had my iZ hit for 10k 3 nights ago. But it’s so random, I’m debating just going s/s-s/p. Also, I have an extra GS and Sword with sigils of the night on them for 10% damage at night. The downside is I hate when it’s daytime in game, lol.
I think there is a real disconnect here on what the actual problem is. I think most of us understand that it’s an AE attack that most likely won’t hit a single target 4 times. Also, I’m sure there is a floater bug that’s not displaying the correct damage number some of the time.
That said, the real problem is when we do see the floaters along with 2-3 hits, and that final number along w/the health bar of our enemy shows that our damage is not where it should be, especially when traited. And, it is not every time. Sometimes, when I cast iZ, I get true damage. I’ve had very very high 4 crits that proves that it does work some of the time. Then 2 mins later, I’ll have iZ do pitiful damage. I really wish they would put phantasm damage in our combat log so we could actually track this information in testing. As others have put it, it works like RNG now. You never know when it’s actually going to work. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I still love my iZerker and the general coolness of the GS weapon on my mesmer. I guess we mesmers need to figure out if there is anything that triggers this bug, because based on JP’s latest post anet has closed the book on this one.
OP hit on something I noticed too when I made my Necro. Mes and necro are my 2 favorite classes to play in the game. Sometimes, I think I like the necro so much only because of the challenge of the class. Anyone who has built characters with both the Mes and the Necro like I have can easily spot the glaring differences in the trait lines. The necro traits are such a mess. There’s no cohesion whatsoever. Sometimes I think I know where the devs were going, then other times I think they just threw the kitten together quickly b/c they were out of time. Hopefully, when they actually take the time to review traits, they will fix some of the mess they created.
The inconsistency is my biggest problem w/the phantasm. I see results very similar to yours. When I call him, I never know if I’m going to get a 1k hit or a 6-7k hit. And, that’s with him having over an 80% chance to crit along w/very high power,crit damage, and 30% trait damage. I have a real love/hate relationship with iZerker, lol. Thanks for doing those tests.
I recently re-geared for phantasm from my normal shatter build. It’s very glassy, but has extremely high crit chance and damage. My phantasms have over 80% crit chance, 30% damage boosts, & 108% crit dmg. In the past 2 nights, I’ve seen how screwed up iZerker is. On one instance, I opened on a guy running sideways to me, and must have had a 4 crit because I had a very high crit, one I’d rather not say b/c it could be construed by anet as proof of the iZerker working . On another instance, I pushed a guy w/#5 into a wall, then summoned izerker knowing this guy wouldn’t be able to move and my zerker would 4 hit him easily. Instead my zerker hit him 3 times for a total of 600 dmg……It’s infuriating. I don’t know what the problem is, but I just want consistency.
I take phantasmal fury over desperate decoy. Most of the time you’ll be spamming abilities when you’re at 25% and will most likely just reveal yourself as soon as you cloak. Many will tell you to dump the GS, but I happen to love the GS in my phantasm build. I’d swap out the torch for either sword or pistol though.
I’m assuming you always run sword mainhand. I run multiple offhands based on what I’m doing, or even my mood. By far, my most used offhand is sword though. Both of the offhand sword abilities summon illusions. Thus, with Blade Training, and Illusionists Celerity (2 traits I have in every build I run), I have a 40% reduction in cooldown on both of those abilities. That gives me a 2s block every 9s to go along with 2s evade every 8s. That is an enormous amount of defense. Plus, swordsman hits like a truck and chases targets all over the place. He’s great in a phantasm build or kittenter fodder after his initial leap.
For speed, I have air runes. Also, I typically have GS or Staff in my mainhand, so I just keep my hero panel “docked” way over on the left of my screen so I only see inventory items. If I need speed I just hit H, then double click focus to replace my GS/Staff, hit 4, then double click GS/S to re-equip, then H to close the hero panel. It takes maybe a second to do once you’re used to it. If I’m roaming a long distance I’ll just equip focus until I get where I’m going.
I run a “power” necro that I should call precision necro. I have 100% fury uptime which gives me a 85-90% crit chance. My targets always have bleeds, weakness, and I always have tons of might stacks from my weapon sigil. I’ve tried going into BM to get lifesteal on crit along w/the weapon sigil, but the healing was too small to really make much of a difference. The damage I put out is insane, but very unforgivable. It’s almost like I’m playing my thief w/o all the good mobility tools.
The bouncing change will screw me up on my staff shatter build. I don’t mind it on my phantasm build that I run. I ran GS-S/S last night in wvw and I’d never seen my iSwordsman hit so hard. Those stacks of might caused some brutal damage. Still, not many people run that setup (hell, even I rarely do), so it hurts other builds more than it helps the one I was running last night.
I really really really want to use GS in my phantasm build, but in the current state I’m gimping myself. I had him run through a crowd last night. In this case he should have hit at least 5 people, yet the damage at the end was still in the 2ks. This is w/+30% dmg traits, phantasm fury (75% crit chance), 3k attack power, and ~90% crit damage…..I don’t believe what the devs say, something is horribly broken.
I like roaming wvw this build from time to time. That’s not the best idea since it can be tough to get a 1v1. Last night I went out with it and got into a fight w/a thief that refuged while I had 3 phantasms out. I just stood still thinking no way this guy is dumb enough to come out of stealth. Sure enough, out he pops w/basilisk venom which I knew would happen. I blinked away, and when I turned around he was already downed and my phantasms were eating him alive in the downed state. I just sat and watched. It almost felt cruel.
More both? Sounds silly I know, but I run 0/30/10/0/30 on my “power” necro. I run a mix of zerker and knights gear. I’ve also run 30/30/10 in the past, but according to buildcraft my effective power is actually higher with 0/30/10/0/30. This spec gives me 100% fury uptime. It’s very easy to place at least 3 conditions on single target, and since I usually cycle DS every 5s, I don’t lose much lifeforce. Thus, I have a minimum 11% damage bonus + 100% fury all the time, as opposed to fury 1/2 time and 20% bonus damage only when my target is below 50%.
As for your actual question, I would go with curses in your case because it’s easier to keep 3 conditions up for 6% bonus damage (25 in curses) than it is to keep 50% life force up for 5% bonus damage (25 in SR).
Wiki says it has player tested 5s cd, instead of stated 2s. I just bought a Deathwish on the trading post that comes slotted with the sigil of blood. I’ll test it when I get a chance.
Even though I tend to spam the attack, it is annoying that it doesn’t remember it in Lich form. I was just talking about that last night w/some guildies.
I think the dev’s balance all these “on entering death shroud” traits on us having 5s DS traited. Since weakness stacks in duration, I assume the thought is you could essentially give someone perma weakness. Thus, they added a cooldown that would give a small lapse. The problem I have with it is that I typically toggle DS when I first start a fight before I’ve closed into melee range, so enfeebling blood never hits until 15s into a fight at a minimum. Since I pop in and out every 5s to keep fury up, there’s no guarantee that I’m going to be in melee range at the 15s mark. It’s a shame because it would be a great addition to my arsenal. As it is now, it’s pretty useless for me.
I said Ice, but I meant air. There’s an old reddit post where someone did some testing on the different sigils. The sigil of air gave an average of 8.3% damage increase. Fire gave a 7.5% increase. That was with 56% crit chance. So for all my characters with high crit chance, I typically take an air sigil while saving up for a fire sigil since the result is a higher average damage increase over force (5%).
Well the sigil of earth is just something I’ve been testing. I’m deep into the curses tree even in a power build, and that is mainly for the 2% per condition. With my roaming build I have access to 5 conditions that I can put up by myself pretty easily for 10% extra damage on my attacks. I initially had a sigil of frailty on there, but it had a low proc rate. Since I usually pop BiP before a fight, I get at least 75dmg/tick bleeds, and if they clear it, the thought was I would be able to stack them right back on (80% chance to crit w/fury up, 66% to proc bleed on crit from traits and 60% from sigil). It’s almost overkill though since enfeebling blood and bip itself cause bleeding. Most likely though, I’ll swap that sigil out for something different. I had ice in there, which I’ll probably go back to until I can afford fire.
I like your build. I’ve got a very similar build, but with more survivability, that I’ve been playing around with. It’s my roaming build for WVW. Call me a masochist if you will, I have 2 decked out awesome roaming classes (thief & mesmer), yet want to roam with necro???. I use d/w with a/f offhand. Below is my build, just keep in mind I’ve already accounted for the 100% uptime of fury, and I have the foods as well. Buildcraft counts the 200 power assuming you’ve had a kill in the last 30s, so the effective power is inflated. This is fine when I’m in a zerg because I always have the 200 power up. Still trying to find a food that will better mesh w/roaming.
When I’m running w/a group or in a zerg I change it up, and take everything out of spite (seems silly with “power” build, but I hate all the spite traits).
With the 2nd build even if decide to drop the staff for roaming, I can change the trait to cleanse condition on DS (5s condition removal), and I don’t have to revisit the trainer to respec. I’m still learning axe/focus, so I find myself going back to staff due to being used to using it as a survival tool. I think a/f will be more viable once I l2p.
I once went to use it as a gap closer, when it must have still been on cooldown. It teleported me back and I actually got a short (like 1s) loading screen. That cracked me up. I do wish it had a timer or something to let me know when it’s reset. Sometimes even when the icon has changed it still shadowsteps me back. I guess that means I left the range?
These abilities are meant to supplement your character over time. Who on earth would feel the need “grind” to get +5 supply? Just play the game. Kids are so spoiled these days.
Osi, I ran GS s/s last night and had a load of fun. With asuran weapon skins, I looked like an awesome blademaster. That said, I really missed staff #2. I’m so used to being able to use that to get out of a bad situation. Plus, I missed getting chaos armor when using sword 3 over a chaos storm.
I can’t believe they’re not giving us a way to purchase ascended items w/badges. Couldn’t they have put the laurel vendor in WVW and had the same items purchasable with badges?
All the guys above have already answered you. My input would be that the only thing dps wise that you need is enough to hold your cage. Other than that, really, you’re only there to time warp the warriors and blink past the rocks. I run a normal shatter build (20/20/0/0/30), but change up to phanstasm traits just to speed up the boss killing.
I’m sorry if this is a rather noob question. Especially for someone w/300+hrs on my thief, though I haven’t played her much for the past 3 months. I tried to search but couldn’t find the answer.
Last night while fighting a thief I was downed by another thief (d/d). When the thief, came to stake me, predictably she cnd’d me for stealth. I waited a second, then shadow escaped away in a random direction. Then once I landed in my new position, I was immediately staked and she appeared over me. Obviously, she could not have predicted exactly where I was going to land to shadowstep that fast (or maybe she did), so I figured there must be a trick to it. I vaguely remember this maneuver back when I used to play my thief exclusively, but I’m not sure I ever had the right tools to do it. Can someone remind me of the exact way to do this? I know on my mesmer I can do it with blink, but I’m never quick enough, and usually I just burst the downed enemy anyway. Thanks in advance.
If you think that’s bad op, you should see what one of my 4 clone shatters does to a GC ranger. I’ve been hit with 10k backstabs on my mesmer if I’m not paying attention good enough. Then again, I expect it b/c I made the choice to go glass. If you plan on going glass, you better have a way to get yourself out of a situation, or you pay the price.
I hate this trait and always have. I remember complaining about it 4 months ago on here. I think the trait should override the revealed debuff, and I definitely think it should not proc confusion. And I say this as a Mesmer.
It’s not just the stat difference, if you’re wearing a set of superior runes and go under water, when the game swaps the breather for your helmet you lose the 6th bonus (because you are now technically only wearing 5/6). Not a huge deal depending on the rune set or if you never fight underwater, but worth considering.
Hilarious, I always thought that the centaur runes I used to run were bugged underwater. I couldn’t get the swiftenss buff b/c I was losing the 6th rune bonus (swiftness on heal). Now, I feel like an idiot, lol.
Personally, I think things like trinkets should all be account bound, but that would go probably be overboard. One could just buy 1 set of jewelry for all their characters to use. So overtime, those items would become less and less demanded. But, this idea would actually put a gold/gem sink into transferring gear to your other characters, and I think that’s a great idea. I would say that it would have to return the item to an account bound state so it would never be able to re-enter the economy. I’m begging to give anet money for this item (for the useless zerker rings and swords I have in my bank that will never be used again on one character, but will have to be farmed and bought for another). As a semi-casual player, it would be much easier for me to just pay anet to unsoulbind those items so I can just WVW. Instead, I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks farming pve to re-gear a character that I only want to wvw with. :/
I ran ghosts instead of pies (same item just longer lasting) on my glass cannon mesmer. I could charge a zerg and use sword2 to pretty much instaheal. I knew it would have to eventually be nerfed, but it was fun while it lasted. I’m glad I sold all of them right after the patch notes came up. I guess I’ll be eating the 100pre/10%crit food like every other cookie cutter shatter build. I hate when fun things are nerfed, but these things was way OP. It just sucks that they have to nerf things into uselessness.
I don’t even mess with p/d thieves. My first main was a p/d thief, that runs with 22k health, heals & cleanses in stealth, blinds everytime she stealths, can pretty much stealth at will, and can stack 15+ bleeds ticking for 130+ very easily. Since my mesmer has no reliable way to cleanse bleeds, it’s really silly for me to waste my time fighting them. Even in fights that I’m able to transfer conditions, the fights still take forever. I built my thief to be a troll in wvw, and I refuse to be trolled, hah!
Versus a typical D/D thief, I have multiple ways to survive that first burst (decoy, phase retreat, blink, distortion, s/s riposte). I use those or a combo of those to survive that first set of attacks. Usually, they’re specced to have their steal imobilize you (via basilisk venom). Both of those are on long timers, so I try to blink out of that, then decoy, so they cnd my clone. Once that happens, they’re done b/c all of the abilites are on cooldown. Once I shatter on them they typically die very fast. That said, like anyone I get caught off guard, or they’ll jump into a fight I’m already in and get me pretty quickly. I’m usually ok with that because imo that’s the point of the thief class, and I’m glass so I should die fast.
I’ve used both. Centaur w/the included 20% boost gives 12s of uptime w/15s cooldown. I used to use it w/the 15s heal and I would always have a that 3s overlap of normal speed. I then switched to Air runes which I use w/my normal heal. So I only get 6-7s of swiftness every 20 seconds. It’s a nice addition, but the real shine of the air runes is the lightning proc. That really helps in a pinch. Plus, I quite often run w/a focus mesmer, so I still get 12s of swiftness of his temporal curtain. It can get annoying w/either rune having to hit heal every 15-20s…
