Blind is more of a one vs one counter, outside plague 2, and our problems are more defensive in nature vs multiple opponents.
Yet all of our blinds are effective against multiple targets (save Signet of Spite).
Personally, I feel that Blind should be added to the axe auto-attack as part of a chain. We really do need more blinds and, if we’re not getting invulnerabilities, blocks, or evades, then Blinds are the best thing after that.
Don’t forget that Volcanic Fractal is the ONE place in the game where high DPS is actually punished. Condition necros work very well there (and Well of Power is an amazing skill in that one).
How does it punish dps?
By summoning tons of lava elementals every 25% health. You try to DPS it down like other bosses and you get overwhelemed and wiped.
Don’t forget that Volcanic Fractal is the ONE place in the game where high DPS is actually punished. Condition necros work very well there (and Well of Power is an amazing skill in that one).
If you want to disengage, try using Dark Path on the chickens over there. People always forget about that skill in PvP/WvW.
People write this a lot but always seems more clever in word than deed.
The cast time of Dark Path is long for a disengage, and the slow travel time makes it longer still. Not exactly like popping mist form or blink to get out of a dire situation where you need to act instantly or either be dead or nearly so.
Oh, I won’t pretend it’s a fantastic disengage, but it’s best to throw it off in a different direction than you start running. Your enemy will usually chase you, opening the distance when you do port.
Sometimes it gets you out, sometimes it doesn’t (especially if those blasted thieves are involved in chasing you). Still a skill that most people don’t anticipate, and every necro has it.
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Not yet, next week is the next big balance patch though.
And the devs have admitted that our siphoning is just bad, so it’s a reasonable assumption it will be buffed.
If you want to disengage, try using Dark Path on the chickens over there. People always forget about that skill in PvP/WvW.
- is also a decent life-force gainer and on hit/crit procs.
Really, the only weak part of the axe is the #1.
I agree totally with having the recharge start when the minion is summoned. However, I also feel like this should be a split between PvP and WvW/PvE. Minions are surprisingly decent in PvP anyway, so giving them pracitcally 100% uptime in fights there would be overbearing and probably too powerful. In WvW, however, they die so quickly due to the mass amount of AoE that they would need the recharge to start on-summon just for them to have any decent uptime. In PvE, the minion uptime is kind of a non-issue as they don’t die that quickly (save Fleshie when you wander near water)
I do not agree with minion stats being connected to yours, but I do believe that there should be more trait options to boost the minion stats. I would love to see a Precision boosting trait for minons (perhaps adding an “on-crit” effect for them), as well as a toughness boosting trait. You wouldn’t be able to get all of the minion traits, but customization could be fun.
Taste of Death should be changed to just automatically activate on blood fiend death. There would still be times to manually pop it (you’re about to die, but your blood fiend is still doing all right), but it also wouldn’t leave you with nothing at all for a heal if they kill your fiend first.
I think at this point, reverting the new necros would be just as difficult as fixing the old ones. Same problem, only in reverse.
as for non condition runes, consider Lyssa runes. The powerful effect on elite skill works like a charm with flesh golem.
Alternatively, Mad King runes. Those birds can be used almost as often as Charge and add a ton of damage (and lots of siphon if you have the Vampiric trait)
It doesn’t usually help you, but it is a decently sizeable AoE heal for your allies (nearly 3k in a very large radius)
“Life Transfer” is Death Shroud #4 on land (the skill named as such).
I would suggest Undead for WvW. Condition cleanses run rampant there, so it’s best to squeeze out as much damage as you can. Bleed duration doesn’t make a difference except on Barbed Precision as no other bleeds should be expected to run their full course.
Tooltips never update with condition or boon-specific increases.
I don’t believe the issue first popped up a couple months ago with a patch, I think people finally noticed and tested it at that time. I can’t recall being much more durable with my necro than I am now when downed.
For a change, I’m with Dredlord. Try a Sigil of Fire.
Dude, you must be thinking about multiple games.
You were never able to do the following:
Teleport to a minion
Feast on conditions of a minion (Foul Feast didn’t quite work like that)
Things you can still do in GW2:
blow up a minion
consuming a minion
create minions
have a minion pool
transfer conditions to minions
minions not despawning
select specific minions
The removal of the corpse limitation was a very good change as minion masters no longer have to wait for someone else to kill something before they can start doing anything. The removal of all corpse-affecting stuff was likewise a good change.
Uncontrolled minions was also a good thing to remove, as it would have made the necro even more of a liability to groups than it is now (especially in WvW).
I am not saying that minions are better now than in GW1. I preferred the snowballing army, personally, but they are waaaay easier to actually control in GW2.
Minion control Is far, far better in GW2 than GW1. In GW1, you had to hope that your minions didn’t see a random mob and decide to go beat that down, leaving you with half your army when you want them. If you had a boss with mobs around it, you could guarantee your army would not attack the boss.
In GW2, we can determine what the minions attack with ease as well as command them to do specific things. That and there is the fortunate side effect of a dead necro’s minions not turning on his allies.
The tradeoff, of course, is in the firepower department. But anyone who says that controlling your minions was better in GW1 has clearly never played one of the two games.
Don’t forget that we have had it confirmed that Weakness is about to get buffed and will apply to all hits (though at a reduced chance overall). Precision builds will no longer be able to ignore it.
Didn’t they find the 1/3rd HP downstate bug and said they were going to be fixing it next patch?
What happened to that promise?
Never said that it would be “next patch”, rather that they were working on a fix and it would be uploaded (probably as a hotfix) when ready.
My proposed change is just having the one lowest on health explode first, not the one closest to you.
does this work for spectral grasp also?
Possibly. The trick there is the firing arc of Spectral Grasp as opposed to the straight line of Necrotic Grasp and Life Blast.
Necros are the only class with no traits relating to underwater weapons, but truthfully, we don’t really need it.
Mesmer, honestly, is probably the worst class to compare to on that front. Most professions don’t get bonus effects plus large cooldown reduction (and don’t forget that they have a minor trait that reduces all illusion-creating skills, like those found on every weapon, by 20%). Mesmers were somebody’s baby, and it shows with the traits.
So we’ve just agreed that this would be kind of OP and people agree on having it after those statements, ehhhhhh?
Why not. Almost every other class has something thats op.
That, and the sound effects for Unholy Feast are exactly what I want to hear when I go into Death Shroud. A scream of terror cut short by a loud chomp.
Back in Beta, Chilling Darkness applied Confusion instead of Chill (had a different name). We did have traited access to it, but it was apparently deemed OP. Then again, this is still before the Confusion nerf, so now might be a good time for the devs to look at that again.
Id imagine you will need beserker gear to even have a chance of killing with it. Dagger deals more damage than staff. Its a nice idea but I wouldnt build it anything like the way you have.
Id also say its more of a pvp style build concept.
Valkyrie’s would probably work better, actually, as the Sharpening Stone converts some Vitality to Power and the Precision from Beserker’s isn’t really needed due to the Sigil giving an auto-crit.
Concept works better in PvP, but in PvE, I would like to see how well it works out. Especially since you can get the food buffs there.
As for the jewels, I did forget that jewels cannot be used in armor. I must revert to beryl orbs to keep that general setup.
Only signet I see any reason to suppress in Death Shroud is Signet of Undeath, but honestly, the life force generation on that is so slow, it wouldn’t matter. It would only give us another 2 seconds in death shroud from full to 0 anyway.
Somehow I had forgotten about the ungodly power boost from Lich. Very worth swapping out, then.
Chill of Death seems to be unique in being the only trait that damages a foe when they hit a certain threshold on health (I could be mistaken, I am not very familiar with engineer traits). As such, it made me wonder if it was possible to actually kill an enemy with a big enough hit from this trait. The wiki states that this trait is bugged to actually trigger at 15% health, but this makes the goal even easier to reach.
Proposed build:
30/0/25/0/15
Spite: Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death, Close to Death
Death magic: Greater Marks, Staff Mastery (these can be swapped out if desired)
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast
Weapons:
Axe (superior sigil of bloodlust)/Focus (superior sigil of Peril)
Valkyrie’s Staff (Superior Sigil of Intelligence)
Skills: Consume Conditions, Animate Bone Minions, Blood is Power, Signet of Spite, Animate Flesh Golem
Foods: Superior Sharpening Stone, Curry Butternut Squash Soup
Armor: Soldier’s armor, Exquisite Beryl Jewel in each slot
Ascended Soldier’s equipment, offensive infusions on amulet and back piece.
Offensive infusions are +5 Power(x4). Defensive are +5 Toughness(x2).
Total relevant trait and gear stats (counting food or sigil stacks, but not Might or Vulnerability):
4144.72 Power
1776 Toughness
1734 Vitality
1016 Precision
+46% crit damage
+30% condition duration
+25% boon duration
Note: Most effective on either a Dredge (as they spam exactly three boons, getting the maximum damage boost) or an Elementalist (who spam lots of boons, but typically have low armor/health)
To do: Use Reaper’s Touch, axe auto-attack, and Life Blast to build up vulnerability on the target. Use Blood is Power and Life Blast for Might. When the target is almost at 15% health, stop attacking and swap to staff, letting you minions drop him below the threshold for an automatic crit on Chill of Death. Target should have 25 stacks of vulnerability and you should have 15 stacks of Might no problem (possibly more)
Each minion that is active (normally 3) gives +20 Toughness and, thanks to the food and Deadly Strength, means 2.2 more power per minion. Minor, but should still be accounted for (4151.32 pre-might power if three minions are up, 4153.52 if Reanimator triggered recently).
Not sure exactly what it will hit for, but it uses the staff weapon damage (highest available) and has a 2.352 damage multiplier due to Close to Death and it being a crit. Counting the Vulnerability you probably have stacked to max, it is a 2.94 multiplier, with an additional 50% damage for each boon on the target (max of +150% damage).
Sadly, I do not have the resources to test and see if this would actually work, but I think it would be hilarious to kill someone without actually reducing their health to 0.
Thoughts? I’m sure the damage could be increased by dropping some Power focus and nabbing some more crit damage, but I am unsure of the cutoffs for max advantage.
On the bright side, it should be a somewhat viable build even if this trick doesn’t work out.
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Oh, I agree that the design of the jagged horror was not “it can eat some hits meant for someone else.” It’s clear the trait was intended to give us a taste of the snowball effect necros had in GW1 where with just a few deaths, they would become a nigh unstoppable force. Unfortunately, the cooldown on the trait limits that sensation.
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Spectral Wall is also very good in WvW. No other skill can prevent so much damage to a zerg., and it’s still the best skill for granting long Protection to allies short of an auto-attacking Hammer Guardian.
But yes, our stunbreaks suck hard due to either long recharges or the pre-casting necessity of Flesh Wurm (which still has a decently long cooldown)
Just as a side note, you mentioned how the Guardian Aegis can be traited to do a bunch of things when removed. Well, so can the Horror (healing you, taking your conditions, boon stripping, and exploding in poison on death). I recognize that the point investment for these benefits differs, but so do the effects. No drawing ahead on the Guardian or Thief here.
I have yet to see my Horrors die in one hit to anything but a big boss or a Churning Earth. If they do die in one shot, it’s because you took too long between fights, and honestly, that’s not an issue with the trait, but playstyle. Not saying it’s a bad thing, it still took a hit that otherwise would have gone to something that mattered and possibly got some extra damage in too.
Then you need to get more aware and stop giving yourself revealed. I dont complain if I cast death shroud just after last gasp procs, if I dont plan for it coming then it’s my fail for not using a great tool properly
Last Gasp procs instantly. There’s a delay on Shadow Refuge. Plus thieves typically (not always, I recognize they can get higher armor values) take bigger hits compared to max health to make planning that a little trickier.
I play a thief all the time. If you spam attack when you get a free stealth than that is your problem
What was your point again?
That you frequently get the stealth while you’re in the middle of attacking, so you instantly go Revealed. The blind is the only reliable part of that trait as well as any “when you enter stealth” traits.
And I never said the Horror was taking hits for you, but one of your allies. If it is hitting the Horror, it’s not hitting someone/something that matters. If it’s not hitting the Horror, then your damage output goes up. Kind of a win-win, since very few AoE hits (Churning Earth is a notable exception, as are some boss moves) will kill the horror (usually takes 3 or 4, 4-6 if traited for minion health).
I never stated that Reanimator was the trait to have, but it’s what we’ve got and it is nowhere near as bad as people keep claiming it to be.
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Jagged Horrors do contribute, hence the point of this thread (it being buggy with Bone Minions and Reanimator).
Mesmers: We have a similar trait, just in a different line. Comparison is irrelevant.
Guardians: One free block when you hit 50% health as opposed to multiple attacks that don’t hit you or any other allied players after you killed something as well as free damage. I would say that’s in the favor of Reanimator.
Thieves: AoE blind at 25% health. See Guardian comparison, but due to Blinds being stronger than Aegis against all non-champion enemies, this is a much closer comparison to Reanimator (multiple attacks not hitting you or your allies).
Engineer: Regeneration at 25% health. Again, we have a similar trait in a different line, but this one triggers so low as to be too late to usually be any help.
Warrior: Extra armor above 90% health. Warriors spend almost no time above 90% health in fights, so most of the time, this trait is doing nothing. Reanimator is definitely better.
Elementalist: 80 Toughness is pretty low, but this also only applies when in Earth Attunement, so quite frequently, the ele isn’t getting this benefit. Unique among these traits, however, in that the Ele can choose exactly when to use this trait. Even so, 80 Toughness does very, very little in the way of reducing damage at level 80. Reanimator wins out for increasing your damage dealt and reducing damage taken by your team (though in PvP, it’s just eating AoE to reduce the damage instead of taking entire skills usually).
Ranger: Best Adept Minor trait in the game hands down. None of the other Toughness line Adept Minors come anywhere close.
Now, how does Protection of the Horde measure up against the other Master minors of Toughness lines? Clearly the worst hands down, no contest. That is the detriment of Reanimator as without that trait, Protection of the Horde would have not existed.
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A pain, but not actually a detriment.
To me the detriment comes from taking up valuable space in a trait line. Yes there might not be huge negatives like some people are suggesting, but take a look at the other profession’s 5pt trait into their toughness lines, and then look at reanimator, that’s where the detriment is, it’s what you could have had for the same investment.
Keep in mind that reanimator’s ‘benefit’ doesn’t exist at all until after you have already won a fight.
Killed something, not won a fight. Very few fights are xv1 in this game (where X is the player and allies), so just because you’ve killed something does not mean you have won.
Adept Minor traits in the defense tree are really not as amazing as you are making them out to be. Engineers and Mesmers get Regeneration for 10 seconds at 25% (when it’s too late to matter) and 75% health respectively. In Blood Magic, we have a similar trait (shorter duration regeneration, but at a better health point). Guardians get Aegis at 50% health, which is nice, but still not that amazing. Warriors get extra armor when above 90% health (now THIS is bad). Elementalists get up to 80 toughness while attuned to Earth. Thieves get a decent one (AoE blind at 25% health and applies Revealed), but it’s really an anti-thief trait due to that last part.
Rangers, however, have undoubtedly a fantastic trait there. Even so, the others are only on par with what we have (Mesmers, Guardians to an extent, and thieves) or outright worse (Warrior, Engineer, and Elementalist) Reanimator in PvE is like multiple Aegis to party members with a small amount of extra damage. In PvP, it’s extra damage and (if you traited for it) a condition sink, a walking poison bomb, or a boon stripper. That can still effectively grant aegis due to the 5-target limit of AoE.
So no, I wouldn’t say that the real detriment is the trait slot it occupies. The real detriment of the trait is that it causes Protection of the Horde to exist.
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A pain, but not actually a detriment.
Grubs can spawn on Jagged Horrors in the phase switch, but since the swarms he summons don’t trigger Reanimator (see the necro solo lupicus video for proof of this, he had Reanimator), the only way you will have a Jagged Horror at that point of the fight is because you purposefully made sure it was there at that time (via constant healing or Mark of Horror).
As for minions attacking mobs that missed you, I have that happen a lot. Never puts me into combat unless the mob actually hits me.
I didn’t put any points in Death Magic because of this minor trait. I mean it totally screws Lupicus fight. I used to hate it when those little buggers appear and then a grub spawns on them….
flips the table
You mean like it hasn’t done since December?
People around here are so horridly misinformed about the Reanimator trait that they keep quoting issues that don’t exist anymore to try and say the trait is bad, terrible, and the worst thing ever. Fact is, almost none of these things are true. Jagged Horrors can only be a detriment in a couple of locations:
1. Subject Alpha who targets every individual with an AoE. This is not minion restricted.
2. Cloak and Dagger spam thieves. Again, any pets or NPC’s can cause this issue.
3. Trying to get away from something that has almost killed you (that you were attacking), but the Horror (and all your other minions, if any) are still attacking it and keeping you in combat. Good news is that the thing chasing you is also in combat still as the Horror keeps it there.
Interestingly, if a minion (and not you) is attacked, you are not put into combat. If you are attacked, your minions go attack the enemy. However, if you run away, you drop out of combat even if your minions are still fighting. They will break off from the fight after a brief period. This only occurs if you yourself have not attacked the target.
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Thankfully, minions are actually very, very good underwater. Even if you don’t like using them on land, I would suggest giving them a shot underwater.
Last I checked, they fixed this months ago.
Doesn’t stop Protection of the Horde from being any less useless, but it does actually work with Reanimator..
Stealth is almost as good as stability so I wouldn’t downplay that. It’s hard to be CC’d if you can’t be targetted to begin with. More importantly, stealth is better fo stomps and ressing than Stability is for the simple fact that in order for someone to burst a stomper/resser you need to be able to see them.
But Engi’s, along with having stealth and stability also have invul and block so they really aren’t lacking. Not even near as locking as Necro. Not to mention they can turn Necro fear into Stability as well. Just so we’re aware that Engi is no where near lacking.
I agree that the amount of stab/invul/blocks should be brought down though.
Its a big difference between having stealth and stability on tap and not knowing which one you are getting when you press a button lol. I like my necro stability much better. Also while invul an engineer can do precisely nothing but run, while a necro in shroud is quite powerful with power spec. I wouldnt put engineers above necros personally.
Elixer S Stomp is a very commonly used tactic. Also very annoying.
Also Signet of the Locust and (possibly, needs testing) Deadly Feast.
Our elites are pretty good, actually. They are just for different things.
If anything happened to Plague, I would ask that they bring the #1 and #3 up to par with Blinding Plague. I like my nigh-unkillable ball of darkness, thank you.
When I’m bunkering a point, I would already have protection via Spectral Wall or Ritual of Protection (depending on how I plan on bunkering). Swiftness may not save you as much as Protection does, but Spectral Walk also has the advantage of saying “Yeah, you didn’t really knock me off this point”. While the teleport on Spectral Walk doesn’t break stun, it can still get you out of a CC chain and, more importantly, lets you do it far more often while still getting more life force.
Really, it comes down to “do I want a mobility boost, more life force, more frequent stunbreaks, and instant position reset, or do I want some short protection to help absorb burst that I can get with a better skill/trait I was taking anyway?”
I, for one, would like to see Plague Signet get its recharge reduced to 30 seconds. It still wouldn’t be a staple, but it would become extremely good (Guardians have a stunbreak that grants themselves and allies stability on that cooldown, so a stunbreak on that short cooldown on a more bunker-oriented class is not unheard of)
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SA has some crucial uses on bunker builds. The amount of LF generated when you have 3 people on you,is a full LF bar most of the time. I would take a full bar of LF over SW anytime.
Also it IS your stun breaker and your protection stacking ontop of your wells.
Are you aware that Spectral Walk has the exact same “gain life force when hit” ability as Spectral Armor? And it lasts longer? On a shorter cooldown? With the same stunbreak? In any situation where I would consider running Spectral Armor, I always find myself asking why I’m not running Spectral Walk instead. It just flat out works better.
Random thought, what if they put the old Shade trait on Spectral Armor? I think that would make the skill actually worth the long cooldown that it has. I would loooove having that defense on Spectral Armor, and it would fit thematically too!
In a word, yes. We need more stability or, more precisely, ways to avoid being the really tough golf ball.
Since Necros have no method of attack avoidance from skills or traits, we must take pretty much everything that comes our way. While Death Shroud, our massive life pool, and our powerful heals work very well for taking the damage, the fact remains that quite often, necro attrition power is meaningless because they spend most of the fight stunned, on the ground, or otherwise disabled. Attrition gameplay cannot occur when you can’t do anything at all to your opponent.
Necros really need some way of avoiding the CC, since we have to take the damage (and are decently equipped to do so). This could take the form of more blinds, more stability, or even a shorter cooldown on Reaper’s Protection or our stunbreakers. Heck, even some short duration invulnerability would work (like Mesmer sword #2) Without that, we are just durable ping pong balls that still die without getting to fight.
Yes, necros need a weakness, but that is already accounted for with very few escapes (the ones we do have require significant forethought) and no burst damage. If we are to be the masters of attrition, don’t let the attrition be how long our opponent feels like knocking us around before they get bored. Heck, even in PvE, I spend lots of time on the ground (especially with those Veteran Karka).
I think it could be interesting to see burning replace Protection of the Horde with something like “Cremation: Minions burn nearby foes when they die.”
Reanimator, which I personally like, would still be the only thing that is guaranteed to make this trait useful, but since Jagged horrors are going to die anyway, this isn’t a bad change as opposed to a mere 20 toughness which is easily ignored.