Guild Wars 2

Andele.1306:

You know, i dont think necros would need vigor if DS actually counted as a full second life bar (as in can tank just as much, but still degenerates), especially on a LF generation setup via Staff/Dagger & Warhorn

Given that by default your max Life Force is equal to or greater than your normal HP…

It might be easier with a Charr, since the Hidden Pistol is a dodge skill on a 15 second cooldown. I know I use it when I fight Lupi. It’s up every time he uses his green bolts attack if I used it during the last round, so it should be a load of help. Would have to replace Well of Suffering, though, as Specrtral Walk’s stunbreak and the Signet’s mobility are too important.

Food might be best to grab the food that gives bonus endurance regen, since Dodging really is key for Lupi.

radsaq.8269:

Agreed. I think out of all the complaints leveled against the necro profession, the most valid ones are the long cast times for relatively weak skills and the excessive (and seemingly inexplicable) use of projectiles.

To be fair, we have tons of ranged attacks that are not projectiles (every land weapon skill but Reaper’s Touch, Deathly Swarm, and Necrotic Grasp is not a projectile, though they may be ranged. Underwater, spear has 2 projectiles, but projectile-hate is much lower there) Truthfully, out of all the ranged professions, necros are the least projectile reliant class. We just happen to have a couple skills that are projectiles.

Dark Path and Deathly Swarm home very well, my complaint is the fact they ride on the ground, so they are not very helpful in WvW scenarios or some dungeons.

Only time I really feel CpC is worthwhile is on Old Tom and the Searing Effigy. They need to do something about the skill to make it more useful. Making it damage (it is CORROSIVE) would be a good start. Possibly inflicting a decent amount of vulnerability to represent it dissolving the armor, or something?

Dredlord.8076:

manveruppd.7601:

Come on you guys can’t really complain about this, it’s FAR MORE POWERFUL than if it worked like “provides protection to the necromancer when a well is cast”! And it’s exactly the kind of trait I think we should have more of, one that provides a lot of group synergy.
I agree it’s a badly written tooltip, but it’s hardly fair to say that it’s useless when combined with Focussed Rituals: your group still get the protection even if you’re not inside the well, and focussed rituals is really intended to turn the necro into a backline support character so you shouldn’t need the protection.

Why was I interested in focused rituals? So I could lay my wells on keep walls, cannons, oil etc.

How is it Far More Powerful when no one can benefit from the protection since my team mates aren’t ON THE kittenING WALL yet.

Now tell me why I wouldn’t need the protection when attacking a keep? because I am backline support?

You do realize that it’s a major trait, right? One that you can swap out to, say, Greater Marks? Which is far more useful when attacking towers/keeps?

If you want the protection on your allies, how about dropping the well on your allies? Since that is clearly more important to you, you shouldn’t have an issue doing so. Well of Suffering/Corruption will still damage a gate and provide a Dark field so projectiles can steal health (adding even more damage). You just gave your allies protection where they most need it.

Kilger.5490:

AOE fear on downed might be kind of cool, been meaning to try it out. Is it 1 second fear the same as other necro fears?

Fear of Death is 1 second. That said, our downed fear and Reaper’s Protection are a base of 2 seconds (which with Master of Terror is a LONG hard CC).

I play a Charr necro and Plague’s effect radius seems to match the visual one when I use it. I don’t believe the bug is purely visual.

That said, I would LOVE it if everyone’s Plague was buffed to Charr size. You’re supposed to be a menacing cloud that people run away from because they like being able to do things (and poison+blind+chill pulsing doesn’t really let you do that). I see an Asura in Plague and I say “Aww, isn’t that cute?”

Realistic buffs? I would say the following:

1. You may now be healed in Death Shroud.
2. Death Shroud UI now shows boons and conditions.

Pretty short list and we’ve had confirmation that they are working on the second of those.

Draehl.2681:

Not a bad overall idea, but I would disagree with points in Curses. You can get more damage out of Soul Reaping or more survivability out of Blood.

You only get damage out of Soul Reaping if you crit. Best way to make sure you crit is to have at minimum 15 points in Curses.

As far as runners go, we’re still one of the better ones, since we have a speed signet (no Swiftness for carriers makes that count a lot more) and the lack of teleports doesn’t matter (since teleporting or stealthing drops the orb). Between that and our large variety of methods to remove snares, we should do fairly well in that role. Less bursty movement than a Ranger with Swoop or an Ele with Ride the Lightning, but more resistant to enemy attempts to stop us.

Kilger.5490:

It was pretty cool to do aoe chills in shroud; I agree it bites, but it didnt really seem intended. Not totally surprised. Glad I didnt get too attached to it.

Pretty sure they do the procs on crit though?

Proc on Crit sigils and traits still work fine in death shroud.

Thankfully, I have not had that disappointment, as the only time I’ve run double-epidemic, we both hit something with only about 13 bleeds.

On a whim, I changed the major traits in my condition damage build to be minions and jumped into WvW. I got into a 3-way fight and more or less stood still pounding F as the stream of minions went down and pounded away. I have no points in Spite and only 20 in death and blood magic.

I don’t know what exactly happened, but I think minions are viable for WvW now.

Rennoko.5731:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Not to be rude, but is there ANY evidence that all bleeds tick simultaneously? You can’t compare it to Poison, Burning, or Fear because those can only ever tick once per second anyway, no matter how large of a stack there is.

Bleeds are all tracked seprately on their durations and intensity, so it makes no sense that they would all do their damage at the same time. On top of that, graphically we have evidence against that as a bleed stack has numbers flying off constantly, not bursts of numbers once per second.

I have never seen Barbed Precision tick twice unless you have 100% bleed duration (though it is difficult to tell as it is rarely your only bleed).

Get hit by an ele using churning earth, and it stacks 8 bleeds on you immediately. Watch your HP, do you see it update every .125 seconds or just once? Every indication is the damage is done in 1 second chunks, and is evidenced by the fact you can be at 10 HP, and survive a full second with 25 bleeds on you.

Since Churning Earth puts all 8 bleeds on you at once, they would all be ticking at the same time anyway. It would be better to compare two eles, using churning earth about a 1/2 second apart as that would provide two large amounts of damage (easy to see) that should be ticking at slightly different times.

@Bhawb: Bolding is just “*” on both sides of the bolded text. Minus quotation marks.

For actual position, Red does have the advantage (Red overlook on EB is one of the hardest keeps to take and easiest to hold, Green keep on EB is one of the easiest to take. Borderlands balance out due to everyone getting each keep, at least at reset).

Not to be rude, but is there ANY evidence that all bleeds tick simultaneously? You can’t compare it to Poison, Burning, or Fear because those can only ever tick once per second anyway, no matter how large of a stack there is.

Bleeds are all tracked seprately on their durations and intensity, so it makes no sense that they would all do their damage at the same time. On top of that, graphically we have evidence against that as a bleed stack has numbers flying off constantly, not bursts of numbers once per second.

I have never seen Barbed Precision tick twice unless you have 100% bleed duration (though it is difficult to tell as it is rarely your only bleed).

Personally, I’m rather glad about the change to Spectral Wall. Having the combo field placed properly makes using it a heck of a lot easier.

Now I can run MM and blow up a bone minion in response to AoE-happy foes. Chaos Armor on all my friends!

Laurels per day is a great idea in my opinion. Right now it will take way too long to gear up more than one character, so more laurel methods (especially tied to something that is currently rarely done more than once per account total) is a good idea.

As for people saying that they get 6-9 tokens in story mode, I either call you out as liars or entitled. I get nada for tokens in story mode. I’ve run AC story twice after my own run to help guildies through it (mainly so they would stop whining about how impossible it was to get a group) Absolutely 0 tokens from those Bags of Wondrous Goods.

Not sure how well Warhorn and Scepter go together, but Howler works well with necros. For a non-legendary alternative, try the one from Honor of the Waves or Twilight Arbor.

Maestro.5376:

The question is whether the funnily high drop rate is a bug and it will be fixed later (increasing the rarity again) or whether it will stay low…

Since the drop rate before this patch was zero, I don’t think it will be adjusted. It is still a very low drop rate, but now that it actually is on the drop possibility, it’s showing up. Tens of thousands of players do that event every day. It will drop.

Figures that it was bugged. Can’t say I’m surprised, though.

No speed boosts stack, so you may want to rethink some of your traits.

As a runner, I would think 6x Melandru runes would do better, as they reduce cripple, chill, immobilize, and stun durations on you by 25% (as well as any other condition, but only those limit your running ability).

Arthok.5603:

About yesterday’s patch… Is it a good option to use focus instead of dagger for PvP now?
By the way, awesome guide, leveling a necromancer right now

I would say no because the Vulnerability does very little to help condition damage necros and Enfeebling Blood/Deathly Swarm help mitigate incoming damage and provide more AoE pressure. That and bleeds.

As a heads up, with yesterday’s patch, we now have Ascended accessories including Rabid.

Now there is no question about what is best to put in those slots.

So you all know, the Ascended accessories can also be purchased from Guild vendors for 5 gold and a guild commendation. Do some of those new guild missions and you can get the accessories quite easily.

Spartyr.6795:

I believe Necro’s are pretty good, but they still have a ways to go to match the fluidity and synergy of the other classes.

Rangers, on the other hand, took some major nerfs this patch. Especially regarding WvW. They already weren’t in a good spot.

Unpredictability.4086:

Limited Traits
There are also some traits that, while useful, are limited in their use underwater.

• Chilling Darkness – no direct way to cause blind underwater. You need to be blinded and transfer it to them via Plague Signet or Plague Blast (not sure if that triggers blindness first though or it transfers it first)

Not true. Death Shroud #2 pulses AoE Blind and Poison on a pretty short recharge. Haunt on the Shadow Fiend also causes blind in a small AoE (much longer recharge, though).

• All minion skills (Death Nova, Fetid Consumption, Flesh of the Master, Necromatic Corruption, Protection of the Horde, Training of the Master, Vampiric Master) – there are only 2 minions you can equip underwater (half of them are disabled). As such, you cannot make full use of these traits.

Seeing as how there are 6 minion skills and only two are disabled, you can still make very strong use of these traits. 3 utilities and your healing skill (and jagged horrors) means a lot of minions.

• Dark Armor – This trait basically affects only 1 skill underwater – Life Transfer, making it very limited in it’s use. (It also affects Life Leech too, but drowning is a state one is not meant to play in for a long so time, so I don’t even consider it IMO as it’s so infrequent).

Spear 2 and Trident 5 I believe are both channels. I could be mistaken, since I never use this trait anyway.

Necros are the strongest of any class underwater (rangers being a close second), so I don’t feel that we really need much in the way of buffs. Having some of those traits reference our underwater weapons, however, would be most welcome.

Especially since necros counter the vast majority of warriors HARD. I can’t remember the last time I’ve lost to a warrior that didn’t have at least two other people with him. I don’t even try very hard against warriors.

lcpdragonslayer.7895:

However if I run Fractals on my Necro I feel much more limited. I only have Locust Signet for passive 25% speed and Spectral Walk for 33% speed. Maybe I can do the trap one but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing the others. As soon as I run into two knockdown traps without stability, it’s over (lich form can’t be used with spectral walk).

Try popping Flesh Wurm along your path. That can let you skip a lot of traps, save time, and it also acts as a second stunbreak if you need it. The Wurm has been a staple for me doing the swamp.

bytes.1650:

-Not a single group buff

Spectral Wall, Ritual of Protection, Well of Power, and Mark of Blood aren’t group buffs? One of those doesn’t even have a target limit.

Life Blast damage only varies if you are above or below the 50% threshold. If you are at 51%-100%, you deal the higher damage. 1%-50%, you do the lower damage.

Lopez.7369:

That would be a DPS downgrade even if my precision was low. Condition damage completely stomps precision in a one-to-one comparison.

So..why are you so adamantly against Carrion jewels? You get more condition damage out of them than Rabid crests and only lose out on a bit of precision.

Just saying, seems like a bit of a double-standard here. Either it’s more important to get more condition damage or its more important to have a high crit chance. Either way, it seems like a jewel does a better job than the Crests (Crysochola for condition damage, coral for crit chance)

Taril.8619:

That would be the PvP version of Superior Runes of the Nightmare.

It provides 6% for the 2 bonus and 14% for the 4 bonus rather than the stated 4% and 6% respectively.

Lich too.

Pierce means that your life blast can’t be body blocked. Generally the damage you’re taking means you’re not above 50% life force for long whether you have the slower drain trait or not. As such, I’d rather have the “you can’t body block” and damage amplification 9 times out of 10.

Aralon.7501:

The buff to DS also caused some problems (utility bar lagg) But overall it’s a really great change. I think it’s a bug and it’ll get fixed next patch.

Not quite. The utility bar lag issue started with the January 28 patch. The “Death Shroud BASE jump” has been around for at least a month before that.

Bas.7406:

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself power-noob. Trident 1/3 is great for conditions.

trident 5 is great for powernoobs. And it’s MR. POWERNOOB. I didn’t marry noob it’s my name :P.

No kidding. Frozen Abyss scales at 3x power for damage (based on the formula I was given). That’s not including the extra damage they take from the vulnerability stacks it applies before the damage.

Necros have a fantastic kit for underwater. 3 interrupts, lots of AoE, pulsing blind and poison, condition transfer, high mobility, and hard hitting skills. Really, most classes can’t touch us in the water.

Andele.1306:

Already in bugs section, but probably intentional since it doesnt happen if you manually exit ds, just if it falls to 0 (for me at least).

It happens to me regardless of how I exit death shroud.

Flumek.9043:

About the falling damage. DS can also eat the fall in fractals, where harpies push u of platforms. i think it can also take the jade maw laser.
it basically counts as an extra life.

It can take Jade Maw laser, but not reliably. Most likely to work if your life force is full.

Never had it work on harpy knockback, though. Usually I then end up dead instead of downed if I popped death shroud.

To be fair, even with no investment in power, Life Blast still hits decently hard. I regularly have 800 damage normal attacks and I am full on Rabid (save accessories which are Carrion) and have no trait points in Spite. Crits hit up to 1300.

svava.4182:

Don’t forget to mention that when you pop in and out that you get a stun break, condition removal, stability (if traited), 2s pbaoe bleed (if traited), and fury. That fury is extra crit chance, which of course means more bleeds.

We don’t get a stun break, we get a good interrupt that can be used while stunned. Definite difference.

This will most likely be a work in progress for some time as I have not unlocked all of the racial skills and thus can’t give good practical rundown of how the various skills contribute. If anyone has additional advice, that would be welcome.

Asura
Radiation Field: Let’s start with an anomoly with racial skills. Radiation Field is agruably better than the closest profession skill: Corrosive Poison Cloud. The skill has a much shorter cast time, longer range, and longer duration and no self-weakness for the same effect. The reason why CPC can be argued to be better is the shorter recharge and the fact necros can manipulate the self-weakness in a number of different ways. Most of the time, Radiation Field is what you should probably be using.

Pain Inverter: A fantastic skill that really doesn’t have a profession equivalent. This is the most reliable method for a necro to generate Confusion and it’s AoE to boot. This one is a good addition to a necro’s skill bar for that fact alone.

Technobabble: It’s not bad. 2 second instant cast daze at 1200 range can definitely be very helpful. That said, most necro builds have a couple of interrupts available to them, and they are available more than once every 45 seconds. It’s useful, but my experience with necros is that you usually have more important things on your skill bar.

Summon 7-series Golem: Probably better served by just using Flesh Golem, the closest class skill. Shorter cast, shorter cooldown, and has a very useful active.

Summon Power Suit: Juggernaut (Warrior elite) is probably the closest class skill here. Necros are much better served by just hitting Lich Form. More mobile, harder hitting, ranged, and you have stability. Not worth it.

Summon D-series Golem: Having never seen this skill be used, I cannot comment on it. My guess: just use Flesh Golem and you will do better.

Charr
Shrapnel Mine: Not too bad for a condition necro due to its very long duration bleed and somewhat short recharge, but really, Grasping Dead is better. It does have a range advantage over the closest class skill in Spike Trap (from Ranger), but this can definitely have uses.

Battle Roar: Clearly a weaker “For Great Justice”, Battle Roar has some group support that necros can enjoy. Minion masters especially like the Fury buff for their pets. Any time that For Great Justice is good, so is Battle Roar. Worth considering, but not a good permenant addition to your skill bar.

Hidden Pistol: This skill is a godsend to Necros is some fights. It’s a rather short recharge and provides two things a necro is in definite need of: dodges and combo finishers. Lupicus, Priest of Grenth, Legendary Dredge powersuit, and similar ones are fights where this skill is exceptionally useful.

Artillery Barrage: Don’t equip. Ever. Meteor Shower is the closest class skill to this and is superior in every way, shape, and form. The range on this skill is quite pathetic. You might as well run up the other five steps and drop Well of Suffering. You would do more damage this way and be able to get back to using other skills much more quickly.

Warband Support: An interesting alternative to Flesh Golem, this is for when you need more bodies. Both soldiers hit pretty hard and are durable. They can easily fill in for a person while rezzing an ally.

Charrzooka: Not a bad option for necros. This opens up access to Burning as well as decent ranged damage. The recent buffs to bundles made this skill better too. Of particular note is the #2 skill, which provides AoE repetitive knockback. Fantastic for stripping defiant off of bosses or knocking a WvW zerg back from you and out of any coordination they may have had. The #4 is also a great escape tool for when you have been caught.

More to come later

Oddly, my first question is this:

Who else would get the scythe?

Come to think of it, did we ever get confirmation that this fix made it in? It wasn’t in the patch notes.

digiowl.9620:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

digiowl.9620:

weakness is cool, but not something necros can spread like candy.

So…how is it that with no condition duration bonus my target has weakness at least 75% of the time? As a side-effect to my main goal of bleed stacking? And this is on groups?

because you are running off hand dagger, a weapon that favors bleed stacking necromancers, and has the one weapon skill we have that provide weakness.

Yet the uptime on said weakness is quite good. We can make sure anyone we want is weakened when we want them so without much effort. AoE perma-weakness is rather easy for us to do.

Sounds like we can hand it out like candy without any issue.

Another good one is Guardian. Between necro disables and Guardian boon spam, you’re a practically invincible duo. A Guardian with a hammer lets you turn one poor soul into a condition bomb delivery system quite well.

I’ve made a couple of changes to the wiki without needing to go through any process. One was a tooltip update (making it match the game’s tooltip and performance) and the others were notes on skill interactions.

digiowl.9620:

weakness is cool, but not something necros can spread like candy.

So…how is it that with no condition duration bonus my target has weakness at least 75% of the time? As a side-effect to my main goal of bleed stacking? And this is on groups?

You name it with conditions aside from Burning or massive confusion stacking, we can do it as a necro. Yeah, we can even cause confusion via combo with ourself.

Andele.1306:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180???
Almost no mobs (and for a fact no dragons) except the ones that you are forced to avoid on one god kitten annoying heart or DA (dont remember there is a joke threat about it here on necro forums) are immune to conditions…

They aren’t immune to conditions, they are immune to condition damage. There is a definite difference. I know it’s rare, but there are times when they are not bleed capped so you know your bleed is ticking. Guess what? No damage.

The Nightmare Tree (TA explorable) is likewise immune to condition damage.

The bleeds, burning, and confusion do absolutely nothing except count for traits or skills that get bonuses against foes with those conditions. I only know of one of those bosses that heals (Shatterer), so poison at least has a small effect on that one.

I did not know that. Good to know, even if it can’t be farmed, really.