Guild Wars 2

Rennoko.5731:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nitpick, but I clear folks off of walls with marks all the time in WvW. It’s actually really easy to do because people don’t pay as much attention to it as other attacks on the wall. Plus, when you drop the marks on them, they never see the circle.

Mark chain+ Epidemic has gotten me numerous kills on defenders atop walls.

Kills? Or downs?

I get downs all the time doing that, but no one dies, because you can’t do anything to them once they go down behind the wall. I guess if you have ranger or an ele or an arrowcart pelting the body… Or if someone was bad enough to let you stack on them while they were standing in range of a downed ally not helping him long enough for your epi to recharge.

I find necros fine for active keep assualt, but they can’t do anything to siege, or downed players.

Kills. Greater Marks means I can keep dropping them on the downed opponent who suffers the effects when one of his allies (even if it’s an NPC) invariably triggers them. If I don’t see enemies up on the wall, then my Flesh Wurm finishes him off.

Necromancers have very good ability for tagging loot due to their wealth of AoE DoT skills (one of which is available regardless of what you he equipped) The reason the DoT component is useful is because each pulse can hit a different 5 enemies, thus tagging them.

Then there are the minions which, when they cooperate, are tagging targets without you having to spend time on them personally.

Alkaline.2809:

One question I have for you. Do you see any reason not to take withering precision over lingering curse?

Off the top of my head, it would be that Lingering Curse gives you more damage (remember that it breaks the normal cap of +100% duration) both from longer bleeds and poison, but also ensuring those keep ticking when Terror deals its damage (boosting that damage by 50%).

Plus the longer duration cripple gives you more kiting ability to increase survivability.

Besetment.9187:

Where are the old school DB players at now?

Depends on what you mean by “Old School DB”. Most of us who are here have been since launch. If you mean those who left us, pretty sure you will find the majority in Sea of Sorrows.

LastDay.3524:

Spectral Armor buffed somehow.
Maybe it will also grant stability or just have a shorter cooldown?
Or perhaps it’ll be instant cast to allow things like breaking out of crystals in CoE.

It’s already an instant-cast sunbreak. The issue there is stunbreaks not getting you out of the crystals.

I will get to it eventually. The problem with that is then the upgrades portion, actually. I’ll edit things around on my downloaded version and see what I can do. Right now, I’m just calculating the difference and throwing that in the “custom” line of stat adjustments.

Axe Training does carry over to death shroud. The recharge reduction doesn’t apply, but the damage boost does.

This is pretty good. My one complaint is that you cannot preview Ascended items in there.

Straegen.2938:

How does a server as solid as DragonBrand not have someone selling it to transferring players? I haven’t seen a recruitment post for them. Is it just not their style, lack of a “master guild” or did I just miss it?

Not really our style. We have a lot of different guilds that all sorta do their own thing. They coordinate, but really, that’s one of the main reasons we’ve been successful: we’re more fluid than other servers.

As for recruitment specifically, we haven’t really needed to. We had some great guilds transfer to us without anybody asking them to and we are probably the only server in the top 3 tiers that has truly grown organically.

We welcome people to join us, but we honestly feel that actions speak louder than words. If they join us, it’s because they want to join US, not because they really want to win (though we always show up and make opponents work hard).

Though thanks to [EA], we do have the best score updates on the forums.

On a somewhat serious note, I would like to reiterate that I am looking for a WvW guild to join on Dragonbrand. Before anyone from another server asks, no, I am not interested in switching servers. My current guild (which I am not leaving, just making use of the multi-guild feature) just doesn’t have any WvW presence and I would like to play with a group I can coordinate with.

Again, if anyone has room for an epidemic-happy necro with a lot of siege stored up, please let me know.

Sell them to the merchant if you have no other use.

How large of a guild are you looking for? My guild is rather small, but we’re mostly EST US on Dragonbrand and try to be active. We need more active members to really get into it, but there are usually a few of us online that are more than willing to help out with various activities. We even have events each month for things like 100% a zone, WvW, or dungeons. We always have a “help others out” attitude where if a guild member requests help (of any sort), we do our best to provide said help.

League of Guildcraft is the name [LoGC]. We even have a website for organization ( LoGC ) and a mumble server for voice communication.

However, we are currently a very small guild.

bhagwad.4281:

Jayne.9251:

Why not actually go in to one of your keeps and build the siege. Then you can go and your server will love you. Win-win.

As far as I know, there’s no benefit to me for doing that. Or perhaps I’m missing something?

No direct benefit, but the siege built there will aid your server in getting more points and thus rack up larger bonuses for your server as a whole for PvE.

I believe it is equivalent to a Black Lion pickaxe.

Trade them in for exotics, throw the exotics into the Mystic Forge. Alternatively, salvage them for ectos.

Talentless.5708:

I like how the condition damage is with precision in Curses, when condition damage cant crit.

No, but crits can cause damaging conditions. It still makes sense.

I already have a guild that I am happily part of, but sadly, we rarely have the members online to really enjoy WvW together. When we do, the number that actually want to do WvW is in the low single digits.

Before I go farther, I want to make a few things clear:

1. I am not leaving my old guild, rather making use of the fact a player can belong to multiples.
2. I will likely not be representing any WvW guild I join.
3. I am looking for organization, but not an inflexible command structure. My suggetions need to be considered by the group leaders (note: this does not mean followed, just considered. Saying why it is not a good idea helps)

I am looking for a guild that is active in WvW to jump in and aid. Being able to field a single-guild zerg is not necessary, but being able to reliably have a 5-man group (or larger) is.

Having a Mumble server is a plus in my book. Having an actual commander (who is good) is another one. Niether of these things are required.

I, myself, am an active player who usually jumps into WvW for a bit each day. My main is a necromancer which I have become decently skilled at. I do everything in WvW from single-man scouting to zerg vs zerg and sieges. I have a large stock of siege blueprints in my bank (3 siege golems, 10+ of everything else) which I constantly have on my person in WvW. On Borderlands I have kept the entire lake out of enemy hands on my own before and I have enough pearls stocked up to take a quaggan node five times over. As for server loyalty, I have been on Dragonbrand since day 2 of headstart. I’ve been through the SoS exodus and every week we spent rebuilding afterward. I’m enthused that we are having really solid fights in tier 3 now.

If you will have me, I look forward to replies or PM’s. Thank you for considering helping someone have a better experience in WvW.

First off, welcome to Dragonbrand.

My own guild, League of Guildcraft [LoGC], is pretty small, but we are welcoming to new members. Our main problem right now is that we only have a few active members. Seemingly everyone we recruit just drops off the face of the earth (they don’t leave the guild, they just don’t sign in). Those that are active are very active. WvW is not really our focus, but we do jump in a decent amount. We also have a “help guildies who request help” atitude, so if you ask for assistance, we will do our best to make sure you get it. We also have a mumble server and website to use for better communication and planning.

That said, I understand perfecly if you decide to go with someone else. While I wouldn’t recommend joining them (as they are larger than it appears you want), Elephant Ambush [EA] is an experienced guild that can probably help you find one that suits your needs.

Xenth.2408:

If you’re being spawn camped, there are 3 routes out of server borderlands – you don’t have to go head on into them.

From what I read, all 3 routes out were being camped by Kaineng with nothing else to do.

Of course, I’m not even in this fight, so I can’t confirm this.

Stoneslammer.3650:

And for that Necro with all the siege, I be looking 4 u now that is when my server is not doing so well I dont wanna jinx em.

Yeah, but you’re maguuma. I like it a lot here on Dragonbrand (have been here since headstart day 2).

I’ll admit that majority came from jumping puzzle when I was getting my Gift of Battle, but now that I’m done with that, I have to find opportunities to use them.

I like The Hunter. Yes, it’s a precursor, but for a warrior, it is just way too fitting. It’s a sniper rifle.

Oddly, it’s the one precursor I like more than the legendary it goes to.

Rhyis.7058:

If Anet don’t want people to complain about people cheating, maybe they should fix their game.

There are always better hackers than coders. It’s why computer security companies hire hackers.

Now, on a more positive note, are there any guilds on DB that would be open for a necro with way too much siege? I won’t be representing, but organization is nice as my main guild really doesn’t WvW much. Mumble server is a plus.

Was exploit accusations, but oh well. We still have most of the week to make this thread the largest yet in WvW history

In short, the reason is to remove confusion in Orr. Necros would be either paranoid about minions or would pay no attention to the risen following them (until those blasted putrifiers FORCE them to notice)

AimForThatFace.7814:

Mosharn.8357:

AimForThatFace.7814:

So what people are saying is this server in the long term will be bad because it is full of people who have just transferred and not WvW Guilds?

Its a wvw server but im sad to tell you if it starts loosing the transfers will leave and it will fall tiers. With pay to transfer some might be forced to stay. So choose wisely. But if you stick around and they start loosing the real Kaineng will come out.

Is there anyway to know this niw if wvw guilds will stay before fee transfer tomorrow

Not unless Crystal Desert and Yak’s Bend come out with ungodly powerful forces today, sadly.

I recommend that if you do decide to go condition damage, you go necro. Epidemic is an amazing skill in WvW. Yes, your target just cleared all of his conditions, but the 5 enemies around him have equal stacks of bleeding/burning/confusion on them. Epidemic is a potent force multiplier.

Each axe auto-attack only has a power scaling of .35 per hit (remember, two hits per skill use). It’s no surprise that you’re not getting damage. For comparison, our scepter auto attack is the same ratio for the first two hits of the chain and .5 for the third. Our dagger chain is .45 (x2), .7, 1.2.

Our highest land weapon skill power ratio is Putrid Mark/Necrotic Bite at 1.2. Life Blast doesn’t quite count, but it pops in at 1.4 when life force >50%.

Underwater, it is Frozen Abyss at a 3.0 ratio. Yeah, that skill hits HARD in a power build.

*note: all values above are from my own calculations using a formula supplied to me.

If your friends are already on Kaineng, I would say go ahead and transfer. The game is best when you are playing with friends.

If you are all trying to decide still, I would look at a different server. Like Dhampyr said, Kaineng’s current WvW crew really hasn’t been tested. They are going to hit a wall in the next couple of weeks where their numbers just will not cut it and a large portion of their players are not ready for that level of competition. I don’t know what will happen then, but I’m glad I won’t have to find out firsthand.

Might be secondhand, though, depending on matchups.

Honestly, I fear for Kaineng. By the time all of your bandwagoners and fairweather players realize the wall you are about to hit (whether in tier 3 or worse, 2), it will be after the free transfers are over. You will have a large number of players that are simply not ready to deal with the pressure you will face where you’re headed that no longer have the option to go to a lower tier server.

I’m not sure what will happen after that, but I do know it won’t be very pretty.

Everything I’ve seen has Signet of the Locust work correctly with the siphon trait.

As a request, can we please get back on topic? I updated the OP with the current build plan, having dropped the Giver’s weapons entirely. I am looking for sigil suggestions primarily for the off-hand.

Remember: a sigil of Ice on the focus nets me a 51% chance on crit to cause chill (2 seconds base, now 4 seconds since the duration is doubled).

Don’t forget that warriors have a “bleed on crit” trait that triggers half as often as ours, but lasts for 5 times as long.

crystalpink.2487:

Thanks to Evalana and Commisar for providing fun screenshots for the score updates ^-^
I’m enjoying every score update from both of you~

Honestly, Eva’s score updates have become one of my favorite things about Dragonbrand and WvW threads.

On the Axe auto-attack, I actually feel that reducing its cast time to 1/2 second (from its current 3/4) would be a decent buff. It would allow for faster (and higher) vulnerability stacking and more chances to proc on-crit abilities. The low damage is lessened by simply having it hit much more.

The downside is that Retaliation hurts more (though it already hurts axe anyway) and confusion triggers slightly more often.

There are no jewels that are Condition Damage/Precision/Toughness. The best you can get is Crest of the Rabid.

Of course, you can skip the problem by doing fractals up to 10 and just getting Khilbron’s Phylactry and Oroborous Loop.

Pinko.2076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I know last night I had a fun 1v1 with a Maguuma necro in FABL while our zergs were fighting eachother around (more accurately above) us by Redvale tower. It’s amazing what a pull and terrain can do for making duels.

Of course, then another 5-8 maguuma poured into the river, so I had to retreat. Was fun anyway.

If you want to do a fight club I’m sure 10+ mag will show up. We love 1v1’s and we’re nice dudes! I think one must already be planned for OG vs FA’s youtube superstars.

Nah, I’m not much of a duelist (though I make people work to kill me and I have an okay record of coming out on top). I just found it funny that I had a duel in the middle of a zerg vs zerg fight with siege.

Nitpick, but I clear folks off of walls with marks all the time in WvW. It’s actually really easy to do because people don’t pay as much attention to it as other attacks on the wall. Plus, when you drop the marks on them, they never see the circle.

Mark chain+ Epidemic has gotten me numerous kills on defenders atop walls.

I know last night I had a fun 1v1 with a Maguuma necro in FABL while our zergs were fighting eachother around (more accurately above) us by Redvale tower. It’s amazing what a pull and terrain can do for making duels.

Of course, then another 5-8 maguuma poured into the river, so I had to retreat. Was fun anyway.

I have been thinking about this and have decided to re-tune my build idea.

Frostfang (Sigil of Ice)/Berserker’s Focus (undecided sigil, one of either Sigil of Ice, Accuracy, or Perception)
Knight’s Dagger (Sigil of Blood)/Valkrie’s dagger (undecided sigil)

Armor is Knight’s armor
Runes are 2* Lyssa (possible swap for mad king), 4* Lich
Rings are Royakl Signet of Doric and Lost Seal of Usoku
Accessories are Rampagers.
Amulet, I will have to see what new Ascended options there are.
All Infusions will probably be set to Precision boosters.

Consumables will include Skale Venom, Rare Veggie Pizza, and either maitenence oil or sharpening stone, dependant on my final crit chance.

Traits are 30/15/0/15/10
Spite: Reaper’s Might, Spiteful Talisman, Axe Mastery
Curses: Chilling Darkness or Weakening Shroud
Blood Magic: Dagger Mastery
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast

Any thoughts or suggestions? Sigils especially would be welcome for suggestions.

Actually, now that you’re here, I can ask something that’s been confusing me.

Just why did Maguuma get so many transfers?

I wouldn’t really call Dragonbrand a “superserver”, but we’re definitely a noted force on the battlefield.

dreztina.4820:

So far this is a pretty terrible matchup. I really hope this is just opening day behavior and it’s not like this the entire week.

For Dragonbrand, I can say it isn’t. Reset is typically our weakest time.

Account.9832:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I used my minions in the Jade Maw fight to give us the best chance of avoiding a wipe. Two of our group had either disconnected or quit on earlier fractals so we didn’t have the DPS to take down the tentacles as quickly to ensure a steady supply of crystals.

You only need one crystal to be safe, and you get (more than) one before the Maw even starts using its beam.

Not quite true, since the maw uses the beam just a few seconds after the first wave of agony hits (which is before you can get any crystals).

A stacking sigil or another sigil of accuracy are probably your best bets, honestly. Alternatively, go with Sigil of Flame to get some more AoE.

I think rangers would rather get a “fetch” command where your pet picks up all the loot bags for you.

Animate Loot Bag for necros?

Would actually be kinda funny seeing a guy chase his loot bags everywhere.

None of the trait, rune, or food increases on duration will show up in the tooltip. They are still working, but they don’t show.

Richard Nixon.6573:

(This is related to the discussion about server transfers, not about the current discussion. Just forgot to quote someone, my apologies)

I think the reason DB isn’t changing much with the transfer rush is because we don’t make much of a splash. We are certainly a formidable foe, but there is no one guild or guilds that “control” our WvW efforts. Random “pugs” (as in, don’t go into WvW with their guild or a group) can go wherever they want and be effective- at the very least, they will call out the location of enemy zergs/ninjas. I often see guild tags I’ve never seen before setting up siege or escorting dolyaks- this sort of thing makes DB strong.

Obviously I’m not trying to downplay the major guilds we have- they are bring a heck of a lot to the table, and field excellent, experienced commanders. But DB is pug-friendly, and generally optimistic, even in defeat; wiping is looked at as pulling the enemy out of position and allowing towers to upgrade.

Seems like most “competitive” guilds want a strict organization and chain of command to control the battlefield like a solid unit, but that’s not what DB is, and that makes us a poor choice to move to.

I understand what you are saying. When I jump into WvW (I’m a casual player there), I often just find something and do it. I may take out a sentry/dolyak, I may scout enemy locations, and I may join a party or zerg for taking larger objectives. I feel useful even without following a single order from a commander.

Perhaps the PUG-friendly nature of DB is due to the fact we started out as the unofficial PvE server? Just seems to fit, in my mind.

I have no doubts about kaineng’s strength being overrated, not when they have made threads such as saying they are the next T1 powerhouse.

The question is how much is it overrated, not if it is.

Although we still have 32 hours left in the matchup, I have a message for whoever ends up in T4, whether it be Dragonbrand or Crystal Desert (since at this point, it could easily be either one).

Give them hell. A good chunk of Kaineng is overconfident and needs their bubbles burst. Show them what a real fight is like. If they beat you, then we know they are actually a real army.