Guild Wars 2

digitz.2701:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

that signet keeps working even while in comba

I hope so too, as there isn’t anything in the description that says otherwise, but I do notice that I seem to run slower when I have aggro… maybe it’s just a visual bug, I dunno.

Didn’t know about not stacking… sucks.

While in combat, you slow down drastically. This is the case for absolutely everyone (in combat with Swiftness is a little slower than out of combat base. This is why you can never ever outrun a zerg).

Serophous.9085:

I’m just gonna do this now so it doesnt need to be said later in the thread. So waaaay ahead of all of you

Dragonbrand:
“OMG yaks and ebay have an alliance”
“Yaks are a bunch of hackers”
“Ebay is a bunch of hackers”

Ebay:
“OMG Dragonbrand and yaks have an alliance”
“Yaks are a bunch of hackers”
“Dragonbrand is a bunch of hackers”

Yaks:
“OMG Dragonbrand and Ebay have an alliance”
“Ebay is a bunch of hackers”
“Dragonbrand is a bunch of hackers”

carry on

You forgot one bit for Yak’s and Ehmery:
“OMG, Dragonbrand’s night crew takes everything PvDoor and day gets carried”

I would have something more for Dragonbrand, but the response isn’t nearly as funny and is too long.

Zatria.5783:

That signet is a waste of a skill slot. Sure, it’s nice for travel. But as soon as something agros on you, it’s gone. It’s useless in WvW during battle. Waste of slot. Their way of ‘buffing’ it, made it junk. Good luck on being efficient and switching it out prior to a fight. And if you end up having to run from a battle, forget it.

Not sure where you’re getting this, but that signet keeps working even while in combat. Everyone slows down significantly in combat. The extra speed you get from that signet can very easily make the difference between kiting and being kited.

At least dealing with thieves 1v1, I rarely have problems in WvW. The problem comes when said thief has backup that culling prevented me from seeing (usually in the form of an ele or warrior, usually multiples).

Then again, once I swap to using the build I mentioned in the OP, I will have to re-learn it some.

Ping.5739:

Tarjaic.5269:

Great game, and i must say i don’t understand why you disparage our NA so much we seemed to do more than ok against you guys during prime time. Not to take anything away from our amazing night time brothers. Looking forward to next week.

Not to be offensive, but daytime does suck. If you think loosing towers(except those that we suppose to have) during daytime is better than capping the map and holding it during nighttime, there must be something wrong. As a daytime(mainly in the morning) player, I seriously think I deserve some disparage cause every time I go to eternal battleground, I feel so useless watching 2/3 of the map, which has been captured by some hard works during the night, getting capped away piece by piece.

Or you are just saying this for a morale boost to daytime players from a commander….

Odd that at 11PM EST we still held onto 1/3 of the map (1/3 EB, all of our borderlands or an equal portion of other borderlands for what we were missing) most days for our NA crew sucking so bad and being non-competitve…

Or is that before “NA Prime?”

CHIPS.6018:

1) Wurms on walls are good for distracting the defenders. When they are killing your wurm they are not killing your allies. However I won’t use it for offense. Its attack does pack a punch but its attack rate is very slow.

Way I see it, it’s either a distraction (if they pay attention to it) or free damage(if they don’t). Either way, you win.

Well, while we’re on the subject, I think I found another one. This one is in our favor.

If a necro is under the effects of Illusion of Life and is in death shroud when it ends, the necro will continue to function normally, even if nothing died during that time.

I would like to test this more carefully, as the one time I did it was during a boss in CoF. I did end up going down again shortly after leaving death shroud due to damage I took. Still, the icon for Illusion of Life was no longer on my status bar when I exited death shroud.

On the other hand, assaulting a tower, it also has its uses, since you can put a decently hard-hitting minion where it will do the most good: with a clear line of sight to enemy defenders.

NeryK.5301:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Spectral Walk, actually. Necros are the only class that can jump into the canyon in Rata Sum and live (I have screenshots from down there to prove it). It’s actually fully detailed down there, which I found surprising.

Cliffs are a great escape route for necros with spectral walk, provided they know how to use it.

OK, you made me doubt but here is a video showcasing this point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8u3fC25VCM

I have both a necro and ele in their 40s and have a hard time deciding which one to level first. I must say the temptation to jump on the d/d ele bandwagon is great, in a WvW perspective.

Now, try jumping all the way down to the bottom of Rata Sum with full life force. You will be 100% dead.

Try jumping down with Spectral Walk. Timed properly, you will land at 100% life.

Which is better for cliff-diving? Keep in mind Spectral Walk also is one of the best skills in the game for actual utility (stun break, long duration swiftness, teleport-juking, and life force gain when hit)

Depends on the level of Fractal. 1-9, you can make arguments for either, but against most of the bosses, it is better to be able to heal a greater portion of your health than to have a lot to begin with.

Starting at level 10, once agony starts hitting, Toughness is flat-out better. Neither one will help you survive agony, but since it ticks off % health, you have a much harder time healing it back if you have lots of it.

NeryK.5301:

KirinDave.6451:

…

Please stop making sense ! This could set a dangerous precedent

About point 3 : necros do have the jumping from cliff with DS escape plan right ? Alright it’s situational (unlike ele’s freaking RTL), but still counts in my book.

Spectral Walk, actually. Necros are the only class that can jump into the canyon in Rata Sum and live (I have screenshots from down there to prove it). It’s actually fully detailed down there, which I found surprising.

Cliffs are a great escape route for necros with spectral walk, provided they know how to use it.

Minions are very nice in that their stats don’t scale with yours. While in some ways this is a detriment, it means the necro can completely neglect offense and the minions will still do their respectable DPS.

Or, at least that’s the theory. The AI issues make it so this isn’t the case.

Crucible of Eternity with the destroyers there is probably the most “reliable” source of destroyer lodestones.

@OP: Rune-wise, you might do well with Superior Runes of the Citadel or Rune of the Mesmer. For Mesmer runes, I would not go with 6 of them (you have no way to daze, so the bonus is wasted). Both boost your power. Citadel runes boost fury duration and have a couple of decent effects that can trigger when hit (better one is the fury, since you are at least attempting to keep range). Mesmer runes give Precision instead. Both are comparatively cheap. Going 5 of one set and 1 of the other is not a bad option either.

Equipment would probably be best done with Knight’s gear. Power, Toughness, Precision. Toughness is standard for survivability but also works nicely with oils (higher ratio than vitality on the high-tier oils, has a ratio period on lower tier). Power and Precision are naturally both for damage. You should have roughly a 35-38% crit chance with this setup pre-fury.

Sigils are a matter of taste more than anything in this particular setup. Straight damage boosts (anything that increases crit chance, power, % boost, or gives Might) are expensive. Peril might work out to start as it is pretty cheap and lets you maintain a bit more vulnerability on the targets. Purity/Generosity both give you a way to get rid of conditions while in death shroud.

Keep in mind, anything I suggested for price is assuming you don’t have lots of cash to spend on equipment. If you do, go ahead and buy the runes/sigils you like.

Dredlord.8076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

If you want to be in death shroud as much as possible, needing to wait those extra 6 seconds for it to recharge can be rather annoying.

And I’m the one not helping anyone… Look at your own posts, please.

6 seconds? you mean 5? you don’t even know what your DS cooldown is…

I’m well aware of what it is. 10 seconds normally, 5 seconds traited. In PvE, your life force bar can fill in 4 seconds, especially from half. You would still have to wait 1 second traited in that case, but non-traited, you are, indeed, waiting 6.

Again, if you did more than theorycraft and kitten, you would know this.

Life Blast will be his highest damage output attack option. As such, swapping a weapon that does things he is not specced into and does nothing to contribute to his main focus would be good advice. Getting the death shroud cooldown to be lower will INCREASE his DPS, since in PvE it can fill in less than 5 seconds. No need to wait for those extra 5 seconds if you don’t have to. Alternatively, it’s better to have some good protection from CC (even if it is only 3.6 seconds) to keep your DPS up through it than none at all. You more than make up 2% damage from that save the big boss events (at which point that extra 14% damage is honestly not going to make a heck of a lot of difference in the flow of the fight).

PvE is decently easy, yes. That does not mean you can go AFK.

Nope. Sadly, no speed buffs stack in this game. Best you can get is +40% movement speed and that requires a very specific rune set + Swiftness.

Dredlord: I get it, you don’t actually play the game. You don’t realize that many mobs have gap closers and you can’t always sit at max range. You don’t realize that CC happens at any range (some which ensures that you no longer have range). You don’t realize that options are just that: options.

I get that you would prefer to pick someone and follow them around the forums bashing everything they say, even to the point of offering nothing at all to the conversation at hand. Congrats, you have successfully trolled me. Now get your act together and offer some actual advice of your own. I have yet to see you do anything like that, though, so my guess is you don’t actually know how the game is in practice. You can read the wiki and theorycraft, but you don’t have a clue about how it actually works.

I believe by “increasing the time spent in death shroud” it was from the “how much damage can be soaked before you hit the threshold” rather than “if you’re not hit, you stay in longer”.

Perma-fury would be an option, not something to go after actively.

Fears, knockdowns, stuns, and dazes can happen at long ranges (fought Claw of Jormag recently? He fears at 2000+ range), so Stability should be sought after as an option (heck been in cursed shore? Stupid putrifiers will yank you everywhere).

Faster death shroud recharge ensures that you can be back in death shroud when your life force is full. It wouldn’t be uncommon in PvE to hit your 50% threshold., leave death shroud, then have your bar refilled very swiftly (namely due to things dying). If you want to be in death shroud as much as possible, needing to wait those extra 6 seconds for it to recharge can be rather annoying.

And I’m the one not helping anyone… Look at your own posts, please.

To be fair, Spiteful Spirit is in this game in the form of Confusion. Spiteful Spirit did nothing to mitigate or shut down enemies, but it did make them re-evaluate risk vs reward (at least in PvP).

As for all of the skills I listed, of course you can’t equip them all. This isn’t WoW. The point is that we have multiple tools to accomplish each job. I also stated that long cooldowns was a definite issue for necros (in an earlier post, but I still stated as such).

Yes, we were better in GW1. However, our party support capabilities there were Well of Blood and Enfeebling Blood (Weaken Armor in HM). Honestly, I’d say we’re better off in the support department now.

Overall, though I do miss the days of the minion army and the nigh unkillable vampire. However, GW1 was designed and balanced around a completely different paradigm than GW2. When you have 8 players together and that’s it, things have to be looked at differently than when you have a persistent world or the far more mobile PvP environment that GW2 has. Something as hard of a shutdown as GW1 Spiteful Spirit would be flat-out broken in WvW zergs. One thief that isn’t watching his status bar would half kill the zerg for you.

1. “Glancing Blow” is not defined in ability tooltips. Neither is “fumble”
2. I did recount my statements regarding the actual tooltips.
3. Wikis can be edited by anyone. Using it as evidence in an online argument is pointless for that reason.

I would make a video, but it would be pretty pointless and you would probably claim I edited out a portion.

Now, having opened the link with a different browser (so apparently, that WAS the issue), I can make better suggestions.

Suggestion 1: take 5 points out of Curses and put them into Soul Reaping. If using death shroud to its fullest is your plan, you either want half recharge (which lets you get perma-fury) or stability on entering, depending on the exact situation. 2% bonus damage per condition on the enemy is pretty weak in comparison to the bonuses you get from 30 in Soul Reaping. If you were continuing on for 30 in Curses, it would be worthwhile, but 25 is a pretty bad breakpoint.

Suggestion 2: Swap Hemophilia for Weakening Shroud. At most, you’re only getting an additional tick per skill (2 on Enfeebling Blood, but I disagree with your choice of offhand, see below). Given the amount of time you plan on spending in death shroud, getting 10 seconds of bleed in an AoE (plus weakness) each time you enter is better than an additional tick on 5-25-second cooldowns that are not your focus.

Suggestion 3: Change your off-hand weapon in the second weapon set. Scepter-Dagger is our absolute worst weapon combo for building life force, which is crucial to your concept. You get 2.2% life force every 10.75 seconds at best. Merely swapping to Focus lets you generate up to 16.5% life force every 18.75 seconds (average of .88%/second compared to .205%/second) in addition to giving you or allies regen and stacking vulnerability rapidly. Spinal Shivers is more situational, but you should use it to remove boons when the Well is on cooldown.

Remember: your self-stated goal was to spend most of your combat time in death shroud for Life Blast. Yes, you will be on staff normally. You’re built for it. When you swap weapons, it should be for something that staff doesn’t provide well. Off-hand dagger does not accomplish this, since you are not focused around condition damage.

Dredlord.8076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Regardless, I would suggest trying 15 points in Curses for Fury on entering death shroud.

Did you even look at his build? It has this trait in it.

I tried to. The link took me to the very start of the builder (no build yet). Perhaps this is an issue with my browser, but I could not see any build.

Yeah… bleed caps really only do apply in PvE. In PvP, you usually only have 2 or 3 folks on a team that apply a decent number of bleeds anyway and the times they are focusing on the same person are even slimmer. Bleed cap is almost never hit in PvP.

After testing in the Mists (Steady staff, 30 traits in spite, no other equipment or traits), I will admit I was indeed wrong on fumbles being variable.

However, this does not mean that my original point: Necros are great, if subtle, support was incorrect. You claim that folks have “proven me wrong”, but none have on this. Against low precision builds, it is significant damage mitigation.

1. Weakness is easy damage and defense mitigation that necros have good access to. Not letting someone dodge that third time in a quick fight can easily be the difference in a kill and being killed.

2. Blind is very available to necros and is better damage mitigation than Aegis. Plague can easily cut the entire damage output of up to five enemies (would be more but for the AoE cap) by half or more, depending on exactly what skills they are using, for 30 seconds. Well of Darkness can do the same for 5 seconds and can be traited to occur at 900 range on a 48 second cooldown (hint: support builds usually have these traits). Nothing a Guardian or Ele can do even comes close to that level of mitigation (closest they have is projectile protection)

3. Necros control enemy mitigation tactics with Well of Power, Putrid Mark, Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, and Plague Signet.

Now, can necros heal the ungodly amounts that Guardians and Eles can? No. Best they have is Well of Blood (which is admittedly good, but not on the same level) and Mark of Blood or traited Life Transfer. They can’t do group burst heal.

Can they do group protection? Actually better, since Spectral Wall has no cap on how many it can effect, but it requires allies to take some initiative.

Can they give allies Might and Fury? Not without Well of Power converting Weakness or Blind (or being a charr) or landing one of the few blast finishers in a fire field.

So necros can’t throw a ton of ally support out. We knew that. However, they throw out incredible amounts of offensive support: that is greatly weakening an opponent’s ability to harm allies or recover from attacks. Players don’t notice it because they almost never check the conditions on enemies. It’s not shiny and blue like the Guardian’s support and it doesn’t make your HP jump or make nice yellow pentagons on your status bar. That does not mean it isn’t there and is making a massive difference.

Rennoko.5731:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Axe auto-attack should only be used while everything else is on cooldown. It’s not much, but it does amplify all of your damage+ your allies.

You should still be using it, but that’s because its low damage and vulnerability is a heck of a lot better than nothing at all, not because the skill itself is any good.

Couldn’t disagree more. There are plenty of other classes and skills to apply vulnerability without having someone dealing horrible damage. Take just the normal GS and sword attacks for warror and mesmer respectively. If you really need the vuln in a team, use offhand focus.

Bottom line; if you speced for axe training/hybrid power and have only a single target to attack, you should only have the axe up long enough to cast 2, switch to DS for a few life blasts or possibly use the 4 and/or 5 skills on a focous offhand. If you are on axe and 2 is on cooldown, and DS is on cooldown, you need to swap to your other set, not use the #1 skill.

Bolded the key part of my post. You typically only get one auto-attack in there before something is off cooldown.

It’s also okay for stripping Aegis and Blinds that would stop your other attacks, since you’re losing pretty much nothing.

I like the idea of the “hostile” dungeons being contested. When you are trying to get into an enemy stronghold, you can’t expect to walk in whenever you feel like it.

However, the timer between those periods needs to be significantly longer. They changed Arah because it was so stupidly difficult getting it open (it is now only shut if the pact assault is in progress). This makes sense. The other dungeons can be opened up by about 8 people (1.5 parties worth). Arah you need an army to take.

It is still incredibly annoying when you open up Citadel of Flames, do a speed run, and find it contested when you finish. That one is by far the worst offender for open time.

Axe auto-attack should only be used while everything else is on cooldown. It’s not much, but it does amplify all of your damage+ your allies.

You should still be using it, but that’s because its low damage and vulnerability is a heck of a lot better than nothing at all, not because the skill itself is any good.

It looks to me like they stepped on a pair of marks. A crit Mark of Blood (with Barbed Precision) and a Reaper’s Mark would put up that screenshot.

You know the trash mobs? They now one-shot you :p

I acutally have no idea. I see no reason to go beyond level 10.

The duration I believe is calculated based on the remaining duration on the Epidemic target.

The damage, however, is all the necro’s. This is easily tested by going to the mists and having a warrior with a rifle attack a golem a few times, then having the necro use epidemic. The necro will see the damage numbers on the nearby golems and the warrior won’t. Yes, they do use the necro’s condition damage.

Aireroth.7596:

I believe that you can’t use it to teleport back on top of the wall if you jump down, as it appears to have similar limitations other blink/teleport skills have. So, if my theory is correct, you end up next to the wall.

This is correct. Flesh Wurm on top of a wall will not get you on top of said wall.

If you decide to go Scepter, remember that it is our worst weapon for life force generation. As such, you will want a Focus offhand (same range at 900) for the generation off of Reaper’s Touch. The vulnerability and regen are icing on the cake.

Either Spiteful Talisman or Reaper’s Might are your best picks for Spite adept level. Reaper’s Might lets your life blasts stack up damage like mad while Spiteful Talisman lets you generate your much needed life force (and strip boons) much more often.

Regardless, I would suggest trying 15 points in Curses for Fury on entering death shroud. Given your weapon choices, the 150 condition damage will be helpful too, but you really want the Fury and precision.

Perhaps I did get Chill’s exact effects wrong. It is still 5 seconds of recharge for every 3 normally, which in an of itself is a massive decrease in frequency. Weakness I will be testing in the Mists once I get home from work.

See, I can admit my mistakes.

Necro’s weakness has another interesting side-effect: it awlays comes with another condition (with exception of Trident 2, but few people care about underwater combat anyway. Hint: Necros are very strong in underwater situations, even though our traits really don’t support it) Enfeebling Blood is bleeding+weakness. CPC is poison+weakness. Chillblains+Blast is poison+chill+weakness. Plague is cripple+poison+weakness. Signet of Spite is a bunch of useless duration conditions (including weakness) on way too long of a cooldown.

The point remains that Necros are very strong supports, they just do it in a way that people don’t notice. We definitely have problems: minions not working, signets with too long of a cooldown(save Undeath, that’s got the right recharge for its effect), generally useless skills (Spectral Armor, Signet of Spite), too long of cooldown on wells, terrible traits and a very weak traitline (Blood Magic), etc. Necros are not up to par with other classes. However, what the OP states we lack is wrong.

Sauzo.6821:

Those who say DS is OP are confused. DS offer nothing dmg mitigationwise so all it is an xtra HP bar that is burned down fast. As well, you lose all your bar skills. So other than buying you a few secs more till your death, it really doesn’t offer much…

Necros are just the redheaded stepchild of ANet. And let’s not even get started on the cap on bleeds…..

It’s not OP. Nobody ever said that. What they are saying is that it has a lot more use than you give it credit for.

Nobody can survive being focus-fired by a zerg. Nobody, regardless of build, will be able to hold out for more than a few seconds (roughly 6-7 seconds if built right, but that eats all of your invulnerabilities) Trying to pass of death shroud as useless because you can’t tank zergs is like saying a line of spears are useless because an M1 Abrams tank will just roll right over them.

And yes, that is exactly what you are doing when you say it “goes down way too fast only for them to kill you a few seconds later”. You can soak a lot of hits with it and it still provides several options for you. Think of it this way: would you rather your death shroud or your health bar go down in those few seconds?

I am not saying it’s perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than you seem to think.

@Oldbugga: I’m not denying you the right to express your opinion, just saying you ignore evidence to the contrary. Replace one weapon in that build and you go from simply “fulfilling the dev’s vision” to “a very viable build that still fulfills the dev’s vision” (hint: Warhorn→Focus/dagger).

Dredlord.8076:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Dredlord.8076:

oh yes please do show me your math…

I would love to have a good laugh

My math was off before, but it still does a rather significant amount.

1. With no additional precision beyond base values, characters have a 4% crit chance. Due to the extremely low frequency of mob hits in PvE, it is safe to assume they have the same crit chance. If you question this, go to Heart of the Mists, remove all equipment, and refund your trait points. You do indeed have a 4% base crit chance.

2. Without additional crit damage, a critical hit deals 150% normal damage.

3. Weakness only effects 50% of non-critical hits. This is explicit in the tooltip.

4. Glancing blows deal 25%-50% normal damage.

So, between these three, we have a 96% chance that an attack will not crit. However, those that do deal an additional 50% damage. As such, these 4% of hits will deal the damage of 6% (4*1.5=6). This leaves us with effectively 94% that may be affected by weakness.
Of those, 50% will not be effected. (94%/2=47%).
The average amount of damage dealt by a glancing blow is 37.5% ((25+50)/2=37.5) 47% of attacks deal an average of 37.5% normal damage. This leads to an average of 17.625% reduction in damage. (37.5*.47=17.625)

This applies to virtually everything in PvE and a number of players in PvP. While players will most likely have higher crit chances, Weakness also greatly hurts their ability to avoid attacks via Dodge. Either way, you are doing a very significant amount of support from just the one condition both in damage mitigation and in mitigation of your enemy’s defense. Keep in mind necros can easily maintain this condition on single or multiple targets.

For Chill: 66% reduced recharge rate means those skill cooldowns recharge at 34% of the normal rate (or effectively 1/3 normal rate). Every 3 seconds chilled lets your skills tick 1 second off their cooldown. Yup, pretty hefty mitigation, since the hardest-hitting attacks always have cooldowns. This isn’t even counting the movement reduction which affects avoidance and closing gaps.

Poison is a 33% healing reduction. I really shouldn’t have to explain this one, though Consume Conditions and Hide in Shadows are the only healing skills in the game that flat-out ignore this debuff (Consume Conditions actually becoming stronger).

Blind is actually more effective than Aegis for preventing an attack from connecting. Blind makes an AoE attack miss everyone. Aegis only protects the person it is on. Likewise, no skill bypasses the miss caused by blind, but there are several unblockable skills. The exception here is against Champions and Legendary NPC’s as their buff from that status causes blinds to only be effective 10% of the time.

well you are still wrong but at least you are getting closer and thank you for admitting your math was wrong originally

try getting your facts strait then try your math again

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness

a glancing blow does half damage not somewhere between 25 – 50% and yes in your perfect world you will always be fighting someone with 4% crit who never receives a fury buff from anywhere.

That said, weakness is a great skill for fighting bunker builds and I have argued in other threads that it is quite valuable but it is not a support skill.

For Chill: it is the opposite of what you are thinking and your math is still fail

hint: use the reciprocal so around 60% of the normal rate easily seen if you take a 1 second cooldown and increase it by 66% for just under 2 attacks in 3 seconds compared to 3 normally. So about half as effective as you claim.

If you are going to post about necro at least get your facts strait, these boards are so full of people posting missinformation like you.

I dont know why you posted all that other kitten about poison and blind as there was no math mistakes for you to make there…

“perfect world” has nothing to do with it. In PvE, that is how much it will help. Against a number of players, that is how much it will help. Against glass cannons, it will not do much, but they should be killed off easily enough anyway.

A 66% reduction is a 2/3 reduction. That means it is recharging 1/3 as fast as normal (1-2/3=1/3). I don’t have a clue where you got reciprocals into it and auto-attacks don’t have a recharge to be slowed down. If you’re going by auto-attack rate, no wonder you’re confused.

@Oldbugga: I seem to remeber that in your whining about that, I posted a build that fulfilled the dev’s vision and was rather viable. You dismissed it for no reason other than to continue your whining.

!http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c199/snakeman830/gw055_zpsde709c52.jpg!
Greetings from Rata Sum.

I don’t have the armor I want yet, which will be Arah armor minus head and shoulders.

natsos.3692:

“1) DS

Like I said, DS is not a defensive skill. None of the 4 skills helps you escape from a zerg"
I’m out of here.

Dark Path sure does. Fire it off at an unsuspecting critter. Fear whoever is closest to you.

I’ve escaped from a zerg multiple times with this. You do still have to have a speed boost, but a good player can indeed escape zergs using death shroud. It’s not easy, but that task never is.

Oldbugga.7029:

Now show us a viable single build that can do more than 2 or 3 of those wonderful abilities. We DO have some great utilities but many are mutually exclusive/weapon specific/specialised or have limited durations on long cooldowns resulting in a limited number builds that have a very narrow focus (eg conditionmancer) otherwise it means just plain ordinary effectiveness.

Staff. That gets you regen on allies, bleeds on enemies, poison and chill on enemies, AoE condition transfer, AoE weakness, AoE interrupt.

What else did you want? because we have another weapon set, a healing skill, 3 utilities, and elite, and trait points to go.

Dredlord.8076:

oh yes please do show me your math…

I would love to have a good laugh

My math was off before, but it still does a rather significant amount.

1. With no additional precision beyond base values, characters have a 4% crit chance. Due to the extremely low frequency of mob hits in PvE, it is safe to assume they have the same crit chance. If you question this, go to Heart of the Mists, remove all equipment, and refund your trait points. You do indeed have a 4% base crit chance.

2. Without additional crit damage, a critical hit deals 150% normal damage.

3. Weakness only effects 50% of non-critical hits. This is explicit in the tooltip.

4. Glancing blows deal 25%-50% normal damage.

So, between these three, we have a 96% chance that an attack will not crit. However, those that do deal an additional 50% damage. As such, these 4% of hits will deal the damage of 6% (4*1.5=6). This leaves us with effectively 94% that may be affected by weakness.
Of those, 50% will not be effected. (94%/2=47%).
The average amount of damage dealt by a glancing blow is 37.5% ((25+50)/2=37.5) 47% of attacks deal an average of 37.5% normal damage. This leads to an average of 17.625% reduction in damage. (37.5*.47=17.625)

This applies to virtually everything in PvE and a number of players in PvP. While players will most likely have higher crit chances, Weakness also greatly hurts their ability to avoid attacks via Dodge. Either way, you are doing a very significant amount of support from just the one condition both in damage mitigation and in mitigation of your enemy’s defense. Keep in mind necros can easily maintain this condition on single or multiple targets.

For Chill: 66% reduced recharge rate means those skill cooldowns recharge at 34% of the normal rate (or effectively 1/3 normal rate). Every 3 seconds chilled lets your skills tick 1 second off their cooldown. Yup, pretty hefty mitigation, since the hardest-hitting attacks always have cooldowns. This isn’t even counting the movement reduction which affects avoidance and closing gaps.

Poison is a 33% healing reduction. I really shouldn’t have to explain this one, though Consume Conditions and Hide in Shadows are the only healing skills in the game that flat-out ignore this debuff (Consume Conditions actually becoming stronger).

Blind is actually more effective than Aegis for preventing an attack from connecting. Blind makes an AoE attack miss everyone. Aegis only protects the person it is on. Likewise, no skill bypasses the miss caused by blind, but there are several unblockable skills. The exception here is against Champions and Legendary NPC’s as their buff from that status causes blinds to only be effective 10% of the time.

Spinal Shivers
Chillblains
Spectral Grasp
Dark Path

Huh, that’s 4 skills right there that cause chill. One of which every necro has access to regardless of build. Traited, we can also add:

Deathly Swarm
Well of Darkness
Plague (2)
Haunt (Shadow Fiend)

For someone who claims to have tested everything, you sure don’t seem to be very knowledgeable of what you’re testing.

For WvW, Epidemic is king. Drop Greater Marks on your target, Epidemic away. Even with all the condition removal flying around, the sheer volume of it will not remove everything you did. Recall that everything has that 5 target limit, while you probably just put conditions on 25 people. Besides, you can apply conditions much faster than they can be removed.

Dredlord.8076:

there is so much misinformation in this one post it is absolutely hilarious

If this guy even plays a necro it’s obvious he hasn’t paid any attention to what the abilities he is talking about here actually do

It’s pathetic this is the type of player who is arguing that necros are fine, l2p.

Oh really? What “misinformation” is in there? I can show all of the math if you want and it will check out.

Indeed “l2p”.

It’s also easy to say that necros suck at support, but in reality, they are almost as good as a support-spec Guardian. Guardians are just a lot more noticeable.

Both classes support very well, but do so in different ways. Guardians buff and shield allies, necros shut down and control enemies. Everyone can see exactly how a Guardian is helping because they are flashy and make this nice line of yellow pentagons on your status bar. Necros put a bunch of red pentagons on the enemy instead, but how many folks pay a lot of attention to that? Really all they look at there is health and not conditions.

Consider that against a player who did not invest in precision or crit damage, Weakness is, on average, a 29.375% reduction in damage (glancing blows deal 25-50% normal damage) Against PvE content, this is against pretty much everything you face. Blind is well known in effects. Constant chill makes it so the target can only use it’s non-auto attack skills 1/3 as often. Poison makes healing enemies regain health at 2/3 normal rate. Fear locks them out of doing anything at all.

Since necros can also grant protection to the party (via traited wells or Spectral Wall), the damage reduction from enemies can become immense, even beyond what a Guardian can provide.

TLDR: We are a very strong support class. We just do it in a far more subtle manner.

Well, that was annoying. Got trapped inside a wall that spawned on top of me in east keep in DB BL. Was trying to waypoint out, but people spotted my tag while I was trying to do so and kept me in combat.

Such is life.

lettucemode.3789:

In my opinion, improving poison length or accessibility would make it “too easy” to counter heals. As it is now you are encouraged to save your poisons for the right moment, and I like being smart about my skill use rather than spamming staff 2-3-4-5 one right after the other whenever I swap to it.

Could we use more/longer poisons? Maybe. Do we need more/longer poisons? No. Given the strength of the condition I don’t think it should be able to be kept up all the time.

The problem is that “timing” any necro poisons is limited to dropping Chillblains at their feet as they heal. By the time you can Corrosive Poison Cloud, they’ve finished healing and have gotten a couple of hits in on you. Scepter auto-attack has the same issue.

So to have good “timing” with poison, you need to keep it on them almost all the time as otherwise you will miss the heal.

Grezko.7950:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Apolyon.6937:

This is pure speculation, but since there is a Gift of Ascension available in a Merchant on the FotM, it may be possible to upgrade certain luxury goods like the Triforge to Ascended, when the new Ascended items come out, using this gift.

It would be nice, but right now that Gift is used to upgrade the Ascended backpieces into their infused versions.

Ascended rings can be upgraded too with the Gift of Ascension.

And yes there was a post somewhere about the devs not planning to upgrade the tryforge pendant into ascended although this might change in need arises i guess.

Thought infusing rings was 1 shard, 2 globs, and 3 vials of mist essence.

Honestly, I think it would be fine if they were just to look at the Theif stolen skills and nerf those that were better than the class stolen from had. An example would be the axe from rangers: no reason the thief should be able to move and the ranger can’t when the ranger is the one who has actually trained with axes. Nerf the Thief fear to match Reaper’s Mark. Again, no reason why a theif should be able to pull off a better fear than the supposed “master of fear”.

“Fear Me” is fine in my opinion, since it’s on a 90 second cooldown. Likewise the Ranger pet is probably fine as the shark is not controllable by the ranger and the wolf has a fairly noticeable windup before it goes off.

Apolyon.6937:

This is pure speculation, but since there is a Gift of Ascension available in a Merchant on the FotM, it may be possible to upgrade certain luxury goods like the Triforge to Ascended, when the new Ascended items come out, using this gift.

It would be nice, but right now that Gift is used to upgrade the Ascended backpieces into their infused versions.

Malfactryn just screams Necro. Of course, it’s best for an off-hand dagger since it has Rabid stats.

Just wait it out. If your group goes one at a time, you can easily be #3 and not worry about it.

benda.4893:

I’m 80 for not even a week and i’ve farmed 2 pieces of arah set already. Honestly i’m not getting what is hard about it besides dwayna. Can someone explain?

Hardest part about it is getting a group together and having it open simultaneously.

I’m missing two pieces of exotic armor, but have ascended ring and backpack. I’ve done path 3 once before, so I at least know what to expect with Lupi (best boss in the game IMO). Still running with 20k+health and 2300 armor, plus death shroud, so I’m reasonably durable.

Truthfully, the armor is what I’m after.

Oh, and Signet of Undeath is standard for my dungeon runs.

If you get mystic forge stones from daily (it happens. I’ve gotten it twice), then it’s worth it. If you want to buy them? don’t bother.

anathemawhite.6879:

This might be the reason, might be not.
Maybe because our fear can deal damage if traited? And can deal +50% damage if traited more.
I don’t know how much total damage a 1 second fear can deal, but in some other thread some dude mention it is a lot. If we have 4 seconds fear I think the damage will be awesome.

Same trait, actually. Let’s put it this way: with just the condition damage from 30 points in Curses, I have hit 720 damage on my fear. Most likely this is the reason why we have short durations.