(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
Flesh Golem is rather good for a “general utility” elite. Charge does a crapton of damage when against a wall and the massive knockdown path is very, very useful, even if he is otherwise picking flowers. That said, most of the time, he’s still in there whacking an enemy and keeping them perma-crippled.
- change warhorn 5 from cripple to vulnerability
No! No no no no no no. This is a terrible idea. Locust Swarm is currently the epitome of sticking skills. Changing it from Cripple to Vulnerability is a nerf so massive that it cannot even pretend to fulfill that role anymore.
- make putrid explosion a Blast finisher
Got news for ya, bub. It has been since beta.
Please do not open this can of worms again. There are literally dozens of threads on this exact topic. Just go read some of them instead.
Nope. Sounds like lag issues to me.
Yes, if a person is Blinded, they will still do their Leap, but the hit at the end doesn’t happen.
@Olba,
I see – haven’t seen livestream yet due to lack of time.
It wasn’t on the stream itself, it was in the chat on Twitch.
The only thing that I would consider changing to this skill is that right now the conditions transferred aren’t considered mine . It’s a bit inconsistant with epidemic and hinders parasic contagion due to stack limit. On the other hand it means that offhand dagger in power builds loses some strength and gains some more in conditions builds, so I’m not even sure about this change.
Ummm…yes they are. They don’t benefit from your condition duration, but that is true of all transfers. They are still “yours” and you are considered the source for any damage dealt.
Ooh an extra life bar, you have heavy armour so stop crying. You also have plenty of CC and do you know what necros don’t have a lot of? Stability. Try taking a hammer to a necro fight and watch how much easier it is. Warrior can deal with conditions so easily, like I don’t know if it’s a new trend for warriors to complain about necros, but this isn’t the first thread I’ve seen crying about necros. L2P the class, warrior is easy mode, if you struggle on a warrior perhaps the game has too many buttons and you should try something like pacman or solitaire.
Is there a like button anywhere?
The “+1” button at the top right corner of every post.
Deathly Swarm works perfectly fine as-is. The only change it could use is a faster projectile, but even that’s not necessary.
The reason for needing the stability/stunbreaks is that CC hits necros doubly-hard: not only does it stop offense, but it also stops our defense and sustain. All other professions have the ability to actually avoid the CC. Necros do not. Since almost all of the class’s defense relies on successfully attacking enemies to build it up first, CC, which can’t be facetanked and can’t be avoided, is overly crippling.
Also, consider that ANet did not mention CC as a weakness of the profession when they did that ready-up going over intended strengths and weaknesses of each profession.
Regardless, depending on where stability/stunbreaks (don’t necessarily need both) gets improved, it still wouldn’t become unbalanced. It would all be on utility skills and necros frequently need them for damage output. Thus, tradeoffs.
I beg to differ. Necros are in dire need of either more stability access or more frequent stunbreaks. I am thrilled that we’re getting at least one of the latter.
I much prefer the cooldown reduction on Spectral Armor. It also means having the Protection stripped is less problematic because we can get it back sooner.
Plus, let’s say they did what you suggest and increased the duration by 10 seconds. This makes it a 15 second base duration. Spectral Attunement would then increase it to 22.5 seconds. That is absolutely insane, especially if you popped it and went into death shroud. 22.5 seconds of your opponent not being able to effectively damage you is not balanced at all for this game.
Only two races really stand out, and for similar reasons: Norn and Charr.
Norn because they get Become the Snow Leopard, which makes escaping during WvW roaming really easy.
Charr because they get Battle Roar and Hidden Pistol. Battle Roar gives some party support and Hidden Pistol gives an evade (and reliable projectile finisher). Both are things that Necros lack.
At least in the case of the Adrenaline nerf, that’s really because ANet stated in a Ready Up that Adrenaline management was supposed to be a weakness of the profession. But, given that it is currently impossible to waste it, it wasn’t functioning as such.
This change is necessary to make Warriors have an actual weakness that they are intended to have. Now adrenaline management will become much, much more important. Of the other three resource management professions (Mesmer, Thief, Necromancer), wasting their resources was a very real concern since launch.
Nah. Doesn’t fit the Aggression theme (as Necromancers, lore-wise, are practitioners of Aggression magic).
Litany of Wrath on Guardians, however…
I’d rather they made it so, I can receive heals that my allies use . ):
Not all necros, use siphons, making that a bad place to start for general use.
Allow a necro to benfit from ally healing, and maybe something of their own. But start with group play. Since it’s group synergy we suffer in.
On the contrary, self-traited healing is the best place to start. That way, the class doesn’t counter its own mechanics.
To be fair, while stealth is not at all Invulnerability, it does provide complete immunity to over 50 profession skills in the game (majority on Necro and Mesmer). I had made a complete list at one point. I’ll see if I can’t dig it up again.
EDIT: 55 skills according to my Google search for the post. Still can’t come up with the post itself, oddly, as the link from Google doesn’t have the post I’m after, but it does have some of the text O.o
Is this one it?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-We-Require-More-Anti-Stealth/3879549
Yup. Thank you. * bookmarks *
To be fair, while stealth is not at all Invulnerability, it does provide complete immunity to over 50 profession skills in the game (majority on Necro and Mesmer). I had made a complete list at one point. I’ll see if I can’t dig it up again.
EDIT: 55 skills according to my Google search for the post. Still can’t come up with the post itself, oddly, as the link from Google doesn’t have the post I’m after, but it does have some of the text O.o
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
Communal Defences (Guardian trait) has no limit at all.
dire gear, perplexity, and condition food
these things are why conditions are extraordinarily broken in wvw, and the design of conditions (which both dire and condi food help to further exaggerate) are why they’re too strong in 1v1s in pvp.
condi users will defend their crutches to death so there’s no point in arguing with them, they’ve always talked in circles and refuse to believe anything that points out the fact that conditions are as lazy and overrewarding as AI builds
Let me know what AI builds are played at the upper levels of PvP. Virtually none, because they really aren’t that hard to defeat. AI builds have a low skill floor, but the skill ceiling is barely any higher because the player has such limited input. Once you figure out how to beat a newbie running AI, you’re 80-95% of the way toward beating a master of running an AI build.
Funnily enough, something similar is true with condition builds. People don’t seem to get that there are condition attacks that you should blind/block/dodge just the same as there are power attacks that you want to do that with. Why? Because they don’t see a huge number pop up immediately when they get hit with the skill, so they don’t figure out that it is that skill that is getting them killed.
A lot of people also don’t understand that they don’t need to be totally condition-free to beat condition builds and will use their cleanses when they would be better saved.
This has nothing to do with condition builds being overpowered; they’re actually on the weaker end for PvP. It has to do with lower-skill players not understanding how to properly counterplay against a condition build. I’ve seen engineers take on condition necros with only Healing Turret for a cleanse, yet come out so far on top, the necro may as well have been a Veteran mob. Those engineers (by far in the minority, granted) knew exactly how to counterplay the necro and did so brilliantly.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
Keep in mind both Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark can be total cleanses if they hit 4 times.
As a note, Signet of the Beastmaster is about to become nonexistant, so all Signets will be masively improved in functionality.
Lightning striking twice in the same spot is extremely likely. You can even calculate where it will happen if you understand the physics. Heck, The Empire State Building in NYC gets struck a few hundred times a year.
I’m afraid, though, that Illconcieved is quite correct. You don’t have “lucky” and “unlucky” accounts unless the RNG is coded very strangely (since all RNG have seeds that bias the outcome in some manner) to use some account identifier as part of the seed.
The top teams in PvP use the builds I described.
If you’re talking WvW then it’s a whole new ball game when numbers get to over 10 vs 10. Smaller scale tho hybrid/bunker trumps all
Yes well, how would it not when many skills scale with the number of recipients? Cleansing especially. The game is hardly meant to be played smallest-scale (which is why it makes so little sense that the dev team seems to focus so much effort into the sPvP-side of it). The whole combat system works on multiplying power in teams left and right and centre with whole-group beneficial effects, combo fields, area effects on many otherwise single-target-used attacks (cleaving melee is an example), piercing line attacks, etc.
I’m sorry, but while I enjoy PvP every so often, I can’t figure out how it even ended up ingame. It seems to go against a lot of design elements of the underlying combat and clkittenouts.
Wow nice use of that flag button
Dev team balances for PvP no WvW. You don’t like it then take it up with them. Until then the “meta” that decides balance has nothing to do with power builds.
Also WvW “meta” is a Bunker “meta” as well….Hell the best roaming builds are condi bunker or hybrid.
What class you running btw where this condi requires some thought process
Condition builds require no more thought than Power builds. Against an opponent that doesn’t know how to counterplay you, any build requires less thought.
My own documentation while WvW roaming also shows a majority of roamers being Power builds rather than Condition.
Yeah, this change to Frost Spirit makes the skill 100% useless.
Still, HotW is not a spot for boon-hate, since the only boss that uses them (path 1) has 3 second reapplication rate. No use in burning the cast time of a boon strip skill for the purpose of boon stripping in that situation. Underwater damage, though, I will agree with you entirely. Necros are gods underwater.
I thought A.E.D. didn’t proc on falling damage. Regardless, we won’t know until we test it live, which should take about two minutes tops to do.
Just a quick question, but does Boon Hate have any relevance at all in dungeons right now? I think one or two dungeon enemies use boons and all of them spam said boons. CC is likewise rather worthless as the enemies don’t move from melee range and Fear (the non-snare CC necros have) screws up stack&smack.
Vulnerability stacking is better, if it’s not already being covered in the group, I’ll give you that. So, it’s “do we want more vuln stacking or do we want more crits?” for if you want a necro or ranger.
@Raven
I would like to point out a misconception you seem to have. Dot/condition classes/builds have more surviviability than power classes/builds because it compliments their small ramp up playstyle. Without surviviability, they will pretty much become power build with no burst but with worse surviviability. This is basically how it works in every MMo out there.
I can understand that play style, however do you think that there can ever be a time where there’s too much survivability? For what some of these builds put out?
Sure. When they can ignore you and you aren’t bunker spec is a pretty good time that they have too much survivability.
On a less extreme note, when you are taking advantage of their weaknesses and still can’t make good headway in a fight, then they are probably too durable. What these weaknesses are varies with the build and profession. Note that this statement also applies to any build at all equally well.
For example, conditions will wreck condition engineer, thief, and mesmer builds, usually, but aren’t very good at bringing down a necro or warrior. Necros, however, can be stopped cold with CC and burst right after they leave death shroud. Warrior weaknesses depend greatly on their build.
Less stats are required to do decent condition damage which allows for condi specs to be disproportionately strong, because they can gear effectively for both survival and damage at the same time, where power specs must split between 3 offensive stats while condi needs only 1 or 1.5. Thats not my personal opinion, its the way gear works. Power takes 3 stats to improve.
You are absolutely incorrect. Again, this has already been disproven repeatedly
I have no idea what you are talking about. The whole thing? Part of it? What part of what I said was incorrect? Be specific. If something is incorrect, please link me a source that backs you up because no one is going to take your word for it.
- Power takes 3 stats for decent damage output: Power, Precision, Ferocity (True)
- Condition damage takes 1 stat for decent damage output: Condition dmg. (True)
- ^^Sidebar: You could argue that condition might also require minimal precision for crit procs, but 1.3 or 1.5 stats is still less than 3.
- Gear has a fixed amount of stat points. (True)
- If I have to spend more stat points to achieve decent damage with power as opposed to condi, then condi has more stats available for survivability (If P is True, then Q is True).
- Power requires more stat points to achieve decent damage than condi. (P is True).
- Therefore, Q.
Why do you think there is no Dire Amulet in sPvP, yet there are soldier’s amulets?
*False. Power needs 3 gear stats for maximum damage output. It does not need 3 stats for “decent” damage output.
*Varies with build. On Thieves, this is correct. On Mesmers and Engineers, Precision is very necessary for decent damage.
*True. No debate possible.
*Misleading. This implies that “decent” damage is different with different builds, when, in fact, damage is damage. It’s either “decent” or it’s not. This is also muddied by the fact one of the three stats that condition builds rely upon is very, very rare in gear (nonexistant in armor, backpieces, rings, amulets, and trinkets).
*False
*False
When you have a false premise that you base your argument on, you end up with a false conclusion.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
10 sec ICD. You can reroll necro, if you want to.
If you’re a heavy dungeon runner, I wouldn’t. Even just having Spotter leaves you in a better spot than necros for that.
For both of them, it’s because they can drop target and so many of our skills require a target. Thieves are worse because you can’t just hit an illusion instead. It’s not because they can run and blink. Necros can function quite well without those, as evidenced by Warriors and Guardians both being sustain monsters when specced for it without having stealth or blinks. Guardians, like necros, really can’t run away from a fight well, but they can survive quite well.
And yes, Necros have one trait that can heal them in death shroud. This is also healing that only works in death shroud. Why self-healing traits need to function in death shroud is both for sustain and also because it’s terrible design to have one class mechanic negate another.
For another Warrior parallel, what if you couldn’t revive anyone if you had full adrenaline? How do you think the Tactics line would be looked at then? It’s already considered pretty lame due to the terrible minors, but if Adrenaline actually prevented you from getting even the small benefit the line grants, would not the Warriors be saying that is horrid design? You know what else? They’d be right.
Okay, now onto your lie that “Necros have more group heal abilities than Guardians.”
Necro:
Mark of Blood
Well of Blood
Signet of Vampirism (included for completeness sake, although it has additional stipulations beyond being within range).
Transfusion
Deathly Invigoration
Renewing Blast
Ritual of Life
7 methods to heal allies.
Guardians:
Virtue of Resolve active
Orb of Light (staff 2) and Detonate Orb of Light
Empower (staff 4)
Faithful Strike (Mace 1, strike 3)
Symbol of Faith (Mace 2)
Shield of Absorption detonation (Shield 5)
Light of Judgement (Trident 1)
Hmm, not even out of the weapons and profession mechanic and already matching the necro’s total group healing methods. Let’s keep going, though.
Healing Breeze
Sanctuary
Merciful Intervention
“Hold the Line!”
Spirit Bow (Command)
Heal Area (Tome of Courage 1)
Protective Spirit (Tome of Courage 3)
Light of Deliverance (Tome of Courage 5, strongest heal in the game)
Hmm, those are just skills. We’re already at 15 methods. On to traits!
Selfless Daring
Protective Reviver*
Pure of Heart
Writ of the Merciful (turns 4 weapon skills and two traits into party healing, increases healing done by Symbol of Faith. This can be considered 6 methods of party healing if you’re getting nit-picky)
Battle Presence
Of special note is also Inspired Virtue which improves the healing of Virtue of Resolve’s active. So, even by conservative counts, Guardian has 19 methods of party healing and one additional method of healing a single ally. That’s nearly triple what necros have.
On an unrelated note, it seems the forum’s spoiler tags are broken. Tried to condense that down to be less wall-o-text.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
Im pretty sure only the stomp precast is a question.
Any weapon cast should be interupted on DS, were not ele attunements. It would even more of a slow cast and pray machine, if youd be stuck chaneling your staff auto for another 1,3s before actualy starting to cast 1,2,4, or 5.
Also pretty sure DS + ice bow wont work
It might if you enter death shroud, then pick it up.
Still, we won’t know until post-patch.
These are the same few condition build defenders I see all the time. I honestly do not know where you guys get the idea that full solider can dish out the same damage as a full dire. Since I play warrior as you all know, I’ll use warrior as the example
Consider the following:
Notice I take out food, so I am not counting the +- 40% condition dur
for solider, a GS auto does 750 on armor of 2600 (a full dire gets 3500)
for dire, a sword auto does 20 sec bleed for 2258 damage that ignore armorThe disadvantage of the bleed is that it can be cleansed, and it takes time. Cleanse means nothing when reapplication greatly out number the number of cleanse available, not to mention cover conditions. Taking longer time also means nothing when these condition can be stacked.
Maybe if the opponent is afk, with optimal rotation, a soldier warrior can put out more dps than a full dire warrior. Otherwise I find it really hard to believe what your claim is true.
I play both power + condition based warrior, I know how easy it is in a condition setup in a small group setting. So please don’t lie to yourselves.
Few things wrong with your presentations.
1. That build calculator does not factor in the condition duration cap. You have +115% bleed duration on the Dire build. Correcting for that error, you have 2,139 damage over 18 seconds for each sword bleed.
2. Everyone knows Greatsword’s auto-damage is low, but again, the build calculator does not account for crits, vulnerability, or Might stacks (outside of multiples of 5). With just Signet of Rage’s active, we have 797 listed damage with a 44% chance of dealing an additional 70% damage. This is a very considerable reduction to the gap.
3. DPS is not purely from autos. Outside of the auto, for example, your Dire build DPS is significantly lowered.
4. You are comparing a strong condition damage auto to a weak Power auto. Compare Sword to Axe instead. The difference is much, much lower.
Dranor, the stats that give healing power can also give condi damage or direct damage. Im not talking dedicated healer, im talking a necro more concerned about the entire party than just him/herself.
Great. The Guardian can use the exact same stats, provide similar damage, while still providing massively superior support.
Necros are bottom-tier for PvE for a reason. Almost nothing in PvE plays to their strengths. Now, why we’re even discussing this in a thread about necro sustain is beyond me, because sustain in PvE is not a problem for anyone at all.
Now, if you think Necros want Warrior-like regen, imagine if when a Warrior used any stance, all of his healing was negated until the stance ended. What do you think would happen to the Warrior? Does that answer your question as to why necros want at least traited self-healing to work in death shroud?
Here’s another question: can we use Death Perception with ele conjures?
The question is: Will I be able to land constant pressure? Will I have enough time to lock down and kill my opponent ?
Because solo roaming professions on WvW need to be locked and bursted down, to be honest. Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Mesmer, Ranger – these professions may just run away and reset if they find your constant damage and survivability too much. And they’re most popular among roamers.
Another thing – 1vX. Finding situation when you face other competent player, 1v1, has become the greatest challange in itself. That’s why roamers are usually packed with tricks to deal with more than one player. DS sustain and health with sustained damage might not be the greatest option. For Necro, facing 1vX is a timed race. It goes down to killing them before they roflstomp you.
This may work okay. But I think that it may be hard to roam with such build. It would be better in PvP, but you can’t achieve such stat distribution there, sadly.
Lockdown should be achievable via Flesh Golem, Locust Swarm, Dark Path, Dark Pact, Spectral Grab, Chillblains, Runes of the Grove 6, Tainted Shackles, Reaper’s Mark, Spectral Wall, Doom, and Wail of Doom. Plenty of CC there and ability to keep someone in range/keep them from using skills to escape. The real question is how well it will deal with multiple foes, which thankfully is getting some help with new dagger cleave.
If someone can help me get the recording set up, I’ll test and post preliminary results Sunday. The build will definitely get better post-patch.
First off, if you’re taking someone into a dungeon as a dedicated healer, you’re doing it wrong. The entire game is set up around that role being unecessary.
Second, Guardians still do the healing and condition clearing better than necros.
Compare the following:
Plague Signet/Unholy Martyr (combined because they can’t work together) vs. Bow of Truth. Both are periodic removals of conditions, 1 condition from 1 ally at a time. However, Bow of Truth actually removes the condition and, coming in Tuesday’s patch, also has a decent AoE heal attached to it that goes where you want.
Save Yourselves vs. Well of Power: Both have similar cooldowns and are stunbreaks and both cleanse conditions from allies. However, Save Yourselves is an instant total cleanse on allies (Guardian isn’t so lucky) and a ton of boons for the Guardian. Well of Power removes at maximum 6 conditions, but requires allies to stay in the affected area if they missed the initial cast.
Then compare Purging Flames to…wait, Necros are out of party cleanses. We haven’t even gotten to Pure of Voice, which turns fun shouts such as Stand Your Ground into condition cleanses as well.
Getting into healing? Guardians can fart out healing too. Empower (staff 4) alone out-heals Transfusion in HP/sec. 1500+1.0 healing power every 20 seconds opposed to 2628+1.8 healing power every 40 seconds (breaks down to 1314+.9healing power every 20 seconds). While the necro did deal some AoE damage with that heal, the Guardian pumped out 120 stacks of Might with his. Traited, the disparity becomes even worse because Path of Midnight is only a 15% reduction in cooldown while Two-handed Mastery is 20%.
Shall I keep going? I can break down every bit of it. If you think Necros should get a spot in dungeon parties due to their healing capabilities, I can shatter that delusion more thoroughly than a Mesmer shatters illusions.
Except for the part where it was clearly advertised as “available for 4 days only.”
Except when it was clearly NOT advertised within the game like you say, I know it, I have a support ticket on this topic. Well, I have to mention some weird issues at my side tho, lately it happened to an item to totaly change itself to an another & for example, I don’t see the cakes I’m shooting with the BL blaster & can’t even buff myself up since last days.
So it is possible that my own client has some bugs, dunno.
Hate saying it, but you might want to get your eyes checked. On day 1 of its availability, it had a “available for X days only!” on it. I’m afraid your support ticket is unlikely to get a response because the limited availability was always the intention.
It would be better at higher health thresholds, but that’s true of every “when below X%, do this” trait and ability in the game. Higher health thresholds mean they’ll proc sooner and more frequently.
Still, even at 25%, I’d like to see this trait return.
When did they make Deathly Swarm hit through Blind? I remember them doing that for Putrid Mark and Plague Signet, but not Deathly Swarm.
At 25% health, when it triggers, you jump into death shroud. The life force Locust Swarm grants you is very, very significant.
For a condi build where life force doesn’t flow as easily from weapons, I’d agree with you on Vital Persistance vs. Unyielding Blast. For a Power build, though, it’s a little bit of a different story, since Life Blast hits harder and life force is more plentiful.
I’ll try it both ways, but Unyielding Blast certainly makes multi-target scenarios much easier to deal with.
Given the patch preview, a lot of people were rather upset with what got changed on the necro. I, instead, decided to see if I could make a decent build that makes use of the buffs.
So, here is what I’ve come up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRIQNBIhZakjmebrtx1G2bT8LUS/CBQ7GZEcBUmFjBA-TlCCABZcIAwZ/hrU65lygxUCCwJAgUdBlq+TJaBg4JAEAAB4mxm3MgbezjezjezSBM2YA-w
I am still assembling the last of the gear (notably the staff and some infusions), but that should be ready by the patch. If I can figure out how to record my play, I will be either streaming the results on Twitch or posting on Youtube (or both) to show how it actually pans out in practice. It does play very differently from my normal roaming build, however.
So, onto what I picked and why I did.
First off, the three major buffs were to Unholy Sanctuary, Spectral Armor, and Last Gasp. As such, using all three of them was something I wanted to try, especailly since Unholy Sanctuary has good synergy with Spectral Armor and its position at the end of the boon duration tree gives good benefit back. Spectral Attunement was chosen to maximize the efficacy of Spectral Armor/Last Gasp and Spectral Mastery brings it to a nice new 40 second cooldown on both.
Other traits were chosen to help amplify damage, since the build doesn’t have a ton in the way of Ferocity. Death Shiver can be swapped for Reaper’s Protection if I find I’m getting CC’d too hard, Shrouded Removal can be swapped for Staff Mastery without pain, and Weakening Shroud can be swapped for Reaper’s Precision.
Since I already had full traiting for spectrals, I went with Spectral Wall for its general utility and more Protection and Spectral Grasp for massive life force gain (22% on a 24 second cooldown) and another interrupt/chill/gap closer. These two also transfer well when I need to run with a group instead of solo.
Dagger/Warhorn was chosen because it’s fantastic at generating life force and will pump out good damage besides that. Staff was picked just for general utility and range. Axe/Dagger is another option I will try out, which will add some occasional boon stripping and more frequent condition transfers at the cost of an AoE interrupt and range.
Primarily Zealot’s gear was chosen because it offers a good mix of damage output and sustain. For the jewlrey/backpiece, Zealot’s is not an obtainable option, so I had to pick other options. The Cleric’s amulet is there to bring Unholy Sanctuary to over 200 HP/second. Rings and trinkets boost my crit chance very significantly.
Runes of the Grove were a surprisingly easy pick. I would already have decent Protection uptime, and the addition of these runes make it very, very good. I chose these over Runes of Earth because I wanted the extra healing power and the high Protection uptime actually favors the healing over the toughness. Plus, the random roots you can get from these are hilarious. Finally, they’re dirt cheap on the trading post. You can get a full set of them for less than 14 silver.
With this setup, each Protection source has the following uptime:
Runes of the Grove: 6.4 seconds on a 30 second cooldown (21.3%)
Spectral Wall: 12 seconds on a 36 second cooldown (33%, unlimited group size)
Spectral Armor/Last Gasp: 14.4 seconds on 40 second cooldown (36% uptime)
Above 50% health, that’s up to 90.3% protection uptime. Below 50%, it’s 126.3%
Actually playing the build, you need to spend as much time in death shroud as possible, only dropping out when you need to use a particular skill, and using Life Siphon and Protection to help you stay healthy until you can get back in. Life Force builds very quickly with this build, so you shouldn’t have much difficulty getting enough to hop back in. Because of the Zealot’s gear, you should actually be hitting decently hard.
Again, I haven’t fully tested this yet, but I do plan to find out how it all works out. I’m not sold on the food, though, so who knows what happens there. Birthday cake is always a viable backup.
I wouldnt say that is improving the bloodmagic line that is completly reworking it.
And i am not sure if it would be for the better…
In that case, what would you change or modify?
Step 1: Make siphons and Regeneration boon (add Parasitic Bond and Parasitic Contagion, too) heal the Necromancer while in death shroud.
Step 2: Re-evaluate from there for additional changes.
The primary reason the Blood Magic line sucks is because it’s in conflict with our profession mechanic. Remove that conflict and it can actually be balanced properly.
Perhaps for PvE it wasn’t the most fantastic, but in PvP/WvW, I’d love this trait again. I was actually talking with Bhawb the other day about how I wished we still had this trait.
Spectral walk is hilarious, Nothing funnier then being chased by a group of people with them right on your heels and then porting and running the other way.
Sure there is. Jumping off a cliff, then seeing how many idiots think they can survive the same drop.
Stick with the self-heal traits and the Regeneration boon to start with, then evaluate from there. Receiving 100% of heals while in death shroud right now would be OP, because the necro has been balanced thus far without it.
For me, the “new” Striders Defense should be reworked with other changes: when you have the trait XIII on, the swiftness and fury that you get from weapon swap is also applied to your pet, and the actual effect should be reworked.
You already have that option: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
^^^^This, so much of this. I personally havent used a healing build so i can’t verify the number but it definitely makes sense. This is what necros should be doing in dungeons for the party, healing. Guardians apply the boons and necros heal the party and cleanse with Transfusion and other traits, staff and well of blood . Even otherwells that will keep the party alive like well of darkness are useful. Any necro doing this are the last to die when things go wrong, i know that is the case for me.
Or the Guardian can handle the boons, healing, and cleansing simultaneously. Because, you know, he can. Then you can take someone else instead of the necro.
Warriors may be able to go immune to damage for shorter periods of time, but they also are capable of regaining health at a pretty good rate while doing so. Necros may be able to prevent more damage in a duel (less against multiple foes), but their health does not replenish during that time or, for that matter, replenish well when not using death shroud. As such, between a Warrior and a necro both playing an attrition game, the Warrior will always win. This is also true of Guardians, Eles, and Rangers. Engineers, Thieves, and Mesmers don’t typically have high healing builds, but SA thieves can play attrition games with the best of them.
And zerg protection/control via Spectral Wall.
So long as Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark hit 4 times, that’s 12 conditions transferred, and there are only 11 in the game!.
There are 12 conditions in the game, and you can even transfer fear if you precast the skills.
You’re right. I didn’t count Blind because that is the one condition that Deathly Swarm can’t transfer.
Putrid Mark, however, will do so.