Guild Wars 2

I generally agree with 50% crit chance, but i wouldnt go for more.

Although depending on the weapon u use it might not be bad to see less crits do more dmg than having more crits do less dmg if this gives you more effective power.

Let me explain…

Dagger auto attack is a chain with the 3rd hit of the chain being the strongest… in this case u need a high crit chance to make it more likely that your hard hitting attack will crit and thus get more overall dps in one rotation.

Axe on the other hand is “steadier” than dagger since all auto attack hits do equal dmg and all ghastly claws hits do equal dmg. In this case going for less but stronger crits could be a viable option and it mostly depends on the effective power u can get.

I hope u see my point.. if not i can provide some numbers but i didnt want to tire you with numbers if i can avoid it.

I used this rune for some time in tPvP when running with a guild group…

It was pretty fun and effective…

Quickness often helped me with stomps or getting a fast heal off at difficult situations which was a lifesaver.

As for the burning… its usually tough to decide whether u should waste your heal for the burning dmg or save it for condition cleansing (if u use CC) and heal.
But once u get used to having it and using it,its really fun since noone really expects u to burn them and it has a long enough duration to easily spread it with epidemic and stack its duration.

Just be prepared to link you gear often in chat since people will often accuse u of hacking :P

What are u going to use tha build for? PvE, WvW, tPvP?

Why 20 in SR? Do u plan on taking terror and master of terror? or do u want to go with soul marks?

What stats do u plan on using on your gear? Which wells will u take? do u want them for dmg (WoS, WoC) or support (WoD, WoP)?

Could u post the core build that u have in mind? We need more info before we can make any suggestions…

The initial post was about 100% LF when out of combat thats why i mentioned it, i know u didnt ask for it and i also agreed about the out of combat LF regeneration.

Anyway i have my opinion, you have yours.
I think that LF force is pretty much fine they way it is now and as i said before all i want is some LF at the start of tournaments… thats all.

Most of what u find is still playable, even some very old builds from short after the game was released. They might just need a few tweeks, but not major changes. I m not sure but icant think of any game changing updates for necros after release.

Any way here is the build i use now:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMax7tbOb07JApCPH9IYjTm6R5pfOA-TsAgyCpIiSFlLKTUyosRNqY9xcBA

carrion amulet/rabid jewel.

Alternatives i used and found effective include:

-hemophilia instead of master of corruption
-WH instead of dagger and Banshee’s wail instead of master of corruption
-weakening shroud instead of master of corruption
-chilling darkness instead of master of corruption
-soul marks instead of foot in the grave
-mark of evasion instead of foot in the grave*
-reaper’s protection instead of foot in the grave*
-staff mastery instead of foot in the grave*

*they are in different trait lines than foot in the grave

-singet of undeath instead of epidemic and perhaps signet mastery instead of foot in the grave*
-spectral walk or spectral wall or flesh wurn instead of plague signet or epidemic (flesh wurm is more usefull on certain maps when teleporting is more reliable as a life saver)
-well of darkness instead of epidemic and chilling darkness instead of master of corruption
-bone minions instead of epidemic for some “burst” dmg since they are unaffected by player stats
-plague instead of golem (especially when i dont have foot in the grave)mostly for some situational stomps

-runes of the centaur for swiftness on heal
-runes of balthazar for extra “burst” with burning on heal and quickness at 20% hp (saved me many times since i got my heal faster at critical moments)
-any +cond rune has its uses and is mostly a matter of personal preference

-sigil of agony, paralization (i m not sure but i think it ncreases fear duration), agony or energy on off hand instead of corruption (note that in spvp u get 5 stacks from every kill, even NPC kills)

other non-terror builds i used in the past for quite some time are these:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMax7tbOb0bKCpCPDqw7jeQsilMKFljdA-ToAgyCpImRNjbGzMyZszMqY9B

which uses marks to get LF and then goes into DS for might stacking

and

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMaV6ZaSb87JApCPD9YXcdO6BxDnMA-TsAgyCuImRNjbGzMyZszMWY9x8DA

(not sure about sigils) which is hybrid-ish and uses wells for AoE pressure and area control (they either get off the point or take all the dmg from the wells… either way win win for me)

let me ask u something and u ll see my point soon…
How would u feel if there was no DS mechanic but u had a base of 29k health?

LF pool is about 60% of our total health (if i remember correctly). We have a base of around 18k health so with the extra 60% from DS we end up with 28.8k health without any bonuses from gear and traits. Dont u think that this is too much?
I know its not the same, but i think that u get my point…

This is why i say that having 100% LF at the start of every fight is not balanced…

A passive out of combat LF regeneration would be great though. Even if the regeneration stops when we reach 50% LF i d be more than happy.

First of all i d suggest u drop Corrosive poison cloud… it seems to me that it is like using a much weaker version of chilblains-putrid mark combo on a longer cooldown.
You d better use plague signet for more condition control, a spectral skill for extra LF regenaration and a buff, a movement speed increase (s. walk or signet of the locust), or a well (WoS/WoC are more effective for dps than CPC if u use carrion/rampager gear)

Also try to mix some rampager gear with your carrion gear… its squisier but if you know the tactics of each fight u ll be fine.
If u are not comfortable with using rampager use some rabid parts. From karma vendors you can get trinkets or armor (4 pieces only). Try to get your crit chance at 35-40% so u can benefit more from sigil of earth procs. I wouldnt go for more than 50% since with the 2 sec internal cd on sigil of earth more crit wont really benefit you in my opinion.

Use runes with cond dmg ofc (undead are a good and option) and sigil of earth and corruption or agony for scepter/dagger and perhaps energy, geomancy or battle on staff.
I find it quite boring to try and get 25 stacks from corruption sigil every time i change areas, but its an extra 250 cond dmg.

As for traits 30 in curses and 10 in death magic seem mandatory.. the rest can go wherever u want.
I like a build similar to Dakiaris’ build, but other usefull traits are mark of evasion and soul marks (since LF generation is a problem for condimancers).
A 10-30-10-0-20 build can take advantage of the increased LF generation from soul marks by going into DS often to get might from Reaper’s Might.

Finally use food and buffs…
Best options are bowl of truffle risoto, rare veggie pizza and master tunning crystals.
If u find them too expensive for u, then use bowl or mushroom and asparagus, super veggie pizza and quality tunning crystals which are much cheaper and are the second best buffs u can use.
Note that u can use tuning crystals and a food at the same time.

I d love to Cempa… but i have to warn you, psychologists went crazy when they discussed this with me :P

As for the double dagger+WH…

I just wanted to suggest a different stat option for weapons, soldiers or knights. At that time i didnt care about what type of weapon it would be, i only cared about the stats and i just added another dagger/WH set for simplicity.

Using Axe/focus as a second weapon set would be great.

Personally i d use knights axe+focus since u are safer at 600 range and can afford to lose some defence, but id take soldier dagger/WH since being at close range is much more dangerous.

I just wish we could have 10-15% LF at the start of tpvp just enough for us to be able use fear or dark path at the initial fight…

Having full LF at the start of each fight is too much in my opinion… but a way to sacrifice our own health for some life force with a reasonable cooldown would be great and i think it quite fits with the whole concept of life force.

Perhaps a 10% heath turns into 10% LF with 30 sec cooldown as an F2 ability…

+1 Drarnor

Our elites are better than what some other classes get…
and plague with +2748 toughness, +1832 vitality, stability and blinds is far from “a poor excuse of an elite”. But skills #1 and #3 are bad and need some improvements…

All elites have their uses, albeit situational… but all elites are meant to be like that, hence the long cooldowns… usually :P

Am i the only who has noticed the 30 sec cd?? This would be waaayyyy too OP for a skill like what u suggest…

If i could have my way i d prefer to be able to use a utility skill istead of an elite too most of the time, but this could cause some serious balance issues for the game at this point…

Full knight is still a very good gear option… with the high toughness u ll be able to take serious beating and still come out on top. I used this for a long time.
And the extra agro was always welcome i prefer to be the one to “tank” since i have more trust on my self than others… but we are not here to discuss my trust issues :P

Then i decided to try a solder/berserker mix in order to have more power and a balance between toughness and vitality.
This way u can get the same EHP but more effective power even though your crits will be fewer but stronger. And u can also increase your crit chance with food and buffs if u want, which still gives more Effective power than using foods and buffs with a full knight set.

Its more of a personall preference really…

I d go with something like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1c.h2.g.1c.h1|8.1n.h2.g.1n.h1|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7|2u.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2u.0|u000.a0.0.0.u000|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

this is the link with full knight gear just for reference:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1n.h2.g.1n.h1|8.1c.h2.g.1c.h1|1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7|31j.0.21j.0.31j.0.21j.0.31j.0.2v.0|u000.a0.0.0.u000|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

If u want to change your traits u might also have to readjust your gear, dont forget that…

All i have to say is having and extra stomp/revive interrupt with WH is great, even though its not reliable for heal interrupts. Even the untraited 2 sec daze can change the course of a fight.

i was torn between carrion and rabid too…

I tried both in spvp and carrion always seemed better for me.

And then i made some calculations on a spreadsheet taking into consideration attack speed, sigil of earth (with 2s internal cd), barbed precision and i also assumed different rotations (eg spam only scepter 1 or spam scepter 1 and use 2 on cd etc),but always runes of the undead on armor and always the same build. All on a target with 2600 armor assuming no cleanses are made.

Long story short… rabid is better for dps than carrion on a targets with high armor by about 5-6%.
BUT the lower the armor the less obvious the difference. Perhaps at low armor targets carrion does the same dps as rabid… i dont know for certain.

Also as mentioned before carrion has other benefits…

If u plan do lots of PvE i d say go rabid if u dont mind the extra agro due to high toughness. If u plan to do lots of WvW i d suggest carrion with some rabid parts to get a respectable crit chance (30% seems fine to me).

Anyway its an old post but since its brought back on the first page i though i d share my opinion…

Personally id take neither…

I d take something like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1n.h2.g.1n.h1|8.1c.h2.g.1c.h1|1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7.1n.a7|2t.0.2t.0.3t.0.2t.0.3t.0.2v.0|u000.a0.0.0.u000|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

weapons can be either soldier or knight. I have added both options in the builder so u can see the difference in stats when u swap weapons.

If u look at the effective power it has more than both of your builds. And as far as defensive stats go it has almost the same toughness and vitality as option 1.

Also for a necro i d try to get vitality rather than toughness since our LF pool scales with vitality. Therefore when u have more LF and u fill up 1% of your LF pool u get more “health”. Its just a personal preference really…

Since u are going for a power build i suggest u forget about celestial trinkets. Healing power and condition damage dont really benefit your build. An 20% MF wont make any noticable difference.

Also I d suggest u spend some more time experimenting with the builder and the various stat combinations and keep it simple, at least at first.

I mean divide the gear into 3 categories (weapons, armor, trinkets) and get the same stats for all items in a category (eg. all armor is knights, not 50% knight 50% berserker). This way u ll get a better feel regarding how each stat combination affects your build since each catergory will have a bigger impact on the build than just 1 or 2 items.

After u find a combination u like take a look at the food and buffs u can get and see what u can use to “patch” your build. If they are not helpfull then swap 1 or 2 pieces of gear with something else.

If u want more crit dmg u should prioritize items that have the best stat/crit dmg ratio. For example, its better to replace a knight ring for a cavalier one than it is to replace your chest piece.

Also i d suggest u take exotic or even rare trinkets first to try out a build and see if it feels right no matter how the numbers look. You dont want to buy ascended items and then find out u dont like the result.

I agree with what Kravick said…

I d very much like conditions to affect inanimate objects somehow, but i ve made my peace with how things are long ago…

There are 2 things we can do when dealing with inanimate objects with a group:

1. Swap gear, utilities and some major traits when we really have to deal with inanimate objects. The builds i use are based around conditions, but every build i ve tried is still decent with power gear.

2. Do something else while your team deals with these objects. For example kill the little spiders or kite the spider queen at the start of AC while your team takes care of the gargoyle heads.

On the other hand when we play solo… tough luck… only thing we can do is be patient

I know that there are many factors to consider, and in order to simplify things i intended for my question to be about DS only.

Thank you very much for the replies! They were very helpfull

Thanks a lot for the reply

So if i understand correctly vitality ‘wins’ over toughness in DS because a high vit/low tough build can ‘heal’ (fill the LF pool) as fast as a low vit/high tough build, but the first scales better with points in Soul Reaping and can deal better with conditions.

Draehl,
since i m mostly interested in condition builds getting Soldier gear wont be a good option. Especially in tpvp where u cant mix different sets of gear…

Greetings,

I m just wanderting what is better to stack if i m planing on using DS for survivability?

I see many people saying that vitality is better because it increases the LF pool.
But on the other hand doesnt the extra tougness reduce the damage we take while in DS?

I dont want this to be a general tough vs vit discussion, i m just wondering what is different about these stats when talking specifiacally about DS.

Also i think that i ve read somewhere that condition damage is treated differently while in DS but i couldn’t find anything more about it. If anyone can shed some light i d really appreciate it.

If Kratikin was a staff and legendairies where easier to get i d get it. Since i prefer to play PvP i wouldnt bother getting all that is needed for it. Farming dungeons to gear up for WvW is enough of a grind for me

Even if all other legendairies where available for 1 copper i wouldnt get any of them. There are far better looking skins in my opinion both on the TP and from dugneons.
And shooting rainbows of death doesnt really appeal to me…
Not even GS appels to me, Twilight is like u are leaking oil… :P

Focusing on WvW, i would hate to leave a trail behind me thats says “i went that way… come and kill me”
Also people that carry legendairies are usually the first ones i target in WvW… most are easy to spot even in a zerg…

In my opinion all weapons are viable. But some are better than others at some cases.

As for D/D i love it.
Main hand does great dmg, builds LF fast, could give u back some health and has an immobilize which in my opinion is invaluable both offensively and defensively. Off hand is even greater. Getting rid of conditions, causing weakness and blind is where this weapons shines.

Not that other off hands are not good, but i like the added defence when playing melee.

Just to state the obvious, dont go full berserker with D/D on a dungeon or fractal u ve never done before. But since u have other lvl 80s this wont be an issue…

Finally, about traits to focus on… as always u ll have to try for yourself and see…

Personally I like to use wells on my D/D spec so i d take the reduced cd on wells. I also like Last Grasp for the protection and lf building at 50% hp for some added defence.
This will leave u with another 35 points to spend anywhere u like.
Getting Close to Death for 30 points in spite or Furious Demise (15 points in curses) is also great if u want more offence.

I dont think any of the 2 dagger realted traits is mandatory in any spec. But thats just my opinion…. Although i take the speed buff (quickening thirst) when i m soloing and thus running around a lot.

First of all thank you all for the replies

As far as i know (which might be completely wrong) toughness also increases the amount of direct damage i can take. What i mean is that if i increase my health by 50% then i can take 50% more dmg in DS. In a similar way if i increase my tough by 50% i can take 50% more direct dmg in DS.
If i m wrong and toughness doesnt affect DS in this way then i would definitely take vitality.

What i dont like about vitality is that it makes my heal seem too small. Its just a thing i have that i like my heal to heal me for about 30% of my total health.

I guess it comes down to a vitality vs toughness decision… again…

Since i read many possitive things about taking toughness i think i ll go for gear setup similar to the ascended cavalier build that Ascii posted.

Being a WvW player It might take a while to get them, but i ll let you know how things go…

Finally as a reply to Trimula, in my condition spec i chose a balance between rabid and carrion gear mostly because it was easier to get it. I ended up with a pretty balanced build which seemed to work great.. but as u said its hard to add conditions on a player therefore i decided to try a power build.

Trimula.7651:

But the first thing many necros make is to treat players like mobs, biggest mistake!!!!!

I couldnt agree more about this…

Thank you for the reply It is very helpfull

I will sure give it a try as soon as possible. I really liked your traits too and i think i ll start with a build like the one u currently use.

One question though…
Why do u prioritize vitality over toughness in the first build?
I might be wrong but i thought that 20k hp is enough (especially with all the condition removals/transfers necros can get) and that health siphoning would be better with high toughness.

Greatings,

I ve recently came back to my necro and i wanted to try a power based build in WvW since i wanted a change from my condition spec.
I have various builds in mind (mostly what i saw in the forums) that i want to try but i dont know what gear to take.
I m mostly interested in small group fights or running around solo.

Since necros dont have good escape moves i figured that some defence is mandatory.
For this reason I was thinking of full knights gear (toughness / power /precision), but i m concerned about the low power it provides.
Is this gear viable or should i use some berserker trinkets? Would this make me too vulnerable?
Other alternatives i m considering are cavalier’s trinkets (power/toughness/crit dmg) to keep a high toughnees or valkyrie trinkets (power/vitality/crit dmg) to boost my health pool if necessairy.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated since i dont have the time to get all types of gear and try for myself.

Finally since we lack burst would it be usefull to get some +chill duration runes to prevent foes from running away?

Thank you all for the help

I should have been more clear….

I know that Epidemic now needs LoS to work but u can hit a ranger with epidemic if u have LoS to their pet and their pet is within range of the enemy player.
So u can stack conditions on their pet (and hope they dont swap it :P ) and then epidemic to get those conditions to the ranger.
Or if possible lay down marks that hit both the ranger and their pet and use epidemic on their pet to double the existing conditions on the ranger.

Finally keep in mind that a big part of the “condition removal” a ranger has is actually a condition transfer from the ranger to their pet which makes their pets even better targets for epidemic.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Give me 1 tree and I’ll block 80% of their damage.

Thats great too!
Especially since u can aplly conditions to their pet and use epidemic to tranfer them to the ranger even if there is no LoS

Try to save Dark Path (death shroud 2) to get out of entangle if they use it, especially if u are a condition necro since it takes too long to destroy the vines.

Many rangers use entangle right after u leave DS and then they have 10 secs (untill DS is available again) to do anything they want with you (eg lay traps, use barrage) and u cant do almost anything about it other than transfer your conditions on them or fear them with staff 5

Edit: u can cleanse the immobilize and then dodge out of entangle, but u only have a 1.5 sec window to do that, which makes it hard to pull off.

Finally as Zorion said corrupt boon is not good against a ranger. But if u get stuck with corrupt boon against one use it if they use Warhorn 5 or better yet Rampage as one. If they dont u can always use it to get the self poison and transfer it to them. Its not optimal, but its better than not using CB at all.

do u really have another option when playing necro?
they dont seem to have very good escapability… i always though it comes down to “kill or be killed”…

Thank you so very much jamesigall!! Amazing post!!!

It was a happy surprise to see such a detailed post and i really appreciate that you took all this time to write this… Its a shame that it will soon get burried by other threads…

Why dont u post it as a guide in a thread of your own? i think it deserves a lot more than a lousy 200 views…

Thank you for the reply
I would never have thought that banners were so good…

I understand that its more about builds than classes, but dont some classes have the potential to perform better at some roles than othes?

You said that banners are where warriors shine…
Where do other classes shine? Any input would be appreciated…

Hello,

I want to create a new character for WvW, but i cant decide which profession to pick and unfortunately i dont have time to test them all…

I would really appreciate it if u could point out for me the basic roles each profession can effectively fill in WvW (both in zerg vs zerg and in small scale fights) so as to know what to expect from each.

Thank you all for the help

Since there was much talk about Axe 5 i though i d jump in and say a couple of things….

Even though the damage it does is not great, this skill is a whirl finisher, it adds vulnerability on each hit and it blocks projectiles (wiki says it reflects them, but i havent tested this).

With that said i think the skill is great, since it also has a great defensive component.
Aside from blocking (and perhaps reflecting) projectiles, many melee players will move back a bit to avoid the hits and therefore they probably wont be able to damage us either, which can give us a few precious seconds for our skills to come off cooldown.

After all not all skills are about damage…

Awe.1096:

[…]

Such teams will never win vs. a premade. And such teams needs to be separated from good teams in queues. Becouse it does not matter if you are a gosu gamer or a monkey. You should still get your portion of fun, just on a different level of rewards gained.

Divus said excactly what i wanted to say…
“It’s not a premade team > not premade team.It’s good team > bad team.”

The problem exists… noone argues with that…
Its just that the proposed solution is bad, wont fix anything and will cause even more problems.

As many people said the solution is more complicated.
A ranking system would greatly improve things.

Removing the ticket requirement from paid tournaments and making them all free is still a very good idea.
Then they could separeate the tournamnets in “tier 1” and “tier 2” tournaments. Tier 2 having better rewards and thus attract more competitive players.

What bothers me the most is that while playing in paid tournaments we have to play the same map for a week… it just gets a bit boring and after a while everyone needs a change.
If the devs found a way for maps to rotate more frequently (or perhaps by giving us a choise) then u d see even less premades in free tournaments.

Couple this with a ranking system and… problem solved for everyone… untill new problems arise of course :p

Playing mostly a necro u cant imagine how much i would like to able to use a PPT amulet…
Using knights adds so little survivability since enemies can so easiliy burn through the extra hp without any extra toughness…

Anyway… my point is not adding new gear even though i think this would be great
All i want (at least for now ) is the option to mix our gear.

For example in WvW (and yes, i know its very different than sPvP) people can choose to get lets say for example berserker weapons/amulets/rings/acc and knights armor thus resulting in a build that suits more their playstyle. Or in condition specs they can go 50-50 with rabid/carrion gear if they want.

There are just so many options and i would like to see some of them available in sPvP too.

Divus.3175:

You know what’s the problem? Afkers and guys, who don’t know how to read chat, don’t want to get any strategy, and doing dumb mistakes.

and also people who never check the map or the group health bars.

So if u are in a pug make sure u dont do any of the above mistakes, its the only thing you can do for the time being and it goes a long way in winning some matches.

Antihero.5429:

When you have 3 longbow hunters fighting a bunker guard at mid for 5min+ only to instantly get burst down by a mesmer/theif, they aren’t going to be having fun and most likely will never set foot in pvp again.

also if you are in a pug dont do that… if u cant kill someone in 3vs1 after a while just leave.. there are another 2 bases to cap and remember that while u fight 3vs1 at the middle your teammates fight 2vs4 somewhere else.
Some decisions are bad whether you are against a premade or not

Greetings,

I would like to see what is the opinion of the community regarding more customizable stats in sPvP.

What i would like to see is reduced stats on the amulet (perhaps by 40-50%) and the option to equip one ring to offset this stat reduction from the amulet.

This way our total stats will remain the same and all our current builds will not be harmed in any way. At the same time we get more gear options, but not too many since this would overcomplicate things. This could potentially make more builds viable in sPvP.

I was about to delete the rest but then i decided to just put it under a spoiler in case someone wants to read it.

i understand how it feels to go in free tournamnets and face better teams all the time, since i ve been there too of course and perhaps i still am, but premades not being allowed into frees jsut doesnt make any sense to me.

i play pvp because i like it and i like to play with guildmates. i dont always play with the same team and many times i play with low ranked guildmates often in the range 1-10.
My point is that not all premades are top competitive teams. If a change like what you propose goes through then i wont be able to have fun playing with friends.

So with that in mind a good matchmaking system should be a lot better than just preventing premades from playing free tournaments.
If this is too complex for 3 round tournamnets i would settle for a basic system just to prevent high ranked players going against low ranked.

Some other (in my opinion better) but more complex solutions come to mind too, but i think this is not an appropriate thread to post them

Panhauramix.2784:

As for minimum time for aggro, when peoples (we’re talking more than 10-20 here at Plinx) rally you non-stop and just spam their best attack while shouting: “Run Razdhul Run lol!” while you don’t even attack and just kite him for the whole fight (which lasts forever), something is definitely fishy. I’m even getting whispers to be the bait when event pops up.

Like I said before, business is rough for a necro in Zaithan’s territory. There can be only one!

I’m thinking of setting up my treadmill in my computer room and run at the same time as my necro, I’ll be the most fit guy in the whole gaming community

i dont know mate… it sure is strange… personally i never had such a big problem though…

Just to clarify, i said ‘minimum time’ meaning if a mob targets you it will hit you for at least X secs… i never talked about maximum time for aggro and what u describe seems to be based around that.

the treadmill idea is nice though.. i might do the same

damny.9342:

According to the wiki, aggro is based on damage, but also on toughness. This could have an impact, since many necro builds involve toughness.

I cant say for sure how agro mechanics work i will just say that in the article on the wiki there is a message on top stating that the info might be outdated.

Lets assume that what is stated in the wiki is correct…
Retreating, dying etc not reseting the agro table could be true. however in these cases u stop doing damage which gives a chance to other players to “catch up” on dmg done and move above you on the agro table and thus take the agro off of you at least for some time.

Doing controled test is tricky since it would require to kill specific mobs with the same people in equivallent gear (eg all players using only exotic gear) in various specs/classes doing the same rotation in each test.
Even though i havent done any controled tests it seems to me that the agro mechanics are more complicated than simply damage and toughness and from what i hear and read from other playes perhaps different mobs value agro differently.

If you think about it, being calculated in such a simple way doesnt really make sence.

For example rabid/knight and soldier gear give the same amoutns of toughness if i m not mistaken, while rabid/knight offers more dps than soldier’s. If aggro is calcualted in such a simple way then a player with more defensive gear (soldier’s) will get agro less often than one with more offensive gear (rabid/knight) thus making the defensive gear useless in most cases.

Also sometimes it feels like there is a minimun time that a mob can agro a player. This makes sense to prevent a boss from going back and forth from player to player without ever hitting anybody.

Finally we all know that “the grass is always greener on the other side”. It might just seem like we take agro more often than others, but this might not be the case…

Sorry for the long post.

TL;DR i have no idea how agro mechanics work but i dont think they are as simple as dmg/toughness based.

DeathenShada.6397:

Spite 30: 50% damage increase is nice not much to say here.

First of all pls fix this typo.

Other than that the build seems solid.
You might want to use dagger/warhorn though since we are talkign wpvp and u dont have any +speed. locust swarm will help with more healing while in close range too, but losing the condition removal is a tough decision.

One important thing to point out…
You have to be very careful with locust swarm (if u take WH) and with spectral armor since the trait activated abilites share a cooldown with the utility skills. This means that if u use the utility skill the trait wont activate until the utility is off cooldown. On the other hand if the trait activates first u can still use the utility whenever u want.

I m just curious if there are similar threads in the forums of other professions….

I m not saying i m not getting agroed as a necro, but after playing half classes up to certain levels it never felt like i was taking agro more often on my necro than on other professions and i dont recall any guildmate necro saying otherwise.

I m not sure how agro excactly works but i ve heard that AoE dmg, ST and AoE healing/regeneration, current hp (not max hp), perhaps lvl and what others mentioned before all count somehow to determine which player is targeted.

I think that best thing to do when u get unintended agro is to go behind your group and ease up on your dps a little bit. This seemed enough to save me most of the times.

Fact is a group has to work in tandem in order for everyone to stay alive and since the way agro works in this game is different than other MMOs it takes some time to get used to

Distaste.4801:

The bottomline with most PvE content is that a competent player of ANY class is FAR better than an incompetent player playing a preferred class.

This is the most important thing… and i think the same applies in PvP too.
And to be a competent player you definitely have to like the class you play. So in the end it all comes down to this.

Also i m curious do people who compare warrior and gurdian with a necro go beyond theorycrafting and pure numbers?
In paper a melee class can presumably do X dps while a necro can do less than X, but in reallity melees will have more disconnects in each fight (due to distance between mobs, taking much dmg and having to retreat etc).
In the end is the difference as big as people claim? personaly i dont know, i m just saying that this is one thing to keep in mind if u want to see who performs better

Bigger zoom out wont fix anything in closed spaces though…
I agree about projectile angle. It is kind of included in my suggestion for reduced size, even though i forgot to mention it. Thank you for bringing it up

As for Moa being the best i doubt it…
In 1vs1 it gives u the ability to add 3 stacks of confusion which is nice and a free escape which if i m not mistaken makes u evade all attacks at that time so it could be a life saver. The trick is to spend some time in Moa morph and be able to use it to your advantage.
In group fights though it gives the emeny group an advantage but its still far less usefull than time warp. Which is in my opinion the best elite in the game.
Moa is the best counter to transformations though

i m not saying to scale it to Asura size of course… just something a bit more conveniet for us, that doesnt block such big part of our screen. Perhaps a 20%-25% reduction in size? It would stil be big enough for people to notice it immediately…

Once in a pvp match recently i couldnt see the enemy guardian using his tome simply because i was too big to see him. In another match a guild mate guradian hid under me while casting Light of Deliverance (full heal from guradian tome of courage) which to be honest was a bit funny.

When i get the chance i ll test to see if they take dmg from terror when they have stabilty and post here the results.

Of course i take corrupt boon in PvP, but i m still trying to figure out why it just doesnt affect the target sometimes

jsut take a look that the guild wars 2 wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Nova

You cant see the cooldown though. You cant see cooldowns for any trait activated skill either. Only cooldowns you can see are the ones that are in your skill bar.

It is unique to us and it can add some nice dmg too. Bad thing is that, as far as i know, someone with stability is not affected by this damage. I m not 100% sure though, so If i m wrong pls correct me.

I just wanted to talk about the size of Lich Form. Its not that i dont like to see my character being so intimidating, but its more of a nuisance in many cases.

In PvP when we use Lich its like we scream “i m here, kill me now”.We are 2 times taller than anyone else and its hard for people to ignore us even if they wanted to.
Mostly in PvE where there are many closed spaces in dungeons we are so big that we block a big part of our and our party member’s screen which makes it difficult for everyone to see whats going on.
Comparing this to other elite transformations (like guardian tomes for example) it seems like it gives us a disadvantage instead of an advantage in most cases.

Am i the only one who thinks that it shoudl be reduced in size?
I dont think its that hard for the developers to do it either so if we all want it reduced, who knows we might even see this quite soon

In my opinion necros are fine… they just require you to learn the little tricks and understand the strenghts and weaknesses of the class before u can be 100% effective.

Blackmoa, Xenon and Bhawb said all there is to be said.

Before u decide u should know what stats each elite increase.
I took the following values from heart of the mists but i assume they are the same in PvE and WvW.

Lich Form:
+1832 power (2×916)
+916 precision (43% crit chance)
+916 viatality (9160 health)

Plague Form:
+916 power
+2748 toughness (3×916)
+1832 vitality (18320 health) (2×916)
*plague offers no increase in Condition Damage

In other words LIch for offence and Plague for defence.

Also u should know that even in condtion builds plague doesnt do much dmg., while lich with the huge increase in power and precision could probably be a viable option.

First and most important thing i d like to see changed in DS as stated many times already would be the UI. Just make it the same as with any other transformation so we can see our boons/conditions. I ll be very disappointed if i dont see this in the February patch.

Other than that i d like to have the n1 skill modified in a way that is more usefull for condition builds, but since cond builds use scepter which has a relatively slow LF gain u cant afford being in DS for long anyway so it doesnt bother me that much.

If we want to make more changes a “weapon swap” to give us another set of abilities in DS would be great too. Getting the underwater version of DS this way would be great in my opinion. The abilities already exist, we might as well get a chance to use them more often.

Edit: in order to not make DS too powerfull abilities could share cooldowns
(Dark Path shares cd with Dark Water, Doom shares cd with Wave of Fear and Life transfer with Gathering Plague)
**

Also being able to see the cooldowns on your skills but not use them would be nice for all transformations too in all classes, especially the heal

Finally give us the option to res/stomp someone while in DS.
I mean why thieves can do that in stealth, mesmers can use their shatters and guardians their virtues, eles can change attunements etc and we cant use DS?
It just doesnt seem fair and it also still wouldnt be as important as it is for the afforementioned classes.

Looking at it from a pvp perspective its annoying that we dont have any “tricks” to use on stomps (other than plague stomping).

Sorry for the long post

TL;DR change the UI in DS. the rest are secondary