Guild Wars 2

Mammoth.1975:

Try pressing one.

Andele.1306:

RISEN FREAKING SHARK UNDERWATER!

THIS

Game is fine people are just melodramatic and build relationships through mutual enemies ie: developers, perceived overpowered classes etc. If they made every (reasonable) change recommended by players in these forums, nothing would change; it’d be the same complaint threads just about different things.

If you like the game play it. If you don’t like the game don’t play it. It seems pretty simple.

Corrupt Boon is still randomly failing without any indication why. The target will not dodge, will be directly in front of you and CB will still cast uninterrupted and activate its cooldown but have absolutely zero effect on the enemy target’s boons. This is quite disastrous for anyone using this spell as you generally save it for moments when the enemy is stacked with boons (primarily stability) and if it fails it’s now on a 40 second cooldown. If it wasn’t so good when it DID work I would much rather replace it with a spell I can actually rely on. Can you guys PLEASE finally take a look at why this utility doesn’t work when it’s supposed to and never gives any sort of combat text message as to why it doesn’t work?

Epidemic tooltip: “Apply vulnerability on yourself. Spread conditions on a target foe to all nearby foes.”

It applies vulnerability on you because it’s a Corruption type spell just like Corrupt Boon, Blood is Power and Corrosive Poison Cloud; meaning it puts a condition on you when activated, which sounds stupid but you have multiple ways of managing conditions that it can actually be beneficial (ie: Dagger off-hand #4, Staff #4, Plague Signet all transfer conditions from you to your target, and Consume Conditions actually heals you based on how many conditions you have on yourself).

If you have conditions on the target and cast Epidemic it will then put all of those conditions on up to 5 of the closest enemies to the target you cast Epidemic on. It works on all conditions, not just the ones you put on the target.

I’ve been playing around with a bursty bleed build focused on maintaining constant bleed stacks when pressured. It seems like the hardest part about fighting d/p thieves is being able to continue attacking while defending and not being stuck just defending when the thief starts pressuring you hardcore. I kite as much as possible, try to dodge or DS when I expect backstab. It’s pretty easy predicting thieves movements with greater marks. I use golem all the time for every build because the cripple and knockdown are just too good. I can get a fairly consistent 15-18 stacks of bleeding going in a little bit longer than the knockdown lasts for and that puts a lot of pressure on them. Epidemic on 15 sec cool down eats the 3 min thieves guild. Plus using all aoe bleeds you can epidemic off one of the thieves guild thieves to double up conditions on the player. Do NOT save epidemic for that clutch moment. The cool down is short and using it even when the target has just poison, cripple and 5 stacks of bleeding nets you way more damage than not using it. Just DS#2 into epidemic gives you 3 stacks of bleeding and chill aoe. Not bad.

I always use flesh worm too. There’s a LOT of places where you can teleport up levels to advantageous positions. Throw it down anywhere you’re hanging around. Don’t worry about wasting it or you’ll never use it. Let it sit there and do its thing. It’ll be constantly tracking and applying poison with a decent—albeit slow—attack. It gives you 10% life force with an aoe poison on teleport. My main strategy against everyone in this build is to stack bleeds as fast as I can, chain fears plus golem knockdown when they go to heal/cleanse for more damage uptime, and use flesh worm port when they setup their burst. Generally that will put me someplace they can’t access quickly and will allow me to keep applying consistent bleed damage. When they make it up to me I’ll try and keep them feared off and crippled before running away to kite and then if needed repositioning flesh worm. Have had really no problems vs any class as a necro except when i play glass cannon builds.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Stof.9584:

There is a limited number of Spectators allowed? And it cuts into the amount of Players in the match?

Yes, that is how they thought best to design and implement this feature.

wtf.

That’s stupid as hell.

Writetyper.1985:

Hanzo.9624:

AlBundy.7851:

If I’m not mistaken wow was the 1st mmo?

Not a chance. There were several prior MMO’s.

If wow wasn’t the first mmo then why is it the most popular?

do you game?

What does time released have to do with popularity…? It’s more popular because people were bored after years of older MMO’s and WoW had a better advertising department and a better design (no one liked the 4 hour Plane of Fear corpse runs in EQ).

I’m sorry your question is just odd and shouldn’t really require an answer. : /

AlBundy.7851:

If I’m not mistaken wow was the 1st mmo?

Not a chance. There were several prior MMO’s.

We need—critically—the option to open up a LFG search/queue for PvP, WvW and PvE. This, in my opinion, is one of the main things this game needs to push it forward and make it more user-friendly (and fun) for all parties in every venue. The most daunting task for people looking to accomplish things in MMO’s is finding people to accomplish them with. GW2 needs a good LFG queue system that is easy to use and sits in the background while the player is free to do whatever else they choose while they wait for their queue to find them a group, be it hotjoin PvP, WvW, dailies etc. I haven’t had to sit in a zone and /shout LFG since Everquest, why did they bring back such a time-sucking, boring concept when there has already been several successful alternatives?

We all know the state of PvP currently: 8v8 is fun for mindless play with no strategic goals, teamwork, or communication. tPvP is only fun if you already have a team to run with because solo queue functions more and more like 8v8 does (bad profession match ups, no communication, no strategy, players leaving before the match starts). No one wants to sit in HotM shouting for a group, and Anet I’m sure doesn’t want players spending more time trying to find people to play with than actually playing the game.

I would love to see a new window added to the toolbar next to everything else where we can open up a LFG browser to see who is currently looking for a tournament group (or a WvW assault group, or a PvE dungeon, or Story, etc). We could see the player’s profession, level, PvP rank, title, etc and there could be a note option for the player to type any additional information (as in what builds they play, or other alt professions they have access to if needed).

ie: Hanzo – Necromancer – Rank 40 – ‘any build, also have thief alt’

Players would have the option of inviting specific players they see in the queue to their group but the group itself would be managed through this window so any interested players can see the group makeup before joining.

Also aside from just single player queues, a group could queue up looking for a specific profession or build, ie: a bunker, depending on what they need for their group. Groups will have the option to LFG for a specific profession or role.

ie: Queue for condition damage, direct damage, support, bunker, roamer, etc. Groups could look for additional members this way if they don’t have a specific profession requirement in mind and the browser can automatically match these players. Cross server functionality would be nice.

The goal would be to allow players to carry on with their game play to accomplish other goals while still actively queuing for tPvP (or whatever they want) without having to stand around the area hoping to find players. It would be more time playing and less time looking, with more organization.

I’d be extremely surprised if this hasn’t been suggested already, but not as surprised as I am that this option doesn’t already exist in a new-gen MMO, where the whole premise behind it is finding competent players and constructing a cohesive blend of professions in the shortest amount of time so you can get to the action. Maybe if this gets enough positive response it will be considered, or at least we could hear from Anet about a possible alternative/fix to the current disjointed nature of solo-group play.

What would be nice is a utility similar to every other necro/warlock archetype’s in other games: The ability to exchange health for life force.

We need the option to cast a spell with a short (or none) cooldown that would take away a certain percentage of health for a certain percentage of life force. There’s so many traits designed to buff death shroud but without adequate life force generation they’re not used to their fullest potential except for builds specifically designed for it. As has been said, condition builds fall flat in the LF gen department and this would go a long way toward making the playability of the class with any build more fluid.

“Or…. right at step 3 your spectral grasp fails or gets dodged, and you are standing on the wall/marks with your hands in your pockets, while they are attacking you from range. Not to mention it took 2 utilities just to get them to you and in that damage if it works.”

Not everything works all of the time. Dagger 3 into wells doesn’t always work either but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth using. It’s more for fun than anything.

Tip: To make sure spectral grasp hits the target more often, cast it then immediately DS fear them so they can’t avoid it. Then you pull them into your trap with fury up, build depending.

I also recommend in a D/W setup to use warhorn 5 when spectral grasp or dark path is in the air. That way when you do end up closing the gap to your opponent they’re immediately crippled and stuck to you. I’ve seen warhorn 5 bring me from 0% life force to %100 in group fights, it’s a great skill when used offensively and not wasted every time it’s off cool down just for swiftness.

Step 1: Stack staff marks on your feet
Step 2: Put spectral wall between you and your target
Step 3: Spectral grasp target through spectral wall into your staff marks (with blast finisher)

Also worthy of note is that you can corrupt boon stability into fear against rezzers who try that. Can easily turn your opponent’s stability rez into a fear combo with corrupt boon > reapers mark > doom, then cripple them now that they’re further away from their downed team mate to buy some more time.

1. Stability through elites or DS via Foot in the Grave
2. Blind through Well of Darkness or Deathly Swarm
3. Reaper’s Mark on the downed opponent to delay revivals

That’s really it. I either run power/wells or condition so if I’m 1v2 I’ll usually try and drop well of suffering on the downed target while I keep pressure/CC the standing target to prevent him from reviving. If I’m conditions I’ll use Blood is Power > Deathly Swarm > Enfeebling Blood > DS#2 > Epidemic to help bleed out the other target.

I blame the internet for ruining video games, honestly. Back in the day when you actually had to have friends come over to play multiplayer games, there was no raging because you’d be a total freak loser if you started screaming at your friends over a video game.

Having multiplayer function over the internet allows anonymity for all of those weird, hyper-serious geeks who want to rage over every little thing that doesn’t go their way, because there’s no fear of retaliation from anyone. It gives them the voice they wish they had in real life.

CookMETEnder.7582:

…because people have different opinions.

Which is why I asked why it was worth doing, because in my opinion it’s awful. I wanted to hear the opinions of others who may enjoy it for reasons that I’ve yet to explore. I don’t want to say, “This is stupid, I’m never doing this again” because there’s a good chance I’m missing the point.

Rednik.3809:

ITT: sPvP pugs talks about the WvW. What’s even more fun – topic created in the forum subsection which is rarely visited by WvW crowd. Guys, do you really want to know the views of WvW fans & hardcore guilds, or you just want a place where you could express your opinion without any criticism?

I’d rather hear opinions from sPvPers who also enjoy WvW, being an sPvPer who wants to enjoy WvW myself.

If you were a boxer who wanted to try wrestling, would you ask a wrestler if he thought wrestling was effective? Or would you ask a boxer who also did wrestling if he thought wrestling was effective?

""""""Call of Duty allows “noobs” to have their fun even against strong players through various means, not the less the fact they don’t put them against fully organized tryhard teams if possible something GW2 doesn’t seem to do. There’s also a lot of tools in the game for them to get their fun, be it blind explosive spam lucky kills down to some win streak power if they can get one.""""""

Hotjoin pvp matches aren’t ‘fully organized try hard’ teams either. It’s mainly new players, rank farmers, or people trying out new builds. They can still get lucky kills without being 1v1 pros. When I first started I was using the default minion build spamming staff marks and still doing just fine.

""""""What fun is there in GW2 sPvP when you aren’t as good as the other players? The odds are that you’ll get some humiliating 0.2s kill from behind by a thief or get to fight 1v1 against some unkillable tanky elem/guardian and be incredibly frustrated because, you cannot even dent their HP."""""

Who expects to start ANY hobby as good as everyone else? You don’t do martial arts ad get frustrated when you don’t start off as a black belt do you? The whole purpose of anything in life regardless of what it is, is progress. Seeing yourself get better. When I first started I couldn’t kill mesmers. Now they’re not a problem because I played, learned their tactics and I’m not surprised by them anymore. If I got instantly killed by a thief I looked at my build, looked at their tactics, figured out what I did wrong. This is common sense. If I can’t kill a boon stacking bunker, I use boon stripping.

All I’m gathering is “nothing is fun unless you’re instantly pro from day 1 so no one tries”. I’m casual too. I work full time and play for a few hours every night. Which means I don’t have nor want to devote all my play time to farming gear via pve means just to be remotely competitive in WvW pvp, especially when I’d need entirely different sets of gear for every build I play. I can just be equally geared in the mists. I want to get better at the class I play. This is why, from a casual perspective, I feel like sPvP is more gained vs time spent for the casual player over WvW. Getting better IS the fun part of sPvP, that IS the reward.

stof.9341:

Hanzo.9624:

stof.9341:

sPvP is very frustrating to play for not that good players. WvW isn’t.

You’re only ‘not that good’ at the beginning, just like everyone else. I’d rather be bad at sPvP than be good at WvW.

The beginning matters a lot when it causes players to stop playing altogether.

Also, sPvP is definitively unfun when you do too much solo queueing or hotjoin. Not everyone has a team available for serious tournament play.

An eSport game must be casual friendly or else it won’t have players at all. WvW isn’t eSport but is casual friendly so there are players there.

I don’t do tournies on a serious team. I group with friends when they’re on, solo queue when I have time and no one else is on, and hotjoin every other time. I’m rank 40 and I haven’t gotten bored yet. By your logic new players to Call of Duty would quit immediately if they’re not good enough. Everyone starts somewhere.

The mists seems WAY more casual friendly than WvW if only for that fact that you don’t have to spend countless hours farming gear to be competitive. You can configure your gear and build for free without wasting gold. You don’t have to pay for repairs. You spend more time fighting players in small battles and less time running around looking for something to do.

People who play pvp want to kill players, right? You have to get better at your class in order to kill players which means countless fights, respecs, gear changes etc. All of this is easier to accomplish in the mists. You’re not going to get better at your class in WvW where the numbers are always tilted toward one team, gear and consumables play a huge role, level plays a huge role, etc. Spamming ranged attacks at a zerg isn’t going to teach you the finer nuances of your class.

In sPvP you have the same gear options as everyone else with no consumables. The fights aren’t based on how good your gear is or if you’re up leveled or not. It eliminates that variable and forces you to be a better player on a balanced playing field. How can that be considered less fun PvP for people that truly enjoy PvP?

stof.9341:

sPvP is very frustrating to play for not that good players. WvW isn’t.

You’re only ‘not that good’ at the beginning, just like everyone else. I’d rather be bad at sPvP than be good at WvW.

So after doing nothing but pvp since beta (aside from leveling) I’ve been recently playing WvW for the monthly, etc, and because all everyone does is complain about s/tPvP and talk about how popular WvW is in comparison. I wanted to see this aspect of the game for once.

I honestly can’t figure out what people like about it? The few times I engaged in small scale encounters (1vX or 2vX), everyone was terrible! I’m not trying to be insulting or pretentious, and I expect the upleveled people to be at a gear disadvantage, but the overall general feel of combat was very disorganized and…just weird. It didn’t feel like people were trying, if that’s the best way to explain it.

Other than that it was large groups of people spamming abilities against other large groups of people until one side was dead or ran away. Then you die and have a boring, long, slow walk back to any signs of player activity. If you make it back to a large group of your team, great. Walk around with a large group of your team and repeat above. It feels like WoW’s Wintergrasp but too big and with no vehicles.

Maybe my opinion is skewed by the fact that I’ve only done the Mists primarily, but I honestly can’t see how anyone could like WvW over sPvP. You don’t even really get to explore the combative abilities of your class because:

1. You outnumber the enemy to the point where it doesn’t matter.
2. You’re outnumbered to the point where it doesn’t matter.
3. The combat is, largely, gear dependent.
4. You fight people that aren’t the same level as you.

Am I missing something? Is there some other greater purpose that makes this venue more enjoyable? I’m not making a direct comparison between the two PvP aspects of the game but when one is largely more popular than the other you would expect it to be significantly better, but I just don’t see it.

Red Team Rank Total: 77
Blue Team Rank Total: 83

PinCushion.7390:

I think we’re currently amazing at soaking damage, or at least we can be built to be amazing at it. My biggest gripe is that rather than get stronger in long fights we tend to get weaker because DS regen is confined to single target skills or channeled skills that are easily interrupted, dodged, or just plain slow.

Condition builds are seriously hindered by life force gen. Scepter 3 is a 10 sec cool down based off of total corruptions on the target. After that all you have is staff 1 which is utterly useless in a condition build. They need to make scepter 1 give 1% life force on its third attack. This would go a long way.

Actually doesn’t seem to be any gear with power/precision/vitality on it anywhere outside of the mists..?

I don’t understand this. I’m trying to farm gear to recreate the multitude of builds I run in PvP. Knight’s Amulet + Berserker jewel is what I’m currently trying to convert over to PvE gear. I assumed I would need Knight’s Armor with Berserker Jewelry (and weapons? I don’t know) but in the Mists, Knight’s Amulet is Power/Precision/Vitality and on the trading post it’s Power/Precision/Toughness. Why does this exist? It seems like unnecessary confusion to name two different stat sets the same thing. Can anyone clarify please?

As power D/W I just pressure the hell out of them. It’s easy to stick to your target between golem charge (golem also applies cripple), dark pact, locust swarm, chilblains, reapers mark, doom and dark path. It’s easy to burst them down if you don’t give them time to react. Corrupt boon Rampage as One if you have it, stability turns into Fear. I like stacking staff marks on myself, switching to D/W and popping locust swarm for the aoe cripple, and then spectral grasping the ranger into all of my marks. Pop in/out of DS for fury and dagger spam for the kill. Use banshees wail during well bomb/burst to keep the pressure on.

Poplolita.2638:

Yes, I knew this since I started playing gw2 4 months ago. If you felt the need to post this, I would like you to push even further your reasoning, maybe you’ll find the true answer. I’d gladly read the rest of it.

Poetic genius, or world’s best fortune cookie?

Necro.

Helping players in pvp always goes the same way:

1) They ignore you completely.
2) They talk crap back for no reason.
3) They listen but don’t indicate that they listen.

This game in particular is abnormally silent when it comes to player communication. I usually call out timers on bosses or buffs or if I see an empty node, or if I see on the map our entire team is fighting outside spawn while we get 3 capped. These are all things newer players may not pay attention to in the midst of combat. I know when I started out it was a huge help when players would call out things. Unfortunately it feels like most of the time no one actually tries.

Spirit Watch is the worst hotjoin map now. One team always steam rolls the other. I hate joining a match that’s 250 to 35 because they three capped and the losing team is too focused on running to the orb, spamming aoe’s, and dying, rather than simply capping the undefended nodes.

I think back to WoW and how the general rule was "never be the last person to leave a node". In this game the maps are small enough where everyone floats around, which turns into a zerg and no defended nodes.

It’s nothing but a bunch of people circle zerging each other. :x

I’ve had great success with this build consistently, maybe you’ll like it. Copy and paste the link into the address bar.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRLevSTTjePBMpg7xhesLuOHpA5hB;T0AA2CnosyYlwKrVOrkWtsYMyhiXFTIA

The basic premise is to DS #3 Fear into D #3 immobilize with Fury > Well of Suffering > Golem Charge > Well of Corruption > W#5 for the cripple > W#4 to interrupt defensive response to wells > D#1 spam for kill. Also from slight range can immobilize > well bomb > D#2 life siphon which does around 4k damage and heals you. It works amazingly well. I’ve tried every other possible way but the traited wells are too good to give up. DS #2 into an immediate DS#3 with dagger spam from behind gives +10% damage from thief runes and with sigil of rage proc (which is almost guaranteed to proc at the start of attacking unless it’s on cooldown) the damage is immense, even after the quickness nerf.

I tried subbing Axe/Focus instead of Staff due to lack of Greater Marks (it’s just not workable into the build) but you lose too much utility by giving up the staff. I use it to bait dodges for well bombing; Chillblains always forces a dodge. Or to stack on myself against thieves.

You can also switch the runes to Dolyak for the vitality, toughness and regen, switch the amulet to Zerker/zerker, and switch Sigil of Bloodlust to Sigil of Accuracy. This gives more damage mitigation, power, and crit damage at the expense of health pool and critical chance. Personal preference.

Using the same setup, if you prefer more utility, try Dagger/Dagger. Drop Corrupt Boon (that slot is completely based on preference, btw. Sigil of Undeath for tPvP. I just love CB) for Well of Darkness. Pick up Chilling Darkness (Curses III) and Dagger Mastery (Blood I) and enjoy constantly maintaining blind and chill on your targets with multiple condition transfers.

With the current meta straying away from quickness burst builds you don’t suffer from a lack of toughness as much as before, and your ability to blow up bunkers instantly comes in handy when assaulting points in tPvP, plus the swiftness from Warhorn and the minor self-healing from siphons makes you a survivable roamer. Wells can take out multiple people and on a short cooldown you won’t feel like you have to reserve them (I frequently will 1v2 and drop a well on the down target instead of the one I’m fighting). Any questions on it feel free to ask.

Went back and forth between necro and thief since the first beta weekend, only leveled them to like 15 or so. I spent the entire time playing every profession in sPvP as that’s what I was most interested in and it gave me the chance to try them all out at 80 with everything unlocked.

At launch, I leveled the necro to 40 and then ended up leveling the thief to 80 (I always like leveling the stealth class in MMO’s first) then going back to level the necro to 80. Eventually the mind-numbingly simple thief play in pvp got too boring, and I started to not enjoy the game anymore. Once I realized all I was doing was spamming something in every build I played (Heartseeker, Death Blossom, Pistol Whip, Shadowy Assault underwater, 1115 1115 1115 P/D ugh), I started to hate Initiative. I hated how forgivable the class was; if you couldn’t instantly kill your target, you could just leave easily. If you miss with your attack, you can just try again and again ie HS or CnD. It was fun seeing huge backstab numbers but eventually I just felt cheap like the dude who abuses Eddie Gordo in Tekken and keeps you airborne the entire fight. I went back to necro and have been obsessed with the class ever since. I’ve played every possible build I could, generally switching them after every match or two, and I love that they’re all pretty well rounded and fun to play. I’ve played necro to rank 40 and still haven’t become remotely bored with the class.

I’m happy with it. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t play it, or read the forums. Isn’t that how these things work?

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

As has been suggested throughout several posts here in the official forum as well as in the feedback section of the wiki prior to release, tie the 5th DS skill to the main-hand weapon you were wielding when you entered DS. This would add some variety and situational utility to DS which would also synergize with weapon and build choices.

The specific skill descriptions are legion in those other posts, so I won’t repeat them all here. By making this one addition, it makes a stronger connection between DS and your chosen build.

This would be awesome.

You just need to be aware of their escape options. Keep your camera as far up as you can to get a broader view of the area. The main issue with mesmers is “where is he now” but with familiarity they become extremely predictable.

Blink: Teleports them to a target location on a 30 sec cooldown. Does not give stealth.

Decoy: Gain stealth for 3 sec and summon an illusion to attack your foe. 40 sec cooldown. If you attack him and he disappears but a clone takes his place, just keep attacking where he was and wait for him to appear near you. Don’t worry about the clones, wait to see the swirl animation on the ground that shows up at the feet of someone leaving stealth.

The Prestige: Go stealth for 3 sec, blinding nearby foes. Burn foes when you reappear. 30 sec cooldown. Can only be used with a torch offhand so don’t worry about it otherwise. If he goes stealth and you’re blind, count to 3 and dodge to avoid the aoe burn or just prepare to send it back to him.

I use D/W + Staff with traited wells in my power build. I’ll avoid using staff right away because his greatsword at range will do more damage. Just get up in his face and start stabbing. Don’t waste Dark Pact + Well bomb early because he’ll blink away. AFTER you’ve pressured him to Blink, then you can Dark Pact > Drop Wells > Golem Charge > Life Siphon etc. If he has a staff keep out of Chaos Storm (looks like a giant bubble field around you). It’s good to have your auto-attack turned off also as Confusion will do a lot of damage to you without you realizing.

Most of them use Illusionary Leap > Blurred Frenzy. Need a sword main hand to use it. Illusionary Leap sends a clone from the mesmer’s location and has it leap to you and apply cripple. It has a 12 sec cooldown. It also has a Swap option, where the mesmer can then swap places with the clone and do an aoe immobilize. He’ll then use Blurred Frenzy (10 sec cooldown) to do lots of damage, and he’ll evade all attacks while doing it so don’t waste anything. I usually just use Death Shroud (with 5 sec of retaliation traited) to absorb the damage and then DS#3 to fear them as soon as they stop. If at any point his clones stop attacking and run at you, dodge toward them. They’ll explode and you’ll evade. Try to kill phantasms if you have a chance, they do a lot of damage (Epidemic works great to kill phantasms/clones without focusing on them).

Cool, thanks.

Just wondering why this is -36% condition duration? I was told it would be a cheap substitute for Rare Veggie Pizza but eh? Is this just another typical tooltip bug? Or does it actually reduce my condition duration?

Also what about runes? Say I run condition builds in both PvE and WvW that both use Rabid stats but different runes. I have to buy new Runes every time I want to switch builds? Or buy/farm two pieces of everything just for separate runes? Either seems absurd so I’m assuming there’s a better way.

I don’t get this. I use the Rabid amulet in PvP and I’m trying to now get Rabid gear outside of the mists and it’s rather concerning that I get zero results for it on the TP. I know OoW vendor has rare Rabid gear, I know I could buy the ridiculously expensive exotic rabid set off the TP, I know that there are allegedly vendors somewhere in Orr (I’ve yet to see any Karma vendors in Orr) that sell various pieces of Rabid, but why is there NO gear on the TP called Rabid? Did they decide to change the name of just that one type of gear outside of the Mists? Berserker, Rampager, Carrion etc is all the same stats as the Mists and I find tons of gear on the TP, nothing for Rabid (except a couple jewelry things). I was able to find “Rabid” gear stats in rare quality at one point but it was called something else for whatever reason. Any help?

I don’t understand people’s problems with sPvP. You’re looking at it the wrong way. You don’t “grind to rank 80 for better looking gear”. You just play the game, get better, and everything else comes secondary. The whole premise is based on being able to play any class you want, with any gear and any build. It gives you the option to become fully proficient with any given class in small scale pvp where you don’t have NPC’s to get 25 stacks in your sigil before you even fight, or food buffs, or gear differentials.

Save Yourself + Corrupt Boon + Epidemic = Amazing

In team fights as a condition build I’ve used this countless times to wipe groups out. There’s always that guy who pops every boon and unknowingly weakens his entire group. So what if they cleanse it, that just means they no longer have that cleanse! It’s all about putting people on the defensive and making them regret fighting you, either by running away or dying.

For pvp purposes it’s always about doing as much damage in the shortest possible time with the least amount of risk. Traiting for targeted wells decreases the risks involved by giving you range. Traiting for shorter cool downs on wells increasing the amount of damage you do by increasing the frequency of well usage. For me, wells are used to stave off groups of people briefly or to quickly kill one person. I will not use wells in a 1v1 unless I have dagger immobilize and golem charge off cool down. Locking someone down in wells is in my experience almost a guaranteed kill.

Point being if they increase the duration of wells but spread the pulses out, the targets stuck in wells will take less damage as it gives them more opportunities to move. I can keep someone stuck in a well for 5 seconds to get the most damage out of it. I can’t keep them there for 10 seconds. It would essentially reduce wells effective damage by half.

What if you have Plague Signet on and a teammate gets Feared? Do you get Feared also?

RashanDale.3609:

HiSaZuL.2843:

Size of greater marks should be default. Making them unblockable on the other hand could be left as a trait. Frankly I do agree that original mark size is just pathetic.

This. The default mark size should be increased at least partially, because as it is now, Greater Marks makes too much of a difference and is, for a 10pt-trait, way too important/powerful.
Staff should be somewhat usable without the trait (like every weapon/skill should).

Default radius of 180 should be the minimum.

Exactly this. The current default staff mark size is ridiculously small. It shouldn’t be the size of greater marks but it should be at least double what it is now to make Greater Marks not 100% mandatory. I run a build D/W + Staff that has to be 30/20/0/20, tried it every other possible way to incorporate Greater Marks and it’s just not as good. I shouldn’t feel like I HAVE to have 10 pts into Death Magic for any build utilizing Staff. If they were even double in size by default and GM made them the current Well size plus unblockable, it would be helpful in freeing up people to not be forced into 10 mandatory points.

Probably because you can’t cast Consume Conditions while under the effects of Fear, as far as I know.

What would be cool is if they gave us like a 3-4 second fear similar to Thief’s Steal version as a utility and let us Epidemic it.

Awesome answer! Thanks!

Just wondering if anyone has done the math or has a link to a similar thread as I haven’t been able to find any that weren’t just comparing Vampiric to Vampiric Precision (like my other post). One of the builds I run in PvP has 20 into Blood Magic and the Master trait is already Ritual Mastery and I can’t determine if siphon on crit from Vampiric Precision for double siphons via Vampric is better than an overall 50% increase to siphon abilities from Bloodthirst. I feel like Bloodthirst is better by default because it affects Vampiric, Life Siphon and Life Transfer, but I don’t know if the double heal on crit makes up for it (assuming 47%-58% crit as I float around there with Sigil of Minor Accuracy). Thoughts?

Sweet, thanks for the info.

So aside from leveling my thief and necro to 80, all I’ve done in this game is s/tPvP since BWE #1. I’ve never done a dungeon, I’ve never really played WvW. I took a month or so off after my thief hit 80 because I got bored with the playstyle and the game itself, and then came back to play my necro to just under rank 40. I switch builds and playstyles constantly, like after every couple of maps almost, just because I enjoy playing every build so much, so the thought of having to tediously farm a set of gear for a only one specific build seems absurd to me and there’s no clear instructions on how to go about doing this in the game itself (that I’ve found).

Long story short, now I’m trying to consider actually leaving the mists once in awhile to attempt dungeons and WvW and I need to figure out how to get decent gear for it! I bought a full set of exotic berserker gear (Berserker Acolyte gear) off the TP for my PvE build so I should be good to run dungeons anyway (however that works, like old school EQ days of /LFG in map chat or what?). Now I’m trying to find a full set of rabid gear for my (current) tPvP build to transfer over to WvW, but I’m having trouble figuring it out and I can’t make sense of what information I did find. I saw the Khilbron’s set was perfect but not worth the $50 I’d have to spend to buy gems to convert to gold to afford it all. The only P/T/C gear I found after that was the rare quality Strong gear, which I could do if I had to. I can’t even find any Rabid jewely on the TP. You’re talking to someone who wore whatever gear was better (power vs condition) while leveling and then only deals with “Rabid Amulet with Rabid Jewel” as a gear set in HotM lol. I have 32k karma and 2 laurels, though I’ve never done anything to specifically farm either (nor would I really know the best way to go about that if I am supposed to be doing it).

So yeah, huge noob post, but if I didn’t ask and try to get info for it I’d never leave the Mists and experience any other part of the game. No I don’t have a guild, thus no guildies to ask, so turning to the necro community for assistance.

Nice vid!

I sometimes run pretty much the exact same build with the same utilities, substituting Signet of Undeath for Flesh Worm (in sPvP not tPvP) as the ability to stun break and port up to ledges helps negate some of the glassy nature of 30/30/10. I also use Runes of the Thief because it’s an extra +8% critical chance, condition damage boost for Barbed Precision crits, Mark of Blood and Well of Corruption (when applicable), and +10% damage when behind/beside your target. Also I prefer Golem over Lich in any build involving Wells because the knockdown plus cripples/fears inside Wells gets you more usage out of the Well damage, but I also know Lich #1 spam is beast especially with Time Warp or even a Sigil of Rage proc so it’s pure preference of course. I would also drop Death’s Embrace in favor of Spiteful Spirit because of how glassy the build is, having the extra 3 sec of Retaliation on DS is helpful.

If you want to try something a little different, use the exact same setup you have except switch Withering Precision for Lingering Curse and use Scepter/Dagger MH. Everything else keep the same. Sounds weird because S/D is considered condition build viable only but trust me it works great in a glassy power build like this. You get the 900 range, you do slightly less damage but it’s more consistent, you have AoE cripples, Feast of Corruption I’ve seen in this trait setup critting for ~5k. Plus you get better condition transfer and a 3 target blind which both help survivability. Just something to play around with.

I switch builds constantly, maybe 4-5 times a day even. Conditions are very viable, the trick is to stack as many as you can without going overboard before the target has used their condition cleanses. ie: if you were fighting a power necro who was D/W + A/F you know his only condition cleanse is going to be Consume Conditions (or Well of Power) so you don’t want to go all out and waste cooldowns until you know his condition removal options are limited. Nothing worse than stacking everything on one target for Epidemic and having them cleanse it right before epidemic finishes casting.

Same goes for power damage. It’s all about timing. If I’m using D/W + Staff with Wells (my other favorite build), I’m not going to well bomb someone in a 1v1 as soon as the fight starts because they haven’t used any of their stun breaks or defensive cooldowns yet. Well bomb an engi and he uses Elixer S and you wasted your burst. A Thief shadowsteps. An Ele mistforms. You get the idea. So I’ll do damage with the dagger and Locust Swarm up to build life force, try to force them to use their heal/escape options and then immobilize with Dark Pact (Dagger #3), drop well of suffering, do golem charge, drop well of corruption, Deathshroud 2 to close the gap, Deathshroud 3 to fear them away from me and then spam dagger at their back. Corrupt boon any last chances at stability or boon stacking (like Save Yourself) and switch to staff if I need to get defensive myself.

Minions are also effective and in the right build you’re practically impossible to kill in 1v1 and in team fights you provide a ton of utility for rendering the problem targets useless with immobilizes, knockdowns, blinds, etc. Plus with healing traits and life siphons from pets you’re a healing machine.

It all boils down to what you’re preference is but you need to spend a lot of time playing around with builds to figure that out. Most good builds out there share common themes so even if there’s certain aspects about the build that you don’t like and you want to change, you’ll know from playing what would be a good change and what would be a bad one. You might be surprised at what you end up enjoying.