Guild Wars 2

I agree with Josher. A UI isn’t necessary if the pets just behave intelligently. I only ever use them underwater anymore, but they seem better about attacking my target lately. Sometimes i’ll even stand back with a spear and send them to attack by swinging at out of range targets.

I think from a design standpoint, they don’t want to clutter our UI with tools and bars and boxes for every little thing. One of the (many) reasons WoW is so ugly is the skill bars

Necro isn’t squishy unless you build squishy.

Overall, i’m pleased with necromancer in PvE (my primary mode of play). The fight was easy, if a bit long. Perhaps if i’d kept on all my damage gear, it would have been faster and more challenging. Still, i think playing it safe is the way to go for solo, if you really want to avoid riding waypoints hard.

I won, and i was showered with drops for my efforts.

Traits are shown; yes, i build defensively. Weapon was Silence (exotic staff) almost exclusively. Stats (using the alternate gear) follow:

Attack 2,358
Power 1,247
Weapon damage 1,111
Cond damage 794
Critical rate 26%
Critical mod 4
Armor 2,321
Toughness 1,534
Defense 787
Health 22,292
Healing power 508

It should be said that my gear is far from the best, and i’m still swapping pieces out. I’ll eventually have a full cleric set and a full rabid set to alternate as needed, although this was a mix of the two with some other random stuff (berserker, rampager, shaman) thrown in on various slots.

All in all, most of us could have done this. Most of us can do similar, and perhaps we’ll see more attempts at big targets. I’m thinking of trying to solo a dungeon, if i can find one that seems viable.

On the bottom floor, fears became the largest threat. I had no cover here, and i was downed twice, but using scarecrows to recover kept me from dying. Cycling lich skills effectively (start with #4 immediately to ensure it’s up again just before lich form wears) helped speed the fight too. Here you can see me healing my temporary allies to keep them in the fight longer.

I just had to be careful to either stay out of the rings or position myself so that the fear wouldn’t run me off the edge when scarecrows died. I would either use life siphon to kill them at range, or — if the mad king was close enough — i’d just include them in my marks and kill them at range.

As much as i was spamming abilities, confusion was a real threat in the encounter. Upon dropping to the second floor, i picked my preferred terrain and pulled the nearby spiders, clustered them, and killed them.

I picked a spot that had something to hide behind, because his sword slash sends shockwaves and did solid damage. Once or twice i had to drop elite prematurely to heal, because he got a little spammy with it at times.

Sadly, i didn’t get many good screenshots during this stage, because we moved around a lot, and i had spiders adding occasionally. Basically though, i’d just dodge as much as able and lay as much damage as possible, trying to stay in range for staff skills #2 and #4, and catching the protection from the wells i was dropping.

If i had health to spare, i’d take a pumpkin shot on the chance it transformed me. It turns out the transformation strips your weapon and all traits, but it allowed a free use of heal/utility skills. This was pretty useful for speeding the fight.

After around a third of his health was missing, he dropped down to the middle floor. I cleaned up the mobs up top by pulling a couple to me at first, until i had a clear spot at the bottom of the chain.

Then i pulled half of the remnant and clustered them using a mausoleum. Repeat for the other half behind the tree.

The first time i did the dungeon, i noticed how easy it was, and i figured it may be soloable. Then i got to the chest and realized that pieces of Mad King gear were not guaranteed, as they were in the tower. Then began the speed runs.

Skip to a few days and dozens of runs later, and i figured “kitten it. i’m not getting these drops anyway, so the time is now.”

I swapped out half of my gear (mix of prec/tough/cond, including some actual rabid pieces) for cleric’s gear and went in. I didn’t change my usual weapon/utility set, although i did swap trait for protection on wells.

Obviously, the best way to start would be to stand up top, wait out the emote phase, and pull the king rather than dealing with smaller mobs.

I used the mausoleum up top to protect myself from falling off when feared. I kept line of sight on the king when possible, and i otherwise just dodged pumpkins and laid ground effects to whittle him down.

Why minimize healing power? Vitality is an overrated stat.

If we’re requesting our ideal stat distribution, i’d say cond/tough/heal is the only combo not currently available that i’d really like to see.

To the complaint in the OP: If you’re spending 2 hours on lupicus, i question how everybody got full exotics. It certainly wasn’t by being good at guild wars 2.

I’m among those who enjoy this boss and wouldn’t mind seeing more fights like it added. He isn’t terrible about insta-smashing everybody into oblivion, and many of his attacks are avoidable if you keep your eyes open and stay mobile. The only fights i really hate are the ones with heavy, hard to avoid damage. The second(?) boss encounter in SE story comes to mind.

Anybody know the drop rate? I’ve spammed the dungeon pretty hard, and i’m opening both labyrinth champion chests on each character every day. Nothing so far.

Since they’re soulbound on acquire, i’d assume the point would be to allow anybody to get them, rather than making them super rare. I’m fine with not getting tradeable exotic weapons, because they have an alternate means of acquisition. The armor set is different though

If you’re running a MM build, it depends on how you’re specced. If you have traits put into increasing their damage or survivability, then i’d say ditch scepter altogether and take axe and staff.

Axe applies vulnerability, which will help your minions kill faster. Staff has abilities which give regen to nearby allies, dump conditions onto enemies, or slow nearby enemies. All of these will make your minions more effective at holding enemies still and battering them down.

If you’re just using the minions for some body blocking to give yourself time to kill the enemy (i.e. not as your primary damage) then i’d say keep scepter, and maybe take staff just because it’s better at harming/controlling packs of enemies.

Aegis blocks and is then removed. If you hit somebody with a one-shot ability, and they have aegis on, the ability will be blocked.

Just hit them with something else first if they have aegis on, or just hit them anyway if you don’t feel like scanning their boons list for the symbol.

What’s a hunter?

It hasn’t been mentioned yet that locust swarm is also a very effective life force generator in close quarters combat. It generates LF per tic per enemy hit, so if there are several enemies clustered, you can fill a very large chunk of life force bar.

Also, as others have said, it’s a good general utility, either for harassing targets (keeping them crippled when you follow them) and for transportation out of combat.

Warhorn is a great offhand.

It’s more challenging to dress smaller characters. I remember in FFXI the tarutaru race had unisex clothing as well. I wouldn’t expect it to change.

Plus asura are workers and scholars, not entertainers on display. It fits the aesthetic of the race to have a no-nonsense approach to fashion.

If your healing is going to be less effective because you’re constantly bumping into full health, then it sounds like you’ve got too much survivability. Having more health won’t change that.

I think the solution is to either play more aggressively (choose more or harder targets) or to pull some gear away from +healing in favor of +pow/cond/prec

I’m aiming for maxed virtues (30% boon duration) and 2 each of water, monk, and dwayna. End result is 60% all boons and 80% regen duration. I plan on having maxed points into healing and full cleric’s gear. Going to use some kind of healing-and-shout-based build, since guardian will primarily be for wvw

To the discussion about burn duration and covering conditions/etc, i think duration is less a concern for guardian. If it gets stripped, another burn is only a few strikes away. If you’re reapplying, it doesn’t really matter otherwise. Long duration doesn’t matter if the target dies with 30 more seconds left to burn.

Hi, i’m leveling a guardian now primarily for wvw (but perhaps for dungeons as well, after i get to 80 and am properly geared). Anyway, i’ve already dabbled a little in wvw and am pleased with guardian’s performance. However, i plan on playing a strictly aoe support/defense/healing guardian in wvw and am looking for pointers on build.

I haven’t read up on the particulars of all of the class’s mechanics, so some things may not work as i intend, and please point out if this is the case. Anyway, here’s what i’m heading for on my wvw guardian. I may explain my philosophy on some of the choices, but first i need to understand how some of the options work to begin with.

Armor:
My eventual goal is full cleric’s or shaman’s gear with 2 each of superior Monk, Water, and Dwayna runes. I may drop Dwayna for Grove, if i decide to emphasize protection more than regeneration.

Weapon:

Staff for sure. Healing bomb on #2, 12 stacks of might (12.75 sec) and healing bomb on #4, swiftness for allies or damage to harass wall defenders on #3, major kittenblocking on #5. Staff, definitely.

Other set could be:
Hammer for protection and blocking (#5), although it’s not too useful for defense beyond those, and i can only get the protection if i’m near an attackable target. Might be good for gate crashing.
Mace for quick cooldown regen. Current projection says 7.5 seconds of regen (1169/tic) on an 8 second recharge. Sexy. Plus the #1 heals, but only if i have an attackable target; #3 is cool too.
Scepter for harassing wall defenders.
Shield is the probable offhand if i take a 1h weapon, since the other two are less outstanding for group support. Long cooldowns are a bummer though.

Utilities:
Stand your ground, hold the line, and save yourselves

Heal:
Signet of resolve. I considered the others for various reasons, but it’s hard to say no to that fat chunk of healing, plus the condition removal helps me out after a “SY!”

Elite:
Renewed focus most likely. Tome of courage is tempting, but the cooldown is twice as long, and i really want to be able to give aegis as much as possible. (edit: actually, on testing, it looks like renewed focus isn’t resetting courage. is this a bug?)

Traits:

Honor – 30 points – 20% cooldown reduction on shouts and share resolve’s regen with allies. For the middle tier, i’m torn between 2h cooldown reduction (staff omnom) or aegis heals on removal or symbols restore health. Since every weapon has one, it’s basically free extra healing. Does the “aegis heals on removal” count only on you though, or on any aegis you’ve applied?

Virtues – 30 points – stun break on courage activation and stronger resolve passive (does that get passed on when you share resolve via above listed trait?). I’m really lost on which tier1 to take. Perhaps longer retaliation, since there aren’t any outstanding options.

Other – ??? – Toughness is tempting, perhaps for the +30 toughness to nearby allies. It’s not a power build at all, but the burn on aegis removal (Zeal V) synergizes really well with aegis spam, assuming i’m able to get renewed focus to reset my aegis. Still nice anyway.

I’m not sure i should bug the devs about this, since i’m not positive it’ll fly, but what if they added icons showing the ready status of our 4 DS abilities while out of DS?

Maybe they could change the current setup to include 4 icons the size of the DS icon, which show cooldown on those skills? I think it would serve as a reminder and encourage more necros to pop in and out to take advantage of their extra skills.

I know there are times when i’ll flip really quick if i need to fear or siphon, but it’s so frustrating to do so and then realize the skill has 5-8 seconds before it’s ready. My options at that point are to wait 5-8 seconds spamming blast or to swap back over and then wait the 10 second DS cooldown. I think i end up waiting over-long to ensure i don’t run into that issue, which is also less efficient.

What does everyone think?

I’m gonna go with others and say the life drain on #1 is pretty much my favorite downed skill. Everyone’s #4 is the same and is normally useless, since it interrupts if you take any damage. Our #1 ability has a slight lead-in followed by sustained damage and health regen.

Our #2 is pretty bad though, since the fear is short and single target onry. I dunno about #3 since i’m normally either on my feet or dead by the time i have a chance to use it.

In PvP people don’t always stomp. The smarter tactic is normally to kill any other living teammates before trying to kill people who are downed. Just hitting them with damage every now and then to ensure they can’t use #4 to get up is all you need. Area skills already being used are usually enough to make sure of that.

Zyphent.2967:

It’ll help allies very slightly

This is why. Area healing, while weak, is good to bring to WvW because it is good for everybody nearby. It’s the same reason people take AoE damage. Staying alive is surely important, but one person staying alive is less significant compared to helping multiple people stay alive.

At level 80, with my stats:

Well heals 5795 initially and 374 per second for 10 seconds.
Consume heals 5795 initially and 780 per condition.

I’m built for wells, too, so my wells give protection to anybody who is inside them for one of their tics. Well of blood also can be cast every 32 seconds (not much higher than consume’s 25 base) and gets a free cast when i res somebody (cooldown 60 seconds?). Admittedly, i build more heavily for support than most, but being able to drop offensive wells up on walls along with marks helps stack up damage. Being able to drop wells defensively for protection helps keep people alive when storming gates.

Zyphent.2967:

it just gives enemies a target area to AoE in

I don’t believe this to be true. I don’t see enemies firing into my wells so much as just ignoring or avoiding them completely. The only thing that would draw fire would be if allies clustered in the well, and since i generally am casting it where allies are clustered anyway, they’re already being fired on and can use the healing and protection i give.

Maybe the same amount as a regen tic, or half the amount of a regen tic?

I’m sure there would need to be balance testing done, because almost any necro is going to give higher numbers than we should get :P

Teknomancer.8475:

How is the number low? Are you saying it is low compared to your Health total or low compared to the amount of damage done to you?

Broken lifesteal damage is a known necro issue. There’s a stickied thread with a list of everything that doesn’t work as intended

Well of blood is my preferred heal in WvW and PvE. Pretty much anything that gives area heals/cond removal/boons is great in WvW

Necro class actually is broken, in the strictest definition of the word.

Is it a bad class? Nah, it’s pretty good. It’ll be better when all the bugs are fixed though.

It’s also harder to play than some other classes, which i think is why some people feel deficient when they play it.

They all have different utility.

Dagger offhand is more about damage mitigation with blind and weakness. Weakness is really an underappreciated condition i think.

Focus is better for controlling one target (chill and vuln) and is good for life force generation.

Warhorn is better for crowd control (area cripple and daze) and is also okay at life force generation (locust swarm gains life force per tic per enemy hit, so can be very fast in a crowded environment)

Anybody who understands how to 1v1 will kitten on a minion necro. All they have to do is kite in circles and range attack you while your minions chase them. Then you’re stuck with DS and whatever weapons you brought, which you would have anyway even if you brought other utilities.

IMO minion necros are better in PvP when it’s crowded, because the extra bodies add to confusion, and people don’t have time to devote to focusing as much on positioning or pets.

Dibrom.6408:

If at some point is countered you can’t extend the duration beyond 100%. Hence you can’t get more then one tick. ever.

Incorrect. It’s impractical to do so, but if you take the bleed duration sigil along with two each of superior afflicted, centaur, and krait runes, you can break 100% bleed duration. Test it.

I didn’t have any food with me at the time (can you even use food in pvp? i haven’t done enough pvp to worry about it) but there’s food that can extend condition duration by quite a bit, rendering the silly rune configuration unnecessary.

With all duration mods available, it may theoretically be possible to approach 3 tics per crit-applied bleed, but it would be impractical, since at that point you wouldn’t be gearing for enough precision to actually give a decent crit rate.

My comment about the “0 seconds” and “1 second” display has to do with how the game displays timers. If you set your skills to show cooldown times, you’ll see that the skill isn’t ready to use once you get below 1 second but makes you wait through a full second of 0-point-whatever. Similarly, condition durations don’t show decimals; they show floored values. A one second bleed will display as “0” for a second, and then the tic happens. A 1.5 second bleed will show “1” for half a second, then “0” for half a second, then tic, then show “0” for another half a second.

You really should learn these basic mechanics before you start making assumptions about big things like the concept of “ever”

Knote.2904:

Sceptre Auto Attack actually applies 5 second base bleeds.

And the trait for 33% longer sceptre conditions is actually 45% for the autoattack and 33% for Grasping Hands.

With 5 seconds, every 20% is 1 extra second, so you would get 7.5 seconds after using the 33% trait, then after putting 10 into the power tree (55% duration) it goes to 7.75 seconds, then 5 more points into power (60% duration) is 8 seconds.

And that is w/o any other condition modifier, so I’m 99% sure after testing that’s how it works.

Oh yeah, i forgot about the tooltips being wrong on some skills. I know Blood Curse is like that, but there are probably others.

I wonder if the 33% condition duration for scepter affects crits inflicted by scepter. Probably not, since it isn’t a skill applying the bleed, but that would be interesting, because then we’d be able to get close to 3 second bleeds with scepter crits

Dibrom.6408:

Ugh, wrong so you pretend to be intelligent about it. I’ll break it down for you:

A) It’s pretty clear I was talking about crits since I mentioned crits and didn’t mention the scepter.

B)It lasts for 1 second, just because you aren’t fast enough to mouse over something doesn’t mean anything.

C) 1 second + 30% + 20% is still 1 second as far as the game is concerned.

D) You can’t get this trait to go over one second. Therefore you can’t do more then one tick of bleed damage. A far cry from your claim of “A typical condition necro will get a two second bleed from this; a duration-heavy necro can get 2.5 or 3.”

You should learn to read. I never said a duration-heavy necro could get 2.5 or 3. That was somebody else.

I also specifically talked about on-crit bleeds, which you would have noticed if you’d made it past the first paragraph. You didn’t specify though, so i covered both. The poster above did specify, but i was in the mists looking at bleeds while making my post, so i didn’t see his post until after i issued mine.

You’re wrong about duration increase though, it does matter and it does add up. Having a 1.5 second bleed isn’t “the same thing” because you’re closer to another tic. It may deal the same damage because you didn’t get the extra tic, but the game recognizes the extra duration and displays it properly. If at some point you’re able to extend condition duration beyond 100% then you get two tics and see an increase in damage.

Also, speed of mouseover doesn’t matter if you leave the mouse where the status icon pops up. It would only matter if you had to click all of your skills to activate them.

There are bigger problems in that video than anybody’s character size.

ITT OP doesn’t understand Spectral Walk.

The loss of a “wells/life siphon” combo because they cut the auto-teleport is well worth it because of the tactical flexibility the skill now offers. It was a buff, not a nerf.

Right now i primarily run staff and axe/focus for all play types. Staff is our best weapon for general utility, and axe/focus give decent debuffs and life force generation for DS use.

Dibrom.6408:

I suggest you test this, it’s not possible to get more then a 1 second bleed.

Are you talking about bleeds applied from crit, or from the scepter directly? Because my scepter tooltips are telling me they apply bleed for 4.75 sec (after 20% added condition duration from trait points).

If you’re talking about the on-crit bleeds – yes, they can last more than a second. Without any bonuses, the bleeds always show up lasting for “0 seconds” which means “counting down and currently under 1 second.” With full cond. duration line, you see “1 second” briefly before going back to 0 seconds and then disappearing. 30% of a second isn’t a long time. With the 20% bleed trait and sigil of agony, the 1-second overlap is a bit easier to notice. Just tested in the mists with an axe.

If you had said “on-hit bleeds don’t benefit from extension unless you can get them to 2 seconds, because bleed only tics once per second” then you would have been accurate.

Wells and staff are good area pressure/control. If you’re in a dungeon where enemies are swarming around, laying marks and wells will do broad damage, both direct and condition-based. Plus life siphon (#4 on death shroud bar) deals good damage to all targets in range, assuming it doesn’t get interrupted.

If you build for healing (+heal gear, life siphon heals allies trait, #2 and #4 staff skills, well of blood on res ally, wells give protection, etc) you can also provide a solid amount of party support as well. My favorite time to do that is when i’m in a melee-heavy party, since they like to cluster. It works well with the marks/wells healing/boons you can give.

The wiki says the trait makes minions explode in a cloud that lasts 3 seconds and applies poison for 8 seconds. Does this mean somebody standing in the cloud for the full 3 seconds gets 24 seconds of poison? I looked around a bit on the forum, but no answer was apparent.

I ask because i’m playing with poison as an additional way of causing damage/disruption in WvW/sPvP. The damage isn’t as fast as bleed, but it also hinders healing. Combined with bleed and other pressure, i think poison is a fantastic way to control capture points.

Inb4 “people will just run out of the circles” or “people will just cure poison” or “minion AI is so terrible this won’t work right.”

I realize these things, and the only real problem is the minion AI when they stand next to me while i’m attacking targets. Otherwise, i’m not worried about people stepping out of circles or curing poison since i only take this skill with a full minion bar, so (assuming minions actually engage) i’m guaranteed to spread quite a bit of poison. Definitely more than people will wipe clean, unless there are necros taking well of power.

ITT we cry about not being handed all the best gear within one month of release.

Play the game, see new things, entertain yourself. Fill in maps to farm the karma you need to get karma gear. Do some dungeons (only two are farmable? wut?) to earn the tokens you need. Doing all that will get you some money, which can be used to fill in any gaps in your gear.

The lack of accessories/rings/etc with the right stats is a little disappointing (i took cleric’s backpiece in my story quests because it was the best i was offered) but it gives you a chance to diversify. Take some +healing and build toward a support sub-role. Take some +vitality to get the most out of the +toughness you want on your armor set.

It’s not like we’re being kittened just because there’s a hard to put together set of gear.

Marrikk.7468:

2. If you feel like wasting your hard-earned dungeon tokens on the rare dungeon gear.

Isn’t the gear the reason for doing the dungeons? What are you supposed to spend your tokens on if not the gear?

Enemy wells have red rings i think, while friendly wells appear as you see when you cast them. In general, i only run from ground circles outlined in red, because i assume any regular looking ones are either hurting enemies or helping allies.

I dunno where all the hammer hate is coming from; these people are crazy. Hammer is easily my favorite weapon on my Guardian.

Protection, retaliation, and a little bit of control makes it a good utility weapon, and it deals steady damage, too. Staff feels weak unless i’m fighting large numbers of enemies, and greatsword makes me feel silly because it doesn’t pack enough defense.

Y u mad? It’s vydia.

Skaramush.3480:

Im mainly curious: was the system with health degeneration on multiple strong temporary pets too intimidating for players too manage in your opinion? It seems like giving necromancer a few permanent but weak pets a little like dumbing it down for lack of better word to make the class more accessible? It certainly played like an advanced class before.

I think it has to do with how the utility skill system works in this game.

In GW, you got 8 skills period. Caster weapons were mostly the same unless you needed one to trigger specific skills (cold for spinal shivers, for example), but other than that, they could be upgraded to be the same unless you needed a named weapon with unique stats. So those 8 skills made up the entirety of your capability, whether you wanted to spam minions or whatever else. You could make a flat character that specialized in one skill type, or you could mix and match to meet different needs.

In GW2, your weapon actually lends its own skills. There really can’t be any builds centered around one mechanic, because all jobs have certain weapon skills, certain utility skills, and certain unique mechanics. I think in GW2, the goal is to choose which skill/trait sets you want in a way that synergizes well. Not that you couldn’t do that in GW, but GW2 prevents players from putting together gimmicky skill bars. (and some things like minion factory were definitely gimmicky in GW)

There’s also the logistics to consider. In GW every out of town map was instanced, so you could have 30+ minions (before they added the soft cap) with no problems. If we tried that in GW2 – with its massive participation in several maps – the number of AI scripts running would grow many times over.

To the “advanced class” comment, Necro most certainly is. If it seems overly simple to you, i’d say it’s because you’re trying to focus entirely on minions while ignoring some of the other things we can do while simultaneously managing our pets.

Yeah, i’ve been making an effort to rely more on DS, and i gotta say it’s really nice. I’m currently playing with a minion build (20 0 30 20 0) for sPvP and trying to use DS any time i’m engaged with an enemy and have at least 50-75% life force. I have Reaper’s Might, Death Shiver, and Transfusion on to buff my DS. It’s important not to trait completely for it, otherwise you’re crippling your non-DS capabilities.

I think the #1 problem people are having with DS is that they aren’t using it at all until they need to save themselves. They sit on 100% life force until something is about to kill them, and then they just use the transformation to delay their end by a few seconds.

People who use it more proactively – either for offense or for a regular part of their defense – seem to enjoy it a lot more.

Wells are solid for PvE and sPvP. They can be great in WvW too if you take the ground target option. Otherwise, i’d recommend you only take two wells along with spectral walk for quick line penetration followed by auto extraction if you survive long enough :P

As far as dungeons are concerned, that’s a matter for your team. It’s frustrating when a team has area damagers, such as wells or aoe elemental nukes, and then somebody’s using blast-type crowd control. Just try to communicate to your party that clustered enemies will die faster than moving targets :P

MoJoe.9063:

Axe+focus is my weapon set of choice, and it synergizes very well with this because axe 1 and focus 4 both apply vulnerability, axe 2 builds up my life force, and axe 3 and focus 5 help keep enemies away if I need to kite them some more. So far it’s the build that I’ve had the most success with, even though I’m level 20, I’m liking it a whole lot more than conditionmancer or minion master.

This. I use Axe/Focus and Staff in PvP, since both sets are good crowd control, pressure, and decent life force generation. I’ll fire off all the marks on my staff, then hit #2 again if it’s been triggered, and then i swap to the other set to pressure whichever target looks lowest.

In PvE i’ve been playing around with Dagger/??? sets to try to come up with a sturdy melee build that can rely more on death shroud thanks to dagger’s fantastic life force generation. I still keep a staff on hand for the general utility, since it’s even better up close than it is from a distance.

Either way, there’s really no excuse not to bring a staff if you’re a necro.

1) What is “epics”? I see no gear marked epic.
2) Rabid is available, just not on crafted gear. The Sylvari cultural armors offer it, and several dungeon sets have it.

What exactly does a “fear necromancer” do? Is there a lot of utility offered by gearing yourself toward this kind of focus? It’s a useful status to be able to inflict, but i don’t think you’re serving your team well if you sacrifice other things to try to use it more than is reasonable.

I will admit that our fear is really weak, though. It’s sad when my fears last a brief moment , and other jobs can fear me so long i run off ledges and put myself out of battle until i can run back around.

However the actual stat bumps are handled, it seems like there’s another factor influencing it as well. For example, when i go to a low level zone as a lv80 character, it seems many of the enemies can only land glancing blows against me.

I wonder if it may have something to do with trait point allocation (i was running capped toughness line when i noticed it) and whether or not that’s added after the down-scaling.

At any rate, i keep my gear moderately well updated on my characters, so this is less an issue for me. Don’t wear lv40 anything on a lv80 character.

phamtrinli.6425:

so the #1 stack in a stack of 8 bleeds can expire before the timer that is shown does? man that is misleading :\

It’s not really.

Stack 1 applied for 8 seconds
2 seconds pass
Stack 2 applied for 8 seconds
2 seconds pass
Stack 3 applied for 8 seconds
2 seconds pass
Stack 4 applied for 8 seconds

At this point, there are 4 stacks of bleeding, and bleeding will wear off in 8 seconds. Not all of the stacks will be on for 8 more seconds, but 8 seconds is when the target will stop bleeding.

2 seconds pass

At this point, the first stack has been on for 8 seconds, so it wears off. Now there are 3 stacks of bleeding on, but you still got full damage out of the first stack, because it was allowed to last its full duration. Also at this point you auto-attack again, so:

Stack 5 applied for 8 seconds

Now you’re back up to 4 stacks for the next 2 seconds. If you keep auto-attacking, you’ll maintain 4 stacks. However, please don’t rely on auto-attack to do all of your damage. Also, these numbers were made up to illustrate the point, so they don’t reflect any of the actual weapons we use.

Necros have several traits that give bonuses on crit, like applying bleeding or generation of life force