Guild Wars 2

This is personal opinion, and I have absolutely no information to back it up- so take it with a grain of salt:

Whereas power builds benefit from crit chance, critical damage, and power itself, condition builds rely upon only a singular stat for their primary source of damage (excluding on-crit effects, which happens to be in the same tree as condition damage anyway). I feel like this was done in an attempt to either use conditions as supplementary effect to weaken the target and add a secondary source of damage (hybridization), or to allow condition based builds to focus heavily on other stats that grant survivability (healing power, toughness, vitality).

I don’t believe condition-based necromancers were ever designed with damage as their primary role, as many people set out to make it.

Now to unopinionated information:

Necromancers do use self-applied conditions such as blood is power, corrosive poison cloud, corrupt boon, and epidemic. All of these, I’d like to point out, are affected by the reduced corruption cool-down trait in curses. However- much like any class- necromancers are limited to only 3 utility skills (not accounting for the heal and elite), and this leaves absolutely no room for defensive utilities. Even if I were to run a condition based build again, I’d be tempted to only use 1 or possibly even 2 self-inflicting conditions.

More to the point, all of these afflictions require methods of removal. In PvE, this is a relatively easy task. But for PvP, let’s take a closer look at these “transfer” abilities.

Offhand Dagger #4 (Deathly Swarm)- This transfers only a single condition, unless you’re fighting multiple opponents in close proximity. Chances are pretty high that your opponent already has his own conditions that he’ll be applying to you, and removing the one you just placed on yourself becomes problematic. This issue compounds when fighting more players, as even though you can remove up to 3 conditions, the chance of those enemies applying a variety of conditions to you increases significantly.

Staff #4 (Putrid Mark)- This is the absolute best condition transfer we have, and a well placed one results in every condition you just applied on yourself to be transferred to the enemy, alongside anything he applied to you in the process. In PvE, this is a very simple task. In PvP, unless you specifically trait for increased mark size, it can be extremely problematic. Now, before people exclaim “gg learn to place marks,” I’m sure many of you already understand how unreliable an untraited mark is against a mobile player who knows how to avoid your marks through either dodging, charging, teleporting, pulling you, or a myriad of other abilities designed to grant them avoidance. The best part? You have to be within basically melee range to make use of it.

Well of Power- Not much to say about this one… it requires you to stand in a big target on the ground while you get pummeled in melee with only a 5 second duration and 60 second cool-down. You’ll have more conditions applied while standing in it than you would have otherwise removed.

Plague Signet- The only saving grace that allows condition necromancers to pull this off reliably. However, chances are pretty good that it’s your only stun breaker, and the fact that it has such a large cool-down makes it questionable to use for anything but that.

Seriously, condition necros do use the abilities you’re suggesting. But they’re not as useful, nor reliable, as you seem to think.

The only armor prefix that grants power, precision, and a defensive stat (vitality or toughness) would be the Knight. From other threads I’ve gathered that if you want to drop an offensive stat, the best to do it with would probably be crit damage.

As for Vitality vs. Toughness- this needs a thread all to itself. Vitality increases both your health pool outside of death shroud, and your total effective health through life force usage. A larger life force pool, with percentage based life force generators, means that vitality’s usefulness varies depending on how much life force you can accumulate before you would have otherwise died. Toughness, on the other hand helps to accommodate your necessity to survive (taking advantage of the extra vitality). It also happens to increase the effectiveness of healing, be it from yourself or another.

You can view them all in 3d here

I completely understand why you’d feel as though you’re wasting potential by placing points in the soul reaping tree without benefiting from the crit damage you gain passively. Problem is, crit damage scales exponentially with power- And in a build with a very low amount of power, that stat is largely wasted regardless of trying to incorporate it into your build.

I’m very undecided on whether the extra life force would be better utilized as vitality. Clearly, the more vitality you have the better the additional life force becomes. Even at a base vitality, it’s much easier to acquire 30% extra life force than an additional 30% hit points. Keep in mind, though, that vitality increases your survivability both inside AND outside of death shroud- Meaning that to capitalize on the points spent in soul reaping over blood magic, you’d need to either A) have a very high vitality from gear, or B) benefit from the extra life force multiple times via life force generation in a single encounter. Perhaps you may be able to help shed some light on your decision.

Although your statement about life blast dealing less damage than dagger is correct, you must also realize that life blast provides the highest form of dps at any range above 180 (lol) out of any weapon available to us (if you treat it as such). In a build such as yours, I understand why you’d rather ignore the damage it deals, but please do not neglect it’s usefulness when paired with any additional power.

I’d be more than happy to share my build with you, found here. Keep in mind, however, that this specific build was designed for PvE, and that the one I normally used for pvp (a harder hitting, lower sustained version) is listed further down the page.

I’ve recently been looking into a more survivability-based necromancer, instead of the offensive one I currently use. I like the fact that you’re working on this build, but I feel that there are a few things you should consider- But before I do so, I’d like to point out that the description of a “tank” has changed over the years and, from looking at your build, I’m having difficulty determining which one you are intending to build for.

If you’re going for a typical “tank” survivability build, I’d like to point out that there’s a great deal of synergy between percentage based life force generation and increasing the total life force pool. However, (and although I’m unsure whether it provides life force in a 1 to 1 ratio with vitality) you could increase your durability outside of death shroud, and effectiveness while in it, by prioritizing vitality over the extra life force pool in soul reaping.

I noticed that aside from the extra 100 toughness you gain in the death magic tree, and a meager 284 vitality from your amulet, this build is about as much of a “tank” as my purely offensive death-shroud based necromancer at the cost of several thousands of damage you would have gained by otherwise specializing points into power.

From the look of this build, your primary source of damage would be conditions. And although condition based necromancers can still benefit from death shroud as a defensive mechanism, the damage you deal in death shroud (as you already mentioned, yourself) is very low with such a specialization.

My recommendation to you would be that if you’re trying to make a “tank” build that devotes traits and gear into condition damage, focus on increasing your vitality instead of your life force pool. Furthermore, a high crit chance and crit damage means very little without a high base power, and so if you still wish to use conditions I would suggest replacing your axe with a scepter.

I wish you the best of luck with your build.

I apologize if I come off a bit harsh- You’ll have to understand that I find it difficult to believe the same person who contributed to the design of the game could fail, not only as miserably as the person in this video did, but have the nerve to suggest it’s a problem with “incorrect death shroud usage”.

Incomprehensible.

Nothing about this video involves “’shopping.” A guild name does not indicate legitimacy, and if you’d be so kind as to point out the logo, I’d be inclined to take a second look.

I sincerely doubt that this is a legitimate video of the Jon Peters you’re leading us to believe.

After a bit of research, the only thing I could find about a team “PZ” was this. A twitch account littered with “hue hue” and “get good” narrated by a 13 year old. In the title it mentions that this team “pz” is playing GW2, and at the bottom of said page it links a necromancer build.

The first suggested channel on this “pz” account is Alphaesports. And the best part? There is absolutely no mention of this video before a couple hours ago, by only 2 posts (one here, and one on gw2guru).

Let’s assume you’re a sucker and fell for the one single post created about a character somebody decided to name “Jon P Necro,” instead of the original poster trying to promote his small-time e-sports team. In this scenario, this video appears to be a fabrication. In the alternative scenario, I’m sure the mods will see this and not be happy about the impersonation of a developer.

You’re setting very broad criteria for whatever you’re hoping to accomplish. Any build with points in spite and power gear can do what you’re asking. The difference between 30 points in Soul Reaping and 0 is 30% crit damage, and at the expense of this you gain more survivability (which you will ultimately need if you intend to go in melee range in the first place).

Yes, the lack of points in soul reaping is definitely a damage loss- but you don’t skip points in curses if you expect to use conditions as your primary source of damage, unless you’re anticipating a damage loss. The same concept can be applied here.

That’s the equivalent of putting 30 points in death magic and blood magic, and wondering why your damage is so low.

My recommendation to you is this:
It’s quite possible to still deal a considerable amount of damage without the extra 30% crit damage. However, with the extra points that you would have otherwise spent there, you’ll need to increase your effectiveness in another area. I would suggest placing these points into either blood or death magic to negate a primary weakness of being in close range. With this build, I would recommend using “Soldier” armor, which can be found here. Alternatively, axe can still deal respectable amounts of damage while focusing on its ability to apply vulnerability- You can take advantage of this by using pets, or using it in conjunction with other players through dungeons and events.

I’m an idiot, please disregard my previous message as I cannot edit the post. I labeled the equations wrong on paper, and continued to transfer it here without realizing it.

You are all correct, critical hit chance does provide more damage than critical hit damage alone. (although common sense should have provided this answer regardless).

Understandably, any build relying on death shroud as a source of damage runs a risk of losing that damage when being focused. Regardless of how you build, this will happen. More importantly, however, is that if you’re losing your entire life force pool almost instantaneously, you’re doing something wrong- Had you been any other profession with out Death Shroud, the same amount of damage received would have out-right killed you instead.

Regardless, my build mitigates this weakness by the rate at which you generate life force. Without taking into consideration the life force generated from killing any adds that spawn during a fight, you can generate half your life force bar in only 20 seconds. A comparison to this would be 2 thirty second cool-down heals worth of effective health in the same period of time.

As mentioned earlier, this build maintains a consistent 3-6 stacks of might with 250 condition damage from traits and 15% condition duration. Currently, my mark of blood deals over 1,500 damage in addition to the direct damage portion. It isn’t uncommon for me to crit for up to 4,000 damage while using putrid mark while in solo play, and even higher during groups. It sounds like your dislike of staff is more of a personal preference, and not based around any actual damage values.

Dagger offhand, although providing a decent direct damage component, seems to benefit largely around applying conditions (non-damage based conditions in this scenario). This is definitely not something I would recommend in a power/crit build. However, I could definitely see it as a viable alternative to a power build that does not rely on crit/crit damage.

As per my previous statement, Giganticus Lupicus will deal a tremendous amount of damage regardless of how tanky you build. The fact that we have death shroud puts us at an advantage over most other professions without aegis. This is a dodging issue, and no matter how much health or toughness you bring, you will still be killed in 2 hits.

The second build I posted is the one I used for a much longer amount of time before switching to this one, and I would definitely recommend it if you’re just in it to see large numbers. However, most fights in pve don’t rely on large bursts, but instead upon maintaining that damage over a longer duration. This is really a preferential decision, and I found both to be enjoyable play-styles.

So you’d like to know which build is “better”? That’s a difficult question to answer, and a very subjective one as well. What one person may enjoy, another does not. Personally, I despise pet reliant classes in any video game. But that doesn’t mean I would attempt to dissuade another player from playing what they found enjoyable.

Being realistic though, minions provide little in terms of usefulness in dungeons. If you haven’t already, you’ll notice that your “meat shield” can, and will, evaporate in mere seconds during most boss fights. Pets don’t know how to dodge, reposition, or recover. A single AoE can effectively reduce your damage output by more than half.

Outside of dungeons, however, it’s a much safer and more reliable method of killing mobs.

In PvP, minions are easily kited and largely ignored while the enemy focuses you- Completely negating a large reason to use the pets in the first place (to take the enemy’s damage so you don’t have to).

Fortunately for you, you sacrifice very little by building your traits around minions. Most people don’t take advantage of this, but you can easily change any trait you’ve acquired while out of combat. Going deep enough into the death magic tree doesn’t necessitate the usage of minions, and can easily be switched out for staff recharge reduction, greater marks, protection when you use a well, as well as many others.

My suggestion to you is this:
If you truly enjoy playing as a minion-based necromancer, continue to do so! But I would strongly encourage you to have a backup plan that you can easily switch to when you’re doing a dungeon or pvp.

The problem with your misconceived notion is that the “elitists” who are concerned enough to suggest this change would eventually become accustom to the armor names and which tiers they fall within.

Inspecting should not ever take its place in this game, for both the sake of casual players and the overall atmosphere of the game. This is the same reason dueling should not, and hopefully will not ever be, implemented.

A viable variation of this build that I’d like to mention is 20/25/0/0/25.

In which, the rotation would become:

—10 seconds of death shroud
—5 seconds of weapon #1
—5 seconds of weapon #2
—repeat

Same concept as the previous build, except it trades a more consistent damage output with reliable stacks of might for a very “ramp up > burst” approach. I feel that this build is better in pvp, but less so in pve.

In regards to what Chronologist stated:

I think most people overlook how much condition damage you naturally receive from placing points into curses for the precision. Might buffs, the curses line, blood is power, and condition duration from spite add up to some impressive condition damage without even specializing in it.

Zintair wrote up a great guide on hybrid damage here that I believe would emphasize the usefulness of not putting “all your eggs in one basket”.

I play a variation of the build I posted in the guide here.

Needless to say, the most important aspect of this build in WvW is positioning. In the open field, I can kill most players in 4 hits while using lich form. I’m not here to boast about how “good” I am at a necromancer- I’m simply stating that it is not only possible, but quite viable to build any way you’d like as long as you keep a calm and focused mind.

Survey the battlefield, know when to close distance to deal damage, and when to fall behind your allied line to recover. Remember that running to the back of your zerg will force the enemy to make a decision: A) Continue to chase you into 50 enemies B) Target somebody else.

Edit: Oh, and that doesn’t mean wait until you’re at 40% hp to fall back.

I’m not entirely sure if I’m doing the math correctly or not, but I seem to be getting the exact opposite results.

(Average Damage (1 – Crit Chance) + (Average Damage (1.5+ Crit Damage)) Crit Chance

If we use 500 as an average damage per second, 70% crit chance and 30% crit damage results in:

(500×.3)+(500(1.8)).7= 780 damage per second

And with 30% crit chance, 70% crit damage:

(500×.7)+(500(2.2)).3= 680 damage per second

If I’m doing this incorrectly, please don’t hesitate to inform me otherwise. But from what I’ve done, I believe crit damage is more effective than crit chance without taking power into consideration (which would be better than both in equal amounts).

Shameless self bump

In a perfect scenario, this build utilizes the life force generation axe grants much better than the extra damage dagger provides.

Despite this, I still continue to use dagger and substitute the axe #2 for the dagger #2 with an identical channel time. The auto attack dps is too good to pass up when soloing, and the range is similar to using an axe (as I wouldn’t be auto attacking with the aforementioned rotation anyway). This is merely a preference, and not the most efficient way to play this build.

As mentioned in the guide, my 10 point Soul Reaping trait, “Unyielding Blast” pierces targets. It’s not uncommon for me to line up 3 mobs in a row, dealing 18k+ damage.

Edit: As a side note, I actually hit about 2k-4k harder in death shroud than I do in lich form. Don’t ask me why this is. I usually crit for around 4.5k-5.5k in lich.

Oh, and for clarification, these numbers are what I pull in groups, both in events and dungeons.

I’m surprised to hear that you’re able to crit for 7k as a healing based elementalist.

I was able to achieve up to 9k damage with the dagger #2 ability, but only in a more power-centric build. This build provides a much higher sustainability at the cost of very little burst damage.

Edit: The difference “Target the Weak” makes (the 25 point curses talent) is very noticeable- As I mentioned in the guide, it’s a potential 22% damage increase.

I hope you enjoyed this guide, and found something to spark your own creativity, much like the basis of this build did for me. If you have any suggestions or criticisms, please leave them in a reasonable and constructive manner.

III. Gear
Berserker of Berserker of Berserker. Simple enough, eh? In this build, you’ll want power, critical hit chance, and critical hit damage. The berserker prefix contains all of these necessities. Ruby Orbs are actually very much on par with superior rune alternatives. In a perfect scenario, Runes of the Scholar will provide the most damage output. However, in a build that relies on base vitality and toughness, it isn’t uncommon to see your health drop below 90% from even a single hit. You may even feel that with so many offensive stats, you can spare a few to improve your defenses. Another good option would be to invest in gold find runes if you find yourself farming frequently. The choice is yours.

IV. Rotation and Tactics
The most important part- if you’ve stuck with this guide so far, you’ll be happy to learn of what I think may be the “intended method of death shroud usage” ArenaNet spoke of.

I don’t think it’s mere coincidence that the duration of the fury buff through Furious Demise (the 15 point curses trait) lasts the exact duration of 3 Life Blasts, or a single Life Transfer. Nor that it works so well in conjunction with Near to Death. In fact, with only a few minutes of playing around I could already see a form of symmetry begin to unfold. A little more testing, and:

(In this scenario you are starting at full life force)
-5 seconds of Death Shroud (3 Life Blasts vs Life Transfer)
-5 seconds using Axe + Focus (Reaper’s Touch, followed by Ghastly Claws)
— (Swap to secondary weapon before or after entering DS here, but not during a life blast cast, as it will be interrupted)
-5 seconds of Death Shroud (3 Life Blasts vs Life Transfer)
-5 seconds using Staff (Blood is Power > Mark of Blood > Chillblains > Putrid Mark/1 Necrotic Grasp)
— (Swap to primary weapon)
-5 seconds of Death Shroud (3 Life Blasts vs Life Transfer)

Life force depletes at 4% per second without the trait Vital Persistence. Using Death Shroud for 5 seconds each time reduces life force by 20%. Therefor, we must accumulate 40% life force over a period of 20 seconds (or one round of each weapon usage).

This is also where I mentioned the usefulness of Soul Marks would be explained:

3 reliable marks (putrid mark is only used once every second staff rotation, synergizing with blood is power usage) + 1 auto attack = 12% life force generated
Reaper’s Touch + Ghastly Claws = 20% life force generated
Signet of Undeath over a period of 21 seconds = 7% life force generated

As you can see, this rotation consumes 40% life force every 20 seconds, but generates 39% in the same amount of time, all while keeping high damage-dealing weapon abilities on cool-down and buffing your own damage through various might and fury buffs.

Alternative Utilities:

Well of Corruption- Although a respectable source of damage, its usefulness is lessened when unable to capitalize on the boon>condition transfer. More importantly, I note, is that most mobs do not use boons. And unfortunately, those that do, like dungeon bosses, are generally immune to boon stripping (or have them reapplied only moments after your 45 second cool-down well is gone)
Well of Darkness- An extremely nice utility, if it didn’t come at such a high cool-down cost. The beauty of this well seemed to be how reliably it negated damage with the 20% well cool-down reduction trait. Without it, you’ll find this 5 second well of wonder relatively lackluster.
Signet of Spite- Arguably a good alternative to signet of undeath, I feel that this signet provides little in terms of efficiency over what already provides you with an indirect damage increase (life force generation) and the utility to prevent a wipe. If I were more concerned about big numbers, and less about finishing the instance, I may pick this up.
Epidemic- What? Epidemic in a power build? How did this get in here? … But in all seriousness, with the amount of vulnerability stacks we have at our disposal, and the aforementioned condition damage you get innately, this is a viable strategy. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I can see the justification for it.
Flesh Golem- Outside of dungeons, this beast can hold agro, deal decent damage, and give your necromancer style. In dungeons, not so much. I would rather use a different elite in a dungeon unless I’m 100% absolutely positive that he won’t die within the first 30 seconds. (Spoiler Alert: This never happens.)

II. Utilities
A point of contention within this build is the utility choice. I’ll do my best to explain what I picked, and why I chose them over alternatives.

Consume Conditions- Although producing less health per second, or group support than Well of Blood, I find the health returned to be more reliable. Well of blood forces you to stand inside of it to receive the HoT portion, cutting its effectiveness by a large margin. More importantly, however, is that it does no remove conditions. Conditions range from bleed to weakening, and not being able to remove them in at least one way would be careless.

Well of Suffering- Arguably the highest damage per second utility we have. Not only that, but it applies 10 stacks of vulnerability at its maximum to all targets within it’s range. The ability to drop a well, go into death shroud, and kill 5 targets simultaneously justifies this for personal use. The implications of providing 10% more damage to each party member in an AoE only compounds.
Blood is Power- A priority utility even before the recent changes, this utility skyrockets in usefulness when complimenting the stacks of might we gain while using Life Blast. With absolutely no condition damage on your gear, it’s still possible to achieve 250 (curses trait line) + 3-6 stacks of might (life blast), +10 stacks of might (blood is power) = 700 or more condition damage. Used in conjunction with the 15% extra condition duration from spite, this improves your mark of blood and chillblains to be effective sources of damage without even specifically specializing to do so.
Signet of Undeath- Primarily used as a life force generation tool, this signet provides an extremely useful active in dungeons and events. Too many times have allies have been downed in a cloud of poison, or at the feet of a highly dangerous boss with an impending aoe, only to see them forced back to the way point. It’s especially agonizing to watch when the way point is a considerable distance away. I’ve personally used this signet to resurrect multiple players downed simultaneously in a dungeon on more than one occasion. The ability to generate life force passively tied to it, though, makes it seem almost tailored to this style of play.
Lich Form- Everyone loves big numbers, and this elite allows you to do it reliably over a 30 second duration. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it should remain a staple part of your build. Whenever I encounter a group that struggles through a dungeon, I’ll switch this out, before anything else, to Plague. Even with this squishy build, a well timed blind chain turn a failing fight into an easy accomplishment.

I. Traits
This build currently focuses on using 15/25/0/0/30 for dungeons and group content.

However, when soloing you’ll generally want to swap out Signet of Undeath for Spectral Walk and Lich Form for Flesh Golem.

30 points in Soul Reaping:
The points you place here will not only largely determine the amount of damage you deal with critical hits (which is a large factor of this build), but also allow you to pick up Near to Death, which will play an integral part in your overall damage as soul reaping necromancer.

Unyielding Blast- In a damage focused build, the extra stacks of vulnerability are only the icing on the “pierces mobs” cake! Those of you who have been using staff to pierce multiple enemies shall find this easy to pick up- And this will be a perfect opportunity to learn for those who haven’t.
Soul Marks- Clearly a priority pick for life force generation in a death shroud focused build. I’ll elaborate more on why this is so essential later in the guide, but for now take comfort knowing that if you replace a single auto attack from staff (that would have otherwise given you 3% Life Force) with a traited mark of blood, or chillblains, you’ll be dealing more damage than if that auto attack had not crit (and approximately the same if it would have).
Near to Death- The most important trait in this build. This trait alone essentially allows you to swap between abilities continuously, disregarding cool-down times, and completely avoiding auto attack spam. I’ll provide more details to its necessity in the rotation section of this guide.

25 points in Curses:
The 25 point trait in this line is a very situational one. Fortunately for you, necromancers can supply multiple conditions on the mob simultaneously without going much out of their way. In a best case scenario, this trait alone provides a 22% damage increase on any non-condition based damage. The additional precision and condition damage are excellent additions to your damage, and should not be ignored.

Weakening Shroud- Although competing with Reaper’s Precision for the tier 1 trait slot, I found this to be more useful. Weakening shroud provides not only a decent up-front damage component which is affected by power/crit, but also infects all nearby enemies with weakness. This, both, helps to compensate for your relatively squishy nature (in this build) and increases your damage by reliably placing another condition + bleed on all targets around you.
Focused Rituals- Although entirely picked upon personal preference, I’m sure many necromancers realize the dangers of going into melee range on multiple boss fights. Essential in a low vitality/toughness build such as this, this trait allows you to more easily position and maintain damage from a distance.

15 points in Spite:
Relatively straightforward- This entire line grants both power and condition duration. Benefiting from both the increased direct damage, and duration of applications (that will increase both condition damage, and allow you to maintain conditions for Target the Weak more easily), these traits provide a substantial boost to your base damage. When used in conjunction with your critical damage modifier, you’ll begin to see some impressive numbers. Although an extra 5 points spent here could be placed in curses, the choice really boils down to player preference- and I like the extra healing power + damage more. ( Would you rather have 50 power, 5% condition duration, and over 100 healing power? Or would you rather have 2% crit chance in precision, 50 condition damage, and a 12.5% chance to cause weakness?)

Reaper’s Might- In a build based upon heavy damage out of, and especially in, death shroud, this trait is a requirement. For only 10 points, it gives you the option to either “ramp up” your damage by prolonging death shroud usage, or to maintain a consistent 3-6 stacks, which I will cover momentarily.

First and foremost, I’d like to mention that anything contained within this guide is subject to opinion. I welcome critique, as it will improve my own play as well as any aspiring or improving necromancers reading this thread. I’m also not suggesting that this spec is better than a condition alternative, merely that I have -myself- found this to be much more enjoyable. I would also like to preface this by granting a word of appreciation to Deistik, as well as the many forum-goers who inspired me try out power/crit, and subsequently continue to fine-tune it.

I really like the thought of spawning a giant fleshreaver, miniature risen giant, or any variation of undead monstrosities at 30 points deep into the death magic tree.

However, I think spawning an undead minion only at the death of another (although the epitome of death magic) would be contradictory to the play-style of a death magic necromancer in GW2. Death magic focuses heavily on outlasting your opponent, not killing quickly enough to benefit from a “on kill” proc.

Despite this, I’m sure ArenaNet has done extensive work on balancing the minion-mancer builds around the current damage pets deal, and opening up access to even more may result in less damage from our others (Affecting Death Magic enthusiasts the most).

Everyone has their own style of play, and being creative is one of the most enjoyable aspects of this game. Just don’t come to the forums exclaiming how “op” your build is unless you’re a very critical thinker.

The following are suggestions, and I’m in no way attempting to tell you how to play your character:

You mentioned that you use signet of the locust for general travel purposes, but unless you’re making use of the active I would recommend using spectral walk instead. In conjunction with war horn swiftness and boon duration in the death magic tree, which you mentioned using, you can keep swiftness up almost 100% of the time.

For general leveling purposes, I would definitely recommend keeping the flesh golem as your elite. Even once you unlock lich form, you’ll notice a huge difference in survivability and perhaps even damage if you lack the stats to benefit in lich form (power/crit/crit damage). I’m using an entirely power-crit based build and still find myself using the golem when not in dungeons (where the pet will get killed in one hit).

Personally, even while playing around with a well build, I didn’t find Well of Corruption very effective. Most mobs don’t use boons (outside of dredge! ugh!) and the well becomes little more than a half-effective version of suffering without applying any vulnerability. I found well of darkness to be more useful (outside of blind immune mobs like dredge, where I would switch to corruption), allowing you to gather multiple mobs and kill them simultaneously without largely worrying about their damage.

Once again, the traits you choose are entirely up to your play-style. For a while, mine revolved around my ability to aoe 4-5 mobs down before well of darkness ended. But this comes at the trade-off of survivability. Respeccing is cheap, and even free in the mists, so try out variations and find the one you like the most!

Does it frustrate me that our fear only lasts a single second? Yes.

However, if they ever decide to turn our fear into a long duration hard CC instead of the interrupt and gap creator it currently is, necromancers would be renown and used solely for their capability to lock a single target down for multiple seconds.

I don’t want the necromancer’s usefulness to be limited to a “cc bot” in pvp. Instead, I’d rather have them balance around our current damage and survivability, instead of an unreliable (breakable) mechanic.

2-3 Seconds would be reasonable, but necromancers can already achieve this if specced and geared appropriately.

McWaffle.1927:

#uaintgotnoswaqq #ondarealdough

Normally I wouldn’t do this, but since you’re such an amazing person I’ll leave this just for you. No need to thank me.

First Video
0:01-0:04 wasted both dodge rolls before the fight began
0:04-0:05 wasted heal + condition removal to remove no condition and heal only 3k hp
0:05-0:05 placed spectral wall on the turret and not the mobs, where you apply no vulnerability and therefor no support
0:06-0:14 spent more time keyboard turning than actually hitting the mobs with your dagger
0:15-0:19 Wow
- you waited to use DS until below 30% hp
- since you wasted your heal earlier, you went into DS while spectral armor was up (therefor cancelling the effect and receiving no benefit of life force generation upon being hit)
0:20-0:22 you aren’t traited for transfusion, a staple for any “support” build
0:22-0:23 you leave DS with 90% life force remaining, but only 35% hp
0:24-0:25 you decided it would be better to auto attack than to use your heal coming out of DS with 35% hp
0:26-:029 you decide it would be better to use a channeled heal at 35% hp instead of using a 1 second cast time placement of a 30% damage reduction buff (spectral wall) to use in conjunction with the heal
0:26-0:29 you use a channeled drain that only benefits yourself over a reaper’s touch (an instant-cast ability that bounces to allies, supplying both regeneration and vulnerability) when you could have used both simultaneously
0:32-0:35 cast magic missile at the darkness, lawl
0:35-0:38 cast magic missile at an ally, lawl
0:38 You realize at this point that spectral grasp, a short cool-down that can be used in every trash fight for life force regeneration and getting a mob of an ally has not been used, even though the mobs were clearly attacking your allies.
0:38 You also realize that staff would have produced better results in terms of damage (via aoe on trash mobs), support (aoe regeneration and condition transfer), and debuffing (through chillblains and condition transfer)
0:38 Here, you also realize that your build is useless in terms of support, is less survivable than other classes specializing in defense, and so terrible at damage that bringing a ranger pet into the party would have benefited them more at every aspect.

“just keepin’ it real dough”

I agree that the necromancer relies too heavily on death shroud usage to start a pvp match with absolutely none. But that’s a different issue. The old 20% extra life force on a 30 second cool-down wasn’t going to prevent this issue either.

It sounds like you need to direct your attention toward starting pvp with more life force, and not at abilities like this.

Dibrom.6408:

Kayotik.5790:

The trade-off was survivability, and in return we’ve been given damage. If you have a problem with giving necromancers better damage, you’ve been reading the wrong forums.

For my build the damage gained was negilgiable

350 condition damage only gave you a 2% damage increase?

You do realize that means you’d already have 17,500 condition damage for that to be true, right?

Edit: You have lightning-fast editing skills, my friend. I think you meant to say a 25% damage increase.

Angry Flying Squirrel.3041:

And this does not change the fact that 2 30sec bleeds in pvp is worthless. They will never ever tic for that full amount.

Imagine using this ability as a 350 power/condition damage buff, instead of a bleed, and your utility slot will become justified.

If it makes you feel any better, you’re right- a 30 second bleed is hardly useful when so many condition removals are thrown around in pvp. So you now have 2 options:

1) Don’t use it, or
2) Try it for more than 10 seconds before complaining.

Let’s pretend for a moment that this gives you the equivalent amount of power/condition damage as if you were wearing an entire extra set of armor + both a primary and secondary weapon.

Yes, that’s right- For 12 seconds out of every 30 it’s like you have 8 pieces of extra gear in offensive stats.

The largest drawback, as others have already stated, is that this ability was primarily used in condition builds. Condition builds had a difficult time generating life force already, and this made it worse. Alternatively, as a condition build you only received a portion of death shroud’s effectiveness (used only as a defensive mechanism) and thus this only came at a minor cost.

One of the best changes to this is that it allows players to “double dip” into both condition damage and power damage, promoting more build diversity. It also gives necromancers a more reliable “burst” window, regardless of your build.

The trade-off was survivability, and in return we’ve been given damage. If you have a problem with giving necromancers better damage, you’ve been reading the wrong forums.

I really do hate having to add my two cents to this topic, but it’s in desperate need of positive support.

I find it difficult to believe that ArenaNet has PROVEN their willingness to fix the issues necromancers are currently experiencing, and yet there are still so many people desperately trying to find an excuse to continue insulting their efforts and intentions.

I speak on behalf of all the necromancers too busy enjoying their class and remaining too optimistic to read over this disheartening forum when I say, “Thank you.”

I think in PvE the game really changed for me once I started getting the gear to kill things in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve also been doing a lot of dungeons lately, which has been pretty enjoyable.

If you’re here about pvp, or trying to compare our capabilities to another profession, it just might be.

You never mentioned if this was for PvP or PvE, but I’m guessing that since you’re concerned about quickly getting out of the middle of combat, it’s probably the former.

I always found the flesh wurm sacrifice to be unreliable over extended periods of time. It wouldn’t be uncommon for your pet to die in the (up to) 30 seconds you’ll be in plague form.

I like your creativity though; it sounds like you’re on the right track. I think you’re also underestimating the power of an enlarged health pool + #2 spam in plague form. If you run out of combat before plague ends, or you manually turn it off, you should be in a better spot.

Although I do feel as though there’s a large disparity between classes, I feel like you didn’t take advantage of any necromancer utilities to counter your opponent.

Well of Darkness, Death Shroud + fear, Staff + fear, Spectral Armor, pet knockdown, offhand dagger blind, pet blind, pet sacrifice teleport, any variety of chills (for whatever good they may do), and dagger immobilize to name a few.

If you’re still struggling, perhaps try a tankier build until you become more accustom to the necromancer tools.

I definitely like the direction of this build. Regardless of the skepticism I may have, I do have a couple suggestions.

It feels like this entire build is based around using ethereal wall and bone minions to take advantage of the protection + chaos armor. A very defensive build to say the least. However, consider the following:

Bone minions can also be used in a dark field such as Well of Corruption, Power, or Suffering for an AoE blind. This can also be said for Putrid Mark while using staff. You can produce a similar, more reliable effect that can also add benefit offensively.

Coupling a pulsing aoe blind with a very small 3 second protection buff via traits seems to be somewhat of a poor decision. The only time this would be effective is in situation where you have multiple people both inside of the wells range and outside of it- in which case the 3 seconds of protection might prolong your death by half a second (30% reduced damage, not invulnerability)

The 3 seconds of protection would work quite nicely with Well of Blood… but this comes at a cost. First, the effectiveness of Well of Blood, along with the 3 seconds of protection, becomes an unreliable method of helping allies. It becomes even more so when you don’t have the ability to cast the wells from a range. To take advantage of the heal over time (the only reason you would use this over consume conditions- outside of the aforementioned unreliable ability to benefit teammates) you would be forced to remain relatively stationary inside the well… negating any benefit you would have otherwise received.

Retaliation is a tricky boon. To get the most benefit out of it, you’ll need to be the primary target in the fight. In a 1v1 situation, it could prove extremely useful. But in a situation where you’re fighting competent players, nobody is going to focus the ball of life force with 15 seconds of protection standing in his own heal over time (dealing hardly any damage, mind you) when there’s a 18k hp thief with triple the damage 15 feet from you.

The extra 5% power converted to healing trait in spite seems pretty useless here. On a low-power based build, where you do not benefit from dagger main-hand life siphon, and no cool-down reduction or larger marks from staff, you may be getting an extra 100 hit points every 32 seconds.

On a build not reliant on life force usage or generation, or even crit damage, the 5 points in soul reaping also seems rather fruitless. Instead, you could either remove the points entirely, or go 10 points deep to pick up the cooldown reduction on spectral wall. Yet again, you’d be placing points into SR without benefiting largely.

Boon duration seems somewhat pointless to specialize in on a necromancer. The only boons we can use are might (which you have not specced into), fury (which you have also not specced into), and of course protection, which lasts a very short duration of 3 or 5 seconds (10 seconds if you step into the wall twice) for a total bonus of 3 extra seconds of protection out of every 30.

In summation, the defensive aspect of the build looks interesting… but it’s effectiveness is questionable.

Please ignore Forice, he’s been trolling the necromancer forums for the past week.

Just take a look at his post history.

With all of that being said, you can see that I’ve put a lot of time into finding renewed interest in this class. This is the final build I’ll be working on, and I could certainly use all the advice I can get.

Traits are another topic I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to determine. Each having their own benefits, I think this section would be largely decided by which weapon setup was previously chosen:

I) Spite- This would be an excellent choice, not just for the power it passively provides, but for the 10% extra mark damage and extra axe damage. The 10 point trait, granting might on life blast, would be a great addition to a build focusing on death shroud usage. The minor traits are rather poor in comparison, but are somewhat made up by the effects of condition duration on non-damage based debuffs (further cementing the effectiveness of vulnerability stacking). This tree also contains the focus range/cool-down reduction trait, although I’m not entirely sure of it would be fully utilized with so much dancing between primary weapon, secondary weapon, and death shroud.

II) Curses- Although granting a reasonable amount of crit chance, this tree also passively increases condition damage- It just so happens that a large portion of staff damage comes from the bleeding and poison marks. A notable trait in this line allows the necromancer to use wells from a distance. Of course, while using either an axe or dagger, you’ll generally be close enough to make use of the pbAoE without too much effort. The most appealing trait in this tree, for a DS build, just so happens to be a minor one- Furious Demise. Granting 20% crit chance, with 50% up-time, basically provides a constant 10% increase in crit chance for a very small investment into the tree.

III) Death Magic- This tree is probably the most troubling for me. Although it grants access to both shorter cool-downs and larger marks while using a staff, the minor traits are quite poor and the passive bonuses ineffective (at least for a DS focused build). The difference between having those staff traits and not having them is quite large, but at what expense?

IV) Blood Magic- It just so happens that wells are the only utilities available to a necromancer that scales based on both power and crit chance (as well as the increased crit damage). Vitality also happens to increase the effectiveness of the Death Shroud “life pool” at about a 75% exchange rate. This tree definitely looks promising, and the extra healing you gain passively would work well in conjunction with the staff regeneration mark, or the dagger life siphon. Yet again, however, we have the same problem as before with the staff- Is the survivability gained really worth such a drastic loss of damage?

V) Soul Reaping- The most important part of any Death Shroud focused build. To preface this, I will also note that because necromancer utilities on a power based build are somewhat limited, spectral abilities seem a bit more appealing.

—— Death shroud drains at approximately 4% per second. With the 25% reduction trait, this becomes 3%. In a perfect scenario (without receiving any damage), you would be able to remain in death shroud for 12.5 seconds before dropping below 50% life force, and therefor reducing your damage drastically. With the trait, you will be able to remain in Death Shroud for 16 seconds. I’m still undecided between this and…

——Unyielding blast not only pierces the enemy, but also applies 2 stacks of vulnerability per cast. In conjunction with the spite 10 point trait, this increases the effectiveness of #1 Spam in DS by a considerable margin. It also synergizes well with the staff’s ability to pierce targets.

——As previously mentioned, the defensive utilities look somewhat more favorable when compared to the alternative, condition based, options. These spectral skills, such as spectral armor, walk, grasp (if using dagger), and wall can each be reduced by 20% and switched around according to the situation.

——Soul marks seems to be almost necessary if building around both staff and death shroud usage. This also allows you to easily sacrifice an auto attack for a second mark of blood before switching to a secondary weapon set. Instead of the 3% life force gained and 700-800 damage from a staff auto attack, you gain 3% more life force and deal over 1,000 extra damage as bleeding.

——The 25 point minor trait is actually much better than it may sound at first. Although unreliable and hardly predictable, it can grant up to an extra 100(approximation) power. Imagine placing an extra 10 points in spite beyond 30.

——The 30 point trait causes some confusion. With a 5 second cool-down on DS, it would be possible to keep fury up 100% of the time. But the difference between having this trait, and not having it, is only about 10% more consistent crit chance- at the expense of being forced to apply and remove DS every 5 seconds. This reapplication of DS resets the auto attack timer, and includes a slight delay on all ability usage. Perhaps somebody may be able to convince me otherwise.

I’m beginning to lose more interest in the class by the day, and thought that the best course of action was to seek advice from fellow necromancers struggling with the same issues. I know this isn’t exactly a grand opening line to promote intelligent discussion on a class, but I think we are all familiar with the current state of affairs.

When I created my character, I had several character concepts in mind. “Sure,” I thought, “if this life-stealing necromancer idea doesn’t work, I’ll just build a condition-based character!” I was sorely disappointed on both fronts.

With the poor damage axe produces in respect to other power-based builds from separate professions, the lackluster life siphoning from dagger in a high risk-low reward melee range, and the relatively poor ability to stack bleeds with scepter against a single target, I found myself cornered into the only remaining weapon available. The staff.

With that in mind, I began trying to find a way to validate the primary usage of a staff over that of alternative forms of damage. One of the most noticeable aspects of the staff is it’s ability to generate life force arguably better than any other weapon (tied with axe+focus). Building from this, I tried out several power/crit based trait setups that would benefit a Death Shroud centric build the most.

The resulting damage was a respectable 700-800 auto attack, with nearly 1,500 crits.
It wasn’t uncommon to see 3k crits with putrid mark, and a full combination of marks yielded approximately 3,000-5,000 damage in a period of only a couple seconds. Hardly any burst in comparison to that of other classes, but a decent amount of damage for the necromancer regardless of weapon choice (especially because it’s all AoE).

The largest drawback, as I’m sure you already know, is that the staff is extremely cool-down reliant. Surely you can’t build a character around a 5,000 damage burst once every 25 seconds. This is where weapon swapping and death shroud come into play- It just so happens that this is also where things become more complicated.

A power build such as this would find absolutely no use for a scepter, leaving other Axe or Dagger as secondary choices:

A) Dagger- Although dealing more damage, and synergizing more favorably with the stats I’m already seeking, the auto attack doesn’t mesh well with the ranged benefit of a staff. Dancing in and out of combat with no reliable mobility tool makes pulling this off difficult at best, and impossible at worst. Once you look past that, however, you can see that both the regeneration from staff #2 and the life siphon from dagger #2 make this a rather “tanky” alternative to the axe.

B) Axe- With both an AoE snare and the ability to stack vulnerability, the axe is a prime candidate as a secondary weapon for a power-based staff build. Stacking up vulnerability through Well of Corruption, Focus #4, and the axe auto attack could lead to some impressive AoE staff burst. However, the difference between axe and dagger is barely an 8% damage differential (through vulnerability) at the expense of a lower damage channel and the life drain that accompanies it.

Along with whichever main-hand weapon is chosen, an equally significant off-hand must be as well:

1) Dagger- Providing little in the way of power-based damage, the dagger offhand applies various debuffing conditions such as AoE weakening, multi-target blind, and (if traited) a multi-target chill. This would go quite nicely with the debilitating conditions the staff already applies, had I been focused on doing so.

2) War Horn- Perhaps providing even less to a power based build than an offhand dagger, the only huge benefit I can see associated with this offhand is the swiftness it grants. At a relatively short duration and a cripple that only applies in melee range, I could only see this choice being prevalent on a defensive build that simultaneously uses a dagger in the main hand.

3) Focus- Granting a considerable amount of life force through #4, coupled with the respectable damage it deals if all bounces connect, it would be difficult to deter me from this weapon. Although the chill affects only a single target, it works nicely with an axe or dagger’s primary focus on a single target. Used as a kiting tool or gap closer, I could see it being useful in a variety of situations (not to mention the boon removal). In addition to all of the aforementioned, it even stacks vulnerability relatively easily (if you or an ally is within range) to line up better damage on the staff burst combination.

Oh, and double posting in a troll thread.

What is this? I don’t even…

Were you AFK, letting him auto attack you for a minute straight?

I like both Epidemic and Plague Signet.

I also like how the staff turns into a shadow-scythe when you cast/attack.

That’s about it.

I really must admit, I’m quite impressed with your suggestion for a well that is channeled and sustained based off of your life force.

You would basically be transferring your survivability mechanic into more offensive capability, offsetting the limitations to damage by decreasing longevity.

And as much as I really do like your idea on a “built-up” fear, I’m afraid that the 1 second duration was put in place specifically so that we DID NOT have the ability to do that.

@Demonical
I really do hate to quote myself, but:

Whereas a ranger may be able to stack 25 bleeds on a single target, we have the ability to stack 12-15 bleeds across six targets (totaling 72-90 stacks).

Granted, this would be a perfect scenario in which there were 5 targets within range of the primary target. But which other profession is capable of applying over 70 bleeds in less than 10 seconds?

Imagine, if you will, being able to build and maintain stacks as efficiently as single target-oriented condition building professions. Now, multiply that by 6.

Condition damage is far from low…. As I said earlier, it’s primarily designed for AoE.

Edit: Of course, this also means we are the most affected by condition removal. However, I’d consider pressuring multiple targets into popping condition removals simultaneously to be a successful play-style.

@Nixxez
Jon is technically correct in saying that life force is used as a secondary health pool. But this isn’t the correct mindset for players to properly capitalize on it.

Consider death shroud to be more like a “power word: shield” from WoW (I know, come at me), and instead of mindlessly spamming it every time it’s available (or in this case, with the limitation of remaining life force), use it to prevent a large amount of incoming damage that would have been otherwise hard to recover from.

It still operates as a “secondary health pool” by diminishing like one when receiving damage… but it’s usefulness would be better compared to a defensive utility.

@Asmodean
I agree entirely that the justification for how well a class can do cannot hing on it’s success in supporting other players. That would lead to an extremely boring and passive play-style (although some may find that more appealing). But hear me out:

Whereas a ranger may be able to stack 25 bleeds on a single target, we have the ability to stack 12-15 bleeds across six targets (totaling 72-90 stacks). The necromancer is not designed to be a support class, unless you consider any aoe-centric character “support”.

To further validate this, take a look at the necromancer utilities. Outside of pets and Blood is Power, all of our damaging utilities are AoE. Does this mean they are the most effective AoEs in the game? Hardly. But the class is designed around area of effect damage and presence nonetheless.

@Tony
See, this is exactly why the necromancer is so difficult to balance appropriately. Imagine taking a character that specializes in AoE damage and debuffs, with large amounts of survivability, and then giving them the effectiveness to 1v1 like a thief.

Can we 1v1 successfully? Yes! In fact, we can specifically build for it. But unfortunately, we will never be able to compare to the professions that are specifically designed to do so.

I’ve had a great amount of success with my necromancer in 1v1 situations, so I will agree that there’s a great deal of potential- But the game’s life is still in infancy, and I’m sure most of the people complaining about necromancer “damage” or “effectiveness” in pvp is on the premise that we are specifically designed to do so.