Guild Wars 2

Ioflux.4369:

Except you cant use the kit now while in channel due to bundle. Seriously…. just do the kitten event the right way and its easy. Too much of this chicken sh** to kill the dredge. It’s only the first spawn thats annoying. After that is w/e.

Excuse me what is the “right” way? Dont you mean your way? Its easy on lower level fracts I agree. I can imagine the super hard core agreeing with u on lvl 70-80.

Folk.2093:

Uhh the control panel takes more than 10 seconds….

Stealth stacks, so ostensibly you could use your stealth heal and smoke bomb 1st. And shadow refuge stealth should be 4 + 10s according to wiki.

+1 spy kit if u are desperate.

Actually come to think of it, my mesmer could probably stealth for the full duration if I used 1 spy kit + mass invis + veil.

Folk.2093:

even the thief can’t do it all in stealth; if i remember right using any stealth ability while on the control panel interrupts it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Refuge

thisolderhead.5127:

Need moar guardians :-P

I knew my Asura Power Suit will come in handy one day.

Zinkey.6983:

I had to kick 4 people because they refused to actually play the encounter because they wanted to kit, not because they were incapable (I never found that out). Either way, 28 with people paying attention was a breeze, I dont expect 38 to be impossible, but hopefully challenging.

Please go ahead with no spy kit use, no thieves, 1 guy helping another on the button to stay alive in order to draw aggro from the guy doing the console. At lvl 38. If you could, please record the success of your encounter on Fraps.

If you kick ppl from your party because they want to use spy kits in dredge fractals, honestly you are a kitten and on my permanent kitten block list.

Zinkey.6983:

I hate spy kit methods, I refused to do them pre patch. Did a FoM 28 run earlier today, after kicking 4 people refusing to not use spy kits (the biggest challenge tbh), we did it without with no issues. If you struggle to keep up, you probably need to rethink your build/party/methods.

Kicking 4 ppl? Sounds like the reverse. Try the same at lvl 38 and pls report the results of your tactics, especially with 0 thieves. Thank you.

Zinkey.6983:

Firstly when would any strategy involving team members being dead be an intelligent one?

But anyways no that wouldnt, in doing so you would cut the defenders potential damage and health pool in half and forcing 2 players to take on the whole dredge force. Splitting across buttons means 2 players vs half the force, who can work together using utils etc to easily hold off the dredge. Probably best to have a ranged player on the button and either another ranged kiting with aggro or a melee class keeping the dredge occupied. As always taking time to enter the room and control the mobs will also make it far easier.

In short, nothing in this game done properly will ever be easier with dead people.

In the context of sans spy kits:

May I ask whether have u done dredge beyond lvl 10? They hit pretty hard past 20 imho and it will be very difficult to keep the guys on the buttons alive (nearly impossible on 30), especially with just 1 teammate assisting. Furthermore, if the person doing the console is NOT a thief, he/she may draw aggro from the mobs. One hit is all it takes to interrupt the process.

Wouldnt it be better for 1 to die on each button, 2 protecting the guy on the console kiting mobs away from the console guy ?

Writetyper.1985:

You have 5 people.

1 on each button.

1 protecting each person on the button.

1 on the door.

Wouldnt it be better for 1 to die on each button, 2 protecting the guy on the console?

I dont see a problem. LF1m thief fracts.

Thank you Rennoko. I wish this was a community forum in which I would request to make it a sticky.

TheFug.5278:

You people need to learn to run necro bombs. 1 necro can be cleansed, a few necros using epidemic will drop zergs in an instant. The amount of conditions that a group of necros paired with 1 or 2 engineers can inflict on people in insane, and no amount of condition removal can keep up (and even then people will have to run EXTRA condition removal to try and keep up and that takes up extra slots).

l2necro.

The counter to this seems to be more necros (with plague signet + well of power) + guardians

continued on next page, silly forum bug

Minions are more like situational skills. Eg. ice fractal. Flesh Wurm etc are immune to frostbite (its good in “Rata Sum” fractal too and I even use it to lure the slave driver in COF P1 to the wall) and in Ascalonian I use the Shadow Fiend for the blind and to soak some damage if my teammates are fragile.

Also they are excellent in solo farming and open world if u didnt already know that.

Rennoko.5731:

And the problem is, while there is a stigma with certain classes (like necro/ranger/engineer),.

Err no this is a common misconception for engineers. Power Grenadier/Rifle (even Pistol) Engis are viable sustained damage since a lot of hard hitting skills have relatively short CD and you have access to like 6-8 of time and can be rotated at will. You even get a lot of healing support and access to loads of great CC, blinds and chill when built properly.

darkace.8925:

Bleed-Thief A, “Hey guys. I noticed we have another thief in this party. Mind if I ask what kind of build you have?”
Bleed-Thief B, “I’m built to stack bleed.”
Bleed-Thief A, “So am I. There’s probably a bit too much overlap here. I’ll drop and look for another group so we’re not wasting a slot. Good luck.”
Bleed-Thief B, “You too.”

See how incredibly easy that is?

Re: Waste of time.

Nevertheless its good to ask who, if any, in your party has condi builds. I sometimes hit Caltrops to help with DPS although I run a Power build and I may have ruined some other players Condi damage.

Frozen Abyss – if only we could get that kind of AOE burst damage skill even with its long CD on land. I hit the jellyfish beast in fracts for 18k on crit not sure because of additional might stacks from warriors and/or vulnerability stacks.

In comparison my traited but still longer in duration CD for life transfer for power build is a paltry 4k-5k.

Warriors and Grenadier Engis still own the depths though.

Halo.8976:

No one said a word about Gears.
Gears.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gear_%28consumable%29. This is probably useful for a longer range daze than the warhorn but you only really need daze in PVE for dredge machine in fractals. As for knockback, almost never. I would recommend it to warriors esp for non shield users since their daze/stun are mostly short range except for hammer burst.

If I was ever concerned about survivability, I would equip Summon Flesh Wurm and Spectral Walk. Some opposing players cannot deal with the idea of necros teleporting. They are also break stuns. As for WvW being open world etc, wouldnt large scale zerg combat, siege assaults and siege defense take up at least 50% of WvW?

I agree that necros lack the mobility to escape in general though. What I do to try to shake free is to Mark the ground behind me and pray that I get to a safe zone or a group of friendlies.

Kravick.4906:

Seeing as how the really good ones can solo groups of 3-4 people, I wouldn’t go around telling people that.

Err not if the group includes just one necromancer who didnt blow his Life Transfer.

Halo.8976:

So, please, by all means, make yourself thieves since they’re really useful in large scale fights.

Actually they are useful with Shadow Refuge and their shortbow, but just not as useful as a necro in a large scale fight.

Lucas.9162:

Conditionmancers in PVE devistate, and Dagger DPS builds can destroy in quick dungeon runs. Just cause we have the highest learning curve of any class, doesn’t mean we’re the worst.

I have to disagree:
1) Conditionmancer in PVE: Re: 25 stacks shared by others. And there can only be One … condition build in one party. If you need to destroy structures, you are out of luck. Also trash mobs are usually quickly killed, so u have to get ur bleed stacks started all over again on a single target that doesnt die.
2) Dagger DPS: May as well run Axe which is ranged. I dont know about dagger DPS builds to compare, but I will say that before bleed is power, I do 5k on Axe skill 2 on a COF p1 mob. After bleed is power 6k. I run hybrid knight and berzerker armor with ruby orbs + all berzerker accessories + cavalier backpiece. Not counting a bit of bleed damage and the high chance of sigil of air processing.
3) Highest learning curve: I leave that distinction to Engis and Elementalists.

mattattack.1673:

i agree with all your posts. I mean the necro DOES have it’s uses. Such as fearing sieges at gates, an incoming zerg.. but then again other classes to have walls that that do the same thing. The more i think about it, the more i notice how necro just has a bunch of skills that other classes do better. Which really sucks, because again, i absolutely am in love with necros and have spent countless hours playing them.

Necros have wells and marks which can be applied on walls and gates and not just for Fear, both offensively and defensively. Can any other class do them? On that subject, Guardians wall shield is useless against both since they are not projectiles.

I will just copy and paste my post:

“CHIPS.6018:
Are you trying to claim that Plague is useful in wvw?
And are you trying to claim that Life Transfer won’t get interrupted in a zerg fight?

1) Yes. Ever use it with food life steal buffs in a zerg fight aka zerg vs zerg b4 with blindness? And it is useful in PVE as well. In fact, I would say that I “led” zergs to victory quite a few times especially while defending and capturing Stonemist/forts/towers. In fact I switched from Engi to Necro once specifically to break a group defending at its tower lord after 20 min to 30 min of fruitless assaults.
2) No but u can stay of out of range for most melee interrupts etc. In my experience no one targets the Necro in Life Transfer until they realize they are getting hit for lots of damage + Sigil of Air / Fire proc on crit. Even then they may not know the source of the damage in a zerg. If u are running with a guardian in a zerg, Stability will work wonders too or if you really want to do hardcore wvw, run runes of lyssa, pop ur elite (perhaps flesh golem) and then go do a life transfer. More importantly, if it isn’t on CD, good luck to thieves running away after stealth"

Can a mesmer lead a zerg? Or break it? Especially shatter builds. An elementalist could if he/she was bunker D/D. As to why they are so few necros in WvW now, it could simply because everyone is in PVE farming (which I am).

I think its no point responding to trolls about badge farming a particular class. I once beat a warrior manu-a-manu with my necromancer in JP arena. Would a thief like to get into the ring not pre-stealthed with a necro?

Its not UP in WvW. It used to be OP in PVP previously and currently is still viable. Dunno about sPVP. “Everyone” thinks thieves are a nuisance and yak killers in WvW and do bring utility to a zerg, but are not OP as they are fragile.

PvE is another matter though.

For the reasons in WvW, read the threads in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/In-WvW-the-real-attrition-class-P-D-thief/.

CHIPS.6018:

Are you trying to claim that Plague is useful in wvw?

And are you trying to claim that Life Transfer won’t get interrupted in a zerg fight?

1) Yes. Ever use it with food life steal buffs in a zerg fight aka zerg vs zerg b4 with blindness? And it is useful in PVE as well. In fact, I would say that I “led” zergs to victory quite a few times especially while defending and capturing Stonemist/forts/towers. In fact I switched from Engi to Necro once specifically to break a group defending at its tower lord after 20 min to 30 min of fruitless assaults.

2) No but u can stay of out of range for most melee interrupts etc. In my experience no one targets the Necro in Life Transfer until they realize they are getting hit for lots of damage + Sigil of Air / Fire proc on crit. Even then they may not know the source of the damage in a zerg. If u are running with a guardian in a zerg, Stability will work wonders too or if you really want to do hardcore wvw, run runes of lyssa, pop ur elite (perhaps flesh golem) and then go do a life transfer. More importantly, if it isn’t on CD, good luck to thieves running away after stealth

WTB: Centurion Claw with 2000 gems.

And fractal dagger? What fractal weapons? (After 500+ fractals)

In short Frost gun gives ~30+ s of chilled when set up and Fire Bomb gives ~30s of burning. If boss fight has several spawning minions that dont run up stairs and away from boss or more than 1 boss at a time, time for http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Epidemic.

Caveth.3268:

I have to say that of all of my characters, necromancers are quite clearly the most useless of all the classes in this game for WvW. .

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_of_Darkness
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Transfer

And btw necros kill thieves and mesmers.

Ok here are the tooltip stats word for word for the Frost gun: (since GW2 screenshots dont include the tooltip, I had to literally take screenshots). It lasts about 10 min if unused and has 10 charges. Comments are in italics.

Quest to get merchant: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keep_Bamm_safe_while_he_gathers_components_for_his_engineering

Location of Researcher Bamm (the merchant):
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shiverspur_Front

1) Frost Jet (2¼ activation)
Spray a cone of frost. Chills foes with a critical hit.
Damage (9x). Chilled (4s) Range: 425

([Bad Decent for a power necro (340×9 on crits on COF P1 Slave driver) damage but your weapon sigils also procs on critical hit, more importantly the chilled condition stacks in duration so you can spam away. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Chilling may work as well. I found that spamming it 8 times u get about 20-24s of chilled with 74% crit chance. Your results may vary obviously)

2) Rifle Butt (¼ activation, 8s CoolDown)
Knockback your foe with the butt of your rifle. Be careful not to break it.
Range: 130

3) Frozen Escape (¼ activation, 15s CoolDown)
Leap backward, leaving behind an area of frozen ground that chills foes.
Damage, Chilled (4s)

(Jump backwards is short; I guess 300-400, havent tested for evade; can stack up to ~ 10s of chilled)

4) Shard Volley (2½ activation, 20s CoolDown)
Launch a volley of razor sharp ice shards that bleed foes they hit.
Damage (9x), 1 stack of Bleeding (4s), Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (20% chance), Range: 1200

(Seems that u cannot stand to close to the target in order to fire the AOE effect)

5) Deep Freeze (1½ activation, 30s CoolDown)
Encase your target in a block of ice
Damage, Range: 1200

(3s equivalent of stunned, frozen solid, doesnt work on COF P1 effigy, haven’t tested on other bosses yet)

Laii.2780:

Skale Venom is kinda usless in PvE, and getting banned from WuvWuv (Thank Grenth~!) Most Champions are immune to it, and NPC’s don’t dodge roll. Only time you ever get to get use out of it is fighting lots mobs of things when it actually applys, an there is only nice for the glancing

I do appreciate you pointing out fun consumables, especially Necro-centric ones My first 20 slots of inventory is all consumables, toys >~<

Skale venom is great for running dungeons because about 1% of the mobs are Champions and that includes the bosses as well and although weakness has been nerfed, it is still useful in boss fights.

And to be honest, I dont care if they ban all non food and sharpening stone etc consumables from PVP or WvW with the possible exception of hylek poison for my mesmer. Never used them in either prior to Dulfy’s guide but I dont feel its makes a significant difference in the way I play.

Another great item mentioned in Dulfy’s guide comments section which I discovered today: the Frost Gun (40c). It is highly recommended for necros because it gives us a long duration of chill especially if you are traited into Condition Duration. The wiki does not give a description but I googled another guide (http://www.phantomsofthemist.net/blog3.php/consumables-guide) to help in a write up. Frost gun details are listed below in the latest post.

I guess it will be useful for AOE crowd control and most boss fights, but not for DPS I suppose.

Right Guild wars a G-rated game is considered violent. It shows how ignorant the media types are. If I were a parent I would be much more concerned about games where you could chop cyborgs up into little pieces with blood and gore in full hd glory and rip out their spines. Even better still bank robbery simulators shooting civilians, cops and guards dead etc. I dont need to name the games: if you watch Youtube game reviewers / read gaming news online / own Steam, you probably know what their names are. Btw what is GTA?

This is what Rupert Murdoch has done to news internationally.

Sure and CNN is such a font of knowledge when it comes to games. Or for unbiased news for that matter. And btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Media_Limited

If GW2 can be blamed for murder, I suppose chess or checkers could be too.

Andele.1306:

You obviously forgot the most op items in game, Depleted Power Crystal and to reference “Oh My God A Giant Rock!”; in terms of effects they are known as 6bleeds/5vuln and permaknockdown.

Yes but you need to keep spamming them which can be rather expensive even if its 16c per pop for the depleted power crystal. Specifically I found that that for necromancers, the items which I mentioned work well to supplement the profession (which I would liken to tweaking a car with comfortable seats and nice handling but with terribad acceleration and horsepower)

I would also recommend the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bandit%27s_Improvised_Bomb at 16c. Dulfy’s guide has another version which is more expensive at 40c which is completely the same. I learnt the above-mentioned from a helpful reader who posted in her comment section and listed the location here: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2uyshdw&s=6. I find it does significant damage 1.5k to 2k (3.4k on crits on P2 defend magg trash mobs; as a gauge my staff autoattack hits for 2k on crit) + the knockdown, more importantly since Life Transfer has such a long CD and you run out of marks etc, it could supplement your AOE as the staff autoattack can only hit enemies who are lined up. I suppose this is a flaw of the profession in comparison to playing as engineer and elementalist where you are constantly juggling multiple skills most of which are good damage / CC / support AOE wise.

Thanks to Dulfy’s excellent consumable guide here (http://dulfy.net/2013/01/16/gw2-useful-and-fun-consumables-guide/) , I found many extremely useful consumables. I would consider two to be very useful.

1) Skale Venom: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skale_Venom.
I consider this to be compulsory for Axe Necromancers. It will almost guarantee to give Axe Necros perma weakness on one of your enemies esp if you are traited with 25% chance for weakness on crit hit. Also since Axe autoattacks has vulnerability this stacks nicely with it. Very useful when you Death Shroud and AOE Life Transfer as well.

2) Fire Bomb / Molachev Cºcktail ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Bomb_%28Consumable%29)

This is useful when u are traited into the Curses line and almost compulsory for condition damage Necros. The burning condition makes use of your condition damage and the Trait Target the Weak gives 2% more damage and it lasts ~30s if the enemy receives all the pulses on the line. As a necro you will not normally have access to this condition.

If you are running minions, I highly recommend http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mortar_Seed_Turret (Use the healing seed turret) and even the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Elemental_Powder to spread the damage among your other minions and for the fire field as well for a blast finisher for Area Might with your staff

Only a few JP please. I bought this game for action RPG combat not for Mario.

cannot even keep from being downed by the aoe from the end boss of the frozen fractal….ugg…rant off

Sometimes players get caught out of position. I know I do occasionally. Fractals is another good skill check aka l2p your profession. In another thread someone said focus for mesmer is a situational weapon. Considering your other options and especially when it comes to the fracts, no it isnt. Even better some mesmers seem to have only one weapon, ie the greatsword.

I do agree that Maw targeting non player allies is bad (you forgot turrets). I’d advocate fixing that before gimping multiple alt players.

Engis dont run turrets at lvl 80 nowadays unless u want the net turret for CC. Even then, turrets can be exploded at will.

Big deal; I done 500 and 0 skins albeit many are 10 dailies

I cry shrug when the last guy is a ranger or a thief.
I cry when I see the elementalist spamming Fireball and nothing else.
I cry when I realise the necro (or any class) is condition dmg.
I cry when I see 5 signets icons over the warrior’s head.

I cry when mesmers dont know how to use their focus (re: 1000hrs playing mesmer not using focus thread in mesmer forum)
To a lesser degree, when I see mesmers use shatter builds in pve in general and/or dont shatter at certain bosses (dredge for eg).

My footsteps are electric,
Many enemies fall before my sword,
In a blurred frenzy.
I will almost never,
Swap my Time Warp for Mass Invisibility.

Now wheres my cardboard box to hide in?

Imagine 3 or more rangers at Jade Maw. I was in a party with 2 and it delayed for a few extra unnecessary minutes. Even more funny I was in a party with just 1 ranger and the maw keep attacking the bear pet which keep rezzing until he ran out and stowed it

Melchior.2135:

Norn men are weird looking. Their scrawny little legs, tiny heads and oversized arms make them look like cartoon characters. .

Not to mention clown-size oversized feet for min size Male norn, As well as a permanent one slumped shoulder posture.

See my signature

Too bad, you are much more likely to get more JP.

It is incredible that for vanity items, some people have 3 of these. I am sure the super hardcore have 5 or more by now. In my case, Bolt for my mesmer isnt completely a “vanity item”, I get to change my sword auto attack and blurred frenzy default sound which bugged me a lot.

I think we should have a thread for the changes in dungeons and their mechanics not stated in the patch notes.

For example: pre patch COF path 2, my mesmer is able to use his phantasm wardens and berserkers on the rock boss and do some hefty damage. Post patch they do 0 damage . As such I feel like I am being nerfed in this encounter and am automatically being relegated to Gaheron bait along with the guardians and other classes with condition builds.

Anyone else wish to add to this thread?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Binding_Blade

Good thieves are fun to have, but it’s nothing you can’t substitute for a warrior that will do more damage at less risk.

I feel that a Sword/dagger thief is very viable though. Maybe even survive better a warrior in a few instances. For example I can see a sword/dagger thief soloing the slave driver in COF P1 but I think it is much harder for a warrior to solo esp a GS warrior. In general, warriors are better (snow fractal elemental comes to mind and warriors can use the 2 spy kits in the first part).

In the early days I tot engineers DPS was really terrible and all their had to offer was their turrets. Boy was I wrong. I will prefer a teammate who plays an engineer well over a player using a ranger with equal skill (BTW I never kick ppl because of their classes even ranger or ever refuse to join a party because of said reasons) in general and most probably even over a necro in 90% of the dungeons. Possibly even an elementalist in a few cases.

Its simply because they offer a lot of utility, support AND ranged/AOE/melee DPS, albeit without the reflect and stability granted by the guardian. I dont dislike rangers at all, its just that I feel that Anet should come clean and say it is the designated class for beginners and is a subpar end game profession.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Putrid_Mark
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Swarm
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Consume_Conditions

Very rarely do u or ur party have conditions and no enemies around. If I am not mistaken, plague signet SHOULD be fixed.

Wells and signets can be traited to 48s cd. They transfer/convert more than 2 conditions and do not require special runes.

What does necro bring in PVE? AOE damage at the very least, marks for CC. Can even be traited for shorter CD. And it is a very survivable class, which means less rezzing required.

TBH, I love my necro for RP reasons and prefer my mesmer over my other 5 professions but it isnt as annoying/broken as ranger (the only profession I will never play).