Guild Wars 2

This is another viable powermancer variation.

http://tinyurl.com/clwtz6h

mods paying attention to forums…good joke :P

Forgot to say in the video, for the master spite trait you can swap spiteful marks for chill of death. Hits pretty hard since they changed it last patch.

leman.7682:

They expect hostility, because they know they messed up in many different places.

Just look over sPvP forums to see how a badly designed and implemented PvP makes combined with terrible balance makes people react. All this half a year after the game shipped.

I have every right to criticise as long as it is constructive. I did it multiple times, but there is no answer, no reaction.

No wonder, they’re not responding.

Khalifahaze.6045:

“poor design” doesn’t make this class bad I would hardly consider it a dump class. A good necro is the deciding factor in tpvp team fights. I wouldn’t even consider this class to have an overall poor design we just need a few tweaks, nothing too major.

I obviously don’t mean necros are bad. I main a necro and played it a lot. Not only, as most people, in PvE.
The poor design is a comparative description. I believe DS is one of the best profession mechanics design-wise, but the skills there are boring as hell. The staff – the new level of boring. All weapons based on auto + some ground target/channel – boring!

Deep and interesting combo possibilities – sometimes, mostly not.
Play dynamic? Hell no.

I could go on and on. Don’t tell me these are small things.

And as a fun fact I use to make fun of necro – it was the only profession NOT played by a single Anet dev during long hours of beta event streams.

I believe in actions, they cannot lie.

I agree that most of our skills etc can be somewhat boring at times. I feel the issue is the devs don’t really know what to do with this class, and it does seem like they hardly care about the class.

I feel some of this may come from the fine line that the necro walks. I believe we are in a spot that is somewhere between mediocre and overpowered. A few changes and the necro can easily become OP. I play with the host of SOTG all the time and I have given him specific questions regarding the necro. Hopefully they will give us some worthwhile answers.

leman.7682:

Acarius.3052:

I’m pretty sure leman is being sarcastic here.

You got me

I wrote it somewhere else already, but let me write it once more -

Necros are Anet’s dump profession – no one in the studio mains necro, no one cares about it. This is why there are no cool skills, awesome mechanics and great gameplay for necros. If they feel generous, they just tweak numbers of kittenty skills and expect the problem to be solved.

I know what some people will say in a while – Leman’s writing nonsense, he has no evidence, etc. You’re right – I don’t, but I don’t need any evidence to see how poorly designed necro is in comparison with some ‘cool’ professions and frankly I don’t care anymore. I fought for changes since the game hit live and there wasn’t a single thing improved. Only bug fixes and some number changes.

Devs won’t even answer questions about undocumented changes. How am I supposed to respect that behaviour on their part?

In the meantime, Jon Peters randomly jumps on mesmer forums to give comfort about skill’s misleading name/tooltip. Nice joke.

/realism

“poor design” doesn’t make this class bad I would hardly consider it a dump class. A good necro is the deciding factor in tpvp team fights. I wouldn’t even consider this class to have an overall poor design we just need a few tweaks, nothing too major.

I’m all in favor for the epidemic CD to be slightly reduced to even 3/4 a second. The one second cast time as you have said is a pain at times. That being said reducing the cast time would make the skill OP imo. It’s already borderline OP because of how much damage it puts out when you get a solid epidemic off.

Skyro.3108:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

While I agree with this it’s Reaper’s Protection that I feel is sometimes overrated. I like to flip flop b/w Reaper’s Protection and the Scepter trait depending on the comp.

It’s all what you prefer really, personally I feel reaper’s protection is far too good to give up.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNArYWjMat7Rbyb87JAJFPDdkigNm6R5pfOA;TsAgyCuo+y8l4L7Xuvkft8Y4xcBA

You will probably have to copy paste the link into your browser.

Yeah it’s about a 1 second delay for me the past 2 days. It’s most noticeable when you weapon swap.

Defyx.3956:

Khalifa i’m interested in you 30 points in soul reaping for you terror build, could you explain what trait you picked and why ? Maybe for the 3s stab ?

This is one area where I feel a lot of necros go wrong. You will almost never see a condi necro not take the 30 pt trait in curses for 33% increased condi duration. Most people believe this to be a vital part of a condi build and any build that doesn’t use it is garbage. In my opinion this could not be more untrue. While that trait is nice for your bleeds to last longer making it easier to stack it is very far from necessary. I almost never take it in my condi builds. I feel as a whole 30 pts in SR for 3 sec stab is much more important.

Necro is almost always the first target to be focused in tpvp. This is why you need to focus on being able to survive rather that doing a little bit more damage with increased condi duration. Being able to shroud stomp/rez is incredibly important in tpvp and without stability it is very hard to do. Also the fact that you will be able to anticipate CC and pop in and out of DS so that the enemy does not cc chain you into burst dmg.

This is why I feel my build is much more successful with 30 pts into SR. I know many people will disagree with it, but being able to nullify CC will allow you to put out more damage in the larger picture.

Kellhus.8071:

I prefer focus in my offhand, I don’t find that dagger offhand offers much of anything (I think it’s the weakest offhand we have).

I love the build, but I changed to focus oh and I swapped the 10 point spite to II to support it because I find having a 1200 range chill on a 16 second CD to be a massive lifesaver when someone is running and I’m stuck between swaps and DS is on CD

This has always been a topic for debate whenever I give someone this build. Like I said earlier in this thread what you run as offhand is your choice. I still prefer to run the dagger offhand the condi transfer/blind is awesome in pvp and I always feel weaker without it. With focus you can get super fast stacks of vuln with #4 + well of suffering. The chill/boon removal is awesome too. That being said it’s whatever you like to use, I’m just a person that prefers dagger OH.

Bas.7406:

@khalil – I always like seeing new builds and ideas, and while I am pretty positive that condition damage is not good for every build I do like your approach. However, couple of quick points.

1) Having bloodlust on your secondary weapon means you need to finish yoru first 5 fights with staff in order to get max damage rolling.
2) Rage and Dagger auto are a bad combination – it doesn’t really improve it’s damage at all as Quickness has almost no effect on attacks as fast as dagger auto. Plus you could miss at the worst possible time with Rage rolling. Rage works pretty badly for Necro’s in general, you would be better suited with either a heal proc or just a flat damage proc.

Having bloodlust on staff really isnt a huge issue, in tpvp when players go down it’s your job to cleave the area for anyone that tries to rez. You should always be dropping marks around the body for anyone that comes in to try and save them, so getting a stack with staff isn’t hard to do at all.

As for rage sigil and dagger mainhand, from my experience this is one of the most amazing things. I have ran this build using fire and air sigils and I still prefer to run rage. The damage you put out with quickness from dagger #1 is crazy. Granted the rage sigil sometimes will proc when your not in range for dagger etc but generally speaking I still like it over air or fire. When it does proc the person you’re fighting is going to die.

alamore.1974:

You put to much on your power and to much on fury from ds. I have 50% crit rate and 50% crit damage so I don’t even need fury from going into ds foot in the grave for the stable is much better.
Go to 1215 of the video and you can clearly see in lich from you hit 2900 roughly were as I hit 4000.
now granted your build may have little more HP or toughness.

If your getting these stats in spvp your running with berserkers ammy which will give you roughly 22k hp. Have fun getting insta gibbed.

Bellamy.9860:

Hi, i really like the concept around the build and got some questions.

Terror seems to be really inconsistent when i test it on dummys. For the most part it ticks only once and sometimes, especially when i got some bleeds on the dummy it ticks twice.
I tried to find the sweet spot and used 10, 20 and 30 points in spite maybe this messed something up? (i used nightmare runes and master of terror in all 3)

Another question: what’s your opinion on using carrion amulett and maybe combining it with geomancy sigils?

Nightmare runes + master of terror will give you two ticks of terror it’s hard to see sometimes but it is there. As for using carrion amulet I would not suggest it. It lowers your crit to about 8% or so I believe and makes going power not worth it if you never crit.

After testing this in pvp I have to say it’s fun and the damage is really good. The problem lies in the builds surivability which is almost non existant. That being said I was solo queing tournies so I could see this being somewhat effective in a premade scenario. Props for the build though the damage is awesome.

Edit: Builds pretty awesome with a premade

Look pretty interesting and could quite well work, I would have to test it to confirm. All I can suggest is switch hydromancy to minor corruption or bloodlust and put a force sigil or something on focus. Chance on crit and swap sigils share a cooldown. Also not sure if this is for pve or tpvp. If it’s a pvp build I would suggest getting rid of well of darkness for rez sig and changing fear of death to path of midnight.

Delryn.7235:

I came into this thread thinking “stealth nerf… what? But the thief’s stealth mechanic got improved… I don’t get it…” after reading it took me like a few seconds of thought to realize “OOOOH stealth nerf, oki!”.

Anyway on that topic at hand, why is weapon swapping while in DS important? I wanna know.

Well lifeblast hits much harder with your staff out/using wep swap sigils (geomancy etc) in DS is nice.

I would hope it’s a bug if not I’m confused why.

This patch killed what little competitive aspect this game had left gg anet.

nerva.7940:

Ive been using this build for a while after khalifa gave it to me when I was moaning on the forums. It’s a lot of fun but u gotta know what youre doing. You’re like a thief with more utility and no stealth.

I wanna take this build into wvw. Knight stats arent the same in pve. Any gear suggestions?

I haven’t done any pve or wvw only tpvp so I can’t answer that for you sorry

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

alamore.1974:

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Don’t be silly. If you look at the math on Necro skills in general they cannot keep up with the sustained damage of most other classes when it comes to direct damage. It isn’t a real DPS set up. The BURST is stupid though. You can melt a bunker from full health when the sigil procs and still have time to stomp before the quickness wears off if the RNG gives you enough crits.

The volume of hits that you put out with the MH dagger renders essentially all mitigation except invulnerability and knockbacks completely useless when you are under quickness, and if you can bait the outs or have a dazed/kd’d target before pushing the burst (this is what takes patience and skill) it is all over, pretty much without exception. It is tricky to utilize to its full potential (I am nowhere near it) due to all of the situational skills, but wildly effective.

Yeah pretty much this, I’ve 100%→0% players long before the dagger 3 root ended with the quickness proc.

alamore.1974:

Khalifahaze.6045:

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

You necro damage in the video is rather weak with the dagger.

Weak by what PVE standards? You can get a little more damage by using ogre runes etc, but the damage from this build is great imo.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

First, thanks to Khalifa for keeping conversation going on the necro class that most decent players already abandoned due to bugs and other issues.

I’ve been fooling around with Dagger main necros for awhile, and it is a very fun playstyle. Min/maxing burst with the Thief runes just as Khalifa does it here is one of the things I stumbled on and found it awesome. One of the coolest things is that you can change off-hand pretty much on the fly and it is still awesome.

I hadn’t thought to use the spiteful marks trait, but I see the logic and want to try it out. Seems like a good fit.

A little variation that I fiddled with for 8’s was dropping the last 5 from the Curses line (I know, losing fury sucks) and pumping it into Reaping for the +50% fear duration, then going 2x Runes of Lyssa and 4x Runes of the Lich. You drop off direct damage a ton, but the AoE CC chain is silly in the large team mid fights. 2s large AoE Fear followed by +50% duration immoble that you can epidemic makes for lots of dead bodies in a hurry when there are more traditional burst builds all over the place already in 8’s. If you catch a big group too close together and you can get off a dagger 3, epidemic, well of suffering, Staff 3-4 you can drop multiple targets in a matter of a few seconds before they even figure what happened.

Like has been said, it definately isn’t a build for everyone, and the skill floor (meaning minimum skill required to be remotely effective) for a power necro built this way is probably higher than just about any other class/build combo, but it is ultra fun once you get the hang of it.

Yeah this could work quite well, I have recently stopped playing d/d in tpvp and switched to a 0/20/20/0/30 s/d terror build. It works quite well for me atm with the meta being so ele heavy. I do plan to go back to power in the future and I would most likely play around with it more, possibly doing things as you have stated. Rumor has it power necro will be getting a buff so we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Pyrial.2917:

Mufa.1326:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Yes I get owned by some nobody on the forums…please continue with the QQ because you can’t kill asuras.

And the “nonsense” you speak of is the waste of space this thread is taking up.

Yes you do own you, and I do it a lot. We can test any time you like so you can realize what a nothing you are. You are quite a crappy player and all that is carrying you in team fights is the fact that, as necro, you can spam AOE.

I can kill asuras, that is not an issue so stop inventing crap. Problem is that asuras get unfair advantage compared to other models. The same player will be significantly more difficult to kill for certain builds/classes when the player is using asura as opposed to other models. That is the crux of the issue.

Watch out…we got a baddazz here.

Pretty much this.

Mufa.1326:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Yes I get owned by some nobody on the forums…please continue with the QQ because you can’t kill asuras.

And the “nonsense” you speak of is the waste of space this thread is taking up.

Yes you do own you, and I do it a lot. We can test any time you like so you can realize what a nothing you are. You are quite a crappy player and all that is carrying you in team fights is the fact that, as necro, you can spam AOE.

I can kill asuras, that is not an issue so stop inventing crap. Problem is that asuras get unfair advantage compared to other models. The same player will be significantly more difficult to kill for certain builds/classes when the player is using asura as opposed to other models. That is the crux of the issue.

Please keep posting while I get some popcorn, every post makes you look more like a scrub. Take some lessons from caed he doesn’t seem to have a problem killing asuras as a thief.

straight with the personal attacks rofl

The advantage you get from being an asura is so small the fact that your complaining about it and suggesting a ban on an entire race in pvp just makes you look bad.

Pretty sure its a l2p issue friend.

I also played d/d necro for the longest time which is MELEE and I wasn’t having issues with asura.

DS is fine and probably the best mechanic in the game imo (2nd health bar so nice). Only changes I could see that would make it more useful to condi necros:

1. Life Blast transfers a condi -like underwater version
2. Life Transfer also either transfers condis to enemies or takes them off allies (something along those lines).

Necros can make or break team fights in tpvp. The aoe pressure we have from moves like (corrupt boon -> epidemic) is amazing. Run with an engi or trap ranger on your team and watch people melt.

Hotjoins are a different story – 8v8 is not so forgiving for necro.

I’ve been running a 0/20/20/0/30 build and it’s pretty awesome in tpvp. You have so many fears to protect you/do damage. Run with nightmare runes it’s really fun.

tarcheg.4872:

Why completely remake the game when there is nothing wrong with downed state?

Are you serious with that statement? So in your opinion all the down states are balanced? There is nothing wrong with ele down state? Or a phantasmal rogue hitting for 6+k (a pet from down state!!!)
I’m not saying it’s best to get completely rid of down state, but yes, it does need some serious work and balancing… probably even more than the “non-ds-skills”

I love how you quoted this without reading the next sentence after it. You sir are a moron.

“Why completely remake the game when there is nothing wrong with downed state? Some abilities of certain classes could be changed, but not downed state as a whole.”

I would like to know if they have any plans to change necro life siphon to be more viable.

Also a huge problem with necro can be massing life force in certain builds and the fact that we start games with 0% LF. Is there any plans to take a look into maybe some skills that give more than 10% LF on use etc.

mjharrison.3209:

Khalifahaze.6045:

mjharrison.3209:

Khalifahaze.6045:

With a lack of healers in this game downed state is one of the few things that can counter burst, being able to have 2+ people rez a downed target is a great thing in pvp. Removing downed state would only make competitive pvp a joke.

No, because removing downed state would allow Anet to rebalance burst. Burst is only in its present state because of downed state. Downed state permits burst to not be game-breaking; remove downed state, you can remove the burst.

A condi cleave comp can melt people equally as fast. I just don’t think you realize how terrible pvp would be without downed state due to no healers in this game. Anyway that’s not the point of this thread I’m not here to argue.

Not really, because only 2 of 4 damaging conditions are stackable.

But once again, if downed state were removed, the game designers would be free to rebalance TTK/TTL by either tuning down condition damage scaling, or making condition cleanses more readily available.

FYI, the game does have healers — eery player is a healer; your basic premise is wrong. The game is balanced around the existence of downed state, if you remove it, survivability obviously needs to be tweaked upwards to maintain the same or higher TTL.

Why completely remake the game when there is nothing wrong with downed state? Some abilities of certain classes could be changed, but not downed state as a whole. Sorry if you are unable to grasp how to deal with downed state and the extra elements it adds to pvp.

Every class is certainly not a “healer”. One heal that doesn’t even fill your health unless you are completely stacked into +healing does not make one a healer.

Just doesn’t make sense to me you’re pushing a complete game redesign when that is a very unrealistic thing to ask for. I can’t remember the last time many people were complaining about downed state, it’s definitely a select few.

mjharrison.3209:

Khalifahaze.6045:

With a lack of healers in this game downed state is one of the few things that can counter burst, being able to have 2+ people rez a downed target is a great thing in pvp. Removing downed state would only make competitive pvp a joke.

No, because removing downed state would allow Anet to rebalance burst. Burst is only in its present state because of downed state. Downed state permits burst to not be game-breaking; remove downed state, you can remove the burst.

A condi cleave comp can melt people equally as fast. I just don’t think you realize how terrible pvp would be without downed state due to no healers in this game. Anyway that’s not the point of this thread I’m not here to argue.

mjharrison.3209:

Lots of people hate downed state in PVP. In the almost 6 months since release, there have been very few real improvements in the game and many of the game’s balance problems (eg: AOE) have downed state as the root cause.

Has downed state been a total failure with respect to the extent it disrupts that natural flow&pacing of the combat and the balance problems it has created?

Is it time to remove downed state from PVP zones and focus on balancing builds/skills and the numerous aspirational features planned?

With a lack of healers in this game downed state is one of the few things that can counter burst, being able to have 2+ people rez a downed target is a great thing in pvp. Removing downed state would only make competitive pvp a joke.

lol it’s a free I got more enjoyment trying to 1v1 that mesmer than winning a pointless tourney

Skyro.3108:

Ok so I’ve been playing this build a bunch and you’re right Khalifa I finally settled into the same trait allocation as you (30/15/10/0/15). It’s the best burst damage you can get w/o going higher into the curses line and it isn’t worth giving up the utility + survivability in soul reaping (more on that in a min). I’m a min/maxer at heart and through my efforts to min/max I discovered a few things you might want to consider.

First is that I had before running the numbers I had no idea the degree in how superior power was compared to precision and crit dmg. Assuming 50% uptime on fury, Power is valued at 2x precision and 2.5x critical dmg. This is initially what prompted me to settle back into the spite line after testing 30/30 curses/SR. But that led me to take another look at my rune set up to look at my options for power runes, and I found runes of the ogre to provide superior DPS than runes of the thief, even assuming 100% uptime on the targets back which obviously is not a realistic assumption. And by the same token this makes bloodlust sigil superior to the precision variant.

The 2nd is I’ve also settled for the focus as my offhand. You can spec for the 20% CD reduc in the spite line if you wish, but the main reason is because of the instant 12 stack of vulnerability if you use Focus 4 in meele range, and has very nice damage + LF generation to boot. Combined with Well of suffering you can quite close to a full vulnerability stack on your spike target . Very powerful in a coordinated spike (imagine it combined with staff guard for party might and/or party fury with aura share ele… scary indeed). The boon strips and additional chill/snare from Focus 5 is just icing on the cake.

For utilities I’ve been swapping that 3rd slot (rez sig, Well of suff) quite a bit. I’ve settled on 3 options: well of corruption (I like to alternate the two wells for more consistent spikes as dagger 3 has roughly half the CD as the wells), flesh wurm (stun break of choice, but generally not needed) and signet of locust for mobility. BiP I found to be quite underwhelming.

I know you said you settled on epidemic to give you an extra option from ranged but I actually grabbed unyielding blast instead of path of midnight to give me a strong ranged option. I pretty much save my DS 2 skill to coincide with my Dag 3 so a reduction in cooldown there is useless, and I use DS 3 defensively or as a set up for 2 so a reduction there isn’t all that great either. Unyielding blast however gives you a powerful piercing projectile that can be used to burn down rezers, burn through minions/clones etc. It’s pretty potent in a team fight. Plus it stacks 2x vulnerability per hit. With the ample amount of LF generation this build has you have plenty of LF to burn.

I think those were the main tweaks I made. Just thought I’d offer them up since you opened my eyes about this build working in paids.

I’m glad you are enjoying the build and I appreciate your feedback on changes to make the build stronger. I will have to try out ogre runes when I get a chance, I will take you word that they are preforming better.

As for the focus, I have said to many people (forgot if I did in this thread or not) but focus is a great offhand. It can work very well in this build and increase your spike damage by a ton (like you stated). That being said, dagger is just my preference I love the blind/condi transfer and I feel that both dagger and focus synergize well with this build.

For utilities again many different things will work, the ones I chose are just what I prefer to run. The reason I used to run BiP is because my team ran with a staff guardian. BiP+guardian might stack gives you 25 stacks of might, and that adds a lot of damage for setting up burst (especially in lich form). I finally settled on epidemic because of the increased pressure it adds on the enemy team. Just because I’m not full condi doesn’t mean epidemic is a bad choice. If your all focusing on one target they will have plenty of condis to spread (spreading confusion from a mesmer is awesome).

In my orginal d/d build I used to run with unyielding blast instead of path of midnight. The ranged damage from life blast was pretty nice considering how hard they hit a target. After more and more time with the build I decided that faster cd’s on DS skills was more worth it to me because of how much time you spend in DS with this build. Another reason for the change was sitting in DS blasting all your LF away is not always the smartest choice. Once again though whatever works for you is great, I am just glad you are enjoying the build

I set up a stream so people who want to see this build played can watch. It’s kitten quality because my computer atm is pretty bad lol, but I’ll be getting a new one soon to improve quality.

www.twitch.tv/khalifasts

QSpec.4298:

@Khalifa

I find the burst difficult to deal with in 8s when dodges and DS cooldown are being used more frequently to avoid other things. I found in 5s and some tourney’s that it was less of an issue. I did have problems popping bunkers in tourney’s though. Thoughts on that?

I also think this build will make one a better player (within reason). I have already learned significantly more about best times to dodge, DS, etc.

Would you comment on our traits? I find them to be a little haphazard. I found this to be especially true with your build. While there are certainly some good ones in there, some seem chosen because there were no real alternatives (like +mark damage in spite). Thoughts?

Yeah I mean this build isn’t for hotjoins, I can’t even stand 8v8 I don’t know how anyone does it lol. For 8v8 you would be much better going scepter. As far as bunkers go, they can be killed with this but it takes a long time, and I mean a long time lol. It is a tourney build after all, there is no reason you should be trying to kill a bunker let alone anything solo.

I can agree with you that the build would make you more or less a better necro simply for the fact it teaches you to use DS to its fullest potential. Then you can take that into other builds if you wish.

As far as traits go, we all know they are spread kind of randomly. Some of them just seem to not synergize with the tree they are in. I believe that the devs are aware of this (whether it seems like it or not), and a fix will come sometime in the future. For now we have to make the best of what we have. To comment on your uncertainty about the marks trait I think it’s a great one actually. Being that staff is a main weapon in most builds the 10% damage boost is nice. Not to mention thief runes + grandmaster spite trait would give you 40% dmg boost on staff to enemies under 50%.

Oblivion.8307:

this build is only viable in teamfights if #1 you have time warp and lich form, time warp is brokenly op. #2 if kitten sit in your wells. Other than that you’re either sitting in staff spamming 1-5 or chasing someone around with your dagger.

And how is scepter/staff build any different? you spam your marks and hit 2 and 3. Dagger has more direct damage and I still get the aoe condi spread with epidemic. Wells are most effective when someone goes down, drop them on the person and his team will most likely die if they try to rez, or use your root before you well. This build is only really viable with a team that works with you and that’s what it is made for (tpvp).

People always tell me this build isn’t viable, just because you can’t make it work doesn’t mean someone else can’t.

Bogartan.2756:

I’m gonna try this build. Thanks for sharing.

My 80 main is a warrior, and I thought necro would be a cool alt, but don’t really like playing finger-wigglers. Since I enjoy the melee of the warrior, I’m hoping to like this necro build. Direct Damage (is that what D/D is?) is more fun to play for me.

D/D is dagger/dagger, but I mean it’s mostly direct dmg. Most necro moves add condi’s so its a mix of both.

QSpec.4298:

So a quick review from 8s (and a few 5s).

This build is very fun. That said, it is very squishy. It seems completely hit or miss. Some games I just crush and other games I can’t catch a break. I have found if that if you are unfortunate enough to eat some burst like mesmer shatter of 100b, you are toast.

I find the build is incredibly reliant on team skills (for stability for example). It has also changed the way I play. I will continue playing it (and tweaking it). Now, come up with a good axe build for us :P

I would really like to see a lifesteal work. This build would be unrealistically fun if lifesteal gets ironed out.

I think this build has really opened my eyes to our traits. I think they are awful. Many, many times I was stuck choosing the best of terrible choices.

Thanks!

Well I am glad you are having fun with this build. It is rather squishy at times, but I mean what high dps class is not sqishy in this game (besides the broken class that is retal dps guard).

I tend to not usually have a hard time with things like mesmer/warrior burst because of the fact that you almost always have full DS in this build and you build LF really quickly. It takes a lot of map awareness to play effectively, you have to be anticipating those bursts and be ready for DS to eat them.

This build is highly reliant on a competent team, but that is because I specifically designed this for tpvp(paids). By creating a build with team play in mind you are able to come up with more fun and creative ways to play like this build.

As far as axe goes I’m afraid that until we get some sort of weapon rework for axe it just won’t be on par with the dagger. The dps output is just far lower and I don’t feel the extra range on the axe justifies using it over dagger.

Like you I can’t wait until the day life steal is addressed so that it heals for a respectable amount. The survivability issues necros face would probably be fixed if life steal worked the way I think they intended it to. I feel that is why currently necros seem to have terrible survivability, I believe that life steal was supposed to be our mechanic to stay alive but it has been almost forgotten about by the devs. I highly dobut there was any serious testing for the blood magic tree the way they released it.

Keep at it if you enjoy the build, I have to say this is the most fun way to play necro imo.

Well I mean it’s not an easy build to play I will say that. It has taken me A LOT of practice to even be able to play this in paids. Like you said yes there is a ton of things you have to be aware of constantly to not only survive but to also keep a good dps cycle going.

As far as getting away from the zerg I mean it’s pretty reliant on knowing when to engage a fight and which target to attack. You have to play this like you would a thief or warrior, go in for the gib at the right time. If you just run into the middle of a fight you will die very very fast.

That being said I will tell you ele and guardian are your best friend in this build. Any decent ele will be able to peel targets for you so that you can get away. This can be very frustrating to play at first because it will seem like you’re not contributing much. I have to say just stick with it and over time you will see the true effectiveness of this build. The damage output is worth the risk you have to take to play this build imo.

You will pretty much have 100% LF at most times so I mean use that to your best ability to get away from targets. A well placed fear/chill mark into a dagger 3 will give you plenty of time to get away from targets. Don’t forget dagger 3 + epi is an aoe root that can be used offensively and defensively.

hackks.3687:

Don’t forget to Epi Dagger 3!

^ this. Aoe root ftw!

Budchgon.2108:

Hi, i am interested in this build, woud it work for WvWvW small groups (which i mainy play) ? and even 1v1s ?

Yes, this is a pretty strong 1v1 and small group build it’s meant for tpvp (5v5).

So I’ve been going over my build to see if there is anything else that I can improve on. After evaluating this build I find two flaws if you will call them that in its current state.

1) Low-ish survivability
2) Lack of effective ranged damage

After thinking about how I could fix both of these issues without changing the core of the build I was surprised at how simple the fix really was. By switching out utility slot #1 (Blood Is Power/Spectral Walk) to Epidemic it improves both of these flaws drastically.

Your staff in this build hits very hard and condi’s with might from a guardian do some awesome dps. Using epidemic in this build will offer great ranged damage and even more pressure on the enemy team than it already provides.

If you have tried this build in tpvp you will have already noticed that at times (when you’re focus target #1) you are constantly running trying to dps inbetween not getting gibbed by the enemy team. Since the damage from this build comes primarily from melee attacks epidemic gives you more ranged pressure that you lack with just staff. You will now be able to peel out of the chaotic fight in melee ranged when at low health and still do respectable damage from afar.

I know a lot of you will be skeptical about using epidemic in a non-condition build, but I assure you this is the way to go. Since this build crits so much stacking bleeds is relatively easy between staff and dagger#5 (Barbed Precision Trait). Add in condis from your ele and mesmer and there you go, you now have some good ranged pressure (not to mention epidemic cd is so low you can keep using it as melee).

The best part of epidemic has to be the downed state aoe cleaves, someone goes down → drop well → epidemic everyone trying to rez them. I assure you they won’t get that rez off.

To anyone that has been trying this build I would urge you to try this out with epidemic in place of blood is power/spectral walk, I think that you will be very happy with the results you achieve.

I would also like to thank everyone who has given me feedback on this build, you have helped me create a more finalized version.

Thanks again!

-QT Khalifa

Divinity.8041:

Khalifahaze.6045:

Skyro.3108:

Thanks for the quick reply!

I’m not sure why you think 25 might stack is important. There’s no special bonus you get for having max might stacks. The first stack of might is just as beneficial as the last. I guess I’m having trouble following your logic there. DPS is DPS, wherever it comes from.

My disdain for the spite tree is completely lackluster minor traits and really only 1 very good major. My point was that with 30/30 in curses/soul reaping you actually have similar, if not more DPS due to the strong minor traits and 100% uptime on fury. That’s what makes the 5s DS trait such a strong DPS trait.

And I was jumping for joy when you said sigil of rage ICD doesn’t affect sigil of battle so I just tested it again in the mists but unfortunately it does still indeed prevent sigil of battle working

Each might stack increases your dmg, it stacks intensity so 25 might stacks add a large amount of damge for the duration of might. As far as your love for curses its arguable either way I prefer going into spite, if you like curses you have to choose what works best for you (just tried out your 0/30/10/0/30 build and the damage seems less honestly. I couldn’t get a Necrotic Slash hit much higher than 2k on a light golem where before it was in the 2300-2700 range).

Yes, my bad about the sigil you are right they do share a cooldown I wasn’t aware of. I will have to change my staff sigil.

What are you changing to?

Probably bloodlust sigil

Skyro.3108:

When I say DPS I meant average DPS. Your highest hit on a target under 50% will hit higher with 30 spite of course. You have to factor in that you are criting more often with 30 in curses. Also remember target the weak adds 2% dmg per condition, so you have to make some assumptions about that as well. For example if you assume 3 conditions and LF over 5%, that’s already a flat 11% damage bonus. If you assume the 20% damage trait when target is under 50% as a flat 10% bonus damage you can see where I am seeing similar average DPS numbers. Then the big kicker is that you can have permanent fury with the 5s DS trait which is a big average DPS booster.

For pure burst though spite is definitely superior. That’s the trade-off. Plus I use warhorn offhand so curses gives me more utility there with the warhorn trait.

Appreciate your responses though. I look forward to seeing any footage you put together!

Yeah I agree with you here where the sustained will be higher if you build it your way, but I’m pretty much going for maximum burst in this spec. That’s why like you said 30 in spite will be superior.

Skyro.3108:

Thanks for the quick reply!

I’m not sure why you think 25 might stack is important. There’s no special bonus you get for having max might stacks. The first stack of might is just as beneficial as the last. I guess I’m having trouble following your logic there. DPS is DPS, wherever it comes from.

My disdain for the spite tree is completely lackluster minor traits and really only 1 very good major. My point was that with 30/30 in curses/soul reaping you actually have similar, if not more DPS due to the strong minor traits and 100% uptime on fury. That’s what makes the 5s DS trait such a strong DPS trait.

And I was jumping for joy when you said sigil of rage ICD doesn’t affect sigil of battle so I just tested it again in the mists but unfortunately it does still indeed prevent sigil of battle working

Each might stack increases your dmg, it stacks intensity so 25 might stacks add a large amount of damge for the duration of might. As far as your love for curses its arguable either way I prefer going into spite, if you like curses you have to choose what works best for you (just tried out your 0/30/10/0/30 build and the damage seems less honestly. I couldn’t get a Necrotic Slash hit much higher than 2k on a light golem where before it was in the 2300-2700 range).

Yes, my bad about the sigil you are right they do share a cooldown I wasn’t aware of. I will have to change my staff sigil.

Skyro.3108:

A couple of questions!

-Why BiP over Spectral Wall? 10 might stacks only gives slightly more direct damage than the 10 vulnerability stacks you get from SWall, plus SWall has the ability to provide the team protection. I feel BiP is much stronger on a condition build where you can stack a ton of conditions on enemies first and then pop BiP.

-I think spectral grasp is very good with Dagger necros. There’s so much you can do with such a long range pull with a coordinated team. What are your thoughts? I understand your utility selections since the battle rez is so powerful just wanted your general thoughts on this skill.

-I am what you call a “spite hater.” IMO the trait line is terrible. The only good skill in that line is the GM 20% under 50% dps trait but you can achieve similar DPS by using the 30 in spite and put it into curses and soul reaping and do a 0/30/10/0/30 build due to the extra crit/crit dmg and the target the weak (2% dmg/condi) and strengh of undeath (5% over 50% LF) traits. This also gives you access to GM soul reaping traits which are absolutely fantastic allowing you to have permanent fury or our only in-class access to stability.

-And why Sigil of Battle on the staff? Due to Sigil of Rage’s long cooldown doesn’t this interfere with Sigil of Battle quite often?

Well I use BiP because I run with a staff guardian so I can easily get 25 might stacks quite often. I have been using spectral walk more recently in its place for the added survivability. Being able to juke out a zerg that’s chasing you with spectral walk comes in very handy (also comes in handy for baiting players to overextend in tpvp so your team can kill them). Spectral wall is nice occasionally but I would much rather take spectral walk in its place (not to mention it’s incredibly easy to avoid getting hit with spectral wall).

Spectral grasp is pretty cool, but it’s harder to land and I just don’t feel it is good enough to make it onto my bar. Being that we can only choose 3 utilities I believe there are much better choices than spectral grasp.

I don’t really understand the hate you have for the spite tree, imo it’s one of the best ones we have. Spite tree adds a good amount of damage to the necro (10% mark dmg, 20% dmg to enemy below), not to mention retal.

I don’t think going 30 into curses is a good idea for a d/d build the grandmaster spite trait is too good to give up imo (combined with thief runes that’s 30% extra dmg to all targets under 50%). I have tried going 30 into SR before (30/0/10/0/30 build) and it’s pretty cool having 5 sec DS, but I just don’t feel the extra 15% crit dmg enough to justify going that far into SR. I personally believe 15 pts into SR is all you really need.

As for the sigils, sigil of rage does not effect the sigil of battle you will still get the 3 stacks of might when you switch weapons.

I use abyss with lifesblood on my asura, looks pretty awesome imo

Zonzai.2341:

I’m not crazy! I knew (thought) DD power necro was the way to go for pvp. I haven’t been able to put it together this well but I’ve been trying to. I’d love to see some more videos from you.

Thanks a lot for this. Bookmarked.
+1 million

Yeah you’re not crazy it works and it’s very fun to play. I’ll try to get some more footage soon and throw something together.