Guild Wars 2

I’ve never tested if Lifeblast hits for more with a larger LF pool, but I definitely haven’t noticed it and I have 30 points in Soul Reaping.

I’m pretty sure it just does more damage at >50% LF

XiL.4318:

Nyorai.1630:

XiL.4318:

I like that Death Shroud has no UI. It gives the skill a sense of blind urgency. There is really no valid reason other than the serenade of tiny violins to remove the DS UI.

Aesthetically I really like Death Shroud as well but I think gameplay should be priority. Seeing that you’ve got confusion, tons of bleeds or some other conditions really might change if I want to stay in DS or maybe jump out and deal with the conditions. Same goes for not displaying % life force number. 50% is an important threshold and a number would be much clearer to me.

I don’t really see a use. I use DS as a reactive skill and only use as much Life Force as I need to stay alive or Chill port, Fear, and Life Drain. In that regard my boons and conditions have zero impact on what I am doing during DS. I either get my skills off in time to use my Boons or I do less damage which is evident immediately and I drop out to get the cooldown as quickly as possible.

Having a % on the Life Force bar would really only help for popping out for Spectral Armor if you traited for it. So it is so situational that it also serves no practical purpose. You can just as easily eyeball it or train memory through repetition to eyeball it. It feels a bit like putting cup holders inside an ice chest. Just a little redundant. Sure you can hold yer drink in its own holder inside a cooler. But you coulda just let it sit in the ice like everything else.

And I bet the majority of Necros do the same. But what about us who actually build around DS, and use it for a large chunk of our damage? Currently the only way to be 100% certain that im at or under 50% is to fire off Life Blast or two and see 400 pop up both times, and waste another 8% of my LF.

Also, using DS for damage it’s nice to be able to pop in at 60% LF, fire off two quick hits, crit for 2.5k a pop and hop out of DS. Times like this is when I’d love to know. Maybe if they put it as an option in the game settings, so everyone doesn’t have to take it.

Khristophoros.7194:

Mickk.6875:

The OP’s math is not as shoddy as people are jumping in to point out. You always have to keep track what a percentage is relative to.

Assuming a 100-point pool that depletes in 25s, it is correct to label that as a 4% degeneration. That’s 4% of the 100 points, per second.
Assuming a 130-point pool that still depletes in 25s, it is correct to label that as a 5.2% degeneration, where the percentage is relative to those 130 points, per second.

It is also correct to say that you lose 4% of your lifeforce per second no matter how much lifeforce pool bonus you have. That percentage is relative to the 100% of your lifeforce. The relation between the 130-point pool and “100% of your lifeforce” is that of course when traited for +30% lifeforce pool then 100% of your lifeforce pool is 130% of your untraited lifeforce pool. Another way to frame that is to say that you always lose 4% of your lifeforce pool, but that percentage can represent up to 5.2 points (not percentage) of your untraited lifeforce pool.

Let’s stop bickering about percentages and focus on the core of the OP’s point, which is:

vicious.5683:

The logic says, if you have more LF, it should take more time to deplete.

Thank you. Let’s try to focus on the actual issue, people.

The game tells us we get “more” LF. We actually don’t. Our LF just becomes more resistant to damage.

Correct. It’s almost like getting more toughness in DS only. The only way for it to really give us “more LF” is for our LF bar to change from a percentage value to a numerical value.

Or course this would take a lot of work, considering they would have to change the way we gain LF and how much we lose per second. It would benefit us immensely though, we would be gaining more “health” in DS against condition damage, as people have pointed out that conditions drain our LF much faster due to ticking in percentages, instead of tiny hits of 100 or so

Take a look in the other profession’s sections. I browse them all since I have lowish level toons of just about all professions and it looks like JP is making an effort to keep up contact with everyone across the board! This is the kind of communication I was hoping for, letting us know what they’re working on and what they’re aware of

Yea I’d agree that the 30% is definitely misleading. It doesn’t make your LF bar go from 100% to 130%, rather it adds 30% of your current LF “health pool” to your total. It’s pretty much the same thing as increasing your vitality to increase your LF bar, but the two stack, and all it really does it increase the amount of damage you can soak up in DS.

I’d definitely prefer that it actually made our bar read 130% though. It would take longer to fill but you would have more overall time in DS. The extra LF it would take to get to full won’t matter much anymore either since Gluttony will be fixed/buffed in a few days

It’s not the button itself that’s bugged but when I hit edit, nothing appears in the text box and the “Edit” button to confirm the changes, “Cancel” button, and all that jazz doesn’t appear either. To make it all show up I have to left click and drag, highlighting everything and it suddenly shows up. This doesn’t happen every time I try to edit, but almost 1/3 of the time.

I’m using google chrome on Windows 7

Nice, we now know that this is being worked on.

Just don’t go expecting it in the 14/12 patch, I’m guessing I’m going to be seeing a lot of players complaining when it doesn’t happening, claiming broken promises

In PvE I personally don’t think you need a tank. Necros are just so good in PvE its almost a waste of an elite, unless you just like to stand by and watch the battle. Personally I used Plague in PvE. It has more vit and toughness than Lich Form and can be used to good effect against large groups of enemies if you accidentally aggro 5 too many

I’m not sure if anyone would agree with me or not, but Jagged Horrors first need to not degen so we can actually have a chance of hitting the 5 cap.

Second they need to be the 10 point major in Death Magic.

Third, and this is only personal opinion but I think they need to move the two staff traits in Death Magic elsewhere. As it is Death Magic has some of the best traits – the two staff traits, protection with wells, fear when we get CC’d, plus if you’re running minions you’re going to need the minion traits. We all know how the staff is supposed to be the minion master weapon, yet you don’t have any chance to grab the staff traits once you’re traited for minions.

kKagari.6804:

Sheobix.8796:

kKagari.6804:

Sheobix.8796:

Levian.6742:

Don’t forget condition removal is nearly useless PvE so it doesn’t really matter too much if it’s broken. The real life saver is the blind.

What use is there in the warhorn PvE? There’s nearly no use for cripple against mobs as they don’t try to run away, and the daze isn’t useful for anything more than an interrupt without condition duration and +daze duration from mesmer runes

d/w is good because w5 adds swiftness (cant live without it imo) the cripple is an AoE snare and Dps.. which is good for power builds and generally running around. w4 daze is a fast interrupt and works on bosses as such. this is important for a good player who uses it in say…
SE path3 first boss that burrows.. when he starts to burrow, you can hit horn4 and interrupt his burrow, probably saving 1-3 lives in the party. (when he pops out, it insta-downs people)

As a necromancer, you could use DS fear, which interrupts more reliably, (defiant resists daze, unless you’re one of those weird fractal bosses), is near instant, WH4 is not, has better range, and has better cooldown.

Cripple in pve. Well…enemies hardly ever run away, so you don’t really need to catch them. You’d want to cripple an enemy that is powerful in melee, yet the cripple is melee range..hmm, go figure.

Oh it does hit several times though, it actually acts as a decent pbAOE with vampiric traits.

I actually use both ds3 and w4. personally my tastes i use wh>focus but that’s because i also WvW on top of dungeons. the swiftness is just too good =/ but otherwise, focus is the way to go for PvE if that’s what you do.

I think Unshakable/Defiant is primarily the problem with dungeons in the game atm. It makes a necromancer too good (yet people don’t realize this yet). I see why its needed, because otherwise bosses can just get permastunned into oblivion, but it also leaves other classes with no reward for good reaction and CC.

That said, I take warhorn for WvW, focus for PvE, dagger for sPvP. Its so nicely categorized!

I guess I’m the oddball here then! I run dagger for PvE (don’t do many dungeons though), warhorn for sPvP as I’m a dagger build, and focus+axe in WvW

Don’t forget condition removal is nearly useless PvE so it doesn’t really matter too much if it’s broken. The real life saver is the blind.

What use is there in the warhorn PvE? There’s nearly no use for cripple against mobs as they don’t try to run away, and the daze isn’t useful for anything more than an interrupt without condition duration and +daze duration from mesmer runes

It all depends on what you are doing, and you said PvE.

First, to the people saying OH dagger isn’t really matched for a power build, it can be pretty useful.

The #4 is an aoe (3 target) blind. I think we can all agree blind is useful when you’re fighting melee and more so when it’s on all the enemies attacking you. The transfer conditions is just a bonus.

The #5 also benefits a dagger user. Without looking at utilities or weapon swaps, the MH dagger has no aoe to it. Enfeebling blood is another aoe to help an otherwise single target weapon when you’re fighting large groups (hint, I’m always fighting large groups PvE). Not only that, but it provides weakness. Weakness is pretty underrated. The only part useful in PvE: “50% of Non Critical hits are glancing blows (50% damage)”. I don’t know what the crit chance is of mobs but I’d assume under 50%. That’s basically a 25% aoe damage reduction.

I would say that the focus doesn’t have much use outside of PvP, but that’s just me. If you didn’t want the dagger offhand I’d say warhorn just for the swiftness but I personally don’t find warhorn useful PvE (but it is amazing PvP).

Kravick.4906:

Levian.6742:

To get back on subject, take a look at this build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;04-_;2IkI0G4gJkJ0;9;49EJ-O5;03;014;259-Lol6-N;0DsV2DsV25RY

Dagger/warhorn + staff

You can swap warhorn for something else, I just chose it because it fits my playstyle with Well Bombing. Increased radius and decreased cooldown on staff, with 3% Lf on staff Marks, you’re going to be in DS a lot.

Since you are going to be using DS a lot, it pierces for better effect and gives might. This is a fairly high crit and power build so Life Blast is going to hit for a ton when you’re above 50% LF, and you also get fury on entering DS. An effective way to use it with fury I find is to pop in for 3 or 4 Life Blasts then exit and build up more LF. Then switch in again and pop Life Transfer.

Your daggers are going to be hitting for a lot with auto attack, and using the daggers immobilize, warhorn’s constant cripple you can keep enemies inside your wells for a while. I’d suggest using Flesh Golem just for its knockdown but if you like Plague then go for it. It is good for holding points or just trying to survive/run away, and can also really help out some teammates under heavy fire with your constant blinds.

If you want, you can change out the warhorn for anything else, dagger OH works well. If you use dagger you should swap out the Curses 10 point for blind causes chill. If you find yourself needing DS stability, or faster DS cooldown then I’d suggest taking 5 points from the Death Magic tree and sacrificing one of your staff traits, which ever you find the least useful.

Hope this helps, its sort of a combination of my build, and another build I’ve seen around here lately

I’m curious, do you WvW with this build? If you do, what armor/jewelry stats do you use?

Not exactly that setup, but pretty close – the traits are pretty much the same at least. I’d probably go with axe+dagger / staff, mostly because it’s hard to do anything against groups with a dagger. You could probably use a sceptre, I hear that it somehow out damages the axe even in a power build.

I’m definitely not a WvW expert, I haven’t even been playing GW2 much lately. I never bothered too much with jewelery and specific armor, mostly because I’m poor as hell and can’t afford to buy different armor sets for everything. But for a staff/power/crit/DS build in WvW I would try to stack as much power and precision as possible, and work in either some vitality or toughness so you aren’t completely glass.

If you check out Sheobix’s thread it is very similar to the build I use, just take the points he put in Blood Magic into Soul Reaping. I personally find DS to be very powerful WvW

Ah, that makes a bit more sense with the stats then. Playing around in sPvP I couldn’t get those numbers, and I don’t have any decent gear in PvE yet so it’ll be a while before I can really test it out.

Just looking at the build and the playstyle, it seems to be very similar to a setup I used to use PvE levelling and WvW, but with WAY highest stats, and just a tad more thought out :P

I’d love to try this but I’m reluctant to just because it seems food and other consumables are a must. I haven’t been playing much and have only a couple gold to my name right now. Are the consumables expensive?

Also, I’m not sure if you know about it or not but try out Into the Mists

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-33;1IkI0G4gJkJ0;9;6JJT;414-57-59AU-k6ON;0OZG5OZ086c

it’s probably the best build calculator I’ve seen yet and can show a lot of important stuff like runes, sigils, and jewelery

To get back on subject, take a look at this build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;04-_;2IkI0G4gJkJ0;9;49EJ-O5;03;014;259-Lol6-N;0DsV2DsV25RY

Dagger/warhorn + staff

You can swap warhorn for something else, I just chose it because it fits my playstyle with Well Bombing. Increased radius and decreased cooldown on staff, with 3% Lf on staff Marks, you’re going to be in DS a lot.

Since you are going to be using DS a lot, it pierces for better effect and gives might. This is a fairly high crit and power build so Life Blast is going to hit for a ton when you’re above 50% LF, and you also get fury on entering DS. An effective way to use it with fury I find is to pop in for 3 or 4 Life Blasts then exit and build up more LF. Then switch in again and pop Life Transfer.

Your daggers are going to be hitting for a lot with auto attack, and using the daggers immobilize, warhorn’s constant cripple you can keep enemies inside your wells for a while. I’d suggest using Flesh Golem just for its knockdown but if you like Plague then go for it. It is good for holding points or just trying to survive/run away, and can also really help out some teammates under heavy fire with your constant blinds.

If you want, you can change out the warhorn for anything else, dagger OH works well. If you use dagger you should swap out the Curses 10 point for blind causes chill. If you find yourself needing DS stability, or faster DS cooldown then I’d suggest taking 5 points from the Death Magic tree and sacrificing one of your staff traits, which ever you find the least useful.

Hope this helps, its sort of a combination of my build, and another build I’ve seen around here lately

This is basically the same setup I used from 1-80 PvE levelling and it was great. I could round up 10+ enemies and they would all be downed within 10 seconds or so.

FacesOfMu.3561:

The worst foil I’ve found were some Ice Elementals that were purely ranged and couldn’t be herded into a nice group. Otherwise, my own hubris on taking on too many foes at once.
I find when I switch to any other profession I often dash into the fray recklessly and am fast reminded I don’t have the same strength as my Necro had. Mesmer is one such alt that becomes painfully slow after playing my Nec.

If you think Ice Elementals are bad, wait for the Dredge. * shivers *. Most are ranged and ALL are immune to blind, which is basically my entire defense. Dredge and Ice Elementals are the bane of a Necro’s existence in PvE

Mammoth.1975:

You’ve got a real problem if you think mark of blood comes up short compared to all those traits. The only one that’s better is deceptive evasion.

That’s not really true. Thief’s caltrops on dodge is a very nice trait and can seemingly perma stack cripple and bleed with their vigor.

Ele’s Evasive Arcana is so good that many ele’s find this one trait necessary to every build.

I know about Gluttony and I’m so excited for it! Just from reading that ele post though, it seems that they’re combining two traits into one to make room for a new trait for reduced fall damage as ele’s currently lack it.

If they’re willing to combine and add new traits then I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t or wouldn’t be willing to play with our traits. I’m not expecting it of course, but just the fact that I know they’re now willing to make these changes has me hopeful for a brighter Necro future

So even with all the great suggestions people have made to improve our messy (and sometimes useless) traits, I always sort of assumed it would never happen post-beta. But browsing the other profession’s sections on these forums I came across this!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Let-s-talk-traits

Yes, a red post from none other than JP himself on a trait rework thread confirming (at least that’s how I see it) that at least two changes will be made to the ele’s traits. Seeing this has given me much hope!

I assume you are talking about sPvP/WvW and not dungeons, right?

Wells are extremely powerful, but you have to make your target sit in it or its a long cooldown wasted. If you’re using wells you also want to have as many immobilizes and knockbacks/downs as possible to keep them in the wells for the total duration.

In general I’ve found Well of Corruption to be more powerful than Well of Power, only because there is already so much condition removal you almost don’t need to bring any to your allies. But boon removal is few and far between and extremely useful against classes like the guardian and ele.

I would almost suggest taking 10 points from Blood magic as our health siphoning isn’t all that great. Siphoning on wells is only good if you can keep multiple targets in your wells at all times, for the full duration. Instead, I’d put at least 5 more in Soul Reaping for trait X, generate 3% life force on marks. It is our best way to gain life force right now.

If you don’t want to take 10 points from Blood Magic, then I’d suggest changing your 3rd Major trait to IV, create a well of blood when you revive an ally. Well of Blood is an extremely powerful heal

The only one I have experience with is Evasive Arcana. Like Numot said it has 10s cooldown for each attunement, so you could dodge while in fire, but couldn’t activate the fire EA for 10s, but if you switch attunements you can activate it.

I’d say Sylvari, they’re just the best

This is nice to hear, I’m curious about the specifics of the fix+buff though. Hopefully it’ll be in the patch notes

I haven’t really played since Assassin’s Creed 3 and Black Ops 2 came out, and I don’t even play those two games anymore. I feel completely unmotivated to play GW2 lately. I try to create a new character and get so bored I can’t get past level 10. I feel no reason to play my 80 Necro

At first I thought mounts would be useless with WP’s. After hitting 80 and seeing the stupid prices of them, I would welcome mounts now

This is something I’ve noticed since level 30 or 40. Before those levels it dies in literally 2-5 seconds it seems, and after that it actually has the time to make it to the next enemy

Yea I noticed when on a mortar, you know you got a kill and a loot bag when a jagged horror pops up beside you. Kinda cool, its almost like getting a +1 or something like in Call of Duty games

I used to use my 30 points in Soul Reaping for quicker DS cooldowns, but after getting knocked down and having a full LF bar eaten to zero while still on the ground AND dying – about 3 matches in a row – I said screw it I’m using stability. And I don’t think I’ll ever give it up.

The only thing I find I can do when I DO get knocked down is pop DS and fear them but of course this only really works against one enemy

By this point I think most of us have “mastered DS”. At least I know now when to use it, when to exit, and I can usually time the cooldowns fairly well. I know you were being sarcastic but it these little UI things are starting to bug me.

Something I just posted in another minion thread, but would probably be better off in this one:

At first, I fully understood why the Flesh Golem would start attacking enemies when I wasn’t in combat (Fleshie is the only pet I have issues with attacking enemies I’m not in combat with). I could just be standing still somewhere and if there was a hostile enemy anywhere near me – i.e. not close enough to aggro me but maybe close enough to aggro Fleshie – he would attack it.
Which sort of makes sense. The enemy has aggro on our minion and he instantly recognizes that and attacks it.
But after playing a Ranger it really made me wonder. While idling or walking the Ranger’s pet seems to sort of stay under your feet. I’ve never noticed the pet drawing aggro from any enemy I wasn’t in combat with.
So why can the Ranger’s pet seemingly avoid drawing aggro from hostile enemies that aren’t in combat, when the Necro’s Fleshie draws aggro just like a player?
It also seems that the Flesh Golem has a larger radius at which it can draw aggro from enemies than a player does, has anyone else noticed this?

At first, I fully understood why the Flesh Golem would start attacking enemies when I wasn’t in combat (Fleshie is the only pet I have issues with attacking enemies I’m not in combat with). I could just be standing still somewhere and if there was a hostile enemy anywhere near me – i.e. not close enough to aggro me but maybe close enough to aggro Fleshie – he would attack it.

Which sort of makes sense. The enemy has aggro on our minion and he instantly recognizes that and attacks it.

But after playing a Ranger it really made me wonder. While idling or walking the Ranger’s pet seems to sort of stay under your feet. I’ve never noticed the pet drawing aggro from any enemy I wasn’t in combat with.

So why can the Ranger’s pet seemingly avoid drawing aggro from hostile enemies that aren’t in combat, when the Necro’s Fleshie draws aggro just like a player?

It also seems that the Flesh Golem has a larger radius at which it can draw aggro from enemies than a player does, has anyone else noticed this?

So you’re saying that these items are generating Life Force instead of actually healing you?

I’ve never seen this happening, although I haven’t played much lately and the little bit I have played was levelling other classes.

Is there anything you’ve noticed that brings it on or is it just sort of random? The only thing I can think to try is to go to your Hero menu and try un-equipping the weapon that’s stuck and re-equipping it

But popping back in DS only to find out, no that 40s cooldown isn’t finished and still has 10s to go. You planned around using Life Transfer maybe to heal some allies, maybe to kill all a mesmer’s phantasms and clones. Now you can just exit DS and have wasted time and LF, or you could blow the rest of your DS cooldowns just so you didn’t waste time and LF.

Why shouldn’t we be able to see our DS abilities? In my eyes its the same as not being able to see our conditions and buffs while in DS

I’d like a Well elite on my Necro, if I may chip in You guys can have a mantra if I can have a Well

I’m pretty sure it’s a bug. If you try to jump AND dodge roll at the same time – actually dodge just slightly before you jump – you can do a mid air dodge which looks pretty awesome.

A friend and I can both reproduce this after a few tries. I believe it’s a similar bug to being able to res or stomp in DS.

On a slightly off note, how come we can loot in DS but not properly stomp/res?

It depends what you want.

I only played the Ele until around level 30 or so but from my experience (in PvE) you can kill things very quickly, but you can also die in literally 2 or 3 hits from regular enemies of your level. Taking on more than 2 or 3 enemies at once is pretty risky. It is a very fast paced class especially if you’re playing double daggers, and attunement swapping a lot. It offers a lot of combo fields, support, and pretty good damage. In fights be prepared to use your utilities for shields and protection almost every fight.

Necro’s on the other hand are very capable of taking out 5-10 enemies at once and come out barely scratched. Our damage is slower than most other professions unless you go with the dagger as your MH weapon and get a lot of power and crit, but you make up for it with survivability. We rely on our utilities for a large chunk of our damage (well of suffering).

Don’t pay attention to the negative things you hear. Chances are it won’t affect you much (unless you play minion master). All in all the necro is a very fun class to play and I just can’t get into any other classes now.

Don’t be afraid to use DS more! Try picking up the trait to make Life Blast pierce, and use Life Transfer every time it’s off cooldown. Just by using Well of Suffering and Life Transfer you can take on huge groups of enemies at once

I don’t mind our minions currently, but I do feel we need more options.

I have heard a LOT of people saying they don’t want to use minions as a Necromancer, and I personally don’t understand this. I don’t use them currently because they’re broken. But summoned minions are what defines a Necro. To say you want to be a Necro without minions is like to say you want to be a Ranger without a pet, or a Mesmer without any clones.

I definitely think we need a higher minion cap, even just in the form of more abilities like bone minions that summon two at once

It is pretty annoying, but because of it I always hammer the 1 key whether I’m in an elite or not, even if auto attack is toggled

In PvE I found the dagger offhand to be the best choice – at least for me. It had an aoe (well three target) blind which can be a life saver, and another AoE attack which is pretty nice.

Well of darkness was what made it all possible though. Coupled with a few minions and you’re laughing

This lack of communication is making me feel a little antsy.

First a long stretch with no communication at all, then about a week of red comments and now nothing again. I’d love have updates about what they’re working on

I think this is a lovely idea, with a knockback/knockdown. I don’t use the wurm at all, not for a lack of damage but because the teleport isn’t worth killing a pet. That and I don’t like having to kill it and re-summon it every fight.

I’m starting to notice a trend. I’ve seen similar threads in Necro forums, Ele forums, Engineer forums, and now Ranger.

I’m a Necro myself ankittenrying other classes until mine is fixed and so far I’ve rolled an Ele, Engineer, and Ranger… Looks like I’m picking wrong each time. Warrior, Guardian or gtfo?

Good thing I’m a power build then

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-33;1IkI0G4gJkJ0;9;6JJT;414-57-59AU-k6ON;0OZG5OZ086c

It revolves around traiting for the staff, wells, and DS. Well of Darkness is your best friend and will save you from everything melee range, and dagger 4 is a medium range multi target blind, and also transfers conditions. Your well of blood will have a 32s recharge and heals for a fair bit.

You could swap out the dagger MH for a sceptre as it does decent damage without traiting.

I also think the range should be increased to 900. From my experience most classes with a medium range weapon is usually around the 900 range. For it to be such a weak damaging weapon that is still at close range, it either needs more payoff in terms of damage, or an increased range.

What level are you? I noticed while levelling my Necro that at about levels 1-50 they literally died 2 seconds after spawning, but at around 60+ they actually survived 5-10 seconds to get a hit in.

But yah, totally useless even at 80

I’ve actually stopped using it for this very reason. I used it all through 1-80, and I just… I just cant put up with it anymore! * shudders *