Guild Wars 2

Have you ever had a child keep asking you for something? My answer is always “the more you ask me, the less likely I’m gonna give it to you”. I think they’re taking the same policy haha

“-Doom has been changed to “Gloom” and now allows the necromancer to post hilarious fake patch notes in an effort to try hiding the feeling that he or she will forever be a sad, broken, miserable shell of a profession.”

This takes the cake! You guys make me laugh, at least some good has come out of our suffering!

Flesh wurm is really freakin cool, but I don’t like the stationary aspect of it. It means I have to re summon it every fight (I don’t use it for the teleport) – I’d rather it was like the moving wurm Rangers get!

Either way, its really awesome

I’m not a very good condition master, but when I tried it I’ve seen arouns 8-12 bleeds consistently

Basically, yea. I’m down to going to the mists and testing ALL of my traited abilities before I actually use them, just to see if they work, or even just HOW they work.

From what I’ve heard though the 20% bleed duration adds something like one extra second to the duration, but that one second isn’t enough for bleed to even get an extra tick of damage, unless you have a lot of condition duration.

Don’t be afraid to test it yourself and see if it’s worth taking! I’m more of a power/crit build myself so I don’t have firsthand experience

The only way the Gluttony trait seems slightly OP is when you add it on top of Soul Marks. But if it really is additive, then it is SERIOUSLY under powered. 5% of 5% is a measly .25%, giving us a total of 5.25% LF on marks, and as digiowl pointed out, 3.15% on staff auto attack.

This adds nothing to our LF bar. You would have to use all four marks just to generate an extra 1% Life Force! When they fix it, I really hope its multiplicative

I would actually like an ability that consumes 50% or even 100% of life force to revive dead, not downed players in an area.

As a master of death, who is absorbing the souls or death energy from enemies, I should be able to manipulate death to my will! It would bring something unique to necros as now every class can only rez downed players (I think, after the recent nerf on Ele’s)

There are a lot of things that don’t reflect properly in the tooltips, or tooltips that don’t properly display the duration at all.

One thing that comes to mind (not sure if it’s intentional or not) is the sigil for 5% crit chance. It doesn’t show up on our hero tab under crit chance

So for my DS build to be effective, I should be going 30 Blood Magic instead of Soul Reaping. The only problem is I need the traits in SR! “Life blast pierces and causes vulnerability”, must have for WvW, and pretty useful in sPvP. “Life Force drains 25% slower in Death Shroud” is another must have. And I sacrifice my stability in DS as well

It would almost be better. Its really cool to see yourself being surrounded by 6 or so minions, but to start a fight with them ALL under half health is a bad idea. I ALWAYS kill off the ones I can and re-summon them.

If they died at the end of combat, not after a specific enemy died, and had a shorter cooldown it would actually be a lot better

Yea, I personally believe Necros should have access to a unique condition. Confusion is in general a mesmer skill, although other classes have access to it to a lesser degree. Poison would fit well with the theme of the Necro, but it isn’t powerful enough

Lately I’ve had “This is Halloween” on repeat during the halloween event. Fits the mood, AND the spirit of the necro! The regular version, Marilyn Manson verson, and Kingdom Hearts instrumental one are all great

Necros don’t really have burst. The best we can do is Death Shroud. Go for power, crit, and vitality/toughness traits as the +30% life force bar for 30 points in soul reaping is currently broken and gives 0% bonus with 30 points.

Get the trait that gives fury when entering DS, the trait for might when casting Life Blast, and possibly the trait to give retaliation when entering DS. You can crit for about 3.5k with life blast, and I think around 4k with Life Transfer

Believe me I’m not against these feature at all, I would LOVE them so I could actually play my necro the way a necromancer is, by definition supposed to play – by summoning the dead! I just don’t think it’ll happen At least with the whole giving it a button for “Attack, Passive, Aggressive”.

The minions abilities that you can activate are WAY too unreliable. Shadow fiend’s blind takes what, a second or two to blind? When you need the blind you need it right away, before the attack hits you.

Same goes for bone fiend’s immobilize. And bone minion’s explosions are NEVER where you want them to explode.

Flesh golem is so often SO far away from me attacking random things that when I activate his “Charge” for the knockdown on my targeted enemy, the attack misses! He is too far for his charge to reach the enemy!

For all these reasons I don’t use minions any more, and because they either don’t attack your target, or attack random things

One does not simply address the Developers directly!

But yah people like these guys need to be considered more and responded to by Anet, or even hired by them! It is things like this that will completely change my build. If only I didnt need that stability in DS…

I actually find that Plague form is amazing. If I aggro 10+ mobs in PvE I can lay down well of darkness and well of suffering for damage + blind while I use all my staff + other weaponsets aoe’s. When all thats up, Death Shroud #4, then when you get half health or so plague for the blind and you never get touched. If you dont need blind use #1 for posion and bleed to drop ALL 10ish enemies half health or so.

I DO use flesh golem in PvP though, mostly for the knockdown

Seconded.

There are too many items that look too similar, but have a different name. I have to look at ALL my tonics and booster items (not to mention coins, among other things) to see if I have doubles, then forget what items I moused over, find the doubles again then stack them.

SO annoying. +1

@lettucemode

WOW, I never knew that. That would be insanely helpful if I was still in the Death Magic trait line, but sadly I am not. I just chose 3s of stability over 50% quicker recharge on DS too as I was tired of getting batted around and having my entire life force eaten through while I’m just snoozing on the ground for 5s

We will never. Never. I repeat NEVER get control over our minions. Why? Because a Ranger has control over his pet, and it is his class F1-F4 abilities. Giving us the same control would throw the entire Ranger community into a blind range. Five separate pets (six if you count both bone minions), with five controllable abilities we can activate any time, while also controlling their aggressive/passive stance?

I don’t have a ranger, and I would love to get some control over our pets. I used them up until I hit 30 and got flesh golem, then realized how bad they were. However, sadly I don’t think it’ll ever happen. The best we can hope for is better AI

I would argue that gaining might when hit and under 25% health is next to useless. At 25% health you want some form of survivability, or escape. Maybe, I dont know, gain 50% life force at 25% health? Call it The Undying or something. The last thing I want is to hit harder for my last two hits before I die

If you go for a crit heavy build, you can still deal some decent condition damage while pumping out some actual raw damage from critting fairly often.

My current build is 20 20 0 0 30, with D/D and staff. I don’t even think about conditions normally, but if you take a few specific utilities like Blood is power (great bleed damage +might for some decent death shroud burst), corrupt boon (since according to Anet its finally working), and possibly epidemic.

If you get the trait that casts enfeebling blood when entering death shroud, you actually have a decent amount of ways to bleed, and with D/D and staff, + corrupt boon you have two ways to get rid of conditions, plus dropping all their boons. It’s a different playstyle, more power and crit oriented but with the right traits and utilities it can also be focused on managing your and the enemies boons, and passing them back and forth

It doesn’t help that we are VERY limited with multiple types of conditions. We basically only have access to bleeds. NO access to burns, and limited access to poison. Yes sceptre auto attack has a poison, but it is very low duration. Our only other poison option I can think of is Corrosive Poison Cloud if you actually choose it for some reason, and staff 3.

Right off the top of my head an engineer with P/P, NOT counting their weapon kits or utilities have access to SIX different conditions:

1. Auto attack has bleed
2. has poison
3. has a bouncing blind AND confusion
4. has burning
5. an aoe immobilize and cripple

Not to mention all their pistol abilities are on a very short cooldown (all15s except #5, 30s), even shorter with only a TEN point trait that lowers the cooldown on all of their weapons. In one rotation they can stack a ridiculous amount of conditions, PLUS a 60s utility for quickness (48s with another, you guessed it, 10 points trait), and piercing pistol bullets you can unload conditions stupidly fast.

This is the first class that popped into my hear for comparison as I JUST made a new engineer and was blown away by the amazing trait choices, and utility. EVERY trait is good, and some of the best ones are a measly 10 points. They can have permanent swiftness and vigor, three different weapon kits if they want for a total of 4 weapon sets – as much as an elementalist, but actually more abilities because the f1-f4 change depending on the utilities, adding basically an extra 4 utilities.

@Ascii

So based on your findings, right now it isn’t even viable to go into Soul Reaping for a death shroud centred build. My build is currently at 20 20 0 0 30 for a pure power/crit DS build, which was SUPPOSED to have a huge increased life force bar.

It seems I’d be better off going 20 20 0 20 10 , the 10 being for vital persistence (SR II) or Unyielding Blast (SR VI). Still not sure which I’d rather have.

The question I’ve been wondering – Which contributes MORE to a higher total DS healthpool, 30 points in vitality, or 30 points in Soul Reaping?

Also, as a profession with naturally high health, and a second (although much smaller) healthpool would it be better to invest in Toughness, since we don’t really need a ton of extra hp?

OR, with vitality contributing to death shroud, would say 30 points in blood magic instead of 30 points in death magic contribute more overall damage mitigation purely through extra health and extra death shroud health?

Anyways, interesting find Arianna. I had always been under the assumption that death shroud was = to vitality, + the life force %. Makes much more sense now getting my entire life force bar depleted in two good hits from many professions

Both Lich and Plague have always given stability for the entire duration I’m pretty sure. Which is nice for sure, especially in Plague with almost constant blinds.

The only problem with that, and the stability in Death Shroud is we still have no stability for stomps

My favourite guardian weaponset is usually mace+focus, but for this build I tried hammer + staff. I did this in spvp although my intent is to play a lot of wvw once I hit 80. I just like the control capabilities with both weapons, and with the AH build staff 4 heals you pretty much full from half health or less when buffing 4 or so people.

My only issue is I don’t have a ton of crit% or crit damage. I went vit+toughness with my runes (warrior I think?) simply because 14k health without it seemed a bit low, and higher toughness for a low health class is better than more vitality.

Any suggestions on bumping up crit a bit, while still keeping a bit of tankiness? I know you suggested against it, but I was running 3 shouts:
“Save Yourself”, my oh kitten button when I’m by myself or in a group and getting ganged up on
“Stand Your Ground”, low cooldown stability for stomps mostly
and I was using “Hold the Line” for a bit of protection on low cooldown, but the duration stinks so I think I’ll swap it out for Wall of Reflection or Sanctuary

I don’t play ranger, but I’m happy to see a Dev posting about profession bug fixes/updates again, and none other than Mr Jon Peters! I look forward to hearing from you about some other professions as well

Ps. I wouldn’t be upset if you shared some pointers on how YOU play necro

So like everyone else I knew, I was excited to log in on monday for Halloween! I waited and waited, and it didn’t come, and eventually I had to go to bed as I had work the next day. “No big deal”, I thought “I’ll just do as much of it as I can tomorrow!”.

And sure enough, when I logged on tuesday there was this awesome spooky loading picture for Lions Arch. Right on, time to do some Halloween events! The first thing I saw with this big cauldron, and some people in costume hitting each other with comic “POWs”. I’m always searching for jumping puzzles, and noticed right away the platforms so I hopped right in that cauldron and joined in! I had some good fun for 10 minutes or so before I decided to see what else there was to do.

Then I notice this BIG event circle, right in LA! There’s a bunch of people running around doing the costume brawl there as well. I find out I have to carve pumpkins throughout the world. I figure I’ll do that later, I want to do more Halloween stuff! Then I notice another person, who tells me about searching for ghosts. RIGHT ON! She gives me some candy corn, and I use both of them by accident, but no worries I found the girl and got some book.

I read the book and discover there’s other locations to search. Awesome, a scavenger hunt! But wait a second… I have to use my candy corn powered device. Where do I get candy corn? The nice lady just gave me two. So I wait, and a friend tells me I have to mine it throughout the world. Wait, I have to do what?

“Yea, you find these candy corn nodes throughout the world”, he tells me. “You’re kidding right? Why would I have to search out these nodes just to participate in the Halloween quest?” I reply.

This hit me pretty hard. In other MMO’s if you need some kind of special token/currency for a holiday event, they give you fun mini-games or holiday quests to complete for them. I have NEVER been told “No, sorry you can’t participate until you go out and mine 100 iron ore”. While I understand its not iron ore, the statement stands.

My friend can not for the life of him understand why I was upset about this. “But it’s fun!” he tells me. “I had a blast searching for them!”. Yea ok, I can see why it might be neat for people just exploring anyway, not caring too much about the Halloween event coming across this candy corn node and going “Huh, this is kinda neat!”.

So I have to go find candy corn. Well I figure if I have to go exploring for this stuff I may as well be doing it in an unexplored area and do some hearts at the same time so I’m not just running around looking for ore. I don’t really WANT to explore right now, I’d rather be doing the Halloween stuff instead, but what ever.

So off I go to a snowy area a friend tells me a new mini dungeon has been added to. I find it, and some candy corn along the way and 2 hours or so later I have about 60 of them and some hearts done. After all said and done, I get the little scavenger hunt done and get a reward for it. I finish at 11:30 on the dot, when I typically head to bed.

And yea, it was a ton of fun doing a scavenger hunt with a friend, all across Tyria. But why did I have to spend a couple hours farming for ore before I could do it? I don’t know if anyone else felt this way or if I’m the only one who was annoyed by it

We have to remember that the game has been out for what, two months now? There are a TON of bugs, and they are prioritizing the game breaking bugs first, along with the seemingly infinite “get out of the map” bugs.

Not to mention all the bugs with other classes. From what I’ve seen necro has the most bugs out of any profession, so they are most likely saving it for last, until they get the easier to fix bugs out of the way.

These things do take time. That said, it HAS been a while since the last bug fix patch, for anything. I really think the halloween event has taken priority over bug fixes. I don’t mind, as long as something happens soon

Currently we have no ways of “stomping” players in pvp with stability. Even if you trait for stability in DS, you cant finish players in it.

It is also very hard to escape when you have no stability and just getting knocked down all the time

How do you increase toughness in DS? Its often called the “second lifebar” but its bar drops about 4 times faster than my actual healthbar

My guess is they’ve been busy working on the Halloween event. There haven’t been any fixes in a while for anyone

I’m not sure what the deal with this is, but its quite annoying. To access the forums, you must sign in. I’m fine with that. But then before you can post, you have to sign in again with the sign in button at the top right.

Why do we have to do this twice? Please make us only have to sign in once. It’s not a big deal, but it is a fairly big annoyance, as I use the forums quite a lot

I’m glad you like it! I love my necro too. It may not be the best class right now but I just can’t get into any other professions after rolling a necro main.

I do almost the exact same thing, except I go power over conditions, and my DS auto attack crits for around 2500-3500, with piercing its just awesome.

This is my usual WvW build, its a power, crit, staff and DS build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;083Z;2IVB0;0gJkJ0;9;4JJJ-956-36-14;25;06o0;0N;0PcW5PcW5X

I always pop BiP before i head into DS to crit pretty hard

Just curious, with the traits to give you boons on auras, what auras do you have at your disposal? There’s one in Air and Water that I can see

Wow. I am literally stunned. I’m not very far with my ele (level 15) but I’ve been discouraged to level it. I’m getting two or 3 shotted by enemies my level, but yes the damage I do IS very high.

I saw you multiple times in a crowd of enemies, and hardly dropping in health. I saw you as you were running from a few people, then, at half health turn around and absolutely, perfectly destroy all of them. How is this possible? How do you not die nearly instantly, while also dealing some very high damage?

I’m in awe not just as a noob elementalist, but also as a necromancer who still drops in health faster than you, while having a difficult time dealing more than 1500 damage, and that only to one enemy.

I actually REALLY like this idea.

As it stands, do to damage you swap between fire, air, and earth pretty much as soon as you spam all your abilities in the attunement. Yes I know thats not 100% accurate – you’re not going to waste projectile reflects, obsidian flesh, cripples etc if they arent needed but for the most part you put ALL your damaging abilities on CD, swap attunements and repeat. At the same time putting abilities on top of each other for combo effects.

Traiting doesn’t seem to approve of this though. There is a trait line for each attunement. You almost NEED 20 points in arcana, which means you can pretty much only put points into two attunements, even though you always use three of them in combat. And to NOT be a glass cannon, you have to put points in water – an almost completely supportive tree, and nearly useless to most non supportive players aside from the +vitality.

I would prefer each attunement to be a little more specialized. I would be in fire for damage mostly, possibly for multiple targets.

You would switch into earth when the enemy gets close to gain toughness, and a good mix of abilities that have both a defensive and offensive side to them – similar to how many mesmer abilities have a beneficial aspect for them, and a negative effect for the enemy.

Water would probably still stay a sort of supportive attunement, swap if you need an extra heal.

Air would be probably single target dps with a focus on utility – blinds, swiftness.

I think that having the OPTION of sticking with two main attunements, and actually being able to trait them to be powerful, and sacrificing the fast attunement swaps by simply not choosing arcana. This would add multiple build types, while keeping the ele how it currently is. Simply add a grandmaster trait to make the attunement more powerful. Possibly add a master trait so you could sort of specialize in two different attunements without having to blow 30 points in both.

I really like this idea and would be thrilled if the devs considered it at all. Not only would there be as many builds as already exist, but it would nearly double the amount of viable builds.

I know it needs SOMETHING. Maybe a 300 range cleave like ele’s dagger in fire attunement.

Hell maybe all we need is some way to gain vigor, as we currently have NO ways to gain endurance which is vital, since the dagger is our only damage dealing power weapon really.

It has one damaging ability at long range, #2, and #3 goes along with it well. But auto attack is really its best damager and you can hardly use it because there is no survivability. Our utility that gives protection is on a 90s cooldown.

Currently our only option (that I could find) is to use dagger offhand for the blind, and well of darkness. Maybe add a blind to the second hit of dagger auto attack?

I forgot to mention my utilities.

So far I’m using Arcane Shield and Glyph of Storms. A neat trick I’ve found is to start casting Meteor Shower, then when the enemy is right on my feet to pop Arcane Shield. It usually gives me enough time to fully cast it on myself and I still have 1 of the 3 hits left on the shield.

Just like on my necro though I have a tough time with ranged enemies, or anything with a stun, snare, knockdown, immobilize, etc. My basic tactic if I pull a couple mobs and one is ranged is to target it, and draw all the melee enemies to it so I can still hit all of them, and use Magnetic Aura and hope all goes well.

@STRanger

First thanks for the advice! I don’t pay too much attention to the enemies while I’m fighting, more so their location to me, my cooldowns, and my health. So I never noticed before that Eruption even does damage before the explosion! Thats is GREAT to know, thanks.

I did notice using Unsteady ground vertically instead of horizontally, and pulling the enemy through the entire line works great.

For the staff in particular, what do you guys find the most effective attunement for damage? I’m just curious if there is a better option than fire

Ok so after another day of playing I’ve learned a bit more. I tend to go to fire for my main damage, and stay there until everything has been used except for meteor shower. I’ll sometimes drop a second Lava Font, then switch to air because the enemy is right at my feet by then.

Usually I’ll use Gust first, mostly because Lightning Surge has a really long cast time when the enemy is in your face and you NEED that CC. Follow up Gust with Windborne Speed and Static Field for kiting, then Lightning Surge as they get close.

After all this, fire may or may not be off cooldown so I sometimes switch to earth. I’ll start with Eruption, laying it where I’m going to be walking as I’m kiting and when the enemy gets to that spot I’ll use shockwave to make sure he gets hit by it. After that its unsteady ground just because I can and it’s available to be used, then switch back to fire and repeat.

This is the build I’ve been testing with

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImgbIy0gjDAhHEwQCiCVUekzO2A;TgAA2USZkSIlVKnUSpGEA

It’s focused on Power and Crit, the crit mostly being for Arcana VI, which goes along nicely with XI. I know I’m not a dagger build, but in the end no matter what your range is, you ALWAYS end up melee range and your survival depends on dodging often.

The only thing I DONT like about this setup is that its sort of glass cannon. If I get hit once or twice, I’m almost downed so it takes a lot of well placed dodges to survive.

What do you guys think of this for a staff build?

At the moment I’d rather just play the class, at least until I get to a higher level. I do find the mists useful for finding character builds but its a little difficult going from level 10 and only knowing a bit about your class, to being 80 and having all the traits and abilities thrown at you and trying to figure out everything at once.

Also, with everyone always saying how if you’re not always switching attunements you’re playing wrong – Are you supposed to ALWAYS constantly be swapping, or really only as situation demands type thing?

Btw, if you’re gonna take the time to post a reply you could leave a helpful comment, not just “figure it out for yourself”. It’s hard to get any kind of reply on this forum unless you’re QQing about something, I’ve found

I just started my ele again after about a month of neglect, and I’m level 15. I’ve only been using the staff since I’ve started and I have to say I’m actually liking it a fair bit. This is for solo play, and what ever DE’s I happen to stumble across. I may consider changing to sceptre/dagger in a bit just to try it out.

So far I find fire to be the attunement I’m sticking in most of the time. The auto attack does insanely high damage (~90-150) and the other abilities (I keep typing abilitities by accident EVERY TIME) are on such a short cooldown that I hardly have to switch at all.

So I’m wondering a few things. What stats should I be looking for using a staff, cond or power?

Also is each attunement good for a specific task? For example:

Fire – I use fire mostly when I want to do damage and kill things fast single target or multiple targets.

Water – Water is for when I need a quick heal, or another kiting tool for frozen ground.

That leaves earth and Air. I’m preferring air because of the blind, knockback, and snare but even though it have decent damage on auto attack, it really doesn’t have much damaging capability. So I switch to it when everything is on cooldown in fire, and the enemy is getting a bit too close.

I haven’t found much use for Earth with the staff. The #2 is so unreliable unless you’re constantly kiting the enemy through it. Unsteady ground has a long cooldown and an insignificant cripple duration to be of much use compared to other abilities in other attunements. The ONLY use I’ve found for staff Earth is for Shockwave, and Magnetic Aura if I’m getting pummelled by ranged enemies.

TL:DR – What stats/traits should I be prioritizing with the staff, and is there any point in swapping attunements when multiple enemies die very quickly in just fire? Is it better to just pick, say two attunements and swap mostly between them?

I have tried out the staff and LOVE the attacks. I’m always an AoE person if I can – on my necro I use a staff as my main weapon, and have wells with ground targeting.

And it works great, in group settings. I found though that it takes what feels like forever to kill a single target with the staff. Its the same with my necro, but I have the ability to swap to my other weapon set for single targets – axe+dagger if you’re wondering.

I also tried D/D and like the attacks as well, loving the higher damage and mild AoE, but I don’t like playing a caster class melee range – it feels way too squishy to me and I drop like a rock. I felt the same on my necro using D/D.

My weapon of choice in the BWE’s was sceptre/dagger for the medium range attacks. However I felt a lot of the attacks were next to useless.

All of the fire abilities are great and were my main source of damage, and seems to be the attunement to use when fighting 2+ enemies.

Air is good as well, being more single target oriented. Water felt useless for me. I’d switch to it and use Frost Aura and Cleansing Wave and switch out, those being the only abilities that seemed worth the time.

I like earth when speccing into it, and the abilities are quite decent but if I was using fire or air I don’t know what situations call for using earth over air or fire.

Also, what is it generally better to stack with eles – condition or power/crit? All of earth and fire cause condition damage so I was never sure whether to go for a condition or power build

I know how you feel Bond.

I can’t take more than 2 enemies on my ele and live, while on my necro I TRY to pull as many as I can, just for the hell of it. 7-10 enemies at once (with a veteran or two) is easily accomplished through kiting and aoe damage

I just tried a Staff/DS build that focused on crit, power, and traits to power up the staff and death shroud. In WvW, and under the perfect scenario my DS’s #1 attack to crit for ~2500-3500 max.

At first I was VERY excited, this being the highest numbers I’ve seen yet. Than I was saddened, remembering that many other classes hardly have to work to hit upwards of 7k, AoE damage (or at least on multiple targets – I’m looking at YOU warriors)

It’s strange, I can see the damage nerf pretty clearly, but I also found myself not getting killed as easily in the BWE’s, where now my level 15 ele can’t pull more than 2 enemies and survive.

Granted, I’m not the best elementalist player yet as I’ve hardly played it, but I just know my necro could handle almost 10 enemies at once, and trying a guardian I was just able to jump into a group and kill everything in a couple seconds and hardly get touched

I played GW2 in all the beta weekends, and a mainly played ele and necro. Ele was by far my favourite and I knew I would play one when it was released. So I made an ele as my first character, but I quit it and have hardly touched it since.

I’m not sure what changed between the beta weekends and now but elementalists feel completely different, and I’m having a hard time sticking with it

I’m not sure but I thought both Lich Form and Plague were supposed to give 2x health and 2x toughness, however I felt extremely squishy in Lich. Its the reason I always use plague now. Its good for tanking – you get a ton of aggro and have high health and toughness, it can perma blind for the 20 second duration, its good solo for taking on HUGE groups if you accidentally pull a few too many, and its also good for escaping

I used blood fiend for a long time, but I found I never paid attention to its health and it always died before I could heal.

Not just that, I found it always died BEFORE I needed to heal, then the enemy would go after me and I’d need a heal but its on cooldown. Try Well of Blood. It has a high heal amount and heal over time. You can combine blast finishers for extra healing I believe, and it also helps allies if you do PvE with friends.

I personally never use consume conditions unless I’m in PvP or a specific dungeon encounter where I know theres going to be a lot of conditions