Guild Wars 2

I would argue that necros have a lot of options for powerful group utility, but it’s not focused enough or meaningful enough to be a worth considering in group comps. It also depends on if you’re referring to fractals or regular dungeons. I think necros have a better spot in fractals because survivability and damage reduction can be pretty relevant, as opposed to dungeons where zerg is king. The lack of fire fields (and surplus of other fields that are less desirable) and almost no blast finishers means its inherently selfish in the zerg mentality, but the substantial amounts of conditions like weakness, vulnerability, poison, chill, some decent defensive fields like poison/dark, one of the best boon strippers, some aoe condi cleanse in a pinch, above average aoe and solid single target damage gives them a decent spot. It’s tough to argue they’re optimal in any PvE setting but I think they get a worse rap than they deserve. It’s frustrating spending the whole dungeon trying to justify your existence against elitist pricks. I want more dungeons like fractals that push party to their limits instead of just trying to max dps.

Also, nerf fire fields.

I really like D/F. I think Axe/Focus is a slightly stronger setup, provided you’re using D/W or D/D in the other set, at least for power. That said D/F I still find quite effective.

I’ve been experimenting with my hybrid builds (Zerker/Rampagers PvE, Celestial PvP) and have actually been dropping axe in favor for D/F and S/D.

Axe 3 is one of my favorite necro abilities, but I can live without it.

Maybe I just suck with my other classes, but I play engi/ele and feel like I excel on my necro. I do hate not having blast finishers or fire fields for might stacking. I get told we do bad damage but I’m not really seeing it. I really really wish there was a place to test my PvE damage in a controlled environment but pvp dummies don’t work for me since i use some rampagers gear.

Though truthfully, depends on how hard it is to obtain. If it still takes reasonable effort or luck, thats fine. But if they just gave it away, blech. Didnt they just do this with last Queens Pavillion with a bunch of skins?

It pretty much depends if I have the skin or not. What can I say, im selfish

I actually think that’s pretty neat. That said, thanks for the heads up.

I love going in circles…..swapped back to Axe/Focus D/D and took -20% to dagger CDs again instead of foot in the grave. Might swap back to foot in the grave but enjoying it for now. I think d/d is the way to go than scepter dagger. Not getting nearly enough use out of the scepter. Every move on Dagger’s bring some big stuff to the table. The 5 even does good for the aoe weakness.

Really now? Fascinating. Guess I don’t notice it cause you die so fast in PVE and I don’t run that trait in PvP.

I’m imagining how crazy strong it would be if the threshold was 50% in PvP tho _

If it was every single hit while under 25% it would certainly be interesting (but still not very good or practical.) It would be neat to suddenly get these huge stacks of might while in critical danger.

But as I never see my might stacks shooting up as I die, I sincerely doubt that’s how it works.

Yeah it’s pretty much a joke though.

I’d definitely love to have another offhand. I feel like power build options are restricted by the lack of one. Warhorn is great and all, but if I don’t want warhorn and don’t need condi clear, there are no good options to pair with dagger (after axe/focus). I think a condi based melee sword could be cool too, just as a thought.

Disclaimer: I don’t WvW (but PvE and PvP extensively on necro)

Close to Death seems like a wasted trait for condi, it only affects direct damage, which you have very little of, I imagine you’d get a lot more from Dhuumfire, or the 5% of condition damage as healing, maybe (i’ve never tried that one so not sure how substantial the healing is, but I imagine still worth more than close to death. Dhuumfire seems like the way to go).

Do runes of the krait work with the golem charge, the golem summon, or both? I’ve never tried on elite skills with that.

I don’t play much condi, so I’m wondering if the crit is worth it over the extra vitality from something like Dire. I’ve heard some debates but I never remember the conclusion.

I think nearlights recommendation is for PvP, but sounds like you want PvE advice. pretty much straight damage are your options for PvE if you want to stay as competitive as possible. Fortunately necros have plenty of innate survivability. So that basically means your PvE build will be some variant of 6/6/0/0/2, for max damage potential. Generally the best builds are some variant of power (or hybrid, which I think is gaining popularity as well, and in my personal opinion, is the way necros are meant to be played) because of a few reasons. Conditions have weird limitations because of the many condition immune objects you will fight, makes it very difficult to take down objects in any group setting, and condition caps in world events make conditions even more difficult to use effectively. Aside from that, there is no optimal condition offensive condition gear. Condition damage only uses one offensive stat, and the only type of gear with condition damage and other straight damage stats is Rampager’s, which has condition damage as a minor stat, not a major one. If there was gear with major condition damage and power/precision, I think it would be a little more viable in PvE since you wouldn’t be gimping your damage with defensive stats while still focusing on your strength.

Spoj’s stickied guide is a good starter place for power builds:
http://dulfy.net/2014/06/30/gw2-necromancer-pve-guide-by-spoj/
There are builds further down, I believe the dagger build is optimal DPS but death shroud offers a little more utility.

Personally? This is my pve hybrid build, kitted out with about 60% rampagers, 40% zerker’s gear. I find it really effective, and brings a lot of party utility while still heavy on the damage. I want to test some DPS tonight, actually to see if I’m actually playing horribly wrong or not. I want to play hybrid because necros have a lot of tools that favor a mixed build, IMO. (our main damage trees increase both types of damage, you double dip with might stacking bonuses as it grants both power and condition damage, and there are traits like target the weak and barbed precision which have greater effects with hybrid builds)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yjc00SbzNW3wfbiahC66MAu2o/gRIFoqNA

With this build, there are some traits that can be moved around, I’m not sure if I like dhuumfire more than close to death, or unyielding blast more than vital persistence, for example. I’m a little underwhelmed by both lingering curse (since I rarely scepter 1, the only benefit is from scepter 2), and withering precision (weakness is underrated IMO, but ~7 seconds of weakness every 20 is a weak grandmaster)

I was wondering this too, I want to figure out some PvE dps with setups that aren’t attainable in PvP

Well yeah, that’s my point. They could certainly come up with some kind of a better solution, but they haven’t even tried, AFAIK. Conditions haven’t seen any love since launch, that I can recall.

The solutions the players have come up with is just not to use condition builds. I guess they’re fine with that.

Tim.6450:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

I just don’t understand why conditions have conditions cap at 25, seems awfully arbitrary. Problem is the further they go along without fixing how conditions are handled, the bigger job they have for making sure they’re balanced across the game. Perhaps add some kind of diminishing return past a certain stack number (25?) or nerfed durations vs boss monsters, but just plain hard capping at 25 is obviously the wrong way to do it. It renders condition builds almost useless, if not detrimental to world content.

It’s a technical limit. Most people think that the cap is a balance tool which it is not.

I don’t buy it. Source? I would believe that its a technical challenge, and not as simple as changing a value from 25 to 50 or whatever, but to say it’s a limitation? That’s a lazy answer.

Anet has so many good mechanics alreaddy embedded into the game that are far underused. By adding a greater assortment of conditions and boons available to monsters, I think you can instantly create far more engaging fights that would encourage the usage of classes who’s utility is based in controlling boons and conditions (necros!). Right now there is next to no boon stripping required for the vast majority of content.

I was pleased to see some mobs in Dry Top making good use of boons, but by and large the strategies for fighting dudes don’t vary much. In GW1, the wide variety of Enchantments and Hexes available created a lot of interesting (sometimes frustrating) play with monsters that required different approaches to tackle. I think this is sorely lacking in most content, and you burn the same rotations on every encounter in a fight, mindlessly.

Whats frustrating is I feel a lot of the complexity is already there, just way under utilized by Anet. perhaps they’ve tried, and found it too restricting in the past, but with free respecs anytime out of combat, I think most group comps could come up with ways to handle difficulty.

I just don’t understand why conditions have conditions cap at 25, seems awfully arbitrary. Problem is the further they go along without fixing how conditions are handled, the bigger job they have for making sure they’re balanced across the game. Perhaps add some kind of diminishing return past a certain stack number (25?) or nerfed durations vs boss monsters, but just plain hard capping at 25 is obviously the wrong way to do it. It renders condition builds almost useless, if not detrimental to world content.

Latest iteration, I think I really really like this setup:
Update 7/8:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yn0ISPN2bD22A/Nm4Yok6DiOAOgtl6pYICCA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA

I now roll with my pve weapons set (i play hybrid as well), Axe/Focus Scepter/Dagger, and I think it meets all my needs. I do miss the dagger for its immobilize and good life drain, but I think I get more with this.

I’ve been practicing my shroud stomps and starting to fall in love with foot in the grave. I was considering dropping plague as a result but I still think the ability to hold a point 1v2 with it is uncanny (especially since you’re almost guaranteed to have a full LF bar after dropping it), and the clean stomps are still nice. I know the stability from popping into DS so often sometimes goes unnoticed by me as well, since I noticed Hambows get way easier to fight with foot in the grave.

But for playstyle, you have Axe/Focus: Boon stripping, life force, burst damage set. S/D is pro aoe (though unreliable 1v1, I need to work on my aiming), condi removal, and reliable condition damage for people spamming their evasion/block moves. Being able to pile them up is powerful. I sometimes have troubles with dropping too quickly, however. I am considering trying a consume conditions variant now.

You’re constantly generating life force and have a very large pool. With 3 short CD boon strips, you can toss them out aggressively, and not totally ruin a fight if you whiff with a spinal shivers thanks to path of corruption and unholy feast. I don’t think the same can be said if you miss your corrupt boon. Dark Path is insanely good with this build.

PvP! PvP!

yeah every since reward tracks started my total character levels have shot up. WvW is just so less..reliable, but maybe I just suck. I’m not too fond on it anyway. I’d like to do it more but…eh. Lots of things I’d like to do in this game. It’s certainly faster than chugging through the PvE world, anyway.

I am enjoying the hell out of it, and its definitely some of the best MMO pvp out of ones I’ve played, but as others have mentioned, the underdevelopment of it is frustrating. Fortunately I haven’t burnt myself out on it, but it seems like PvPers have gotten the short end of the stick, there is rarely content for us. I’ve been hoping this would change, and they actually have a much more appropriate system of rewards now that feels good to advance in, that helps your account in some good ways, but I want more maps and more modes, and ways to rejuvenate and encourage the community to get in on more PvP.

The fix is easy. Nerf fire fields. I don’t even understand how fire fields are so highly powered vs the others.

Like, so we have as different debuffs

Blind (3s)
Chaos Armor (3s)
Frost Armor (3s)
Retaliation (3s)
Swiftness (10s)
Weakness (5s)
Stealth (3s)
Area healing (1320)HP
Might x3 (20s)

like, what? 3 stacks? for 20 seconds? 3 stacks for 5 seconds, or 1 stack for 20 seconds seems a lot more…balanced in comparison to every other field.

Updated version:
D/D Axe/Focus:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAoY3dn0ISPN2bD22A/No4Yok6DmqEiOAOgtlypYIA-TJxHwADeAAn3fAwJAoYZAA
-Swapped staff for axe/focus, LF gen and boon stripping from axe focus more than makes up for the loss of the CC
-Swapped out Lich for Plague, I found myself wanting a defensive boost more than I wanted an offensive boost.
-Took Shrouded Removal to make up for loss of condition removal staff provided

Trying this variant now:
Scepter/Dagger Dagger/Focus
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRArY4dn0ISPN2bD22A/No4Yok6DmqEiOAOgtlypYIA-T5wHwAn3fAwJAoYZAA
Reason being the redundancy of power, so far, I’m missing the reliable life force from axe 2(not missing axe 3 too much, though it is great),but being able to pile up conditions on a whim is a great addition to the toolkit. I felt I wasn’t getting enough out of my condition.

Overall I’m finding this a much more productive build. I may opt to drop the 10 points in blood for dagger recharge but I think it’s quite good. essentially, daggers are my defensive weapons (condi transfer and life siphon), and axe/focus are offensive. I don’t fee like I’m getting too much out of my condition damage now, however. I’ll try to pay more attention to the bleeds I stack up.

(original build for posterity):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWn0ISPN2bD22AHOm4YomsEOhoDgDYbpcKGCA-TJxHwADeCAW2fAwpAoYZAA

UPDATE 6/29:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAoY3dn0ISPN2bD22AHOoYXok6GgKAiOD+g5ly1YLA-TJxHwADeAAn3fAwJAoYZAA
Check it out, swapped back to axe, the boon stripping in teamfights, retaliation and LF gen is too good to pass up. Speaking of awesome, I finally found a reason to go 10 into spite. I can proc enfeebling shroud, shrouded removal, and spiteful spirit every 7 seconds. jesus. I also dropped 20% spectral CD for 15% DS cooldown.

The argument against necros is that other classes do things like condi cleanse and heal better (although I bet with some of the new traits there is a potential for a pretty mean healing spec out there, just doesn’t seem to practical to me), and has the “wrong” fields (only “relevant” ones in PvE are Fire and Smoke, and some Water is nice).

That said, I think part of stems from the lack of small scale PvE content that really challenges players to their limits, and too many mechanics that favor the zerging meta that I think contributes to the toxicity. I personally believe knocking fire fields down to 1 or 2 stacks of might would still be kitten fine, and that 3 stacks puts every other fields effects to shame, and that FGS should be nerfed as well.

Too many of the dungeons are a non issue, and though I like Fractals, I frankly am not compelled to keep leveling them higher to see just how hard it gets. I think if we had more content that pushed players to the limits we’d start to see the value these other classes provide. Whereas now, the only value is: can you deal lots of damage or stack might? can you reflect projeciles or condi cleanse? This eliminates a lot of the value of something like the utility a necro provides. Boon Stripping is more or less a non issue, and a lot of the utility/defensive conditions like weakness, chill, blind or immobilize aren’t rendered very valuable. Most the content doesn’t hit hard enough to warrant that and creatures ai and tendency to stack up is problematic.

That said, I love the tough world bosses/events they’ve been adding which require a lot of coordination, but I want to see them take another look at 5 man content. It’s in a kitten sorry state. Mechanics by and large are trivial or just a total gimmick and rarely test a player for competence.

Lack of cleaving is annoying but we have lots of powerful cooldowns to rack up AOE damage. If fire fields have been used already I open with Well of Suffering and Poison Cloud, dagger 5, scepter 2, axe 3, DS 5, DS 4, then focus anything that’s still standing after that. That covers most pulls for me. I love COF P2 for that door part of the path. really lets necro aoe shine

I say this as someone who tried a more “useful” class after hearing all the time how bad necros were and trying some PvE zerker builds on my engi that just seemed way less effective. Now, I attribute that a lot to my relative inexperience compared to my necro but still, didn’t really seem that even playing very well would exceeded a necro in usefulness in a big way. I mean, yeah, he has fire fields. But other than that I wasn’t impressed.

I agree that vampire necro isn’t as strong as other survivability options, but I think calling this a vampire necro because it uses the signet is a misnomer. I’d imagine a build for that would take more life stealing traits, here it’s clear that there are a lot of different areas of focus.

I think what’s worth noting is that necros have a lot of interesting options for condi clear whose ramifications differ a lot from straight up condi removal. Well of Power, Dagger 4 and Staff 4 (plague signet as well) all transfer or convert the conditions into something useful, in addition to getting them off of you. Nothing huge, but worth noting in the face of losing consume conditions, something a lot of people I think tend to gloss over when talking CC vs other condi clear for necros.

Additionally, I’d argue the vampire signet offers a lot more aside from just the passive healing, including a larger initial heal on use with increased for 5 seconds after (if dealing damage, some bonus damage with the active, and team utility as well. I’d really like to see if there’s a noticeable increase in DPS on targets with multiple people wailing on a marked target. An extra ~300+ damage per hit per target attacking could add up quickly. I may experiment with using it more as an offensive tool later.

My point being, the healing signets passive heal is all it has going from it aside from a pathetic 3.2k heal.

400 healing a second while being attacked is basically a healing signet. That said, I could change out WOP for some more offensive wells and take Well of Blood and the well CD reduction trait but so far I’ve had good success keeping my life up. The idea was to be constantly making use all of my stat points, since i’m banking on the stat efficiency of celestial items to make me a powerhouse across the board.

So far I’m impressed with the offensive and defensive capabilities, though absorbing sustained burst in teamfights can be quite difficult to deal with. I can’t really get my siphons off but 2 stun breaks helps. I think I just need to get better with using all my abilities to the max of their potential, bouncing in and out of DS efficiently and effectively.

That would actually probably be well worth it, I’m not sure I’d take mark of blood, the 10 second CD is a bit of a turn off. I don’t find it as effective as I’d like. That said, freeing up 10 points to go to say, SR might not be a bad idea, and a bit of condition and boon duration would got a long way considering my current lack of it. I’d be losing almost 300 stat points across the board by switching runes, but those effects are quite nice. Definitely food for thought and I think there’s a build to be had there.

Funny thing is that’s actually what I did for my PvE build to finally drop quickening thirst since I was tired of D/D for my hybrid PvE build.

Some traits I could try with a freed up trait:
Deathly Perception, Foot in the Grave, Soul Marks, Deathly Invigoration
Shrouded Removal and take Well of Power out of the mix for another Utility?
Change up my weapons set entirely? That opens up some possibilities.

For the record, I was using this in soloQ last night as well as some duo team queue with pretty good success. I’m quite pleased with how functional Quickening Thirst is and I think I’m onto something.

I feel very in control with this build. It’s a balancing act of a lot of things, and I think it has a moderately high skill cap. Chain fears are prob my favorite part.

Current build 7/8, explanation further down:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd7Yn0ISPN2bD22A/Nm4Yok6DiOAOgtl6pYICCA-TJxHwADeCAn3fAwJBoYZAA

Playstyle (needs updating, at the core most of this is still true, but the build plays differently now):
Get into teamfights as much as possible, its where you shine. Strip boons, keep your LF and health in check (axe/focus for LF, D/D for healing yourself and removing conditions.) Well of Power and Spectral Wall are powerful utility in team fights that can give your guys an easy edge through condi control, protection and area control. Pop into death shroud as often as possible to proc your bonuses. Dish out AoE, strip boons with path of corruption, fear, death shroud things.

ORIGINAL POST:

Here’s a concept build I’ve been playing with, that started after playing some of the builds Nexed and Mindx have been using, focusing on the powerful life force regen provided by spectral traits (specifically spectral armor). After trying to figure out how to give the builds a more offensive slant without giving up all too much defense, and disenchanted with some of the rune options for them, I wanted something super efficient. I realized how much more raw stats you get from celestial, and given the healing options Mindx’s builds, I thought I could pull it off as all stats are used. I firmly believe Hybrid necros have insane synergy for PvE, so I thought that maybe I could transfer those benefits to PvP as well.

One thing I didn’t like about other builds was its reliance on DS. It was both your offensive and your defensive form, which I think makes both of them a little worse at those jobs. I wanted to reduce reliance on that form, and allow me to use my other weapons more often.

Let me know what you think, and how you’d improve it!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWn0ISPN2bD22AHOm4YomsEOhoDgDYbpcKGCA-TJxHwADeCAW2fAwpAoYZAA

Comments:
D/D is an excellent set of weapons for celestial. Traits that improve the daggers considerably are relatively easy to pick up, with daggers you have strong power, healing, and some decent conditions to boot. Weakness is great in PvP, and hard to come by as Power, usually.

I used quickening thirst for a while in PvE and thought it was quite useful, this allows you to free up a utility slot that might normally be eaten by Spectral Walk, or Warhorn 5. I wanted to use more spectral skills in it’s place (because it’s traited, but perhaps I could drop the 20% trait anyway for something else, the main benefit is double spectral armor), both Spectral Wall and Grasp are acceptable, I found Wall offers a lot more utility though. The defensive utility of it is remarkable with a 7.5 second duration.

-Signet of Vampirism to make sure I’m getting a lot of use of my healing outside of Life Siphons.
-Condi removal: Staff 4, Dagger 4, Well of Power
-Boon stripping: Path of corruption. A little more pragmatic than Corrupt Boon on most fights (since most enemies only have a few boons at a time), and makes death shroud that much more potent. perhaps there’s a build to be with a focus and putting these points elsewhere but by going this deep, I also get Target the Weak, one of my favorite minor traits.

Weaknesses/Places for improvement:
-I wish I was a little beefier again, I’m thinking of other sigil options, perhaps the healing ones, but 3 stacks of might on swap is pretty hard to pass up for anything hybrid because of doubling down. Also I’m looking at rune choices, but I kinda want divinity to work just because of the brick of stats its provides.
-Staff is a solid hybrid weapon I find. Offers me a little of everything (though a little light on power damage, I have plenty of options without it), but I’m curious if it would work with something like scepter/focus d/d. I miss some of the staff traits I was taking before too, but I just don’t think there’s room.
-I toyed with the idea of master of terror since i have 3 fears, but 30% DS recharge is too critical to staying alive all too often.
-

Also, how would something like a celestial amulet do for some of the builds that aren’t extremely healing focused? You get a considerable increase in raw stat points over (roughly 3k vs 2.2k on a normal 3 stat amulet), and it seems like with some of those you’re dealing mixed damage anyway.

Take a look at this build I worked on based on yours (have only played Bruiser, however):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWn0IS5NWcD22AHOm4Zok+BCgmdqKg6h4HCVA-TZxGABA8AACa/hcPCAEcKASqMAA

I’m a little worried this will still be piddly in the offensive department, and the healing might have weakened the focus on my build overall. I still will try it tonight just to see. I’m not even really sure what the strengths are over it. Other considerations I’m thinking of in death magic include swapping -1 condition in DS for staff recharge, and death shiver instead of greater marks. Either way, I think this might actually work as hybridy. I just hate wasting the 30% boon duration increase from death magic. We’ll see if the regen in DS is worth it. At least the Ferocity wont’ be so wasted because of deathly perception.

Since you’re already rolling D/D, why don’t you try x/x/6/2/6, picking up -20% dagger recharge and deathly perception? For a bit more offensive oomph, I mean.

Also maybe a rune set that complements those offensive abilities? Isn’t clerics more than enough healing?

I’m definitely going to try something along those lines tonight. Right now it seems tough to justify taking all that healing though, but it might be fun to have some a lot more options outside of DS, which is a problem with the spectral bruiser.

How’s Mark of Evasion? If you pack 2x energy can you rack up considerable damage and healing with it to ignorant enemies?

A few questions, how valuable is greater marks? Also, how much time do you spend in staff/dagger/DS in a normal fight with the Well Bomber? The playstyle seems like it’d flow a lot different with such a focus on staff skills, but I definitely am curious on how it plays out.

Is rune of the monk the best choice for these? Aside from the one specced for healing others, how dramatic is the impact of the 6 bonus? Seems like you might get more from something like Water. Doesnt’ seem like you have much outbound healing.

Do you try to pop vampire signet immediately before hopping into DS since the passive will be wasted during that time?

I think a 180 radius is so ridiculously small for these types of skills to be any decent. especially when 3 of the 8 classes have moves that teleport them. The amount of times I’ve had an ele thief or mesmer teleport out of the small handful of times I’ve TRIED to make use of this skill is extremely disheartening. I’m honestly not sure if I’ve ever gotten a useful revive out of it.

For reference, Battle Standard’s radius is 600, I know it’s an elite an all but the 180 radius just makes it totally unreliable. For a skill with an 150 second cooldown, that seems rather unacceptable.

Keep going if you want, I’m not used to playing with staff so there were helpful tips there. I thought popping a spectral before DS is counter productive and dropped the bonus LF gen effects?

Is the build in your OP still the one you recommend? I tried it and had a lot of trouble with the playstyle. The vulnerability stacking wasn’t going too well it seemed.

A breakdown of the playstyle might be appreciated.

For example, I’m not really sure when is a good time to use the staff. I use it for the fear and sometimes drop marks to take care of things like clones, but other than that I’m not really sure how to go about using it well. I’m familiar with DS and dagger/warhorn, but don’t understand the flow of using the utilities, or how it all ties together. I assume most the damage comes from sitting in DS, smacking them at close range as they rack up damage and can’t keep you from regenerating LF.

nerf FGS
Nerf fire fields to 1 or 2 stacks of might
make fields overlapping give overlapping bonuses (so a blast finisher activates all the effects in the fields its in). nerf others if necessary

makes burst pve much less effective and less reliant on FGS, allows other forms of support to be a little more prominent through uses of other fields. Right now you’re actively discouraged from using fields other than fire or water…and while I don’t mind a little bit of strategy for using those sorts of things, right now if it’s not fire fields, and maybe sometimes water is okay, you’re kittening stuff up. The other fields buffs just aren’t appealing enough to be worth it, and a lot of it stems from the fact that burst is king. And it always will be, but if you take it down I think it will force players to deal with mechanics a bit more…but more likely it’ll just require further optimization for the best groups. (aka kick out more necros)

When are the smellovision Oculus Rifts going to hit markets?

secret thieves, everywhere

Really? I have lots of issues with point blank “obstructions” and lots of times where they’d only move get pulled about 300 range when I was standing much further (is that a stun breaker being activated or something?). So many problems I stopped running it, despite loving the grasp → dark pact combo.

So far I’m quite pleased with Flesh Wurm. It’s quite a lot of fun anyway, and has definitely saved my kitten a few times. Glad I decided to try it out.

I wish Flesh Wurm just worked like a personal Mesmer Portal :\

Does it have a range limitation or does it just get blocked by Z axis changes?

Interesting, I always just assumed it would get gibbed easily but I bet you can have a LOT of fun with it. Thanks for the advice.

I guess it’s a good thing most the utilities are…utility instead of something you would use 100% of the time, or else they’d just be bland and the straight DPS options would always be the optimal picks.

Mind telling me any of your favorite spots for it on any maps?

I’ve been trying to experiment with solid PvP utilities and while I’ve been enjoying my power builds, wells don’t really seem to do enough most the time, I find. Even when you nail a dark pact into a double well drop, the damage seems underwhelming, and they still don’t seem to get a full duration most the time. Their usefulness seems pretty limited when players are good enough to not stand in them. So I’ve been experimenting with others that give me more guaranteed or diverse utility. Please correct me if you disagree with my analysis of WOS and WOC.

Spectral Armor is probably my constant.

Some other utilities I’ve been considering toying with and why:
Well of Power: Good ability for bunkering down on a point, can help a team out with some removal as well as give yourself a nice safe zone (enemies are unlikely to recognize the difference as well so they’ll probably stand clear regardless knowing that wells = bad)
Plague Signet: Similar team utility, more direct offense as well, but could probably result in some hairy situations unless you pack the condition removal on popping death shroud as an easy out to any nearby allies who accidentally get you in combat.
Corrupt Boon: Great way to drop some beefier classes unexpectedly. BOOM.
Spectral Walk: Move fast around the map, juke fools, a little bonus LF, a classic.
Spectral Wall: Fear enough to get off some big hits, walling off escapes, blocking foes on tight spaces, buying you a neutralize, plus protection! Well rounded utility that offers interesting strategic options.
Blood is power: MORE POWER!!

I was looking at minions as well, I’ve never played much MM so not sure on their merits (especially with no traits to back them up), but a shadow fiend could provide some clutch blinds and a little backup damage, and how often does a flesh wurm attack? Seems to deal considerable damage and a little utility if left alone. Not sure how many hits it can take.

Thoughts? I’m thinking corrupt boon and another spectral skill could be my strongest bets so far. I just don’t think I get enough from wells to take up two slots. Am I just playing wrong?

I’ve experienced this too, on the same bosses. Very annoying since DS is my go to for auto attacking.

What do you like/not like about the classes you’ve listed so far? Maybe we can help figure out the strengths you like most?

At launch I was deciding between Mes/Necro/Engi/Ele, and landed on Necro, which was probably the last one on my list at the time. I was interested in mesmer cause I liked Mesmer in GW1, unfortunately, my main appeal to the class was it’s ability to deny and punish players (lots of hexes were like, “if you’re opponent does X, then Y bad thing happens”) but ANet decided that style of play wasn’t fun to be a victim of, and made the class more about the phantasms, which while cool I wasn’t hooked on. Eles kinda missed the mark too, not sure why. I have a 45 one now but maybe just need some more experience. Engi’s versatility was a close second to Necro, and are still one of my favorite classes. Necros I just enjoyed the hell out of (worth noting, also very different from their GW1 counterpart), I’m not even sure I could tell you why.

Now though, what I enjoy about is it is a class that provides good offensive utility (pretty good for not having good combo fields, anyway), can definitely hold it’s own in the damage department, both single target and aoe, and death shroud is a unique defensive mechanic that allows us to be tricky motherkitteners without having to spec into defense. That defense comes at the cost of traditional defensive techniques used by other classes, such as boons, blocks, vigor, evasion.

What’s interesting about necro is that while our siphons are generally considered decent at best, but largely underwhelming, spells that build life force are in a way, healing of sorts, giving you that extra bit of shielding in death shroud. So when people say “second life bar” they do mean that in a literal sense of it being a second life bar to manage. It’s a very fun mechanic.

I made a thread the other day that got people so into to talking about it it got locked inexplicably. Anet doesn’t want everyone finding out how fun necros are, is my best guess

Bhawb.7408:

Hybrid builds aren’t new at all, they’ve been around for ages. They aren’t as popular because specialization makes things much more simple, in building, playing, and fitting yourself into a team, plus damage types tend to multiply with themselves far better than trying to have a lot of both will.

While normally true, I think necro is a special case because a lot of our ability and trait design intertwine the two. Though admittedly, I haven’t done the math. Dagger 1 spam as power is probably more DPS than most things we can do.

To be fair, this is a ele specifically setup to hose you. Perhaps the trait is too strong, I’m not fit to judge as I’ve never played condi PvP but combined with the -condi food it’s clear they’re using a niche build to try to specifically stop you. In a real PvP situation this would mean backing off or calling for support to take them out, similar to how you would handle tougher bunker builds.

I use both on my pvp power build. Axe/Focus Dagger/Warhorn. Open with axe’s condis and a little burst and switch to dagger for utilities (interrupt, immobilize, siphon if needed) or just raw damage.

For PvE I prefer Axe as well. I generally don’t use the Axe 1 much except to stack a little more vulnerability if it’s needed. The vuln is much more valuable when its benefiting 4+ other people instead of just you. The dagger’s siphon is underwhelming (can be a lifesaver though, don’t get me wrong), and an aoe cripple is generally more useful than a single target immobilize for PvE.

The misleading thing about saying Life Siphon has higher damage is that it also has a longer cast/channel time (I think at least one second longer), which lowers the DPS substantially.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a little of both. Perhaps not coding difficulty, but they don’t want to unbalance Necros, so they devote resources to other things.

Being able to come out of DS at full HP would be easy enough, or near enough to mostly recharge Life Force before DS comes ups again; That’s a little ridiculous for PvP.

Okay, well if that’s done, here’s another awesome thing about DS! We have so many traits that benefit it, do any other classes have as many traits that affect their class mechanic?

Blood Magic
Deathly Invigoration – Heal in an area when you leave death shroud.

Curses
Furious Demise – Gain fury when entering Death Shroud.
Weakening Shroud – Cast Enfeeble when entering death shroud.

Death Magic
Death Shiver – Constantly apply vulnerability to nearby foes while in death shroud.
Shrouded Removal – Lose a condition when you enter death shroud.

Soul Reaping
Each point in Soul Reaping increases the Life force pool by 5%.
Deathly Perception – Increases critical-hit chance while in death shroud.
Foot in the Grave – Gain stability when you enter death shroud.
Near to Death – Reduces recharge on Death Shroud.
Speed of Shadows – Increases movement speed while in death shroud.
Vital Persistence – Life force drains slower while in death shroud.
Path of Midnight – Reduces recharge on death shroud skills.
Spite
Spiteful Spirit – Gain retaliation when entering death shroud.