Guild Wars 2

Lmao wait… so the protection and fear are counted together? So only 10 targets, which includes allies? If so… wtf.

I think quicker Life Blast would be nice.

Making Dark Path ground targeted would be reallllllyyyy strong, and if this happened I could see base Necro being picked up easily.
Or Dark Path could work like Phase Traversal from Revenant – a small channel and then an instant teleport to the target, unaffected by line of sight. Teleport even when out of range. Wherever you teleport, you do your AoE. It could also use some finishers…. maybe #5 being a blast?

All Reaper has is HP. No stealth, no blocks, no evades… little heals. It needs lots of hp to survive when it has nothing else.

People need to remember all the sources of chill we can apply. For example… I’m playing a certain build, and I don’t notice any significant “omg I can’t play anymore” damage drop.
I use Spectral Wall, and each time an enemy bumps into it, they get 1 bleed, from the chill. I can stack one bleed from using Infusing Terror, and two more bleeds from staff #3 and #5. Sure, you used a lot more abilities, but the amount of bleeds I can stack is at times a lot higher than it was with the old Deathly Chill. With the above scenario, the enemy will have at least 5 bleeds on them and you didn’t even use RS #5 or #4. If we count in sigils, he can have 7+ bleeds.

Another thing, don’t forget Frost Aura. Sure, you can only use it when you do RS#5, but Frost Aura = more bleeds when the enemy hits you (at least 2-3 bleeds from it if he keeps attacking). And allied eles can give you frost auras too.

Edit: I am very much not against changing the effect to something like Torment (Runes of Torment synergy) or changing it to something like “apply bleed when you hit chilled foe” with a 1 sec internal CD.
I haven’t tried roaming after this nerf but I’m pretty sure it has taken a hit.

How about we just give everybody Viper and have that as the only amulet?

(jk)

^ not a single truth there.

Power Rev, Scrapper, Druid, Tempest. None of them are condi and yet they’re really really bunkery, as bunkery (or more) than something like a Reaper.

You do not deal more damage with a condi build than a power one. I consistently do MORE overall damage on a power rev than on my Reaper. Also, with my Reaper, at least 30% – 40% is actually power damage.

Far easier to stack condis than landing a physical attack? They’re literally the same. You use skills upon target x and deal damage. Landing both is exactly the same, except one is instant and the other takes time. You also HAVE to be able to stack conditions so your damage is significant. A single bleed sucks.

Basically this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2s56IQzsBE

ronpierce.2760:

Bhawb.7408:

Radu.1693:

Sorry 3.4k, with only 6 might using wanderer’s.

You got all 30 stacks of bleeding using just that trait alone?

Doubtful, at best RS5->4 should be 11 stacks of bleeding (5 ticks and 6 whirls), 12-13 if you have sigils and other procs.

Yeah… I was thinking that too… He can also get 1 stack from infusing terror. I think it’s probably sigils and since he’s running wanderer, bleeds from crits?

Lexan.5930:

So, rune of the kait anyone?

YES!

I used to play Wanderer Amulet with Nightmare runes with Dhuumfire and Deathly Chill. Damage was insane but you were fairly squish.

I tried Mercenary Amulet with Krait runes today after the patch and tbh… the damage seemed just fine. It was like condi duration from Wanderer but tankyness of Mercenary.. on top of the 1050 power :^) Thieves weren’t as big of a problem anymore, revenants were a bit easier…
Need to test further but… I think there’s something there

Hmm….

This is both good and bad. Well.. it’s bad… but I think there’s some wiggle room in making it good.

If you do Executioner’s Strike, the chilling field will also now apply AoE bleed. It won’t be nearly as strong as before, but while we’re in DS we’ll have access to bleeds, which we didn’t really have before… and I think this kinda opens up interesting possibilities. Soul Spiraling in Executioner Strike has the potential to apply AoE bleed. Also not as strong as before, but it’s not insignificant, imo. If you do a full combo with RS, you can apply like about 10 bleeds to a group, which is a lot stronger than Deathly Chill was before.

Out of shroud, the overall damage will be reduced. We’ll have less burst but I think we still have the potential to deal good damage over time since the bleeds are super long. The bleed will be decent against classes that have -chill duration traits and will be decent against Revenants and thieves. The bleeds will also always deal damage, even if the target already had a chill from another source, so Reaper stacking could become a thing.

From a cover condi point of view, if you take Path of Corruption and Chilling Darkness, your Death’s Charge will apply like… 5 condis (blind, chill, bleed, 2 corrupts)… and if you got Torment sigil, that’s 1 more possible condi. Or if you’re running Spite, each chill will apply 3 condis (Chill, Vuln, Bleed), which is pretty nice… but I agree that bleeds would already be on the target to begin with so a single cleanse could just wipe everything off.

So far it seems… alright, in my opinion.

Video of spamming 1 and using utilities, as in the video above.

I dueled some decent players but for the 5v5s, I qued in unranked where the skill level wasn’t…. the best. At first I steam rolled through several matches and literally all it took was spamming 1. After I started facing more competent opponents (more skilled, or in a pre-made), the 1-spamming strategy was… as you’ll see.

Enjoy

Ross Biddle.2367:

The question that has to be asked is: Why can’t even a newb beat a reaper who’s only using scepter 1 spam?

You’re assuming these guys are newbs, of course.

Anyway, read the subject info. The guy doesnt overstate his case at all. In fact, he states he is a complete necro newb XD. Newb vs Newbs = balanced matchup.

A noob Reaper can play that build because
a) it’s only an auto attack and nothing else.
b) the utilities are self explanatory – use corrupt boon on enemy boons, use plague signet when you have condis, use Spectral Armour as a stun break.

They seemed quite new to be honest. And noob vs. noob in a 1v1 is hardly a representation of the actual game. Not only do more experienced opponents know how to react to a Necro (using cleanse wisely, get up in the Necro’s face so he can’t use scepter 1, line of sight, interrupt heal, etc.) but in reality, in sPvP you will have more than 1 enemy attack you. You cannot kite a revenant and spam 1 on the other target while both of them are attacking you.

I am making a video with a copy of his build, but with an actual representation against skilled opponents in 1v1s and an actual 5v5 sPvP match.

Shala.8352:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVO1okVpj2Q

LMAO, I just saw this. Was this an actual match sPvP match or just terrible 1v1s against people who barely knew how to play? Half of their armour looks like they literally just made a character they never played before and wore the baseline armour. I dunno about you, but when I see someone who loves their class, they actually look super shiny or distinct or… hipster.

If you want to make a point, post a video of fighting real people who actually know how to play. You could easily make the same type of video spamming 1 with a druid longbow or a trap dragonhunter against newbies. Put a cute song in the background and you got yourself a video.

sephiroth.4217:

Reaper is a very easy class to play, so easy it’s almost like playing a trap guardian.

We got a huge buff on Scepter AA, it wasn’t needed if you already knew your builds and skills but what ever, we got it.

You will find comments like “no skill” due to the simple fact that all we need to do to win a fight now is AA them to death. A skilled Necro will obviously use everything and be a lot more efficient at it, but in general the “average” skill base will be too busy focusing the Rev while the “Skill-less Necro” is standing there spamming AA and most likely not even moving.

I’ve never seen a Necro spamming auto attack the whole game. Good luck doing that with a good Revenant on you. Or Druid. Or in-your-face scrapper. Speaking of spamming auto attacks – longbow ranger/druid? :^) sure seems like that’s all they do, but that’s cuz longbow is annoying and you always notice when it hits you, same as Necro scepter. I agree boon corrupt is…. a lot… for an auto attack but the amount of boons and cleanse in this game is crazy.

^ lol.

People hate condis and Reapers have a very nice amount of them. And if you got a crappy team compo (i.e. no one with cleanse), you’ll be in for a bad ride. So for most people it’s much easier to say “Reapers take no skill” than actually looking at what THEY themselves are doing wrong. I can tell a pretty big difference between the good and bad Reapers. What separates them? Skill…

And also -lol. A block or evade can be worth 10k HP or more. So saying a large HP pool is op isn’t correct. Some professions have a lowish health pool but have several blocks or evades… or stealth, or heals (tempest), which can be worth as much, or more than just a large health pool (especially when getting focused).

I have been trying Terrormancer Reaper in sPvP lately… well… I only played it for several games and needs further testing, but I found it to be really strong. I used this build (similar to what Quaman posted):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZakjGKvxibwvG4vxSwgFXEXiRRqrwU4XFl0CANAA-TpwXABAs/QnlBAA

The corrupt boon on stability is cray-zee with Reaper. Again, I need to play it more to figure out how it fares, but from what I’ve seen, it seems really strong (especially if you time your fears like Infusing Terror and then slice ‘em with Dhuumfire as they’re taking Terror damage and Deathly Chill damage).

I think it’s gonna be a mix of buffs and slight nerfs tbh. On the one hand, Necros have a lot of boon corrupting now. This was done deliberately – they added it on Enfeebling Blood and Weakening Shroud, dagger #3 and all the other stuff, so it was deliberate. Anet isn’t really well known for reverting changes (from what I’ve seen) so I doubt condi corrupts themselves will be removed, especially since HoT is full of boon spamming all over the place, so something is needed to keep them in check. I COULD see some damage nerfs in terms of the durations of condis on certain skills or the amount of stacks certain skills apply (for example, Enfeebling Blood could be reduced to 1 stack because if it corrupts certain boons, it can cause 3 confusion, 2 bleeds, poison, etc, which is pretty strong).

But tbh, I think Necros are nasty, but they’re not THAT over the top. They’re really, really not as broken as condi revenants were and bunker mesmers. Personally, I’m not expecting any game-breaking nerf… A nerf might hit us, and if it does, at least all the people playing it for the sake of “overpowered” will be done >:)
… and I can see buffs to some of the unused weapons or traits

“condi berseker, condi chrono, condi reaper and additional condis from scrapper with elixir gun, druid etc etc”

Condi Berserker? I’ve seen about 2 of those (running Carrion amulet, which is hybridy, not pure condi like Wanderer or Rabid would be), in over 100 games.
Condi Chrono, sure, those are abundant.
Condi Reaper, sure, those are abundant.
Condis from scrapper? What? Going from Amber to Legend, I haven’t seen one condi scrapper.
Condi from Druid. What? There’s condi druids?

I feel like you dislike condis, which is fine… but you can’t just bring out every random condi build out there and say “omg condis are overwhelming” just to strengthen your point. In a given match, you’ll have a team composition which goes something like this:
-Reaper
-Chrono
-Tempest
-Reve
-Druid/Scrapper

You got 2 condi builds in there (which often run Mercenary, which is sort of hybridy and not pure condi), you got a support bunker, and you got 2 power builds. What am I missing here? 2 condi, 2 power.

Supreme.3164:

In my memory the only dd skill that can reach 5k+ dmg despite all the protection/toughness in game would be…precision strike and the skill is made up 3 projectiles with flying animation, enough to dodge some of them even at close distance ( 180 radius min ) and the range is 600

Let’s be fair. I can use a rev hammer auto attack and sit at the back and score instant 1.5k -2k auto attacks. With quickness, that’s on average around 3k damage per second. Mix in Shiro heal air/blood sigils and the damage goes even higher. That’s on average 5k damage per second. Sword auto attack? Same deal.

Hammer #2 can reach 5k, AoE, from a distance. Unrelenting Assault can reach 5k. Surge of the Mists can reach 5k, AoE. Precision Strike, Equilibrium+Hydromancy can reach 4kish, Facet of Elements can reach 5k through a few pulses…
So saying you can easily do 5k damage instantly with a power build is very realistic and yes, many/most of those are AoE.

Supreme.3164:

Against power you have :
-Toughness
-protection
-weakness

Now against condition we have only:
-condi clear
-resistance

Actually, vitality is to condi as toughness is to power damage. Having 20k hp as opposed to 13k hp – which one will die quicker to condis? 13k hp.

Another point – might actually scales better with power attacks. Having 25 might with a power build makes a much bigger difference, imo. Might = increased power which then scales with critical damage, vuln, and damage modifiers so the effect magnifies. Condi dmg? Still condi damage, nothing increasing them further, only vuln.

And this still doesn’t explain the fact that all of the power builds can run fairly glassy amulets and STILL have insane tankyness… so it doesn’t even matter if they ran glassy, they’re still very tanky.

babazhook.6805:

The real issue with Condition builds is the same as it is with power builds. There might be certain individual attacks that are “overtuned”. Some suggest COR does too much damage. Some suggest True shot does too much damage. Some suggest DH traps does too much damage. Some suggest vault does too much damage. While offering no opinion on each of these skills when one debates whether are not the damge too high on these attacks, we do not conclude that “all power attacks are too powerful and power needs to be toned down”. We address each of these skills individually.

The same applies to Conditions and the fallacy of the argument that “Conditions need to be toned down” is made evident , as others have pointed out, that only a small handful of classes can make truly competitive Condition builds. If it was as bad as claimed than those would be the only builds we see.

Agreed 100%. But for some reason when a condition damage attack hits you, the first reaction is “omfg condis” but if someone hits you with something like Gunflame, Trueshot, DH traps, Vault, etc. etc. people QQ the specific skill and “omfg power dmg” doesn’t even get mentioned, no matter how broken the attack. I think with condi attacks, most people don’t even know what skill hit them. For example, Soul Spiral hits someone and they scream “omg the condis!”… well.. it’s a specific, high damage attack that hit you, not “omg random spam condis”.

And for those saying power Revenant has bad survivalbility… what? I’d say that at times, it feels like it has better survivalbility than a Reaper. Dodge, dodge, evade, dodge, evade, dodge, block, evade, dodge, block, evade, dodge. Essentially you can be completely immune to damage (if you wanted) for a really, really long time and that’s with a glassy amulet or any amulet for that matter. So when people say “yeah you can build condi and still be tanky”… in a way that’s true, but the power specs nowadays (when compared to a commonly used condi spec – Reaper) have a TON of damage immunity or mitigation so it doesn’t matter if you’re squishy, you can still tank like it’s nothing. I can easiiillyyy tank a point with a Revenant against 2 enemies for quite some time with a fairly glassy amulet.
On top of that, on average, my damage output seems higher with a power Revenant (end of game statistics) then with Reaper. And even then, a chunk of Reaper damage is actually power (if you check your end of game statistics).

I love when people QQ condis… especially when they call it spam. I used to play only condi because that’s my preferred playstyle, but honestly, after playing power revenant, there’s nothing OP about condition damage being the way it is. Dealing instant 5k+ with hammer from afar with 2k+ auto attacks is the same deal as a condi but in a different package. With condi, you have to wait 5 hours whereas with power you instantly deal the damage.

Or when people call it “spam”. Just learn to play already. I fought a streamer recently who was spamming headshot at me as I was trying to auto attack and he got lots of “interrupt” and cried how all I’m doing is spamming skills when in fact I was just trying to auto attack. Yes, I was a condi Necro. So for some reason any skill I use is automatically spamming? Wtf? I’m doing as much “spamming” with a power class as I am with a condi class. Press 1 button = damage in both cases except for some reason people get really annoyed when their health drains over time.

After 3 years.. when will you learn. When will you learn..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5d42w4ZcY4

Pretty much this….

@ Flumek, Yeah it’s true that a few classes are sort of in the bottom tier but it’s always like that and it sucks. I’ve still seen some decent thieves, DHs and warriors tho (altho good warriors are…. rare).

@Apolo, yeah it is a bit crazy that pretty much all the classes which are “at the top” right now have really nice sustain and really nice damage. I think it would be OP in the past, but if every one of the top classes can do the same it balances out.

In light of many negative posts floating about, I decided to make a positive one. As the title says, I actually enjoy this meta and this season. There isn’t anything as overpowered as condi rev or bunker mes and the matches are actually fun (had many reallllyyy close and crazy matches). I went through some Sapphire and most of Ruby fighting Diamonds (my duo Q friend was Diamond) and then solo qued Diamond and well… it was actually fun. I could relate to people disliking previous season but this season, imo, seems pretty well balanced. Everything has some kind of counter (except Moa I guess) and there’s no nail that sticks out as much as condi rev and bunker mes last season. This season is probably the most fun I’ve personally had in sPvP after HoT came out. Yup… I said it

How can you lump all Reaper specs into one and just call it “Chill Reaper”… ofc every Reaper uses chill, that doesn’t mean it’s all one spec.

As if this even happens often. I’ve had people afk mayyyyybe 2 times going to Legendary…

^ the stability only works in shroud… which means the Reaper is melee and can be kited. Not to mention he CC spam when you’re melee is insane. Either way, another Necro loooooves when you use your RS#3… just corrupt and keep fearing the poor guy
Sure, I play Necro and Rev but I fail to see how necros are an issue, especially when they stack on a team. A good tempest can reduce reaper dps by a poop ton…

Lmfao. OP never suggested buffing MOA. He suggested buffing Moa FORM. Meaning? Buff what you, as a player, can do WHILE in moa form. In other words it would make it easier for you to survive when you are being moad because, for example, skill #2 could be an evade, or skill #5 could have increased range so you dash farther. Basically it would be nerf to moa. I really don’t get why people are misunderstanding so much.

I’m enoying PvP a lot lately.. as well as this meta.
100x better than last meta by a mile and a half.

And how did that person get themselves in that chat situation to begin with?
If you were depressed, why would you announce it to a PvP lobby?

I agree that chat can be really ridiculous sometimes, but it’s SO easy to ignore it. I might as well mute it and it wouldn’t affect me in any way what so ever. There is no need to engage in it tbh, especially not anything sensitive or personal. Would you announce your problems to a group of random people waiting for a bus irl?

You can just alt+tab while waiting for a que or something and not even care about the chat.

Me reacting to people complaining about condis over….and over…. and….over……… …. … …. again….

I win against 4-Necro teams all the time… 3 Necro teams all the time… 2 Necro teams all the time.

Spell = a skill. In GW2 every ability is called a “skill”. Everyone has skills so spell meta doesn’t make sense because every single skill in the game is essentially a “spell” in a way.

Anyway… so many people are bothered by condis and when I look at what they play, they have literally 0 defense against condis. What do you expect will happen?
Meanwhile I hit people for 100000k with a hammer rev with POWER damage from Saturn.

Also: say hi to shout tempests.

The new BLs are 10x better. People are just too busy sticking their head in their own butt to go and try it out. The old maps were utterly, utterly boring and there was nothing exciting about em. Come on, for like 3 years the mid part of the map was avoided like the plague… which is a huge chunk of the map and suddenly people forgot about this. Being entitled and spoiled and afraid of change doesn’t mean a map sucks.

*grabs popcorn *

EremiteAngel.9765:

your additional face pictures and text were awesome rofl
a good watch!

Haha ty, glad people are enjoying them :P there will be a lot more of where those came form >:)

rchu.8945:

hi, few noob questions:
– is travel speed an issue for you guys in WvW? Interesting builds, but I always play classes that has some sort of speed buff, reapers just seem slow
- can these builds work with viper set?

-Yes travel speed is really important in WvW, unless you have stealth (Mesmer and Thief). Everything else, in my opinion, needs good movement speed (swiftness or trait that gives move speed), otherwise you’ll get run over.
-Reapers can have good movement speed. For example some Reapers like to use Locust Signet. Some like using warhorn or spectral walk for movement speed. You could also use Runes of Traveler, Runes of Pack (if you’re power), Sigil of Agility, etc. There’s a few ways to get decent movement speed, just depends on your build. Reaper is slow, but doesn’t have to be. If you run a certain setup to what I have ( -condi runes, -condi food, Relentless Pursuit trait), you won’t notice any slows… and it can work for power builds, condi builds or hybrid builds.
-You could use a Viper set with the build, yes, but it will be a lot glassier. Depends how much Viper you have – full set, a few pieces or? It think it can work. You’d have a lot more damage but you’ll be squishier.

PadreNike.1803:

Ty Methane for the great tips! I just started necro a week ago and this thread along with the videos on your YouTube channel have been great help to get into the class, I’m loving it

Glad I could help! I appreciate it
The Necro forums lately have been one of the most active ones in terms of videos
we shall welcome a new one into our dark army gladly >:D

Dead.5829:

Those were fun to watch!

Glad you enjoyed em

PadreNike.1803:

Yo Meth, check this out, not impressive videos by any means just a showcase of how tanky/sustainy the build is and how good it is in escaping the brink of death :-)
It does amazing 1v1s vs just about anything as well I just don’t really capture any 1v1 footage as it’s pretty lame (especially in EOTM), the build shines in outnumbered fights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pfePrhkR2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9lzjYIPgZQ
This is the final build btw:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kZTo4Gs2GwbTgeTsUNYSDgAQwi6FcDuUxbwRYKE-T1yCABA8AAIUJ4XKzk4QA0umg61DwlSDkPCA0s/Q/q/QxJAgQAKmDA-w

Yo Nike! :P
Well played sir Those jukes brought a tear to the eye haha. The thieves really wanted you…
The build is very nice.. the heals you got from Unholy Sanctuary were pretty crazy… I think at one point you went from like 200 health to 3k… which is crazy. Interesting choice of healing skill too… lots of life force and then healing in shroud from Unholy Sanctuary… and good synergy with Runes of Grenth for easy chills…

-I liked how you used shroud often. Some Necros tend to barely touch it and it’s not an easy thing to get into (especially when coming from another profession). The quick leaps with shroud (go into shroud, leap, exit shroud) was good but try to let Death’s Charge go a lil bit further before exiting shroud. I usually try to exit shroud right before the “puff of smoke” at the end of the skill cuz the leap actually goes pretty far. (I exit before the puff of smoke cuz.. I dunno if it’s just me, but it seems like the puff of smoke part of the skill immobilizes you for a split second…).

-Good use of camera-look back!

Also I would suggest that when you activate Spectral Armour, and when you use Locust Swarm to use your shroud then. Those things make you super tanky and you can stay in shroud for at least 10 secs when they’re up (not necessarily both of them at the same time, but at least one of them)…. which means really nice heals from Unholy Sanctuary.
—Or something like Locust Swarm --> Rise —> use shroud. Locust Swarm = lots of life force, Rise = lots of tankyness so in a way it’s even MORE shroud and…. shroud = heals :P

I would give a tip to increase the rotation speed of your camera . You can find it in the options – that way you can quickly pan the camera around to face enemies or away from enemies.

Keep it up!

well done, very enjoyable to watch.

Thank you

This was supposed be like a funny post… but the reaction is to be expected. It’s the same as, for example, making a video facing 5 dragonhunters or 5 druids or 5 glassy revenants and then raging “OMG TRAPS FFS!” “OMG THE PET DMG OMG THE SUSTAIN” or something silly like that. Of COURSE you’ll get flamed when you post something like that. You face a condi team and there was no way of knowing they were condi and it was rough. If you knew they were all condi, you could easily counter it. On the other hand, the opponents could have easily been an annoying power spec. For some reason as soon as it’s “condi” it’s stigmatized. There’s so much AoE condi clears being thrown around in the game that I’m surprised people find it that difficult or annoying to fight… I find druids/scrappers/DHs 10x more annoying than most condi specs.

flow.6043:

Cool build, cool gameplay. Very enjoyable watch.

Thank you sir!

Holl.3109:

You really hate asura’s O-o

*hides my elementalist *

You have a tiny one? :O …nowhere is safe! >: )

(I actually love asuras :P )

PadreNike.1803:

Ty so much for the detailed reply!
And yah the goal was to make myself super tanky while still having enough counter to condi’s, the need for rise and spectral armor came from using sage amulet in spvp which has 0 toughness but since i use trailblazer (don’t exist in spvp) in wvw you can easily the replace spec armor with flesh wurm, you are still tanky AF especially in shroud
I wish I could use blood magic too but it feels a little lacking vs condi’s and sustain as most of your heals are from using shroud 4, the thing I found is that it must hit in order to heal which becomes a problem when a Zerg is after my kitten and I’m low health, if it would heal regardless of hitting it would be much better.
I made some changes to the gear I feel celestial accessories make more sense and provide more dmg too (both power & condi):
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo4Gs2GwbTgeTsANYSNgAwyKOF2CnhU5ggQoC-TlSAQBK4QAEtjAwBV/JNKzMjSDPcCAAwDAISKBvn+Afs/AhAUMHA-w

Oooo.. Sage amulet is an interesting choice…. I’d think it could have nice synergy with blood magic :o …. could dish out some nice support for allies :P I never got to try the new amulets yet X_X
Death Magic must be really nice against all those other pesky condi people you find tho especially other Necros.

Build’s looking good Might seems easy to stack with such long chills so condi dmg would go up and power as well.
Have you considered something like Sigil of Torment or Sigil of Frailty instead of Agony? Those would be some nice cover condis for the build. I know I keep bringing it up, but I think when you have a lot of random condis (doesn’t even have to be a damaging condi), when the enemy uses condi cleanses, they can remove that irrelevant cripple or something while your bleeds tick away. It’s really good vs. druids/scrappers/tempests.

Ropechef.6192:

Zerg surfing king,

Love it Methane, it is always a pleasure seeing you do what you do.

Haha, thank you!

PadreNike.1803:

Do you find parasitic contagion better than weakening shroud? From my (very little) necro experience the heals from that trait felt negligible.
If going for heals what do you think about replacing Curses with either death magic for “Unholy Sanctuary” or with blood magic for “Life from death” and “Transfusion” combo? With some apothecary accesories you can get some nice heals in shroud.
EDIT: this the build I had in mind:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kjGo4Gs2GwbTgeTsANYU5ggQoSqBEAWWxpwW4ME-TlSAQBe4EAEtjAwBV/xRKBHjyAfs/gZU69hDBAN0HAgHAAhAUMHA-w
Even with cheap kitten food you get 100% chill duration, it’s similar to what I use in pvp with decent success so far (as much as unranked is a representation of pvp)

That build seems really interesting as well – spectral attunement with spectral armour and walk = super tanky, and Rise on top of that… I actually don’t see many people use stuff like that. I think those utilities would make you super tanky xD I have no experience with wurm-less Necro so I dunno how the mobility would be though…

-Death magic has really nice condi clears so that’d make up for the loss of antitoxin+ bean buns… and Unholy Sanctuary would make up for Parasitic Contagion. So I think Death Magic could be a viable replacement.

-Blood Magic could be as well, because it is reallllllyyyyyy nice with warhorn on a Reaper… although Life from Death could make up for Parasitic Contagion, if I took Blood Magic, I would for sure, 100% take Banshee’s Wail. Banshee’s Wail is imo one of the strongest traits that a Necro has… but it’s in blood magic >_> you get constant life force and the life leech you could get from Locust Swarm and Soul Spiral could be really nice in terms of heals… I did a quick calculation and I think you’d get easy 3k – 4k heals if you’re in the middle of 5 enemies… and you also get the free regen when you dodge from Mark of Evasion… so overall I think it could replace the heals from Parasitic Contagion… but you could lack condi clears.
-I was actually thinking of making a similar build using blood magic when roaming with friends – sort of semi-support but tanky as well… I think Reaper/SR/Blood has a lot of really nice potential to fill a tanky support role.
…My only issue with Blood magic is the complete lack of cover condis. It has life leech – which is a bit of damage, but when you’re in a condi build, having a whole bunch of random condis is more valuable imo. Soul Reaping and Reaper lines both don’t have any cover condis. Spite, for example, has the constant vuln and also condis you get from corrupts when using signets or Spiteful Spirit. Curses – the 2 corrupts from Path of Corruption (which is AoE and low cooldown) and I guess Barber Precision.

-I think in sPvP Weakening Shroud is better than Parasitic Contagion. I think corrupts are just.. better in sPvP. Not only that but the weakness is arguably better defense than a bit of heals. If I used Parasitic contagion in sPvP, I think it wouldn’t be very useful cuz stuff gets cleansed pretty quickly so you’d get no heals. In WvW, I think it’s definitively worth it. I notice a real drop in sustain when I don’t take Parasitic Contagion. In the 2nd video there’s some clips where you see the amount of heals you could get from it and they can add up a lot… If you do a condi bomb on a group and teleport away, you can easily get several thousand hp. I love using it on NPCs too for free heals.

TL:DR I think both Death and Blood would be viable in terms of survival and healing but you would probably lack a bit of damage, at least if you’re roaming solo (not necessarily the case if in a group).
I think Parasitic contagion is really nice in WvW, but I still think Weakening Shroud is better for sPvP …. sorry for the ramble xD

Stand The Wall.6987:

Zerg surfing, where did you hear that from, do you remember? Im always curious to know where certain phrases originate from.

I’m honestly not too sure. I used to spend roaming nights with the guild over 2 years ago and we always messed with zergs (was on one of the lowest tier servers for the first few years of GW2 and was always outnumbered fighting enemy zergs)…. so we always called it “zerg surfing”. I can’t remember where the term originated from though but it stuck xD

Hello peeps!

If you find yourself bored, please do enjoy a clip or two of Reaper zerg surfing in WvW. Both videos were made largely for entertainment, in their own way

The first video focuses largely on roaming with a few wave-surfings in between and is the shorter of the two. This video took eons to export (5 hours or more) because of silly error messages but I got it to work by reducing the quality a bit so hopefully it was worth it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P0zq737sjA&feature=youtu.be

The second video is more of just zerg diving and tanking with a few battles in between and some jukez… aaaaaand some asura hunting O.o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psw5gcTU9V8

Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZakjG6txibwvG4vxSxgR9EuC3q4f4QMJGFA+WdLA-TVyCQBjRJYBV/Ba7PoC9BYRpXFVGMtTAAAOEAU4JAEA4AwyLv8yLvckCov5AA-w
The build is pretty much all set now but it is quite expensive to put together (Trailblazer armour and Sweet Bean Buns) but is very worth it, imo. Of course, there’s always different playstyles and different people like different things, but I just love tankyness and being immune to roots/slows. Just the immunity to slows/roots increases anyone’s survivalbility by 100 times. Often being rooted means you’ll likely be hard-CCed next… and being immune to roots/slows means this will happen less frequently.
-Last thing about gear- Giver weapons COULD be swapped out for Trailblazer but you’d lose crit chance and about 12% condi duration. You’d gain ~200 toughness and condi damage though. Personally, I’m not sure what’s stronger.

The one weakness I found that the build has is other condi Necros (mostly signet Reapers with Plague Signet). Aside from that, I haven’t ran into anything that I felt couldn’t be handled… and if I saw a group with a lot of condi, I swapped Chilling Darkness for Plague Sending. If I’m fighting non-condi people, their condis are so insignificant I usually use Putrid Mark to either blast Spectral Wall, blast Chilblains for some weakness or blast shroud #5 for frost aura.

Hope you enjoy!

(p.s. Bean Buns give +15% condi and -20% condi. The build calc. wasn’t updated)

I like the new ones a lot more. The old ones just felt… “cold” and not really fun. The terrain was too bland and open, nothing really exciting in it except the middle part which they brought. The middle part was awesome but no one ever went there because nothing of interest was there… which left the surrounding map. It had nothing interesting in it – almost no verticality, almost no cool places to kite or teleport to or juke enemies, etc. Sure, it had SOME good places, but most people didn’t even go there (centaur camp, skrit camp, etc.) – places with cool terrain you can kite around or teleport to or hide behind. The new map has lots of interesting areas like that, but I feel like they are placed in areas where people are more prone to visit and fight in, which created interesting fights.

The new map has so much diversity in it. It has lots of little alleyways and bridges you can use to escape, lots of nice choke points, places to juke zergs, etc. It also has excellent places to teleport to (like the hanging bridges/towers in the middle of the map). The keeps are also really wacky and interesting and imo super fun to roam in. I’ve spent quite some time roaming within the red keep while it was being invaded and it actually feels like the keep is being stormed by enemy troops (as silly as it sounds) and it feels like one person, or a small roaming group could easily make a difference.

The new map is also a lot nicer to look at and uses a lot of warmer colours which gives it a nice feel. I used to spend the first however many years roaming almost exclusively in EB because I did not like the BLs… now I’m starting to like BLs more because the fights there are so much more dynamic and interesting. I think Anet did a really nice job making the maps, and I think people don’t play it because 1) they don’t like change (almost no one does, at first) and that drove it to point 2) people refused to play the map because of point #1, and this made the maps empty. Since the maps were empty, people wanted to play them even less. So one thing led to another.
Just my opinion

This is all from a roaming perspective

Akuni.8604:

Anchoku.8142:

I agree. Boon corruption on scepter will seriously counter builds with constant boon generation or those that use boons as counters, themselves.

Also, Corrupt Boon (I think it was) will get a much shorter cool down for more on-demand responsiveness, though the number of boons corrupted will be less.

The change coming Tuesday will give Necromancer a lot more boon hate capability. It is not merely boon stripping, which boon-spam professions can ignore, but corruption to some potentially suicidal conditions.

Taken together, the change to scepter and CB seems to imply Arenanet wants to take the boon punch-bowl away and force more active strategy into their use.

If you’d actually know Necro you’d know that corrupt boons is a corruption skill ans therefore has a self condi attached. Basically if someone spams CB they perma poison themself. So op, right?!

You guys are not designers. None of us is. Stop crying as you don’t even remotely have the bigger picture here.

It would be more like 40% uptime of poison (base is 6 secs of poison while the cooldown of the skill is 15 secs)… unless you use condi duration amulets+runes, which brings it to up to 9 secs or so. 6 – 9 secs is still a lot and I don’t know how that’s gonna play out in terms of self-damage. When I use the current version of corrupt boon, I rarely notice the self-damage, but it will become a lot more noticeable since it’ll be on a 15 sec cooldown and a necro doesn’t really wanna waste its condi transfers… so it might be a slow suicide. I’m hoping they reduce the poison duration to like… 3 secs, maybe 4. Reduced cooldown, reduced poison – seems fair.
Although… if we compare the two boon corrupts (40 sec cooldown vs 15 sec cooldown)… the current version will corrupt 5 boons every 40 secs. The new version would corrupt 9 boons in 45 secs. In about the same amount of time, it corrupts almost twice as many boons – a lot less bursty but a lot more boons corrupted over the course of a battle. Now add in the scepter change. With the new scepter on top of that, it will be a whole lot of boons being converted into a condi…. easily 5+ boons corrupted on a target every 15 secs. In a team fight that’s really not a huge issue imo because there’s SOOOOO many AoE boons just being thrown around everywhere. Tempests, Revenants, Druids, Scrappers all have permanent boons and even Necros can stack up a ton of might easily. But on the other hand.. if you think about it.. 5+ boons corrupted every 15 secs is pretty deadly.

Before I used Path of Corruption in WvW, fights against Tempests, Druids and Scrappers (and even Dragonhunters) were an uphill battle because they slowly stacked might and got stronger and stronger the more the fight went on. Not to mention they had like 100 other boons while I just had my little swiftness and might -_- With one simple change (taking Path of Corruption) those professions became a piece of cake… and that was with just 2 boon corrupts – no more might, no more regen, no more vigor. Now you’ll be able to achieve the exact same thing but from range with scepter which to me seems pretty kitten strong. We’ll have to wait and see how it’ll play out. There’s a ton of condi removal and boons in the game anyway :P

You are severely underestimating boon corrupts peeps!
I’m hoping it’s not as good as I think it will be…. but if it is… *que dramatic music *

Yes but a Mesmer is a few things which a necro isn’t…
1) squishy – if you go in and wack your sword to remove boons… all it takes is a random stray AoE spell and you get rekt
2) Melee. Necro does it from range.
3) Boon corrupt - doesn’t just remove, but turns it into a condition
4) You do spend some time auto attacking since you can. With a corrupt, you’ll spend a lot of time auto attacking simply because it will wreck your target…

I like the change but I would haaatteee for a nerf to happen because of it. But then again.. depends on the nerf. A bleed duration reduction, for example… would be ok.

Sometimes if the target is running away it helps to de-select our target and then leap. Your guy will leap towards the person with no awkward stopping. The skill is kinda awkward but there’s lil perks you can use to make it easier it lands. It seems to work better if you’re farther away from your target.
Another trick is to use it after you CC your target (dagger immob, shroud #5, shroud #3 fear, Reaper’s Mark…). This is useful if you use Path of Corruption cuz you want your Death’s Charge to hit. Or you can let the melee guy some close to you and then leap in his face.

I’m pretty sure it will push scepter in the realm of OP… and if that results in nerfs it’s gonna be stupid as hell.

Ok Necro’s gonna be strong. Thief says hi. My prediction is that Thief will be meta. Everything will be jumbled around. Boon-heavy builds will be countered by a Necro, but a Necro is still a Necro. Focus it and it doesn’t do so well anymore. Thief has barely any boons so corrupts are meaningless, and bam. Thief back in the meta. If I’m right… I deserve a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie