Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Instead ele and warrior seem to just get both

Warriors have 1 field on the entire profession.

They have at least one finisher on every weapon though… except mace main hand. I think Necro has the least finishers from weapon skills than any other profession out there, and also one of the lowest amount of fields to go along with that. I guess engi has the lowest from weapon skills but they have kits, which can have multiple fields (bomb kit), etc.

NeXeD.3042:

flow.6043:

MethaneGas.8357:

Blast a light field = bam, retal while your health is covered by Deathshroud. Bam, more might. Bam, frost aura… weakness, blinds if you’re a power Necro with wells, more purple bubblez (Chaos Armor) if you’re with a Mesmer friend, or using SWall.

Blast a water field = BAM nothing happens.

I do support the idea though.
Keep in mind, even if it was on Weakening Shroud as well you’d never actually blast every 7 or 10 seconds, except maybe in PvE.
In PvP you’d obviously time DS according to your need for defense and then stay in DS for a while. So even if the blast was available every 7 sec you’d probably just use it every 15-20 seconds and half the time there wouldn’t even be a field to combo on.

Agreed, it would be insanely difficult to abuse it, or even come close to some of the other classes.

Ah! I knew I was missing one blast finisher! It could create nice synergy with the team if you had an engi with water turret or staff ele or ranger or possibly thief (ranger stolen skill). Necro being able to blast a water finisher for an ally?! Oh my.

I 100% agree. You’d think that “oh, DS is on a 7 – 10 second cooldown, so the blast would happen every 7 – 10 seconds” but it really doesn’t at all… and when you do happen to go into DS, you’d have to be on a place where a blast would work in the first place, and when you’re being chased around by a few enemies you PROBABLY aren’t going to be thinking “Hmm.. look, a field. Let me just peacefully take stroll over there and enter DS.” I guess allies can drop defensive fields on you (Chaos Storm, Frozen Ground, etc), but even then it wouldn’t be too strong imo.

Ugh… why was this suggested? Now I want it >__> as an Adept trait. I think it’s sorta inbetween Master and Adept but other classes have powerful Adept traits as well. Even if it was just weakness without the bleed, and was a blast, I’d still take it.

Also: I think the Revenant mace blast finisher skill does more than 1 blast.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Echoing_Eruption
Three blasts on an 8 second cooldown. Just sayin’

I’d be in support of this as well
Throw down Mark #3, enter DS = some nice weakness right there Would be REALLY awesome cuz you’d be able to stand on Spectral Wall and get some Chaos Armor easily too. Yup, yes plz.

…. Or even Locust Swarm being a blast finisher. Yummy. Or both. The things you’d be able to do with Spectral Wall would be amazing.

Anyway, back to Weakening Shroud… it would add so much nice utility, and TEAM utility, which is the best part. Blast a light field = bam, retal while your health is covered by Deathshroud. Bam, more might. Bam, frost aura… weakness, blinds if you’re a power Necro with wells, more purple bubblez (Chaos Armor) if you’re with a Mesmer friend, or using SWall. Now sprinkle in Foot in the Grave as a Death Magic minor trait and Necro suddenly becomes a real force to be reckoned with. It would be really kittening good.

I don’t know if it would be too much if it was on Enfeebling Blood AND Weakening Shroud. Imagine you do Staff #3, then swap to your other weapon set. You cast Enfeebling Blood (which itself causes weakness), you blast your field that you created = more weakness. You enter DS and do AoE weakness with Weakening Shroud, then the blast from weakening shroud = even more weakness. I guess it could be cleansed easily though, and not like we have many poison fields anyway. The pros are many, and they are literally perfect (adds team utility/support) while the cons are hardly cons. I doubt a blast or 2 can be considered too much when certain classes have blasts out their butt.

Edit: I forgot to include Putrid Mark (which is a blast) to the combo above. That’s a whole load of AoE weakness. If we add Withering Precision (which is the best trait ever… kidding… Path of Corruption and some Master traits are 100 times better) to that mix of weakness output, Necro could be a really nice debuffer. Have a thief? Let him drop Poison from bow and let you do the rest, or just use your staff. Went on a huge tangent but the bottom line is I think it would rock…

Would it be OP? Maybe if it’s a blast on both Enfeebling Blood and Weakening Shroud.. but if it’s on just one? Far from it. It would be brilliant imo

To be honest it will be buffed. They made the change but things slipped through the cracks (like Foot in the Grave). Cuz it’s not realistic for the trait to be so….. what’s the word….?

My guess is that it’s gonna be buffed/changed in some way. There really isn’t any alternative. It should pulse the Resistance boon or Stability, or both, to be a grandmaster…. cuz the way it is now…………………………………………………………………. is kitten

Well done…. well done.

This WTS was crazy. Those matches were basically non-stop fighting and the turn-arounds were just… O.o. Well fought on all teams and it was interesting to see how each team compo played out.

One thing to note is that when you’re a thief, a meditation guardian can pose problems. When you’re a condi Necro OR anything else condi, a shout warrior can pose problems. oRNG had both a medi guard and a shout warrior, and abjurned had a thief and a condi Necro. Whether the Abjurned had a condi engi or condi Necro, the outcome would have likely been the same.

Both teams are excellent – can’t wait to see moar!

Juba.8406:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Juba.8406:

Epic fights all.

this WTS is so far better than the last, great fights from Abjured & Orng logo.

you all did a fantastic job and made a great show.

and for the haters heres a Packet of Salt.

Speaking of haters, you’re also referencing me in your signature even though I have no idea who you are

my signature ? i just like a well done Omelet, you need a bit of salt to make one though.

bon appétit

Well done sir, well done XD

Never. I hate the meta with a burning passion

Sometimes there’s fightclubs that people have in WvW. It used to be on Thuradays… not so sure anymore… and depends who organizes it, etc. (Sometimes its spontaneous) but if you run into a fight club, you’ll be there for a good 2 hours or more.

I don’… think wurm does the walking distance bug thing. It can teleport you to roofs and ledges easily… I think it would be fun to test out though. I’ll try it with a Mesmer buddy. He’ll trait for a larger blink (1200 units) and we’ll compare. Personally I haven’t noticed wurm misbehaving in such a way (it’s an obedient little thing… kinda cuddly) but we’ll see

Annndd… swapping places with it is a no-no. It would be counterproductive. I’m kinda excited for the expansion… I envision leaps and teleports

I think the far range on wurm could be super strong. It would be an instant disengage that would put you out of combat. You could teleport to points behind you, travel the map quickly…. I dunno. I’d like it for sure, but when you start thinking about WvW too, you’d be literally uncatchable. If you combine that wurm range with Spectral Walk (activating spectral walk, teleporting 5000 units away with wurm…. then teleporting back with Spectral Recall)… it makes for… interesting scenarios, to say the least.

That being said, I think increasing the duration of Spectral Walk passively would be a bit too much. It would require them to change Spectral Attunement trait, which would be completely OP if spectral walk base duration was 15 seconds (With spectral attunement it would be 22.5 seconds). If they reduce the power of Spectral Attunement to make up for that, the trait would make traited Spectral Armor and Wall weaker… so they’d probably have to increase the un-traited power of those as well, which would make the trait overall weaker and kind of useless because the skills would already be powerful without the trait, so they’d have to change the trait completely…. I dunno if anyone is still following this ramble but long story short, it would introduce a whole bunch of problems and personally, I think Spectral Walk is more or less fine right now. The best spot it was ever at though was when it had no 1-second cooldown on life force regen.

As for wurm glitching for people… I’ve been using the skill for at least 2 years now and wurm glitches about 1% of the times for me. At first it won’t be the most reliable thing to use, but you need practice where to place it. You probably left it too far from your character. I try to always destroy the wurm before moving on to a new location so you can re-summon it at a proper spot later on. I’m still not 100% good with it in sPvP, but in WvW it works like a charm. There would be no better way to show where/how it works other than a video, imo.

Kinda funny how some months ago people were like “NO! You CANNOT use wurm and Spectral Walk together.” Now it’s meta.

I can’t wait!
This is gonna be a blast, and definetly PvP heavy. See an enemy escorting NPCs? You gotta deal with that enemy. See a good trebber? You will have to deal with them (1v1s, ganking them with 2 people, etc.). Team fights at mid? Roamer fights. It seems excellent

Oh… bother.

Are you using Koi cakes? If yes, then your damage should be very high with 0/6/4/0/4. Krait runes and Koi Cakes are pretty scary. If you grab Koi cakes, you should remove Lingering Curse and grab Spectral Attunement or Path of Corruption. I would grab Spectral Attunement since you have no Wurm and you are using 2 spectrals. With regards to the runes…. you COULD swap to Nightmare (you would have 95% fear duration then, so it would be a 2-second fear on a 60 sec cooldown) or you could swap to perplexity. I wouldn’t use Nightmare personally in WvW because there’s too many people for it to be as effective… I wouldn’t use Perplexity because I feel like it’s a bit too strong in small scale fights (fighting about 5 or so other people) and not that strong in larger scale fights (fighting more than 5). But it’s up to you. Perplexity is perplexity. It’s strong. But… Krait just amplifies all your bleeds, which works anywhere besides zerg fights.

As for the Dhuumfire build… You COULD use balthazar. I haven’t tried it… but if you healed near a group of enemies, they’d really feel the pain. If you did something like Tainted Shackles, heal to cause the burn, then fear them, they would melt completely. You should use Koi cakes as well. Koi cakes + Spite traitline = 70% condi duration. You have a few other options rune-wise. You could grab Runes of Nightmare for an extra 15% condi duration, which would bring your condi duration to 85%. This means that your fears would be 85% longer (as well as every other condi). You could then remove Master of Terror and grab something else, like Soul Marks, which would give you more sustain. You could also take 10 points from Soul Reaping and drop it into Curses for Spectral Attunement, for example. I would also drop Unyielding blast because Dhuumfire applies only to the first person your life blast hits, not all the people in the line. I would also grab Weakening Shroud instead of Hemophilia. Perplexity would work on this one as well because confusion would last super long, combined with burning from dhuumfire… it could be very strong. Krait would NOT work on this one (or at least I think it wouldn’t) because the condi duration would go above 100% for bleeds so it’s a bit of a waste.

I think it’s up to you. If you haven’t tried 0/6/4/0/4 with Koi Cakes, try it and see if you feel like the damage will be higher. You could try the dhuumfire build with krait runes as well just to test it out and see how you like the burn – I found it a bit too clunky for my taste but the damage was crazy. Personally, I would use 0/6/4/0/4, but I’m biased because I’ve been using that general build for years.

Bhawb.7408:

I think wall is pretty good as is. Lots of protection, potential for fear, life force, it is a good skill that has decent synergy. If anything make the field thicker so finishers can actually be used on it.

^
Although there’s a way to make things like putrid mark work better on it, I agree that it’s too thin and not as reliable as it should be in terms of blasting it for chaos armor, especially mid-fight.

Other than that, the skill is amazing.

It’s true that Necros have close to 0 defense against things like longbow rangers… but that issue is a bit bigger than simply a Necro problem. Longbow rangers are wildly OP in WvW… or at least outnumbered fights which happen… always. Stealth traps, sic’ em, longbow rangers, entangle already make roaming very annoying at times. A group of 10 can’t kill 2 thieves so they place down a stealth trap or swap to sick em. No skill so have to use an insta-win button -_-. 3 sic’ em in a row when you’re a stealth class is basically the same as getting Moad, except it’s a utility skill with a much shorter cooldown. Eating two entangles with your Necro in an outnumbered fight, getting rapid fired by 3 rangers simultaneously from 1500 range while fire and air sigils happily trigger (or while you’re entangled). I went off-topic but really meant to say I think Necros not having any ranged defense would have been OK… if rangers weren’t so OP. Minimum risk, maximum reward. I hope the expansion brings more tools for Necros to deal with that.

I’ve heard this opinion before but I don’t agree that a cele ele supports better than a guardian. Maybe it depends on your team compo, but a support guard should still be pretty rocking. If you feel like you’re too much bunk and not enough damage, try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApdWlsApVo1CxfH8DNBFBl9LS/6xOBRYCXFAA-TJxHwAILDM4EAob/BAPAAA

Slightly more squish than usual, but HUGE retal uptime for allies, nice boon duration, stability and extra condi clears. An easy 20 sec AoE retal = each enemy spell is gonna hurt em like hell. It can also 1v1 pretty well as well against certain classes like LB rangers and thieves if it ever comes down to it. Haven’t tried it in too many organized 5v5s or tourneys or anything like that, but in the many normal ranked games I played with it, it seemed to do really well

Gonna love this can’t wait to try it out… seems like a lot of tactics mixed in with fighting. When you mix in this map, the Revenant, and the specializations… fights are gonna be pretty wacky >:)
For those saying it’s “not competitive” …. if you can bring more of your guild (people who may not be the strongest players in the game) to play their part = more people interested = larger community participating = more teams = more overall competition.
We’ll see how it’s gonna turn out

I agree that it would be kinda nice to be able to have an option to save a build and name it (like in GW1) so you can quickly swap to it if needed.

They are good in sPvP as well.

I think a common opinion for PvE is to “not bring a Necro” but that’s just that… an opinion. If you are doing PvE with pugs, you’ll likely encounter some toxic people like that here and there, but if you do PvE with friends, bringing a competent Necro is perfectly fine. I do dungeons with my guild as a condi Necro (who can’t even break structures cuz they are unaffected by condi damage) and we have no problems.

There’s many who will disagree though.

I doubt by enabling chat the block list would grow A LOT. Cuz really… It’s not THAT bad. I’ll admit… I do run into a few losers who wanna “1v1 for 25 gold” cuz they lost or who you somehow unknowingly kittened off… but most people are average – meaning okay.

I never knew people turned off their chat. Probably why I thought half the people were mute. I disagree with doing that but whatever… I refused to swap my profession (when it would benefit the team) when no one talks. “Hey are you a support guardian? If so I’ll swap.” No answer… 1 min later the guy starts using shouts and is obviously cleric. Ah well… let’s heal this team together then, like theres no tomorrow. 2x cleric guardian powa’… be scurred.

To be honest I think class stacking shouldn’t even be a huge issue.. maybe I think outside the box too much… but most of the time it doesn’t even matter much. I’ve had 3 guard, 3 necro teams, 2 thief teams, etc… and if you can play well it’s fine. Why not have a power ranger and condi ranger? Maybe even a spirit ranger. With their powers combined, they can accomplish anything (jk). All it takes is a bit of imagination to make a comp work – maybe not vs. a top team (but ya never know) but surely against normal PvP peeps.

You don’t really leave your teammate when you port away. It’s exactly the same as porting with lightning flash so you can recuperate. You are not giving your teammate a hug (which you don’t wanna do either way cuz of cleave), but you are still there… in essence… in SPIRIT! Jk… but really, you end up being alive… which is better than downing and being a burden. You can also easily use ranged attacks after you wurm port.
And 2nd… when you first use the skill, it will take you some time to get used to how it works and where it works. After a while it should fail maybe 1% – 5% of the time. And if you are trying it for the first time… Although situations will arise where you’ll have to summon it mid-fight, usually…. you need to summon it before a fight because because then during your fight the cast time is instant

aussieheals.6843:

I just read your thread. Then this happened
http://i.imgur.com/KaVvXtW.jpg

Lmao!
And how did that go?

You should be happy you had 3 longbow rangers on your team. I’m sure the other team was even more thrilled to face em. I mean… who wouldn’t want 3x Rapid Fires to the face? Sounds like an exhilarating experience.

But really… your team is just as likely to have class x as the other team. If both teams have 2-3 professions from the daily, tough luck, but you’re on equal ground.

Wurm should port you out of Ring of Warding for sure…. unless you glitched somehow and the wurm-port itself failed because of some barrier in the environment… so it would have glitched regardless if Ring of Warding was there or not. The port should work fine even if you are outside 1200 range too, but the farther you get from it, the more obstacles get into the way and the more likely it will be that it will go wrong. It glitches for me every….100 times I use it or so in sPvP… maybe less. And by glitch I mean your character doesn’t move at all.. or moves only slightly in the wurm’s direction. The other kind of “glitch” is when you use it to port up to ledges. But that works the same as other ports and glitches as often as those so that’s not a wurm-specific problem.

Rangers are probably one of the most revolting professions in WvW
Low risk high reward. You basically have to literally stand (as in… not move) at 1500 range. You remove your hand from your mouse and keyboard. Then you extend your one hand and your finger hovers over a button. You then press that button and after a few seconds a bag of loot magically appears in font of you. Huh. Whadda’ya’know?

@RodOfDeath
Haha indeed I am Haven’t made a video in centuries though…
I’m glad you are enjoying the playstyle, Necro roaming is not the easiest but once you get in the groove, it can be really satisfying.
Yeah it’s true Necros have to be really committed to fights once they start… and even when you want to run, you often have to fight enemies off of you as you run, but I guess that’s where Spectral Walk and Wurm help

@manveruppd, I’ve never encountered that Putrid Mark problem, I don’t think that has ever happened to me… but if it’s bugged like that it sucks O.o

Hey Tricare, I see you are as positive as always

The traditional GvGs in WvW already exist in WvW… whether that’s 3v3s – 5v5s or 20v20s … and there’s no reason to re-invent the wheel and make a whole other mode for a deathmatch. I think this gamemode will actually be really interesting and fun, whether it’s 5v5 or 10v10, even 15v15. If the numbers go above 5 though, I’m pretty sure zerging won’t be encouraged. Instead I think you would have to split your team into smaller teams, each with a separate objective they have to tri to take care of (tri…care… get it? ). So let’s say you had a match of 10v10. You can easily imagine putting 5 people to hold / attack one objective (with a specific team composition) while the other team protects / attacks another, all the while you are on TS coordinating, etc. So the spectators can easily hop between the “mini-battles” in the match and see how it all plays out in the bigger picture. It would really put your guild to the test, not only mechanically but tactically as well, and that sounds really awesome
They did say that the match would be as fun to play as it would be to watch.. and I think a flat-out zerg of 20v20 is not really what they had in mind.

Very nice gameplay, was entertaining to watch
I must say you use your fears very nicely, and spectral wall as well.
I’m not too good with power stuff, but why don’t you use dagger #2 ? It seems like it could do some nice damage when the enemy is just outside of autoattack range, especially with your sigils.
Keep it up!

P.s. thanks for the mention I am not that active in WvW anymore because once I get into WvW I can’t leave and I can’t have that with school xD I have been doing lots of sPvP and I wasn’t really sure what to record from sPvP but it’s tons of fun. In sPvP Necro feels really, really good… so we’ll see.

^ How about a Necro’s epidemic eh? Mesmer’s focus pull, followed by Ranger’s Entangle elite then a nice epidemic to top it off :P ….or wells… and a meteor shower. Ok… enough.

I can’t wait for this game mode… especially if it involves guild battles. I’d be interested to see how many players will be involved here because even if it’s 10v10, I doubt it will be zergy because there could be multiple objectives that smaller groups (two groups on the same team with 5 people each) have to hold and coordinate. I dunno, I think it will be more like deathmatchy than standard sPvP where you are holding points, which reminds me a bit of GvGs in WvW, which it seems like it will be very exciting. Mix in the Revenant and different profession specializations…. kaboom

I find it weird how the Phoenix rank (which looks nice) and dragon rank don’t fit the ghostly look of all the previous ranks. I think they could have made it more like the previous ranks, but add more colours and effects or sounds.
I agree that the dragon finisher seems lack-luster. It just doesn’t seem…. finished. It’s nice, powerful and displays your rank but I think it could be a lot more “magnificent”.

Well… Vital Persistence really does make you tanky. If you take damage in Deathshroud, it’s not only enemy damage that brings your life force down, it’s its natural degeneration as well. Vital Persistance makes your DS depletion a lot slower. If DS is drained slower naturally, it means you can take more hits from actual damage… so in other you are tankier. Different traits have different flip-sides. This tankyness is made even stronger if you use warhorn’s Locust Swarm. You’d be able to tank for days. If you are Spectral Walking on top of that, and your aim is to be super tanky… you will indeed be. Spectral Walk is another good option because lower CD on SWalk and SWall is always welcome… and SWall is almost like Spectral Armor if you are attacked by a bunch of melee (each time they run into it, your Lifeforce charges up). I’d say to test it out and see which (Path of Midnight, Vital Persistence, Spectral Mastery) suits you.

Mrbig.8019:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Not sure repears prot is that good.

I personally think 4 6 0 0 4 is the best condi necro spec.

If 06404 then greater marks is pretty good too.

Helps nec not being focused.

But the real prob is it being totally passive and braindead, 1 random bleed and you’re feared for 3+ secs for 3k random damage.

Both it and and nightmare runes need nerf.

Nightmare runs and Reaper’s Protection are fine, and will remain fine after the rune change.

My recommendation would be to go for dire / rabid mix with an aim to have your crit chance somewhere around 30 – 38% or so. When buying rabid and dire gear from the TP (if you are planning on not going ascended), try not to type “dire blah blah”. Instead search for the stat combination you are looking for and look for the armor that has a name like “Jatoro” for Dire because those may be cheaper.

You can balance the stats something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGmIYQk0poJAluC-TVhPwAlU+1Ufwa1fAs/AMlgkCAm5AA-w

The non-ascended version could look something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGmIYQk0poJAluC-TlxAwAWUCCw8nR1fupPY3+DPV+RKAYmDA-w

Some people don’t like having rare upgrades on the trinkets (the rare rabids I put there). There’s no exotic version of Rabid for some reason so the rares are next in line. You can put other upgrades (like Exquisite Chrysocola Jewel, Exquisite Passion Flower or Exquisite Coral Jewel) but it’s up to you.

Keep in mind WvW has food, which sPvP doesn’t have. The 40% condi duration is very nice and it is needed in a condi build.
When you go to WvW, look for the laurel vendors there. If you plan on buying ascended trinkets, you can buy the amulet (for 250 badges and 20 laurels) and rings (for 250 badges and 25 laurels) but you’d need badges for that. Otherwise you can buy them from PvE for about 30 laurels. If you are not planning on going ascended then the stats will look a little different and the trinkets won’t be as clean in terms of stats :P It would still be perfectly fine though.

Edit: and as was mentioned before, the karma merchants in Orr have armor/trinkets you can buy with karma, but I don’t think you can salvage those so depends if you are fine with that or not. The merchants there have rabid stats. There’s also armor/trinkets you can buy from a WvW merchant which is very cheap but required badges along with a bit of money. You can buy rabid from those merchants as well but once again, you can’t salvage that armor. You CAN salvage armor/trinkets you buy from the TP though.

^ Sometimes people use certain builds because it’s the meta and they think that’s just the thing they have to use cuz everyone else uses it. So the more people use it, the more others will think that’s what they themselves should be using. It’s a weird cycle. I think there’s a lot of builds out there that people are not using because they haven’t been made popular, but they are still amazing in the right hands. An example is the Sword/Warhorn + Bow shout warrior build and the Wurm/S.Walk Terrormancer Necro.

What you can try to do is stay out of the way of the enemy train (which is usually not as easy as it seems… especially if you are outnumbered). I would recommend saving your Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark for when you really need it. I’ve seen a lot of Necros just use staff marks one after another, but if you really concentrate to NOT use mark #4 when you got 0 condis on you, chances are the next time you are in a pickle and you swap to staff, it will be ready… and if it’s a group coming towards you while you are immobilized, burning, bleeding, etc., and you cast Putrid Mark on them, every single condi will be off of you. Other than that, try to space out your usage of Wurm and S.Walk so that one of em will always be up. But if you are in a REALLY big pickle (ranger rooted, CCed and have 4 people on you or something)… you can start Spectral Walk, then use Wurm teleport and heal. Keep running away from the group, then when S.Walk is nearly done, teleport alllll the way back where you first used it. That should usually create a nice distance. You can also enter DS, use Tainted Shackles then Life Transfer so enemies will be rooted and you tank a bit with Life Transfer. You can also try to position yourself near NPCs like skelks and what not so if you get rooted and you are facing one of them, you can Dark Path to them to create some distance from you and the enemies. If you have like 3 people melee-ing you down and one ranger or something attacking from range, you can also Dark Path to the Ranger to create distance from you and the 3 melee.

Other than that… I don’t know if there’s anything magical you can do to protect yourself, other than as Drarnor mentioned, using Shrouded Removal. A lot of the times your instinct tells you to enter DS if you get immobilized in a tough spot, and that might help. Immobilize is one of the things that kills me most on Necro and sometimes there’s not much you can do other than pray (to Grenth) :P

I wouldn’t worry too much about using Perplexity. It really doesn’t matter as much as some people think it does. Sure, it’s good… but it’s often just an excuse “Oh you used perplexity? Now I can use that as an excuse to not feel as bad for dying”. It’s not even THAT strong hah. If you actually face a group that know what they are doing (for example people with a shout guard or support warrior), perplexity falls back in line. Unless we’re talking about 1v1s. That’s when thing’s become a little… fishy, but in an outnumbered fight they shouldn’t complain if you use it and you are the outnumebred one.

Also, I would highly recommend using +40% condi food. To compensate you could grab another energy sigil on your other weaponset that doesn’t have it. People who have minus condi duration in their builds would really give you trouble if you have 0 condi duration.

Lastly, if you were to swap to Tormenting… I don’t know if I would recommend it. I’d say Krait Runes pay off much more. Tormenting is good but it makes only your sigil and Tainted Shackles last longer whereas Krait makes many more of your attacks stronger (through extending bleeding). Krait is also cheaper. If you take Koi Cakes AND Krait, your bleed duration will suddenly be 85%, which is crazy. It’s all up to you. Without 40% dodge regen you might be a bit more squishy and might take some getting used to.

You move well. Nice gameplay some very nice combos with fears when you Doom people into Spectral Wall. There’s nothing more satisfying. The bridge Spectral Wall was awesome.

@Drarnor Kunoram,

It might have been that the change you are talking about was meant more for ressing and stomping while in DS… and Life Transfer just got lumped into it because it’s a channeled skill so it got fixed along with ressing and stomping. I don’t know though.

If these were indeed to happen…
Doom: Fear duration at all distances set to 1 second.
Reaper’s Protection: Fear Duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
Terror: Damage no longer affects fears from Reaper’s Protection or Runes of the Nightmare.

… I think I’d have no words.

Although Runes of Nightmare could easily be replaced with something different… Reaper’s Protection wasn’t anywhere near OP….

I found that most times people lose when they
a) Have a horrible team composition (i.e. all glass)
b) Don’t know what they are doing (don’t call targets, attack bunkers, charge in 1 by 1, split off unnecessarily)
c) The other team is just better

Courtyard is a different thing than holding points. For some reason a lot of people expect it to be the exact same and just roll whatever they feel like and expect a win. I usually swap to a shout guardian in that map and voila… our team already has a huge boost. The only times I’ve ever lost on the map was with people who didn’t know what they were doing.

If a zerg of shout guardians and warriors can’t do anything about 1 Spectral Wall, you have my deepest sympathies.

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/51284852.jpg

I don’t think wurm and Swalk are the only way to play in sPvP just because the area is so much smaller. But then again… I don’t have solid 1st hand experience and how it is to play against a top notch team that can burst you in seconds. I do have experience in GvGs though, but that’s a lot different.

To say wurm and sw provide no defense at all is false. If you remove yourself from AoE and focus fire, you are sure as hell getting something out of it. It’s not as simple as “gain protection” but that doesn’t mean it can’t protect you. It does. And another thing… those 2 skills used in conjunction are far from the reason why people say necros die easily. They didn’t become meta until fairly recently. They can actually make you survivable. I know what you are saying though. Well of power, spectral armor… even spectral wall can make you flat out tanky but by actually facetanking. That’s only one form of tankyness. You don’t see thieves facetank.. they rely on mobility and moving out of bad spots. That’s what wurm and Swalk can do. I’m not disagreeing with anything other than the 2 skills giving you defense. They were actually taken BECAUSE of Necros being easily focused. If it were not so, you’d see more variety, imo. I will say though that I do think more Necro builds are viable for high end pvp, they just haven’t gotten the coverage yet.

As for the OP… props for being original, as well as using warhorn. You move well and have a good skill rotation / reaction to enemies. One small tip though: I used to do this out of habit when Putrid mark used to help allies… try not to use it when you have no condis on you. Other than that… well done

Starting with 0 life force is like elementalists unable to swap attunements for the first 2-3 minutes of the match. Yes. No Earth, no water… no air… just sit in fire and try to live please.
Guardians can’t access virtues for the first 2-3 minutes. Good luck with that.
Mesmers can’t shatter for the first 2-3 minutes. Distortion? Nope. Mind Wreck? Don’t think so. But… what about my Diversion? Certainly not.
Thieves can’t steal for the first 2-3 minutes.

Sounds wonderful. Let’s do it.

It’s actually really fun. It reminds me of WvW a lot and promotes a lot of different playstyles. Of course you may not do as well with your build designed to keep a point… so have a courtyard build. For example… if people actually swapped to support shout guard and support shout warrior… you have a solid foundation for a 5v5 right there.

The only real downside to it is that people keep respawning and there is no “break” when people die. It makes it hard for a team to recover once they lose one person. That being said, the team I was on last night won a match and we were behind a LOT. So it’s more than possible to turn it around. Also, if a warrior brings a banner, then when your ally downs, your team will actually get STRONGER when they use banner. Perma might+fury. Coming from WvW, I don’t find it zergy at all… you just gotta know how to position yourself in these fights. It’s not bad at all to run off to the side if you have 1-2 people chasing you… I’ve had several fights where 2 people just chased me to the side on my Necro. I ended up dead in the end but the 4v3 going on at the same time ensured we won.

-Fixed a bug which made Necros playable.
All good now. We’re back on track. We don’t want those kitteners doing sPvP, keep em in PvE. Oh… wait.
Just kidding. Really though… one Necro managed to get into a top team / team that gets a lot of coverage and all of the sudden bam, nerf. So what do we have so far….“Unintended function” 1, bam, nerf. “unintended” function 2", bam, nerf. , 3 nerf, 4 nerf, 5 nerf and 6 nerf. Please, moar!

Honestly, this was either
a) an accidental nerf or
b) We will be getting some sort of sustain buff soon
because if it’s not a, and it’s not b… then… it’s … c?
A Necro right now: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbduucjZIk1qjnnc9o1_250.gif
Anet: http://i.imgur.com/7gkCf4E.gif

leman.7682:

Solution: place 2 little white bugs in both bases so that they can be killed before the match starts.

Ohh, and Anet, by ‘bugs’ I mean creatures, not your usual bugs.

This can be a good fix in my opinion. The only problem with this is that the ambients would give you up to 13% life force per creature. So that’s 26% from the two ambients. Then if if you used your staff it would be another potential 8.8% (4.4% + 4.4%). So you’d get a nice 34.8% life force just from the two ambients. I don’t object to that at all, but it would be more than what we had with the minion sacrifice. If you used Spectral Grasp (if it workes on ambients?) that’s 16.5% life force (or 22% with Spectral Attunement)… which adds up to……… 17.4% (staff auto: 4.4% with gluttony, 13% from death because of gluttony and death magic minor) from one ambient, 13%+16.5% from the other… 47% life force or 52.4% with Spectral Attunement. So if it worked with Spectral Grasp… that would be pretty huge. Not that you’d be taking Spectral Grasp, but anyway.
….Having only one ambient would give us up to 17.4% (staff auto, Gluttony trait, Death magic minor) up to 39.4% (spectral grasp, gluttony, spectral attunement) which imo is nice too and could possibly work, maybe. But did we REALLY have such HUGEEEE, OVERWHELMING life force regen that the little trick had to be removed? -_-

Edited because I forgot the death magic minor (20% more life force from deaths which added an additional 2% life force regen from each ambient).

Just…
http://youtu.be/sap2hfA-pHg?t=2m18s

@ OP,
Necro is a little weird like that. I think for most people when you start with Necro as your very first class and get used to it, THAT’s when it’s a bit easier. But even then… it’s super easy to get un-used to the Necro playstyle. When I play Mesmer or Ele, or even Guard for a long period of time without touching Necro, the first few days of playing Necro are frustrating and you always feel like your health is low because they have such a huge health pool but the healing they get (if they are alone) is not too huge, but that’s where DS comes in.. and when you forget that you have to rely on DS you just get… well… killed. Edit: even then I think DS doesn’t solve everything… but anyway. Other people have already said it… but it’s sort of like a threshold that you reach with Necro and just “get it”. Before that it’s basically just frustration… especially if you come from an ele, guard, thief, mesmer… things that heal a lot or are more freely mobile. I think I’ve had at least 4-5 friends who wanted to try out Necro in WvW (when coming from another class) and none of them stuck with it…. except one friend but that was in sPvP. That being said, I think so far Necro is proving to be a beast in sPvP. And I don’t think it should be a huge problem if a team specced to cover each other’s weaknesses.

I agree with this. There’s nothing worse than going into DS and forgetting what your cooldowns were. Do you have Spectral Walk ready? Plague signet? Wurm? Is your heal skill up? You can remember all those things if you really pay attention but sometimes it’s just impossible, especially if you are forced into DS by sudden burst damage. So yes, I think this change would be quite nice

I’ve actually been playing 6/4/0/0/4 Dhuumfire Necro in sPvP since last writing here and I can honestly say it’s really good. The pressure it applies to the usually annoying classes can get them off of you even if you are low on health. Been using something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBLhZakjmyb7sxvG+bTgLUQvABQ0G5HMBU2GpBA-TJhHwAU2fAwpAAZZgAPBAA
Although it feels a bit more squish, I think so far I like it (dare I say?) more than the standard Terrormancer. Been stuck between using Nightmare Runes and Balthazar Runes though – can’t tell which is better yet. I also can’t tell what’s better between Geomancy and Doom sigils either so far (at least when using Dhuum), because swapping weapons, going into DS and life blasting (burn+poison) someone as you fear them, then Dark Path is almost a death sentence for anyone who’s squishy. Not only that but the poison makes their “Oh kitten!” heal skill heal for less…. but Geomancy is AoE.

Next to test is a boon-strip Terrormancer.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArdWjc0UebnN+1wfbighSyW4DiuBCgzlyk4KA-TJRHwAp3fAZZAAnCABPBAA
Edit: I suppose in the above build it could be interesting to put 20 from death into Spite for Chill of Death and focus cooldowns. That would be some ultimate boon-strippage.

Emapudapus.1307:

Its not only about being easyer to hit target. With small marks you litteraly waste skill if you try to hit stealth target (not just thieves), with bigger marks you have also bigger staff range, with bigger marks you can hit ppl behind object or hiding behind pillars …. You need to see bigger picture.
And about condi clear on thieves when stealth … usualy you fight him before and unload some conditions on them so they cant just clear all condis off while stealth if you hit them with marks and they might kill him if low health.

It might not be directly linked to the discusion but its an important fact if you want to realy evaluate dhuumfire vs “terror”.

Hmm… that’s true. It provides more utility and covers more ground. I think it’s really effective against Mesmers because they don’t have as much condi removal, although it’s also good against stealthed thieves because one mark covers a huge area. It can be a little problematic though because a lot of thieves use sword/dagger #3, which is an evade, and then they steal… so if you stand on your mark, the mark will be evaded. But this isn’t really an issue of Greater Mark but marks in general. Thieves in sPvP are a different breed and take some getting used to :P in WvW you can just put marks on top of yourself and you are more or less safe. Does not seem to be the case in sPvP. Anyway.

The only problem with Shadow’s Embrace (thief condi removal in stealth) is that it removes a condi as soon as they enter stealth. I didn’t test this but its likely that it removes bleeds first… or at least that’s what a lot of condi clears remove first.

I think Dhuumfire would hurt thieves quite a bit, especially if you stack poison, bleed and burning. If the bleed gets cleansed the burning is still there.

People have realized that trading the 15% Might duration for -20% condition duration is a really good trade.

Interesting…. so all the classes which used Strength are now transitioning to Hoelbrak?
I think Sigil of Malice + condi duration runes could work well to counter this, but then you basically lose a sigil to compensate… but they lose 5% more damage and might duration so I guess it’s a tradeoff, maybe.
Or Spite could crawl into the meta.

Edit: @GoogleBrandon, I want to try Dhuumfire as well because now that it actually takes a brain cell and it’s non-meta, it might be really interesting to try it. We’ll see.

@Emapudapus,
Yeah this is true. But the only things you can use to extend your fear chain is mark#5 which could be the tricky thing to land if you are stunned for a long time, and Doom, which is instant. You also have Runes of Nightmare but that’s going in the extreme.
As for Hoelbrak runes… I never thought of those. Do people actually use them? I thought Strength Runes are a thing instead (I don’t know).
-As for fear chaining, I think it depends. I agree that fear chaining all at once is not really smart because if you use every fear quickly, sure it’s a long fear but 1 stun break and it’s all gone. I think a better use would be if you are fearing someone with an ally. A fear is almost like a stun, especially if the enemy is rooted while feared. Either way though, I think people who get feared off still gives you some breathing room to gather your thoughts.

@manveruppd. You said things much better than I ever could.

flow.6043:

Yes, but burning alone was not the only thing making the build strong. Like I said, 6 in Spite with Chill of Death is/was a huge contributer. And believe it or not, Dhuumfire users today are actually stronger than they used to be because burning is longer and you have more control over it. Of course it would take more skill to make use of it and that alone seems to be enough to no longer hold its meta status.
But again, you’re making me repeat myself.

Yes Chill of Death is strong, but I don’t think they are stronger now than they were before. Well… that’s debatable, but with the passive proc, you don’t even have to use a brain cell and the enemy is burning, running away from you in Fear with poison, cripple and 100 stacks of bleed. Now you have to actually go into DS and hit with your life blast which is more tricky.
Please repeat moar.

Like I said, the duration extension for all defensive conditions makes up for not having RP.
As for the rest: If you use Dhuumfire you also have at least 4 in Curses (look at that, we’re actually back on the thread’s topic), so the choice you’ll have to make is between Path of Corruption, Staff Mastery and Master of Terror. And every possible variation is stronger and has more defense than a build with RP.

See… now THIS is an actually debatable topic. Finally!
I haven’t used Spite much personally so this is fun.
I don’t think the increased condi duration fully makes up for RP, because RP is hard CC as opposed to some cripple and chill. That’s debatable as well though and both have their uses.
Yes, at least 4 in Curses. I actually wanted to go 6/4/0/0/4 build so that might be my next project since my – condi duration (lemongrass Melandru) WvW Necro is annoying … anyway. Yes, you make a choice between Path of Corruption, going into Death, or going into Soul Reaping. Variations of where you put those points may be stronger on a stationary dummy, NOT in actual fights. Actual fights are much, much more variable than a simple stationary sPvP dummy that doesn’t react. In a team fight where there’s lots of cleanse and stability, you run into the same problem. Condis are not likely to tick their whole duration. Additionally, if you more easily focused down and killed, your DPS is now 0.
-If you don’t go 6 in Curses, you lose boon strip on Dark Path which is unbelievably powerful, especially when combined with Corrupt Boon. And if you DO take it, now your fears are not as long as a terrormancer’s (less damage and shorter CC from it), you have less defenses, but longer overall condi duration and other stuff we mentioned. So really, it’s more about ups and downs than one build being better than the other.
-If you go 20 in Soul Reaping for Master of Terror, you could get 95% longer duration on Fear, which is actually very strong and would be fun to try out. Especially with Runes of Nightmare. Yup, I’m gonna try it.

FYI a Necro in one of the top teams uses a Terrormancer build that you so despise. Now let’s think on this. Top team. You’d think they would want to be optimal, right? Why would they want to be optimal? To have a best chance at winning. Why? They get stuff, including actual money, which is a huge incentive. You’d think that a top team with a “top necro” would want to be 100% optimal in terms of strategy, skill, and builds because victory, reputation and money are on the line, but wait… the Necro uses the Terromancer build that’s “bad”, NOT a Dhuumfire build that’s just oh-so-superior. Oh no, what a conundrum.

Anyway though. Dhuumfire vs. standard Terromancer is the only topic where my mind is changeable and it’s the only debatable topic here because I do think that Spite has a LOT of potential, especially 6/4/0/0/4. However, Reaper’s Protection vs. Greater Marks is not debateable. Period. Now let’s move on.