Condi is a far better build then Zerker. You get more armor along with higher damage. However, Zerker does have some advantages over condi. One, it builds DS much faster then Condi. 2, it works better against objects. 3, it stacks better with your allies.
The difference in damage between the 2 isn’t significant enough to really tell you to go one way or the other. If you add both of them up, Zerker looks like it has higher damage, but don’t be fooled by that. Zerker is effected a great deal by damage reduction while the condi’s damage is almost all armor ignoring.
Condi builds are actually not as good as power builds in a zerg. There’s far too much area cleanse in organized zergs and besides, the nature of the fight won’t allow you to build up conditions on a target. In this instance, the best damage is the sure damage.
Condi builds are, however, far superior to power builds in roaming. The 1v1 fights allow stacking by the single target scepter/signet.
I can’t get into the whole power spec, I always seem to just die against thieves, since I can never keep them targeted long enough to get off axe2.
Kiting thieves are a big problem but most run-of-the-mill, dagger 2 spamming glass cannon thieves are easy to kill with a power necro (one of the few) because they’re too aggressive. Here’s what I do: drop marks on yourself and take the backstab so he triggers them. If he’s still blindly attacking, drop wells. Next, DS5, DS2, DS3, DS1 or if he stealths at any time during this, DS4 and listen for the sucking sound. When they reappear, they’re usually down.
However, most other classes will pound a power necro as wells are horrible outside of zergs and PvP point holding. Personally, I temporarily reslot minions/shield if I need to run anywhere by myself of a little while. They give a power necro a bit of a fighting chance. XD
wvw – either (sort of… id strongly recommend against full zerk)… though i prefer power (currently using a mix of soldier and zerker) because i primarily zerg and stuff dies before condis ramp up
Or, you could run Knights for the extra toughness.
In any event, Inept’s correct: in a zerg, condis will get cleansed quickly so go for power/crits. Condis work much better for roaming, though. Power builds are a bit vulnerable in 1v1 situations.
45% to 50% is optimal but like Dranor says, around 35% with fury every so often procs fine too. The scepter hits fairly fast so you’ll get plenty of chances to apply conditions.
A very frustrated necromancer and GW1 beta player.
Oh wow! They’re sure to listen to you now!
What are you even trying to say?
You want to be able to put MORE than 25 stacks on bleeding on a target? 25 stacks isn’t enough? TWENTY FIVE. That’s two lots of ten PLUS five.
Who knows, maybe you’re right? I hope for entire player base’s sake that before they’d even CONSIDER it, they’d remove the bleed off of scepter autoattack. I’m sure if that happened you’d sit around 7 bleeds at any one time?
:)
Why are you so offended? Obviously, the OP was talking about PVE because no halfway-competent WvW/PvP player would allow themselves to receive 25 stacks of bleeding.
If you’re so paranoid about conditions, just roll a warrior because, without question, THAT amount of condition cleanse is PERFECTLY FINE.
Necs freaking out about this is just hilarious to me. You do realize there’s some white numbers on your skills where your real damage is, or would be if you built for it? And these are Eles we’re talking about… even one or two of your limp-wristed Marks or Scepter autos’ll bring them under 90.
We aren’t freaking out. Staff and scepter auto attack are really bad. Worst in the game bad.
Say goodbye to using blood is power near the start of a fight.
How about this scenario? Ele ports in with ride the lightning knocking us own and starts his kill combo. Necromancer previously could hit death shroud #3 to try and escape that combo, but now that move is unavailable, because the elementalists has a passive immunity.
Clearly an autoattack whose bleed application has had to be nerfed twice due to the unrelenting pressure it can put on people is one of the worst in the game. But yes, poor condimancer, I sympathize with your fevered nightmares of kamikaze RtL Eles. Perhaps if less people were running around in Rabid/Dire gear and killing players en masse from 1200 range, we wouldn’t be in this Diamond Skin situation in the first place now, would we.
The sheer irony of Necs who abused the whole Fear-works-as-a-condi thing is utterly delicious, by the way. The ironing is delicious!!
i·ro·ny
1 [ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] Show IPA
noun, plural i·ro·nies.
1.
the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
2.
Literature.
a.
a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
b.
(especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3.
Socratic irony.
4.
dramatic irony.
5.
an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
Not irony.
(edited by Nagato no Kami.4980)
First of all… I think you have a point and your article is well written BUT please… it’s not “they where there.” It’s they WERE there. You have many misspellings like that which threw me off.
I disagree that the Necro was a support calss in GW1, but I don’t want to debate that. I do agree that the class changed a lot, but because of the mechanics of the game. They didn’t want to add endless debuffs (or hexes, as they were called in GW1) because it makes things too complicated for new players. (I’m sure GW1 had way more than 200 Hexes). Going along with this train of thought, they focused on conditions – Necro has a kitten-ton of condis (necro had a kitten-ton of HEXES in GW1). I’d be inclined to agree that things are looking pretty similar between gw1 and gw2 necros when the two different game mechanics/design are considered but this isn’t really true.
In GW1, one of my favorite things was to be an “anti-melee” necro – basically any physical damage person couldn’t do anything to you as long as you keep them hexed (basically they suicide if they attack you.) This is completely gone from GW2 Necros. Instead… other professions can do this through confusion (E.g. Mesmer – who was ALSO able to do this in GW1.)
Blood magic is mainly gone as well. I always loved draining people in GW1 and surviving through hell by constant life stealing. This… is also gone. Life stealing is very, very gradual in GW2. It would be cool if they made Necros life steal as a source of healing, sort of like how guardians and ele’s survive (In a sense.. we heal through life stealing, they heal through… well.. healing. But the effect is similar. )
We can say whatever we want, but it is a completely different game. In such situations, the lore is what matters, and the Necro is the master of corruption and disease … which…. it really is in both games. Besides, I’m loving my GW2 Necro and I’m a GW1 “veteran”.
As for minions… I really don’t have too big of a problem with them other than (sorry to say this) but… they are plain ugly. Ugly. Ugly and ugly. I’d likely be a minion master right now if i didn’t have to carry around those lack-of-detail – symmetrical – plain-looking things. With the art team working on GW2, I think they coulda done a much, much better job on that (especially Flesh Golem. My god). Anyway.
You know, people who commit spelling errors, grammatical errors and abuse ellipses should probably refrain from chastising others for their communication skills.
Your guide was my introduction to the necro class and although I now run a completely different build, I still enjoy watching your vids. They’re always so well done and it’s always fun to watch a skilled player at work, no matter what their play style. I will definitely be checking this out.
Any thief that gets caught in that Wells + ds 5&4 is pretty much boned whether they stealth or not.
This is a very effective way of killing thieves. Also, if you know one is about to attack, you can even drop all of your marks on yourself and wait for the backstab. Many will underestimate the marks and attack anyway. This gets a few conditions on them and pretty much ensures that by the time you get done with DS 4, they’re down.
The thief is a dangerous profession that can give necros real problems with their mobility but most who play the class are dagger 2 spamming morons running glass cannon builds and practically kill themselves.
Yeah I doubt I will ever consider Celestial armor. I am however, reconsidering a tank build for the necro. I was thinking Pvt, but I really…really hate hitting like a wet noodle. Is there anyway I could use Pvt gear and a combination of weapon/trinket stats with a good trait build that will prevent that?
You can get decent results by running all cavalier trinkets with rubies and assassin weapons with PVT armor. On Ascii’s power zerg build (0/25/25/20/0) this is 2950 power/2800 armor/23000 hp/42% crit chance/46% crit damage with exotic trinkets and master maintenance oil.
On a typical 30/10/0/0/30 build, the crit chance drops to an unusable 34%. In that case, you can run knights trinkets with a 50/50 mix of emeralds and rubies for 3200/2600/21000/46%/46%.
If you find yourself using main hand dagger most of the time, rabids will not do much for you. Sure, the precision is good but all those condition damage points are completely unused. Synergy’s not very good.
I’m not sure about PVH armor… Conventional wisdom holds that it’s a better idea to protect one’s health pool with toughness rather than try to replace it in the middle of a fight. But the fact you’re considering this type of armor is odd considering you stated that you didn’t want a tanky build as this is exactly that.
a) our core design is very selfish, no point changing it
b) HOW THE FUDGE CAKE IS A AOE DAZE NOT SUPPORTIVE (so the team help skill on 4 instead of 5).
c) It 5 used to siphon hp
d) HOW BY GRENTHS BURNED WINTERSDAY BICUITS IS A AOE DAZE NOT SUPPORTIVE?I agree that an aoe daze is supportive. It just does not make sense to me that there are 3 classes that have a warhorn skill that provides swiftness and we are the only one that does not apply that swiftness AOE
But by that logic, there are 3 classes that can use axe, and it makes no sense that warriors are the only ones who can’t use it at range.
Exactly. Different professions, different weapon skills. In any event, I certainly wouldn’t trade the AOE crippled or stun for it to balance out.
Besides, if I were to lobby for an ability that helps with group speed, I’d prefer WH4 act as a blast finisher in order to pop stun fields… and fire fields… and water fields…
Totally OP, I know but it would be awesome. =)
0/20/0/20/30
curses: weakening shroud and focused rituals
blood:transfusion and deathly invigoration
soul reaping: unyielding blast, near to death, and foot in the graveMy gear atm is about half rabid and half carrion with undead runes as I’m trying to work on a hybrid build bit by bit relacing rabid with carrion.
For utilities I had up signet of spite, well of suffering, and well of corruption, plague, and consume conditions. Normally I run the 30/20/0/0/20 but I had just switched to try this to try to live longer in the zerg and give a tiny bit of support. I also usually don’t run wells but what can I say I was experimenting a bit. In retrospect the one time he ran to reset the fight I should have switched WoC to corrupt boon and maybe even WoS to Blood is power for the single target damage but I was caught up in the fight. My build was no where near suited for the situation as with his vigor boon he was dodging my wells constantly. I was trying to kite with scepter/dagger and pop signet of spite every chance but I couldn’t keep the conditions stacked at all. If I did get him down at all he could cripple me and get enough distance to get healed back to full. When he came at me he wasnt doing much if any damage with shield/sword but would switch to GS and do a bit of dps now and then. In this case I would use a combination of our crap siphons, deathly invigoration, and consume condis to heal back up while kiting with staff marks cc’ing him.
I think you’ve hit upon your own problem. Wells are great in specific circumstances but fairly useless in a 1v1 on open ground. A lot of the nice zerging skills necros have will get you killed when roaming.
Warhorn 5 is very strong, but it works only with mainhand dagger. You are probably not using it correctly.
Being chased? Use Warhorn 5, the melee player will get crippled and you go faster.
Chasing somebody? Use Warhorn 5, enemies cannot escape you. They become slower and you become faster.
Warhorn works best with dagger but every other weapon set doesn’t achieve max optimization with warhorn since you are more likely at out of range to use warhorn 5.
Using a dagger (and having vampiric) certainly makes WH 5 more effective but it certainly not the “only” way for it to be effective. Personally, I feel its greatest application is using it in a large WvW fight and dragging that long tail through the heart of an enemy zerg (preferably while popping axe 3 and plague). Very disrupting.
I think it would help if you mentioned what you plan to do with this build (zerging or roaming)?
Also, if you’re traiting for Terror, why no Spectral Wall?