I’ve been thinking about a Reaper in full Valkyrie gear for frontline zerging.
Reaper: Relentless Pursuit, Decimate Defenses and Blighter’s Boon.
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence and Death Perception.You’ll be tanky and still get off really high damage because of Death Perception and Decimate Defenses boosting your crit chance.
The 3rd trait line really would be up to preference. I’ve not decided on utilities for this either.
I’ve also thought about condi build with Dhuumfire and Deathly Chill, but I’ve not developed that idea very far yet.
000666 probably for frontline zerging. You need as much sustain as you can to survive the frontlines, and blood magic has the most sustain out of the trait lines. Valkyrie or Knights (or zerker/soldier mix) can probably be used. Hoelbrak or Trooper for condi clearing.
Yeah, with life siphon working through death shroud I can see Blood Magic being really good with it. Was thinking valkyrie because DS scales with vitality, and the ferocity will be nice with the extra crit chance from traits.
I’ve been thinking about a Reaper in full Valkyrie gear for frontline zerging.
Reaper: Relentless Pursuit, Decimate Defenses and Blighter’s Boon.
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence and Death Perception.
You’ll be tanky and still get off really high damage because of Death Perception and Decimate Defenses boosting your crit chance.
The 3rd trait line really would be up to preference. I’ve not decided on utilities for this either.
I’ve also thought about condi build with Dhuumfire and Deathly Chill, but I’ve not developed that idea very far yet.
Guess we can now actually get some ideas rolling for new builds to use with this new specialisation of ours. \o/
Let’s discuss some possible builds.
I agree, at least from the front.
I have a feeling reapers will have lots of stability and resistance. Maybe even Defiance if that ever comes to players.
It was mentioned in an article a while back that one of the specialisations will get a grandmaster trait that grants defiance. Could very well be necro, it definitely fits with our theme.
ooh.. new light armour
Minions are nice for leveling, it’s what I used when I leveled. It makes it easier to solo things that would be pretty hard otherwise. The AI is pretty bad, so when you get to 80 and start doing group content I’d suggest using wells instead since minions tend to get in the way and mess things up.
Anet did not promise group support, but the necro community have been asking for this for a while now. When the new traits were revealed we got nothing, and it looks like it might be the case here too.
I’m not expecting necro to play like any other profession, I just want to feel useful and know that I’m contributing to the party I’m in. As it stands now, Necro is the only class where I feel next to useless when doing dungeons.
Vulnerability is condition that’s easily added by every profession in game. What matter is the % increase of personnal damage that you can stir out of your traits. At the moment curse and spite are mandatory for close to death and target the weak. Sacrificing one of them is a net loss.
Target the weak is not necessary if you go the soul reaping route and pick Death’s perception. Soul reaping makes for a great alternative for a powerbuild .
There will be more condition with HoT making Target the weak even more desirable. If, actually you can count on an average 5 conditions from your party (10% more damage) after HoT, it will probably be 7-8 conditions (let’s say 14% damage). Do you really think that the 5% from SR can compete with that?
It’s getting changed to bonus crit chance, so not that big of a buff anymore. Death Perception will probably outdo it in terms of dps increase.
The Necro forums already had one thread deleted because it was just a Dragonhunter QQfest.
Can Guardians stop crapping up other forums with their dumb Dragonhunter crying?
~woosh
Yeah, definitely not bad. If you also trait for +50% crit chance in DS I think we’ll be a force to be reckoned with. Probably not enough to make us “meta”, but it’s a buff compared to our current state.
yeah, whats with reaper … jealous of guards right now..
I think you meant yellous. :p
*Reaper
Shroud Knight is a minor trait which makes you go into Reaper Shroud
Oh, sorry my bad.
*Reaper
If we get a defiance bar as one of our GM traits it would be a no-brainer for any game mode except PvE I’d think.
Yes, pretty sure you can combine the two.
Can’t wait for the stream tomorrow.
Interrupt, dodge and blind could become a big problem for us. With the info we have now it looks like we can be countered pretty easily.
It looks neat, but also so far doesn’t seem to have much in the way of team support. I’ll reserve final judgment until tomorrow, but at least the animations look neat.
I was sort of hoping they would hit allies with something so that Rune of the Trooper would work, but it appears not. Oh well.
Yeah ofc :S don’t see why trooper won’t work
Trooper runes specifically say they remove a condition from each affected ally… And if the Necromancer shouts affect no allies, then it will logically remove no conditions. They may change Trooper runes in anticipation of this elite spec, however, so who knows. I’ll try to ensure it gets asked during the live stream tomorrow.
The wiki article (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Trooper) says:
“The sixth bonus activates on any shout and applies to nearby allies, regardless of who is affected by the shout, e.g. “On My Mark!” triggers the condition removal for party members even though it targets a foe."
I agree that there is some nice synergy, but the basic profession should not have to rely on an elite specialisation to be good.
It worries me from pvp pov that the attacks are supposedly slow, thats easy to dodge then/evade (even easier for some that relies on it)
Easy to dodge and easy to interrupt. :\
Will probably give up Curses since it doesn’t have any good power grandmaster and take Spite and Soul Reaping with it.
I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.
This worries me a lot too, hopefully we’ll get some clarifications on this tomorrow.
I do have to agree with this the one thing I wanted from the necro spec was mobility but it seems like that is definitely not going to happen. Also, we didn’t get the defiance bar Q_Q
We find out tomorrow if we get the defiance bar. The article did not really talk about our grandmaster traits.
I’m a little concerned really about how much emphasis the article put on the Specialization being slow.
This worries me a lot too, hopefully we’ll get some clarifications on this tomorrow.
I’m just gonna wait for the stream tomorrow before I start complaining, we don’t really know all the details yet.
It looks neat, but also so far doesn’t seem to have much in the way of team support. I’ll reserve final judgment until tomorrow, but at least the animations look neat.
I was sort of hoping they would hit allies with something so that Rune of the Trooper would work, but it appears not. Oh well.
Maybe the Trooper effect will still work on allies within the radius? We’ll have to see.
It looks really cool, but there are some things that were mentioned – such as long cast times and being slow – that bothers me a bit. Long cast times = easy to interrupt, so hopefully we get some stability or other effect to help us there. It also seems like we’re not really getting anything in the form of group support.
I’ll wait until I see the stream tomorrow before I judge this though, it has the potential to be good and it has the potential to be “meh”. Doubt it makes our current situation any worse though, but will it be much of an improvement?
Source? :p
/15characters
I guess the defiance bar kinda fits with that idea too, though we don’t know who’s getting that yet.
what is this defiance bar?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Breakbar
It was mentioned a while back in a gw2 news article (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/) that one of the specialisations would be able to get a defiance bar through traits. Quote:
" I’m personally excited about a grandmaster trait that has the power to grant my character a defiance bar!"
I guess the defiance bar kinda fits with that idea too, though we don’t know who’s getting that yet.
New elite specialisation will be Dragonhaunter.
When I had played 3 months I still thought necro was the best thing ever. My views on that have now changed of course. The forums did not make me come to the conclusion I did, it was playing the game and trying all the other classes in different game modes that made it quite clear how inferior necro is.
A good attitude is not going to change the flaws of our class. There are of course some scenarios where a necro is good, but generally speaking it’s in a bad place compared to every other class.
Bloodthirst – Increases siphoned health to 75% of damage dealt.
So, realistically I could be healing myself for ~5k each time I land a Life Blast. That is not counting piercing from Unyielding Blast trait, and other big sources of damage. This would make any necro zerker build pretty much unkillable.
In PvE I usually run with Axe+Focus and Dagger+Warhorn, and berserker stats on all gear.
For healing I use Consume Conditions. My utilities consist of Well of Suffering, Well of Corruption and Well of Power. Some times I swap one of these for Blood is Power, Spectral Armor or Spectral Walk. I use Lich Form as my elite skill.
The traits are 6 points in Spite, 2 points in Curses and 6 points in Soul Reaping. In spite I use Reaper’s Might, Axe Training and Close To Death. In Curses I use Focused Rituals, and in Soul Reaping I use Vital Persistence, Unyielding Blast and Death Perception.
Dagger is the main weapon to use outside of Death Shroud as it deals high damage and builds life force pretty fast with its auto-attack. Warhorn skill 5 is some extra damage and also contributes to your life force, Focus skill 4 is also good life force and damage. I avoid staying on axe for long, I only use the axe for quick life force right before or after I enter or exit Death Shroud. If you have axe up when you enter Death Shroud your damage will be higher than with dagger, which is the main reason to bring axe. Make sure to place your offensive wells down before you enter Death Shroud for max crit chance. If you can use Warhorn 5 before you enter Death Shroud it will help you stay in Death Shroud for longer and will benefit from the extra crit chance.
I some times use a build very similar to the one Darwec posted, but I don’t use axe and I swap between Focus and Warhorn offhand. Traits and skills are pretty much the same. Remember that you can flash Death Shroud as often as you can for Fury if you use that build or a similar one. You can check the DPS guild that’s stickied on the top of this forum section, it’s pretty much the same playstyle.
Just in case it wasn’t said, please take away deathshroud cancelling the stomp against players. I.e when I am stomping a player, I should be able to use my deathshroud without it cancelling the stomp, almost every class can use their F1 abilities while stomping! (granted the warrior has unique F1’s that don’t apply here, but works with their profession great)
I second this. We need to be able to enter and exit death shroud without it cancelling stomps and resses.
I think they should reduce the pre/after-cast times significantly or reduce cast time.
Unholy Martyr should also make it transfer a condi, like Plague Blast does.
That way, the GM trait Spiteful Spirit gives necros a blast finisher every 10 seconds (6 sec when traited)
15s ICD, so it wouldn’t, sadly.
Let’s hope they remove that ICD.
What if axe was like the following?
The auto attack working similar to wave of wrath for guards. Axe auto would hit targets in an area infront of the player and it would have a might tighter cone.
Rending claws
Damage targets in an area infront of the player.
Deal vulnerability on the final strike.
5 TargetsGhastly claws
Rapidly slash your tareget and surrounding area.
same damage
120~240 radius.Unholy feast
Just add a blast finisher.Then axe mastery could be changed to 0.5~1% per target hit. Meaning the cooldown on the trait would be useful.
I’d not be opposed to axe working like this. I actually suggested something similar in a post a few months back. The auto attack is so bad anyways, that making it hit 5 people really shouldn’t be OP.
The trait should remain the same it is today. I don’t see the new trait being useful, even with axe buffed in this manner.
That would be amazing! Increase range to 900 when taking axe training, put it into grandmaster, put signet mastery back into master. All problems fixed.
They will have to give axe a serious buff for that to be worth it. 900 range on axe is not worth a grandmaster slot.
I just want to second this.
I have a beta slot on my account already from the last test. Would be nice to know if I’m already in the next one, or if I have to find one of these portal stones.
What if the trait gave axe #2 a whirl finisher and axe #3 a blast finisher (that also affects the GM (spiteful spirit?) trait? Would you take it even if it didn’t have a damage increase or CD decrease?
That should be axe baseline.
I’m not sure I see the connection here. How does the new trait changes prevent us from fearing zergs off cliffs?
Dhuumfire – Consider burning in an area around the necromancer when shifting into Death Shroud.
Well, apparently the Devs wanted Necromancers to get hit whenever they are in DS (Like wat?) – so why no Fire Aura instead? It punishes people who attack, which is in line of the design with the Necromancer, helps both Power and Condi specs (more might stacks and of course burning) and can be counterplayed
I think this is a brilliant idea! The duration is up for discussion..
100% duration. 3 sec Fire Aura pulsing every 3 sec while in Death Shroud.
I’d prefer it to be ground targeted.
Interesting idea, but as long as minions have the same awful AI they have now it’s still not gonna be very good.
Agreed, in Gw1 the minions at least attacked as soon as the MM attacked. Minions just be standing around while I’m auto attacking mobs lol.
There’s also the problem of not having a good way to make them stop once they’ve started attacking.
Next we gut Mark of Blood;
- Lifebane Strike ; Life Blast steals health equal to of it’s damage. 10s cooldown
So whenever I deal a 10k lifeblast… :o
Interesting idea, but as long as minions have the same awful AI they have now it’s still not gonna be very good.
Each skill has its use in different situations, but plague is most commonly used for skill 2 since it blinds everyone around you and makes them unable to hit you or your allies.
Skill 2 usually.