Guild Wars 2

Also, hitting the # + clicking with the mouse at the same time is instant cast. I just like a quick confirmation that my skill lands where I want it. I don’t agree that Fast ground targeting is needed for any serious players, IMO wasting your Reaper’s Mark on a bush instead of taking the 0,05 sec needed to make sure it lands where you need it is better play.

We’re not comparing keyboard turner or clickers here, now those are wasting lot’s of time!

Well I would close range with Axe/Focus (use all skills if needed to boost damage via vulnerability, cripple, and Chill and gain some retal) then switch to dagger/warhorn (only as an example, off hand dagger would add blind, vulnerability and bleed for a 6% damage increase) for the real damage dealer and keep warhorn #4 to prevent a heal. You’re gonna be 20 sec with Focus #5 on cooldown, keep count and you can switch back to axe if really good boons pops up that you want to remove.

Warhorn is also a really good lifeforce generator with #5. With Axe #2, Focus #4, Warhorn #5 and your Spectral attunement, you will fill it up in no time.

I find this build intriguing, but I question your choice of just having one Focus instead of another off-hand. I know it must be to have access to it regardless of your active main hand weapon, but once you use it, the cooldown is almost as twice as switching weapons, so you lose 2 others skill options.

I still prefer to have ground-targeting active, just because having to land a crucial long cooldown mark and it’s wasted on a bump in the road because of strange LoS or my mouse just freaking out when I mouse turn is frustrating.

On my engineer I turn it off for Grenade auto-attack as it does make you attack faster (and make you click a lot less), but I rarely have problem landing my marks quickly with ground targeting.

You’ll get used to the real size soon anyway.

Yeah I agree Super Kruegs, but guess what:

Ooopppss I did it again! New video is in the OP.

I’m getting closer to my final spec, and I love it. Enjoy!

With a quick glance, the only thing I would change is your berserker chest. Crit Damage doesn’t scale well with high stats pieces like chest and pant. I would replace it with a Knight or Soldier one depending on what you need,. you would get more for your money.

As I said last time: I find Centaur not that great for a 25 sec heal (love it on my mesmer though with her 15 sec heal) and would prefer 6x Lyssa or 6x Ruby orb.

You can also just go to Metrica Province for your first 15 levels, way easier, with less ranged npc. Always try to fight near walls/rocks/etc to be able to kite them around while they bleed to death. Necro in open ground against multiple ranged opponents will have a harder time. Also keep up with blue gear every 5-10 level on the trade post. It’s normally only coppers, but it helps a lot.

The only time I was made personally aware that necros are not wanted in PvE was this week for a lvl 10 daily fractal. We ended up 3 necros in the party, so one necro switched to his 80 war even though the others didn’t mind. Then he proposed that another necro switched too, and when we didnt budge, he just leaves the group. We then proceed to 4 man the lvl 10 fractal and everything went fine.

Apart from our 1/3 downed health bug in PvE, I feel that we are very strong in dungeons, at least for “normal” content. Forget about really high lvl fractals though. Of course it’s faster with 4 warriors, but I really think that has to do with dungeon mechanics giving too much power to… well, Direct damage, cleave and Power in general.

You do know that the first Heartseeker doesn’t unstealth you even if you hit the target after leaping from Black Powder (or any smoke field). I’ve seen Heartseeker hits for good amounts even on high toughness target, and you can then chain with backstab for 2 unavoidable high damage back to back attack, or just wait out for 9 initiative and do it again without getting the Reveal debuff.

This right there is a problem, not with thief, but with stealth mechanic in general.

Wooooooooo Page 3, time for a monday bump!

If you have some spared WvW badges, the Master Armor vendor in your WvW Citadel sells them at a fairly low cost. Weapons prices dropped in badges too.

You can now be full Exotic Rabid with less than 10g + badges and 6x 42k Karma from Dwayna temples.

Like Ascii said, It’s pretty much a personal choice, I’m having an harder time against physical damage (thiefs) than conditions, so Toughness is a must for me. Our high health pool also make that choice less risky.

This is the build I’m aiming for:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1m.h16.d.1g.h2|6.1m.h16|1o.7i.1o.7i.1o.7g.1o.7g.1o.a3.1o.a3|21n.0.3v.0.2v.0.2v.0.3v.0.2s.0|u6ac.u63c.a6.0.0|30.d|3r.48.3x.3w.4g|e

Currently testing it with exotic instead of Ascended trinkets and I love it. Bleeds tick for 84 and I reached Dagger and Axe #2 as high as 6k, Lifeblast 3-4k on 80. At 21% damage reduction the survivability is good too. 100% condition is also a great thing to have.

I’ll post a new video this week to show the playstyle and some numbers, it’s really fun to play.

Right now the Transformation bug (let’s face it it’s a bug and they are surely working on a low-prioriy fix, tooltip was just to at least say “Hey we know it sucks but at least you know”) is caused by skill locking. Whenever your utilities locked or changed, minions would die. They fixed it for when you entered water, they will surely fix it one day for our minions too. There is no logical reason to lose your minions when turned into a bird or transform into a powerful lich that controls minions…

One day when our Siphon trait will work with DS (by “healing” our LifeForce or Health) I’ll take it again. Right now you lose a lot of potential healing and a full Trait line if you need to go in DS while you just popped your wells/things that siphon/etc.

This is what turns me off from the trait. And it’s a shame because it can be a real good damage dealer with rapid attack. Those ticks adds up quite fast.

Oh yeah I don’t want it to go away, just make it a standard in all Transform skills. The buttons combos should go away. It’s not skill issues when you need to compensate for lag or others factors completely out of human control.

I DS rez a lot more than I DS stomp ( I leave that to better stompers in my team), and sometimes I’m stuck in DS form while I can’t do nothing and my life force is getting eaten. This can’t be seen as competitive. I do it a lot easier on other classes, reliability is the keyword here. Dodge jump is the same, if you can miss it because of unknow factors, it’s better to not exist in the first place or like I suggested make it counts as an action that can be mapped or by default.

All tranforms skills should (or shouldn’t) be able to rez/stomp, not only a selected few or with gimmicky combo.

Wow, just made some research about dodge-jumping because even after 800 hours in the game (and even more on the forum) I’ve never heard about it.

I can’t really say I’m for those kinds of thing. Timing two buttons at the same time, in a game where no macro is allowed, seems fishy to me. And trust me, I come from games where you had plenty more skills to activate at the same time and as everyone macroed you had to too, to even be able to compete. Yet in this game, those small… bugs I guess, does gives you an advantage, (jumping farther in combat is huge) it’s not only for a “beautiful dodge roll in the air” look.

What this does is create a gap between people who knows the “tricks” and people who don’t. If it’s allowed by Anet, give me an action in my keymapping called Dodge Jump that says you can now jump farther, or even better, make Evade a dodge jump by default.

Sorry for the Off-topic but this and DS shroud/revive are not things that should exist as they are now. Make them clear and easy to use if it’s allowed, not lag or button timing related.

My next WvW movie (coming soon) will have a small special ending of multiple near instant death scenario where I’m against max 3 peoples, while one tries to stomp the 2 others (or even just one attacker sometimes) finishes me off before I get stomped. And this is all in only one evening of recording. In this same video I do win a downed duel against a ranger, but I was in my home in the Archway near Lowland so the pet couldn’t get to him to heal.

Hope this special ending can show more peoples the problem we have to deal with.

Ele Mist stomp and Engi Small dunk stomp are the biggest offender in my opinion. Stealth stomp would come second for necro, because only one of our weapon is really a melee attack, the others need a target to hit (and except for Reaper’s Mark, the other marks wont make your target stops the stomp) . Stability when trying to stomp a friend (at least against my necro) is never a issue, I keep Corrupt boon just for those special occasions. Having someone do something that has no counter (except for professions with downed Stealth/Teleport mechanic) will always get the flack.

Transformations should just all function the same. If people can stomp in one, let them all stomp or none at all. Do you know that engineer can stomp while under the effect of Elixir X, not just at the beginning, all the time in that 20 sec of stability… yet we must start the stomp first then use our Plague to make it work. I know there must be a lot of small teams each working on each classes, but it about time they talk to each other and start to normalize the effects across the board.

It’s unfortunately pretty gamebreaking IMO, when I log on my necro and ask for my small team in WvW to not even try to rez me and just go on. Sometimes they still try, and one Killshot or 2 thiefs auto attack chains kills me outright. And we pretty much do the same to every necro we encounter, and I do a small prayer after we just destroyed him in downed state with not even a chance to use a skill.

I don’t know why peoples would try to belittle this problem. When I go down with other professions against small groups, I can survive long enough for my team to help or even for me to down/kill the other one instead. Never on my necro, except against a healing spec where the Downed damage is of no consequence.

Down state is a part of the game, and should be on equal footing for all professions.

I’m not asking to survive against a zerg spamming their attack on me, but when you have 20k instead of 60k, a breeze kills you and you become once again a liability in your team.

And for PvE, just try high level Fractals. When down means dead outright, no one wants a necro in their party. (Yes peoples get downed in PvE, believe it or not!!! I’ll try to post screenshots )

Anyone would like Immobilize to count as a stun too, so that we can get out of them with a stunbreaker? Plague Signet is a wonderful stun breaker, because it does remove Immobilize too, but I think we’re one of the only class that has a stunbreaker that act like this.

IMO Stun breaker should give you full control over your character, not just get you up on your feet.

Yeah sorry about that, I also switch Greater marks for Shroud removal in PVE if I take scepter instead of staff

Thanks, glad that you enjoyed it! I still got better fights to show, but editing them takes longer than I want them to and time is not on my side lately

Here’s the build in this video:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1m.h16.d.1o.h2|6.1m.h16|1o.7i.1o.7i.1o.7g.1o.7g.1o.7f.1o.7f|21n.0.1b.62.1b.62.1b.62.1b.62.1b.62|u6ac.u6ac.a6.0.0|30.1|3r.48.3x.3w.4g|e

I switch from dagger to scepter when sieging/defending keeps, and grab Targeting Well instead of Spectral Attunement for those special occasions too. Scepter with Crit/Power performs quite well, I just prefer dagger to be able to hit stealthy opponents. Anything to kill them faster the better

I also switch to Plague sometimes, but I hate the 3 min cooldown, and against ranged class you’ll only be a Immobilized target that can’t even use any skills. I prefer the Golem, if only for the Knockdown every 60 sec.

Now here’s the build I’m aiming for with that playstyle (Mostly just Cavalier Trinket changed and Master crystal instead of sharpening stone):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|8.1m.h16.d.1g.h2|6.1m.h16|1o.7i.1o.7i.1o.7g.1o.7g.1o.a3.1o.a3|21n.0.3v.0.2v.0.2v.0.3v.0.2s.0|u6ac.u63c.a6.0.0|30.d|3r.48.3x.3w.4g|e

I’ll lose a bit of Condition Damage, but those crits will hit harder and I’ll raise my damage reduction to 21%, thus losing a bit of Glass in my canon while adding a bit more burst.

Yeah we may just have differents experiences in WvW. Conditions are the least of my worries, so more vitality doesn’t help me there. 20% more damage reduction helps me a lot more to survive bursty classes and siege’s fire, and Crit brings faster bleed stacks that is = to my “burst”.

If one day they get a Condition Damage/Vit/Toughness I might try it, but something tells me Rabid will still outclass it.

Lastly, DS is only 60% of our health, so adding 7k just gives you ~2100 more in DS. Not that big of a deal for the big loss of DPS. My condition build is normally 0/30/20/0/20 though, so the 20% more life force and Protection at 50% helps there too.

I would love to see both builds under fire and see which would survive more, but I dont have any carrion yet

With that much power and using Axe + Focus to regen life force, I would go Staff mark drops, DS Life blast while getting close, then continue with Axe+ Focus to regen that life force then swap back to Staff and repeat. Lifeblast with power build hits hard and is a great addition to your ranged attack.

Personal preference: I would replace Centaur with Lyssa x6, since you keep your elite for when you need it, you could cast golem, removes all conditions, gain a lot of boon and benefit from your 25% boon duration It also bring your crit chance to 44%. And that’s on a 60 sec cooldown.

I see your point, but your trinket are Rabid (I know I know, no Ascended Carrion yet.) Change that for Exotic Carrion Trinket, and you lose 12-13% more damage reduction.

My point was Full Rabid vs Full Carrion, Rabid wins hands down for survivability and at the same time you have more chance to proc additional bleeds. Also if you aim for best condition damage, the toughness of Rabid gives even more power to Undead Rune and other +6% toughness conversion.

Your build right now ressembles my hybrid build, except you focus on Condition damage more while I focus on Power. This is not a focus on Full condition build, even though I’m sure it performs well.

Conditionmancer are one of the best profession to remove/transfer conditions though, that’s why Rabid is #1 in WvW for full condition spec. Vitality will not help one bit to reduce the burst some classes can bring to you.

Now if you’re talking about an hybrid spec, Carrion would be one of the best choice for a non-glass canon hybrid that priorize condition damage. I still prefer Rampager though for my hybrid spec, with a mix of Cavalier to emphasize more on Power.

@Volbit: Some people prefer 6x Undead for max condition damage, I prefer 100% condition on bleed (2x Lyssa, 2x Krait, 2x Afflicted or Centaur). All about your style of play.

Deathshroud been 60%ish of our Health Pool, it would be the closest possible scenario for a bug. However, as it’s working fine in PVP (well PvE and PvP teams must be different though), a little light or head’s up from Anet would stop all this confusion.

I’m really hoping that the next patch will fix this bug. For now I’m playing other professions in WvW/Fractals just because I’m a liability if I go down.

Pure Condition build for necro benefits way more from Precision than Power, so Carrion got a wasted stat right at the start.

Again this applies to WvW only, PVP against thieves are not really an issue because of the lack of Crit damage:

I eat a lot of… “bad” or new thieves even on my hybrid spec, with has much less survivability than PVT or Rabid spec. They spam 2-2-2 in my Plague form, try to Daggerstorm each time they encounter me even if I’ve corrupted their stability countless times before in the same night etc etc. Those do not count as a Win for me, it’s skill’s issues.

However against really good one, you normally won’t be able to do much, it’s a one way street. The burst in WvW is totally out of this world, and no amount of toughness is gonna save you from those numbers. Only dodge/block/invulnerability will. Add to that the counters that thief have against our skills, and it’s kind of normal that it ends that way.

Now like I said before, Stealth mechanic seems to be a big chunk of the problem. Being able to chain cloak and dagger, Black powder into Heartseeker not removing stealth if it hits, are all part of it.

Retaliation unfortunately isn’t that good of a tradeoff, trading a 7k hit for a 330ish hit (and that’s with full power) isn’t going to stop them doing this.

As emotions doesn’t translate well in texts, I just want to add I’m not ranting, just stating that they are a very good counter to our class and that some mechanics could be changed to give us more fun when fighting this profession, and I’m sure thiefs would find it more fun too in the long run. Imagine, no more blackmails, whispers full of hate, /laugh when a zerg finally caught you…

WvW counts as PVE though, and I think it should just have it’s own system separated from both PVE and PVP, just for easier balance and troubleshooting.

Dark Path is going through blocks like Shelter, I’ve pulled myself to guardian using it without fail countless times since patch.

Couldn’t test it against Engi block but my guess would be it would work.

Right now Epidemic and Corrupt Boon doesn’t have the same “Unblockable” feature because they get blocked by those skills.

I’ve started a thief yesterday to add to my alts collection, never liked the playstyle but my WvW Necro needs more info on them so I’ve buckled up for the ride.

First thing I noticed: With a dagger/pistol, you can stealth by comboing Heartseeker in the pistol #5. No big deal. Yet, if that Heartseeker hits someone, you dont get out of stealth.

Just that small thing gets on my nerve and explain a lot of unavoidable damage and burst. You can chain a invisible Heartseeker with a Backstab and in WvW even with 2500 armor those hits like a truck in a fraction of second. Heartseeker also seems to move way farther than the 450 it claims to be, surely because every thiefs use the speed signet and it seems to boost their range? I chill/cripple them all the time, yet they’re stuck on me like glue.

In other games I’ve played, once in combat, stealth was scarce, and good thiefs had to use those scarce abilities at the right time. Right now it’s spam-fest and no real counter, and that’s the biggest problem for me.

There’s still a lot of work to be done with stealth mechanics, so that we can enjoy and counter-play a thief to make great duels instead of luck-based ones. (And please add more anti-stealth mechanic, not only on Arrow Cart )

I like your idea MrBox. I hate the fact that when I put on my Deathshroud, I can no longer manipulate conditions. Epidemic could now trigger this new condition on the user, and spread the other conditions already on the target to others. And every condition is benefecial to a necro, so even on a Power build spreading Vulnerability, Chill or Weakness woud be good.

Let’s not be Blind nor Confused by this new Condition Discussion. What we should discuss here is what the #5 DS skill could/should be, not Burn ourselves out talking only about a condition that will be accessible to others. I Fear that it would Cripples the mind, and my eyes Bleeds when I read some of the ideas that are too focused on the Condition part of the skill.

Seriously now: On my part, I feel that protecting our Condition would be a priority. Cleansing our condition should do something bad for them. Following Mr. Box ideas, maybe Epidemic could transfer the conditions, refresh them, and put a small Condition that says you eat the equivalent of:

Up to ten stack of bleed instantly if Bleed is on the target
Up to X sec of Fire damage if Burn is on the target
Reapply Chill, Weakness, Cripple, Vulnerability if they are removed for X sec.

Now that would be a real condition manager. Don’t come near me or you’ll be stuck with Red Icons for longer than you wish for. And in some case, would provide us with Burst, but only IF the target removes them.

Apart from guardians, who we normally totally eat with Corrupt Boon if they’re not prepared against it, corrupting 2-3 boons is a small bonus (mostly because of the poor Boon to Condition table), removing the boons altogether is way more important.

Well of Corruption normally don’t stay long on my bar against classes like Boon engi, Boon Ele, Boon Ranger and the like. But at some point it should be their counters, who else can mess with boons better than us. Now if 25 stack of might would corrupt into 25 bleed stack instead of a flimsy weakness, we could maybe make the boon spammer think more about when to use their “skills”.

Note that this applies to WvW, not PvP. I agree that in PvP, placing a well as large as the point they need to stay on to make their team wins is a good thing. In WvW it’s rare that you’re able to remove 2-3 boons with it, except for the big zerg that autoattack on a door and doesn’t care anyhow about those because of sheer numbers.

The problem right now with those Boon classes, is that they reapply them faster than you can remove them (some even cleansing those conditions at the same time) thus negating the corrupt part of it. So an instant Corrupt each sec would just make them fear it a bit more, in my mind.

The only thing bugging me with this new condition is this: I want my DS #5 to be a necro DS skill, not a condition.

Now this skill might put a condition that will not be unique, but it must give us something else too. Else are other professions master of the Dark arts too?

So it’s kind of hard to suggest a skill that grants a condition accessible to all class, but with a Death Shroud background.

Hope we can get both sides of the coin!

No they’re still receiving suggestions to implement it, it would have been farfetched to think it would make it into this patch. Remember that some patchs are almost ready 2 weeks before release, so a discussion 1 week before the patch day normally won’t make it through.

Anyone can test it? Maybe it’s been stealth fixed…

As soon as I’m back from job, I’ll go test it in WvW.

While this patch won’t make me weep tears of joy for my small necro, they said that this patch was mostly balance, and next patch Bug fixes.

Next patch is where I’ll be weeping. Let’s hope it will be of joy! I’m leveling a thief to add to my collection now

As a necro, I want to see those boons But I agree that the outmanned doesn’t need to be showned.

The low field of vision this game have also doesn’t help to love professions who teleport/stealth away. Bring us more vision of our surrounding and it will be easier to keep track of what’s going on. Right now you gotta turn your camera non stop just to try to spot where you last shadowstepped.

In a game where you need to react fast with dodge and counters, losing time just to reacquire a target because of forced vision tunneling is not fun.

On some instance, I’ve seen it make a 90 degree crush to grab someone over like 600y, at other times, it just go straight and miss even if the person was 1 inch from it and it could have made that curve. I’ve even saw it do a complete 180 to follow a teleporting thief who’s Heartseeker me and it did hit him.

Seems to happens more if you’re not on the same elevation. I’m following a dolyak, 1y from it, hitting with my dagger and he’s getting up a small slope: Obstructed. Been on a 30 sec cooldown, it’s kind of not wanting to be on our Utility bar long when it fails on easy shot.

Class can reapplied them much quicker, so I don’t really find it OP. Mesmer Null field removes all boons in one shot on a large area, each tick.

Right now you’re lucky if the player wont dodge/teleport out of it after 1 tick, and then the boons are all still there. It’s still a 45/36 sec cooldown, boons are reapplied almost instantly right now for the professions you need it against.

Maybe wells should stick on a target instead and affect everyone near, now that would deserve the title of OPness!

With full toughness, you’ll notice that everyone aggros you like a magnet, so you MAY find it a bit more difficult in dungeon and it will mostly consist of kiting/tanking your way through.

Playing hybrid will help your group a lot more against dungeons with objects to break (or like those fractal boss that receives almost 10x the direct damage but conditions damage stays the same on them)

Stunbreaker are Wurm, Spectral Walk, spectral armor and signet. I would suggest Walk or wurm, they’re on low cooldown and are useful to get away from a bad spot. Walk count for 2 stun breaks for the same cooldown as the Signet, but the signet also removes Immobilize (which is a stun in my mind )

Consume Conditions is your best heal to remove conditions, but Well of blood heals for more for the whole duration, and heals your minions too if you have them out.

Good luck on your leveling!

My (Great) expectations:

- Our downed health in PvE been up to par with other professions. A must!
- Healing now working while in DS, so that I can start gathering Cleric to finish my set’ collections. Healing Power affecting siphon would be nice too!
- The bug where we get kicked out of DS with CC finally fixed.
- More speed to our projectiles, or a little more homing on them to help.
- Any fix that brings us closer to the Attrition master the better.

Another monday’ bump for my poor necro who wants to live but don’t have the same chance as everybody else. Frail body, not enough proteins, give him some love!

[Updated 25 may]

Hi fellow masochists!

I’ve been watching so much WvW necro videos lately on my paid time, that I decided to give back some of that necro love for others like me who watch them (on their break time of course!).

[Part #3]

Same build, except I’ve changed Spectral Attunement for Focused Rituals to test some things. Still as fun as ever to play.

[Part #2]

This is getting closer to my final hybrid build. I love making the enemy waste time on a poor old necro just trying to protect his territory.

[Part #1]

My first try with videos, still with Rampager/Rabid instead of my final build.

Hope you enjoy!

It’s funny since knockdowns, Blowout, Immobilize and others hard CC are more of a pain, you’re normally effected by them much longer than our short duration fear. They must hate it because of the Warrior and Thief’ fears, and think a necro made them run away while they were fighting those classes.

We’re the class with the less access to stability, I hate knockdown, yet I bring stunbreaks to make sure I’m not a ping pong ball on the field. Other classes must do the same against us, or just wait 1-2 second. Now if you go 1 on 1 and chain all your abilities + Corrupt Boon and he can’t break the combo, he deserved to be brought down (note: Downed, not dead), you wouldn’t be able to do this again before 2x 30+ sec cooldowns and a 90 sec cooldown wears off.

Coming from a mesmer, with lots of access to bursts on short cooldown, and lots of Invulnerability, Block and Stunbreak, it’s even more funnier.

Knight armor/ruby orb + Berserker or Cavalier trinket and berserker weapons and mix and match those 3 until you find your happy tanky place.

Fear is affected by Condition duration, I use a 100% condi duration build on my necro (30% from Spite, 40% from Rare Pizza, 10% from 2x Lyssa, 10% from 2x Mad King and 10% from Giver’s weapon.) and my Fear last twice as long in WvW/PvE.

Any class can achieve this 100% condition duration for Fear.