Guild Wars 2

Try zerker gear with death perception trait, pew pew 8k life blasts

For the first build you posted, i noticed you use 2 traits for a single utility skill, which is your only condi removal every 32 secs…hard to stay on point against a terrormancer.

The 2 variations are pretty cool, ill be trying them

First of all, if you take both, you got only utility slot for escape. They both have long casting times and are telegraphed, especially SoS, so its easy to dodge one or both. Theoretically its cool and would help turn a teamfight to your favor, but you must be pretty lucky to cast both, and have them both hit. Maybe if you combine SoS, very fast Doom and then epidemic. No doubt its fun tho

focus 5/DS2 are dps loss. Also cast both wells then go to ds
Happy to see zerk necro soloing, im tired of eles

Roe.3679:

But I don’t see it succeeding in PVP at a decent level because it lacks true sustain and spike damage, as well as mobility and support.

That is very correct…and its true that necro isnt used as bunker by top teams. But if a tanky necro wants to keep a point, its my opinion he can keep it as long as any engi for example would.
A bunker should do some damage though, and that is often achieved through attrition. Attrition on necro would be the 2 retal traits and vamp signet (lol.)
We do have minions but minions+spectral doesnt work together at all.

Support also needs some affection…but we are just different, we support more offensively than other classes.Weakness, soft cc, boon removals. But nobody likes a support necro cause ele can spam heal/boons remove condis more often. And people prefer to have 15 might on them rather than 15 vuln on opponent.

Roe.3679:

What this seems to be doing to me is comparing a hypothetical necro build taking full defensive utilities and some defensive traits, compared to regular meta builds and asking which is tankier. I’m sure you can make a shout heal warrior and throw a zerk ammy on it, too, or some weird guardian build. It’s apples to oranges, in my opinion.

As has already been pointed out, we can’t bunker. That is all the proof you need that our sustain is lacking, not comparing zerker builds.

The point is that compared to shout wa with zerk armor, we can tank more in outnumbered scenarios. Wurm and sWalk are pretty common utilities. I didnt start the argument anyways, i gave my input..

So all the proof i need that we cant bunker is what has been pointed out in the forum. Seriously? Who has pointed this out and i should take his word ? The only person i recall is Bhawb whose opinion is that we need a melee soft cc weapon to be effective as bunkers, as well as some more sustain.
And I never disagreed that we have sustain problems, that is actually my opinion as well, ive tried making sustain builds work but they really lack. But Life Force sustain builds can regen a hell lot of life force and be tanky as hell, and deal good enough damage for tanky power builds.
You can take my word as proof or try something tankier out for yourself putting aside the forum negativity.

zapv.8051:

Pelopidas.2140:

In my opinion on zerk amulet+spectral walk+wurm+armor even with 6/6/x/x/x can outlive any class in outnumbered scenarios (stealthing every 10 seconds is something else)

Has any of you ever played spectral sustain builds in pvp? We have lots of protection, and the ds regen in these builds is ridiculous. Spectral builds with FitG are very very hard to kill, in fact its easier to survive in 1v2 than 1v1 sometimes. (WoP) and energy sigils take care of endurance.

On topic my 2 cents, what OP stated is absolutely correct, and the balance for hp sustain is pretty annoying, the possible OPness is around the corner.
But I really hope someone is working on it, cause 6k every 25sec with a big chance to interrupt is pretty bad. And as if allowing vampirics in ds would do a hell lot, you would likely only get a max 1,6k heal from transfusion against 5 enemies every 40 seconds.

Any spectral sustain build is bad. You might be tanky (arguably no more tanky then engis or eles and with significantly less damage), but your teammates won’t get anything from you because you have no group support. The reason gaurds and eles are taken isn’t because they can live longer than anyone else on point, it is because they can make their team live longer on point. Necros can’t do that.

Furthermore, if you are running zerker amulet with 3 stun breaks and fitg your doing really subpar damage, and at that point you should either switch amulets or bring a thief, ele, mesmer or ranger to actually kill someone quickly. I also don’t believe your claim that the rough build you said will last longer in a 1vs2 than any other build in zerker. If you could do that while still dealing good damage, teams would be taking power necros in there team comps to sit at home.

Nah if you wear zerk amulet your damage isnt subpar, you won’t spike as much but you will be hell tankier compared to any other zerk class. Keep in mind traits are all offensive except FitG(6/2/0/0/6), and you can even skip FitG(6/6/x/x/2). The argument is survival of zerk necro in outnumbered fights compared to other classes (zerk), of which only guard and warrior come close, not who can burst the best.
This is the actual spectral build i’ve personally used(can be tweaked for more damage), try it and see for yourself. Works with celestial and battle sigils or zerk.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBHRhG2IHN12WcjvN83oYXQkaAUBiczHqXvNLA-TJxHwACOJAn3fYZZAAPBAA

Also about what teams do, people discover new things all the time, for example condi ranger was recently used effectively by a top pvp player not too far back, while everyone said how condi ranger is useless in teamfights, loses to other condi classes, the general ranger sucks cryout. Engi has other ways of defending home node rather than facetanking, which in my opinion we can do better (dont get me wrong, engi is more effective at keeping/decap). Also there is a dhuumfire spectral condi variation, which isnt too effective, so spectral doesnt always mean 100% powah build:P.

Tadsoul.6951:

NeXeD.3042:

Just curious but are all of you necros losing more than 50% of your 1v1, 2v2s, and 3v3s your coming across?

If you aren’t specced as a bunker you shouldn’t be able to “survive” outnumbered fights and almost no necro specs as a bunker.

I win most of my 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3
no1 should be able to survive outnumber just get away however given player skill difference that isn’t always true.

NeXeD.3042:

What class can use a zerk amulet and survive outnumbered fights for longer than a necro? How can one be Glassier than a necro ever be?

The two classes that come to mind are mesmer and theif, but I’m not sure running away counts as lasting.

guardian, warrior, mesmer, theif in outnumbered fights even while not running away

In my opinion on zerk amulet+spectral walk+wurm+armor even with 6/6/x/x/x can outlive any class in outnumbered scenarios (stealthing every 10 seconds is something else)

Has any of you ever played spectral sustain builds in pvp? We have lots of protection, and the ds regen in these builds is ridiculous. Spectral builds with FitG are very very hard to kill, in fact its easier to survive in 1v2 than 1v1 sometimes. (WoP) and energy sigils take care of endurance.

On topic my 2 cents, what OP stated is absolutely correct, and the balance for hp sustain is pretty annoying, the possible OPness is around the corner.
But I really hope someone is working on it, cause 6k every 25sec with a big chance to interrupt is pretty bad. And as if allowing vampirics in ds would do a hell lot, you would likely only get a max 1,6k heal from transfusion against 5 enemies every 40 seconds.

Berserker gear, Ranger runes

I rarely get kicked or told that i ’’underperform’’ while pugging dungeons on necro.
The damage you put out and the vuln is pretty good, and since you don’t try to do world records, the ’’meta’’ necro build performs just fine. Dont feel bad lol -.-

zapv.8051:

I apologize for not being clear, with this change spectral recall would just be removed. Spectral Wurm would be a port and a summon to function similarly to other classes ports. Basically a instant port and a minion on a 40 second cooldown. If comparing to lightning flash from an ele (same cooldown), they get instantaneous damage, we get sustained damage through a minion.

Lopez.7369:

We don’t at all. Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm are enough, and giving necromancers any more would make us overpowered. The problem is a lot of people just have no idea that positioning is even a concept, so they constantly get killed and then blame the game.

The fact is necros are the only class that require the level of positioning your talking about because every other class can go invuln or disengage easily. That is terrible design. Furthermore, there are specs on the class, aka any dagger or axe spec, that won’t be able to mitigate the vast majority of damage with proper positioning because they need to be in range to deal damage. I don’t care how good you, or anyone else is at positioning, until necros get some kind of mobility, stability, and/or invulns necros will not be on par with eles, engies, thieves, guards, warriors, or mesmers in general.

The current meta build (I’ve only seen one on tpvp streams recently) relies on necros choosing all their traits, and 2/3 utilities to generate space. Meanwhile, other classes either get blocks, or space creators on weapon skills. The class is and has been in sore need of changes in pvp, and pve for a long time, and just because you are good enough to do well on the class doesn’t mean it is balanced (Power builds are still terrible, if you think I’m wrong get good at a shatter mesmer, fresh air ele, thief, ranger, medi guard, and you’ll see just how outclassed power necros are). I’m not saying I want the class to be buffed into godmode, but currently necros have to sacrifice too much just to get even remotely close to the disengage ability that thieves, mesmers, and eles have by default, and can’t ever get to the sustain level of a guard, engi, or warrior.

We have beautiful DS sustain with some spectral investment. And that’s also where the recent nerf hit the hardest.

necros boxing (think of life blast and staff auto xD)
engineers table tennis (but the player not the ball!)

wiki/tooltips aren’t always accurate

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

And now this on the GW2 facebook page:

Same picture with the phrase No Tiem to Explain would be hilarious

perilisk.1874:

I think the fact that Zhaitan and Mordremoth are opposing forces suggests that, much as Sylvari were immune to Zhaitan’s corruption and Caladbolg played a large role in weaking Zhaitan, artifacts and beings of Death will be critical for fighting Mawdrymouth.

Ritualist abilities were concerned with ancestral spirits and such. I think Ritualist magic is going to return (at least as NPC abilities) and play a large role in defeating M. Marjory has always had a connection with ghosts (and is of Canthan descent), and now wields a ghostly blade.

I think while Rytlock is in the Mists, he is going to be impressed into service as an Envoy (as Shiro was before him). Once we rescue him, he can use that ability, along with his sword, to pull an Aragorn with the ghosts of the Foefire, in exchange for helping to free them from the curse and send them to their proper place in the afterlife. Might be very late in the season, given how much of a game-changer it would be.

That would be epic.

Reaper’s precision gives 1% life force every 3 critical hits. I’d take weakening shroud or chilling darkness over it anytime, especially with dagger mainhand and spectrals.

What GoogleBrandon said, so pack runes and dagger, also take reaper’s might and Enfeebling Blood from Curses traitline. Same in utility, if not flesh wurm then spectral armor/grasp for some breathing room or blood is power/well of suffering, both great for power necro

Hey guys, I just want to share a build. Its purpose is to help/support allies in pvp with heals, regen, protection and chill/cripple/fear/transfers;)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkkmea7txzG+bTgNUSFATvAHQvSdMEC/KA-TZxGABA8EAy9CAwUZAh2fQhDCAA

Some elaboration on the build
>Weaps
Axe/warhorn aren’t a must, any power set would work imo, but i like the range/vuln/cripple axe offers, and the mobility/cripple/daze from warhorn.
Of course secondary is staff, and amulet is cleric.
>Traits
I chose to synergize Near to Death and Deathly Invigoration, because thats a 972 heal practically on demand. (These traits can be replaced with Ritual of Life and Mark of Revival for example, and Unholy Martyr can be replaced with well cooldowns.) Renewing Blast is also pretty good, it can sometimes be hard to land(if your buddy moves like hell, so death perception is pretty good for some damage, or foot in the grave for easier res and stability on demand.)
>Utilites
Plague signet and unholy martyr help with condi management on your buddy (i know that they aren’t superb skills, but taking that 15s poison from your warrior buddy is pretty good).Well of Power is a must, and Spectral Wall provides protection and of course fear/life force. It can allow you to res your ally uninterrupted. The protection uptime from that skill isnt bad either (6,5s on 36s cooldown).
Some changes for more offensive support are corrupt boon or well of corruption for plague signet, or well of darkness/CPC.

Anyway, I know that we cant compare to other classes like guard ele, etc in terms of support, but i still find it fun in this game to create different builds and try to play more diversely. Hope you like this one

Irina.7418:

Archon.6480:

OK, you promised to be friendly, so here goes! I personally use that skill to demolish opponents in PvP. If they make it stronger, it won’t be fair to other classes. It’s lethality comes in the form of high precision condition builds. It hits harder than rapid fire (Ok slight exaggeration—but you get the idea) and most peeps don’t know it’s going to kill them. It can stack bleed so fast that opponents will die before the last bird hits if they don’t pull off a cleanse or dodge.

Let’s imagine a ranger, 2 points in expertise, 6 in wilderness survival, rabid gear, rune of the krait, and sigil of agony (+20% bleed duration to reach a 3 seconds bleeding with sharpened edges).
You have a 40% crit chance, 60% with fury.
The skill hits 16 times.
If it crits, it makes the foe bleeds for 3 seconds, for a 339 total damage, on a 66% chance to activate.

-> The skill will crit in average 9.6 times.
-> Sharpened edges will activate in average 6.4 times.
-> The total bleed damage for the skill will be 2169.6. Add more or less 800 damage for the physical damage of the skill, and it goes a bit under 3k, for a 25 seconds cooldown.

Honestly, it’s weak. And it seems even weaker when compared to other off-hand weapons. Dagger has an evade, poison, and cripple, all on a relatively short CD. Torch has a 40% burn uptime with only the 4th skill. Sure, it’s a dps increase compared to the auto-attack, but it’s not strong, and if a ranger is using warhorn, it’s probably for the 5th skill.

I would also want something else added to the skill. Cripple/blind/whatever defensive condition to make warhorn a bit more usuable.

If you take a sigil of earth and use it with sharpened edges when opponent is around 80-75% hp (to proc keen edges), its gonna stack 12-13 bleeds or so. Even if you are zerker, so many bleeds hurt:)

But yeah a 1 or 2-second pulse blind would be awesome

Norjena.5172:

Using Maul on CD interupts AA Chain, bad timed interrupts cost dps.
Vulstacks…Bosses have – 50% vul duration. And it can be ignored in some partys (because other classes are stacking it to 20+).
Sword AA gives to your Pet, pets might is not for 20 sec like yours (blastfinishers) only for 10sec.
So need the sword AA to keep might on your pet.

Sword has got 2 dogdeskills, both are very potent. U should include them too.

I don´t think your calculations favor the sword.

Overall the GS is much weaker. Use it when u need max meleerange (Melandru Arah p4 Melee, or Grawlboss in volcano fractal). Or for trashmobs.
On most bosses the sword clearly outshines our GS.

Anet should buff it to make it a real and viable choice.

More vuln is always good
Critical hits grant might to your pet trait is a standard, so pet might doesnt depend on sword AA
GS has evade in auto attack, and skill 3, and lets you dodge when you want…and you mentioned dps loss, check the dps loss between sword 2/3 and gs maul/skill 3

Dont get me wrong, sword is better dps in 1v1, and i prefer sw/axe to GS most of the time. But greatsword is very decent, and your arguments are weak

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYWjc0UdbxNm3webCchSyf4Fg+NDgoly4IMA-TZxHABTs/wAHCgZPBAGVGAgnAAA

Here is a build if you want to play around with dhuumfire, without having to be super squishy like 6/6/x/x/x. Celestial would also work pretty good if we had normal sustain..

But generally terror is better. And the combination of the 2 is wonderful, although high risk

There is room for improvement. First of all, perma swiftness from warhorn and using spectral walk? why not wurm or spectral armor. Secondly, the combination dagger/focus and axe/wh is.. difficult. Axe doesnt work so good with warhorn, with axe you want your distance and with warhorn you want to stick on the target. Focus 4 hits hard, but is hard to get it to hit, so is focus 5. Staff+ d/wh is much better, you have your swiftness, you have your ranged damage and chill/poison, and a condi clear(which you lack). And you get chill of death

Try a carrion build in pvp with spider+muddy terrain+hound, you pew pew poor immobilized souls all day long.
Cripple them, then stun them, spider should then do its first immob, then you immob with muddy terrain, then use spider f2, then switch to hound, hound knockbacks, then hound f2 for immob. For even more kite take frost trap.

Using spirits is also cool with shortbow, so is sharpening stone+zephyr for bleed overstacking.

Siroso.2769:

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STILL NA KING
For king: Siroso.2769 vs. jcbroe.4329 2-0
Defence 1: Siroso.2769 vs. Fluffball.8307 2-0
Defence 2: Siroso.2769 vs. SadKeanu.3491 2-0
Defence 3: Siroso.2769 vs. tankstager.1975 2-0

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Current king build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjMq0yaFL+rQ1aAOhqdAMsX67NNUbYXFbBreA-TZBHwAMLDU4iAA4BAoa/hBHBAA

Just had some great fights with SadKeanu, who was running a celestial strength axe/warhorn, sword/dagger build, with bark skin and survival of the fittest.

The second duel we had was pretty insane! I think it went on for about 10 minutes. As we both had bark skin, there were some last minute saves on both sides.

Great time, and some good laughs.

See you next time SadKeanu!

EDIT: Caught up with tankstager today as well… great duels with you too mate.

This build is awesome

I recently made my mesmer lv80 and after some pve fun i was looking to do some pvp. So i ask the more experienced mesmers in the forum, what are the commonly used builds out there? I’ve made some builds already, but im not sure how good they are.

And it would be very nice if someone could suggest a pvp phantasm build

another use : load ranger pet with condis, detonate, profit

a spear in land…like a gladiator..skill 4 could throw a net, and then pull, like binding blade. Combined with our Point blank AOE it would be beautiful.

PS: a trident is also great for a gladiator

kaikalii.4198:

oxtred.7658:

Troll onguent is overall the best heal for condi specs, as their tankiness allows the full heal to tick, that’s an insane regen over time. For pets, you’ll need at least one canine. Wolf or hound are the most powerful pets in pvp, because they have cc. I use spider on switch, but that’s a personal preference. Birds have quite a few bleed stacks.

I have found that a stealth build means very little when you have a pet showing the enemy where you are, so I have opted to definitely take jaguar.

witcher.3197:

In general you can try metabattle.com when looking for builds – they list pets too.

And 1 golden rule of rangers, never use bears :P

What makes bears bad?

It’s bearbows that suck not bears!
Bears have steady dps cause they never die, and brown bear has condi clear. She is also cuddly.

Stand The Wall.6987:

ive played spectral necro for about a year now, and it wont be as good as it could be until some big changes happen. combining spectral mastery into spectral attunement is a start. another problem is that there are too many good traits in soul reaping and close to none in death/blood magic.

You want big changes? I guess reduced cd on spectral armor and res/stomp in ds aren’t big enough.
I doubt the 2 traits will be combined, it would have been done from the beginning. I dislike the position of spectral attunement, but it’s good that there are spectral options on more than one traitlines.

And seriously close to none good traits in death/blood magic? Death magic has awesome traits…and some blood magic traits are also cool.

And on topic, build is ok. Maybe change the Dark Armor to spiteful vigor or shrouded removal, some cleanse on d/wh isnt bad.
Personally id take 2 points off curses and into DM. To take Reapers protection or Death Shiver.

>Take unholy sanctuary trait
>have more than 10% ds
>let mesmer moa you
>become unholy moa
>profit

I dont disagree

this change was implemented to make Unholy Sanctuary the only way to skip DS cooldown, and imo make the change on the trait noteworthy. Also to prevent abuse of no DS cooldown with both the trait and the LF depletion.

As a sidenote, I find the new function of Unholy Sanctuary pretty helpful. Saved my kitten alot on a spectral build

Neptune.2570:

Pelopidas.2140:

and better take bark skin or nature’s voice, since you lack on regen and swiftness

I’m not really worried about swiftness at this point as the build is definately a node fighter and shouldn’t have to do any skirmishing or much rotating. Can definately swap out for bark skin if preferred though.

I find the lack of regen disturbing, after healing spring you have a 20sec window with no healing (ok maybe moa will decide to heal). 20seconds without heals in a bunker build is alot…and with clerics…Mesmers and engies should kill you easy.. Without swiftness you will have problems catching up to ranged dps enemies (GS mesm, ranger pew pew), and even if with leaps you catch up, you have no reliable way to keep them in place (good cripple is only on dagger 5 which isnt hard to dodge, immob from a spirit that doesnt follow, and 3 out of 4 CC come from your pet)
And with 20sec downtime on heal, you will get kited and killed.
What i see this build being pretty good at, is 1v1 fights with melee classes(warriors, thieves, guards), keeping the node until help arrives. It is also maybe good in teamfights (spirits and healing spring), but without stability….you won’t be able to even res your ally. Lack of on demand stability, and that 20 second window is why terrormancers take you down easy.

I’d like to know if the evades are enough to handle 1v2 with 2 high cd stunbreaks and if the damage is enough to down something zerk ( a guard, a necro or a thief)

and better take bark skin or nature’s voice, since you lack on regen and swiftness

except when that siamoth hits its target!!

Trolling ?
15chars/

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Pelopidas.2140:

On topic, i like the idea of a portal that pulls people inside. It helps keep the enemyclose and can be combined with wells…too bad we already have spectral grasp for that

Idk if they ever do add new skills I can see some type of spectral ability being added that pulls all nearby enemies onto it & applies a condition.

or heck it could even be a well ability.

Imagine

“Gravity Well” Pull all enemies within X distance of a given spot to the center of said spot, then apply weakness (Y seconds) & immobilize (Z seconds) once they get there.

Seeing as how the necro has little in the way of leaps, teleports & gap closers it makes sense they would be good at pulling enemies to them or a chosen spot.
Besides imagine the fun that could be had in WvW with cliffs

Reminds me of guard hammer #5. Would be fun to drop in middle of enemy zerg, or like you said on cliffs and fear

ok
15charr to post

Bhawb.7408:

Pelopidas.2140:

Maybe the possible OPness of MM is why we dont get AoE might/fury…

If that is their reasoning then its idiotic. Fury is a 10% DPS buff while its up (on average), and might is less so, plus Pack runes already exist and give MM more than 50% fury uptime. Meaning if you give it to MM, it buffs the minion DPS by 200 for every second its up max, which isn’t exactly OP. Not to mention there are only a few very specific spots they could add it and it’d actually fit into MM builds; it’d have to fit in the normal trait spread which only has 1 major trait that can be replaced (or a minor trait), be on a good MM weapon set, or an on-swap sigil.

I actually agree…but are you sure the dps increase is just 10%? The crit chance from 4% to 24% is a big deal, and more crits=even more dps up with some might/vuln stacks

Bone Minions FTW:D

Maybe the possible OPness of MM is why we dont get AoE might/fury…

On topic, i like the idea of a portal that pulls people inside. It helps keep the enemyclose and can be combined with wells…too bad we already have spectral grasp for that

Self healing builds, especially with well siphon+crit siphon are so much fun to play in pve though:) And if you are full zerk/assassin’s your damage is still more than ok for dungeons

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW3djM00VbLN20webiaBZ6pX3CdiAziqDA-TRCGwADeAAJuIA22fYqSQiK/IpqCM1KAcEAqobAA-e

maybe you’ll like this one :P

it procs 17 times according to wiki, so sigils and 66% bleed on crit trait synergize ok with it. But the amount of damage is so low it always surprises me

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Raven.9603:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjEq0yaHLGsQ1aADhqdLEsVNrAwd8+CXdJXqC-TFSFwAuU/BwTA4juBnK9ScRA+rE8pygU7PQIgFrBA-w

the poison applied by your pets via Poison Master uses your condition damage and duration, and with food you have enough between a petswap and a weapon skill to keep perma poison without doom sigils (swapped doom sigils for earth).

I’ve had an issue lately. I’ve made a poison master/condi build, but all my pets conditions only do base damage (45 for bleed, 88 for poison, etc). They don’t use any condition stats, except the +350 condition on pets trait, and might stacked. Without these it’s 0. Sometimes my pet poison even overrides my own poison mastered poison (450 damage/s, becomes 88 damage per sec).

Anyone having this issue as well?

Then don’t use spider

Ranger pets are very reliable atm

Corrupt Boon and Path of Corruption keeps the warriors in check

BiP gives might and CB can transform boons to weakness/fear/blind etc, so you see condi damage isnt that important. Anyway i changed the build i posted, it was an old draft :P

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmqbLvxmG+bTgLUy+DvAkvZAE7FcCA-TVCBABYcEAqRHAPq/I0+DGqN4MlgScCA8S5HAPAASBExwI-w

See if you like it:)

I like the second option alot. First one i disagree, i really like blood is power as it is