Guild Wars 2

CHIPS.6018:

In WvW any roaming necro would die a lot. They do not have the means to disengage from a fight. So as a necro you should stay with your zerg. ^^

I would think that’s because everyone that isn’t a D/D Ele dies a lot.

Ratphink.4751:

To make my point clear though, the problem isn’t that we have lack mobility. It’s that we lack the ability to prevent other classes from disengaging which is more in line with what the developers want. However the current amount of cleansing makes this extremely problematic to actually achieve. We have chills and cripples, we also have them in the form of gap closers (spectral grasp and dark path) however something is not working in that these skills simply aren’t landing due to pathing/speed issues.

So more reliable/effective snares + access to Stability would go a very long way to making us the Attrition class Anet keeps talking about.

I don’t get why people keep saying we need more Stability to play attrition. Most classes have pretty slim access to Stability. I think Warrior and Guardian are really the only 2 that have a lot of it.

And as for preventing other classes from disengaging…which classes? Is this about Thieves and Elementalists? Those are really the only 2 that come to mind when I think of classes that I just can’t catch no matter what. All the others are fairly simple to corner with the tools we have. I mean, it’s too bad those are 2 very popular classes but that’s probably why. Everyone has that problem. Thieves and Elementalists are just hard to nail down in general.

Rennoko.5731:

Sheobix.8796:

Hanzo.9624:

Step 1: Stack staff marks on your feet
Step 2: Put spectral wall between you and your target
Step 3: Spectral grasp target through spectral wall into your staff marks (with blast finisher)

exactly this. blast finisher from putrid mark combined with chill of death and the chill on blindness proc can also add chill+cripple on proper execution of this tactic. then you drop your wells, kite, and add more chills so they can’t hobble out of the edge before they get the ticks from the wells.

Or…. right at step 3 your spectral grasp fails or gets dodged, and you are standing on the wall/marks with your hands in your pockets, while they are attacking you from range. Not to mention it took 2 utilities just to get them to you and in that damage if it works.

If you can force someone to be near the wall, like in Spvp, sure…. but otherwise its way too much risk because you are telegraphing where you want the fight to take place, and all they have to do is not fight there.

Reminds me of the Dev post where he said he likes to chain dagger 3 casting it as the DS2 projectile is in flight for an instant port/immobilize/chill. When you completely ignore the very likely chances that they have a way to avoid one of a long chain events, the likelyhood of that chain of events failing horribly goes up. (this is easier to pull off now since path can’t be blocked, but the point stands)

Severe lack of immobilize, makes landing these fancy combos a matter of lack of skill on the opponent. The reason sword 3 into shatter is so strong for mesmer is because it can’t be dodged once you are rooted. The reason dagger 3 into wells is so strong, is because it can’t be dodged once you are rooted.

Yes there are other ways to get out, but much less than if they have dodge available. These fancy combos with wall suppose they don’t dodge a very telegraphed attack, and very telegraphed setup of marks and walls.

Personally if I saw someone marking their feet and putting down a spectral wall…. I would just walk out of range, and drop my marks on top of them. Or if I was any other class I would go OOR and just wait for the wall to go down. The success people have with this skill is around people being stupid enough to ignore the wall. That is a comment on their lack of skill, not the overall effectiveness of the ability.

So, the short version is that Area Denial tools are of limited value in WvW because there’s always somewhere else to stand.

I wonder how long they’re going to take to include “Bigger AoE Fields” in their WvW Ranking abilities.

Leeto.1570:

Our crap mobility, not many heals, and no immunities/blocks already work somewhat like that

I think everyone has that problem when compared to D/D Elementalists.

Leeto.1570:

Well if your build isnt meant for 1v1 then you wont kill many people in WvW cause theres load of people that run 1v1 builds there.
But to kill DD ele you need direct damage or at least hybrid spec and then you can kill him if he wants to kill you really bad, otherwise once he feels under pressure he will just turn around and ride the lightning away from you.

I wonder if “Bait Tanking” would work in this kind of situation, where you let your health remain somewhat low so the enemy thinks he’s winning and doesn’t run away. Necro seems like the only class that could pull that off, but damage happens so fast that it’d be very difficult.

Replace Reanimator with 2s of Retaliation when you get crit, just so people will stop crying about it.

I thought that Lich Form and Plague Form ignored your gear and just gave you Base + Traits + Form Bonus as stats. That’d be why your Crit Damage stat went down. You lost all your Zerker item bonuses.

Test it and make sure, but I’m fairly certain that’s how it works. It might open up a bit more space in the build for gearing.

Edit:

Also, have you considered how much incoming DPS is reduced by permanent Weakness stacked on top of your permanent Regen and burst healing. I’ve tried a build similar to this and thoroughly enjoyed it in PvE, but I took Soul Reaping to 20 so I could put 10 points in Curses for Weakening Shroud. That plus the Chillblains + Putrid Mark finisher offered a pretty impressive Weakness uptime, and I used off-hand dagger instead of off-hand focus to fill in the gaps. I thought focus would work well at first too, but I already got plenty of regen from staff 2. The blinds, cleanse, and weakness from dagger really fit the build better.

Thanks for the video and all the other build work you’ve done. Most of the builds I’ve run have been inspired by your videos, and you were a big help when I first made my Necro and had no clue how it worked.

We have plenty of utilities with very short cooldowns. The issue is that the really powerful ones have very long cooldowns, which is probably close to where it should be.

I compare the 60 second cooldown on Well of Power to the 60 second cooldown on Save Yourselves. Both remove conditions from group members. Both apply boons. One’s instant and one’s an over-time effect. Which is better (or worse) depends on what you’re doing.

And as for our Signets, I find them bad but I find most class Signets pretty bad. Not only are the actives not generally worth slotting them, but it instantly gives any opponent key information about what kind of build you’re running before they start fighting you.

Budg.3064:

Engineers can do most things, just not as well as other classes.

Necros can do most things, just not as good as other classes and for twice as long! So there!

lettucemode.3789:

Used this for months in my spectral power/crit build. Tried to defend it on the forums a few times :P glad to see others using it! It’s really great for both offense and defense.

SA does increase the base time of the protection from Spectral Wall. In my tests it went from 5s to 7s base, even though the tooltip doesn’t update. So one can still only run through the wall twice before it expires. If you were getting 9s with your build, that’s awesome I was getting 7.7s because of only 10 points in Death Magic. 16s of protection on a 32s cooldown is amazing (18s for you), plus Last Gasp means you can have Protection on for over half the fight.

Then I come to the forum and see people complaining that necromancer doesn’t have good access to boons like protection :P

When I read complaints like that I always mentally insert the words “Compared to Guardians.” We have bad damage (compared to GS Warriors). We have bad boon stacking (compared Guardian). We have bad mobility (compared to Thieves). We have bad bleed stacking (compared to Rangers). Basically, we’re a hybrid class that isn’t as good at any other class’s specialty. We have OK everything, an obscene amount of hitpoints, and a variety of debuffs at our disposal.

I found our access to Protection pretty good, supposing you actually build for it.

whiran.1473:

Until ArenaNet figures out a way to make money from WvW it will not change in any significant manner. WvW will always remain on the “back burner” and it will be a secondary (or tertiary) priority for ArenaNet.

In terms of how to monetize WvW: this has to be done on a consumable level (I’m thinking WvW only chests and WvW only keys to said chests that contain WvW only outfits, weapons, and dyes) that encourages players to pay money for things that DO NOT impact the WvW combat. In other words, skins and cosmetic items = good while boosts to hp, damage, timers, etc = bad.

So, they have to figure out a way to sell cosmetic items to a group of players that largely are interested in winning in WvW (where most of their cosmetic stuff will be turned off by everyone to reduce lag).

Yeah, that’s a real riddle. I wish them luck.

Talentless uses this trait to great effect, but he avoids the forums because they’re full of bad ideas and faulty information.

There’s his video, and the most recent But of Corpse podcast featured him as a guest speaker. I don’t think he took it too seriously, since he didn’t even log out of WvW for it. Still, he’s a solid player and good with the class.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Cognitive dissonance is a kitten.

Is it a cute kitten?

Scalpel.8163:

I’ve already read his guide and I disagree so much with some of the trait choices that I find it hard to find it useful. Using wells in a condition build like he does seems like a waste of utility slots to me. These synergize best with power, no ?

Maybe I’m just confused, but as a necro I want to be running with epidemic, corrupt boon and signet of rez, or signet of condition transfer

Wells synergize with all sorts of things. WoS is good with Power builds. WoC is just a great utility in a lot of different builds because boon-stripping is awesome. WoP is also a good all-arounder because Necro doesn’t get many boons otherwise. WoD is awesome in any build, but particularly good with 10 in Curses and Plague #2 for stacking Chill. WoB is good for dungeon support builds, and decent if you plan on standing in the well for most of the duration.

The signets are kinda garbage, tbh. Rez Signet is decent because it’s rez signet. Plague Signet is so-so because it’s breaks stun and immobilize/cripple, but it’s got a super long CD. Spite Signet is trash unless you’re using it to spike DPS with 25 in Curses, and even then it’s barely ok because of the CD. Locust Signet is probably the best because the run speed is handy, the heal is decent in a siphon build, and the CD isn’t too awful.

I think the class has an assumption inherent in the design that we will always have at least 1 minion skill slotted.

That is the only explanation of why our trait tree is so heavily slanted toward these skills, especially when compared to the Engineer tree that has only a few lackluster Turret traits.

Also, I take issue with the tendency we have to see all these minion traits and feel we must take as many of them as possible and as many minion skills as we can fit on the bar. It becomes too much to juggle and ends up sacrificing our build in other places, such as basic survival.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Yes, Bhawb, but our fear still doesn’t last long enough to truly make absolute use of it.

Free daze + knockback no matter the weapon set and you’re complaining?

The Kay.6539:

No offense, but you (the OP) have no idea of what you are talking about.

Elementalist class mechanic isn’t just a glorified weapon swap. You receive extra buffs per attunement and on swap. It also counts as weapon swap for sigil purposes. It’s probably the best class mechanic in the game.

Thief mechanic is basically just a shadow step with a random effect on it. Check on thieves forums, they hate it with passion, how can it even be considered “Best”?

Warrior mechanic is overly simple, it’s a 5th button and some warrior builds don’t even use it, because they relly on having full rage all the time.

Necro DS is amazing for suvival, the extra fear is a good “oh crap” interrupt, or escape skill. The drain life can heal allies, it also has a “charge” for chasing targets. Oh, yes, it has it’s own hp bar that can mitigate some bursts! I can’t possible count how many times DS saved my skin solely for the extra HP. Can it be buffed? I’d like dark blast to be based on my mainhand, just that.

Necros have more issues with the bleed cap than they have with DS. I think necro DoTs shouldn’t be bleeds, they should be something unique to necros, like confuse is for mesmer. Like “curse”, it’d work exactly like bleed, but you wouldn’t have to share it with thieves, warriors and everyone else…

I agree mostly. Death Shroud isn’t all that different than the Warrior Burst mechanic. They get an extra bar that they can spend for damage. We get an extra bar that we can spend to soak damage. Their bar does different stuff depending on the weapon they’re using. Ours does the same things no matter what, kind of like Shatter. They’re all pretty much the same. The most iconoclastic ones are easily Elementalist and Engineer, since they can get so much skill variety out of theirs.

That said, I like DS far more than Warrior Burst. It’s more hitpoints. I mean, there’s a lot of depth and complexity you can get into by comparing how LF generation and health generation can be optimized and whatnot. But at the end of the day it’s more hitpoints with a few useful skills attached. I like that it’s somewhat simple, but gets more complex as you figure out how all the moving parts fit together.

Elementalists have 20 weapon skills per weapon to memorize right off the bat. Mesmers have to decide if they want to dump all their clones for damage and not have them for a daze at day 1. Engineers have double the utility skills to manage. Necros get a bunch of extra hitpoints and 4 skills that never change, but get a ton of different ways to play with (or ignore) that mechanic through gearing, utilities, and traits. It’s easily my favorite class mechanic, which is why I’m still playing the class even though I’ve got a bunch of alts at 80.

When I feel OP:

I have to tank damage for long periods of time.
I have to help my group members tank damage for short periods of time.
I land a sweet Putrid Mark + Epidemic on a zerg of newbies in WvW and they all die.
I 1vs1 someone in WvW, the fight takes a really long time, and they die with me still at mostly full health.

When I don’t feel OP:

I have to DO a lot of damage in a short period of time.
I have to help my group members do a lot of damage in a short period of time.
I land a sweet Putrid Mark + Epidemic in WvW on a group of non-newbs and everything gets instantly cleansed.
I 1vs1 someone in WvW, the fight takes a really long time, and their friend shows up and they both rez each other while bursting me to death.
I 1vs1 someone in WvW, the fight takes a long time, and when they start losing they just leave because they can.
I get turned into a speed-bump by zergs in WvW because I don’t have Ride the Lightning.
I fight a boss mob that chain-cleanses.

Another wrinkle is this.

Toughness increases Healing and Siphon efficiency, but does nothing for LF gain efficiency. It also makes you take more Condition damage, as a percentage of your total.

Vitality reduces Healing and Siphon efficiency, but increases the amount of raw hitpoints LF you gain from skills. It also decreases the amount of Condition damage you take, as a percentage of your total.

It seems to me that a balanced approach is probably better, though there is a case to be made for using various weapon/utility skills to compensate for a more slanted approach. For example, loading up on Toughness and compensating for the weakness vs. Conditions with more cleansing/transfers. Also, loading up on Vitality and compensating for the lack of heal efficiency and armor by bringing more Protection/Blind/Weakness/Chill.

Bhawb.7408:

I would say don’t even fix the trait, unless you are going to change Death Shroud mechanics overall. Death Shroud in its current form does not encourage staying in for much more than 3 seconds (unless you are super low and are just delaying all that you can), so either change traits to reflect that (make Shivers apply vulnerability on entry, have persistance negate the first 1 or 2 degen ticks), change Death Shroud to support that style, or just get rid of the traits entirely and give us something different.

I think the current mechanics are fine. It’s a spare bucket of hitpoints, much like a savings account, with a 4% per 2 seconds tax on using them. We have various methods for refilling the bucket in combat, and near total control over when we use it. As regen mechanics go, it’s a pretty good deal.

My main complaint is just with useless traits that could be quickly and easily fixed. Vital Persistence is basically just an EHP boost, and it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a very effective one.

Sannhet.8745:

Zynthetic.2954:

Ezeriel.9574:

I’d like to see Mark of Blood’s regen occur at the caster as well as at the mark.

This. At the moment people have to be standing in the mark while an enemy triggers it to receive the regen, meaning that unless you’re trying to facetank enemies with the staff you’ll never get the regen boon yourself. Make it so that the necro always gets the regen, regardless of range (like how Putrid Mark works) and increasing the application range of Regeneration to friendlies to 450 – 600 range would also be good, but borderline OP. ~5 – 9 seconds of AoE regen on a 6 or 4.5 second cooldown.

Also, the Blood Magic trait Transfusion doesn’t scale with healing power. Since it’s causes healing, it should be altered so it does scale with healing power.

Not everything that heals scales with healing power in GW2. Not even everything that heals other people.

I agree that playing support Necro can be a bit frustrating given all the qualifiers to their support-type abilities. (Stand still in this Well so it can heal you! Oh there’s a 60 man zerg bearing down on you? It’s okay, the Well heals for 12k over its entire duration, you’ll be fine. If you need to run, conveniently run over that Mark over there while an enemy is close enough to you so you both hit it!) That being said, support isn’t seem to be the direction they are trying to go with the class and Guardians/Eles just do it better. Let’s see if we can just get fixed what we’re SUPPOSED to specialize in.

We do fairly well with support. There’s little effective difference between healing 100 damage, mitigating 100 damage, or preventing 500 damage 20% of the time.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Vital Persistence is not particularly useful. Don’t use it. I agree in general that buffing the trait would make some sustained DS builds viable if it was done right, but Necro already has more build diversity than most classes.

There are tons of bad traits in this game, and I don’t see where this one warrants more attention than others. There are bigger fish to fry.

I know Necro has a lot of build diversity, but it isn’t enough. Garbage traits are garbage traits, and they need to be addressed on every profession. It isn’t just for PvP Balance, but also for new-player retention. Nobody likes to put time into building a character only to learn that most of their “options” are just filler. This forum has been awash in “Necro is Terrible” posts, and I think that’s for a number of very valid reasons. First, the profession is incredibly complex but that complexity is not instantly apparent. Second, it’s difficult to tell at first what’s working, working poorly, bugged/broken, or just poorly designed.

Bhawb.7408:

Its (Dark Path) definitely got nothing to do with long cast time abilities, it is a movement ability, always has been. Saying its for channeled abilities is ignoring the fact that it wasn’t always a projectile but a targeted blink (bring it back plox). They changed it, I think, because it gave necromancers too much out of combat mobility, and instead made it a gap closer. If you want to screw up someone’s channel, just Doom them, or use an interrupt, or Spectral Grasp them out of it (heck, Grasp will do both, screw the choice, make them eat the chill and lose their channel).

Also, warriors are far from low mobility, greatsword gives them a lot of movement.

I wasn’t implying that Dark Path isn’t intended to be a gap closer. I was implying that it isn’t very good as one, and is so telegraphed that it’s only useful against people not paying attention, newbs that don’t know what it does, or forcing people mid-channel to make a difficult decision.

Spectral Grasp would be better in every way if it would reliably hit things, and I think the skills would work well in tandem if the projectiles were slightly faster.

A targeted teleport or charge skill would be amazing, but I don’t think it’ll ever happen.

People think Thieves are OP? They’re not fun to fight, but not really OP. I main a Necro, but have played Ele and Guardian quite a bit as well. Those classes have one thing in common. All of their advantages and disadvantages are based on stats and mechanics. Necros have shroud. It gives them more hitpoints. That’s a stat.

Thieves have Stealth. It deprives me of the ability to target them, and creates uncertainty about their true location. Those aren’t stats.

Death Shroud happens on the screen, and in the game, and has a quantifiable result that can be understood while it’s happening.

Stealth doesn’t change any stats (most of the time), but just changes how much information I have about the current encounter. The result is not quantifiable because it isn’t based on a mechanical change. I can’t make a build to “counter stealth” really. I can make a build to “counter boon spam” or “counter condition spam.”

This has been a common thread in every MMO that included a profession/class with abilities that made them stealth/invis. They’re usually not all that OP. They’re just incredibly unfun to fight. Winning is an irritating chore, because it involves a lot of blind swinging and hoping you guessed right. Losing is just losing because you can’t
see what you’re doing.
Not OP, really….

Just.
Not.
Fun.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

I play a necro. I have fun playing the necro. We have a couple of guys in my guild who main necros. They love it.

Maybe you’re just too focused on damage.

Ignoring the problem by saying “I love the class” is not the best way of going around it. ALL of my other toons do more in condition damage, do more in regular damage, do more in healing than necros do.

Do they all offer as much consistent debuff uptime?

This is what makes Necro somewhat bad in PvE. Nobody really needs Poison/Weakness/Cripple/Chill in PvE, because it’s always better to just do more damage faster.

That’s a PvE design problem, not a Necro problem. The class is built to be awesome at something that isn’t necessary. Debuffs make content safer for the party, not faster. The only way to make trivial content go by faster (aka “farming efficiency”) is to increase damage output. But if the content was so difficult that it expected you to have adequate access to various debuffs, as in if mobs healed/dodged a lot more, then classes like Necro would be “must-haves.” But it isn’t, so they’re not.

Leeto.1570:

PinCushion.7390:

Kravick.4906:

Leeto.1570:

Thief is a bit different thing, all teleports/slows in world wouldnt help us catch thief in wvwvw that wants to get away but the fact that even low mobility professions can just walk away with swiftness from necro is really disappointing.

I get what you’re saying. I’m not upset at the fact that he got away. I’m just upset at the fact that someone mashing the 2 key on their keyboard trumps anything I have at catching him. 2222222222 is some real pro skills right there.

Now had he escaped because he popped his Signet of Shadows to blind me so Dark Path would miss, or used Shadowstep to avoid the projectile, or hell just dodged it, (it isn’t like he wouldn’t have seen it coming) I wouldn’t feel so jaded. Heartseeker spam is just stupid no matter how you look at it. It also really sucks that this method of escape physically out runs the only gap closer we have. The speed of the projectile is just pitiful. The same can be said about the staff auto attack as well.

Dark Path is not designed for chasing people. It’s designed to close range with people while they’re using channeled skills like Meteor Shower. That’s why it’s a slow projectile. They’re supposed to see it and either finish their channel and eat the chill or dodge it and lose the channel. Necro has no “chasing” skills. We’ve been griping about this since release, and the devs have responded with repeated “Necros aren’t supposed to have mobility because blahblahblah.”

If that is really intention behind Dark Path why it even has chill, but ofcourse im probobly just talking wrong here again, havent talked to any necro designers personally but Dark Path seems pretty obvious “chasing down” skill to me.

The chill is there to increase the cooldown on whatever skill they were using when they decided to eat your very obvious, very SLOW, mid-range, easy to dodge, telegraphed like nothing else in the game teleporting skill that would open them up to being immobilized/covered in wells/debuffed to oblivion. The movement speed debuff makes them stand in all those fields/wells/locust swarms just a little longer.

If someone is actually surprised by Dark Path, after they see the you hiss black steam, cast something that isn’t a Life Blast, and see a black-clawed hand lazily, gradually, slowly (omg so slowly) meander over to them then you probably could have beat them with your monitor turned off.

Kravick.4906:

Leeto.1570:

Thief is a bit different thing, all teleports/slows in world wouldnt help us catch thief in wvwvw that wants to get away but the fact that even low mobility professions can just walk away with swiftness from necro is really disappointing.

I get what you’re saying. I’m not upset at the fact that he got away. I’m just upset at the fact that someone mashing the 2 key on their keyboard trumps anything I have at catching him. 2222222222 is some real pro skills right there.

Now had he escaped because he popped his Signet of Shadows to blind me so Dark Path would miss, or used Shadowstep to avoid the projectile, or hell just dodged it, (it isn’t like he wouldn’t have seen it coming) I wouldn’t feel so jaded. Heartseeker spam is just stupid no matter how you look at it. It also really sucks that this method of escape physically out runs the only gap closer we have. The speed of the projectile is just pitiful. The same can be said about the staff auto attack as well.

Dark Path is not designed for chasing people. It’s designed to close range with people while they’re using channeled skills like Meteor Shower. That’s why it’s a slow projectile. They’re supposed to see it and either finish their channel and eat the chill or dodge it and lose the channel. Necro has no “chasing” skills. We’ve been griping about this since release, and the devs have responded with repeated “Necros aren’t supposed to have mobility because blahblahblah.”

Talentless.5708:

Kardiamond.6952:

@MethaneGas.8357

If you compare those escape mecanism to any other class, It seems like they are weaker. Only the Flesh Worm is really good, but it still need to be precasted, or be lucky enought to cast it on a cliff. 1 1/2 second is so long. I personally feel like summon have a too long casting time.

The issue I have in my roaming in T5, is it got a lot zergy since last patch, and because we used to be a T8 server.

In T8 it was a lot less zergy, I could roam with my necro without being zerged.

Now I can’t roam for 5 minute before running into a zerg. And zerg hunting with a necromancer is nearly impossible.

With my DD Elem, my engineer and even my Ranger, I can outrun most Zerg. Not witha necro. Spectral walk and Worm don’t out run people. They only misplace you. Useful if there is cliff, not so if there is a zerg behind you.

Leaping skills are one of the issue I have yeah. Seems like premade group like to focus hard on the necro behind the group. They know we can be annoying if left alone, so they pressure us hard. And leaper are a pain if you don’t have plague elite Up.

Please watch one of my two videos. Back to back days, where you can learn how to stay alive in WvW.

One cool thing I noticed from your video that I never knew. Casting Locust Swarm, then immediately using Lich Form, makes the swarm hit hard. I never knew you could do that, and just assumed that Locust would drop if you went into Lich.

alemfi.5107:

PinCushion.7390:

I’m beginning to understand why the cooldown is so long. If LF is basically just more hitpoints, then SA not only reduces incoming DPS by 33%, but it “heals” you for a flat 1.8% of your total health per strike on top of being a stun break. So, if you’ve got 30k hitpoints then SA turns a 15k 100b into 5,600 damage. So, it’s going to be much better if you’re already low on LF and if someone’s hitting you with a multi-strike ability. The catch is that we’re healed in the form of more LF, so it’s not as good a deal as it sounds. I’m not saying that I like the long CD. I’m saying that I think it’s there for a fairly good reason.

Perhaps.. I’m curious where you got the values for life force <—> health values ( Namely the 1.8% of your total hp per strike). Without seeing the numbers I really can’t make a judgement call on whether or not I’m simply underestimating the value that aspect of the ability holds. Currently what I see as strengths of the ability are the stun break and protection it provides, with the spectral effect being candy on top. So perhaps it’s just my perspective that looks at Spectral Armor as a trash skill. As it is now though, VERY FEW people actually slot that skill, and I think giving it play time by making it more appealing might be able to show further insight into its effectiveness.

Wow… forum is crapping out on my post:
Furthermore, the spectral effect ends when going into death shroud, so—- after taking that 15k *.66 hundred blade, to fully utilize that extra health pull you’d need to be able to enter deathshroud to absorb more hits, which means you’ll probably be terminating it before the 6 seconds are up, due to the nature of —- wanting to not actually die by all the burst.. if that makes sense…

Life Force is 60% of your total health, without any points in SR.

Spectral Armor grants you 3% Life Force per strike

60% * 3% = 1.8%

Let me know if my math’s off. I’m kind of multitasking right now.

And, yeah it does make sense to end it early. Though, in this imaginary altercation you’ve basically bought yourself enough time to use your heal and essentially negate the enemy’s channel, then DS + Dark Path to stretch the cooldown on it even further.

This is all on paper, though. I just find it helpful to convert all the Life Force gain into actual hitpoint numbers, because otherwise it’s difficult to determine if an ability is actually a good deal or not.

alemfi.5107:

Spectral Armor (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Armor):
Cooldown should be reduced significantly. Anything above 60 seconds for me is far too much for this type of ability. Further tuning below 60 would need to take into account cd reductions/ other effects.

I’m beginning to understand why the cooldown is so long. If LF is basically just more hitpoints, then SA not only reduces incoming DPS by 33%, but it “heals” you for a flat 1.8% of your total health per strike on top of being a stun break. So, if you’ve got 30k hitpoints then SA turns a 15k 100b into 5,600 damage. So, it’s going to be much better if you’re already low on LF and if someone’s hitting you with a multi-strike ability. The catch is that we’re healed in the form of more LF, so it’s not as good a deal as it sounds. I’m not saying that I like the long CD. I’m saying that I think it’s there for a fairly good reason.

alemfi.5107:

Traits:
- Siphoning health from traits should scale with SOMETHING (power, healing, w/e).

I agree mostly. It currently scales with how often you can strike your opponent, which is somewhat clunky and hard to build for. I think a large part of the problem with siphoning is that it’s composed of lots of tiny numbers instead of one big number, so it’s harder to even tell if it’s working.

Rennoko.5731:

PinCushion.7390:

Acaro.4067:

Btw, I know that locus signet and swiftness doesn´t stack, but is it like that for all of our traits that enhance movement speed, too, and is movement speed trough that capped at 133%?

Yes. It’s capped for everyone except for Engineers under very special circumstances at 133%.

I could have sworn there was something with thieves that allowed them to break the 133% rule as well with movement, but it has been some time since I looked into it.

A quick trip to the wiki revealed: Fleet Shadow – Move 50% faster while in stealth.

I believe that at one point (possibly not anymore), this allowed 150% while in stealth.

Might be. I know next to nothing about Thieves, which is why I don’t get mad when they kill me.

Acaro.4067:

Btw, I know that locus signet and swiftness doesn´t stack, but is it like that for all of our traits that enhance movement speed, too, and is movement speed trough that capped at 133%?

Yes. It’s capped for everyone except for Engineers under very special circumstances at 133%.

Kardiamond.6952:

How do you finish the thief? ….

that kind of thief I feel is a direct counter to us.

You answered your own question. You don’t. He either makes a huge mistake and dies, or doesn’t and wins. His build is designed to actively counter basically everything. He counters conditions with lots of cleansing, counters burst with lots of blind, counters sustain with lots of mobility. Stealth gives him wiggle room to make mistakes and not instantly die. Relatively high damage lets him put his targets on the defensive to keep the pressure off. It’s a solid build, and Thief is just a solid WvW class. It always has been. But in the hands of bad players it dies very easily, because all of those counters are active. They require player decision-making to work well.

So, in essence, his build is a direct counter to almost every build but only if he doesn’t mess up bad enough to hand his opponent an easy win. That said, those decisions are easy decisions. Spot Burst → Use Blind; Take Too Much Damage → Use Stealth & Heal; etc. etc.

Necro, on the other hand, feels more and more like a class of tradeoffs. Every decision is a tradeoff, which makes it more difficult the more I play it. Do I use Putrid Mark as a Finisher or as a Cleanse? Do I take damage in DS and lose LF or do I take it normally and try to heal? Do I use DS for Fear and not have it for tanking burst? Can I afford the DoT for BiP? It’s all tradeoffs, where we lose a bit to win a bit. It makes the class very complex, but also somewhat weak when compared directly to classes where there aren’t as many tradeoffs to weight and the tradeoffs aren’t as expensive.

Andele.1306:

PinCushion.7390:

No. Just press F1 in the air. This will probably be fixed, as it’s likely unintentional. Then the trait will be ok.

Actually DS used to not soften the drop blows, then it was changed to actually eat the fall damage thus no it is intentional and here to stay (well at least i hope since changing mechanics at whim for no reason except for change is not a good thing cough blizz cough)

IIRC ANet used to do a lot of “just because” changes late in the life of GW1 just to keep the PvP meta from getting too stale.

Kravick.4906:

Very informative. Especially the stuff about tournaments. Sadly, I already knew all the Death Shroud stuff that was talked about. I was hoping to learn some new stupid necro trick.

Regarding Corrupt Boon. My guild has an intern who works at ANet that does WvW with us a lot. He plays a necromancer. He has told us that the reason Corrupt Boon (and now Epidemic) its so difficult to land is because it fires an extremely fast, but invisible projectile towards your target in a straight path to determine if the skill works. This projectile will only fire if you’re facing your target within a 30 degree cone. Because its a projectile, it suffers from the same problems that projectiles in general face. The random obstruct bug (which you won’t see because this projectile doesn’t report back any data to your client), your target suddenly stopping while the projectile is in route, the target moving out of projectile range at the last second, your target moving outside of the 30 degree cone right before you use the skill (causes the skill to fail), or any other issue that would some how prevent the projectile from reaching its target.

Does this mean you can reflect Corrupt Boon? O.o

No. Just press F1 in the air. This will probably be fixed, as it’s likely unintentional. Then the trait will be ok.

Vital Persistence
Life force drains 25% slower while in death shroud.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Persistence

This trait is currently garbage, but I didn’t realize until listening to Skyro in the latest BoC podcast just how bad it is. He commented that Soul Marks outperforms it in LF generation/conservation. That got me thinking. There are several other traits that are currently unusable because Vital Persistence is too weak to support them.

Reaper’s Might
Death Shiver
Speed of Shadows
Unyielding Blast

That’s 4 other traits that are currently not worth taking because staying in DS is just too expensive, in terms of EHP sacrifice. 5 total traits, that have obvious synergy (whether or not that synergy is “awesome”). That’s a build. A full build that is useless because of one trait that just doesn’t do what it should.

The drain reduction needs to be bigger. It needs to be much bigger. I’d say it’d have to be a 50-75% reduction, minimum, to make it worth staying in DS to spam Life Blasts or let Vuln stacks build up.

I don’t normally post balancing suggestions, since I figure the devs can do their job better than I can, but this trait seems like such low hanging fruit. It’d be pretty easy to implement, since it’s just a numerical change. We have a healthy chunk of our trait tree devoted to staying in DS for longer periods of time, even though that’s probably the worst way to play a Necro. It’s a shame because it’d be so easy to change that and add quite a bit of build diversity in the process.

Kravick.4906:

PinCushion.7390:

Yeah, but that’s cool because thieves have low hitpoints so it all evens out…

In my experience, it doesn’t, because of Shadow’s Rejuvenation.

I keep forgetting sarcasm doesn’t translate well in text.

Sajuuk.4973:

So here’s a thought. Don’t know if this has been discussed before to be viable or not.

A 10/0/30/0/30 with weapons and armor being PTV. Runes in armor being Superior water, Superior monk, and Major Sanctuary. The first 2 gives 15% boon and the 3rd giving 10% boon. Giving us a total of 40%, plus having 30 in death magic will give us an additional 30% to a total of 70%. This would increase our Stability from 3 seconds to 5.1. Now we would have the ability to get that 5.1 every 10 seconds. For Weapons I would take staff and A/F. These weapons plus the traits I pick are heavy in protection, retaliation and regeneration for boons, which will also benefit from the boosted duration. My question would be this, and I hope someone could answer in regards to retaliation and protection. While protection is giving me 33% less damage. Does my retaliation redistributes the damage back to it sender for the full damage or the 33% less damage that I’m receiving? If it does full damage back to the sender then I can see how this build could have some legitimacy.

Spite:
V – spiteful spirit

Death Magic:
II – greater marks
VII – spiteful vigor
IV – Ritual Protection

Soul Reaping:
IV – Spectral mastery
V – Soul Mark
XI – foot in the grave

For Utilities, given the theme of this build I would focus on Spectral and Wells. Haven’t decided what would complement each other well. Let’s take a closer look at some with the add boon duration. With spectral mastery we also drop CD by 20% so Spectral Armor now has 72 CD and a 10.2 protection. Spectral Walk would be a 48 CD and a 51 swiftness, giving one perma swift. Spectral wall is a 32 CD and 8.5 protection. Spectral grasp would not benefit from this build other than the shorten CD. Moving on to Wells, With Ritual Protection giving one 3 sec of protection for each well’s is a nice added feature. Especially now that the 3 sec is 5.1 and stacks in duration with all other Wells. With spiteful vigor we are also getting 8.5 of retaliation, so when dropping a well of blood we’d get a quick retaliation and protection not to mention some healing. Well of corruption would give you boons and strip the enemy of theirs and applying conditions. Well of Power would give you a nice set of boons depending on how many conditions you may have. Jumps into DS at any time and get 5.1 retaliation plus 5.1 of Stability and that can be done every 10 seconds if you wish. I think one can see the potential of the high stacking boons, but please share your opinion or criticism. I threw this together while at work so I may have left out some good or bad points to this build.

Thanks you

It’s based on your Power stat.

198.45 + (0.075 * Power)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation

My opinion is that Retaliation is, most of the time, a complete waste of time. It does low damage, and only works if I’m getting hit.

Edit: I tried this build out in Orr, just soloing mobs. I didn’t rune it, but just used my current PVT gear w/ Soldier runes. It’s very, very tanky. The damage is fairly terrible, and the wells have too long a cooldown to be worth bothering with. Retaliation, even with 50% uptime, wasn’t really doing enough damage to bother bringing. Definitely not worth bringing 2 traits for.

Cool idea, but it just doesn’t work very well.

Kravick.4906:

MethaneGas.8357:

a thief with a mainhand sword that had barely any stealth but instead had a ton of evade.

This kind of thief is the absolute worst match up for a necromancer. Not only because of condition removal on stealth, but because the sword 2 skill also removes a condition on use (as well as teleports the user). Worst part of it is, the skill has no cool down and they can repeatedly chain that skill as long as they have the initiative, which isn’t a problem because its very cheap on initiative use.

Yeah, but that’s cool because thieves have low hitpoints so it all evens out…

I’ve found that Necro gets far better when grouped with even one other person. So many of our abilities get better the more people they effect. Putrid Mark, for example. Well of Power is another. Our Poison and Darkness fields benefit far more from repeated Finishers, and we don’t have all that many Finishers to offer when compared to other classes.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that building a 1 vs Many Necro is probably not in the cards because Necro is not as self-contained as an Elementalist. 2 vs. Many would be doable, and loads of fun. It’s not what the OP wants, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Wow! I think I learned more about the class in that hour than in a couple of months of forum crawling. Thanks!

krippler.9826:

Bas.7406:

We have 3 methods to stability on our own, Plague form, Lich Form, and 30 Soul Reaping.

We don’t get it because stuns have a smaller effect on us because regardless of CC we can go into Death Shroud to absorb the damage. Is it perfect? No, but it’s the main reason we don’t have access to those abilities.

We might be able to soak up the damage from one stun, but once the chain stuns start comin, it’s over. I try to be patient so I can dodge out at the first opportunity, but sometimes I can literally count to 10 while all I can do is sit and watch myself get destroyed.

Yes, but it’s only because of Death Shroud that you can count to 10. Most classes can only get as high as 5 or 6.

Criselli.7462:

nutspanther.2476:

Kind of changing my mind on my proposal right now. It would be kind of OP if all necro’s received access to quickness and stability by default. I’m going to work up something new now. Thinking basically, 3 different Death Shrouds. The current one, 1 for minions, 1 for condition builds…

A shroud for condition builds is basically our underwater shroud set as is.

Underwater Shroud is so amazing. Group Cleanse, Condi Transfer Autoattack, Cone Fear, AoE Blind/Poison. It just screams support!

I actually like it better than the ground level one. Biggest gripe I have about underwater is that there’s no ground-target skills, but it’s not such a big deal.

Farm gold on my 80. Craft on my alt. I use Crafting Boosters to save some gold, since I have a ton of them from a Black Lion Chest binge near launch.

When I hit levels where crafting mats sell relatively well, I use an XP booster and Killstreak booster and go farm blue mats. I hate DEs, but do them for loot. I hate Renown Hearts, but sometimes finish them by accident. I actually enjoy grinding mobs, as it’s a decent way to zone out and relax. And I always run with Magic Find gear on my alts, because open world PvE is very easy otherwise.

I try to balance it so by 80 I’ve only net spent a couple of gold on the whole process.

Jarvis.9540:

I have a minion build that I’m very much loving for questing, spvp, and general roaming/soloing. My group experience in GW2 however is quite limited. Is there a way to make minion build work in dungeons, or will I need to head back to the drawing board to find a build that will be excepted in parties? The build is based on power… not condition damage. Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks!

Minions are fine in dungeons as long as you don’t mind doing the following:

1) Learn how the AI works. There’s a video in the But of Corpse thread about it. It’s super easy, and helps keep minions from aggroing stuff your group isn’t ready for yet.

2) Be prepared for minions to die….a lot. That’s their job. Every time your Jagged Horror pops up, does zero damage, and gets one-shot by a mob just chuckle inside because that mob wasn’t hitting you or your party members.

3) Be ready to swap specs if a boss does an annoying amount of AoE. There are some bosses that will basically insta-kill your minions with AoE so quickly that there’s little point in having them. The BOC Youtube channel has an all Minionmancer run of AC, and the fight w/ the Spider boss is just painful to watch (to their credit, they killed her). The standard MM build converts very easily into a Wells build for those kinds of fights.

4) Be ready to take a lot of grief. Some people simply will not accept that minions are perfectly fine in most dungeon encounters, and will hassle you about it. Welcome to the internet.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

For all the problems the Necromancer has, the class does have some pretty cool stuff.

That line is an excellent summation of the class as a whole. Lots of problems and some really cool stuff.

I’ve read so many times on these forums different people say the following, “I know it’s not the best class, but I play it the most because it’s fun.”

Bas.7406:

Once a month this thread pops up. Minion AI isnt an issue, the issue is general NPC AI through anet. Half the ideas are way overpowered. If you are struggling or disagree with minion ai. Here is a simple guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riyMsBRxXHs

Short Version:

Staff or Axe Autoattack Twice changes minion focus nearly every time. Scepter autoattack is slightly less reliable. Pathing issues are pathing issues, and don’t really have anything to do with AI problems, but will make the AI look like it isn’t listening.

Swamurabi.7890:

As a Necro I have to laugh at this thread. Most Conditionmancers soon find that there’s so much condition removal in WvW that they switch to a different build. Now that Epidemic has been LoS nerfed, there’s even less Conditionmancers out there.

Of course there are. They switched to confusion mesmers and HGH engineers.

Rennoko.5731:

Bhawb.7408:

In every other part of life, you need to demonstrate expertise in a subject before anyone will take you seriously, it lends credence to your argument.

Is this wise words from Bhawb’s corner? I have always been more of a fan of perception trumping reality. It isn’t so much what you know, but how much people believe you know.

That is true only so long as actually having correct information is unimportant.