Axe auto attacks were never worth using over anything, less so than Axe 2 and Axe 3. Reasons I choose Axe over Staff are that I find the marks too small without Greater Marks (can sometimes be troubling to land), I can have the soft CC in Axe as well, boon removal (along with Focus this is especially a worthwhile reason), Retaliation, life force gain spike and more damage. Honestly if you can live without an extra condition transfer and AoE fear you can go for Axe.
Note that if the shout you use innately gives you the boon that you would recieve from converting the condition, the shout only removes the said condition. For example, using Retreat to convert Burning, Cripple and Immobilize will remove the condition(s) but will not prolong the durations of Swiftness or Aegis granted when using the shout. If you want to have longer durations of the boons you convert from conditions, try to use shouts that do not grant the conversion boons already.
Personally, I’d rather the trait remade into %10 damage while wielding Two Handed weapons, without the heal or any other gimmick. Give it a name like “Zealot’s Grasp” and its good to go.
I think I edited after you posted so didn’t see you Bhawb. The way I see it, Soul Reaping already has traits for DS that can be used in any direction one pleases.
Honestly I don’t want more defensive DS traits in Soul Reaping.The tree already has very good DS traits that compete with each other and you just dont want to drop, at most you are left with one major trait spot (usually Master spot) you can’t decide on – not because the options are poor but because options each very good. The only exception to that would be Death Shiver, but then again its not directly a defensive trait so it can be moved. I would rather instead to have our non – DS traits and Path of Midnight remade to be more attractive – like how Master of Terror (+%50 Fear duration) is essential to some builds despite being a non-DS trait.
Note: I think there are more “neutral” traits about DS in Soul Reaping than in any other tree, traits that can be used both offensive and defensive. Vital Persistence can be taken defensively as it allows you to stay in DS much longer to soak damage or to do whatever you please. With Near to Death there is less chance for you to be caught exposed to damage. Unyielding Blast allows you to hit everyone in your path, while not particularly defensive it can be used in defensive builds focused in staying in caps to counter the likes of decap engies (turret “body blocking”).
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As far as I know, heal from Zealous Blade scales poorly with healing power, meaning it is not a misplaced trait but rather one that can be placed in any tree due to players unable to interact with it. Now to reasons why it sucks that I can think of:
- Its place in Zeal tree. In its implementation it may have been considered that Guardians should go in deeps in defensive trees (trees that have defensive stats) to get good sustain traits such as Altruistic Healing on Valor, Absolute Resolution in Virtues or Writ of the Merciful in Honor. They probably thought those who go in deeps with Zeal want to go with high damage, so the heal in Zealous Blade shouldn’t be equal to heals in defensive lines.
- The heal is coupled with a damage increase. If either the damage coefficient or the heal is to be put on par with traits that provide solely a damage coefficient or solely a heal it may result in unbalance.
- Sustained healing from traits is generally left unattended. Since we could potentially take something like Altruistic Healing along with Zealous Blade, it may have been thought that the trait should be toned down due to potentials that may prove to be “cheesy”.
Note that I am not advocating these. They are just the things I think devs have as reasons.
You cant shout at your enemies to retreat, as retreating – by definition – is tactically moving behind the line for regrouping or defense. You wouldn’t offer something tactical to foes but instead shout for them to cower or flee. My suggestions for “Retreat!” are “With Me!” or “Charge!” and while on the issue, “Save Yourselves!” could be “Never Surrender!”, “To Glory!” or “Rise Up!”.
The dps loss shouldn’t be big if you want to go for Empowering Might in a hammer/gs build. Lets take pugs as a media for comparison, where you may be focused down by mobs because of zerker gear (high damage pulls aggro) instead of having the aggro shared with teammates. Then, moving the 2 points from Zeal to Honor isn’t much of a loss, maybe %5. Using Strength runes instead of Scholar should be around %5 loss as well, give for extra ferocity and lose for being focused out of %90 health. Using Omnomberry Cream instead of max quality food is a dps loss of which I can’t estimate, but lets say its around %5 again. If you decide to use Sigil of Strength instead of Force that is another %5 loss. However, it remains that you will have 13+ might stacks on you while 6-8 stacks on your partymates during most combat, have %10 extra damage while endurance isn’t full which can happen quite often in a pug and better loots (should you care) overall due to consumable.
CCing him is a good choice, as the post above me said. Use GS 5, if thats not enough start the fight with Hammer of Wisdom summoned. The mob should focus on it instead and you can CC the mob without interrupting your attacks. Alternatively, just cast Bane Signet on the mob as you enter to buy some time or wear a weapon that has the Sigil of Rage (quickness on crit which you’ll proc when cleaving the mob and object) just for that event for quick burst. You can also get a mace – the damage is very close with sword but a quick rotation with mace and GS would provide more damage than with sword due to mace symbol.
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Now to change the skill’s name into something less cowardly. Who gets inspired to fight when you have a companion screaming at you to retreat every half minute or so anyway?
In pugs I usually roll with my hammer/gs guard. If my party lacks the might sorely I usually go all the way to Honor (3/5/0/6/0) to pick up Empowering Might. Empowering Might allows me to give might during the fight of course, but in cases it may not be enough I do rotations.
Before important fights I lay down my Hallowed Ground, use Focus 5, equip Hammer and use 2, swap to Staff for 4, and swap back to Hammer for 2 again (Focus 5 – Hammer 2 – Staff 4 – Hammer 2). This gives the party 21 stacks of might that lasts long enough thanks to Omnomberry Cream, Strength Runes and Hallowed Ground effect (+%85 might duration). Though because of the cooldown of Hallowed Ground, it cant be done for all pre fights, so I casually start with Staff 4 instead. Though if the time is convenient enough I can swap Empowering Might to Two Handed Mastery, which allows me to blast Purging Flames 3 times and have 21 stacks of might again (with +%65 might duration though). This can be tricky as you want to swap to Empowering Might immediately after the rotation ends or channeling Staff 4 (rotation with Purging Flames is Hammer 2 – Focus 5 – Hammer 2 – Staff 4) and Hammer 2 must be cast immediately when you lay down the field and when its off cooldown. I find these rotations very time – might effective, but one could reach the cap easily too.
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Its an interesting idea and since most dps builds go till 5 points or more in Radiance it would be a welcome addition for all. Though I think it would be better to have it in a Master or Grandmaster spot.
I have been thinking about a similar idea, to utilize Vulnurability in a condition build. My idea is that there can be a trait implemented that applies 1 stack of Torment on each time Vulnurability is applied (doesnt matter how many stacks are applied at one hit) to address both the Guardian’s condition lackage and his/her problems dealing with moving enemies, all while not having his/her precious condition being capped by others as Torment is somewhat rare – comparing to Bleed and Vulnurability. Not saying your idea is bad though, its well thought, but it just encouraged me to share mine.
It seems that mace and sword have close dps, even when both are used in a max damage build setup – as shown in obal’s spreadsheet. I honestly think that we have much more options to go with while using and building a mace. Basically, any trait related with blocking and/or symbols is related with mace.
As ostred said, you can use mace if you want as its dps is so very close to sword. Use it where you can really make use of its utility. I casually wear Mace + Focus/Greatsword while I am skipping trash or other dangerous parts like the bomb part at CoF p3. Along with Shelter, Virtues, Retreat and Renewed Focus you are impervious to damage while you are on the run.
You have an abundance of better alternatives to anything torch provides. Of course if you find what focus provides is not that essential to your playstyle you can use any offhand you like.
If you don’t agree with me you clearly don’t understand this post.
Ok then.
From what I experiened using Shield of Avenger I can say that:
The projectile bubble created by the shield is not continuous. It will last for 4 seconds (or maybe 5) until it expires, but will quickly be recast by the shield again.
The shield will not move without commands while the bubble is on. After the bubble expires, the shield will move to you if you are away (don’t know the exact range, but its not much) and cast the bubble when it reaches you, or rather what you are attacking. If you are attacking a target that is away from you, it will go by your target (needs confirmation).
The shield can be moved while bubble is present through the active skill. The active skill range isn’t too far but if the shield is moved out of the bubble, it will not cast the bubble again until the one present expires so the shield can be exposed to projectiles unintentionally.
The shield can die or disappear (due to duration timer) while the active skill is ongoing, in which it will fail to complete the skill.
The active skill can not be used without a target, and the shield will never cast the bubble without you starting combat. Therefore it is not very suitable to cast shield to block projectiles engaging a fight before actually hitting the enemy yourself. The projectiles will probably kill the shield before it casts the bubble.
The shield doesn’t levitate or fly, it seems to be carried by an invisible NPC judging from the way it moves normally. As such, its tracking may have pathing issues.
Last but not least, the bubble doesn’t seem to need the shield to run through its duration. On some occasions I have seen my shield die or expire but the bubble staying up to ita duration regardless. This may need confirmation though.
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More likely it will be announced as part of design.
Even if you only use Ghastly Claws in Axe you will still do less damage than Dagger auto, and as spoj said you can stack bleed pretty good on Dagger too. The damage of the auto attack would probably be more than enough compensate the arguably little amount of stacks you lose from swapping to dagger from axe – if any. If you absolutely need a channel attack to stack bleeds I would say Dagger 2 is a comparable option to Ghastly Claws, but I’d just stick with auto now that you can hit 2 enemies.
In path one the focus is pretty much on bosses only and the first boss focuses on a player and continously damage him/her where your sources of active defense to protect the said player may run out. In path 2 arguably the most struggling part is the door event where waves of enemies come over and over that makes it hard for the group to survive through active defense alone. In path 3 there are quite long boss encounters and Hellstorm mobs that come in waves that arguably pose the greatest danger to the group due to their channeled attacks. For those reasons I favor to use the meta hammer build to provide passive defense along with active. You can use Scholar or Strength runes and max damage or Strength sigil, with 3/5/x/4/x (use the remaining points however you see fit for the situation). A great trait to use in CoF is Inner Fire to utilize the innate Burning spam most of the enemies can perform.
Edit:
You can use the 2 points remaining interchangingly. If you need projectile defense and/or you are the only source of it move the points into Virtues for Master of Concecrations. If you need condition defense take Master of Concecrations or Pure of Voice in Honor line – with the Burning spam in the dungeon you can convert many of them into Aegis for your group to have great active defense. If you need might make sure you stack might yourself before combat and use your 2 points to get Empowering Might in Honor, I use Strength Runes and Omnomberry Cream for better loot and can provide 7-8 stacks of might to group as long as the fight goes along with 21 long duration stacks starting combat. If your group doesn’t need anything consider moving your points to Zeal for Greatsword damage bonus or Virtues for Unscathed Contender.
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I would still go for Focus. The Zerker build uses warhorn only if Focus is worn as well. The burst damage and the vulnurability should provide good burst of power damage for you. I would try using dagger instead of axe, as it has better life force regen and higher damage. Even with Axe Mastery, I think daggershroud should be superior to axeshroud in terms of damage when counting the time spent out of death shroud.
It may depend. Blind of the sw/fc combo work on mobs, which do not usually have KO attacks but attacks that they can do frequently. Now without a high dps on your group’s part, your blinds can cover the frequent wave of attacks only so much. If your group lacks the damage, you can’t use Radiance traited Virtue of Justice often and have to rely on your weapon skills in which the blind you can provide through them may not be as frequent as you like them to be. Permanent protection for your group though, mitigates %33 of the incoming damage regardless of how fast you kill or the attacker being immune to blind or not.
So if your group is not good enough, Hammer and the group protection it provides can be more beneficial and survivable.
Play time does not equal experience. I am saying that the core of the generally used builds remained and still is the same. A person with enough experience against Guardians therefore shouldn’t have much to QQ about, as what Guardian can do is pretty much written on the stone; it can be adapted and counterplayed.
I would rather they made the skill match its use. They could just add a cast time to replace channel and make the shield activate after the cast as well as the heal and interrupt. People could already do that before patch by quickly stopping channel, so why force everyone to channel rather than getting rid of it all together?
Well anything that was core about the PvP builds remained the same after the patch, which was also the same for quite a while I guess. So the QQ probably is probably due to lack of experience.
I wouldn’t take Mace + Shield to WvW because you will have no leap. You can blast water with Mace 3 though.
Mace 3 is not a blast finisher. I would probably use Mace a lot more if it was.
In my PvP build, I use Vital Persistance as Adept and Close to Death or Unyielding Blast for Master. I find Unyielding Blast especially useful to packed enemy players; such as when they are overconfident when you are outnumbered against them or when one is trying to rezz downed. Close to Death is a more defensive option, which allows you to hop in Death Shroud sooner. During close encounters, hopping into DS 3 seconds sooner can be important.
I think I can actually use this trait if I want to run a Minionmancer for PvP. I don’t like the idea of Death Nova a lot, as I mostly aim for sturdy and long lasting minions. True, Death Nova provides an emergency damage for you to not to be utterly useless should minions get bursted, but it isn’t just gamebreaking to me. Or maybe I am just bored.
I think the new Unholy Sanctuary can work quite well as a comeback mechanism or prelonging fights to give time for allies and can be comboed with other stuff. For example, it can be used pretty well alongside Rune of Vampirism as in the Mist Form you can still enter Death Shroud to deal damage and gain life force – damage you recieve while in “Mist Shroud” will not be absorbed (it will be negated) by your life force pool; only to pour all your life force again once more when you would otherwise die.
It won’t be 3 seconds anymore.
Yes. I am not making anything up, the DPS is all obal’s calculation that he posted in a thread. If I can I ll find it for you. As for regarding out of combat as time loss, it lasts for what now 10 seconds maximum? On average its 6 seconds or so, and people wouldn’t have to choose blasts to a more damaging attack – they are not always the same. As for the ramp up, its only till it finishes an autoattack, which I presume that is included in the calculation as well. As for Focus utility, there is a blind, an unreliable condition cleanse, a long cooldown block and blast. We have plenty of practicle blinds, condition removals and blasts on a hammer build as well, and block is only situational if you need ot to survive. In return, hammer has permanent protection, 2 CCs,1 AoE immobilize and blast finisher with 5 seconds cooldown. I d say they are comparable.
I can only give it to you that Hammer has less multipliers for reflects. But is it a decisive factor? Maybe not.
Edit:
There you go. As far as I can see this is his latest calculation.
5/5/0/4/0-GS-Hammer – 11029
6/6/0/0/2-GS-Scepter – 10871
4/6/2/0/2-GS-Sword – 10797
4/5/0/0/5-GS-Sword – 10515
3/5/0/4/2-GS-Hammer – 10146
5/5/2/0/2-GS Camping – 9417
3/5/0/4/2-Hammer Camping– 9338
4/6/2/0/2-Sword/Focus Camping – 7530
3/5/0/6/0-Staff Camping – 7391
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I wonder if the new Shield active skill gives the Shield an Aegis too. It would be nice to keep it alive.
I am saying this everytime: Hammer Protection and utility is not only good in Fractals but in all PvE. Moreover, Hammer + Greatsword combo is calculated to have more dps than Sword/Focus + Greatsword combo by obal. You can choose however the way you want.
Note: Again, the permanent light field in combat is irrelevant as might stacking by blasts is best done out of combat to not to intervene with personal dps of party mates. In general, out of combat might is granted by blast combos and in combat might is granted by the likes of Phalanx Warrior. Even if your party mates insist on doing the might stacking by blasting in combat, the symbol of Hammer autoattack is smaller than all fire fields except Lava Font, so your party can just move a bit and still blast. Note that Hammer also has the best blast skill (aside from Cluster Bomb) in the game, so use it. Besides, you have to spend half your time in Greatsword to maximize personal dps, so your party can utilize that timeframe too.
As for the “dps loss” when dodging, if you dodge or heal or whatever after the second attack of autoattack in Hammer, the autoattack chain is not broken and you can actually place the symbol at your enemy even outside the melee range.
To add for the final time, Hammer can burst more often than Sword/Focus combo. The second skill can hit quite hard with a low cooldown, while all burst Sword/Focus has is on Focus with long cooldown.
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Well how about slyvari necromancers then? As I recall slyvari regard this whole human god concept as nothing more than stories. Personally, I only believe in my Flesh Golem.
Well, Lich Form doesn’t have heal, can be avoided by melee enemy if they know what they are doing, aside from the low range and long cast cone attack it has no CC and can be CCed after Stability is removed – as its one of the few (if not the only) boons we can have while in Lich Form and therefore can be removed very easily. Now these are prominent weak points, as a good melee spec player who knows how to move and avoid can defeat the Lich Form.
I took that the damage will roughly be the same; but Sigil of Air, Fire, Chill of Death and Wells will not be doing crazy damage, at which looking at Elementalist Meteor Tornado and FGS nerfs make sense. The Lich Form damage by itself should remain same.
I generally use Lich Form in PvP on the start of the match to surprise and kill enemies and repel them from capturing the middle point which in return buys enough time for group to claim the point and get an advantage. Though even if I used Plague, 30 seconds without heal is just too long and I usually exit the form when the element of surprise wears off. All in all, I don’t think 20 sec duration is so bad. Even in PvE, Lich Form is only tiny better than dagger dps (correct me if I am wrong, saw some tests in Youtube) considering the cooldown and would probably be behind dagger + golem; not to mention the loss of Signet of Spite passive, uptime on Blood is Power (if might isnt capped), a great CC that can strip most if not even all Defiant stacks which also functions similar to FGS, perma cripple and %2 damage that comes along with it from Curses 5 and the ability to mitigate damage.
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On a side note, putting / between D and P would be helpful. It can be quite… misleading.
Not really. You almost won against 2 people which have quite a supportive synergy. I’d call it a day.
Well any on % health effects I know of can be activated in DS, as life force health pool is unrelated.
I must say I like the combo Decaying Swarm + Unholy Sanctuary. By the way, will the new addition allow the necro to negate fatal damage and enter DS, like how the latest engi heal functions?
You can also go zerker but take defensive traits for durability. Our trees that provide sustain in deeps also usually have a damage modifier or two so you would still deal decent damage. Or you can try the other way around, having knights and offensive build setup. Whatever that makes you safe while allows you to have decent dps.
Why this small of a change? Because a buff is a buff, even if its minor. This addressed a very important concern, which was the fact that a single Necromancer couldn’t realistically proc more than 4 hits of it, and that a group of 5 couldn’t really proc all 25. This at least allows that to happen.
Is it enough? No, nor do they say this will be it. But it solved one problem with the skill and it gives it a small buff before the skill gets others later.
I wouldn’t mind small tweaks if they are frequent enough. As it stands, we only get 2-3 “major” updates like this a year.
On a side note, I just love how a qqing warrior always gives telegraphing as something that compensates 3+ CCs and immobilize readily available to hambows. As if endurance never runs out.
The majority of players in gw2 are warriors. If there is something wrong with what Anet will implement it is bound to get fixed as quick as possible.
I agree that the core of the issues about spirit weapons relies on their huge downtime, and to an extend their fragileness. The utility of the spirit weapons in my opinion was actually good: 20 second long projectile defense, condition cleanse and heal, frequent applications of CC and overall good damage. The proposed changes kind of made the utility of spirit weapons overkill, while didn’t touch on the main issues at all.
I guess they intend spirit weapons to be this long cooldowned skills that compensate the cooldown with utility, but aside from shield spirit weapons are not that rewarding to use considering the large cooldowns.
Damage coefficient, unless specified, only alter direct damage. My guess would be delay.
It can be a decent trait on PvE, I use it on my hammer build where the fights are long and without might sharing. Couple the trait with Rune of Strength, Sigil of Strength, maybe Omnomberry Cream for boon duration and magic find, zerker gear and like 5 points in Radiance; you are looking at 17-24 might stacks on yourself and 6-8 might stacks on your allies in long fights. Stack might yourself before combat for maximum efficiency.
The match had a medi guard too, and their reactions were like “hmm, ok, ehehe”. In overall, they glorified the bunker guard while refraining to comment much on the med.
Let this die please, its a troll thread. And yes, you can use reflects in any place where there are projectiles.
3-4k dps is like a Guardian camping staff with self buffs, except the Guardian will not have to do anything for it and maintain constant damage in both single target and AoE, buff and heal allies. Of course, this is not a kittening match between professions, as power necro can deal much higher damage and help the group – relatively speaking – with providing vulnurability and spike damage too. That is not to say condition is useless, but in my opinion 3k damage isn’t or shouldn’t be a highlight of any build.
Edit: From personal experience, I can say that in PvE the average number of stacks I could have is 18-19 stacks when taking both build up and consideration. If we give generous numbers;160 dps for a bleed stack, 240 dps for a torment stack, 1000 dps for a burn and 200 dps for poison with 1k dps of power damage it makes around 6k dps. Arguably you can see this number only with max buffs where everyone else is doing atleast 3k more dps.
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Power builds on necromancer are boring and stacking is for people that haven’t learned how to play an ARPG 99% of the time.
I don’t take my necro out for PvE very often, but I use something similar to Lily up there. Main differences are that:
-I’m running 2/6/0/0/6 as I highly prefer the available traits in Soul Reaping over Spite
-Scepter + dagger/ scepter + focus because I can’t stand the staff.
-Traveler’s runes and energy sigils because move speed and endurance refills are more valuable to me over the extra damage.Aside from the fun factor, my favorite part of this build is that I can quite literally step over into WvW without having to change a thing… highly convenient with the new season coming up.
How about not making up percentiles and truths out of your head? People stack in PvE to maintain whatever close range boons they can give to the group, to instantly rezz other people, reflect projectiles for the group, debuff efficiently and cleave. It has nothing to do with being unexperienced as stacking utilizes all there is – including team synergy – regarding the combat in PvE. On the other hand, spreading out makes it kind of free for all, as boons aren’t distributed effectively and therefore both defense and offense is selfish; not to mention how the team may not rezz efficiently. Does that sight seem experienced to you?
Deeming power specs as “boring” is subjective. If its the spamming of AA that is bothersome condition specs don’t do much about it either. Is it spamming 2 and 5 on scepter/dagger combo that makes it all more fun or using Epidemic on cooldown? Power builds have as much as button mashing as condition builds, and as personal opinion; I have always preferred the uneasiness of staying melee, big crits and well bombing to watch how far my bleed stacks go while sitting on range.
As a final note, of course you don’t have to do anything to hop with your WvW build into PvE and that may be something good for you, but not for your teammates. When you are without your staff not maximizing your bleeds, with only a meager bonus to your damage from runes and a bonus that turns off while in combat and with points sinked to Soul Reaping that doesn’t really help a scepter camping condition spec; remember that your group has to carry you around while you are having too much fun.
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I really don’t mind at all. I don’t do any elitist pve content because it bores the heck out of me. I do mainly fun whatever I want pve and WvW/PvP. You guys (not YOU guys but the dungeon running crews) can go stack around corners with someone else.
Just make sure to find 4 more people like you to fill a group. Most of the instanced PvE revolves around stacking for valid reasons.