Guild Wars 2

I think gs is probably going to be a ranged power weapon with 1 or 2 Aoe attacks

Trybil.1567:

Here is the build I was talking about.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmQDbkjmabLuxvG+bTgLUQ+mBQkhQJQdbEHPLA-TpBFwAFOIAtPCALeAAM3foaZAAXAAA

Berserker runes. Maybe it isn’t the most tanky, but it is tankier than the meta power 6/2/0/0/6 build I used to run. I like all the synergy going on to boost protection, which I took to be one of the features being promoted by the OP. And I can’t just stand on point to hold it, I need to actively juke around using spectral walk and flesh wurm

I have a guardian whose build I get up to 3300 armor, and at that level you start to be able to notice a difference, e.g. I can face tank Savnir. But a couple hundred armor isn’t really that noticeable, and necros effectively get a vitality multiplier via LF so I agree vitality > toughness.

I make no claim to be a pro, I just wanted to share some thoughts that have made playing a necro more enjoyable for me.

I dont know how i feel about this build, I get why the wurm but i found that spec grasp is really useful if you need to quickly gain life force.

No axe, no soulmarks, so your choices here for life force is to do no damage with staff auto, risk standing in high damage range to gain life force from dagger with low armour or use your stun breaks.

Since no shrouded removal or off hand dagger sigil of generousity is necessary but then that means sacrificing fire and air sigil. sigil of strength im not completely sure helps very much without blood is power, you might be better off using sigil of fire.

At the end of the day it depends on how you play it i suppose. Here is mine

Edit: Corrected it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRAnd4Yjc00abtNG3webCkhS6FoD22IDgCgyoIIA-TJBFwACeCAM3foaZAAnEAA

NeXeD.3042:

your joking right…… I can’t even respond to what you just said….. “oh the only difference is he didn’t go 6 into a trait line that I did” your 6 into that trait line is the only thing that makes your build bad, he also has dp and has chill of death…… 4/4/0/0/6 is a common setup for a spectral necromancer and it’s probably just as tanky as yours while also having a good deal more damage. I should know considering I have been playing that build for a very long time.

No one uses knights…… vitality>toughness. If he is using knights that that’s bad too. But I doubt it.

I dont understand how you can say someone who has 30% less protection duration than i do (from not going into DM) is as tanky as i am when he also has less than 2000 armour and i can often get mine to 2600, can condi cleanse better with shrouded removal and last much longer with unholy sanctuary. Sure dp guarantees life blast crits, but they are so irritatingly slow. I dont know how many life blast necros i have to out tank and out kite before they understand this. It is not that difficult to avoid being hit by life blasts if you kite properly.

What do you plan on doing against a good evade thief with life blasts? just say well thieves are op and accept the respawn? Even on necro i just need to switch to d/d drop weakness and protection then auto the life out of your death shroud while kiting and guess what you will miss most of them. Meanwhile you are draining DS and you can’t last long while out of it. When you run out and try to burst, i just need to switch to axe and channel, my DM trait kicks in for higher toughness, my protection will be up and your burst damage will be severely mitigated.

Ensign.2189:

Ragion.2831:

Its not like doing 14% more damage than a hybrid means you will be able to two-shot everything and everyone so sacrificing survivability for that small increase is really pointless.

It means a champion that a full zerk team kills in 15 seconds your knights + zerk team will kill in 17 seconds.

Come on man, theres way too many variables to make a call like that

Ensign.2189:

If you’re a very experienced group that knows how to use all the reflects / aegises / etc to stay alive, those 2 seconds could be a big deal since they’re on the tail end of your defensive abilities – but if you’re in a pug group that isn’t doing all that stuff, the extra defense, and the extra hit you can take, can substantially increase the reliability and speed of a run.

Agreed, but that is a pretty big if. Often times not the entire group is on the same skill level. Often times there isnt enough party blocks and reflects to defend against a sea of elites and projectile shooters. At the end of the day and you will probably agree with this but success of a run is heavily dependant on each players ability to survive on his/her own. Each player to a certain degree has to watch their own backs and not be dependant on a constant stream of second hand blocks which there probably wont be enough of if you are too squishy.

NeXeD.3042:

Trybil.1567:

I have tried a variation of this build in sPvP, and I kind of like it. (4/4/0/0/6 with rune of forge, spectral mastery/attune).

With the extra protection, plus longer duration / shorter recharge spectral skills, I find I can both survive better and recharge DS faster; then still do decent damage in DS with close to 100% crit rate. Add Plague as an elite and you can hold a point for quite a while against multiple attackers, and maybe kill one of them before help arrives.
Probably not a “meta” worthy build but a nice change of pace with a fun gameplay to it.

Thats not even close to being close to the same build, that one is actually decent since you don’t put any traits into kitten trait lines.

The only difference between his build and my pvp version is that he isnt using Unholy sanctuary, shrouded removal and dark armour. He also doesnt have the extra toughness from the DM trait line, if thats the case i am going to take a wild guess and say he is using knights, I use zerker. If he is using knights then he could get away with not going into DM.

The problem is much lower ferocity and power so he would be forced to go into Spite. In this case there is barely a damage difference with our builds, if anything i am probably doing more damage because of my ferocity.

If i’m wrong and he is actually using zerker, i have a hard time believing he is standing still and holding points against multiple people (not counting plague elite)

SO, Trybil which amulet are you using?

Beldin.5498:

Fermi.2409:

dead dps, is not dps

This phrase has always bothered me. It wouldn’t surprise me if some fellow in zerk gear/setup does more damage then the Nomad Staff Guardian over the course of the whole battle even if he ends up dying halfway through. Especially with the sort of DPS your average pug kicks out, I don’t think that dying halfway through a fight prevents you from outDPSing other people in the party.

A player that uses knights armor and jewlery still does 77,6% of the damage
somebody in full zerker does.
With celestial its 73,5% and with soldiers its 72,9

So its not that zerker do 300% more damage like some people always want to
make us believe .. its more just around 25% … and if you just use defensive armor
and zerker jewlery its only 12-14% less.

This is precisely why i never use full zerker. You will often benefit more from the damage reduction from the toughness stat mixed in than doing 14% more damage when you are already doing high damage.

Its not like doing 14% more damage than a hybrid means you will be able to two-shot everything and everyone so sacrificing survivability for that small increase is really pointless.

Fermi.2409:

Ragion.2831:

Player A who does 70% of the damage a zerker player B does survives a whole boss or event fight, is more valuable than the zerker player that gets 2 shotted every 10 seconds and then has to run back.

Which is itself a pretty huge exaggeration.

And even if it was, the general idea of the post is sound.

Ragion.2831:

I should probably say again zerker is important yes but having some demi tanks around is also pretty important

Eh. 4 scrubby zerkers with a decent Ele will be able to clear most stuff before lack of skill causes issues, so I’d honestly rather have that.

In the end it really is very situational, we could sit here for the next week and compare where pure zerkers will have trouble surviving and where toughness stacking becomes unuseful. Lupi is a classic case, one mistake by a zerker and its back to respawn if lucky there is someone who can risk taking a hit or 2 to rez. On the flip side zerker is a lot more useful for trash mob clearing than non pure zerkers.

I wish i had seen this thread earlier. I started thieving a few months ago with the same interest in evade thieves and im very happy to say that it is very possible but you will have to break a few rules

I have a pvp rank of Dragon and these days i play mostly thief. If you want an evade thief, there a re a few things to keep in mind:

Firstly an evade thief is not a thief that only evades, if you try to build an only evade thief you will spend most of your time evading and not doing damage.

Secondly, the entire goal of an evade thief is to put yourself in positions where you can focus on doing damage, even if it is just for a second. It is not about just evading attacks because no matter how good you are, there are only so many attacks you can evade.

An evade thief needs stealth, the only thing is you won’t need it very often if you are very good. You will need it to backstab, to retreat and re evaluate the fight if it changes (like if another opponent showing) and you will need it to do a full retreat sometimes if you have taken too much damage and don’t want to risk chip damage.

An evade thief should be able to mantain composure. With all the particle effects and not having so much hp, it is very easy to get intimidated and start spamming dodges and not positioning yourself properly. Not timing evades is the easiest way to die.

Lastly and this is the most important, an evade thief must be able to predict the future, literally, you should be able to tell when a high damage attack is coming before it happens. You should be able to tell when someone else is about to attack you, not very easy to do especially when mesmer clones are around.

The evade thief is very viable, i don’t use refuge or any stealth utilities. On a number of occasions i have been successful against ganks because of the evades. Yesterday was the latest, managed a ranger and thief, shortly afterwards a mesmer, warrior and guardian.

Personally i don’t respect stealth heavy thieves, their whole tactic is really a glorified way of wasting time. The worst thing about these kind of thieves is they actually think using stealth and then creeping behind for backstab is skill.

If you still want to build one shoot me a PM. I don’t mind helping with the specifics like build and playstyle. We can do that in game. Its pretty exciting to find another evade enthusiast.

Should probably mention that using the meta doesnt work if you really dont want to depend on stealth.

Zarania.6235:

Blinding Powder —> Backstab --> Cloak and Dagger —> Backstab

i do this combo regardless of class and it works. except necro’s need a third backstab

I see… you are one of those…

Fighting the rev is going to be pretty interesting but i get the feeling it is going to be very similar to fighting a warrior.

Im hoping the rest of the class shuts down stealth spammers so there wont be as many stealth dependant time wasting thieves in pvp

Fermi.2409:

dead dps, is not dps

This phrase has always bothered me. It wouldn’t surprise me if some fellow in zerk gear/setup does more damage then the Nomad Staff Guardian over the course of the whole battle even if he ends up dying halfway through. Especially with the sort of DPS your average pug kicks out, I don’t think that dying halfway through a fight prevents you from outDPSing other people in the party.

Thats quite an extreme, using nomads as an example, not really what i was getting at. I was talking more from a balanced perspective. Player A who does 70% of the damage a zerker player B does survives a whole boss or event fight, is more valuable than the zerker player that gets 2 shotted every 10 seconds and then has to run back. Player A can risk rezzing other downed players or being the bait, player B can’t without using some skill with a long cd

I should probably say again zerker is important yes but having some demi tanks around is also pretty important

I just want to say, this is a great great topic, the full zerker craze in pve, especially dungeons is really irritating for so many reasons.

First of all, zerker is actually not for everyone for the reason you mentioned, you can easily get two shotted. No matter how much damage you cram in to a build you can’t stand still and trade blows with champs and bosses, you still need some defense.

I do pve on necro and i typically use dire and dire/rabid or a damage/condi hybrid but i make sure my armour is at least 2400. Too many times ive been in groups, everyone else is glass of course and when we get to champs and bosses we cant exploit in some way, downed symbols pop up everywhere. Now because of my set up, im alive and i now have to risk my neck rezzing. In my mind, im like seriously, if you cant dodge, blind or block chain, don’t go glass!.

This is why zerker is not for everyone. All that zerker damage is only useful if you are alive long enough for it to be useful. However that does not mean you have to stack toughness. Certain classes have skills and traits that can block/blind/stealth/invluns/dodge while using pure dps builds. It takes skill to be able to use these effectively without needing toughness, for instance dps guard and applying aegis and blinds.

If you are the sort of player that cant time the blocks, blinds e.t.c properly or don’t have enough available to the class, then you should stack more toughness because dead dps, is not dps.

On the question of toughness being useful or not, it absolutely is, it is best to have one or 2 people who are likely to survive to rez or aggro than have everyone be likely to die. I think this will become very clear with HoT, lets see how full zerker works on the wyvern with Anet talking about challenging content.

The only way to make condis be as useful is to have pve creatures be able to periodically prevent direct damage

Shiki.7148:

Ragion.2831:

Greatsword may be completely different from what we expect. Think about it, no one could have predicted hammer on revenant would be a ranged weapon.

Problem is that Marjory exists, who uses the GS as a melee-weapon. It doesn’T make it impossible for us to get a “mesmer greatsword”, just highly unlikely, and seriously, i really do not want the GS to be a condi or control or ranged weapon. Necro doesn’t need more uselessness in PvE.

The main thing i want from gs is mobility

NeXeD.3042:

Ragion.2831:

Holl.3109:

I’m always up for duels

Damage, well it would take some time to do a video but you are welcome to try the build, if you want a damage comparison, it will be pretty close to zerker because the stats arent too far off.

As for duels, i havent used necro the past few months very much after discovering thief. It would take a couple days of only playing necro to be really fluent with the class again. Its so bad in pvp especially that i sometimes now have to look at my skill bar.

If i were to duel it would be with thief.

I think you should get reacquainted with necro before attempting to “discuss” pvp builds with experienced pvp necromancers rather than just dismiss what we are saying to you =(

The damage of your build will not be anywhere near close to what the “sort of meta” build I use pumps out.

reacquainted with necro? ive played nothing but necro for 2 years, i got 60 of 80 pvp ranks with that class, played quite a lot of it after the last feature pack. I wanted something new then switched to thief fairly recently. The way people play hasn’t changed, the only thing is ive rcently lost some fluidity with my skills but the build’s effectiveness is still the same.

Look if your pure glass necro works for you, well by all means have fun with it. This build is just meant to solve a particular problem with glass towers, dealing with multiple zerkers.

Holl.3109:

I’m always up for duels

Damage, well it would take some time to do a video but you are welcome to try the build, if you want a damage comparison, it will be pretty close to zerker because the stats arent too far off.

As for duels, i havent used necro the past few months very much after discovering thief. It would take a couple days of only playing necro to be really fluent with the class again. Its so bad in pvp especially that i sometimes now have to look at my skill bar.

If i were to duel it would be with thief.

flow.6043:

Ragion.2831:

Here is the thing, if you come at my thief with a squishy build like the meta, you will die. I will evade majority of your skills. I will out kite, I will hit and run, you will miss and i will cleanse.

That just sounds like you’re better on your thief than your necro.
If played right, even the squishy power meta build (which isn’t at all as fragile as you make it out to be) has a clear 1v1 advantage against any thief.

Ragion.2831:

-The near perma protection is based on a real battle scenario not a guaranteed calculation.

In real battle scenarios people strip boons.

Ragion.2831:

Then look at the new traits and changes we got, specifically spec armour changes and unholy sanctuary. Those changes alone pretty much raised the necro’s level well over 9000.

Are we playing the same game?

Ragion.2831:

Do i have as much power as the meta build does? no, but will i notice the 200 power or so difference? not really. For comparison, the meta has less than 2000 armour, less than 20k hp with 2300 power or so and less than 40% crit with no food.

Judging by your explanations about your stats I would assume you have Signet of Spite just for the passive bonus? I’m sure you know that signets don’t work in Death Shroud, so that’s less power half the time, also you have less ferocity and no 100% crit chance in DS. (not sure how you’re getting less then 40%with full berserker..?)
So, does one notice a difference in damage? Absolutely.

In general you have some decent ideas, and I appreciate that you’re trying a different approach. However, your rant about the current meta and your build having better synergy is in part unfounded.
For example:
If you want defense you need utility, not just a huge amount of armor (sidenote: for necros vitality>toughness). Yes, more stats help, but face tanking with a lot of armor or protection is far less effective than if you’d just take another defensive utility instead of Signet of Spite.
Also, your Death Magic traitline… Dark Armor and Reaper’s Protection. I get that you have to settle for poor traits in that line when you are not using a staff. But why not at least take Shrouded Removal and maybe Ritual of Protection with a well instead of the signet? I don’t know.. the whole line looks like a waste of points to me. Yeah, more toughness and boon duration stack with your rune and whatever, but it just seems like you’re very much overrating Unholy Sanctuary and are glad about scoring some power on the way there.

Anyway, perhaps you could enlighten us with a gameplay video or something? Or maybe a duel, in case you’re on EU? I’ll even fight your thief with the meta power build.

Yes i stopped playing necro as much the past 4 months or so, so yes i am better on thief than necro.

For simplicity sake the protection is only based on you taking direct damage, because you can equally say in a real scenario you also gain protection from allies. the entire point is the possibility to gain very high protection uptime compared to other builds.

I personally dont use reapers protection but it is pretty useful. I prefer shoruded removal.

Personally i dont use wells, its too easy to avoid (for me at least). Like i mentioned earlier aside from spec armour the other 2 utilities are flexible as well as off hand weapons because at the end of the day it is really situational. I just personally would use power boosts in a WvW environment.

In pvp i use the same trait point set up but with zerker stats, the utilities spec armour, spec grasp and spec walk, and the trait shrouded removal.

Finally like i mentioned earlier, 100% crit in ds is nice, i would use it but the trade off isnt worth it for my playstyle. I tend to death flash for fury to use channel skills which do more damage than life blast but I cant do that while low on health without unholy sanctuary.

US has saved me quite a few times, soemmtimes im low on health, i try to heal but it gets interrupted, i quickly go into ds try and get to a spot i dont take direct damge remove shroud then heal again. A lot of times that second attempt fails, and where im supposed to die, US kicks in and then i have a 3rd shot at healing, which is often successful. This is PvP

In WvW it reall y depends on your playstyle, i prefer US becaue i can take more risk and i can also force others to over commit and burst while low on health, US triggers and the first reaction will likely be a surprised one.

zaragoz.6351:

What food do you run with this?

Stuff for extra power or ferocity. You already have permanent fury with death shroud flashing for 70% crit, you dont need any more.

Decided to post the build with food.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBHhhG1IHNV32YjtNs3mAZokeBigtNyAoAoMKCCA-TFCFwALV+B4kAca/BBPBAaqEwXJYG9DqU3hUARs0C-w

With blood is power active thats 2700 power with 50% (or 70) crit chance with almost 200% crit damage and 2600 armour (which hits the hard cap of 3000 while channeling). Everything with permanent protection, its insane, i really dont understand how people use the meta.

NeXeD.3042:

Ragion.2831:

NeXeD.3042:

US is dog kitten. Your utilities suck besides SA, not very useful in a teamfight, you should swap that offhand dagger to go with axe and use warhorn with dagger. Seems like a dueling build but you won’t be able to beat a decent 6/2/0/0/6 necro or or even. 4/4/0/0/6.

I guess I’m having trouble figuring out what role this build is supposed to fill, no area denial, lacking dps, no group support(not like we can trait for that anyway).

Sorry for the criticism. But it is what it is.

Criticism is welcome. Aside from spec armour the utilities and weapons are flexible. If i want more damage to really damage assist, i can switch the grasp to blood is power which gives almost 2500 power at 50% crit (70 with trait).

Area denial for just over a second is really pointless considering the damage staff does. The fear only serves as an interruption of a particular skill, like heals. It makes more sense to interrupt with spec grasp which gives 22% life force and closes the range for your much better damage skills. Just use ds if you are worried about area defence.

Grasp is buggy and the only reason its giving you lf is because you sacrificed ctd and dp. Use warhorn and ds 3 for interupts, I tried to make it work for a while after holl but he used it to get people in his wells, ds is not an area defense and I said denial not defense….. I wasn’t even talking about staff WvW gwen meta is wells necro. That said staff isn’t a condi weapon it’s basically another utility bar.

I really have no clue what exactly you are trying to combat here…. as for the theif engaging disengaging and reengaging there is literally nothing you can do about that against a good theif…. You can’t win a fight like that by trying to be tanky and out sustain him, best bet is to try and kill him in 2-3 seconds which is very possible if played right and it’s not a dire perplexity theif.

It seems like you are trying to reinvent our class as though no one has tried a build like this…. I know I have and I keep going back to my normal builds death magic just sucks currently. US is weak, rp isn’t very useful without terror and even on the builds it’s most useful people usually take greater marks Lately. Having the extra toughness is nice and all but if you couldn’t hit the target without toughness what makes you think you’ll hit them now?

I updated my last reply.

Re invent the class? this is what the class is, mitigating damage while dealing damage. I have used this build for months and this build only existed as of the last feature pack and there are still a lot of glass power necros roaming around.

For me, a duel and a gank is the same thing, a gank is only several duels happening at the same time.

What im trying to do is very simple, taking damage from multiple sources while dealing damage to one person.

The toughness allows you to inflict chip damage for longer periods on evasive classes. And Death magic is very far from bad. You can start a fear chain with reapers protection on thieves and mesmers for example and we both know fear chains can kill those classes. There is shrouded removal, which is actually really useful, for breaking fears especially. Then theres my favourite, unholy sanctuary, this doesnt even need an explanation.

Sure you can burst a thief in 3 seconds but thief might as well be afk because that is not possible against a skilled and properly built thief.

NeXeD.3042:

US is dog kitten. Your utilities suck besides SA, not very useful in a teamfight, you should swap that offhand dagger to go with axe and use warhorn with dagger. Seems like a dueling build but you won’t be able to beat a decent 6/2/0/0/6 necro or or even. 4/4/0/0/6.

I guess I’m having trouble figuring out what role this build is supposed to fill, no area denial, lacking dps, no group support(not like we can trait for that anyway).

Sorry for the criticism. But it is what it is.

Criticism is welcome. Aside from spec armour the utilities and weapons are flexible, i was more focused on the stats and protection. If i want more damage to really damage assist, i can switch the grasp to blood is power which gives almost 2500 power at 50% crit (70 with trait).

Area denial for just over a second is really pointless considering the damage staff does. The fear only serves as an interruption of a particular skill, like heals. It makes more sense to interrupt with spec grasp which gives 22% life force and closes the range for your much better damage skills. Just use ds if you are worried about area defence.

When i do all my builds, the main question, is how much damage do i really need? Being able to kill in 10 seconds sounds nice but theres endure pain, stealth, all those blocks and invulns out there where people take no damage. I have none of that, no mobility so it really makes no sense being a glass tower.

It is especially obvious to me when i come up against other power necros, all my protection and ds negates most of the benefits of their damage.

You get 100% crit with life blast, ok, thats nice but meanwhile you are exaughsting ds while other classes are blocking while attacking or in stealth waiting for you to get out of it

gavyne.6847:

Being tanky is ok, but I too have doubts about a power necro spec being that tanky while sacrificing power and raw damage boosting traits. I think the spec can probably work decent for solo roaming. But you likely don’t pump out enough dps to help out any large scale or GvG situations.

Remember in the GWEN WvW meta, necros are useful for their high raw spike aoe damage and boon stripping. You lose that high spike damage, you are simply not as useful as what you’re wanted for.

Here is the thing, if you come at my thief with a squishy build like the meta, you will die. I will evade majority of your skills. I will out kite, I will hit and run, you will miss and i will cleanse.

The life blast the meta depends on so much will not be able to hit, the staff that was shoveled into a power meta even though it is a condi weapon will be evaded. I say this from my experience especially in pvp.

The reason for this is because the meta damage/survivaibilty ratio is badly unbalanced. All the damage in the game wont help if you can’t hit or even see your target or if you are being focused.

Here is a simple scenario. You are strolling in WvW with your friends and all of a sudden a thief appears from no where and bursts you. You have less than 2000 armour you will for sure lose well below 50%, hp, so what if there is a second person? say an ele with stab.

You are about to be focused, fear wont help you, thief has gone invisible preparing for a 10k backstab and ele is about to smack you with lightning. If you are lucky and you manage to heal, you would have lost 25% more hp even with ds.

Snow.2048:

I think I want to try this build out, I have trouble finding a necro set up I like even when heavily customizing to my playstyle…

I do have a question though, can you show me the perma protection calculation, I’m not quite seeing it…13 protection on a 40s cd and another 15ish seconds on a 60s cd when you are below 50% hp.

Is the burning (1 per 60s at 50% hp) worth giving up for say Earth runes to remove the 50% hp limit on the protection (less protection up time from rune effect but increased protect duration all around)?

Good questions. The protection calculation is a little complicated so there are a few things you should keep in mind:

-3 sources of protection, Spectral armour, last grasp and rune of the forge.

- Spectral mastery affects both last grasp and active spetral armour skill, dropping the cooldown from 50 to 40 seconds.

-The near perma protection is based on a real battle scenario not a guaranteed calculation.

So at the start of a fight, you pop spec armour that is 13 seconds, in that 13 seconds you lose 50% hp (likely scenario in hard fights) last grasp kicks in for another 13 seconds as well as rune for 15 seconds.

Now from the time you popped spec armour 41 seconds have passed so spec armour is ready again, so you use it again for another 13 seconds. By now you have healed up and in that 13 seconds you have been hit below 50% hp. Since the last activation of last grasp 13 (from last grasp) +13 (from 2nd spec armour) + 15 seconds (rune) have passed which is 41 seconds so last grasp is out of cooldown so it activates for another 13 seconds. Now you have 54 seconds of protection.

At this point there is a problem, the rune has a 60 second cooldown so there is a 6 second gap, which is why my version is near permanent not permanent but you easily fix that with spec wall instead of grasp, which still works in WvW since you gain a lot of life force from people dying all over the place. 6 seconds pass rune is out of cd and now you have 15 seconds.

Finally since the last activation of spec armour, 13 (from second spec armour) + 13 (from second last grasp) + 15 ( second rune) + 6 (from the gap) have passed. A 3rd spec armour should pop again while in the middle of the second rune activation. And the cycle repeats.

About the earth rune im not too sure. You only gain a 2 second increase from your combined spectral sources the protection from rune is about 7 seconds which has a low chance of activating compared to a guaranteed 15 seconds that can cycle. However that magnetic aura is not bad, because of unholy sanctuary it can be pretty useful for bursting and/or retreating.

Dawdler.8521:

Well the entire point of the meta is to be overpowering (and thus squishy). Personally I use 0/4/0/4/6 because I found it more survivable and a better balance between being selfish (able to trait warhorn for 100% speed uptime) and helping the raid (still able to trait wells and bomb).

But that does look good for roaming, I got to try that sometime. The only thing I dont see the point of is the runes. If you use for example pack runes, you are a huge boon to a roaming party and yourself.

Sure that makes sense, but i built this assuming im being targeted by multiple people. In pvp, this build is a miracle, of course no mixed stats so i use zerker, but yet people think im hp or toughness stacking. Its worth mentioning that in this build the rune alone gives like 3/4 of all the guardians protection sources combined.

Hey guys, i decided to make this thread after seeing a couple of power builds. Ive played necro since around release so ive tried quite a few methods but ever since the last feature pack i figured out what i believe Anets ideal power necro is.

The current meta i believe is 6/2/0/0/6 with zerker stats which I believe is way too squishy, especially against thieves.

I dont think necromancers should be squishy, I don’t believe the class is meant to work that way at all . Other classes except guardian can get away with it because they have a number of ways to escape. All it takes to be dominated is someone who is good at hit and run/block. I learned this the hard way.

I believe there is a point of diminishing return when it comes to damage, and i dont mean hard and soft caps on power, but a damage-survivability ratio that is effective.

Before the last feature pack, grouch explained that the necro is the class that weakens its opponents while gaining hp, essentially wearing your opponents down. Then look at the new traits and changes we got, specifically spec armour changes and unholy sanctuary. Those changes alone pretty much raised the necro’s level well over 9000.

The minor trait before unholy sanctuary raises power based on toughness so you can stack both and still get high enough power without investing in power primary stats so captain or knights.

Then there is the spec armour change, i made a post on this a while back, with this change, toss in rune of the forge, and you can now gain permanent protection. If you really look at the latest traits and all the traits in general and how they are placed:

buffing ds (tank skill) raises damage (ferocity), which gives you protection (last grasp)

buffing toughness trait also gives you, damage from grand minor as well as increases protection duration.

Buffing power gives you healing power and the last grandmaster heals you

It is very clear the ideal necro (solo) is a necro that can take several punches while dishing it out.

Here is what im talking about in a nutshell.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBHhhG1IHNt22YjtNs3mAZokeBigtNyAoAoMKCCA-TVCFwAl0BsU5HgTCggnAANVCyodgvSQm7PoSdHA-w

Do i have as much power as the meta build does? no, but will i notice the 200 power or so difference? not really. For comparison, the meta has less than 2000 armour, less than 20k hp with 2300 power or so and less than 40% crit with no food.

Holl.3109:

Ragion.2831:

Interesting, well if the build works for you then it works. D/p thieves need to know that stealth spamming is not skill, its unnerving how many thieves think it is in pvp.

+1 to this, plus if you want video proof check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVLorU0Q5og&list=TL79CzjRp9Osw and watch from 9:35.

He’s a perma stealth D/P teef who beats me at first, but I get my revenge later on. Gotta say though, it is usually a very annoying match up >.>

That was really very annoying to watch, fortunately the thief wasn’t very good and only knew how to go into stealth. I was about to go rage mode for you when i realized something, you might just be a little too squishy.

I talk more about this on the how to build a power necro thread. The full reply was too long to post as a reply.

Very interesting video by the way

Greatsword may be completely different from what we expect. Think about it, no one could have predicted hammer on revenant would be a ranged weapon.

Shiren.9532:

Gaile Gray.6029:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

It was a limited time ‘sneak peek’ at things to come.

‘Breaking news! We’re releasing future items early for one day only! Through Friday, check the Gem Store each day this week for an exciting limited-time item! And don’t forget, our Lunar New Year items will only be on sale for a little while longer!’

So the wings (and anything else that comes up this week) will be back again.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/limited-time-special-items-in-the-gem-store-this-week/

Thank you for pointing that out, Shinjo.

I think it’s worth pointing out the vast majority of players were unaware of that, especially when the wings first went on sale.

I wouldn’t mind betting a good number of early wing purchases were from players who believed the wings were only going to be available for 24 hours then unlikely to return for a long time (possibly not for a year or more).

Actually even if they did communicate the return clearly, the question is when would it return? we already know Anets habit of releasing to be returned content is many months in the future. Even if we want to think this would be different and it would be sooner than we think? how soon? a few weeks from now? well that doesn’t make sense they might have as well not bothered and just released it then. I could be wrong but I’m almost certain we won’t see this thing again before HoT and there is no release date for that.

This one day sale is supposed to be a “sneak peek” the reveal of half the revenant is a sneak peek but this is just odd. The skin was already announced, it was already in wardrobe so how does releasing it now classify as a sneak peek? that ship has sailed, it is now live content.

This whole sneak peek reasoning makes no sense to me, it seems more like Anet wanting to cash in on an item that is meant for a different time (not in the so near future). It showed great popularity on announcement, it was already finished, its just a skin so why not?

The whole business surrounding the black wings had me thinking about the effect of exclusivity in gw2. Personally i have no issues with how Anet handled the sales time, it was so short that it forced people who didn’t have enough gold to convert to gems (since they wont gain from gold farms), to buy using real money while simultaneously encouraging people to check into the game more often (at least the website) because that encourages people to play.

At the heart of every mmorpg playerbase, standing out is important. In the beginning, people complained about no healer because that means not being recognized for helping someone else. People complain about precursor drop rates not for the stats but because the legendaries are so much shinier than other weapons. Since we play with millions of other people, its human nature to want to be different.

So what is the point of this thread? two things, to remind the people smacking Anet for the time frame to remember that exclusivity is pretty important in a game like this. Sadly it means that some people will miss out. You might have missed the sale today but you might get the next one and the wing bearers today might miss that one.

The second is i’m all for occasional 1 day special item sales, i may miss some of them, but I welcome the idea that i have items that very few people have, it makes the game a lot more interesting and i’m wondering if other people feel the same.

Well the goal is a sense of progression, the old system didnt give that, the new one doesn’t seem to either. I don’t think they will go back to the old system, they will probably try something else.

DarkWasp.7291:

Ctrl-Shift-H hides your UI for taking a screenshot “Amon.”

Ooo thank you, ive been trying to figure that out. An avatar name so i stopped bothering about it

Yakubyogami.7586:

And there is a 4th group: those with actual lives that didn’t see the announcement and didn’t log on yesterday, so missed out until who knows when (whenever they return)

Laugh all you like, but some of us have lives to live. Some don’t.

I understand the feels my friend, i almost didn’t log in cuz of work but i tend to just pop in on the homepage to see what’s new and that’s how i found out.

Well we already know the epic black wings are gone (for now) and now we have two types of people, the people who got them, singing gospel music, rejoicing and posting pics and the people who are raging and cursing Anet for missing out.

If you happened to be one of those that missed out, don’t fret, they will return, yes probably in a year (considering Anets history) and yes by that time they may not be as cool anymore but it is ok.

Finally if you are one of those that missed out because you believed everyone and their mum would be wearing them so there would be no point and you now feel regret, well accept my sympathies by clicking the image below.

We already know it is going to return, the question is when, take SAB and the missing pvp armour, we know they are going to return, but how long has it been and how long left? The future can be a really long time away.

People were quick to say well everyone will be wearing the skin so i am not going to get it. Now i am going to look for more posts from people who missed out for this reason and silently laugh to myself

abbetd.5912:

This is exactly why I will not be getting the wings. For me, there is no appeal to looking like everyone else. If it could at least be dyed , I’d consider it, but pain black wings that everyone else is wearing just doesn’t loosen my wallet.

These things are on sale for 1 day who knows when they will be back. Lel just dont be posting tomorrow asking for it back when you realize not that many people got them.

You are all doing it wrong. WITNESS THE TRIBAL GOD!

Holl.3109:

Ragion.2831:

interesting to watch but after maining necro for a couple years and playing a lot of thief past few months, i can say that necros are not meant to be glass. Against a good thief and no backup, glass necro will die 99% of the time. Like Warlord said necros can be tanky and still be zerker.

:( I’ve dueled quite a lot a good teefs and won (not meant to brag) 60-70%. Mainly due to all the CC’s and quick dagger AA’s. I’ve dueled parma D/P stealth teefs, and those are a pain though.

Interesting, well if the build works for you then it works. D/p thieves need to know that stealth spamming is not skill, its unnerving how many thieves think it is in pvp.

interesting to watch but after maining necro for a couple years and playing a lot of thief past few months, i can say that necros are not meant to be glass. Against a good thief and no backup, glass necro will die 99% of the time. Like Warlord said necros can be tanky and still be zerker.

The best way to solve the pve zerker issue without causing another stats set to bethe new ideal is to make mobs almost as strong as players (movement,attack speed, more skills and anti skills) then give mobs certain skills to make up for the unintelligent AI. By the time you get outnumbered by hard hitting mobs who have skills similar to endure pain, can cleanse well and apply 5 high stack damage condis you will be forced to mix up your stats.

Unfortunately this counts as hardcore which is against Anet’s agenda so don’t expect a meta change anytime soon.

tacticalevilnoodlefox.5694:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Your problem is that you want hardcore play out of a casual game. And this won’t happen. This game was designed entirely to be different. And if you’re not ok with that, that’s fine, it just means theres a better game out there suited for what you want.

^ this right here.

Look I get it. It’s frustrating when a game that has concepts or ideas you really like also has concepts and ideas that just aren’t fun and engaging for you. It’s frustrating when a game you really want to love just doesn’t measure up to what would keep you playing for any period of time. We’ve all been there and bought the t-shirt.

But you can’t bite into an apple and complain that it doesn’t taste like an orange.

You know what though? If you have ideas to make the game more challenging that WOULDN’T interfere with the casual nature of game play (aka no death runs back to my body or monetary/exp/item penalties outside of having to WP, no open world PVP areas, no random dolyaks dropping from the sky and squishing me etc etc) then by all means suggest them! Rally for them, you have my blessing and if they’re good I hope ANet listens.

But don’t come onto the forums and expect to be taken seriously when you want to change what the appeal of GW2 is to begin with. Instead do yourself a huge favor and find a game that you’ll actually enjoy and will inspire you to play. You’ll be much happier if every update isn’t an uphill battle.

So you are both saying it is ok for a game in this day and age to have almost zero sense of reward, thats very interesting, please elaborate. After that i’d like to know what makes you the most interested in logging into gw2 aside pvp. If you have just started playing then disregard the question.

Looking at a reward system from extreme such as hardcore and casual is how Anet created a game dull in rewards in the first place. which is a really bad place to be for an mmorpg. Take crafting ascended armour for instance, this is considered hardcore in gw2. If i went out and did it, what would i gain? the skins as a set arent the greatest so i would have to reskin some parts at least, 5% increase in stats which is pointless for the effort needed. When i’m done i would look like im wearing exotics, and i would be as effective as exotics, so what is the point of crafting ascended. This is a prime example of how the reward system issue is not about anet appealing to casuals but anets failure to create a good reward system.

If the armor unlocked a unique skill that is no more OP than normal skills and changes depending on which class equips it, you KNOW you are using ascended and everyone else will. That in itself gives a much better sense of reward for the time and scores of gold spent. Ascended weapons could shorten CD on weapon skills in PVE and WVW by say 20%, the way those two modes are, exotics wont be that disadvantaged

When it comes to death penalty, there is a balancing act and once again looking at it from extremes like hardcore and casual like the way you are is why we have the toddler penalty we have. Sure nothing extreme like losing gear or money but there are in-betweens

Killing a world boss and getting blues and maybe gear you will salvage or toss in forge to get pretty much nothing is not a reward, even for casuals like myself. How about killing teq has a chance of dropping part of its wing you can use with other mats you get from dungeons and what not to craft cool stuff like a glider with some extra endurance when the gliding stuff comes out, or are we calling crafting and going into dungeons hardcore now?

I could keep going but this post is already long enough, if you don’t get it by now, you probably never will.

tacticalevilnoodlefox.5694:

muttering under her breath Filthy casuals….

But no seriously…. as cliche and overused and whatever as it is… if you want a game that’s more ‘hardcore’ or challenging then well… play another game that’s more hardcore or challenging.

As someone who, even though she has a ton of time to play, doesn’t like putting that much effort into an mmo I’m glad there’s one that gives me all the cool items and cool equipment and a sense of having a really awesome character without the hassle of dedicating my life to mastering the game as I would my job. I’m happy that GW2 allows me to either grind out the gold, materials, what have you for the really awesome stuff; or open my wallet and get it all the same if I don’t want to bother with it.

There’s nothing wrong with them being concerned with casuals and making decisions based around a casual market. The whole argument kinda feels like, to me, someone playing Portal and complaining that there aren’t enough bad guys to shoot.

Of course that being said I also don’t see anything wrong with them adding in more difficult content for those who want it, and rewards to fit. I just don’t feel it should be the main market.

Let me rephrase, i don’t mind that the game being attractive to casuals, as someone who doesnt have a legendary yet after playing for 2 years and still doesnt have spare gold farmed to craft it yet. I’m also still just at over 5k AP so i get the whole casual thing. What i don’t like is the entire game seemingly built around casuals especially when it comes to the reward system.

These days i have zero interest in pve, doing hearts is so boring and I really don’t get anything from it. I’m still at 74% map completion. I miss games like runescape where there is a real fear of death on quests (probably because you lose quite a bit when you die), you walk through a spooky mansion and you feel like you are going to get a heart attack. I think a really decent penalty for death (maybe not inventory) would be good for the game because combat is skill based.

Take runes of magic, even though you don’t lose stuff when you die, soloing quests was actually pretty dangerous when i played it and forget about soloing dungeons.

Now i dont even represent a guild and have no interest in going back to one. I don’t need commendations, logging in gives you laurels now and pvp gives me gold so i just keep playing then get accessories when i need them, which isn’t very often now.

I log in, its straight to pvp i can get everything through that. I get a lot of stuff that just sits in my inventory, my ascended rings i dont need, mats just sit in bank, excess just take up space in my bags. Its gotten to the point where winning or losing makes no difference.

If Anet wants to appeal to both casuals and harcore players i can think of many ways of doing this.

I agree with OP. These things should at the very least be put on gem store for one week. It would have been better if this was a legendary backpiece and had some particle effect. Honestly sometimes i wish gw2 would take off the training wheels when it comes to content, and cater to people who want a real sense of reward exclusivity for playing:

Different Legendary armor acquired from world bosses and dungeon drops that allows you to pick stats equivalent to ascended and also unlocks a unique skill, nothing over powered.

Legendary backpieces that allow you to do stuff like gliding, active bursts in movement speed.

If Anet finally manages to really improve the AI, they could do some next level stuff with this game but noooo, they are concerned with casuals.

Levetty.1279:

Nice to see they are still filling boss fights with lots of aoe and damage zones on the floor so pets, clones and phantasms will still be useless.

Actually the way to solve this isn’t removing aoe and damge zones but making AI smart enough ton know when its standing in an AoE or damage zone. If Anet can accomplish this, pve might actually feel a lot more like pvp. I would very much welcome this.

Test.8734:

Ragion.2831:

On the flip side, some say we want certain things put into the revenant, without knowing the full class how can we know if the lack of your suggestions will matter or not?

Because ArenaNet is not going to simply read the players’ suggestions and implement them blindly. Heh, they don’t even do the things we ask for regarding content that is already in the game (see the NPE, the new Dailies, and so on).

The meaning behind the suggestions is what matters. If players complain that the Revenants lack mobility and ArenaNet has already made a legend focusing on mobility, they can just pat their backs and think “good thing we got that covered”. If players are complaining that Revenants are better than Necromancers are dealing with conditions, ArenaNet may want to check if necromancers aren’t in need of some changes (and they are). If players are complaining that Revenants get too much Stability, it’s a way for ArenaNet to remember if the way that boon has been reworked for the other professions has been done in a way so everyone gets a minimum of Stability.

As much as I think ArenaNet has been doing a rather poor job, assuming they lack the reading comprehension required to read the current feedback and turn it into something useful is quite offensive to them.

I see your point but consider this; Anet has shown nothing about mobility so obviously there is a lack of mobility. If i were them and i see complaints about lack of mobility, i would be like well obviously because we havent shown any. There’s zero basis for the critique so how can i take it seriously

If I (still being anet) showed most of the mobility stuff and people are complaining about lack of mobility because of a, b and c, then I would look at the other skills that compensate for the lack of mobility then compare them with the reasons.

From what i can tell, the entire point of the reveal was just to show direct damage, conditions, new tech and class mechanic, the basics.

I mained necro so i’m concerned about how the class compares as well, i mean seriously, they basically took the necro class, buffed it two fold then called it mallyx. hower we know there are going to be new weapons, traits, utilites and an elite. I have no choice but to reserve the concerns since we know nothing about them so we dont know if the necro too got buffed or how it is going to stack up

If people say revenant has too much stability, how do they really know that exactly? we don’t know how the boon is going to be distributed, the boon just got changed in a big way which means rebalancing. With the last major update necros are now able to get near permanent protection, guardians have the best access to might, thieves have vigor and so on but no one complains about this since it all worked out because of the vast difference in class mechanics.

wiki says mf affects champ bags and chests from pvp reward track

Omg this topic needs to go mainstream, the decision to remove it is so silly anyway i look at it that i want to smack one of them. I want to believe they pulled the armor to add it into the HoT expansion since it fits with the theme and most people didnt know it existed when it did so they thought it wouldn’t be missed as much.

I didnt realize it was gone until i was armor matching with the wardrobe when it came out.

Test.8734:

Ragion.2831:

People love to speculate, I personally don’t but i get it, all the what ifs and walls of texts on skills that should be can be entertaining , however taking it one step further and assuming we have a complete picture then critiquing the class at this stage is, to put it mildly, short sighted (extremely).

What I would call “to put mildly, short sighted (extremely)” is waiting until a profession’s mechanic are set on stone before offering feedback that would then be useless. It’s far smarter to tell ArenaNet what we, the players, would like or not to see now, while they are still deciding, than wait until everything is finished and they wouldn’t make big changes anymore.

We dont’ have enough info yet. Some people think, the revenant is the class that will kill all classes, “the new meta” as it was put and they want the legends to be toned down and all these big changes need to be made. Well how do we know the class is going to be killing the other classes when we haven’t used it against the HoT classes

On the flip side, some say we want certain things put into the revenant, without knowing the full class how can we know if the lack of your suggestions will matter or not?

Closed beta is the time to be making big suggestions and complaints on what is and isn’t there because then we actually know what is and isn’ t there. We can’t offer feedback on something we don’t know.

People love to speculate, I personally don’t but i get it, all the what ifs and walls of texts on skills that should be can be entertaining , however taking it one step further and assuming we have a complete picture then critiquing the class at this stage is, to put it mildly, short sighted (extremely).

Here is what we know versus what we don’t know

We know:
- There are at least three weapons
- There are at least two legends, one of which is conditions heavy
- There are at least three trait lines

We don’t know:
- How many weapons the revenant will have. Warriors can use nine and it is entirely plausible that since revenant has no weapon swap that the class might have access to all the weapons in the game.

- The rest of the traits: We know how much the traits system makes or breaks a class, two missing trait lines is a lot.

- How many legends there will be and what characteristics they will have. The two revealed legends are night and day from each other, if the other legends are going to be that different from each other then we pretty know nothing about how effective this class is vs other classes.

- How the utilities on each legend will be customized. I’m sure i’m not the only one to notice the arrows on the utilities bar, so lets not be frantic about the legends being locked.

- How the new boons (including changes) and new conditions will be spread out to the other classes. This is actually a big deal because the traits for each class will have to be messed with. This leads to my next point

- How the specializations will affect each class and in turn how they will affect each other including the revenant. For instance will the necro gs be able to counter some of the revenant’s zoning skills, will the thief rifle, have skills and/or traits that deal more damage the father you are from the target? this already directly counters one of the revenant’s traits.

With the addition of specializations, traits will have to messed with extensively. New Weapons, new boons and new conditions, its entirely possible we will see as much as ten new traits for each class on top of reworked traits.

So please , the next time the urge to start another “revenant is op” or “revenant has no mobility” thread is threatening to take over, remember its a pretty long list of what we don’t know about the class.

Have a good one.

assumptions are dangerous, there could be other utilities per legend, probably are actually

One of the revenant skills throws up a wall that moves with the player, this moving shield is what guardian should have gotten in the first place. Shield of the avenger, shield of absorption and wall of reflection should all be able to move with you like the shield of wrath. Guardians have zero mobility so forcing you to stand still while blocking means nothing if a ranger or mesmer is still 1500 units from you when the shield ends.

I think it is really silly to remove the best looking light armor in the game when 80% of the others are so bad even when combined (subjective? in this case no). Will this set be returned?

My future Necromancer. If anet finally comes to their senses.