Guild Wars 2

30/30/10 condition build or 0/30/10/0/30 condition builds are both popular, and usually both take terror in curses.

I can’t wait to try out 30/10/0/0/30 as a power build with axe and dagger and mostly berserker and Valkyrie gear.

Depending on how you play minion builds can be effective in small scale fighting. Also interested in how a juggermancer works now with the recent buffs.

A good roamer or roaming team can generate as many points as a zerg per tick if they know what they are doing, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort.

Videos of killing unexpecting players, uplevels, or people in zerg specs aren’t impressive, I’ll give you that, but roaming absolutely accomplishes a lot for your server.

I wouldn’t recommend going for any support in zerker gear.

A zerker spec I am planning on running soon will be 30/10/0/0/30 taking axe training, near to death and the new soul reaping grandmaster for hopefully insane damage.

Unfortunately target the weak only gives 2% increase per condition so you have a maximum of 24% if a target has every condition. It’s not 2% per bleed. Also a lot of the traits you’re looking at aren’t particularly powerful. In soul reaping I would stay away from DS draining slower, and near to death would do a zerker much better

If you want to chat about it, I am on Borlis Pass too. IGN: Nec Roe.

I don’t think either terror or Dhuumfire are overpowered. What they did was give us a lot more access to fear. Doom can be up to 3 seconds with 100% fear duration. Spectral Wall can annihilate a bad player practically by itself.

I still stand by the thinking that – as a WvW player – as long as a P/D thief can live forever and lay a hurting on, or a Mesmer can recreate Mind Wrack bursts almost over and over, or a Guardian can heal to full after nearly being dead, or Rangers can cleanse themselves of conditions non-stop and heal like mad, and d/d eles are still a wildly powerful class, then we are not overpowered.

I think we’re right where Engis have been with their HGH build. I haven’t seen what warriors are capable of now, but I think we went from a second tier class to on the level with the rest of them. We still have the same weaknesses and lack of truly defensive cooldowns. Now we can just hope to kill someone before they really become an issue.

I joined BP a few months ago and I’ve really enjoyed fighting against AR for that time. It was fun having it out against another server that seemed as evenly matched to us as they were.

/salute

Sigil of bloodlust, sigil of force.

Kravick.4906:

We’re no more OP than mesmers, and if mesmers aren’t OP, then neither are we.

This. Mesmers have ridiculous abilities. Guardians are just as strong as ever. D/d eles are now seemingly mortal, down from nigh unkillable.

We seem to be much stronger, but it doesn’t mean I still can’t get on my thief and still come out of tough situations with a win where my necro never would stand a chance.

It seems to me like we are where we should be. Hopefully with the offensive buffs and spectral buffs we can kill faster and live longer which is what we needed.

Corrupt boon didn’t need a nerf before, but if it still ruined all boons on someone with all the new conditions they gave us, you could spread insane amounts of conditions with epidemic.

Realistically it just isn’t as strong against a guardian popping shouts and save yourselves. Otherwise it’ll still wipe 25 stacks of might or stability or protection or turn retal into confusion. How many times did you use it against someone with more than 5 boons? And how often of those times were those boons actually going to stay around for a few more seconds? It wasn’t a needed nerf but it’s necessary with the changes they made.

But you said it yourself, it hardly worked and now it only converts 5 boons instead of all. So don’t take it.

I’m excited to try a 30/10/0/0/30 berserker build with axe training, near to death and the new DS grandmaster to see how much damage I can do with life blast.

I agree that our minor traits are bad. I remember the first time I went over Mesmer or Guardian trait lines, I couldn’t believe how good some of the minors were.

Some of these suggestions are way too strong like perma-retaliation in DS, but they could wipe most of our minor traits from the trees and I probably wouldn’t notice many but the ones in Curses.

Gryph.8237:

What you will see is thieves and mesmers using their get out of jail cards (mesmer blink, thieves shadowshot/shadowstep/second sword 2) immediately when we hit ds5. that way there is no lock, they get out of range, thus no immobilize for those classes. Let alone the thief can just stealth (cleanse any condition) and be done with it. This will only effect melee classes like the warrior (well not really, because he can just leap/burst someone and its off) and guardian (well no, wait, he can just cleanse it). Wait, what class is not just going to insta cleanse this? or block this like they block fear/terror dmg. awesome.

I agree, buffs are just the worst ever. I wish they wouldn’t give us new, interesting skills, either…

It’s going to effect every class in the game. Who do you ever fight that just stands there? Especially if they have just been feared. It’ll effect melee the most, but now that also includes rangers, eles, thieves and some Necros on top of guardians and warriors. And Mesmers always move and have little condition removal, Torment may really mess them up.

Thieves and Mesmers will likely have limited access to this stuff while every Necro in the game will get it every 40 seconds in an AOE fashion. If they end up where most people expect for those 2 classes, I would be surprised if most people even took it. If Thieves get it on a weapon skill I’d be a little concerned if I didn’t play a Necro, but Confusion is still weak for Mesmers anyway and it looks like they are buffing all of the daze traits and skills, so I bet that’ll be the new Mesmer thing which will be much worse than them getting Torment.

Plus a new condition that will be doing damage and covering our other conditions from cleanses will be an indirect buff as well. Yes, it can get removed, but it’ll likely keep another damaging condition on if it does. Something else worth mentioning is that if this is a channeled AOE then it may hit invisible foes.

And to whoever said this doesn’t sound useful for power builds must not want to try immobilizing multiple people in wells at once. Although I don’t quite understand why they put an immobilize on a condition that does more damage if you’re moving.

Well I’m a huge fan of all the changes so far and I can’t wait to see the patch notes and log on afterwards to use DS5. I wish there was some defense added, but something is much better than nothing.

Are the necro podcasts no longer available in audio only format?

This kind of goes back to my previous post that that isn’t necessarily everything or final.

I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying but it’s like the community wants attention and then is unhappy when they get it. It’s kind of baffling, although I’m not surprised based off how almost every forum QQs, even the powerful classes.

Weren’t there a lot of posts concerned that Necros would be OP if they have us burning on top of terror? Now that they made it difficult to get both people seem upset. I don’t get it, actually having to choose between your traits is a good thing, not something that limits you. Not having any good choices for your traits is more limiting than deciding what to pick.

The leaked notes weren’t official, and these aren’t necessarily complete. Let’s wait a day to see what they did.

No, it wouldn’t be hard to do with a condi build, but if you want damage mitigation it would probably be easier to just focus on protection which will probably be a lot easier to get if they change the spectral skills.

12.5% isn’t insignificant, I’m just saying it’s not worth focusing on.

I doubt this is everything, they said there would be changes to every trait line.

I believe the allegedly leaked patch notes changed it to a 25% chance for any attack to fumble, which I believe is a 12.5% reduction in direct damage. If that is correct it does make weakness more of a factor, but not enough to base a build off of, IMO.

No one seems upset about dropping 20 into SR for Master of Terror when it’s otherwise useless stats for a condition build, but somehow 30 into Spite is unacceptable. We knew it was a grandmaster trait, so it wasn’t going to go somewhere that was comfortable for everyone.

Burning hurts. You need to work to get it. I don’t see how that’s surprising.

Anyway, we don’t even know if this is the final place for it. It could end up in another line altogether.

If you’re a PVE powermancer than this is probably not the most welcome change.

As a PvP hybrid and condition user, I find it most welcome. I am really hoping that this change goes live.

Apparently it scales in intensity, as stated in an spvp thread on torment.

Anyone else read that tainted shackles hits nearby enemies? Plural? Sounds like you’re hitting a lot of enemies with this and possibly other conditions in an area. Sounds really fun to combine with spectral walk or flesh wurm too, especially against mobs who’d chase or melee fighters.

You should also mention that in that same post it says that Necros will get burning from a grandmaster trait as well as weakness causing glancing blows from all hits instead of non-crits.

Huge buffs inc, it seems.

Awesome, this was an idea I posted awhile back. Will be very handy from keeping warriors, thieves and eles from running without some sort of punishment.

I would really like to see some sort of assistance given to servers as they fall behind from a competitive standpoint. So if one server gets to +350 ppt then the other servers can get something more alon the lines of breakout events, whereas that large server loses their breakout events. So as an example, perhaps after you take your local tower on an enemy borderland, a separate breakout can occur to take the keep.

I also think wvw specific items could become available to players if their servers get so far behind in points. Maybe it’s new siege or some powerful item with a handful of uses to make things more fun for players on the servers who are losing and more fair to them, too. There is nothing fun about getting continuously trained by a larger group of players.

This is pretty cool and I’m definitely going to use this.

But I must be getting a little jaded if I felt annoyed realizing that both stun breaks and condi removal remove fear.

I can’t comment much on p/d thieves, but I’ve been playing glass cannon d/d, d/p, and s/d weapon sets in WvW while I’m waiting for buffs to my Necro main. I consider myself slightly above average at playing the Thief, which I only say because I’ve made a habit of killing bad thieves, and it appears I still can on this alt, too. Anyway, here are a few tips to kill me and others like me:

- CC. Dazes, immobilizes and stuns are the death of me. I don’t have much health or defense, so this is a good place to start.
- If you can tell they have a dagger mainhand weapon, kite them a lot. It’s hard to land a backstab if you’re running away. Don’t just stand there. Keep moving. If you’re kiting, my stealth will likely run out and I lose my surprise and a lot of damage. Could I catch you? Yes, but I will have some trouble dealing as much damage if/when I do.

As a mesmer you have a lot of access to movement and dazes so use them.

I’m mostly very good at killing people who stand around when I’m coming for a backstab, people who are engaged in a fight with others, and people who aren’t aware enough to look around and see that I’m coming. Or just players who are bad.

Again I’m no spectacular thief player but that should help you out.

I roamed for a long period of time on my necro, either solo or in very small groups. I’ve had some great moments and epic fights, but I would always get frustrated not having some of the tools other classes had. A few days before they talked about buffing Necros, I finished leveling my thief to 80, and it’s just a whole different experience entirely.

Necros are good in zergs, but they are near the bottom of the barrel if not the worst class at roaming. Not that they can’t do it, but it’s far easier with other classes. I hope that they pull through and buff necros, and then I’ll gladly go back to mine.

I wish everyone in this thread who is still QQing would remember that for most of the 9 months that the game has been out, that Necros weren’t the worst class. Engis and rangers were terrible for some time. Warriors are still in trouble.

They didn’t just straight neglect the class for that long. It wasn’t a priority until recently. They’ve fixed the bottom of the barrel classes, and now they’ve done that enough that we are next.

The context is everything with that accusation that they ignored Necros.

Zenith.7301:

I don’t know what the weakness change will do except randomize more our defenses.

They are lowering the proc chance already from weakness. It means that you may get the damage mitigation when you need it, or you may not.

Meanwhile protection ALWAYS provides that damage reduction when you need it — it’s not a dice roll and only 2 classes and one thief build can remove it while pretty much every class can wipe conditions clear 2-3 times at least. Our weakness can only be applied every 10 seconds in melee range with a trait, every 25 seconds with offhand dagger, or 25%of the time we crit.

How is that even comparable to the damage reduction of protection? And how will death shroud absorption help when the main weakness of death shroud is that you lose all pressure potential while you are in it so your opponent can tunnel you without fear of retaliation.

Don’t forget you can apply weakness with blast finishers and some utilities. And those applications are for 10+ seconds, so you can easily have 100% uptime on weakness, and a lot of the time it’s happening to multiple players or mobs. That’s a huge benefit to a group and yourself.

It’ll be a huge indirect buff for Necros. Be happy for it.

Rennoko.5731:

Roe.3679:

So far we’re looking at:
- New DS #5 skill
- Potentially healing in DS
- Buffed weakness which will be huge
- Improving CC cast times and minion cast times
- More ways to keep people locked down

And I think more that I already am forgetting. Sounds good to me.

What??

They said they were looking at those things? The developers?

That would make me never want to play my alts again…. but I will believe it when I see it. Any one of those things would be amazingly appreciated, all of them together could actually draw people back to the class. (especially healing DS)

I meant healing in DS, for the record. They talked briefly about how Necros can’t be healed in DS and they said it’s something they are looking at when one of the players mentioned trying to heal Symbolic and then he would instantly pop DS and the heal would’nt do anything.

But yes they mentioned all those things. But they also said they won’t fix us by giving us boons and homogenizing the class more. So I’m not sure what to think. But they did want to make Rangers stronger, and now they are among the top classes. So now Necros are next, so let’s see what they can do.

I thought the upcoming changes sounded great. And they really didn’t brush off talking about the blood magic tree, they flat out said some of those traits suck (at least I think that was the devs).

So far we’re looking at:
- New DS #5 skill
- Potentially healing in DS
- Buffed weakness which will be huge
- Improving CC cast times and minion cast times
- More ways to keep people locked down

And I think more that I already am forgetting. Sounds good to me.

Wells and bone minions are a decent combo with AOE blindness. But that’s the only reliable one besides spamming one of our best abilities in Putrid Mark.

Axe 3 and Dagger 3 could easily be finishers. Plus Scepter 2 or Dagger 5 could leave dark fields. I have no idea why we don’t have that aspect of gameplay.

I’ll hop on this thread. We’ve had a few red posts lately (granted about problems that never should have existed) and it seems like they are at least trying. I know Necros are a topic in the upcoming SOTG video happening today.

I really want the Necro to be at the same level as a lot of other classes, and I am pretty much shelving mine until then. But it seems more obvious that the Devs are looking at the Necro the way that they recently looked at the Ranger, and they deserve some credit for trying.

I would recommend getting Lich form, epidemic, and some minions and see if you enjoy them.

Personally I find necro much more enjoyable than most classes’ play styles between the styles and builds you can potentially make work.

Depending in what you want to do, though, those other classes may be better choices. Necros are great but not the most powerful or desired class in every situation.

There are a lot of bad thieves in wvw rolling the fotm class, and for a lot of them beating them is easy. Stand in marks, cast gtaoe at your feet, ds4, and repeat. Most of them will go down if to do it right, and you can tell who those thieves are from the heart seeker spamming and aggressive playstyles.

Remember you can still hit them in stealth, especially with channeled skills. And if you soak up burst with DS it keeps them from effectively using heart seeker which will help. Drop wells or marks in Shadow Refuge to keep the pressure up when they use it, and always remember that they will go for your back with backstab if they are using mainhand dagger.

I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned much, but you beat thieves the most consistently with CC. Use fear, golem knockdown, or warhorn daze and let loose on them. A dazed thief out of stealth isn’t stealthing or doing damage, so they go down quickly if you can hit them in time.

And then there are the patient, skilled and terribly effective thieves that will burn down your DS and cool downs and come back when you don’t have any more ways of fighting back. It’s the patient thieves that are the best thieves, IMO.

Brujeria.7536:

Im not good at editing pics, but do i qualify?

We have a lot of the same gear

What color green is that?

^ condition classes are also pretty untouched by weakness.

Weakness is most effective against bunker classes, which just seems backwards to me. It should effect DPS builds more, in my opinion.

NerfedWar.8749:

If I’m running around solo or with a couple of friends then I use a siphon based build. Your health won’t budge against a couple of veterans and it’s pretty effective in 1v1s if you time your boon removal and condition transfers correctly.

Unfortunately in 1vX or XvX minions drop way too fast from all the splash damage, no need for anyone to target them, they drop like flies.

Biggest issue I find with the necro is the poor disengage capabilities unless you utility-up fully for spec-walk/worm to juke your way to freedom. Having a core weapon based defensive disengage (think mesmer staff) is on my wish list.

I have a siphon based soldier’s build as well. It doesn’t kill anything very fast, but it’s a lot of fun in very small fights.

Here’s mine, but it already looks somewhat similar to one posted.

I don’t see a need to quote them on everything, but I’m in full support of Iceflame and Kravick in this thread.

Weakness also doesn’t do squat to condition builds, either. It’s not a Necro specific issue but it could certainly help if it was improved.

Bhawb.7408:

Other classes can support in more meaningful ways, is more accurate. Necromancers have viable support with strong control and healing, but in PvE boon stacking as support is more viable because of dungeon mechanics, and in PvP our support doesn’t mesh with the meta, and requires people to stand in wells, which is difficult and not always safe.

Basically other classes support by removing conditions and buffing and healing allies. Necromancers also heal allies, and we do have some condition removal, but we don’t have the same ability to buff allies that they do. Our support requires you to stand in a well for its full duration, something that isn’t really the best way to support in PvP. Now, the extra thing that we bring that no one else does, is tons of condition application, notably lots of weakness, and lots of chill.

So whats the problem? It lies in the fact that our method of support (debuffing enemies instead of buffing allies) isn’t wanted, and the way that we support (with wells) can be counter productive and easily countered. In addition, every support brings a second thing they can do. Eles can burst or bunker, Guardians bunker, but Necromancers bring AoE condi pressure. Problem is, the meta really hurts that pressure.

Necro support has a niche, but it won’t be seen in PvE until they make different boss mechanics, or in PvP until that niche is worthwhile.

Maybe if they made “control” conditions more meaningful, like weakness, poison or vulnerability, then our support and offense could be buffed in one fell swoop.

I’ve always thought that was really one of the bigger problems with the Necro, in that a lot of conditions are pretty meaningless. If I ever have weakness on me, it’s really not a big deal. Vulnerability is the same way. Poison is also usually not very meaningful and we don’t have a lot of access to it anyway. This is ultimately why corrupt boon isn’t as powerful as it could be, because the more effective role of it is to wipe the boons, not to apply any meaningful conditions.

Bas.7406:

Wow, this thread went all over the place haha. I saw Zzods forum post, and I have read most of these. I even brought up these points with Gibbly and Zombify who are probably two of the top Necro’s in tournament play right now.

I could not comment on high level play as I am not playing it.

In regards to Zzods weapon choices and skill choices, it’s obvious he doesn’t have a ton of experience with the necro based on the fact that he misstated how a lot of skills work that are evident to most players. Including the axe options, Axe 3 plus Axe 2 timing after a dodge is amazing in tpvp. No self-respecting Axe wielding Necro just throws out Axe 2. You always wait for the dodge axe 2 boom.

However he is absolutely correct in that the real issues with the Necromancer only come up when you get up to the top levels of tournament play. So I went to the guys who still play the class in tournaments, Symbolic of EU (went ranger for 80 percent of the maps), Zombify of SOAC, and Gibbly of JFK.

Here is a synopsis of their replies to me over the last week.

1). The Necromancer is incredibly powerful if played correctly. You have to be more aware of your positioning, and when played right and you stay within your position it’s one of the most beautiful classes in the game. It synergizes well in team play and you can literally win a team fight by proper application of CB and Epidemic.

2). They have a ridiculously tough time with certain comps that have classes that can attack your positioning with impunity aka Double Engi comps.

3). If you get out of position you are screwed. They used more choice words, but their essential them was the Necro is the only class that relies so much on positioning and that if you aren’t watching and get caught out of position you are royally screwed.

4). You have to have a peeler. If your team doesn’t have a peeler find a new team or switch classes. Guardians/Ele’s/mesmers are peelers and they need to be specced and aware of their role as peelers. If they aren’t or they miss a peel you are screwed.

5). You have no business roaming or moving away from the main fight where your peeler and guardian are. You are the slowest class in the game and even with Spectral walk you will only get caught by the Thief/Ele/Ranger roamer and then you are dead.

6) The lack of any sort of disengage, vigor, or easy stability access is what hurts the class. All we want is one of them. Give me one of the three and I am a happy man, make DS 2 a port, or make Spectral Armor give Stability or jsut give me a better vigor access so I can choose to use DS offensively.

7). Fear is the single greatest weapon we have. Our weapons are not designed to deal damage but to setup our tools to help other players kill.

8) The necro is so close to being perfect and so dangerously close to being op, that any adjustment that’s too far in the benefit direction would immediately create a disadvantage to anyone we face. All we know is that we need a few minor changes.

9) There are maps where because of the Necro’s lack of stability/disengage/mobility it’s better to either sub out your necro for a player that can actually be effective or swap professions (namely Khylo and Spirit Watch).

After watching players play in the torunaments I must say I agree with them, the Necro is beautiful to watch in the hands of an expert, but there are some severe deficiencies that prevent it from really being a strong tournament class.

…But you have gone over with many of your high level Necros that if you really want to be competitive you might be best off without a Necro, and that Necros need to have a team built around them in order to be successful.

So while a lot of your praise is great, Necros still don’t compare to other classes in a lot of ways.

Hooglese.4860:

Something that really needs to be addressed that wasn’t in this, and may have already been in previous replies is that THERE IS NO PROJECTILE REFLECT/BLOCK. Every other profession has at least one, even Warriors can trait into having it.

I think it may have been mentioned, but you’re right. We have no reflect, no blocks, no invulnerabilities, no evades besides dodge, no vigor. We only get Death Shroud which takes all the damage from every attacker, unlike those other things mentioned that can mitigate damage from an entire zerg for their duration.

Something else I want to point out is that we also have no weapon based movement skills. None. Every single other class in the game has a weapon based gap closer. And the other scholar and adventurer classes also have a weapon based ability to create distance from an attacker. We also don’t have any.

I can’t imagine the Devs look at the Necromancer and think, “Job well done!”

flow.6043:

Skyro.3108:

the eSports weekly thing SOAC is doing next week with the devs

Wow, is this really happening? O_o
I’m very curious about how they would answer your questions…

I would love to add if they honestly believe that DS keeps up with other classes mitigation styles (stealths, evades, blocks, invulns), especially over a prolonged fight.

Personally I think we lack severely in generating DS to ever keep up with those abilities. In a fight against pretty much any other class they will be avoiding damage outright and that ability is coming back off cooldown, while a Necro’s DS (if they had any at all) is getting whittled down with almost no hope of regenerating it. IMO it’s not the valuable resource that they think it is, one that makes spectral armor worthy of a 90 second cooldown.

I think if you let Necros start with some LF in sPvP and make generation a lot easier, it can go a very long way to helping a Necro not be a bottom class.

I just wanted to put it out there that the sylvari cultural tier 2 coat, the Orchid Coat, does not allow back pieces to be worn.

I know it is a bigger piece that also doesn’t allow shoulder pieces, but back pieces CAN be previewed while shoulders cannot.

Can we please see our back pieces for those of us that use this skin? Thank you for reading.

You need to L2DeathShroud… J/K

Grab a dagger, a focus, Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption, and with some liberal use of Lich Form you should be good to go. It’s very powerful in PVE/leveling.

Thank you for the responses and discussion, everyone!

I don’t see myself using a GS simply because it seems to require a rotation to do the most damage. The skills don’t seem situational to me and that turns me away from it. I do like the hammer and I could see myself switching into it depending on my group. When fighting Guardians I know when they have their GS out to just use a few dodges at the right times and their damage plummets.

I can also see using a mix of armor/weapons/trinks to get a good balance of offensive and defensive stats.

@ Bash – thank you for the build, I definitely see myself using this. I very much appreciate your post.

@ foofad – Why is ZD flawed?

@ Zackie – thank you for the tesing, if nothing else it at least showed me what some of the Guard’s minor traits can do. It’s awesome that Guardians actually have useful minor traits.