Guild Wars 2

This is a little off topic but it seems this discussion is about power necros in optimized dungeon runs.

What would you guys say is the optimal WvW power build?

Last night was the most fun I have had attacking hills in a long time. Great seige placement and good job holding out against DB while outmanned for so long!

It’s this topic again

Stealth (invisibility) sucks. The reason that it sucks is that it makes the fight fun for the person with stealth but makes the fight suck for the person without stealth.

The person with stealth gets to run around and try to position themselves for the next attack or run away or burst the target down.

The person without stealth has to spam AOE skills or auto attack semi blindly and hope they hit the target

Stealth is not invincibility. It can be countered. But, fighting against it just isn’t fun. People wonder why we have a spam condi/spam CC meta – it’s partially because this is the counter to a mechanic that isn’t fun to fight against

What about multiple weapons!

1. Greatsword – life siphoning, power based with cleave

2. Hammer – AOE, CC and utilities

3. Sword – cleave auto, hybrid weapon that can apply torment

Done! Gives us more choices and lets everyone customize their necro!

Yeah, I have been trying to think of a way that it could give a huge advantage and cant think of one. The supply port thing is something I hadn’t though of. I guess you could use it in a keep to “trick” opponents into thinking that you ported then recall back but it wouldn’t do much good to have one necro in a keep alone. Another possibility would be to lure an enemy, port then port back and catch them off guard but that is so situational and rare that I cant see them wasting time fixing it.

Hey guys, not sure if this is a known thing but it is the first time I ever tried and is kinda cool. I was in WvW today and was about to run into a zerg so I hit spectral walk to run away then ported to the home waypoint. When I got there, I saw that my spectal walk was still up so I hit spectral recall just to see what would happen and I teleported across the map to my original point!

Not sure how much utility this would actually have, but was kind of cool

flow.6043:

Rennoko.5731:

Of course if you are flipping a fully upgraded camp solo, that is generally a bad idea in any build.

It is?

Depends on the coverage. Most people are able to do it, it is just the time it takes to do it. With good enemy coverage, you usually aren’t able to flip the upgraded camp quickly enough before they come over. If the coverage isn’t that great, sometimes you are.

lioka qiao.8734:

Well.. Base stats at lvl 80 are 916 for all major stats. A buff of 50 stats to all players will result in 18 players needed to create the effect of a 19th player.
50 * 18

As we know most players do not run with base stats as that would mean running naked. and not every class has the same base stat.
A player in full celestial has 1300 stats. This means you need 25 players to make 26th player.

Losing the bloodlust is equivalent to losing 1/25th of a player. It’s like your one friend with his ranger in your 26 man zerg doesn’t exist.

A stat boost of 150 is different. For that one it takes 8 players to make a 9th player worth of stats. Losing that is like loosing 1/8th of your zerg.

Definitely get that, but what about the benefit of having a player on your side other than just stats. The extra body, the extra skill,etc. Taking that into account, does it change the answer?

spoj.9672:

Sepreh.5924:

In order to have the highest possible dps, people use the 30,25,0,0,15 build with wh5 and dagger auto. If you have team support (vigor, aegis) and can dodge, this build will do a ton of damage. Problem is you are more vulnerable because you are in melee so if you down or have to jump out to heal, that’s a loss of dos

The damage advantage of melee over range is so large that even dodging every time you have enough endurance and healing fairly regularly results in faster kill times. The whole idea that dodging reduces dps uptime and is a reason to use ranged is completely wrong. Yes dodging and healing reduces your dps slightly but not nearly enough to make ranging better dps. Necro lich form is probably the closest to melee dps you can get while being ranged.

Oh, agreed. I was just saying that if you aren’t that good at dodging and down or have to leave melee to heal, it lowers overall dps compare to itself. It’s the build I use

How many players do you think you would need to make up for that loss of stat boost?

Rennoko.5731:

Sepreh.5924:

Personally, I find it pretty fun/manageable to solo camps using a 30,10,0,0,30 or 30,25,0,0,15 power based build. On non-upgraded camp, usually pull one box out and kill it, then run in, wh5, dual wells, life transfer and finish things off with dagger auto.

I know you like condis but consider this too

Had a 2 man zerker necro group yesterday drop a camp in about 3 seconds with wells and lich, which was pretty cool, LOS’ing them together behind a house.

Upgraded camps are a mess to solo with a power build though, at least in my experience. You have to pull parts of the camp carefully, and waste a lot of time that just increases the odds of that server coming to defend it’s upgraded investment.

Of course if you are flipping a fully upgraded camp solo, that is generally a bad idea in any build.

Yeah, in my experience upgraded camps can be a nightmare. Usually try to pull 3 or 4, blow my wells and then just wait 40s before running in. You are 100% right though, by that time there is usually someone from the other server checking things out.

I am not sure if this is the right answer but…

Nemesis clearly says that with his build, ds1 is meant to be the auto attack. That means staying ranged, using axe2 for LF gen and jumping back into DS.

The asvantage to this is good ranged direct damage and theoretically more dps uptime due to being ranged

In order to have the highest possible dps, people use the 30,25,0,0,15 build with wh5 and dagger auto. If you have team support (vigor, aegis) and can dodge, this build will do a ton of damage. Problem is you are more vulnerable because you are in melee so if you down or have to jump out to heal, that’s a loss of dps

Personally, I find it pretty fun/manageable to solo camps using a 30,10,0,0,30 or 30,25,0,0,15 power based build. On non-upgraded camp, usually pull one box out and kill it, then run in, wh5, dual wells, life transfer and finish things off with dagger auto.

I know you like condis but consider this too

Just a quick question for everyone. Let’s say that ANet changed outmanned and bloodlust so that outmanned provided stat bonuses and bloodlust provided something else. Let’s also say that the outmanned bonus was 50 points in all stats.

If this were the case, how many additional players would you need to make up for the loss of outmanned.

When answering, this is not just a simple math question based on stat numbers. Take into account that it is another body on the field with skills that can benefit everyone.

My cursory thought is that I would always want to have more players over a stat bonus.

Bhawb.7408:

The “risk” of wells has little to do with proximity in most builds; you want to be in that range anyway.

It has to do with how easy they are to negate. Unless your aim is perfect, anyone can just dodge roll in the proper direction and have taken at most two ticks of your well. So instead you need to really time your wells properly, otherwise your left with a pretty spot on the ground doing nothing until it comes up again in 40s.

Hadn’t thought about the risk vs reward in this way, but makes sense. Do you think the current rewards on wells are worth that risk?

I’m not sure – haven’t thought enough about it in this way

Thanks for the feedback. This idea would probably be a little extreme too but what about:

Enemies lose 50% endurance with each pulse of the well and movement skills are disabled

The current state of perplexity runes:

Hey all. Just had a stupid little idea about a trait and was wondering what others thought about it. Everyone likes to talk about risk vs reward in respect to balancing. I think wells could be a great example of this – have to get up close to cast but timed right , can bring a group of players down.

The trait ’ focused rituals’ has been bothering me recently. It is a trait that removes the risk and still gives the same reward. What do you think about a trait that instead applies a chill every time the well pulses. This would be done to make the opponent more ‘trapped’ in the well. This way you still risk putting yourself in melee but get a better reward from the trait.

I know this is similar to what well of darkness can do with chilling darkness but putting that aside, would anyone be interested in this type of a change?

Weapon with cleave auto attack

Something to mitigate one-shot PvE damage (block, invul, etc)

Haha, until this thread I hadn’t realized that the forum does not change the word “crap” into “kitten”

Okay, figured out how to do it

Ahhhh I am on my phone so I can’t do it,bit can someone please make a meme of:

Your face is funny, it’s like a little raisin

Movement on keyboard, skills on naga

For some reason, I still have to use weapon swap and DS on the keyboard because I can’t get used to them on the mouse

Michael.7382:

Sepreh.5924:

The PvP legendaries should be skill based (eg win a big tournament) and be somewhat of a status symbol

No – its just skin. It should ba avaible to ppl who play much and devote time to make it – same like in pve. Why pvp should be different? Skill based – unique titles, cash prizes, big gem rewards. Not a legend skin. It VERY unfair compared how u can get them in pve.

In gw1 status was measured by title – gladiator, champion etc not by havin q9 crysta or eternal.

Eh I guess it depends on what you want legendaries to be. I would like them to be more skill based in PvE, whatever that would mean, but the boat is already missed on that one. I do think that it would be awesome to see someone wielding a PvP legendary and think “Oh kitten, theyre good” rather than “Oh kitten, they farmed”. The latter is how it currently is in PvE.

I never played GW1 so I can’t speak to how things were done in it but it could negate my whole view of legendary skins :-p

There should be PvE legendary skins that can only be obtained in PvE but can be used in both PvE and PvP

There should also be unique PvP legendary skins that can only be obtained in PvP but can be used in both PvP and PvE

The PvP legendaries should be skill based (eg win a big tournament) and be somewhat of a status symbol

Bhawb.7408:

Uh, power necros are not less-than-intimidating at all in PvP.

Agreed for WvW, especially since everyone expects you to run condis. You can really surprise them

Dusk – TP
Tooth of Frostfang – TP
The Bard – TP
Venom – TP
Carcharias – TP

I have only made Dusk into a legendary. Looking back, this is kind of sad. I would have found obtaining these much more rewarding if there was some skill/scavenger hunt/epic adventure involved.

spoj.9672:

As a debuffer class you would think we would have the best vuln stacking. But engi is so much better for it. Id like vuln on the auto attack of gs/sword.

I agree that vulnerability is important but doesn’t axe auto already fill this role?

I know it probably has to do with lore but I still wish well of blood could be a water field…

Bhawb.7408:

wbonetwo.2196:

I like Dhumfire but I wish there wasnt a cool down on how frequent it can be applied.
I would like to see the frequency dropped to 5 seconds or less.

No.

Haha, it’s gotta be a troll thread

I just played around in it for the first time. Just some general observations

1. Baddies with the buff were still baddies
2. NPCs with the buff were no harder to kill
3. Standing in circles still isn’t that much fun
4. Killing things is fun

Agreed with Bhawb about the ability to tweak stats in PvE/WvW.

I also have another point that has probably already been made at some point but comes from someone who plays primarily PvE/WvW and has done some intermittent PvP. One of the things that many people find cool about MMOs is the ability to keep going after you are “done” with the game. How many times have we played single player RPGs where we put time and energy into a character, their gear, their stats, etc and then poof, the game is over. MMOs are great in that new content comes out but additionally, there is a game mode where you actually get to test out your skills on other players.

It feels like the transition from PvE to WvW is easier than the transition from PvE to PvP and my guess is that some of that comes from the fact that it is your character in WvW. The gear you worked for. The stat distribution you made. The legendary you put hours upon hours into. The character you play in PvP (coming from PvE) does not feel lke your character, at least for me. That is not to say that certain skills should be less or more effective in PvE vs. PvP. There definitely needs to be some split. But how nice would it be if you could use the same gear and same weapons that you use in PvE?

PvP definitely needs some rewards and this could be through the ability to obtain skins that (1) look epic and (2) can only be obtained through PvP. There should be other rewards as well but I cant think of ideas off the top of my head.

Skill 3:

Chilling Leap
Leap at your foe. On hit, chill the target foe.
Damage: 356
Chill: 2s
Combo Finisher: Leap
Range: 600
Cooldown: 15s

Skill 3 explanation:
Since this is a melee necromancer, we need ways to keep enemies in melee range. Chill and leap serves this role. I know there will be some debate about whether Anet want necros to have a leap but I figured I would put it in here. Plus, this gives us access to a leap finisher to combo with wells.

Skill 4:

Necrotic Touch
Block your foe’s next attack. On successful block, transfer 3 conditions to the target and siphon health
Life Siphon: (scales with healing power)
Cast Time: 3s
Cooldown: 20s

Skill 4 explanation:
This skill would have utility in both PvE and PvP. First, if we are playing a tanky necromancer we need some reliable condition removal. Although we have consume conditions, with the quick condition reapplication that is possible we need a weapon skill on the greatsword that can remove conditions. Since we are the masters of conditions, it makes sense that we transfer them to the target. For PvP, this is an ideal type of skill because it allows for counterplay. The block animation should be clearly telegraphed so that the opposing team/player knows not to attack unless they want conditions and want you to regain health. In PvE with the change to deathshroud damage, we need a more reliable way to mitigate heavy damage blows from bosses when our endurance is out and the block would serve this role.

Skill 5:

Soul Bind
Binds the souls of nearby foes, siphoning health every second while binded. If binded foes leave the target area, they become immobilized and health is no longer siphoned
Damage: 324
Duration: 6 s
Life Siphon: (scales with healing power)
Range: 600
Cast Time: 1s
Cooldown: 30s

Skill 5 explanation:
Because this weapon is ideally for a tanky, life siphoning necromancer we need skills with life siphon and skills to keep targets in melee range. This skill does both. Although I wanted it to be somewhat similar to the guardian’s binding blade, I did not want it to be the same thing. Just like binding blade, a bind animation would be sent out to 5 targets in the area and this bind would not count as a condition, therefore could not be removed by condition removal. The bind would siphon health. In order to keep foes in melee range, they can leave the 600 radius to remove the bind but this will cause immobilize. Could also consider chill instead of immobilize.

So I was inspiried by Spoj’s post and decided to dork it out as well and put down my ideal skills for a necromancer greatsword.

So as far as theconcept behind this weapon, the necromancer greatsword would be a weapon for a “tanky”, life siphon necromancer. With each skill, I have tried to explain the rationale behind my choices. A couple notes: (1) I know that these skills are very similar to the guardian’s GS skills which is not ideal and (2) many of these ideas are likely stolen from other people posting on the forums but I cannot remember exacly who and from what post, so I apologize for not giving more credit.

With many of these skills, I reduced the damage to something lower than the equivalent guardian GS skill. I dont know exactly what the numbers should be. The reason I reduced the damage was that many of these skills have additional utility and keeping similar damage may make them overpowered.

Let me know what you guys think. I am no expert in doing this but just wanted to put out some cool and realistic ideas

Skill 1: Auto Attack Chain

Slash
Slash your foe. Cleaves.
Damage: 275
Range: 130
Life Force: 0.33% per target hit
Cast Time: 1/2s

Deathly Slash
Strike your foe. Cleaves.
Damage: 275
Range: 130
Life Force: 0.5% per target hit
Cast Time: 1/2s

Vampiric Slash
Strike your foe and siphon health. Cleaves.
Damage: 424
Range: 130
Life Siphon: x health (scales with healing power) per target hit
Cast Time: 1/2s

Skill 1 explanation:
The auto attack chain of this greatsword would have a few major characteristics. First is cleave. I think every necromancer agrees that we need a weapon with cleave and this also opens up some nice possibilities with “per target hit” effects. As you can see, the first two parts of the auto attack chain generate life force. Life force is a necessity for necromancers and for a weapon to be used in a tanky build, LF regeneration would be great. The life force regeneration would be per target hit. Since the greatsword cleaves, this creates a situation where you gain more LF the more targets you are attacking. As you can see, I made the LF regen on the order of fractions of a percentage per target hit as more than this would be a TON of LF regen. I dont know exactly what those numbers should be though. With regards to the last part of the chain, Vampiric Slash, this is the life siphoning part of the chain. Again, the more targets you attack the more life you siphon. Risk vs. reward. Also, would scale with healing power in order to make healing power more benifical to necromancers.

Skill 2:

Order of Pain
Channel your dark magic to surround you and repeatedly strike nearby foes gaining life force per strike.
Damage (9x): 1,000
Life Force: 0.25%
Combo Finisher: Whirl
Radius: 300
Cast Time: 3/4s
Cooldown: 10s

Skill 2 explanation: I stole the name and most of this skill from spoj’s post. I made a few changes, however. First, decreased the cast time to make it the same as guardian’s whirling wrath. Second, decreased the damage. Although I love high damage, with the LF regen per strike it would make this skill more powerful than the guardian’s equivalent skill. Third, I lowered the life force regenration per strike due to the fact that if you are hitting multiple targets, the LF regen would be pretty high. Not sure on what the exact number for LF regen should be.

Hehe pulling off one of those perfectly positioned charges is one of the most satisfying things to do as a necro, right up there with a perfectly executed epidemic

What if reanimator created a synthesised undead minion with attacks similar to what was killed?

It probably wouldn’t work due to the work that would have to go into designing this for all enemies but just imagine…

Kill a fire elemental and reanimator uses a fire attack
Kill a graveling scavenger and reanimator uses a knockdown
Etc

This would make reanimator 1000x cooler

As a side note, not that reanimator is useful now but remember when it decayed even MORE quickly than it does now?

Ah those were the days

Consider playing a modified version of Nemesis hybrid build if you’re going to be doing a lot of wvw. 30/25/0/0/15 (15 in soul reaping is for spectral armor)

The con is not having terribly high toughness for wvw

The main pro is versatility. Condis are pretty powerful in wvw but you will always get someone who cleanses like crazy or a melandru rune/lemongrass poultry soup player who condis are useless against. It’s great to have a hard hitting ds1 and axe 2 for those cases. Plus, running hybrid always makes me feel like I am getting the most out of all my DS skills

Regenerator.7326:

sylvari run awkwardly and tend to look bad in most armor (male). they are perfect, however, as the highlight of a salad dish, or to be used to start a campfire, depends on the individual i guess.

Haha agrees about the running thing. I tried both human and sylvari and couldn’t get over the sylvari prance :-p

Bhawb.7408:

@Sepreh, don’t get me wrong, I think it could potentially be a great skill, but it would need to be its own separate skill, probably a utility skill on a longer CD with few other effects (maybe a stability skill? like 5s of stability and damage sharing on a long CD), its just adding it to DS 5 that would be too strong.

I can definitely see that it would make more sense as a utility skill. Especially in a bunkerish build…. with a greatsword with cleave and life steal

Bhawb.7408:

Way too strong.

Haha kind of knew that as I was posting but I think as a concept it is pretty cool. Retal just doesnt hit for enough to be worth it on high damage one shot skills (e.g. eviscerate, bs, ect). There would definitely need to be more thought put into it but for all intents and purposes, shackling someone would make them have to think twice before attacking.

For example:
Thief: I am full health but the necro is at around 3k. I am going to spam HS and be fine
Thief: I am at half health and so is the necro. If I attack I will die before he does
Necro: I have this thief shackled and also have a heal. Let me heal while I run into melee and hope he attacks me and kills himself

Now, there are a few problems with a skill like this. One is being in DS while the skill is active which would only eat away at your DS but eat away at their health. The other problem is having someone shackled but still being able to attack them with no punishment to you. There are probably more that I am not thinking of

I think the main benefit of a skill like this would be (1) a reset and (2) potential for skilled play. It seems like anet does not want us to be easily able to escape but a skill like this could indirectly prevent damage done from a target, creating more time for skills to recharge, heal to recharge, etc. If the shackle was obvious, it would create a situation where both the necro and their enemy have to think about cost-benefit of multiple actions.

Well I know this is completely off topic, but wouldn’t it have been awesome if:

Tainted Shackles: all damage dealt to you by shackled player is dealt to them as well.

Make it very easy to tell when a player is shackled. Promotes intelligent gameplay from both sides. Cap damage dealt when used on characters with defiant.

Seras.5702:

Sepreh.5924:

<snip>

Ok, now that does sound fun. I love the idea of a melee, cleaving, life-stealing necro.

As a side note, imagine if they made well of blood a water field. Throw one down and leap finisher into it. Mmmmmm….

Agree with the points made that we already have enough ranged pressure. Currently we have main hand axe and scepter, staff and offhand dagger and focus for ranged attacks. Our only current melee weapons are main hand dagger (single target) and offhand warhorn (melee aoe).

No doubt it would be great if we could get both melee and ranged weapons when new weapons are added but I think the overwhelming consensus in the necro community is that it would be great if we had a melee weapon with cleave. This has the potential to open up another build, likely using life syphon skills. Can you imagine a greatsword combo where you:

1: Throw down a ranged well of suffering
2: Use a greatsword leap into the well that chills the target for 2 s and cleaves for a 1s chill, plus area blindness for the leap finisher with dark field from WoS
3: Get multiple small siphons from vampiric with bloodthirst, potentially vampiric precision
4: Use a whirl finisher in the WoS for more siphon through leeching bolts
5: Etc

I know that the above is not well thought out but was just a little example. It would be great if we could have a melee cleave weapon that is power based and does decent damge but primarily helps keep you in melee through multiple additive siphons. Since necros are masters of conditions, the non-damaging conditions (chill, cripple, blind, etc) could be integrated into the weapon.

Would love to see sword and greatsword

It would be awesome if the sword had a leap finisher

Greatsword because I have a twilight in my bank that isn’t being used :-p

Achilles.2197:

Hey boo,
…

Please tell them to put it in thanks hunny bunny!

My guess is that Allie is probably not going to answer to “boo” or “hunny bunny”. Good point about making templates but there was probably a better way to ask the question

Razer Naga Mouse
Steelseries 6Gv2 keyboard

@Nuka Cola – at first the Razer Naga had an overwhelming amount of buttons but now that I am used to it, it is difficult for me to go back. Skills 1-10 are mapped to side buttons 1-10. Have the other two buttons mapped to F1 (death shroud on my necro) and weapon swap but tend to use the keyboard for those. Having the skills mapped to the side buttons is great for kiting, dodging and otherwise moving while in combat

spoj.9672:

Just a note to remember. Using DS for dps is some of the worst dps you can do. Which is why 30/10/0/0/30 is a bad build for dungeons when going for damage. I can understand it for a solo purpose due to stability in DS and that flexibility you have with DS traits, but for group based stuff its a bad build. Also axe #2 is not good dps either, the channel time is way too long for the amount it hits for.

Do you know what the numbers look like for full berserker 30,25,0,0,15 vs 30,10,0,0,30 using dagger and ds1? Does the increase in precision make up for the loss in crit damage?

I have loved using dagger playing a berserker build. The problems with dagger have already been pointed out but there are some ways around the weaknesses. I will comment on PvE and WvW because I do not play enough PvP. I play MH dagger/focus, dagger/dagger.

1. Auto attack – Hits like a tank in a gc build. Great life force generation. Requires very close range but there are ways to help with this. In PvE, making sure you are aware of the enemy movement, dodging at the right time and dropping a well of darkness can help. When endurance is out or if you are taking too much melee damage, dropping back and using dagger 2 or DS1 can be used as a filler. In WvW with enemies who actually move, this can be more difficult. Using dark path as an opener then dropping out of DS before the projectile hits can get you a few good dagger hits on someone before they can react. Using offhand focus 5 can also somewhat help lock people down. When people start to run, dagger 2 helps get some short range damage in and DS1 is always great for the last few shots. Also, traiting for Enfeebling Blood on entering death shroud and using dagger 5 can allow you to stick in for a little longer while fighting in melee while taking some damage.

2. Life Siphon – in PvE, I use it when I am out of endurance and need to back out of melee. Does okay damage and get a little heal as an additional bonus. For example, I love using it in the volcanic fractal when the champion growl shaman is winding up. In WvW, I usually use it as an enemy begins to run away after a dagger auto attack chain.

3. Dark Pact – a decently long immobilize. I find it most helpful for enemies who charge in PvE. For WvW, it can be difficult to hit sometimes because of the long, obvious cast. When it does hit, what I do next depends on the range I am in. In melee, I will try to drop a well of suffering because it is devastating. After the WoS, or if I am not in melee when the immobilize hits, I tend to jump in DS and use ds1. I do this whenever the immobilize hits out of direct melee range because usually, by the time I make it into dagger range the immobilize is broken or if not, I wasted too much time without doing damage. Another short range option I tend to use less is dagger3 → dagger2.

As a side note, using focus 4 then dagger auto is amazing

Sorry for the long post that doesn’t necessarily answer OPs question – I just love using dagger and wanted to talk about it