Guild Wars 2

DrDivine.5378:

Buran.3796:

DrDivine.5378:

Warrior has 2 physical invulnerabilities and one condition invulnerability in a 60s cooldown, reborns to ~6k HP the first time He reaches 0 life, cleanses conditions so well that is almost inmune and the best of all: 3 stuns in a 25s cooldown (one of them fills entirely its adrenaline bar).

Yeah for 5-8 seconds and then you have to wait almost another full minute as that is your only option.

With Dragonhunter let’s see I have a sword that blocks AND deals good damage, almost all my utilities heal and do damage/ another effect such as condi clear or block. Can’t use regular utilities? That’s ok I can just pop a virtue and be immune to damage and if I need another invuln again I’ll just pop my ultimate that blocks, heals and let’s me use it again as it resets cooldowns. That’s not even counting the fact utilities can heal for over 2k each WITHOUT investing in healing power which is kitten lol

Yeah, let’s compare THAT to 4 seconds on endure pain and waiting another full minute. Give me a break lol

The problem with this post in particular is that things are either half truths, i.e sword that blocks projectiles ; you compare a full set of utility skills and fskills all traited to base endure pain only. Its not a very convincing counter argument.

Zenith.7301:

Sigmoid.7082:

Zenith.7301:

25-33% movement speed on top of the trait would make it good in PvE.

Move speed traits are overly abundant on necro and unneeded.
There are currently 3, the dagger trait, speed of shadows and the signet.

A dagger you don’t use if you have access to greatsword and which necessitates blood traitline (and the trait itself is useless since lowered cooldown on dagger is pretty bad when the valuable part about dagger is its autoattack).

Speed of shadows which necessitates using the deficient reaper shroud, which is a DPS loss to simply camping greatsword (and competes with a more valuable trait), and a signet whose only use is in the passive.

Meanwhile, in the reaper traitline all the adept traits are pretty terrible for PvE so choosing Relentless Pursuit is nowhere near as large an opportunity cost.

You miss the point. There is literally no need for there to be a 4th option to do the same thing. Doesnt matter what is meta or how effective this or that is point being if you need to get around faster you already have plenty of option already. To much redundancy and lack of uniqueness isn’t good.

In a group setting you will almost always have permanent swiftness which trumps all other options anyways.

Plus the trait is fine as it is. Its already one of the move powerful movement impairing condition reduction traits in the game.

Zenith.7301:

25-33% movement speed on top of the trait would make it good in PvE.

Move speed traits are overly abundant on necro and unneeded.
There are currently 3, the dagger trait, speed of shadows and the signet.

fumcheg.1936:

Bad news OP but SS does not clean any condies. It just breaks stun and port you away. Same as necro’s Necrotic Traversal you know? Except it does not poison anyone and does not recharge anything as Necrotic Traversal does.

ShadowStep doesnt clean any condi but the followup skill also breaks stun and cleans 3.

So if you are going to compare summon flesh wurm -> necrotic traversal then you have to compare shadowstep -> shadow return.

Comparing between classes though is fundamentally silly.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Also, define too much. Necro shroud when traited can corrupt boons, apply condis, give boons to yourself, prevent downed allies bleeding out and stunbreak while shielding your health from further damage and giving access to powerful CC, should I say that does too much for a single skill and demand a nerf too?

Just going to chime on the inaccuracies in bold. That trait is not shroud specific. Also you are comparing shroud, a class mechanic, to a utility skill. Everything you mentioned is better compared to traited steal. You have steal specific traits in deadly arts, shadow arts, acrobatics and then the whole trickery line , being a class mechanic line, is steal centric. Same as necro has shroud specific traits in most traitlines.

Shroud deals with lots of smaller hits better than it does single big ones due to how it will check if it would overflow first.

It is also one of about..3? Sources of condition damage mitigation in the game along with corruptors fervor and adaptive armour.

Its why Vit is the answer to the OPs question.

@Muchacho
They really need to sort the ambiguous wording on some traits "protection you apply has increased effectiveness "..Ah well its still a total reduction of 67% when shrouded with prot.

@Crinn
The OP wants to make his shroud more durable. In shroud the relative difference between armour and no armour becomes smaller, smaller still with protection and smaller still again each time damage gets cut. The % difference is the same but the numerical difference gets smaller and so does the total additional % damage reduced from the original. Shroud will also cut condition damage in half.

Shroud only halves DIRECT damage – it does NOT halve condition damage.

This is wrong. Go into the mist lobby with base hp, you will have exactly 15245 with SR which means with VP you lose exactly 305 LF every second. Cast BiP, it will cause you to lose 80HP/s but when you enter shroud you will only lose 345 LF a second hence it is cutting condi damage in half. Cast CB and the poison hits out for 34 damage but you lose 322 LF a second..etc etc. I literally just tested this and its one of the reasons vit can be seen as more valuable than toughness.

Shroud halves ALL incoming damage including fall damage unless the damage taken would be greater than the LF you have. This stems back to when it didnt have a value on it and people assumed it was 120% of your hp.
Fall damage is odd. If you walk of the buff in coleseum you take fall damage and enter combat. If you are in shroud you don’t. Leads me to believe If shroud would reduce the fall damage below it’s lowest % you won’t take it.

The only difficult one to test is :

The answer if vitality or toughness is better is the same as for every other class. Toughness is better against power builds and vitality is better against condition builds. Simple as that.
The math “more vitality = more Life Force generation = more sustain” doesn’t make sense when fighting power builds as you also lose more Life Force when hit by an attack compared to having some toughness.

because its hard to see if damage reductions apply after increase modifiers.

Tested on the engineer in the mists and found a few things:

• For a scholar class 560 toughness is relative to a 23% reduction in damage.
• Damage reductions are multiplicative ( this one i already knew ) e.g Rise (33%), Protection (33%) and cold shoulder (10%) total about a 60% reduction in damage. This is applied after armours reduction. This would then be halved by weakness if it applied and halved again if you are in shroud with enough LF. This included her critical hits.

Since the reductions always drag the number closer to 0 the relative % difference becomes smaller between toughness and no toughness. Its why being supported as a necro is fairly huge. Shroud and empowered protection from tempest via hardy conduit gives you a 50/70(85)% damage reduction alone to condi/direct(weakened hit) unless its that hit/tick that knocks you from shroud.

Its just were do increases fit? Is the increase calculated before hand i.e the outgoing hit is amplified but then overall reduced? Is it all worked in together multiplicativly. i.e a 10% increase and a 10% decrease result in 99% damage being done. Is there some difference between outgoing and incoming damage? i.e all multipliers that apply to the character are applied for out going damage , things like 10% weapon damage/x% increased damage if you have a boon etc etc, but then specific things to your target are done after like 50% hp traits or vulnerability…..

Though personally I am inclined to believe the first one

Peacemaker Xeranan.4508:

Vukorep.3081:

Id say more vitality. More vitality means more life force, and a higher max life force means all the skills and mechanics that increase your life force (which are all % based) will pump more life force.

Think of it like this, some classes have passive regeneration and other healing abilities that heal them for 300-700, but a single 5 targed necro staff can pump 20% of its life force every second.

20% of the usual 13/14k max life force = about 2700 life force. Imagine other professions being able to heal them self for 2700 health every second?

I didn’t know the staff trait worked that way! I thought it was just X% life force when a mark triggered at all.

On a related note, life force also depletes naturally based on percent too correct? So in that respect shroud wouldn’t last longer regardless of whether or not you built for vitality or toughness (just talking about stats, we’ll leave out Vital Persistence atm).

He is referring to the auto with that 20% since its 4% and has a 5 target hit cap. The staff trait will give you 3% when a mark is triggered regardless of how many targets. It gets more LF because of CV+BB.

Shroud itself lasts the exact same amount of time because of how its % based. This is only if you take 0 damage at all. When you take damage the amount you take becomes a relative % of total LF. For example 3k hit to a 15k lf pool is 20% of you LF gone, being hit for 3k of a 21k LF pool is 14% of you LF lost, hence you can stay in shroud longer since the % drain is always static.

It coincidentally make LF gaining skills more effective since again they are all % based so your “damage shield” becomes larger. If I can gain 10% lf and mitigate 3.2k damage its better than gaining 10% LF and mitigating 2.3k damage.

With shroud because of how it was coded before we could see its value it causes a 50% reduction in all damage and i believe this to be after toughness. This included falling damage in case you didnt know.

If you would take 1000 damage shroud would cut it to 500, if you would take 800 because of toughness shroud would make you take 400. If cold shoulder would drop it to 900 then shroud would take you then to 450 etc etc you get the idea. I.e they are multiplicative and thus have diminishing returns. Think the most you can get is around 90%+ damage reduction overall with a few skills, boons and runes. Its why necros feel inherently so tanky.

Overall I believe vitality to be more useful than toughness when it come to shroud because the stat double dips for us. More base hp and more shroud. Shroud is always % based so the more you have the more you recover per % point. Also because conditions are also cut, apparently , it becomes even more useful to have more raw LF since they dont get mitigated by armour.

And having each elite spec add a new weapon is never going to work, because professions were built with their trademark or archetypal weapons from launch.
So when are we ever going to get the longbow elite spec for Rangers? The greatsword elite for Guardians? Or the daggers elite spec for thieves? These are the weapons I want to use when I play these classes. They are WHY I play these classes, but now mandatory specs come out that…don’t make my Ranger any better with a bow or offer anything of value to that playstyle.

The main point of elite specs was to change how the class plays not make it better at something it already does which for the most part they actually do. Necro more melee cleave, engi more melee, ranger support and healing etc etc

My advice for fixing it? Make all the new weapons, utilities, and mechanic options baseline. And instead of adding new weapons in elites…add new options to existing weapons

I case you didnt know there is a clear reason why they have chosen this method. Cross pollination, redundancy and balancing issues. Just look at the skills from GW1.

With the way they have it with elite specs this is not a problem. They only every have to balance the elite spec traits + skills and weapon with the core spec. This makes designing and balancing future elite specs much much smoother and easier.

Faux Play.6104:

Several of the rune passives need to go to. You shouldn’t be applying CC conditions to someone when they attack you for free, and no way for the attacker to know this will happen until they hit you.

Which runes? Rune of the nightmare has been changed for a while you know.

Lahmia.2193:

It’s mainly because we lack damage modifiers. Currently we can get a maximum of +30% damage (close to death, strength of undeath, spiteful focus) with another +10 if you count the axe trait.
Greatsword itself doesn’t have bad damage, but rather its slow attacks coupled with this lack of necro damage modifiers makes it so greatsword dps is low.

Back on topic.
This..this is the sole reason necro power damage is so low compared. Most, if not all, damage modifiers, increases and decreases, are multiplicative ( bar like a handful of exceptions) . So the more you have the better.

messiah.1908:

change the rune to nightmare anf get 100% fear duration which double your dmg

Fear does partial ticks, no need for the extra duration as it wont “doube” the damage. With his build he has 87.33% fear duration so fear will do 1 tick then a second tick for 87.33% the first ones damage.

steelheart.7386:

I don’t recommend that power boonstrip build for too many reasons to list. It was put on metabattle by a guy who is probably in the .005% of players in the world skill wise and all his flunkies/synchophants upvoted it. Thats not saying that build can’t work just for the average player the vast majority of the time you going to be much more successful running the typical condi mancer using some combination of curses, soul reaping, spite, and Reaper. If that build was so great he would have been using it when $$$$ were on the line. I unerstand the argument that its probably some kind of solo queue build but again to me the problems with it are all the same old problems that have been discussed many times before with power necro and the difficulty of being in melee range all the time as a Necro.

Such as?
Genuinely interested.

You cant say this in generall. The power build suffers from blocks. Sure u can pick a shout, but u will loose a utility slot.
Your Staff power dmg is low, it’s only for some utility. Axe is single target. Shroud is your only real source of aoe dmg.

Its true since condition builds generally need to be supported because of how soft they are and how they lack sustain. Also Yannir doesnt play meta, they take dagger instead of staff.

Besides 4 skills condi builds suffer from blocks as well. Staff also doesnt put out a great deal of condi pressure either, even in a condi build.

You also still need to land your skills with a condi build. So you still need “Vulnerable” targets. Its not automated or passive.

Also power builds generally generate alot more LF than condi builds

wwDefuser.2056:

Yes and No. You can pick the Boon Healing trait when playing power build, but u loose a lot of dmg with an condi build … caused by no additional bleeding.
Corruption Trailine offers cd reduction on heal-skill(consume conditions) and
bloodmagic = healing on hit/ warhorn boost and heal well proc when rezzing.

Its fairly obvious I was on about power builds since very few condi builds will take spite over curses when running SR and Reaper. Its also fairly obvious by your posts that you favour more so condi builds with the curses traitline.

Anyways:

When you enter shroud it counts as a weapon swap. The order the game does this is it swaps weapons then enters shroud. So what happens is the hydromancy sigil, pretty much sued on the off set on any power build be it staff or dagger , and sigil of battle, one of my choices, go off first. Hydromancy applies its chill before its damage so you will get upto 5 procs of Chilling victory and BlightersBoon for upto 5 might and 10%lf, then another 2% lf for the battle sigil going off. Then you enter shroud and proc spiteful spirit meaning you will gain up to another 5 stacks of might, as the game also counts this all as one attack for the purpose of chilling victories ICD, and 5 stacks of retaliation. . Overall entering shroud will gain me upto 17% lf, 10 stacks of might, 15s of retaliation and proc blighters boon around 10 times for a heal of ~2k.

Leaving shroud is a similar matter. You will swap weapons before leaving shroud. So hydromancy and battle go off proccing blighters boon upto 7 times and due to chilling victory you gain 5% LF. Max of ~1.4k. Theres other interactions with sigils and traits further but its relativity minor.

This interaction is the reason why powerbuilds seem so tanky. Because entering and leaving shroud grant you lf, healing and might.

Literally you enter shroud causing you to gain more shroud and heal, you then stay in it for a while, causing you to heal more due to #3 if used and then spite minor #1 and #3 ( if i use strength over battle, which I do on another set I gain more might and heal even more ), Then you leave shroud…causing you to heal and gain more shroud so you have more for next time you enter it.

So in short to the part of your post i quoted: No spite does not lack sustain.

It’s why the power build is more soloq friendly. You sustain by doing normal things and you aren’t soft ( paladins amulet gets you 24k/19k HP/LF and just under 2.4k armour, protection from last gasp and SA, rise, shrouds weird innate 50% damage reuflcton to all things including fall damage ) . You also do a lot of damage by doing necro things. You can 50-0 people by swapping weapon, entering shroud or a combination thereof. Hydromancy+Air+Chilling Nova+Spiteful Spirit+Chill of Death.

Spite is good for signet-use and dmg, but lacks a bit sustain.

If you are taking reaper and soul reaping then spite>blood for sustain just because of how CV+BB interact as well as a hydromancy sigil. Its a VERY long explanation but if people ask i’ll explain indepth.

In short entering and leaving shroud heal you and generate LF and might.

Cynz.9437:

Thief is not built around playing with mes and ele. In fact, thief is not built around playing with team where necro is designed for big fights…. not to mention we would probably see way bigger numbers from necro if he got same support.

Fire overload gives might in case you didn’t know, mes has high access to vulnerability…

We also don’t know whether he ate that dmg in downed state….

If you think PI is so OP, why don’t you go make a thief and run around spamming HS, lets see how far it will get you.

I know what fire overload does :/ Mesmers also tend to generate vuln through damage/being active more than anything else yet we dont know if he took any from the mesmer since it doesnt show in the combat log. Its also unlikely the mesmer came in, interrupted and shattered enough to generate a lot of vuln while doing no damage.

Also even if they interrupted the downed skills being interrupted twice doing more collective damage than it took to down him is still huge.

Forget the number itself since you are too focused on it and look at the fact that this picture shows, regardless of how much you hate it, that he got interrupted twice and it did more damage in those two procs of PI than anything else he took that fight. If he wasnt “supported” those two procs would have still done more than anything else since its all relative. When you factor in that everything else he got hit with could crit but this couldn’t and it is still top …

Never said it was OP im just pointing out what the picture actually shows.

But hey ¯\(?)/¯

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Just want to chime in again to those combating those who say PI does not do a lot of damage, namely in a reply to this:

Cynz.9437:

Unholey.3264:

Cynz.9437:

- 3 Pi for 12k ? It is 4k PI per proc, it usually hits for 3k on a good day, please post screenshot of that death log.

Just happened to see you say this while skimming over this thread. This was back during season 3. Not saying anything one way or the other, just providing some evidence.

I see mesmer and ele helping him. He probably also runs executioner. I am assuming you had crapload of vulnerability on you and thief had might stacks thank to mes/ele’s overload. PI is OP because ele and mes are helping the thief? Good joke.

According to the wiki PI has an approx coefficient of 3.28. Though it cannot crit its still amongst one of the highest ( around eviserate and killshot rank 3). Because of damage modifiers from thief traits in the meta build it goes to a range of 3.25~4.44 without vulnerability.

With a base of 2225 power, e.g. no might, and no extra toughness from amulets or runes and no protection you are looking at 3753~5127 on a scholar class or 3176~4339 on a solider. These numbers increase with might , vulnerability and if they take executioner over improvisation. They also go down with higher armour and protection but even on a solider class with a 560 toughness amulet, 2727 armour, you are still looking at just over 2.3k with protection to around 3.5k damage without.

Skill has a theoretical max of around 11k but the build for that is yolo and unviable.

So on average it is 3k, not 5k as some claim here. Thanks for proving my point.

I forgot to edit my post as i didnt factor in that runes of the scholar is another 10%. You need to add another 10% to those damage ranges. So its more like 4.1k~5.6k on scholars and 3.5k~4.8k on soliders.

Actually its average is closer to 4k+ which is what people have been saying. Armour wise a scholar class with 560 toughness is very close to a solider class without any at all.

So I have proved their not yours.

Do you know how often thief is above 90% in fights when he comes to the point of using hs lol?

More so, you are implying IP is broken because thief invests into damage instead of picking more survival? Should i remind you on things like DH traps, that deal more than IP damage to EVERYONE, not a single target like IP. Same goes for necro marks etc. Sry but in grand picture 3k single target damage dealt by glass canon is hardly broken.

No need top be so rude and defensive with your lol :/ calm youself down!

All I proved was the claimes that you tried to refute that on average PI does ~4k..which is does. Above or below 90% doesnt matter.

Not sure what else you need. One person said they took 12k from 3 hits, you said, "post pics of death log, someone actually posted pics of a death log where they took a 2 hits for 10k, you said " well traits and conditions", then i put some math which averages around ~4k but i forget to put in the rune, make a post saying i missed it and you go , “lol 90% hp, other classes do things”.

That person also implies that PI should be nerfed because it hit him for 5k…. he forgot to mention that it was thanks to external buffs…. should we nerf the class because he got help from 2 other players and invests into damage?….

- looks at all the posts/threads saying certain things on necro cant be fixed since the class is “OP” when supported by bunker classes like ele/egi/ranger. -

Also it shows that he fought 3 people ( not sure if Mesmer did any damage or just the stomp ), ate almost a full over load fire, more than 3 and a bit auto attack chains from dagger yet the thing that did the most damage even though it cannot crit was being interrupted twice…

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Just want to chime in again to those combating those who say PI does not do a lot of damage, namely in a reply to this:

Cynz.9437:

Unholey.3264:

Cynz.9437:

- 3 Pi for 12k ? It is 4k PI per proc, it usually hits for 3k on a good day, please post screenshot of that death log.

Just happened to see you say this while skimming over this thread. This was back during season 3. Not saying anything one way or the other, just providing some evidence.

I see mesmer and ele helping him. He probably also runs executioner. I am assuming you had crapload of vulnerability on you and thief had might stacks thank to mes/ele’s overload. PI is OP because ele and mes are helping the thief? Good joke.

According to the wiki PI has an approx coefficient of 3.28. Though it cannot crit its still amongst one of the highest ( around eviserate and killshot rank 3). Because of damage modifiers from thief traits in the meta build it goes to a range of 3.25~4.44 without vulnerability.

With a base of 2225 power, e.g. no might, and no extra toughness from amulets or runes and no protection you are looking at 3753~5127 on a scholar class or 3176~4339 on a solider. These numbers increase with might , vulnerability and if they take executioner over improvisation. They also go down with higher armour and protection but even on a solider class with a 560 toughness amulet, 2727 armour, you are still looking at just over 2.3k with protection to around 3.5k damage without.

Skill has a theoretical max of around 11k but the build for that is yolo and unviable.

So on average it is 3k, not 5k as some claim here. Thanks for proving my point.

I forgot to edit my post as i didnt factor in that runes of the scholar is another 10%. You need to add another 10% to those damage ranges. So its more like 4.1k~5.6k on scholars and 3.5k~4.8k on soliders.

Actually its average is closer to 4k+ which is what people have been saying. Armour wise a scholar class with 560 toughness is very close to a solider class without any at all.

So I have proved their not yours.

Do you know how often thief is above 90% in fights when he comes to the point of using hs lol?

More so, you are implying IP is broken because thief invests into damage instead of picking more survival? Should i remind you on things like DH traps, that deal more than IP damage to EVERYONE, not a single target like IP. Same goes for necro marks etc. Sry but in grand picture 3k single target damage dealt by glass canon is hardly broken.

No need top be so rude and defensive with your lol :/ calm youself down!

All I proved was the claimes that you tried to refute that on average PI does ~4k..which is does. Above or below 90% doesnt matter.

Not sure what else you need. One person said they took 12k from 3 hits, you said, "post pics of death log, someone actually posted pics of a death log where they took a 2 hits for 10k, you said " well traits and conditions", then i put some math which averages around ~4k but i forget to put in the rune, make a post saying i missed it and you go , “lol 90% hp, other classes do things”.

Runiir.6425:

We really just need a proper answer to our mobility, like perminant cripple/snare immunity in our shroud.

You can pretty much have it but you just need reaper and to trait for it.

flow.6043:

Again with the “bracket”… like I said, stop comparing to other heals.

Compare the shout heal to thieves new heal.

I dont usually compare between classes since each functions differently but………this is the post i originally quoted. Hence the comparison. Its all in context. That and as a general rule all classes have at least 1 heal that is low cool down and low health gained. We so happen to have two.

Besides imho if it healed more then it would either have to not strike targets or generate no or lower LF. But the point of the heal IS that it generates LF.

And I really shouldn’t have to tell a fellow necro, but: life force is generated a lot more easily than actual hp. So whatever amount you get with the shout is meaningless if the base heal is so poor.

I know this…I just dont think this is true that the LF gained is meaningless. Guess we view the skill and LF differently.

Plus, you pretend like the scaling of it makes it any better, but similar to all other skills we have, it doesn’t scale well enough when it really matters. Meaning, when you’re getting focused in team fights a few extra % of life force won’t save you.

Again i disagree for a bunch of reasons but I’ll agree to disagree.

Cynz.9437:

Sigmoid.7082:

Just want to chime in again to those combating those who say PI does not do a lot of damage, namely in a reply to this:

Cynz.9437:

Unholey.3264:

Cynz.9437:

- 3 Pi for 12k ? It is 4k PI per proc, it usually hits for 3k on a good day, please post screenshot of that death log.

Just happened to see you say this while skimming over this thread. This was back during season 3. Not saying anything one way or the other, just providing some evidence.

I see mesmer and ele helping him. He probably also runs executioner. I am assuming you had crapload of vulnerability on you and thief had might stacks thank to mes/ele’s overload. PI is OP because ele and mes are helping the thief? Good joke.

According to the wiki PI has an approx coefficient of 3.28. Though it cannot crit its still amongst one of the highest ( around eviserate and killshot rank 3). Because of damage modifiers from thief traits in the meta build it goes to a range of 3.25~4.44 without vulnerability.

With a base of 2225 power, e.g. no might, and no extra toughness from amulets or runes and no protection you are looking at 3753~5127 on a scholar class or 3176~4339 on a solider. These numbers increase with might , vulnerability and if they take executioner over improvisation. They also go down with higher armour and protection but even on a solider class with a 560 toughness amulet, 2727 armour, you are still looking at just over 2.3k with protection to around 3.5k damage without.

Skill has a theoretical max of around 11k but the build for that is yolo and unviable.

So on average it is 3k, not 5k as some claim here. Thanks for proving my point.

I forgot to edit my post as i didnt factor in that runes of the scholar is another 10%. Actually its average is closer to 4k+ which is what people have been saying. Armour wise a scholar class with 560 toughness is very close to a solider class without any at all.

Prince Vingador.8067:

Doesnt matter how strong it is, if u dont get to use it.
Same way focus doesnt see any gameplay
Same way gs doesnt see any gameplay either
Everything is very spammy,so having so long cast times is a big problem, specially vs mesmer and thievs

The point that is it wont have its cast-time reduced to below 1s because of how strong it is…and you do get to use it. Look at pretty much all the meta builds gone by a large % of them all use CC because its that strong. Its currently 3/5 for builds for pvp and 5/6 for WvW that use CC as the heal.

The only way CC will every has a cast time below 1s is if they lowered the number of conditions removed and reduced how much it heals.

Focus and GS also do see play in certain buids. I personally play with focus myself, i even use the trait as spinal shivers and CoD benefit from it, and i know others have had success using GS in certain builds up in high divisions ( high plat )

flow.6043:

Sigmoid.7082:

Also the shout heal, again, is fine. It doesnt need to heal more since it heals pretty much the same as everything else in its bracket of 20s cooldowns, if not more.

That’s a pointless comparison.
Other classes have additional defensive mechanisms, necros only have their hp, so it only makes sense that our healing values should be a lot higher.

Not really since it gives LF and potentially a lot of it. You cant just count the raw heal and say “others are higher” or what you have said without actually considering the LF , our main defensive mechanic , gained. When thats considered it “heals” pretty much for more than everything in its bracket.

Just want to chime in again to those combating those who say PI does not do a lot of damage, namely in a reply to this:

Cynz.9437:

Unholey.3264:

Cynz.9437:

- 3 Pi for 12k ? It is 4k PI per proc, it usually hits for 3k on a good day, please post screenshot of that death log.

Just happened to see you say this while skimming over this thread. This was back during season 3. Not saying anything one way or the other, just providing some evidence.

I see mesmer and ele helping him. He probably also runs executioner. I am assuming you had crapload of vulnerability on you and thief had might stacks thank to mes/ele’s overload. PI is OP because ele and mes are helping the thief? Good joke.

According to the wiki PI has an approx coefficient of 3.28. Though it cannot crit its still amongst one of the highest ( around eviserate and killshot rank 3). Because of damage modifiers from thief traits in the meta build it goes to a range of 3.25~4.44 without vulnerability.

With a base of 2225 power, e.g. no might, and no extra toughness from amulets or runes and no protection you are looking at 3753~5127 on a scholar class or 3176~4339 on a solider. These numbers increase with might , vulnerability and if they take executioner over improvisation. They also go down with higher armour and protection but even on a solider class with a 560 toughness amulet, 2727 armour, you are still looking at just over 2.3k with protection to around 3.5k damage without.

Skill has a theoretical max of around 11k but the build for that is yolo and unviable.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Life siphon should be better too I agree with people. But I think consume needs a lower cast time and honestly the shout heal needs more healing or something.

Compare the shout heal to thieves new heal.

Disclaimer: Everything below is without healing power, min HP vaule used is 19,212 and max is 24,812

They wont reduce CC below 1s because it is a very strong heal.
There are 14 unique conditions in the game and 12 can be made use of with this heal ( Taunt and fear are control effects ).
This gives CC a min of 5240 but a max of 13928. Working out at around 21.8%~72.5% HP. Even on average of 4~6 conditions ( very easy to get on you ) you are looking at 8136~9584 on a 20~30s cooldown, 32.8%~49.8% HP. Not to mention the skill removes ALL current condition damage pressure from you. Lastly the skill removes conditions before it heals therefore it will never be subject to -33% healing from poison like some other heals.

Also the shout heal, again, is fine. It doesnt need to heal more since it heals pretty much the same as everything else in its bracket of 20s cooldowns, if not more.

• Mending heals for 6520 and cleans 3 conditions
• Healing turret combo heals for 6342 and cleans 2 conditions + 650 from 5s of regen.
• Bandage Self heals for 4920
• Withdraw heals for 4766, removed movement impairing conditions and is a 3/4s evade
• Ether Renewal heals for a total of 5k and cleans 8 conditions over its long channel
• Ether Feast Heals for a maximum of 7480
• The thing you want it compared to Channeled Vigor heals for 5520 to 7320 depending on endurance.
• Etc etc

But when you look at YSIM it heals for kitten AND a max of 22% LF. This is a minimum of 662 ( no vit and no targets ) to a maximum of 4331 ( SR and at least 560 vit if we are talking usable pvp amulets ).
Its base healing and damage can be increased by traits and since its an attack it benefits from sigils ( air for damage, blood for more healing, strength etc etc ).
For the same reason its life fore “heal” can be increased by CV and BB. A max of 12%+2.2% from siphoned power ( 265 min to a max of 2795).

So to compare to theives top end if 5520~7320 , “some endurance” ,10 endurance (trait) on a 20~18s cooldown
or
4555+0~625(shout trait) , 5%~36.2%(662~7131)LF, 0~7 stacks of might on a 20~13s cooldown

TL;DR
CC wont go below 1s cast time because its very strong. Shout heal is fine.

Prince Vingador.8067:

I think life transfer should pulse poison just like in reaper shroud, this would help a lot

DS#4 should not pulse poison. It has to be unique from rs#4 not the same..

Well of blood = should heal through deathshroud, should be a water field (makes no sense I know) and should cleanse a condition each pulse.

Wont get condi removal since it would somewhat over lap with well of power. Also unlikely to become a water field. More likely either its duration is returned or the healing contribution of the pulses increase. A radius increase would be useful since the skill limits you but its unlikely.

Consume conditions = Tough one due to master of corruption. But I would like to see this changed so that its base cd in 25 second again. Also the cast time needs to be 3/4 seconds.

Skill is strong. Wont receive a cooldown reduction because of the 33% trait. Cast time wont be reduced that much either, again, due to the skills strength. Likely changes is it has its cast time reduced to 1s.

The shout = I think the healing is slightly too low. I would like to see it give 10% life force not 5%

The shout heals in the same range as every other heal in its cooldown bracket. Lifeforce gained wont be increased without lowering amount on it( to 2% to keep net the same). Unlikely to happen as they want it to feel rewarding when used on more enemies instead of 50% of its effect as a base. Plus since it is an attack it can interact with traits/sigils ( also its skill category lets it benefit from runes ), namely BB and CV. Skill already provides 5~33% LF. tl;dr its fine.

Likely changes to the signet ( one or more of the following)

• Passive effect is considered life steal
• Cooldown is per attacker
• Passive cooldown reduced to 0.5~0.75s / Active cooldown and number of charges reduced
• Passive healing increased to a minimum of matching healing signet
• Active cooldown interval reduced to 0.5~0.75s

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I would probably have it be even more effective at debilitation. Traits like increased effectiveness of Weakness applied, or greater healing reduction from Poison.

We wont see things like this because they are confusing. Increases in effectiveness for boons/conditions are either all personal or all damage related ( something easy to track because..well floating numbers)

We wont see “Increased effectiveness of weakness you apply by X%” but more likely “Targets with weakness have x% more chance for a glancing blow”.

I somewhat agree headshot itself is too rewarding, especially due to other changes that have happened. If it cost 5 initiative it can only be used twice successively instead of 3 times which is pretty big.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Instant cast skills = necro has none
Stability = basically none

These two i feel are a tad hyperbolic..

Split lich form. Replace with Grim Specter, increase cooldown to 50/60s, make spectral skill. Replace with signet of the Lich, change skill 5 to “something”, give it passive “something”. Doing that creates two usable elite skills. Lich needs more changes.

Elite well cant pulse fear as it overlaps with the spectral wall.
Would rather it give boons necro is supposed to have. Regen, Protection and retaliation. Or something like allies cannot be downed while inside this well. High cooldown ( like 3 mins) , long duration or medium cooldown ( like 1.5~2mins) shorter duration.

Signets dont work in shroud because they were never designed to as well as a lot would need to change to allow it not only with how shrouds themselves are coded ( as a transformation more than a kit) but with a load of signet and trait balance.

SoU would need a change, especially with reaper
SotL and Speed of shadows would then overlap
Plague Signet and Unholy Martyr would be…interesting..almost fun
etc

It would be easier to add unique shroud skills to 7,8,9 since we know they can due to some other transforms having skills on those.

Shadowstep.6049:

Sigmoid.7082:

Shadowstep.6049:

Sigmoid.7082:

For some reason people see the words necro and buff and just moan without realising what is actually being discussed and what’s being questioned to be improved.

Please tell me how Improvimg death or blood magic as a defensive/supportive traitline to actually be defensive/supportive is an issue. Especially death magic who, as a traitline, has been under preforming for a majority of the games life. Same with core shroud. (Harder to fix it’s spaghetti code though…)

Please tell me how it will stop necro ele combo being unkillable? Are you into s1 bunker style?

All you have done is answer a question with a question. You haven’t addressed what I said.

And you haven’t addressed what i said. You just asking for unkillable bunker meta all over again.

My question which I asked first still remains unanswered. Tell me why improving an incredibly bad and underused traitline(s) and core shroud is bad?

You are too focused on he meta build, which these two traitlines do not cater too nor the weapon that’s suggested, focus.

To take something you lose something else. Do I agree with the ops suggested changes? No, do I agree that core shroud , death magic and blood magic are underused because they are weak, yes. When has anyone who has ever played a decent necro build though “I need death magic!” Never…

Literally the smallest of changes can turn a line or ability from bad to acceptable. Look at some of the recent changes over the past few months, small enough to not be huge but big enough to make something more viable and different tiers of play.

Shadowstep.6049:

Sigmoid.7082:

For some reason people see the words necro and buff and just moan without realising what is actually being discussed and what’s being questioned to be improved.

Please tell me how Improvimg death or blood magic as a defensive/supportive traitline to actually be defensive/supportive is an issue. Especially death magic who, as a traitline, has been under preforming for a majority of the games life. Same with core shroud. (Harder to fix it’s spaghetti code though…)

Please tell me how it will stop necro ele combo being unkillable? Are you into s1 bunker style?

All you have done is answer a question with a question. You haven’t addressed what I said.

For some reason people see the words necro and buff and just moan without realising what is actually being discussed and what’s being questioned to be improved.

Please tell me how Improvimg death or blood magic as a defensive/supportive traitline to actually be defensive/supportive is an issue. Especially death magic who, as a traitline, has been under preforming for a majority of the games life. Same with core shroud. (Harder to fix it’s spaghetti code though…)

Spite/curses are the cherries on the cake..where the cake itself is RS so sorry to say that reaper would lose “much” dps without spite/curses..it’s really a nasty lie"

Note one of the things the OP wanted was to buff base shroud meaning the loss of reaper and all its traits all together.Being DM, which is terrible and contains the ONLY on death trait because “well its necromancer so something needs to be on death” ,and BM which is less bad but again still not great. Focus off hand which is a power weapon and for condi builds would mean the loss of warhorn which again is huge. Any buffs to focus are more a buff to power builds than anything

Anyways back to this quote since people think losing either of these lines is apparently negligible.

With direct relation to the meta build(s) this quote also a lie. Losing either of these two lines in the current meta build(s) IS a huge loss of damage. If you lose spite you lose vulnerability on chill. Cover condition and damage multiplier lost. Not only this but with deathly chill it means bleed is somewhat unprotected and will be almost always the first condition to be cleared due to LIFO.
Secondly you lose boon control and damage from CoD and from SS. Less chill -> less bleed and vulnerability ->less damage. One is AoE boon corrupt which gives less control to your team. Might, regeneration and vigour are so common and huge to corrupt for either damage reduction, heal reduction/removal or more damage. Also stability but everyone knows that one.
Lastly you lose a bunch of might generation which is a huge amount of damage in itself. It compounds with all the vulnerability the line generate for a very large damage increase.

If you lose curses you lose a bunch of condition pressure. You crits can no longer apply bleed. You lose a stunbreak/condi transfer meaning you are more susceptible to other condition builds. You lose more AoE boon corrupt and by extension more damage/ support/utility. You lose a bunch of crit chance so less power damage going out if using a hybrid amulet and from the same trait you lose condition damage..almost a whole rune sets worth. Lastly you lose more AoE boon corruption, bleed and weakness and weakness on crit which is a very strong condition as well as another cover condi.

so tl;dr you are wrong and losing either one of these lines IS a huge damage loss. No two ways about it. Giving up damage for survivability is how it is supposed to go and if DM and BM did their roles better it would be the case

sophiewhite.3149:

Sarrs.4831:

sophiewhite.3149:

its actually 2 boons per target. hit 5 people thats 10 boons.

Spiteful Spirit only strips one boon.
Axe 3 strips two.

spiteful spirit procs unholy feast when entering shroud.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unholy_Feast “Boons Converted to Conditions: 2” if it only converts 1 then that seems to be a bug. it was added in October as a buff.

I’m just going to chime in on this one.

The trait used to cast unholy feast and also work with the cool down trait for axe.
Because it was the same skill it had a 15s cooldown and felt clunky and didn’t always work with shroud, especially if you used speed of shadows.
So same as weakening shroud, which used to cast enfeebling blood on shroud but now casts a skill called enfeeble, spiteful spirit casts a different skill under its own name that does the exact same effect. It even looks slightly different. This was all for the sake of making it better and removing it’s ICD. jan 2016
When the update went out a few patches ago they only changed one of the two skills to convert the extra boon and that was axe #3. If this is bugged or intended we do not know. oct 18th 2016
The game still considers the ability an axe skill and thus the trait makes it do more damage to vulnerable foes. Due to a patch this year, july 2016 ,it works with weapon damage allowing the skill to be ~10% stronger than the axe version.

I’m more interested in what build everyone in this thread plays on necro than anything else.

I dont know if this post is spvp speciffic because you can only take toughness or vitality on a condi amulet, never both. You also mention armour sets which mean nothing in pvp really.

Also most condition traitlines have something that interacts with being on crit hence why most of the condition amulets have perc on them and its a useful damage stat for condition builds.

The play styles are fairly even. They do similar amounts of damage just in different ways.

FrostDraco.8306:

I duel all the time on axe. If you are the kind of person that stays at ranged anytime you pvp, then of course it ‘seems’ like a good weapon. But anyone with a brain will just walk away from you even with the cripple, literally. Axe has no stuns, immobs, or pulls, or fears, also its blockable.

Staff has the benefit of marks being unblockable, its projectiles pierce, its has poison which is HUGE in pvp for the healing reduction, and on top of that it generates quick burst of LF if you chain cast the marks so you dont have to camp it. Which is amazing for power builds. And its even more amazing for aoe situations as you get 3% per target hit for each mark, in addition to the few auto’s in between. which is 50%+LF over the course of 3-4 seconds with 5 targets, minimum. Even in pvp its not that hard to hit 3-4 targets with marks in team fights, and they are not blockable when traited which means you almost always land them.

And staff has a larger range. Good for poking, applying pressure, and getting out of dodge. Also you can leave marks on the ground while kiting, which people either have to walk through, or go around, which increases the chances of getting away.

Just want to point out a few things.

Staff only has fear, which in itself is very easily countered due to the fact its a condition and a control effect ( resistance, stability, condition removal, condition reducing effects, stun breakers ). Also if you want unblockable marks you have to trait for it giving up other options.

Staff #1 being a projectile is also an issue due to the amount of projectile hate currently in the game. The poison is fairly useful , all be it situational. A downside here is because, even with bitter chill, the #3 skill still applies poison last and thus its the first condition to be removed. Thankfully promotes better/situational use of the skill.

Staff on its own doesnt generate that much LF. iirc soulmarks is always 3% no matter how many targets you hit with the mark. The only reason it appears to be more it due to how CV and BB works. CV has a 1s ICD per attack. This means at best, against 5 chilled targets, you will get 13(14.3% with SR) lf from a mark. If the targets are not chilled then the lf generation from it lowers significantly. Do you use #3 or #5 to gain LF or do you use them situationally.

I would consider axe/focus with a strength sigil instead of staff. With this combo every skill on the axe will grant life force because of traits you already take anyways ( CV and BB ) so this frees up the first tier soul reaping traits. Means I can do shroud things faster with speed of shadows ( good cause of SS/FitG if you take them plus you will always have a lot of LF to use ) or drop vulnerability on chill for the focus trait ( more boon hate as CoD and Spinal Shivers proc/can be used more often for better boon hate and more damage )It’s also better at countering boons

I also find retaliation and cripple under rated. Between axe 3 and spiteful spirit you have near 100% uptime on the boon and condition.

’ Rune of the kraits 6th bonus now causes a damaging strike to apply the conditions. ’

Calling it now.

FrostDraco.8306:

Sarrs.4831:

Axe is actually Power Necro’s best weapon; the AoE boonclear and high burst/LF generation on 2 is extremely useful, and the fast attack speed is great for proc effects, especially Strength Runes. It’s just that Power Necro doesn’t really have any place doing much of anything in PvP because it doesn’t have the tools to last in a brawl and it rarely matches up in duels.

I have no issues dueling with GS and staff on my power necro.

Axe is not our ‘best weapon’. Not by a long shot.

Neither are those two. Everything has its place. Depends on your build and playstyle.

Sarrs.4831:

Sigmoid.7082:

The only extra corruption curses has over spite is if you take path of corruption and land shroud 2 all the time, Spiteful spirit is FAR more reliable than weakening shroud. Better range, cant be LoS’d, does more damage, cripple and retaliation are more useful than people think.

I’m fond of MoC as corruptions just give you so many options for a Power necro. PoC is not so great because you don’t want to send yourself into melee that often.

Corrupt Boon is obviously way better with MoC.
Consume Conditions is the same.
CPC is an amazing trait especially with MoC. Projectile destruction is always amazing and especially helps to reduce the amount of incoming pressure you’ll receive.
Plague is a nice get-out-of-dodge button. If your team plays with it right you can use yourself as bait as a lot of people will just think “NECRO? KILL” even while you’re plagued up and spamming out Blind->Chill->Bleed+Vuln.

But I’m gold T1 so idk maybe I’m just bad.

The part of my post you quoted is taking into consideration ONLY the traitline. Hence why I said that spiteful spirit is better than weakening shroud. If it ever gets fixed to be like axe 3 and do two boons it will be even more so.

The porblem with MoC is you need to take corruptions which aren’t that great and have fairly big downsides for power builds. The heal is the best though due to the full condi clear and the conditions applied not being that detrimental or damaging.

CPC is fine as utility but for a POWER builds hiting yourself with weakness is a huge loss of damage. It means you either spend time removing it or deal with lower damage and endurance regen. Besides with all the projectile hate other classes bring it’s pretty much unnecessary.

CB is ok for power builds but poison is bothersome if you use blighters boon or any other form of healing like dagger two. It does have one bonus is that when traits it will cause bleed to be the last condition applied to you this the next one to be removed.

Your entire mention of plague form is condition centric cause you mention chill causing bleed and even then it takes two BAD traits for a power build ( chill to bleed and chill on blind )

KrHome.1920:

SeranusGaming.7362:

This is a pretty impressive WvW video on how to run a power reaper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XvaUasILUY

Not viable! And the video shows just cherrypicked scenes against bad players.

I ran this build with D/Wh + Staff and YAAW! instead of Flesh Worm before Rise! nerf and it was pretty good with the 50% damage reduction – even though totally relied on that skill. Players that did know how to negate Rise! could wreck you easily.

Meanwhile it is super squishy and super slow – a bad combination. Faceroll matchup for every Teef, Warrior, Power Druid with Immobs, Dragonhunter, Revenant and so on…

Btw:
I played some ranked matches yesterday and I switched back to Dagger/Warhorn+Axe/Focus and Curses/Soul Reaping/Reaper on Demolisher Amulet. Your massive and unblockable CC and corrupt capabilities are a lot more helpful to your team than the Spite build I posted here 6 days ago. GS is just lackluster and gimmicky in sPvP (It’s still okay in WvW in a bruiser build due to higher damage potencial).

What massive unblockable cc does d/w + a/f have? You have no staff or soul marks..The only way is IF you take NCSY and use CttB.

The only extra corruption curses has over spite is if you take path of corruption and land shroud 2 all the time, Spiteful spirit is FAR more reliable than weakening shroud. Better range, cant be LoS’d, does more damage, cripple and retaliation are more useful than people think.
Also Spite has HUGE synergy with BlightersBoon you get so much sustain from it. Coupled with Spiteful spirit + chilling victory and a hydromancy sigil you can sustain better than if you took curses. You COULD take MoC and then use CB but thats giving up a trait and a utility slot.

Your spite build was just bad.

nicoxbad.9715:

Where your wrong is that if i have high health and get power bombed i can activate defences. However if i get condi bombed then only defence i against condi is Resitance which is scarcley available.
For example: As a mesmer if i get power bombed i can activate distortion which will make me invulnerable to power damage and incoming conditions however I cannot stop condi damage that is already on me. 10/10 i will die due to the short time frime i have to realize its condi and then apply an appropriate cleanse..keeping in mind that it will problably be multi condi on me making it near impossible.

The example is bad, you already had the chance to mitigate the condi damage when the strike was incoming same with power damage. You have already been hit so why should something preventing strikes, distortion, work all of a sudden to prevent further damage. You have the next X seconds to actually do something about it as with power damage it is instant, you have been hit and it has been done.

Again you seen the bomb/spike coming yet did nothing to prevent it hitting you in the first place.

Also in some instances preventing condition damage from coming in means you take more overall condition damage because of how skills apply conditions and the order they are removed in. If I have 10 stacks of bleeding i want to get hit by a skill that applied bleeding before i remove anything etc.

The reason people dont like conditions is because they have to build around it as a defence. A LARGE majority of damage is power based in the game so naturally you build to defend against it without thinking about it at all but sometimes have to give up power defence/utility/traits to speck for condi and thus feel “forced”. I feel if the larger majority of damage was condition based everyone would build to defend against it and would moan about power damage..

“if it was conditions i would have time to cleans it or put up resistance but its instant and i cant do anything!” etc etc you can see the point..

nicoxbad.9715:

Sigmoid.7082:

nicoxbad.9715:

Soothsayer.9206:

Supreme.3164:

Archon.6480:

Condi is fine. Condi removal is not fine.

We need more/better options to remove condi and hard CC. HoT added condi-barf (classes can load you with 5-8 conditions instantly) but did not give enough mass condi removal to compensate.

100000000..infinity this ^

It’s not right that on some professions you insta die when getting condi bombed, there is no recovery from condi bombs outside direct cleansing.

Ok I can accept the fact that once caught with your pants down…you should die fine, but given how some condi bombs are too easily accessible ( looking at you skullgrinder-plague signet-boon conversion )….more professions should access to full condi removal..nothing stupidly OP, even something on a 60s CD would be great

If I use my druid/dh/warrior/mesmer/scrapper..kk condis are not faceroll danger, on professions like ele, you’re forced to fire several condi removal ( all of them ) to avoid being killed by the ticking confusion/bleeding/burning…if you move you get double torment dmg, bleeding/poison etc…what else left to do when you get condi bombed with every single condition in this game?

…yeah you wish the profession you’re using had something like Contemplation of purity

How many more and better options do we need? Consequently, should the corresponding equivalent to dps (heals) be increased too so as to remove the immediate and devastating effects of a critical hit? After all, dps and critical hits are altogether too accessible and do far to much damage at once, therefore should be mitigated by additional heals that entirely and always remove its devastating effects – but you can put such a heal on an increased cd for balance. There are way to many power builds present (revs and thieves are particularly pesky and don’t get me started on dh traps they kill my clones/phantasms way to quickly – a post for another time perhaps) and as a condi/shatter Memser I only have 1 heal. Hope a little tongue and cheek will help put some of this into perspective

What you forget is that there are stats such as toughness and vitality that counter power damage…condi doesn’t.

Vitality helps vs condi damage. Power damage is instant so its needs to be mitigated/reduced, condi damage, as much as people HATE to admit it, still happens over time and it can be completely removed/made redundant by resistance.

Both damage types share a few ways of being mitigated but still have their own unique ways way of being mitigated.

Also skullgrinder would be FAR more manageable if ti applied its conditions in a different order. If you have no idea what i mean read up on conditions and their mechanics a bit.

Vitality does not mitigate Condi as if you get away from your condi spammin opponent you will die without condi cleanse wich is the only counter to condi. More health wil not matter because chances are if you get away you will still die. Especially with condi that damage you for moving and using skills.

Thats like saying more hp doesnt help with power damage as it doesnt let you take more hits before you go down. Vitality gives you more time to react/wait for cool downs. More health will matter, besides if you ate a burst from a power build you wouldnt have the luxury of deciding to use a cleanse/ resistance because you would already be dead.

There is no different to eating a load of power damage to the face and dying to eating a load of condition attacks and dying a some time later.

nicoxbad.9715:

Soothsayer.9206:

Supreme.3164:

Archon.6480:

Condi is fine. Condi removal is not fine.

We need more/better options to remove condi and hard CC. HoT added condi-barf (classes can load you with 5-8 conditions instantly) but did not give enough mass condi removal to compensate.

100000000..infinity this ^

It’s not right that on some professions you insta die when getting condi bombed, there is no recovery from condi bombs outside direct cleansing.

Ok I can accept the fact that once caught with your pants down…you should die fine, but given how some condi bombs are too easily accessible ( looking at you skullgrinder-plague signet-boon conversion )….more professions should access to full condi removal..nothing stupidly OP, even something on a 60s CD would be great

If I use my druid/dh/warrior/mesmer/scrapper..kk condis are not faceroll danger, on professions like ele, you’re forced to fire several condi removal ( all of them ) to avoid being killed by the ticking confusion/bleeding/burning…if you move you get double torment dmg, bleeding/poison etc…what else left to do when you get condi bombed with every single condition in this game?

…yeah you wish the profession you’re using had something like Contemplation of purity

How many more and better options do we need? Consequently, should the corresponding equivalent to dps (heals) be increased too so as to remove the immediate and devastating effects of a critical hit? After all, dps and critical hits are altogether too accessible and do far to much damage at once, therefore should be mitigated by additional heals that entirely and always remove its devastating effects – but you can put such a heal on an increased cd for balance. There are way to many power builds present (revs and thieves are particularly pesky and don’t get me started on dh traps they kill my clones/phantasms way to quickly – a post for another time perhaps) and as a condi/shatter Memser I only have 1 heal. Hope a little tongue and cheek will help put some of this into perspective

What you forget is that there are stats such as toughness and vitality that counter power damage…condi doesn’t.

Vitality helps vs condi damage. Power damage is instant so its needs to be mitigated/reduced, condi damage, as much as people HATE to admit it, still happens over time and it can be completely removed/made redundant by resistance.

Both damage types share a few ways of being mitigated but still have their own unique ways way of being mitigated.

Also skullgrinder would be FAR more manageable if ti applied its conditions in a different order. If you have no idea what i mean read up on conditions and their mechanics a bit.

Mikhael.2391:

I have issues with necro as it is a class that lacks A LOT but after talking and seeing other point of views, specially flow, i got in a g arena with him and duelled him a lot of times. i can say his builds works really well amd better than what i was using before, and feels a bit more confortable in wvw than in spvp. i advi e you to try the same, for what i know he s up for duels and so am i using his build with 1 or 2 changes that i prefer. I had to be proven wrong and i was, my build was more power pve oriented. This being said try a similar build that we use and then come back to say it isnt more confortable/better.

what was the build(s)?

narcx.3570:

Rolisteel.1375:

I think you need the damage trait as without the damage.. good players of other classes will outlast you as you don’t have enough damage so all of their defense skills will be ready again as you don’t have the damage to kill them and they will kill you sooner or later.

The thing is, all of his other traits and weapon choices point to this being a flash shroud build… Taking a trait that only increases your damage in shroud would be counter-productive to the rest of the choices he made.

Just want to point out that the traits nor weapon choices point to it being a flash build, because it isnt. Its actually more a sustain/bruiser build. Everything is picked due to trait/skill synergy.

I could make a very long post on the exact synergies but I am lazy. But in short:
Spite

• First trait cause reaper chills and works with trait 2 and 3
• Axe is builds main weapon so being able to generate more LF, do more damage and corrupt more boons faster. Also works with trait 3
• aoe boon corrupt, is an axe skill so trait 2 boosts its damage by 10%. Has huge synergy with reaper trait 2 and 3 causing you to heal a lot/ generate LF. Retaliation is also under rated.

SR

• Takes because you dont use staff and dont need more vuln, also has synergy with spite trait 3 and SR trait 3.
• No better choice for sustain builds
• Most under rated trait. Synergy with SR trait 1 and Reaper trait 3. Seriously this trait is amazing. People seem to be blinded by 50% crit chance which is also a good choice but overrated.

Reaper

• Because shouts
• Has huge synergy with spite trait 3 and reaper trait 3. Explained this is another thread at length.
• Has huge synergy with sigils and entire spite traitline. Probably builds core trait since most things build around making the most use out of it to keep you alive.

There is also a proc based on swap version of this that can cause entering shroud to do huge damage/finsh someone off. Less sustain though but hitting someone with SS+CN+CoD+Sigil of Hydromancy+Sigil of Air/Blood/Fire is just funny and you cant line of sight the combo due to how SS/Unholy feast work.