Guild Wars 2

I wish they had given Necro’s Greatswords instead of Mesmers… it makes so much more sense that way.

I like playing the “Reaper of Grenth” type character, and its a little silly using daggers and axes.

I prefer 20/0/25/25/0, with Axe/Horn + Dagger/Focus. I swap in offhand dagger against certain classes and staff for zergs. Better damage, and you don’t really lose anything.

Also, I am not sure if you are saying this is ‘your’ build or not, but the name Juggermancer was created for a similar type of build be Sheobix back in the day.

30/20/0/0/20 Conditions, Dire armor with scavenger runes. This is a great 1v1 build because a lot of builds out there cannot deal enough damage to you before you can melt them down with conditions and fear CC. Basically warriors are the only tough fight here, and sometimes mesmers.

30/10/0/0/30 Power, Berserker armor with ruby orbs or scholar runes. This build is pretty good 1v1 because it just puts out so much damage. Your defense is basically pressuring your enemy and forcing them to play defensive. The counters to this build are enemies who are built with some defense, and know how to CC you and punish you for being squishy.

There is also the option of playing power with more balanced stats. Usually this means working high armor into your stat layout. You can go with pure soldiers and forego crit chance altogether, or you can go with Knights. There is no one best build for this playstyle.

20/0/20/30/0 or 20/0/30/20/0 Minion Master. These builds are amazing 1v1 builds but start to lose their potency the more enemies you are fighting, and the faster they kill your minions. You have high self healing, and decent options for control at your disposal. 30 in Death punishes enemies for killing your minions, whereas 30 in Blood grants you a very powerful condition removal.

Reaper’s Mark – Increased the cooldown and reduced the duration of the fear. We feel this skill was too strong because it has great range, is AoE, is instant, AND CC’s! It is probably the second best spell in the whole game. (mark of blood is the best obviously).

Well of Blood – We feel this is pretty much the best heal in the entire game. The potential healing of a full cleric Necro with this spell and his whole party standing in the well for the full duration is just bonkers. Reduced total healing by 25% and now only affects the Necro.

Signet of Spite is great in PvP even as power because the passive gives you nice damage boost, and the active doesnt need to deal lots of bleed/poison damage to be effective, its the blind/weakness/vuln/reduced healing all at once that make it a good skill to turn a fight in your favor.

Bhawb.7408:

Stx.4857:

You are absolutely certain that if VM were to be left alone, and that VP and Vampiric were buffed up to a level that would make them useful to non-minion builds, that Minion Master builds wouldn’t trade in Transfusion, MoE, Fetid consumption, or even Bloodthirst for VP?

I mean, Vampiric is picked up by MM Necros regardless, so if it got the buff it deserved, MM’s would get a buff either way, very possibly pushing their self healing into crazy land.

And like I said, you can just drop Vampiric Master’s HP/s down by the same amount Vampiric’s was buffed.

^ That is basically what I have been saying.

Kagamiku.9731:

Stx.4857:

You make good points and I do not disagree with you. I am just frustrated by many personal experiences on my Necro where a warrior can literally retreat whenever he wants by GS 3 away from me, then GS 5 out of range. Both of these remove any roots or slows I may be tagging him with.

The GS itself does not remove roots/immobilize/slows.

Mobile Strike is a trait that removes immobilize when using a movement skill and there is a lot of condition removal utilities, but the GS doesn’t do any of that on its own.

I know.

Glass Power is fun when you are getting big crits and no one is focusing you, but considering Necro’s lack of escapes, evades, blocks, or anything really, it is not a good idea if you expect a fight to last more than 30 seconds.

I prefer to get 2800-3k armor, while still keeping decent power, 50% baseline crit, and at least 50% crit damage. I can sit in DS for a long time either soaking damage or pumping out lifeblasts stacking up might/vuln. And when I drop out of DS I can refill my lifeforce very fast by rotating Spectral armor, locust swarm, and spectral walk.

While I am not in DS, I rely on sigil/food procs to replenish my health, removing conditions with dagger#4 and my heal, and dealing steady damage through dagger autos and axe2.

I usually roam, so I just prefer a sustain type of build compared to burst damage. Glass Necro definitely has a place in wvw, and deals really nice damage, but in reality, when good players realize you are a glass necro, they will just CC you and kill you very fast, regardless of whether or not you can make clever use of walk/wurm.

Bhawb.7408:

No, but nerfing Vampiric Master changes nothing, nor does buffing the other 4 siphon-related traits unbalance MMs.

You are absolutely certain that if VM were to be left alone, and that VP and Vampiric were buffed up to a level that would make them useful to non-minion builds, that Minion Master builds wouldn’t trade in Transfusion, MoE, Fetid consumption, or even Bloodthirst for VP?

I mean, Vampiric is picked up by MM Necros regardless, so if it got the buff it deserved, MM’s would get a buff either way, very possibly pushing their self healing into crazy land.

Soldier is a very solid choice. I personally prefer Knight’s Armor, because I feel that Necro’s benefit much more from armor than from extra health, and I like having higher critical strike chance.

But I would say if you are mostly going to be playing with wells that you should avoid condition damage. And while healing power can be good for well of blood and transfusion, it just isnt worth losing so much damage. Healing power scaling in this game is pretty terrible in my opinion.

You make good points and I do not disagree with you. I am just frustrated by many personal experiences on my Necro where a warrior can literally retreat whenever he wants by GS 3 away from me, then GS 5 out of range. Both of these remove any roots or slows I may be tagging him with.

I do not expect the entire rebalancing of warrior GS or anything to be done really, but I am just tired of games where the tanky heavy armor class can outrun cloth and leather classes. It makes no sense at all to me.

KlausKNT.9302:

See You in future !

Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need.. ‘roads’…

jpersson.7368:

I’m probably going to face the Wrath of the Forum for saying this, but I feel Vampiric Master limits build diversity, and makes siphoning harder to scale. Then again, I feel our defensive trait lines need some work in general.

Don’t be afraid, you are correct.

I usually gain a lot of experience simply from running around getting waypoints that I know I will need later on for endgame dungeons or guild missions. Maybe you could try that?

I completely agree that stealth in this game is absolutely terrible mechanically, and I also agree it can be really frustrating that good thieves can escape pretty much whenever they want.

All I am saying is that more counters to stealth to me are not a good idea because thieves are already hurting in PvP after recent nerfs.

Thieves aren’t exactly in need of nerfs right now… They had their perma-stealth trait fixed, and any more nerfs to stealth would really cripple them. Just because stealth is annoying doesn’t mean it needs to be nerfed.

As for Mesmers, I think PU specs are OP currently, but I don’t think nerfing stealth is the way to bring them into balance.

While one Necro ability to keep a player out of stealth for 3 or 4 seconds wouldn’t be gamebreaking for Stealthers, it just isn’t needed.

Eh I am not really on board with this. Thieves are not one of Necro’s counters(unless you run berserker gear), and Thieves in general do not need any more nerfs.

While I agree Necro’s need to be able to keep their targets from running away, if Thieves couldn’t escape via stealth, they would be extremely easy to kill.

As for Mesmers, I don’t think they are very balanced right now but I don’t think pulling them out of stealth once in awhile would fix anything.

borrok.9267:

When you were a baby, did your mother accidentally toss you up into a ceiling fan?

Accidentally? No.

Warriors aren’t as overpowered as most people make them out to be, but they are definitely at the top of the food chain right now, and they are a very easy class to learn so it just makes the issue worse.

It starts with their extremely efficient traits. Where another class might have +20% bleed duration, the warrior gets +50%. Where other classes get -20% cooldown on a skill, the warrior gets -20% cooldowns AND something else like might on crit or whatever. Where other classes must sacrifice a utility slot or an entire rune set for movement speed increase, the warrior need only spend 10 trait points. Warriors have 5 sec cd on weapon swaps, everyone else = 10.

Its just that Warriors are so polished. It is kind of easy to tell that more time was taken making sure the class was finished properly than some of the other professions.

As far as Healing Signet goes, I’m not entirely sure it needs a nerf. I get that Warriors sacrifice a burst heal for it, and I know how to counter it. But the problem comes from Healing Sig + Passive Adrenalin Healing + Perma Regen Boon + high armor, etc. The amount of brainless passive healing available to Warriors is just crazy. When you add in blocks, immunes, it just seems OP to most people.

If I had to choose anything to nerf for Warriors I would actually go with sword/GS mobility. I find it absolutely game breaking that a Heavy armor class can outrun not only every other class in the game, but the MAGE class as well. It doesnt matter if you have to “trait” for it(you really dont other than breaking roots), it is still crazy imbalanced.

I think Warrior damage is fine, I think their tankiness is fine, and I think their stuns are fine as well. I just dont think being able to have a guaranteed escape skill on top of this is balanced in the slightest.

Squishy classes like Ele’s and Thieves should be highly mobile, not tanks.

I do play a Warrior at 80, usually with either GS/LB or GS/Mace/Shield, and I just feel dirty powerful compared to my Thief or Necro(who both have to make sacrifices in order to gain either high damage or high survival).

I run a build that allows me to sit in Deathshroud for a long time and then quickly refill my Life force in order to jump back in.

As far as armor goes, I would either go with PVT or Knight’s with a few pieces of Berserker so you have decent damage. I prefer to reach 50% crit out of DS but 30% would be fine if you have 15 in Curses. So if you spec for 15 in Curses just go for a mix of PVT/Knights/Berserkers. The important thing is to have 100% crit in DS and to have high armor rating.

I wouldn’t say that Hybrids are only suited for smaller fights. They can still make use of Epidemic and all the Area damage that a normal well build would use.

I have always wanted to make a Hybrid PvP build but I could never find a way to gain a high enough armor rating while also maintaining high condition damage and power damage.

Closest I could do was like 20/25/25/0/0 with a mix of Knight’s/Rampager/Celestial. It was a fun build but I missed my Soul Reaping traits too much.

I just realized that this is in Spvp hehe. I don’t really play =(

0/20/0/20/30 is a great build and before the patch it was the build I used for WvW.

It is great for Wells(they have nice synergy with Deathly Perception), and when not in a group you can make it a spectral/siphon build that has decent damage, high armor, and nice sustain.

I like Necromancers being a selfish class as far as healing and boon sharing etc.

I have always felt that a Necro should help his party by weakening the enemies they are fighting.

Area Weakness, area chills, cripples, blinds, etc.

The only problem with this is that many times, other classes can do these things just as well as we can for some reason. Also, most bosses are immune to these effects, or greatly reduce them.

I was deciding between mainhand options to pair with my shield and I think I like mace the best. The extra block and multiple CC’s is just the best match for me.

Yes the stun is easier to dodge now, but I don’t have a problem with that because thats just called balance.

lettucemode.3789:

Stx.4857:

Hmm… did you miss the SR 15 pt at all? I love my auto spectral armor…

I have tried 10/20/25/0/15.. That has worked pretty well, although as always, I miss my Blood traits.

I didn’t notice it, actually…then again I am just getting back into the game after a long break. I forgot that trait even existed, heh. I’ll play my current build some while aware of the difference, then give 10/0/25/20/15 a shot. I will miss Chill of Death, though.

So many good traits, and I can’t have them all…argh!

10/0/25/20/15 is another one I want to try but giving up 20 in Curses would be so hard for me. Fury, higher crit, Chill of Death, Weakening Shroud, and especially Spectral Attunement.

So many good traits indeed =(

Yes, please don’t nerf Warriors. I am having too much fun on my new alt with 20k HP 2500 armor regening 550 HP per second baseline in zerker gear!

Terravos.4059:

I’m trying to understand this thread

Necro’s are now terrible because they dislike a new healing skill that was added?

Nope.

Necro’s are kitten ed because the healing skill was good then they made it useless just before releasing it. Also, they are nerfing abilities that do not need a nerf, all because of Dhuumfire.

We are also kitten ed that they hyped up a big change to Blood Magic to make it useful but ended up doing nothing to it other than fix healing power scaling for 1 or 2 spells.

In PvE, since launch, we have had some of the absolute worst group utility and support, while also providing no cleave damage, and average single target damage.

We also continue to be one of the worst attrition professions even though their repeated design goal for the Necro is to be an attrition class.

It has nothing to do with being strong or not. At least to me.

lettucemode.3789:

Stx.4857:

That’s almost the same as what I run. 0/20/0/20/30 with mostly Knights but a mix of Berserker and Cavalier. I love the build but I was thinking there must be some way to improve it with the patch but I’m not sure yet. I really want 10 Spite but don’t want to give up anything.

Try the buffed Grandmaster minors in Death and Blood, they are pretty nice now.

Last night, I decided to go crazy and mix it up…switched to 20/0/25/25/0, same everything else. Turns out I like it a bit more! It just feels…free-er, or something. My overall damage and survivability actually increased (despite the loss of stability) thanks to those minors and the buffed Reaper’s Protection. Pretty weird but it ended up working out…give it a shot and see what you think.

Hmm… did you miss the SR 15 pt at all? I love my auto spectral armor…

I have tried 10/20/25/0/15.. That has worked pretty well, although as always, I miss my Blood traits.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

KOPPER.1458:

7/10 I do like the skull face on charr.

This is my WVW look right now. Top
Roaming / Condi Bottom —this one needs some work, not 100% happy with it.
Considered the Grenth hood but I like both masks I am using, so I dunno.

Where is you neck? 7/10, don’t like hair.

Need to reanimate topic again. My new-new look. Still experimenting with colors.

Hmm… 7.5/10

It looks strikingly similar to Paladin t2 armor from WoW. Pretty unique I would say, but not a fan of the colors on Necro.

I wish Necromancers had better access to torment… It makes a lot more sense than burning, and it also makes sense considering we are supposed to keep players from fleeing.

Here are my ideas:

Death Minor Adept: Recently Deceased – After revival, you take 15% increased healing from all sources. (Lasts 10 seconds)

Death Major Adept: Deathly Resilience – You take 30% less direct damage below the health threshold. (Health Threshold = 25%)

I really like your ideas. Especially the 3rd one!

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Stx.4857:

I said this in another forum thread and lots of people jumped on me. I’m glad that at least one other person understands this obvious truth.

But it shouldn’t be nerfed, because it will completely ruin MM.

If they buff baseline siphoning, and nerf that minion siphoning trait, everybody wins. The way it is currently, only minion builds can be siphoners, which is just wrong.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Siphoning don’t need buff. You know why? Because MM will be immortal.

You do know that MM isn’t the only Necromancer build.

It is only build which get profit from siphoning. Only way to give siphoning to other builds – nerf vampiric mastery.

I said this in another forum thread and lots of people jumped on me. I’m glad that at least one other person understands this obvious truth.

Are you saying that having high uptime on Protection and other boons from the Guardian increases the effectiveness of SoV moreso than our other heals? Or is it that since the Guard can cleanse you, the loss of condition removal from CC just isn’t as big of a hit?

Siphoning is a viable method for survival if you pair it with Spectral/DS attrition. Its not as good as it should be, but it is noticable. You can leech 200hp per second with just Vampiric+Vampiric Precision if you have 80%+ crit with fury.

lettucemode.3789:

Stx.4857:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Stx.4857:

I wanted to try a build that has 100% crit with high armor and see if I could sustain my health via siphons that way.

The only thing is if it wasn’t useful I didn’t want to waste my laurels so I haven’t tried it yet.

Simple answer – No it isnt, No need to waste time and Laurels as it simply isnt. The Siphons scale poorly with stats such as Healing power as well which really doesnt help.

I would never use healing power, it gimps damage too much…

My idea was to use the Knights gear that has precision as a main stats plus runes and traits and food to reach 100% crit(with Fury), and thus proccing Vampiric Precision on EVERY attack. Auto attacking with the dagger would heal for roughly 300 per second from vampiric precision+vampiric, and then you add on blood sigil, lifesteal food, regen boon, etc.

I thought maybe it would be enough to build around but meh.

My current power necro build does this, you can only get up to around 80% crit with Fury though. I do 0/20/0/20/30, knight’s armor and weps with those ascended trinkets that are like Berserker’s but have a tad bit of Vitality on them too. Condi mesmers can screw it over pretty hard, and it’s missing some of the really nice Spite traits, but otherwise it works pretty well and is excellent in duels.

I thought that the new siphon signet would power the build up a bit, but in practice I have found that CC still works better due to its full condi clear. If you don’t use CC then you have to slot something like Well of Power, which is nice but kind of breaks the build’s flow a bit.

That’s almost the same as what I run. 0/20/0/20/30 with mostly Knights but a mix of Berserker and Cavalier. I love the build but I was thinking there must be some way to improve it with the patch but I’m not sure yet. I really want 10 Spite but don’t want to give up anything.

Rednik.3809:

Rezzet.3614:

the only problem with warriors is the ridiculous mobility paired with their heavy CC

Please, tell me how to acquire 3rd weapon set, I wanna have “ridiculous mobility paired with heavy CC” too. Currently, I can have only mobility without damage and CC (GS+Sw+Wh), or much worse mobility (1/2) with some CC (GS+Hammer or Hammer+Sw+Wh).

O.O

I get that warriors dont have tons of CC and high mobility(Hammer vs Greatsword), but to say that GS lacks damage is silly. You dont need to have sw/wh for great mobility.. just GS is more than other professions have.

I wish there was a stat combo like Rampager that had power as main stat. I really dislike rampager because of precision being the main stat…

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Stx.4857:

I wanted to try a build that has 100% crit with high armor and see if I could sustain my health via siphons that way.

The only thing is if it wasn’t useful I didn’t want to waste my laurels so I haven’t tried it yet.

Simple answer – No it isnt, No need to waste time and Laurels as it simply isnt. The Siphons scale poorly with stats such as Healing power as well which really doesnt help.

I would never use healing power, it gimps damage too much…

My idea was to use the Knights gear that has precision as a main stats plus runes and traits and food to reach 100% crit(with Fury), and thus proccing Vampiric Precision on EVERY attack. Auto attacking with the dagger would heal for roughly 300 per second from vampiric precision+vampiric, and then you add on blood sigil, lifesteal food, regen boon, etc.

I thought maybe it would be enough to build around but meh.

I wanted to try a build that has 100% crit with high armor and see if I could sustain my health via siphons that way.

The only thing is if it wasn’t useful I didn’t want to waste my laurels so I haven’t tried it yet.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Stx.4857:

Not sure what to say. MM is one of our best builds atm, and if people calling it a noob build turns you off from it, then you must also hate Warriors, Spirit Rangers, and pretty much every Bunker build…

Actually i meant thanks as in Thanks!
Forgot the smiley on the end for emphasis… and i maybe should ’ve said it was the opponent syaing it..

again .. Thanks!

My bad! Lol. My sarcasm sensor failed me hard.

Not sure what to say. MM is one of our best builds atm, and if people calling it a noob build turns you off from it, then you must also hate Warriors, Spirit Rangers, and pretty much every Bunker build…

Consuming Lifeforce to gain health is an interesting idea. Sounds fun and would lead to new build ideas.

I am not a big time Spvper but I believe even after the patch that Dhuumfire condition spec(30/20/0/0/20) is still the best condition build out there.

Minions is also viable(perhaps not in upper tier), but it is a great spec to hold home point. 20/0/30/20/0 and 20/0/20/30/0 both work but I prefer the Blood version for the incredible condition removal.

I forgot to mention that.. If A-Net really wants Necro to be an attrition class then we have to be able to benefit from healing/siphons while in DS…

When I make suggestions on how to improve the Necro I try to keep in mind what is realistic and what is not. A-Net obviously doesn’t have the time or resources to create intricate new abilities, at least I don’t think they do since it takes forever for little changes to happen.

I agree that since our mobility is pathetic that we should be able to keep people from running away.

I think a perfect place to start would be Spectral Grasp. This skill is currently very unreliable because of terrain glitches, but it has the right idea because it pulls foes to you and chills them. I think that they should really try to make this skill more reliable so that it works at least 90% of the time, change it from a projectile to an instant attack like scepter auto, or hell even give it a ground target and let it pull multiple foes.

The biggest issue Necro’s have keeping targets in combat is that many mobility skills like Warrior Greatsword and thief roll skills remove roots, chills, and cripples. So I feel that if Necro is truly meant to keep targets in combat that they need to root them with a non-condition type of debuff.

It should be:

Passive: Steal 900 Health on your next attack, 3 sec ICD. This longer ICD makes it useful for non-dagger users.

Lyn.2098:

To me, as someone stated in another thread, DS has to be something that’s hard to get in to, but that elicits the reaction OMG THAT NECRO JUST WENT INTO DEATHSHROUD. RUNAWAY!!!!11!!1!!
So everything you said, in overdrive, but very hard to get.

If DS were harder to get into, then many current builds would be broken. DS as a mechanic works great right now I think, it just needs some polish.

I disagree mostly with your ideas for Deathshroud. I like the way DS plays currently, I think it takes skillful play to know how to utilize DS to maximum potential for offense and defense.

The only thing I would change about it is making it more condition friendly, even just adding 1 bleed to the #1 attack would work for me. Also I do agree with you that the 6 through 9 slots should have abilities in DS. Corrupt Boon is a good one, another Chill or Cripple would be good.. anything to keep people in a fight(which is what we are supposed to be able to do).