Guild Wars 2

I have recently stopped playing my necromancer in favor of my elementalist in PvE. The primary reason behind this requires us to ask what the necromancer brings to PvE that no other class can bring. The necromancer is dead last as far as team related utility goes. Many other classes can cleanse allied conditions faster or more often than necromancers can. They can buff allies with boons, reflect or block projectiles, and drop combo fields that actually aid the group.

Necromancers do have decent utility, but only from a PvP aspect. Blind is rendered nearly useless from the defiant buff, and does nothing against certain enemies (looking at you dredge fractal). Well of power would be great if more content used condition based offense, but in PvE conditions are a mere annoyance. Other than that, well of suffering is terrific for buffing party damage, but thats our main source of party assistance.

Proposed changes:

Give us more utility skills, or traits, or revamp our current unused utilities to be more party focused.

As far as new/revamped utilites

1) Spectral wall now reflects projectiles instead of fear enemies in PvE

Reasoning: fear is terrific in pvp, but very lackluster in PvE, this is a skill that I use in one instance in PvE (I drop it on the bombs in the dredge fractal to keep them off)

2) Empowering wells: Turn blood magic into a more party support focused trait line. For this one, wells give boons based on what they are. Example being, well of suffering gives allies might on each pulse, well of blood gives allies regeneration on each pulse.

Reasoning: wells are terrific, but a little lackluster from a party support viewpoint. Having a trait that gives party boons would go a long way to helping the necromancer become PvE viable.

3) Axe cleave: Though this isn’t likely, I would love to have a cleave weapon on my necromancer.

Reasoning: Conditions aren’t really viable for PvE due to conditions cap and the slow ramp up. We need power focused aoe to keep us in the PvE meta.

4) Something that would help us the most would be making more condition focused damage in PvE. Our strength lies in being able to convert, transfer, and manipulate conditions, but currently conditions are a minor annoyance in PvE.

I would really like to hear the necromancer forum’s feedback on these suggestions and hear what you have to add.

I have no issues with thieves trying to stealth away, generslly i already have about 3 to 4 conditions plus 10 stacks of bleed, from there i just swap to staff and search for them with a coupke marks, if one pops, drop fear mark and wait to be able to stomp.

I am on the same boat as you guys, swapping to my ele so i actually have a cleave weapon, projectile defense, invuln, and vigor which basically constitutes the pve meta

Because we have invulnerability, oh and 3 blocks from arcane shield. Shouldn’t need more than that in pve

Gotta love how theres a post like this in every profession forum at least 2 times a week. I regularly do 6 to 8k auto attacks with lightning whip in lvl 49 fractals (counting both hits). I can maintain 25 might stacks on all party members when coordinating with our guards. I can go invulnerable multiple times to rez, and bring orjectile protection.

In pvp there are 3 main factors that determine the outcome of a fight. 1) who gets the first hit 2)build type (tanky condition dealer is hard to beat on a burst) 3) skill difference. Note that class isn’t even relevant in that, and that the person to land the first hit will generally have a massive advantage. Ive killed warriors before my first attunement came off cooldown because i surprised them, the very element that makes thieves so strong. You also have to know the limits of your build, s/d burst isnt going to beat a bunker unless they are really bad.

Elementalists have a lot of damage, just require a fast and very active playstyle, please dont try to take that away because you enjoy slapping 1.

I personally have found my calling with 0/30/10/20/10, d/f and swapping to scepter for certain bosses (like grawl shaman). I get great survivibility, dps, and party support through healing and might stacking.

I won’t be looking for a new fractals build for awhile, 7k cleaving auto attacks are fun.

I personally like celestial trinkets, most stats possible and eles use them all. For armor I run berserker for easy stuff, and substitute my chest and legs for pvt for harder content. Ruby orbs or scholar runes for best pve dps. Scholar is better if you’re over 90% hp more than 25% of the time.

Yea, all these changes have finally broke my will, gonna play elementalist for a while until they decide to give necros something unique to bring to a party.

Its because of the spectator slots, drives me nuts too, especially when I’m trying out builds.

Hint the a net servers have 5 v 5 if their number is over 100, otherwise it’s 8v8 with spectator slots

I don’t think it changed much, just pvt or knights armor with zerker, knights, or celestial trinkets. Mainly depends on the size of the conflict you are planning on fighting in. For huge group you want to be tankier, small group you can afford to bring more damage.

Traits and utilities are preference based, but I recommend always bringing mist form for escape, and armor of earth for stability.

Traits are mainly defensive and arcana based. 10 or 20 in earth, 20 or 30 in water, and 20 or 30 in arcana. Any mixture of those is strong. Go more water for additional condition cleansing, 30 arcana for evasive arcana.

I would recommend trying a few different builds to see what you prefer, just try to stick to defensive traits unless you can survive with ease. Good luck and have fun

Not sure if it’s just my phone but i can’t see your traits on that link. I personally use the d/f build stickied at the top with some changes. I prefer arcane wave to lightning flash, as its great to stack more might.

Also fgs is the highest dps we can achieve through using the untargeted 4th skill on enemies that are against a wall. I choose dagger mainhand because lightning whip is strong in the stacking at melee range meta.

Staff is still good for fractals and i see a lot of players using it, but you end up trading damage for support and range. Oh and swirling winds is amazing for fractals like grawl, though i swap to scepter for that one

My personal idea for the axe rework, which is needed, is to make it a much needed melee cleave weapon.

Make the auto attack a chain, take away the vuln (maybe keep it one the 3rd hit of the chain)

Ghastly claws should simply be pb cone aoe giving life force for each enemy hit (gives greater sustain in dungeons and group fights) this would be balanced similar to mesmers blurred frenzy, though far less damage than hundred blades as it shouldn’t root us.

IMO the 3 skill can stay the same. As other people have stated having a pull would be very nice and make axes much more desirable in dungeons, but it might be a little op.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Yeah you had a good trait distribution Also for dueling you should change phantasmal fury to deceptive evasion according to the situation (to keep clones up and keep the compounding power bonus).

That’s for stuff like lupi who kill your illusions fast right?

Wow that build is almost exactly what I picked out from looking at the traits and utilities, only difference was that I took 20% more phantasm health rather than glamour cooldowns.

Thanks everyone you’ve been really helpful

Should i take that aoe healing mantra trait, forgot which one it is specifically, but it’s in inspiration.

Thanks for your response, I’m mainly looking for the sword/sword and sword/focus build, with greatsword for certain bosses. I had already guessed on the most of those utilities but just wanted to insure that I hadn’t missed any.

For healing is the mantra better or the staple heal based on amount of current illusions the best?

Also, how does sigil of battle end up working well with phantasms, didn’t think I’d be swapping very often?

Thanks for the help

As the title says I just hit 80 last night and bought full zerker gear. I’m looking for a dungeon, mainly fractal build that is phantasm focused. Currently using 10/30/0/20/10 and full scholar runes. Sigils are fire on main hand weapons, bloodlust on offhand.

I currently have 2 swords, focus, and a greatsword all with Sigils. Are there any specific traits I should look to use, same with utilities. Also are there any must have traits/utilities for specific bosses (besides feedback)

Thank you

I think we need a teleport like mesmer blink, stun break plus maybe aoe poison or blind, hell I’d be happy taking that on my bar even if it was a 90 second cooldown.

I’m not saying i go in completely solo, and its hard as kitten to be killed in plague, just start running out in the last few seconds of plague and pop shroud. If they wasted cooldowns on you, you’re doing your job right.

30 20 0 0 20, make sure to take terror, dhuumfire, and extended fear duration. Use death shroud into plague to single man turn the tide of the battle. Very fun build and i can usually make it in and out of the enemy zerg

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

SrebX.6498:

This is ridiculous. We’re not highly favorite for Fractals and dungeons because thats mainly single-target DPSing and support, which are 2 aspects of Necro that fall short compared to other classes.

-And because high end PVE is extremely unfavorable towards the necromancer. The necromancer is a class that revolves around conditions and control, and both are things that bosses and champions in PVE are immune or resilient against. We hit the condition cap constantly with bleeding and vulnerability, and several bosses count as structures, and are thus not affected by conditions.

SrebX.6498:

No tanking ability? did you forget you have more movement debuffs than almost all classes? O, and you might not have noticed, but we have a 2nd HP Bar… which might help a bit

We have the worst defensive ability in the whole game. Several PVE bosses hit straight through a full Death Shroud bar, and your health bar in one hit. Any hit we soak, leaks into our actual health. Classes with invulnerability/blocking/evade do not have this problem. And on top of that, we need to build life force as well to use our ability, we can’t use healing skills while using it, and it disables our skills when we exit the ability. It’s absolutely rubbish in comparison to every other class in the game.

Agreed, necromancers need serious pve love. I feel our pvp and wvw is balanced, but fractals and dungeons in general reveal all the weaknesses of Necros. I can’t join groups with another condition Necro, can’t use plague for any boss encounters, and generally have such weak dps that other classes are carrying me. We have very niche skills that are strong in dungeons.

I’m just going to say that necromancers are balanced at wvw and pvp levels. Their primary issue is from a pve standpoint. Lack of party buffing utility has crippled their viability in dungeons and fractals. Furthermore lack of consistent high damage makes them a weaker pick when compared to warriors and mesmers, both of those classes having more utility than the necromancer. With the current dungeon meta, crowd control is useless, damage and utility are necessities.

This leaves 3 solid dungeon meta classes, warriors, guardians, and mesmers. All the other classes pale in comparison. Necromancers cannot hope to compete with 4k auto attacks and 25k hundred blades, yet somehow this has been going on for over a year now without being addressed.

Also, given the direct damage other classes are capable of, the condition cap seems pointless. My 5k fully stacked condition damage seems pathetic compared to a 25k hundred blades which is aoe. I understand the limit in pvp, but it’s truly crippling in pve.

katniss.6735:

For Pete’s sake, don’t change dragon tooth. I know they’ll ruin it if they try. (ie. vs Siege.)

My biggest peeve is the switching of targets with channeled auto-casts in air and earth. You have to have air 2 or 3 up to switch targets most of the time, or it will take 3s+ to change target. I’ve stated this several times elsewhere.

The ramp-up in Air 1 is also tedium. Sure, it’s cool to hit something 8 times (or whatever) like a ranger, but the minim hit is so far away in damage from the final hit. I specifically have a zerkers set for Air 1 S/D, (and Staff), and would enjoy faster animations on both weapons, with less hits in S/D, but a scale up from lowest hit. I don’t want to lose big crits for any reason. It’s expensive to make a set that bursts hard. And you usually have to trade all of your survivability to do it. You are banking on rallying to keep your full uptime from mass-aoe crits.

I know full well that they scaled down the number of targets in beam tech with Air 1 with the last patch, as I can barely hit 2 things close together now.

There is no ramp up on air 1. The final hit is the entire damage of the full channel. That’s how all channel skills work that do multiple hits.

My biggest issue with scepter currently is that it has absolutely 0 crowd control. The AoEs are impossible to land without being either A) next to the person (phoenix) or B) and more effective with all the AoEs having them perma stunned or immobilized while the slow AoE explodes/drops.

To add to that, both the other ele mainhands have a massive amount of healing on water attunement. Water trident has an extremely small amount of healing and damage, its almost a useless spell. I would rather see it replaced with a dedicated healing spell.

Currently the scepter has the most potential burst, but it is the hardest to land by far. With no crowd control or healing, it has become a very niche weapon for circumstances when the mainhand dagger just won’t work.

We could really use reliable ranged damage that doesn’t require stationary enemies (the staff has that covered). Hopefully they will take your suggestions into consideration and at least rework this weapon. They seem to want to steer us away from the D/D cookie cutter build, but the staff isn’t built for 1v1s and the scepter is currently a mess for most combat.

Having over 300 hours on my elementalist, I can say I have never had anyone stand in my meteor shower long enough to be hit by 3 meteors in WvW. The players they are against are just awful, just downright awful. The are standing in all the AoEs. It would be similar to people standing in your Well of Suffering, and just ignoring the damage they are taking. Most of his healing is coming from his teammates dropping blast finishers in his water combo fields.

His damage would be ridiculously low against competent enemies. I’m lucky if my AoEs get two pulses on more than 2 enemies, because people just dodge roll out the second they see that red circle. You also have to consider that this is the situation staff ele excels at. Basically dropping AoEs that are extremely easy to avoid, but have high damage.

I personally enjoy death shroud as it is now. With the addition of a fifth skill and hopefully a damage condition, Death shroud will have something for all necromancer specs. It is essentially our invulnerability skill, much as thieves use stealth as theirs. While it isn’t true invulnerability, it is still an extremely powerful class mechanic.

Conditions still do quite a bit of damage. 20 bleeds at 150 a tick is 3k damage per second. That isn’t counting poison and all the other damage you are doing with your attacks. 3k dps is a lot more than I was getting on my ele unless multiple AoE fields were hitting the enemy. Add epidemic to that and we have a huge amount of damage output.

That being said, necro and ele are my only two lvl 80s, but I still feel necros are quite strong in PvE. Also, with the mist form nerf to eles, my necro has a far easier time surviving most dungeon content than my ele, even though he draws more aggro.

IMO the necro is the hardest class to get used to, especially in pvp. I played ele for awhile when I thought my necro was underpowered, but I find that I can kill people fairly easily on my necro as well. Going from thief to necro is possibly the largest change, going from highest mobility to the lowest, it will just take some time for you to get used to it. I highly recommend checking out Nemesis’ builds, stickied at the top of these forums. He goes into a lot of detail behind his reasoning behind everything from gear to skill usage in combat. His terror build is especially fun, and more than a couple times thieves have used their stolen fear on me, only to be feared from my trait and downed from that and the conditions ticking on them.

Just stick with it, try out different builds in spvp, and you will probably find something you enjoy to play. For closer to thief gameplay you might want to try a dagger and well build, as you can burst people down fairly quickly after ccing them in well of suffering.

Mesmers and thieves are the two most frustrating classes to play against, so players rage when they lose against them. Stealth and clones are very difficult for some people, myself included. I started playing mesmer in pvp only to learn about how to counter them, and I found that they are much harder to play than I ever imagined. Maintaining clones and phantasms is fairly difficult, and timing your shatter is too.

I feel like a lot of people pick up mesmer cause they think they are an overpowered easy class, and then become frustrated when they suck.

My only issue is how slow the axe 1 animation is

Bhawb.7408:

They have actually added things we have asked for. Nemesis recommended a very similar change to what is now Terror.

And terror is possibly our strongest conditionmancer trait for PvP, something no other class has, and it works extremely well with a condition spec.

I was looking around at dev posts and noticed Jon Peters said this in a warrior thread.

JonPeters.5630:

….Really signets are still going to have a hard time without a stun breaker (particularly in PvP and WvW). Obviously Dolyak signet is the most likely candidate here. Our next balance patch will absolutely be looking at stun breakers and spreading them out on all professions to make more categories of utilities viable. I’ll probably post this in general later as well but this was a larger balance pass and we will likely let this meta sit a bit longer than previous ones while we work towards taking time to push more less effective builds towards viable status.

Jon

I cut out the part where he was talking about healing signet in warrior builds, but it seems like stun breaker buffs are coming for most classes. This is amazing news for necros as we have some of the worst options for stun breakers. Really hope to see some buffs and changes to our spectral skills (especially armor).

Note: He said balance patch so it will probably won’t be next patch which is a bug fix patch. Hopefully the one after that though.

The only real change I’d like to see if getting some life force at the start of sPvP and tPvP matches. Doesn’t have to be the full bar, but not having DS available during the early fights sucks.

It’s weak to rely on Death Shroud for damage in PvP as it will last for such a short time. I currently run the terror build and with 20 in SR and 2800 armor, my DS rarely lasts more than 3 or 4 seconds when being focused by someone. In PvE you will be able to get off quite a few Life Blasts, but PvP is just too fast paced to make much use of it.

Also, you will regenerate your life force at a much slower pace in sPvP, and its rarely worth using Life Blast when lower than 75% life force.

Guys if you think other professions are so much better than necro, I invite you to go play one and quit the constant whining. Whining does absolutely no good, the devs probably won’t bother to read anything that isn’t constructive.

If you look in the other class forums there is at least 1 post with major support stating the class is bad for X reason. Criticism gets us nowhere, offer suggestions instead of just calling necromancer bad. I played ele for months and I feel like I contribute just as much or more to a team with my necromancer. The main reason for complaint when playing the Necro is their lack of burst, this is part of the class design. We have higher overall dps than most classes, just no real burst beside axe 2, which hits a little less than mesmer sword 2.

DeathenShada.6397:

Saw this on another forum topic apparently quoted from Anet "Awesome ideas guys. Just wanted you to know we’re watching/listening to your ideas for things that fit GW2.

Keep in mind that we are trying to find a condition that can be used by multiple classes (doesn’t have to be all classes, but we like to keep the condies/boons low in the game so that it’s easy for players to learn) and something that has cool play for the caster, as well as the target.

So, with that in mind, keep the ideas flowing!"

So are you going to change it and come up with a new idea then Nemesis?

His idea is still good for that, cool play for the caster and the target. The condition will still benefit necros the most because of epidemic, unless they end up giving other classes access to AoE versions of it.

I seriously feel like we should get access to confusion as they are probably going to give mesmers our new condition.

Nice, I’m looking in to getting the rampager’s set on my necro, but currently working towards eye of rodgort so it’s going to take me awhile haha. Hybrid just seems a lot stronger than pure condition damage because it has burst without sacrificing a large amount of condition damage.

That was some awesome gameplay, really good showing of the power of a hybrid build. Do you mind posting your build, and like what your armor and accessory stat types are? I’ve been interested in working towards an exotic set for a hybrid build but I’m not sure where to start with gear. Currently I’m fully specced for rabid conditionmancer, and working on ascended for that.

I hope you keep making WvW vids like this, its really fun to see other people play the class and learn tricks from their gameplay.

Kravick.4906:

Bull Zooker.1672:

cempa. thats a silly thing to say.

Hes got a point though. Having multiple level 80s myself, a lot of these fights would have ended a lot more quickly, and easier, as something with more burst. Necro burst is rather low by comparison.

Try Nemesis’ terror build, its actually amazing “burst”. The burst comes from dropping conditions on them and fear chaining them once they are around 50-75% hp depending on what class they are. The fear will tick for over 1k per second, plus your conditions have free ticking time. I tried it last night in pvp and was winning 2v1’s faster than I could on my mesmer or elementalist. The fear just prevents them from doing anything but watching themselves die a slow death.

I love running 6x undead, but some people mix runes of the krait and something else that both increase bleed duration. You can also pick runes of the nightmare.

TBH dagger is still a far strong choice for what you are interested in. Deathly swarm can transfer the corruption self conditions to the enemy (such as the BiP self bleed) and gives you access to two AoE bleed skills which you can then follow with epidemic. Staff gives you another AoE bleed and poison AoE. If you combine all 3 of these skills and follow it with epidemic, it is far more effective than using focus.

I would recommend trying a power build if you really enjoy using the focus. But, that being said its your character and do what you enjoy.

Jack Pumpkinhead.1534:

Nobody seems to be commenting on the pure insanity that is the Temple of Grenth event chain yet, so here I go.

Sure Lyssa and Balthazar are harder with the new adds, but I’ve seen them unlocked a couple of times. Grenth simply can’t be done. The Gates of Arah event chain sounds like it’s ridiculous now, too.

Has anyone else noticed that Grenth hasn’t been open and uncontested even once since the patch?

I had a massive group attempting it last night and it was still impossible to keep Jonez alive during P2 while he performs his cleansing ritual. I don’t remember it ever being that hard. After about 15 tries, I gave up. Too many hours wasted.

Everyone I’ve met while trying the guesting method on other servers was having the same problems, too. The enemies seem to be OP now. Upon spawn, they all seem to be using the same skill at the same time on Jonez, one-shotting him.

Sometimes it was the Spiders, sometimes the Wraiths.

The spiders just massacre him in seconds, and their hp pools are so large that even with everyone focusing on dpsing them they still overwhelm him. On Yak’s Bend last night I did the Grenth temple run at least 10 times and everytime we would kill the priest and the adds from the champion spider would eventually out number us 3 to 1. What’s worse is that they seem to focus Jonez far more than players. IE: Jonez being all the way across the cave from the grouped adds and no players near him, yet the spiders still go after him.

That being said, Melandru and Dwayna weren’t too bad to unlock.

I would love it if the buffed the curses one to affect condition damage as well, but I just don’t see that happening. Almost every class has grandmaster traits like these, conditional small boosts to direct damage.

ditchy.8792:

Hi all, necromancer is my 1st lv80, and been playing it as my main for wvw and pve.
Rather than ‘weak’ i prefer necro to be called as ‘unique’.

Plague form allows me to attract and initiate attacks to camps veterans with no.2 skill, and my DPS build thief friend, taking those veteran one by one.
Lately, on 3vs3 or 3vs5 small raid party, my 3 person party mostly won the battle, because i narrowed their vision and attacks to me, where my partners taking them down one by one. Blinding wells, and combo staff no.4 blast finisher for area blindness supports my team.

Chasing fleeing foes would be easy with no.2 DS skill, change back to normal and use scepter no.2, or staff no.3 to slow them down, and let my team mates do the rest.
with necro in the team, maybe the team DPS fell, but the survival rate is boosted.

Classes with low hp pools usually is my main target during team combat in wvw, why? Bleeding doesnt concern armors, with its fixed DoT. 133ish stacked bleeding is annoying TBH.

So…the more you understand necro skills, and how it works, it would be very interesting class to play.
Then again, its not the gun, but the man behind the gun.

It’s more that their just so different from the GW1 necro

Bhawb.7408:

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

I personally like its WvW team potential. Have 5 necros pick a target (or host) to unload conditions on using staff and scepter AoEs, then instant 5 person epidemic to infect the zerg. When I do it solo it can pressure 5 players pretty badly, I can’t even imagine it with 5 epidemics.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-tutorials/first

Try some of those builds if you really want an in depth guide on usage, tips, and tricks. Condition and power are both viable and its whichever you prefer. If you are running conditions you will generally use scepter/dagger and staff. Power builds usually use dagger/ warhorn or focus and can use axe/ warhorn or focus or staff. There are also hybrid builds which are covered in one of Nemesis’ videos.

I personally run power in PvP, mainly because I use conditions in PvE so the change is nice.

My power build is generally 30/15/10/0/15, with dagger/warhorn and axe/focus. I swap the traits and utilities around fairly often, but close to death if I want to focus on dagger damage or axe training if I want to focus on using my axe.

I use soldier’s amulet with berserker jewel, sigils of energy on both offhands, bloodlust on one mh, force on the other. I run 5 runes of the citadel and one rune that gives +25 power (there are several options for it any are good).

My personal preference on utilities are, spectral wall, spectral walk, and that well of darkness (I think that’s the name of it, the blinding well). Flesh golem or Lich Form for elite, usually Lich unless I swap spectral wall for Well of Suffering.

Tactics are basically open with axe, try to get some suffering on them with focus 4, then 2,3, or 5 depending on positioning. Use 3 if they are moving around a lot or if there are multiple enemies around, 5 if they have a few boons, especially protection. Axe two is your primary source of burst on axe, you want to use it then swap to dagger as long as you have crippled or chilled them with 3 or 5. From dagger just get close and attack, warhorn 4 to interrupt obvious skills or stomps, dagger 3 to immobilize if you are having trouble with them kiting you.

Make sure to use death shroud to absorb large bursts as it will give you retaliation if you took the trait (I do). If a warrior does an obvious Hundred Blades setup, KD into immobilize, pop into death shroud and use 3 to fear him away once he starts HB. Use your fear wisely, you only get one every 20 seconds with this build. Death shroud does hit hard but in PvP life force is sparse so you want to save it for emergencies. If you are low hp, heal on cd, with a good amount of life force, use death shroud to wait out your heal.

Necros have it rough in PvP until you get used to using DS defensively, and timing your skills correctly. We don’t have the burst capabilities of other classes so your first priority should be surviving their burst, then you will have the upper hand usually. For backstab thieves when you are on a point just drop your blinding well when they stealth and laugh.

Necros become extremely tanky towards end game once you get traits and gear with 3 stats on it. The conditionmancer also needs enemies with large enough health pools to be able to stack a huge amount of conditions. I recommend leveling with minions and staff axe/whichever offhand you prefer. The axe lets you keep your distance and apply vuln that helps your minion damage, the staff can give them huge amounts of regeneration.

Minions are a good choice for utilities because they have a 100% up time and deal pretty good damage in addition to tanking for you. Wells, epidemic, signets (other than locust), and spectral skills are inferior at low levels because the fights are shorter and their cooldowns are fairly long. Also, consume conditions or summon blood fiend for your heal, I personally prefer cc because if your blood fiend dies before you can heal with it, you can get into trouble.

djtool.8372:

Its easy to stack vul 25 times with axe and focus. Would it be worth taking epidemic to spread that? Sadly I don’t tpvp outside of solo-join so I am being honest here.

I would vote no on the epidemic for just vulnerability. It takes up a slot that could be Well of Suffering or Spectral wall, both superior imo for pvp power builds. Well of Suffering will allow you to push enemies off points with it, and if you can lock enemies down inside of it using dagger 3 or flesh golem active you will be able to do a large amount of damage to them. Spectral wall is a great choice if you feel you need protection, its 10 stacks of vulnerability on enemies has a pretty long uptime with 30 in smite, just don’t forget to run through it for your protection.

Otaking.4675:

“Lich form hits like a truck and gives you stability, so if you’re running power make sure to use it in difficult fights.”

I run nothing but dagger well builds, ran Lich for the longest time but I eventually came to the conclusion Golem is just all around better if you’re running wells. You can just get so many charges + KD to keep them in your wells and do a decent amount of damage (charge hits hard) to make up for the burst of lich (which is easy to avoid and the slow lich form can get wrecked fast by decent players). Not to mention constant pressure of the pet if you are dodging past it properly in a 1v1 or 2v1 for instance.

Yea, I run that for well builds, but lich form is terrific in 2v1 situations, especially vs thieves. You can drop the marks around yourself when they stealth and it only takes 2 or 3 auto attacks to drop a glass cannon thief from full hp. When I run well builds I generally bring flesh golem for the additional cc.

Bas.7406:

I agree, but it’s not a minion issue as it is a pathing issue. Which has a lot to do with the way things are coded in wvwvw. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen abilities or Dark Grasp completely screw up due to unseen pathing issues.

Well my Flesh Golem has the worlds slowest reaction time to enemies I’m fighting, sometimes it’s perfect and focuses my target right when I need it to, sometimes it likes to watch as I fight on my own. I wish they would make a skill pop up next to death shroud (basically profession skill 2) if you have minions summoned that lets you control them similar to range, such as attack the target I’m targeting.