Guild Wars 2

This what I’m working on for open world. It’s very hybrid like with the focus, might and the (lesser) signet of vampirism but it’s what I consider best for a condition build.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V40;3o2GF0r37IVv2;9;4796;0138258036;4aJW8K;1oIExoIExd_lI5YEtN5;12939495969799B1YF8JXBm7YBmf

roachsrealm.9284:

you must all be playing a different game than I am. my full sinister necro is rocking the condition damage. burns for over 2k and bleeds almost to 4k in some fights. everything is melting.

I don’t get it either also are the burns and bleeds simultaneous or just 2 potentials?

Shiki.7148:

Tim.6450:

Shiki.7148:

Are you sure it isn’t because the corrupted boons are now selected randomly and the corruption simply missing the STAB-stack?

No I did use corrupt boon on only 3 boons in a case.

Make a thread in the game-bug forum or post it in a gathering thread if they made one.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs

I already did, just want to inform you all.

Shiki.7148:

Are you sure it isn’t because the corrupted boons are now selected randomly and the corruption simply missing the STAB-stack?

No I did use corrupt boon on only 3 boons in a case.

Boon corruptions When stab is corrupted it is not turned into fear.

Corruption does not tansform stab into fear.

And then comes the complaint from:
“whaa,whaa, condi’s are for noobs,whaa,whaa, skilless passive condi specs whaa, whaa!”

It is fun I’m very happy with plague sending. Not only does it a lot of damage to condi builds, it gives me might. The fact that works against stealthed foes is also nice.
The biggest complaint is that I neraly have no life force.

dood.7526:

I’m actually gonna go back on what I said. This patch is awful. Not because of what we have, but because of what everyone else has. The power creep level is incredibly against our favor. The lack of a true scaling defense is becoming more and more obnoxious.

Indeed in most cases death shroud can’t keep up. The only thing saving me is plaque signet+ transfer.

eldenbri.1059:

It seems maybe you don’t get credit for condis that you transfer? (I’m asking because I’m using Parasitic Contagion).

You don’t get credit. Transferred condi still have the original source when you transfer them. The easiest way is to show is to go to the pvp lobby. remove your curses trait line and condition applying runes and get hit by the chieftain and transfer his bleed. The move your cursor over his bleed and you will see that he is the source.

Personnaly I would drop signet of spite for signet of locust. The passive is nice and the active can heal quite a bit + aoe corruption. lso due the lower cooldown you get a bit more might.

it does.
15/charr

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m thinking Well of Blood will be the optimal choice in PvE due to the DPS boost from Vampiric Rituals and the cooldown reduction. That said, I hate the light field.

What about the SoV?

samulihei.1952:

Anet completely dropped the ball on MoC. Why would anyone sacrifice that much just to gain nothing?

That’s why I’m thinking.

Hey let’s give necromancer a powerfull cooldown reduction trait with negative effect as counterweight. We also increase the cooldowns of the corruption skills because they are too short when traited.
#AnetLogic

MysticHLE.7160:

Trait for Master of Corruption, and then Staff 4, Dagger 4, or Well of Power right after Consume Conditions FTW?

If you’re running Shrouded Removal, you can just pop back into Shroud and remove those conditions. If you trait for Vampiric Rituals, you’ll get double Protection duration when casting Well of Power.

This latest change might seem detrimental on the surface, but it can synergize well with existing Necro skills both defensively and offensively.

The thing is why waste a good condi cleans for using a skill? This is only good is your opponents condition application is lower than your transfers/cleanses which is unlikely to happen.

Shiki.7148:

Cecilia.5179:

aspirine.6852:

Gryph.8237:

LOL OMG THE GUY ON THE TWITCH STREAM RIGHT NOW LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To be fair he did blood is power also, but the skill basicly sucks now :P

What’d he do?

CPC, epidemic, BiP and then plague (with MoC trait). took him from ~40k down to like 6k HP. So awesome.

He should have used cc first for extra damage.

Sagat.3285:

Tim.6450:

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

I need to see this kitten through my own eyes. I guess it can get worse than now.

btw here is a picture of a test I just took.

Sagat.3285:

Tim.6450:

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

I need to see this kitten through my own eyes. I guess it can get worse than now.

Hey, don’t jinx it.

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

apoidea.7095:

Could be a nice change for PvE, but I don’t believe PvP players will see much benefit from 7 second pulses as it is usually better in PvP to not stay in DS too long (after you use your 2, 3, 4, and 5, you’ll have nothing else to do for a loooong time except spam life blasts).

Still, I support this for some more PvE utility.

It’s not about getting an extra effect, it’s more bout dealing with death shroud unstable length. Right now we can stay in death shroud as long as we want, making these skills have a very variable cooldown making them nearly impossible to balance. So you try to alliviate that by adding an effect that pulses over time, meaning if the effictive cooldown becomes longer the trait "effect "becomes stronger. So that when the necro meta shifts from longer DS to shorter DS or vice versa the traits don’t have to be rebalanced again.

apoidea.7095:

I wonder why they decided that blind should be a contender for an additional self-applied condition when taking Master of Corruption. Didn’t they say so themselves that corruption is meant to be inflicting conditions on yourself to transfer to your enemy? How do I land my transfer skills when I have blindness hmmmm.

transfer skills hit even when blinded.

I alays thought this at well. It could also be a way for necromancers to deal with CC.

flow.6043:

I could have sworn that transfers hadn’t always worked like this, but considering Tim’s test is rather old, I’m not sure anymore. :/

You’re not the only one. Drarnor has said the same to me as well that time.

flow.6043:

Tim.6450:

Secondly you shouldn’t count condi transfers since you have to apply those stacks and transferred conditions are not “applied by you” (I did a test with parastic contagion on that one).

Of course they are “applied by you”.
Once you transfer conditions they are your own, it’s exactly the same as if you used any other condi skill or trait.
And I’m not sure how you tested Parasitic Contagion, but it most certainly does include transfered conditions for the amount it heals you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Deathly-Swarm/4372927

flow.6043:

Tim.6450:

flow.6043:

As for Blood Bond, 4 stacks is a rather low threshold, and it has a 15-20 sec cooldown. Any build can easily trigger this without traiting Curses at all.

It can be done with any build but not reliably. A power build for instance has to use 2 out of his three condition applying skills to trigger this so a dodge or cleanse can suriously prevent this skill from proccing.

By those 3 skills I’m assuming you mean: Mark of Blood, Mark of Evasion, Dark Path?
What about Weakening Shroud, condi transfers and all the ways to corrupt vigor with Corrupt Boon, Well of Suffering, Signets of Suffering, Unholy Feast, Spiteful Spirit, Path of Corruption… and if all that isn’t enough power necros can still take Blood is Power, Signet of Spite, a geomancy sigil or an off-hand dagger.
Really, if power necros wanted to increase their bleeding uptime just for the sake of Blood Bond there are ways to do that.

First you said any build, so I took a standard power build and added blood magic to it. Secondly you shouldn’t count condi transfers since you have to apply those stacks and transferred conditions are not “applied by you” (I did a test with parastic contagion on that one).
Corruption is a bit shady because you need an opponent with vigor and you have to corrupt it (being random and all).
Also realy sigil of geomancy to proc blood bond? I think your better off with sigil of blood for self healing.

Yargesh.4965:

how is paying some other player 50 gold taking money from the economy in any way more that as of now?

You do pay a 15% fee so if more money is transferred then more money will be pumped out the economy.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Will the Ascended stat swap end up taking money out of the economy?

A LOT of people never had the intention of crafting Ascended gear; but they do have a few pieces of Ascended gear with worthless stats (from fractals for example). Now these people will be very tempted to forge the gear to get good stats. As I understand it, forging will require inscriptions/insignia. Zojja’s zerker inscription sells for 50g right now.

The inscriptions require are exotic at best 2~5G.

flow.6043:

As for Blood Bond, 4 stacks is a rather low threshold, and it has a 15-20 sec cooldown. Any build can easily trigger this without traiting Curses at all.

It can be done with any build but not reliably. A power build for instance has to use 2 out of his three condition applying skills to trigger this so a dodge or cleanse can suriously prevent this skill from proccing.

X T D.6458:

I think the whole point of this change was because of the way players use death shroud. Either players pop it for offensive pressure and/or pop it immediately after using consume and waiting out the cd for a very long time thanks to vital persistence. This caused a large imbalance with deathshroud which is probably the most powerful profession mechanic because it is essentially a 2nd lifebar so therefore it was either making consume have a longer cd and causing vuln+extra cond (if traited for reduced cd) to cause players to be more conservative and defensive with using death shroud or reworking deathshroud to be less useful/powerful which would have been more extreme.

Death shroud is not a second health bar. It’s a more a downstate then anything.People can damage a necromancer out of death shroud (it’s not that difficult either). Also how many skills/traits are used to get all that life force?

Captain Unusual.9163:

Lich got gutted pretty bad, I can’t defend that. Its duration was unimpressive before, and now, even with the trait, it’s still unimpressive. Plague’s nerf isn’t honestly as big a deal as people make it out to be. The pulsing 2 second self bleed means a permanent 2 stacks of bleeding on yourself, while at the same time, you get approximately double health and quadruple toughness. 2 permanent bleeds while you’re running around with 40,000 health is not going to kill you. And, of course, Plague now gets a huge 33% cooldown reduction trait, and plague sending can trigger while in plague in case you do get loaded up with bleeds.

Actually it seems that without any condition duration the bleed from plague in exotic rabid would do around 9K damage to you with no might. So that is around 20~25% of your health lost for using plague and don’t forget that plague will stack a second condition if traited and if it damages as hard as the bleeds (not that dificult) then you are nuking yourself for 40%~50% health. Also plague sending will maybe remove 2 stacks from the 20 so that’s only 10% of the damage.

Sigmoid.7082:

The only real nerf is to consume conditions. Pretty much everything else is a huge improvement.

What about plague and lich? plague is practically unusable for condi buids.

Burjis.3087:

They can’t use some very strong skills multiple times in one fight so let’s decrease their cooldown. Yeah, that’s their logic for balancing that class (watch Engi section of ready up 35).

Actually that’s anet nonsense and it made me realise that their ‘reasons’ for skill changes were made after the modifaction of the skills. You see all these cooldown decrease were done because the lost stats change ad not because using skills multiple time.

Honestly, I don’t expect anything but untold nerfs.

Kodama.6453:

I don’t think it is wrong to make it work like this. Just like I said, if you want an extremely powerful skill, you should have to pay in some form for it.

It’s not powerfull when traited for removal at the moment, it was balanced in it’s previous state. It still has a cast time and animation that screams interrupt me. It still requires to have decent amount of conditions on you to have a decent hp/s.

When we add master of corruption to it will it be power full? For a healing skill perhaps, but the sacrifice that has to be made for the cooldown reduction is not worth it (terror and PoC are worth more ). Power builds can’t afford to take due to a lack of condition removal and I think the other trait lines are better suited for power necro.

Kodama.6453:

What kind of argument is this? So I just can say now “well, how many necromancers will take Consume Conditions? Just take another.”? ^^

Well yes because that is the whole truth of the skills, if you have to sacrifice traits/skills to make the skill usable, then why would any class take a healing skill that usable without traits and replace the trait/skill slot for something else then their heal? The difference with necro heal and other skill with downsides that need trait is that other classes have usable alternatives.

Kodama.6453:

For example: A.E.D. got a huge cd of 40 seconds, is difficult to use cause you have to die in 5 seconds otherwise you get an extremely small heal. If you want this skill to be any kind of useful you have to get one of 2 traits: Automated medical response (at 25% you get your heal skill back, 60 sec ICD) or Gadgeteer (GM trait, 50% cd reduction if you got 5 charges). Without them this skill is just weak because it got such a massive cd.

Well i will acknowledge this one as having a huge downside, but how many engineer take or will take this heal?

Kodama.6453:

About wasting removing the downside: There are other skills like this, where you have to “waste” one or more traits for example to get a skill that actually works. Same here, there is a trait to remove the downside as i already said in another topic.^^

Oh and which are those skills?

Kodama.6453:

And it’s not a complete downside if you combo this skill with the right other skills or traits.

Yet you are wasting a skill or trait to remove the downside of your own healing skill, which no class has to do.

Kodama.6453:

So heal yourself, activate another corruption skill and attack for sending those conditions to the opponent. Well, i don’t know how long the cd of the trait was ….

30 sec cooldown or 24 traited longer than the traited heal
And then you realize that you:
-wasted a perfectly fine trait to transfer conditions that a foe would have applied to you.
- the vulnerability you applied lost around 50% of it’s duration.

Ragion.2831:

Tim.6450:

Yes actally I go spite, blood magic soul reaping power necro. No curses and no transfers so CC is a nerf for me. Also how does an increased cooldown and extra vulnerability on your heal will help a condi necro when you have just cleansed your condi’s so transferring them is not a good option and the corruption trait competes with both terror and path of corruption?

Also I mained necro for at least 1 or 2 years now.

Blood magic was improved, the siphons now works through shroud and there is quite a number of them on top of all the siphon sigils and runes. Think about how much time you spend in DS, think about the reaper spec and how much healing that line alone has, the attacks are faster which affects the blood magic line, and then there is the chilling nova, chilling force and blighters boon combo.

Base necromancer must be balanced as well so no reaper.

Ragion.2831:

If you are going into blood magic then you are probably focused on healing, so not just from blood magic alone because if there is anything we know about Anet is that they dont allow players to be effective at doing any one thing using one single source.

What healing? I go rez trait (unless lesser signet only requires you hit a foe with a bleeding skill and having 4 bleed stacjs (not all from you) to proc). The warhorn trait and the well trait.

Ragion.2831:

Spite also has a healing trait and we know how fast a necro can burst with that line, so its not going to be hard to get the trait to proc often.

The fact is we kill better when the foe is at low health so we won’t proc this trait often

Imagine you are trying to balance the necro with all this in mind, are you trying to say that increasing the CD on consume conditions makes no sense?

Yes because other classes got the same types off buffs as well.

Ragion.2831:

Also one other thing, with these many changes it is possible you might have to rethink your combination. I run Curses Death Magic and Soul reaping, had a lot of success with it, more so than the meta but with all the new stuff, i will be changing it because a lot of the new traits seem to have gotten better at doing what i typically try to do. You might also have to change things up as well.

I do run curses for the warhorn trait and I ran two wells so bloodmagic is fine.

KrHome.1920:

And what would you call the massive heal options (you heal even when you’re in Shroud) you get from Bloodmagic?

Negligible?

Compared to other classes yes. Other classes get another traitline to choose from as well.

Shadow.1345:

I don’t know why people are QQing so hard over Consume Conditions when you can just Dagger 4 or Plague Signet 10 stacks of vulnerability onto an enemy after you have healed.

A. it is a waste of a cleansing skill, since it’s only one stack.
B. All other classes don’t have to deal with such penalties.
C. transfer can be dodged,blocked, reflected,…
D. You use a condition cleanse to cleanse conditions not get new ones.
E. if there are no enemies or they are stealthed you can’t transfer it.
F. It keeps you longer in combat.
…

Ragion.2831:

Has anyone here even stopped to think about what build they will go with. Has anyone here actually thought about what the new meta will be. Has anyone here even considered how much this change to CC improves condition builds. Of course not because the ones complaining here probably started playing a few months ago or doesnt even main necro.

Yes actally I go spite, blood magic soul reaping power necro. No curses and no transfers so CC is a nerf for me. Also how does an increased cooldown and extra vulnerability on your heal will help a condi necro when you have just cleansed your condi’s so transferring them is not a good option and the corruption trait competes with both terror and path of corruption?

Also I mained necro for at least 1 or 2 years now.

Roe.3679:

Tim, you can’t take mark of evasion and the skill that procs lesser signet of vampirism, they are in the same slot.

MoE is a minor now.

rapthorne.7345:

spoj.9672:

That doesnt make sense. Surely if conditions are becoming more dangerous our cleanse should be buffed not nerfed?

To my knowledge (Though admittedly I don’t play other classes very much) we are the only clas capable of cleansing all conditions with one skill.

Guardian, engineer, warrior and ranger (depending on your view) have also such a skill.

rapthorne.7345:

On top of this CC is a heal that is also immune to the poison heal reduction due to cleanses queuing before the heal queues.

Due to this, and the sheer impact it will have on attempting to use conditions against a necromancer, there needs to be some drawback to the use of CC.

Yes it’s called a cast time. Necro heals have the longest cast time on theri go to heal (it’s shared with shelter but that one blocks during the cast time).

rapthorne.7345:

Personally, I feel like 4 seconds is a tad too long and perhaps it should be lowered to two or so for a more reactionary approach, but I do agree with the overall decision to give some form of downside to the only skill I’m aware of that can totally cleanse someone of all conditions (on top of offering a poison-immune heal).

This is of course merely my own, personal, opinion looking at it from the sheer increase in value condition cleanses will experience post-23rd and necromancer’s already good level of condition management.

Also necro heals are also one from the lower hp/s if I’m not mistaken.

flow.6043:

Tim.6450:

One thing I ould add as criticism maybe reduce the stacks required of blood bond to 3. It means that dark path can trigger it on it’s own.

I think this is the very reason why they made it 4 stacks of bleeding.
Too many skills could trigger this this by themselves, which I think is a good thing actually. It means you’ll have a little more controll over when the signet activates instead of having it trigger at random by hitting some unwanted target with it in some 2-stack aoe skill and an rng Barbed Precision proc.
Also, it’s rather easy to que 2 bleeding skills to have it intsantly trigger on purpose. Like any of your standard aoe bleeds (Mark of Blood, Grasping Dead, Enfeebling Blood) and then follow up with a Geomancy sigil or Mark of Evasion.

That’s the issue I have with it, it will be near impossible to proc this thing with power you practically have to blow 2 out of 3 skill to proc it on your own and with random dodging cleansing it will be near impossible to do so reliable. Having this being able to proc with dark path or a mark of blood + evasion combo will make it much more reliable.

While the contol you have over this skill for a condition build will be almost non-existant because you will be randomly applying bleeds to your foe because of the minor in curses and the randomness from a traited signets (corrupt vigor + proc).

Muchacho.2390:

Yes that would be nice but honestly i dont think it would be a big deal if it stayed 4 stacks of bleeding.

It is a big deal power builds have only three applications of bleed, dark path, mark of blood and mark of evasion. Meaning in order to proc this thing you have to waste a dodge or staff while if it was only three stacks you can stay with dagger or axe if you want to.

One thing I ould add as criticism maybe reduce the stacks required of blood bond to 3. It means that dark path can trigger it on it’s own.

I think it can be done with the three modinir dog champions and epidemic.

Lupanic.6502:

So it is true that you have to take 3 trait lines and you can take grantmaster on every of them?

yes, also you have to take a grandmaster, you can’t take 2 masters anymore.

Burjis.3087:

Anyway, what’s the ICD on the new Dhuumfire?

And I’m so sad that Death Nova now has a 15 second ICD.

Dhuumfire no icd, and doesn’t the icd only work on the jagged horror part?

Malchior.1928:

How many nerfs do we deserve tim lol :P

As little as possible I suppose, but the thing is that I don’t see this conversion as a big threat to necro.
It’s an annoyance but I believe that engi can’t take elixer C without losing on elixer S or a kit which is far more dangerous. Transmute can easily be read. Contemplation of purity is a full cleanse so for 2 seconds you’re not losing much. Pure of voice (forgot that trait) is single boon for one so the chance is low it converts to resistance.The last one is well of power which is a necro skill.