What? Last time i checked this, almost a month ago now, they fixed the DS HP trigger bugs, tested both in spvp and pve.
Weakening should is centered on your location.
Deathly invigoration heals you as far as I remember, but it was pretty pathetic anyway.
Both are pretty low heals, but at a guess I would say because you can drop multiple wells, I dunno neither is worth using in my opinion.
All marks have an area of effect larger then the mark itself, don’t ask me exactly how large that area is though, but you can get a good sense of it just from using it a little.
also you don’t get swiftness, it’s only the locust swarm buff itself.
you have to be hit while your health is under 25% (they fixed it), as far as I remember, as long as your hp is below 25% it will trigger on any hit while is DS, where as it used to trigger on any hit in DS regardless of health.
The ICD is 90 seconds, so it’s no longer worth using in my opinion.
did you guys check to see if the true area of effect was different, or if it was just a graphical problem?
I.E: Go into plague form with the bigger character, move until some neutral mob is in the their circle, or until it’s getting hit by plague, then move up with the smaller character until it gets hit by their plague.
You can cast the mark of horror twice in lich if you time it right, so that’s 8 horror’s (since there is a cap on them), then summon 5 (bone minions being 2) more minions when you leave, so 13 is the most minions you can have, outside of non profession based junk.
having the highest uptime does not make it the best. The most notable point being you cannot perform a full stomp with fitg, but other then that the big difference between our stability and most stability is that the enemy player can afford to wait three seconds, but having to wait 8 seconds + is much more significant when it comes to chasing people down/escaping. I’m still very grateful we have stability at all, but I would much prefer something with a longer duration.
You rarely see it, because it’s a grandmaster trait in the last trait line (foot in the grave, 3 seconds of stability on entering DS), which boosts life force pool and crit damage, so only a power necro could justify putting 30 in that line in the first place, and a shroud stomp doesn’t have enough stability to secure the stomp, as a smart player can time their interrupt for when the stability wears off, but it does help a lot.
life siphon has a longer channel then ghastly claws, and I’m pretty sure ghastly does more dps, although I’d have to re-check.
a large quantity of conditions isn’t magically good,signet of spite puts single stacks, all short duration, so putting a few seconds of weakness, 1 stack of vuln etc on 5 people isn’t that amazing. Mass epidemic’ing a few blood is power’s is another matter entirely.
They are different skills, it’s just that the underwater one now has the same name as the land version, no clue whether this was accidental or not, but they’re still very much different.
when I tested spiteful vigor I specifically tested it with blood fiend to see if it would proc on the summon as well as the active. It didn’t proc on the active, but it most definitely did on the summon. I never bothered checking well of blood, but I can if you want.
And on omnomberry pies, they become better and better compared to the traits the higher your crit is. My build once had 20 in blood magic, but mark of evasion got nerfed/fixed and I realised that food gave me better regen, and freed up precious trait points.
One thing I do find strange about the food is I notice the number isn’t always the same, maybe it’s because I’m hitting them 4-5 times a second and I just can’t read, or something causes a very small fluctuation in the life steal. Maybe I’ll test this in a bit.
With spectral grasp I found that after a while you can sort of feel when it’s going to work/get obstructed by nothing (just remember that unlike dark path, spectral grasp will only travel it’s listed range, so don’t use it if they’re moving away from you, and only just in range). The biggest problem I find is ranger pets/other stuff walking in front of my target and taking the bullet for them.
The problem with the vampiric traits is you can simply use life steal food, and put those traits somewhere more useful and you’ll have better life steal anyway. So yes, the traits aren’t useless, I just can’t justify using them, in sPvP I find them even worse.
And sure, parasitic bond/spiteful removal could be useful in a zerg fight in WvW (although they both have CD’s), in general they’re not that useful – sure, I’d rather have them then nothing, but I’d much sooner have something more generally useful as well.
Death in to life is in a similar situation, you’re unlikely to get much more then 100 healing power out of it, which hey, it’s free stats, but the effect is very low (12.5hp/s with 100 additional healing power for regeneration).
Yeah, axe training is clearly out classed.
When I meant spectral attunement was wasted, I was more referring to the extended duration part then the life force part, so yeah, not entirely wasted, but you don’t get the full effect either.
Reanimator does have a CD, so to get 3-5 out with just the trait would require to to give them a good bit of regen, but yeah, not impossible.
I haven’t explicitly checked greater marks for quite a while, I do use it in sPvP though, but then there isn’t a message saying ‘not blocked’, so I guess I never noticed, whoops.
With gluttony, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that it actually works now, but spamming dagger 1 non stop is 60 LF or less per second extra, once again it’s a ‘better then nothing’ sort of deal.
I know that you keep protection from spectral armor, but what I’m saying is to simply not making the spectral armor buff work in DS, same as regeneration for example. regeneration doesn’t heal you in DS, but it doesn’t just remove it for no reason either. Currently it means that if I jump into DS for just a moment to interrupt, I’m throwing away a really good buff, for no real logical reason.
Yeah, nothing wrong with spectral mastery, It’s just most we often don’t run around with multiple spectral skills to take advantage of that, since we need the slots for other stuff.
Master of terror was a trait that I previously considered… niche, to put it kindly, but now that terror can put out some serious damage, using this to secure those 2 and 4 second fears is now a legitimate consideration, although it’s still more of a WvW thing then a PvP thing due to the difficulty of getting that magic 100% fear duration without pizza.
Soul marks isn’t the fanciest trait, but it does give you much better life force generation (which is a problem for a fair few builds), especially with the rate at which you can spam mark of blood.
Foot in the grave is the crowning jewel of necromancer traits (at least as far as PvP is concerned), giving us precious stability on a very short CD. Although the duration isn’t amazing, having any stability at all really is a game changer, allowing us to deal with the plentiful CC we encounter in this game, as well as doing shroud stomps/revives through debatable use of game mechanics (although even then, the duration isn’t long enough to guarantee the stomp). I really can’t emphasize how useful having some stability is in this game, and literally the only downside to this trait is the fact that it requires 30 points in soul reaping, and that you then can’t use the other GM trait, near to death.
Near to death is another really good trait, cutting your DS CD in half, which makes it so much more tactically flexible, and les punishing for using it at the wrong time. It also means you can use certain ‘when entering DS’ boosts more frequently, most notably being furious demise, giving you (at least in theory, it’s not actually practical) permanent fury.
The fact that you have to toss it up between foot in the grave and near to death is really unfortunate (although in PvP/WvW I would say foot in the grave wins hands down), but it’s how our traits should be. We shouldn’t have to look at our traits and think ‘hm, which traits can actually be useful to me’, and instead (like most other classes), think kitten there are so many good traits to choose from, which traits would be best for me”. This would really turn making a build from a rather disappointing experience into a fun one, where you’re trying to make the best build you can, rather than one that simply isn’t bad.
It’s my hope that some of my changes might someday make it through, and start us on that path, but regardless of whether that get used or not, Anet just has to look at traits and skills and ask ‘how can we these interesting and useful, how they might work with other elements of our class and how we can make people want to use them?”
Once again I thank you for taking the time to read all this, and encourage you to provide feedback or discussion (dev’s especially!).
Also I would like to advertise this thread again, as I like a lot of the idea’s he has about DS and the trait lines, so take a look here as well, if you’re interested.
And one last thing, Anet could you please put all the changes you make in the patch notes? There were some great fixes you put in, but we had to discover on our own to find them, making it hard to keep an accurate list of our bugs, as well as making a poor impression to the community then you might otherwise deserve.
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Soul reaping
Soul reaping has some real gems in it, and none that strike me as downright bad, so it’s unfortunate that it’s secondary bonus (crit damage) is completely wasted unless you invest in some precision. Overall, a very solid trait line (as far as necro trait lines go).
Gluttony, oh dear. I, along with many others, were hoping for a lot from this trait going into the 14th patch, but we came out pretty disappointed. At least it works now, but when you look at certain other 5 point traits in the last trait (cough mesmers, rangers, elementalists, Thieves, Guardians cough) there leaves a lot to be desired. Just spamming dagger one, you get 0.6% life force roughly every two seconds. You lose 4% per second in DS, and it’s roughly equivalent to 130 hp if you lose it via damage.
Last gasp is a very good trait, if every trait we had was as useful, I wouldn’t be making this thread. The only downside is the fact that you lose the spectral armor buff if you go into DS, which you should be doing very often. If Anet doesn’t want us to get the benefit of spectral armor/walk inside DS, fine, but why make it removed the buff altogether?
Strength of undeath isn’t the strongest trait, but it’s by no means useless, as you’ll have over 50% life force for a good period of time in most fights, depending on your weapons, and format (starting with zero LF in PvP, oh dear).
Fear of death I suppose could be useful in TPvP if you have good team mates to take advantage of the momentary fear to start getting you up/finishing off the enemy, although as only a one second fear, it has to seriously fight for a slot against some much more generally useful traits.
Vital persistence lets you well, persist in DS longer. This is a trait that is more useful in PvE rather than PvP, as you’re more likely to stay in DS for longer periods of time. Would be nice if they increased the effect of this trait, or just in general reduced LF degeneration, although this trait is still very much regardless.
Path of midnight is a good trait regardless of format, and allows you to maximize your use of DS by being able to actually use those skills more often.
Spectral mastery would be great if it effected last gasp (which as far as I could tell, was not the case), but without that I don’t really feel it’s that great, simply because you’re unlikely to have more than one spectral skill on your bar at a time. If they gave spectral armor stability, as I mentioned in my last thread, I think that would change a fair bit, at the very least in PvP, and I would be more inclined to use this trait.
Speed of shadows would be nice, if it stacks with any other speed boost. Sadly, as is, it’s in the same boat as quickening thirst – completely redundant in light of the competition. (Ok, so I lied, there is one useless trait in this line)
Unyielding blast is another great trait for getting the most out of DS, allowing you to strike multiple enemies at once, and put meaningful stacks of vulnerability (2 for 10 seconds, compared death shiver’s 1 every 3 seconds). This is a very solid trait, and greatly helps making DS more potent.
Mark of revival is great for keeping melee opponents off your back while getting up a team mate, the only real problem this trait has is the stiff competition from adept and other master traits for its slot.
Decaying swarm in my eyes was once an amazing trait, as it would proc when you took a hit in DS regardless of your health, giving me even more delicious locust swarm, which I’m a big fan of. Sadly, now that the hp triggers are working properly, this is a rather poor trait, as the 25% hp trigger is simply far too low to make it useful (ok, so I lied again, but at least this one used to be good). If this triggered at something more reasonable, such as 50%, I would be much more inclined to start using it again.
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Vampiric is a pretty disappointing trait, you have to hit I believe 4 targets a second to beat regeneration, it gain anything from healing power (last I checked), and like all healing, does nothing at all during DS. What’s really bad about these health stealing traits, is that in PvE/WvW, Food gives you a far, far stronger life steal (320 or so hp per crit, against 25 per hit) for no trait investment at all. Sure, food in general is very strong, but when it’s like ten times stronger than your traits, it really does not impress. I understand that Anet might be worried that if it was stronger we could somehow make some unkillable build, but honestly all of our life stealing needs a fair bit of a buff before it’s even worth considering. (I’m sure some people will strongly disagree with me over my opinions on life stealing, and I would honestly love to be proven wrong, as that would mean we have more viable builds.)
Blood to power would be great, if the trigger was under 90% instead of above it, as you’re unlikely to spend a great deal of time in any fight above 90% health. Quite disappointing considering it’s a 25 point trait.
Dagger mastery isn’t that great for a few reasons, firstly, it’s one of only a handful of weapon CD reducing traits that is 15% instead of 20% (necro funnily enough has 3 out of 4 of them), and secondly you’re unlikely to get the full use out of the trait, as having two daggers is rather rare; I think our daggers are the only weapon that is radically different when used in MH and OH. I want to say merge dagger mastery and quickening thirst, but I honestly wouldn’t use it even then, as it’s pretty easy to get permanent swiftness, or simply use a locust signet for more reliable speed. A simple damage buff instead of/along with the current bonus would be much better in my opinion.
Bloodthirst boosts a weak mechanic to slightly less flabby levels. Maybe if you were using vampiric, vampiric precision, bloodthirst, omnomberry pies, dagger mastery and spammed life siphon a lot it would be useful, Who knows. If life stealing was more reasonable, then this trait would be as well.
Mark of evasion was once a glorious trait, giving a blast finisher to bolster our pretty lackluster collection of finishers, allowing us to do some interesting interactions with our team mates. Although the finisher was removed (and the bug with the number of bleeds ignored), it’s still a pretty decent trait, giving you some nice aoe bleeds and regen, and is probably the best adept trait of this line.
Ritual of life has a pretty good effect, but I’m more interested in making sure my allies don’t get downed in the first place. Never the less, if you expect yourself to be reviving a lot of people, this is a good trait for it.
Vampiric precision is in the same boat as vampiric.
Transfusion… is actually pretty good, giving your allies a fairly decent heal every now and then. I only wish it would heal yourself, as currently the only way to do that is to activate life transfer at such a time that you’ll get knocked out of DS due to damage/degeneration after you started casting. A pretty decent support trait, if only we had more.
Vampiric master is in the same boat as vampiric, as well as the ‘fix the AI boat’.
Ritual mastery is rather nice, because wells in general, are rather nice. What’s more to say?
Deathly invigoration heals for a abysmally low amount, giving something like a large tick of regeneration worth of health. Needs a noticeable buff.
Quickening thirst was, and is, the poorest way for a necro to get a speed boost, as swiftness is so much easier to get and maintain, and now locust also out shines it, not having to rely on the weapons in your hands to give you that movement speed. Give us a trait to boost dagger damage, make a 20/25% speed boost only need one dagger, or better yet, bring it back to the old 10/5% levels but make it stack with locust.
Fetid consumption is actually a pretty good trait to keep you nice and condition free in PvP, if MM builds weren’t broken/were viable. Trait is fine, other than bone minions not working with this trait the last I checked (which was a while ago).
Vampiric rituals could possibly be good in PvE, if used with vampiric, vampiric precision, bloodthirst, omnomberry pies, multiple enemies that weren’t inclined to move, and multiple wells. Or something like that. Guess life steal is good, after all. Edit: actually, I’ve been told bloodthirst doesn’t effect this trait. Whelp.
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Reanimator… dear oh dear, I’m pretty sure everyone already has a firm opinion about this trait, so I’ll simply say if they want to keep it as is, the jagged horror needs to be more useful. My favorite suggestion was to make it do something when it died, which would make its woefully short life seem like less of a waste.
Protection of the horde is a simple, yet effective trait for MM build’s, but I’ll say once again that I don’t like forcing this trait line to be about minions by putting something like this as a minor trait.
Deadly strength is another simple trait, but it’s certainly a useful one, if you can justify 25 points into death magic.
Dark armor could actually be fairly useful, considering we have a few key channels, namely axe and dagger 2, and life transfer. If for example, you were running axe training, you are going to spend quite a bit of time channeling ghastly claws (the CD is what, 6.5seconds or something?), making you a fair bit tougher to kill. This tends to get overshadowed by greater marks however, which in general is of greater use.
Greater marks, last I checked didn’t actually make marks unblockable, but having the larger area alone is extremely useful for staff users, and is a staple trait for good reason.
Minion master is a good trait for well, minion masters. It does well for that build, so I suppose you can’t really ask more of it.
Ritual of protection of protection is lacking simply because you’re unlikely to have more than two wells in a particular build, and their CD’s are so long that I have to wonder how I could justify using it. Perhaps if the duration was as long as the well itself, (that is, 5 seconds) it might be a little better. This is also part of the reason why I think the well traits should be combined, as I mentioned earlier.
Staff mastery is a decent trait, I supposed. It’s only problem is that it’s simply overshadowed by greater marks, which is simply far better than staff mastery. Pretty much the only time you would use this is if you really love the staff, and used it in the 20 point slot.
Shrouded removal is actually rather good, it’s only a shame that it’s in this trait line, otherwise I would be using it myself. While not as good as the guardian’s straight up 1 condition per 10 seconds trait (since you’re unlikely to being going in and out of DS every 10 seconds just for this trait), It would be very strong if you were using it with near to death, although I’m not sure in what situation you would realistically be using these two traits, it’s something to keep in mind.
Spiteful vigor is a nice idea (I’m a fan of retaliation), but I don’t think the duration is long enough to justify it. It doesn’t even activate on the blood fiend’s active heal, so you can’t make a gimmicky use of that. Up the duration by just a few seconds and this could be great however.
Reaper’s protection is a pretty useful trait in PvP, giving us a nice two second fear on CC, often stopping or interrupting an enemies burst, and it’s even better with the newly buffed terror. The CD is rather long, but with the right build it is well worth it.
Death shiver is a nice idea, but the rate at which you’re applying vulnerability is just way to slow. 1 stack per second, with a slightly shorter CD would be far more useful, as having to stay in for 12 seconds just to manage 4 stacks of vulnerability is simply just not worth it. Alternatively of course they could make it a few stacks per tick, but I like the idea of encouraging you to stay in DS a while, as most other bonuses are purely ‘on entering DS”.
Flesh of the master is pretty straight forward, although as I’ve said many times before, minion AI needs to be fixed before I can say how balanced this is, although at the moment minions in general are fairly squishy.
Death nova is pretty uninspiring to be honest, having the poison, and the field is great (totally adds to our variety of combo fields, right?), but some straight damage would make this much more interesting, and more useful, as it’s a bit sad when you look at mesmers inflicting confusion and random conditions and whatnot when their illusions die.
Necromatic corruption might be good? I dunno, fix the AI etc etc. Also this would in general be pretty poor for PvE, due to the lack of many boons.
Blood magic
Blood magic is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall good do with some serious improvements to fix redundant or effectively useless traits.
Full of life is a good trait, not amazing, but that bit of regeneration is going to be applied every 30 seconds pretty much for the entirety of a fight, so I don’t think I can ask more from a 5 point trait, although it would be nice if it worked while in DS.
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Curses
I would say that curses is possibly our best trait line, in that all three minor’s are good (or at least useful), and that the majority of the major’s are legitimately useful.
Barbed precision is a good little trait, although it’s 1 second duration is lackluster compared to the warrior’s 5 second version, it’s still useful for a bit of extra damage.
Furious demise is a great trait, that helps me get 97% crit chance in WvW, and is generally very nice for power builds. If only all our traits were as useful.
Target the weak is a very good trait, that also provides synergy with other trait in the line (such as barbed precision and withering precision) to improve its effect. Is overall not as good as the thieves version (10% more damage as long as they have a condition on them), but is still very good, and edges out in larger fights. Great against bosses in PvE.
Toxic landing is invaluable in WvW, but pretty much useless elsewhere, but I can’t ask any more of it than that. One thing I notice however is that often the toxic field won’t form even though it’s definitely not on CD, and that it’s CD in general is rather long for its effect.
Hemophilia is a great trait, and many necro’s wouldn’t leave home without it.
Chilling darkness is a great trait now that it works with plague form, although in general we don’t actually have that many ways to blind. Still a solid trait none the less.
Weakening shroud is a decent trait that I personally use quite often. My only gripe with it is the CD (15 seconds) which I think should be 10, but I can live with it as it is, as weakness is rather good in PvE where mobs don’t (often?) crit, and in PvP where the reduced endurance recharge rate alone I find rather nice.
Reaper’s precision is a bit of a joke, even at 50% I wonder whether I would consider it, as it’s effect (just 1%!) is simply way too low. Boost the amount and/or chance, and it could be decent, as well as giving scepter users another way to build some LF.
Terror is a trait that seems to becoming popular recently, especially since the patch upped its damage, although I’m not a personal fan due to that difficultly of getting multiple long duration fears (mainly in PvP) with the condition damage to back it up and still be viable. But regardless, the trait itself is solid.
Master of corruption lacks a bit – epidemic has a short CD to start with, I have problems with blood is power and poison cloud that I’ve written In my previous thread, leaving only corrupt boon that it proves useful for. I think it would be more interesting if this trait removed the self applied condition gimmick of corruptions, or even added them to the applied effects.
Banshee’s wail is a personal favorite of mine, giving you a 3s aoe daze and access to permanent swiftness with no other investment save having spectral walk on your bar (although you have to activate the horn and walk as soon as they come off CD to keep swiftness up nonstop). If the tooltips actually updated to reflect the boost of effect from this trait it would be perfect.
Focused ritual is a great trait as is, allowing you to project you circles where ever you need them to be, without putting yourself in the thick of it. I feel that the four well traits (focused rituals, ritual of protection, ritual mastery and vampiric rituals, although focused rituals and ritual mastery are clearly the best of the 4) would serve us better if they were merged into 2 traits, and free up those other two spots of other useful traits.
Spectral attunement I guess is a decent trait, but as far as I’m aware, is basically wasted on spectral grasp, which is a bit of a problem when that a quarter of the skills it effects (maybe make the life force on use better for grasp then the others?).
Lingering curses is a staple for most, if not all scepter users, and is generally a very good trait. My only complaint is that making it a GM trait sort of forces you into making a crit heavy build, even though conditions don’t inherently gain that much from crits.
Withering precision is (in my opinion) an extremely good trait, it’s fairly easy to apply permanent weakness on someone (weakening shroud also helps), which is useful in of itself, but also works well with target the weak as I’ve mentioned before. This is how traits should work together. Also people undervalue weakness, at least in my opinion.
Death magic
Death magic has a few rather decent traits, but it’s clear that Anet made this as the ‘minion trait line’ , which would be fine, if It didn’t pigeon hole you into with its minor traits, or better yet, if all necromancer had reason to actually use minions in the first place (because I don’t know about you, but for a necromancer, I don’t do much necromancy). As with everything to do with minions, fix their AI first, then we can take a legitimate look.
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Well this is a write up on our traits, and how I think they can be improved, where necessary. You can find my previous thread, about our skills here. Enjoy the read, it’s a little bit of a long one, and all discussion and feedback is welcome.
Spite
Spite has a few good traits, but it also has a lot of crap ones, which is pretty typical of all our trait lines.
Parasitic bond is pretty terrible (even if it worked at all, which last time I checked, it doesn’t), since the whole idea of bonuses after killing something is pointless except when facing trash in PvE. This needs to be basically junked and replaced with something that is actual useful when it matters – during the fight.
EDIT: Someone just today noticed that they did fix this trait, it now heals a bit over 1k (haven’t tested to see if it’s flat or % based). Regardless, it’s still only useful while facing a whole bunch of mobs.
Death into life seems like an alright trait, until you remember healing power is a pretty poor stat, especially for necro’s, and doesn’t scale with life steal at all. If healing power was actually useful, this trait might be as well.
Siphoned power had a very marginal use previously, where it would always activate during DS (as with all hp trigger effects). However now that it’s been fixed it truly it a very poor trait, especially for a GM minor trait. The might duration isn’t that long (5 seconds?), so upping the hp trigger to 50% or something and this trait could be just dandy.
Death’s embrace is a trait every (most?) classes have. It’s basically a waste of space, but I guess our 3rd skil will do a ton of damage?
Spiteful talisman is fairly useful, mainly for spinal shivers as the extra range does not affect the range of the bounce on reaper’s touch (600), limiting its use there. If they bounce range also increased by 300, it would be even more useful, but is still good as is, allowing you to use your focus skills frequently during a fight (although seriously, spinal shiver’s cast time is pretty ridiculous.)
Spiteful removal is yet another on kill trait, which only has a niche use on some condition heavy group of mobs that may or may not actually exist. As with all on kill traits, this should be dumped.
Signet mastery is pretty weak considering our signets aren’t actually that good. It would be better if it was merged with signet power, although I would still never use it myself, perhaps some people would with the recent locust signet boost.
Spiteful spirit is a very solid trait, the duration is a little short (although any longer would probably make it too strong with the DS CD reduction trait), but when used properly it is extremely helpful. Encourages smart use of DS, which is always good.
Reaper’s might is a kinda, sorta alright trait. Life blast fires too slow for it to be terribly effective for might stacking in PvP, but in PvE it could be useful, especial if you have some added boon duration. Nothing really wrong with this trait, but looks poor compared to unyielding blast.
Spiteful marks adds damage to skills that overall don’t do terribly much damage to begin with, although a fair few people seem to like it. It could do with a plain old boost to 15-20%, or cause an added effect of some sort.
Signet power should be merged with signet mastery, or boosts very considerably, 3 stacks of might is a joke.
Training of the master is fine, minions aren’t. Would be better in my view as an adept trait, so people going MM aren’t pigeon holed so much in trait choice.
Chill of death is a nice trait that can help with finishing an opponent off, stripping any inconvenient protection/stability or whatever. Slightly less useful in PvE, simply because most mobs don’t have boons.
Axe training gives a bit of a lackluster result for a GM trait, although that’s more because the axe itself isn’t that amazing right now. Currently not worth investing 30 points for, but if the axe got buffed a bit more (that is to say, axe 1), it could be pretty decent.
Close to death is a pretty good trait, save for the complaint that it doesn’t affect condition damage. Also bolt to the heart, an elementalist adept trait that does the same thing only at 33% hp makes this seem not quite so great for a GM trait.
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OK, I finished my write up about traits, I’ll post a link here and update the OP, although you could probably just look at the front page.
(edited by War Mourner.5168)
-with the immense healing potential of the guardian they get more effective hp – warrior has as much health as we do – also much mobility, many dashes to get in and out battle and to migate damage, can be invincible for a rather long time.
Necro has more then ten million more base ehp then the guardian, and more then twenty million more when they’re most at max ehp. Of course, this doesn’t help us at all for attrition, but lends us more to shorter fights, while the guardian’s lower ehp, but much higher toughness is better suited for long fights.
Why do people always say spectral walk is two stun breaks? I’ve tested this multiple times with different CC, and I’m still under their effects after spectral recall, I merely don’t have the dazed/knocked down animation (and sometime don’t the debuff listed on the bar either), but it’s definitely still there.
Only in the literal sense, no swiftness or locust signet, although I supposed it’s easy enough to switch in and out between combat. Also it’s not such a big deal in regular PvE in general.
One thing I dislike about the sigil of rage however, is that fact that if you’re not dagger 1’ing, it feels like you’ve wasted the potential of the sigil, which its long CD makes rather punishing (life siphon/transfer can proc sigils rather easily). It’s what makes on demand quickness so much more useful, as procing quickness at long range with for example the focus isn’t terribly fun.
Seems like an interesting build, although a tad slow for my tastes. Two things to note however.
You’re using a sigil of rage and a sigil of earth on the same weapon set, they share a CD so sigil of rage is very unlikely to proc because sigil of earth has a much higher chance, and when it does proc, that sigil of earth is sitting there doing nothing for 45 seconds.
Also you can use runes of the mad king for 10% condition duration (2nd bonus) freeing up 2 rune slots if you need them.
How does this comment feel after the fact?
Hm, well I haven’t played for the past couple of days if that says anything. Atleast we are even better for the underwater fractal now?
Vastly agree with your opinion. Can’t wait to see your opinion about the traits.
Also Dagger #2 feels so missplaced, dagger is all about hitting quick and playing fast, so a channeled ability with such low damage for the long channel time feels really bad. I came up with a nice idea for it:
I’m not a fan of complex changes, simply because it’s less likely for anet to implement them, but it’s certainly interesting, and better then three seconds of picking your nose that it is now.
As usual there are changes in the patch that weren’t listed for whatever reason, so I’ll wait a little bit before posting something, just a couple of days.
I’ve done this before using blood is power, with 100% condition duration with three necro’s. It was most amusing. Also would be interesting to try with a few 100% fear duration necro’s
In PvP to get 100% fear duration you need 20 points in soul reaping for master of terror, 30 points in spite for 30% condition duration, and 10 points in curses for terror (although not strictly for longer fears, it is the point of getting to 100%), in addition to a full set of necro runes, or two lyssa runes + 4 lich runes. This mean’s you can’t even get reaper’s protection because you only have 10 trait points to play with, meaning your only 2s fears are underwater and your downed state. This is on top of the fact that your build options are now severely limited, and fear can be instantly removed by stun breaks (which everyone in PvP has atleast one of, many can and do have more such as many d/d ele and mesmers), as well as by passive or allied condition removal, and simply ignored by stability.
In PvE you have access to those new weapons, as well as food, but the weapons are fairly poor overall, and there are a lot of seriously OP food items anyway.
Edit: If I missed out any other fear duration boosts, please point it out, I’m happy to admit I’m wrong.
(edited by War Mourner.5168)
For unknown reasons they changed the name of plague blast to life blast (I think it was when they decreased plague blast’s cast time).
Little bit of a rehash, but worth mentioning here anyway.
While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights
Wurm requires pre casting, so can’t be called an escape except perhaps in some very specific, setup situations. Spectral walk can sort of act as an escape sometimes… and that’s it.
Our only damage mitigation is protection from spectral wall/armor and situationally, our blinds.
This, combined with our fairly low toughness means we’re not actually that impressive in a battle of attrition – we can’t stop the damage, we can only sponge it, and when don’t have fast enough lf regen to seriously rival guardian bunkers, more defensively leaned d/d ele’s. Hell, P/D thieves are realistically far better at attrition then necro’s are.
They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills.
Having poison on two weapons is hardly a feat worth boasting about, and condition damage combined with raw damage is something that every class can do, some better then us. They also abuse the term multiple again – sure, we have more then one, but we still have less, and longer CD interrupts then others, and only doom is reliable for interrupting people, although all necro’s have access to it.
Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.
we have two movement disabling skill, dark pact and spectral grasp (if it hits/isn’t reflected; 5 if you include lich’s knock back and the golem’s charge), so we find ourselves in the same situation; we can, in theory have multiple movement disabling abilities (only one of which works for more then one second or so), but others still have far more, and better then we do. Finally, we are not good at ‘chasing down’ anyone, we are reasonable at preventing people from disengaging from combat with various slows and such, but once they have made some distance, we cannot realistically catch most builds due to the simple fact that our two gap closers (spectral grasp and dark path) are both targeted abilities – once you cannot hit them with those, they’re safe assuming they’ve invested in any mobility.
While it’s great that Anet would like us to operate in the way that they describe, they have to realize that the reality does not match the vision, and they’re not making any changes to bring those two things closer together.
It’s clarified in game.
Fear inflicts damage. Does 50% more if target has another condition.
Effectively no change to performance in PvP/WvW (gluttony is still pretty weak but I wasn’t expecting much), but the fear nerf REALLY hurts us in PvE, mainly dungeons.
Edit: upon further reading…
Anet listed their design philosophy on the classes (aka: how they would like the classes to work, even though they don’t necessarily do that)
The necro boasts the highest natural health of all the caster classes, and also has death shroud to extend that life total even higher. While they don’t have some of the escape or damage reduction capabilities that other classes boast, they do have a lot of ways to win attrition fights. They have access to poison on multiple weapons, they are able to combine condition damage with raw damage, and they have multiple disables to interrupt enemy skills. Necomancers also have multiple movement disabling abilities, while allows them to chase down enemies who are low on health.
We have possibly the least CC among all the classes (2 of our 3 non fear cc’s are based on our elite), we have almost no escape ability besides smart use of spectral walk, or very situational use of the wurm, and what damage mitigation do we have? well of darkness, blinding plague, and 2 fairly short protections.
We only can apply poison with 2 weapons, every class combined damage and condition damage, so I’m not sure what they’re saying here, and we most certainly not the king of attrition they think we are. Death shroud is good in the short term, but we don’t generate enough LF fast enough to make it that good for attrition, hell, a p/d thief is an attrition build, one that is extremely impossible to kill, I struggle to say the same about necro builds.
I am somewhat unhappy here.
Edit 2: we do not have “multiple movement disabling abilities”, we have one. Dark pact.
(edited by War Mourner.5168)
dagger offhand is more of a condition weapon, the warhorn or focus tend to work better with the dagger mainhand.
Omnomberry pies (or their lower level equivalents if you’re not 80 yet) with a decent crit chance will give you far better life steal then anything you can get from traits.
And yes, necro’s have lots of annoying sounds. especially the staff.
The necro res sig is rather good for tPvP, up to three people and a (comparatively) short cast time, and you can dump marks and wells on downed enemies, makes it difficult to save them.
I would drop 10 from blood and chuck it in death magic, giving you more EHP, and although you’re trading a fairly poor minor trait for a useless (for your build) one, vampiric wells is pretty meh, so you get a set of more useful set of traits to pick and choose from.
Staff mastery is fairly popular, but all the traits from IV through to VIII are useful, although some are more situational then others. (If you really want life steal just invest in some precision and use omnomberry pies, they far outstrip anything we get from traits.)
Also you should consider whether you’re getting your money’s worth out of dagger mastery; personally I would go for mark of evasion, unless you want to spam life siphon a lot (although evasion is aoe regen and bleeds, so it’s pretty decent).
Personally I don’t like spiteful marks much, so you should at least try using reaper’s might and spiteful spirit in it’s place (both also benefit from boon duration from death magic).
Lastly with your equipment, I wouldn’t suggest investing in precision (and by extension, crit sigils) unless you want to go into it much more heavily then you currently are, other wise it’s wasted potential. (Also the jewellry doesn’t properly reflect what your stats will look like, so keep that in mind.)
Could you clarify what you’re intending to do with this build?
Wait for tomorrow (hopefully we’ll get some decent changes) and I’ll post about traits in another thread (or should I just keep using this one?)
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned giving spectral armor stability (as it doesn’t make sense for any others to give it), although if all the effects stayed at 6sec it would be quite strong, but I could live with stability over protection, or a longer CD or something (as it’s already long enough that you’re unlikely to use it more then once a fight).
They really need to fix the way these forums display threads, it’s showing the (at the moment) empty page 2, even though we’re still on page 1 of this thread, oh well.
But yeah, I’ll probably wait until the patch before posting something, so I can base it on the up to date stuff (looking forward to an improved gluttony).
Increasing your total life force pool does not make the total 130%. It’s still 100%, it is simply 30% larger then it once was, so each percentage is greater then before. Just because you have points in vit you don’t say you have more then 100% health, do you?
But the only hits they eat are aoe. There is zero reason to use targeted attacks on them, as the damage that the horror is applying to the player does not justify the damage you would not be inflicting on the necro by changing target. Any cleaving melee weapon will kill them without any added effort, and any aoe will outright kill them, or reduce their life span to something that can hardly be called useful. They’re marginally more useful in PvE, but they really are worthless in PvP.
As far as I can tell, the death shroud hp trigger bug has been fixed. Tested with rune and trait effects.
what change did they do to incinerator?
Edit: Also, when?
I’ve found as long as you’re in range when dark path finishes its cast, it will always home (of course that doesn’t mean it will always hit).
The lich bug has been around for a bit, they fixed it on warrior a while ago (warbanner)
As long as you’re in 900 range of the target when dark path is cast, and when it hits, it will work. This means it can travel further then 900 as long as you keep pace, not to mention the fact that it homes to a degree.
I’m suprised how a lot of people don’t know this already – you can both stomp and revive in death shroud. It requires some coordination though, something along the lines of a dodge-jump (= pressing dodge and jump at the same time to do a front/back/sideflip, thus getting a full length jump even while in combat which is useful in jumping puzzles).
yeah I run with foot in the grave and always shroudstomp, but it’s clearly not an intended feature as it is now. Seeing as it has been so frequently talked about and shown, without Anet saying anything, says to me they don’t think it’s an exploit (yet), but they probably will fix it at some point, so I’d like to make it much more open, and simply allow it during DS.
I agree with other posters, more variety on fields, smoke, frost and water (well of blood!). I think we are ok for finishers, for blast anyways we have putrid mark and minions, I would like axe skill 2 to be a whirl finisher.
Interesting idea about axe 2, it makes sense if you look at it literally!
This bug also frequently occurs on our dagger auto attack, and supposedly on a lot of other classes auto’s as well. It’s a pretty terrible bug, but I assumed for a long time it was my terrible Australian ping. Seems it isn’t.
Rune of the Mesmer 6th Point adds +33% Duration, Each point of the Spite Trait Tree adds +1% Duration and the food http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rare_Veggie_Pizza adds +40% duration, Banshee’s Wail trait adds a unknown amount to the duration(Possibly 20%).
So 33+30+40 = 103% Duration + Banshees Wail if you have it traited for around 4 Seconds of Daze. (You also get at least +70% Fear Duration too unless thats traited for +50% then thats +130% Fear duration)
no wonder Dagger/Horn are the preferred crowd control weapons in pvp.
Banshee’s wail increased the daze to 3 seconds, mesmer runes on top of that make it a delicious 4 seconds.
Corrosive cloud – will disagree on this, while it may have lack of condition rate, in pvp it gives good strategical advantage on capture points, where enemies don’t run around much, it makes them hit weaker and heal not so efficiently + it gives pretty long poison area for projectiles and finishers.
At least with my build in pvp I have basically perm weakness anyway, and it’s too easy for most opponents to cure the poison, which is why I think it would be better if it did less poison per tick, but ticked more often.
Dagger #2 can still do a good amount of damage. I use it when my CC are on CD and I can’t reach the target. Can crit for up to 5k damage, ain’t bad.
I actually run both Signet of Undeath and Spectral Wall.
It certainly can do decent damage, no question, it’s just that it isn’t strong enough to use over dagger 1 unless they’re out of melee range, and my ds/dark path/weapon switch/pretty much everything else is on CD.
But yeah, I agree that signet of undeath is very much worth it in the right situation; I think it’s one of the fastest revival abilities outside the war banner and maybe the mesmer one?
Last time I tried (which was a while ago…), I found it pretty hard to get Bone Minions and/or Putrid Mark to combo with Spectral Wall (can’t remember if it was both or which one in particular). Is there some ‘trick’ you use to pull it off?
The combo field is on you, so get the bone minions to be as close to you as you can manage and you shouldn’t have a problem.
(edited by War Mourner.5168)
the tl:dr is necro isn’t bad, but could be better.