Guild Wars 2

zoobaby.7804:

Binafus.8153:

alanis.6094:

I could certainly see the ‘top guilds’ that are playing at 4am EST leaving because WvDoor isn’t very fun.

I doubt the primetime guilds would be leaving, since they are getting good fights, despite often being on the losing end of them.

You wearing rose color glasses?

It’s accurate. HoD gets fewer points per tick during prime time (~200) than they do non prime time (500+). You’re prim time crew is losing battles to the tune of 300 points per tick.

Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. On the weekend they were about 200/tick behind, but during the week it was closer.

@RashanDale

You can’t be damaged while in DS, so it makes sense that you can’t be healed in it either. I am fairly certain this is done this way by design.

Binafus.8153:

alanis.6094:

I could certainly see the ‘top guilds’ that are playing at 4am EST leaving because WvDoor isn’t very fun.

I doubt the primetime guilds would be leaving, since they are getting good fights, despite often being on the losing end of them.

You wearing rose color glasses?

I’m unsure what part you are referring to.

I could certainly see the ‘top guilds’ that are playing at 4am EST leaving because WvDoor isn’t very fun.

I doubt the primetime guilds would be leaving, since they are getting good fights, despite often being on the losing end of them.

It only works with your #6 skill.

@Shakar

Giving us an option for 30s to port back to the original location would be a balancing disaster.

I pretty much devote almost all of my time in game to WvW, and have tried pretty much every weapon set and build (or similar) that has been posted. I’ve gone back and forth several times on the Wells and Staff power build because in the end, it really comes down to having to give something up. This makes sense, and I actually believe it is a strong design that you can’t have ‘everything’ you’d want — and choices are good for diversity.

So lets take the WvW Power Wells model, and look at what I would say are the most popular and useful traits available for this type of build.

Spite- Marks at the Master level is helpful, but the real reason to go this route is obviously Close to Death.

Curses- Focused Rituals at the Master level is about as far as you’d want to go. Furious Demise and Chilling Darkness (if WoD) are also helpful.

Death- Greater Marks (when fixed for Chillblains) and Staff Mastery would require 20 points in this line. Those that bypass ground-targeting Wells might also consider Ritual of Protection.

Blood- Ritual Mastery is at the Master level. Adept level has some useful traits, but nothing groundbreaking.

Soul Reaping- The entire line has some useful stuff at each stop, but nothing that are mandatory for this specific build. The +crit damage per point in the tree is nice.

1. I think the initial biggest question is if you require Focused Rituals, of if you can do without them. This can often come down to what type of player you are — if you hang around commanders and large groups doing siege/keep battles, the ground targetting would obviously be huge. If you run in small groups, you can likely get away without them.

2. Close to Death or not? With this trait being fixed, it really helps the Spite trait line and a power-well build. I frankly didn’t find the trait, when only 10%, worth investing in what I consider a pretty broken trait line. The Marks trait and Reapers Might are both ‘decent’, but there really aren’t many options there.

3. What to do with the Death line? Right now, with Greater Marks not working correctly for Chillblains, it is easy to put off this trait and use those points into something working correctly. When Greater Marks is completely fixed — this will not be so easy to pass up. Even with this being a power-wells build, you will be using the Staff for your primary damage. Staff Mastery is pretty nice as well, not only for the quicker damaging spells, but being able to have fear available sooner (which will also be much more powerful with a greater marks fear).

4. Do we end up just taking the longer cooldowns on the Wells? If we took what we gathered from the first three questions, we’d be left with a 30-20-20-0-0 build and nothing available for the Blood trait line. The 20% off of Wells is a pretty big boost — 9s off of Suffering and Corruption, 12s off of Darkness and Power). Additionally, if we plan on bringing Well of Blood as our heal, we’d really want Ritual Mastery in our build.

My personal preference? I’m leaning towards 30-20-0-20-0 until Greater Marks is fixed for Chilllblains. Once GM is fixed, I might actually lean towards dropping Focused Rituals and the Curses line entirely for a 30-0-20-20-0 build. I also do a fair amount of small group stuff, so the ground-targetting of the Wells, especially in open-field where they are dodged out of more frequently, isn’t as big a deal.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Dude, I love this video, good kitten.

Showcased some awesome necro abilities and kitten looks haha. Disturbed is perfect for this.

I’m interested in your build as well, because it seems to be close to what I am shooting for, only thing I wasn’t able to see was whether or not you had Greater Marks ability for the staff.

Thanks for taking the time to make the vid,
good kitten.

He is 30 spite, 20 curses, 20 soul reaping — i.e. he doesn’t have Greater Marks (which is still bugged for Chillblains).

The ‘biggest’ issue for Necromancers, IMHO, is the lack of competitive builds for tPvP.

Sure, there are annoying bugs (every profession has those), but there isn’t an aspect of WvW, PvP, or hot-join sPvP that you can’t enjoy and be competitive with this profession.

20 SR vs 20 Blood is an interesting decision, and there really isn’t a ‘best choice’ there. Personal preference I guess.

Stop playing this game like other loot-treadmill games and just have fun.

@fungalfoot

Are you sure that Training of the Master affects their on-use damage? I only was under the impression it was for the autoattack damage of minions.

Are you sure this isn’t working? I dropped down 2 ledges in WvW while this skill was active, then used the port and was back at the top. This was on Tuesday.

It was one of the ‘spiral’ type of cliffs, so many that wasn’t considered a ‘high ledge’

Corpus.5347:

I am not the necromancer portrayed in this video. Check the youtube comments for his build I think. I just thought you guys would enjoy this. To be fair, this is with a orb bonus and he says it would have been harder without it.

Ah OK, thanks.

I read through some of the comments, but didn’t see where he discussed the ‘orb bonus’. He doesn’t appear to have the buff in the video. I think what he was saying in his comment was that he was using the Ruby Orbs, instead of Runes.

Have you tried other rune setups rather than running 6x Ruby Orbs?

The one’s I’d think might be interesting:

Centaur
Divinity

Initial thoughts: Sweet Jesus.

Upon further thinking: Can you discuss Spiteful Spirit in this build? About how much damage is it doing in this setup?

I play a Necro and Mesmer almost exclusively for WvW.

For 1v1 and small open field engagements, the Mesmer is quite strong. For seige/keep battles, the AoE power of the Necro just destroys that of the Mesmer. I find the biggest hindrance of the Necro is their lack of movement and escape abilities, though it might be due to knowing how easy/unbalanced it is to escape as a Mesmer.

Overall, I find that I’m viable enough in small encounters that the Necro is my preferred profession for WvW.

No kidding? Fair enough!

Ilesyt.7084:

I know it sucks to lose all that influence. But you should be able to start over and slowly get enough influence.
Btw if you’re planning to PvE, you’re gonna have a hard time unless more transfer.

You can always guest yourself on another server for PvE if you prefer.

Guild Influence is the only reason our guild is still on Stormbluff.

Having a HoD thief from the guild “Unlimited” [ULTD] exploiting and perma-stealth for 5+ minutes at Gods supply camp is also a way to keep that #1 title…

This skill is pretty great now, and so is Spectral Wall.

My main is Necromancer, with an alt (mid-60s and countless hours in sPvP) is a Mesmer.

1. Aesthetically, I really enjoy the Necromancer.

2. Farming/PvE/Leveling with the Necromancer was much easier and more enjoyable than other professions I’ve used, mostly with the Mesmer.

3. Much, much more AoE options than the Mesmer in WvW, especially in keep/siege battles. Good WvW support options as well.

4. Death Shroud is a pretty great aesthetic and defensive mechanic, and potentially strong offensively (though I don’t build that way and don’t know definitively)

5. Siphoning and Minions are both fun and interesting in PvE, and I have confidence they will become somewhat viable for sPvP/WvW.

Summon blood fiend = auto-dismiss build

They are hashes, I don’t believe

(NB0048) Greater Marks Does not increase Chilblains’s area of effect.

has actually been fixed when I tested it this morning.

Ascii.9726:

Onedoesnotsimply.5740:

The fact that u could activate it, run into a mob, drop your aoe wells, turn DS and lifetransfer and the walk would take u back. He percieves it as a nerf because you have to pop out of ds and manually activate the port back. Basically “Anet, u nerfed da spectral walk qq I have to think while i play”

I was referring to large scale PvP, not some mobs. Try getting out death shroud whilst being focused by 40+ people and not die.

That is what the teleport ability on the skill you are talking about is for…

Alternative, I have found that dodging twice works pretty well.

Corpus.5347:

Ascii.9726:

CC Eva please re-consider the rework on Spectral walk, you’ve removed a lot of its potential and made it just a 30 second swiftness buff. Necromancers really cant take more nurfs.

What?

Have you actually used the skill?

The change makes it so that you can control whether or not you want to teleport back to where you started from, and when. That is a huge upgrade in functionality. I have no idea how this change to that skill could even be perceived as a nerf. Please explain.

He isn’t able to time in his head and manually click the button again.

Sorry that this buff doesn’t work with your incredible-niche-but-still-can-be-made-viable-with-this-spell strategy.

No, Greater Marks isn’t totally fixed.

The lesser issue is that the marks don’t show up large when you hover over where you want to place them — when you drop them they are the correct, larger size.

The bigger issue is that Chillblains isn’t working with it yet. If an enemy triggers the edge of the mark, it will not take damage or receive conditions. It works fine if you drop the mark in the center on top of an enemy.

Essentially, this problem with Chillblains makes me completely ignore this trait in WvW until it is fixed, as the trait actually makes it worse.

Greater Marks is still broken for Chillblains. Enemies that trigger the edge of the mark will not get damage or conditions — they have to hit where the smaller, untraited mark would be.

Guild rep is the only think keeping our guild on Stormbluff.

Just came here to post this as well. I wouldn’t mind as much if I could sell on my alt, but no luck there either.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The scepter is prettykittengood for a clone factory, confusion bursting build. Unfortunately that is the ONLY thing its good for. Any phantasm build stays far away from scepter, because of the clones destroying the phantasms constantly. The scepter is near useless in pve, because it simply doesnt do enough damage, and confusion is no good in pve at this time.

The scepter autoattack only removes phantasms if there are 3 phantasms and no clones up. In reality, this almost never happens.

Perhaps HiS can give it a run, but no chance there are 4 better heals.

Carrion Gear allows you to have a full condition build while still maintaining a good amount of power and HP. You won’t get a ton of crit, but you can mix in some pre/pow/cond gear as well to balance that out as your prefer.

I’m about 75%-25% Carrion, and WoC and Marks hit pretty well.

Glad to see that it is just a tooltip issue — that really makes the Mesmer weapon-specific traits much stronger than other professions, which is a bit odd.

I don’t believe the “Weapon Training” recharge timers affect illusion-summoning abilities. I believe this is why these traits get bonus affects (i.e., +power or +precision) that other similar profession traits do not receive.

I go 0-30-20-20-0 for WvW, and don’t change up for the off-chance PvE run. It is pretty adaptable.

20% bleed duration, ground-target wells and scepter condition duration;
Staff mastery and the cc-reflect (will likely change to greater marks when fixed);
Transfusion and Well cooldown reduction.

For utilities, you mentioned WoD — Epidemic is an obvious other one to consider; for the 3rd slot I’d suggest swapping between WoP for smaller engagements and WoC for keep/seige battles.

Doesn’t count, Phantasms.

I’ll make mental notes on ppl that say Consume Conditions isn’t the best heal on any class in the entire game, let alone being somehow underpowered.

Necro’s certainly have issues with various parts of this game — a fair number of bugs and lack of diversity in its builds.

But WvW is not one of our issues — our AoE damage is among the strongest in the game, and will get better when Greater Marks is fixed.

Staff with S/D, condition damage, WoC, Epidemic, and a third utility of your choice makes for impressive AoE damage and control. In those large battles you should also almost always have a huge amount of life force if you get targetted.

Specifically one thing I see is that you epidemic after sigil of spite — you’d get much more mileage by stacking bleeds prior to epidemic, or just assisting an enemy with a great amount of conditions already applied.

If you are using the main hand dagger, take Bloodthirst. If not, dagger mastery is likely better.

That is not just a lack of options for the amulet, the isn’t a WvW/PvE type of mod that has only these three.

I think Necro’s have had more ANET comments than all the other professions combined…so there is that.

Ah OK, understood.

Lucubration.8361:

alanis.6094:

Lucubration.8361:

Ramza Wyvernjack.6895:

@ Tilron – Yeah, same bout gw1.
This character I can reliably kill 7 enemies at once without breaking a sweat.

Mesmer clones don’t count.

It’s pretty easy to kill 7 melee 80s in Orr with Wells, Conditions, and Epidemic. However, I don’t really have much to base on how other professions would handle this.

I can solo the Champion Giant that throws out tons of grubs, and I’ve seen others die to the encounter when in a group, so that should say something.

Oh… he was talking about PvE. I see.

Nobody is winning anything close to a 7v1 in PvP vs anyone that isn’t afk.

Lucubration.8361:

Ramza Wyvernjack.6895:

@ Tilron – Yeah, same bout gw1.
This character I can reliably kill 7 enemies at once without breaking a sweat.

Mesmer clones don’t count.

It’s pretty easy to kill 7 melee 80s in Orr with Wells, Conditions, and Epidemic. However, I don’t really have much to base on how other professions would handle this.

I can solo the Champion Giant that throws out tons of grubs, and I’ve seen others die to the encounter when in a group, so that should say something.

Shelledfade.6435:

Carrion set, sadly, is utterly useless. We already have high vitality, and the vitality trait line is basically obsolete as a condition spec the way our traits are set up. Due to having high vitality if you were in fact looking for more survivability in WvW or in s-pvp toughness/rabid set, would be miles better for the build. You would also survive better and do better condition damage over carrion due to the rune of the undead.

More vitality for a necro ultimately only helps with being able to survive condition damage longer. However if you use consume conditions to heal, you do not need more vitality anyway. This is why dagger build is so utterly pitiful in every way you look at it.

Vitality is never useless, despite us having high base vitality. And even with consume conditions, deathly swarm, and putrid mark, conditions still add up in WvW.

Additionally, the ‘vitality trait line’ isn’t poor at all for someone focusing on conditions, at least in WvW. You can choose several traits that are effective:

1- The first minor isn’t useless, like so many we have
2- Transfusion is great in wvw, even without healing power stacked
3- Dagger mastery for quicker offhand cooldowns
4- Well cooldown reduction for those that choose to run well builds in wvw (and meshes with the Curses trait line, which makes wells ground targetted).

But again, what more is that you aren’t taking into account that many people will also be using the Staff as their other weapon set, and power is very helpful for this, especially for those that use staff half the time in wvw.

I love Carrion’s for WvW, and I think you are downplaying how power is still useful for someone focused on conditions.

I think you are mistaken to overlook how much power provides for your weapon swap, which will normally be the staff. Additionally, power is very helpful for WoS. Both the Staff and WoS are staples of my WvW build, and I’d imagine staff is pretty popular with almost every WvW Necro.

That being said, I think that there really isn’t a reason that this set isn’t able to be obtained — though I though I had a piece of it from Grenth for Karma (the legs).

Just scrolling around the video, he sure did fine vs that warrior (and then 2v1 vs Ranger) around the 40~ min mark. It was one of the few times that he used DS and positioning well.