Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Balekai.6083:

Which is why there needs to be more thought when reworking things like DS mechanics and life steals, to keep barely viable builds from becoming crazy OP due to oversights. To balance one end of life steals (normal single target hits), you sort of have to nerf the other (area/channel hits) and bring them closer together. That’s done through a much bigger life steal with an ICD. The downside is that one big life steal per second adds counter play issues. To enemy players, life steals may feel like an un-removable burning effect (“cough” Dhuumfire on steroids).

Why? Why should area lifesteal be brought in line with single target and have very little, if any variation? Area lifesteal requires multiple foes, and multiple foes means more incoming damage. No ICD is a self-built scaling mechanic, which Necro sorely needs.

I agree. Aoe scaling of healing and lf regen is the only thing we can hope for with nothing but health as a damage buffer. Introducing an ICD (like the one on Vamp Signet) would be the worst they could do.

Balekai.6083:

Life Transfer alone would net heal me 1935 health over 3 seconds hitting 5 targets

Seriously, 2k healing from a 40 sec cd skill that is more likely to be interrupted than Consume Conditions while facing 5 opponents…. that is NOTHING.
Same goes for the rest of your numbers, they simply won’t work that way in actual fights.

Balekai.6083:

What I’m was saying is that there are mechanics already in place that makes these builds workable if not viable

Sorry, I don’t buy it, I’m 100% with NeXeD here. Your build doesn’t do any damage at the cost of having slightly better sustain than the meta. Yes, just slightly, you are still suffering from all the same sustain issues as every other necro build without being able to dish out any counter pressure.
And why on earth would you take a healing skill that doesn’t even work in DS when the build is supposedly all about tanking in DS with Unholy Sanctuary?

Balekai.6083:

NeXeD.3042:

So full of absolute dookie. I’ll burst right through that on any class.

Oh it can definitely bursted through by skilled/smart players, but there are many cases where you can multiple people that just can’t kill you if they don’t know what they’re doing, don’t coordinate or their builds just don’t have the spike. To the point where people are left wondering what’s going on taking so long to kill a necro. :p

So Death Shroud shouldn’t be improved because bad players who don’t know what they’re doing can’t kill you. kay.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Full healing in death shroud is a good end goal

Yes.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Unrestricted healing combined with death shroud’s uptime is far too likely to be overwhelming.

No.

If that’s really what you believe than I honestly don’t understand why you are so much against ally healing through DS.
And I don’t understand why you would allow regen applied by allies, but no other healing skills.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

flow.6043:

Still think vamp traits should be the only source of healing allowed through DS?

Never did. Always argued for all self-healing traits (vamp traits, parasitic bond, parasitic contagion) and the Regeneration boon as a start.

Even if you have all that combined (which wouldn’t be a viable build anyway) it’d be far from enough to sustain yourself in a meaningful way.

Nice math Drarnor.
I honestly wouldn’t have guessed that even under optimal conditions a 6 point investment in Blood Magic would net less than regeneration.
In a real fight you probably wouldn’t come close to that even if you could siphon on 5 targets. Still think vamp traits should be the only source of healing allowed through DS?

MethaneGas.8357:

Also as spoj mentioned, the weakness from a blast is only 3 seconds (I thought it was 5 too) which makes weakness stacking even less of an issue.

And if weakness was that good then every necro would be running Corrosive Poison Cloud by now.

Rising Dusk.2408:

You have to drop 6 trait points to get it on a 7 second cooldown

Near to Death is master tier.
But keep in mind, people who take this trait are usually running power builds with the purpose of maintaining a high DS uptime. So the ones who could make use of a reduced cd on the blast are actually those who would really be taking the least advantage of it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

As for healing in DS, I genuinely don’t think it’d be OP, but I’m willing to try it in stages to prove it to the general population.

I’d agree if a “stage” wouldn’t equal 6 months in anet patching time.
And imo there is nothing to prove here anyway, healing through DS wouldn’t be op, just fair and consistent with how other classes have been working for the past 2.5 years.

MethaneGas.8357:

flow.6043:

Blast a water field = BAM nothing happens.

Ah! I knew I was missing one blast finisher! It could create nice synergy with the team if you had an engi with water turret or staff ele or ranger or possibly thief (ranger stolen skill). Necro being able to blast a water finisher for an ally?! Oh my.

I actually meant to drop a subtle hint that we should be able to blast healing for ourselves through DS ;P
#fullhealingthroughShroud #convinceDrarnor

MethaneGas.8357:

I think it’s sorta inbetween Master and Adept but other classes have powerful Adept traits as well. Even if it was just weakness without the bleed, and was a blast, I’d still take it.

How about Master Minor then? It could just switch places with Furious Demise.
Almost every build has Weakening Shroud already. If it was updated with a blast finisher you could make it less accessible by increasing the point requirement, and in turn reserve the extra fury as an adept option for builds that really need it.

MethaneGas.8357:

Blast a light field = bam, retal while your health is covered by Deathshroud. Bam, more might. Bam, frost aura… weakness, blinds if you’re a power Necro with wells, more purple bubblez (Chaos Armor) if you’re with a Mesmer friend, or using SWall.

Blast a water field = BAM nothing happens.

I do support the idea though.
Keep in mind, even if it was on Weakening Shroud as well you’d never actually blast every 7 or 10 seconds, except maybe in PvE.
In PvP you’d obviously time DS according to your need for defense and then stay in DS for a while. So even if the blast was available every 7 sec you’d probably just use it every 15-20 seconds and half the time there wouldn’t even be a field to combo on.

NeXeD.3042:

downed state necro with 25 might close to death and chill of death I pretty much insta killed a theif While down.

Does Siphoned Power interact with downed hp as well? Or did your allies buff you?

On a sidenote: It would be nice if you could see your condi/boon icon bar when down.

Holl.3109:

Which makes me think: Why can’t all skills at least start the channel while facing away?

If you are refering to an actual channeled skill then it depends. Life Siphon, Life Transfer and Ghastly Claws all behave differently in regards to facing requirements during the channel.

If you are talking about the precast time, like Dark Pact, then that is actually how all skills work anyway. It’s the actual hit that counts.
So with Life Siphon you can actually face away at first, then quickly turn to your target for the first hit of the channel to land and then you can run away again.
Or Wail of Doom, if you run away from someone chasing you, activate the skill, make a 180 turn just short of half a sec later and the daze cone will go the other way.

manveruppd.7601:

You telling me that you can run directly away from your target and cast CB WHILE RUNNING and it will hit?

Yes!

manveruppd.7601:

Guys, there’s no such thing as skills that need facing “at the beginning” and skills that only require facing “at the end” of the cast in this game. If you cast a skill that requires facing, your character will turn to face your target DURING THE CAST. If for any reason you’re not able to turn, the skill will go on 5" cd. There’s only one kind of facing.

Just try a dagger on a training golem. Life Siphon needs facing at the start, Dark Pact at the end of the cast. If you miss those two moments the skills go on full cd without doing anything.

Ragion.2831:

He should have gone with rabid if he really wanted to use condis, high hp low toughness is only useful for tanking condis, necros already have a lot of cleanses. I dont see anything in the class that makes up for the lost crit chance and armour when there are no proper escapes.

This again? Seriously, there must be hundreds of threads about rabid vs carrion on this forum by now. I’ll give you the short version: carrion is better for both offense and defense.

Ragion.2831:

Ah.. true, thief dp has the mos interrupts…geez, and i run thief.

How about mesmer or ele? Or engi? Ever been knocked back by a rifle into a slick shoe puddle and then got a supply crate with Accellerant Packed Turrets dropped on you?
Necro’s interrupts are very average.

Ragion.2831:

Furious demise trait, and maxing out dm gives perm fury.

So only with Near to Death and not using Death Shroud at all.

Bhawb.7408:

flow.6043:

Are we still talking about the necro?

Unyielding Blast, Focus 4, WoS, Axe AA are all viable options in actual builds.
…
100% crit with Deathly Perception
…
A build with Spectral Armor/Wall
…
We have 100% swiftness really easily
…
Boon ripping he’s just wrong on though

I just meant to hint at the fact that those features aren’t unique to the necro at all.
He might as well have pointed out that we’re able to use 2 weapon sets.

Ragion.2831:

We have:

-The most amount of condi transfers

This one is true.

Ragion.2831:

-very easy access to 25 stacks of might

Access: yes, easy: no.

Ragion.2831:

-ability for permanent fury

How?

Ragion.2831:

- easy access to vulnerabilty
- can easily hit over 100% crit without sacrificing survivabilty.
- long protection durations
- easy access to movment speed
-The most amount of boon rips

Are we still talking about the necro?

Ragion.2831:

- The most amount of skill interrupts

Definitely not.

Rym.1469:

If you want to quickly cast it and turn back, it fails and goes on full cd.

You mean the fact that you are changing direction causes it to fail? That can’t be right…

manveruppd.7601:

This has made a lot of people think that marks don’t require facing, but they do. You can tell because they fail if you try to cast them behind you while immobilised

That’s not true, marks always work.
And so does Plague Signet, just tested this.

Seems like many people have different experience with some skills in regards to the need of facing the target.

As far as I remember Plague Signet never needed facing. I’ve just tested the immobilized thing, transfer works for me every time.
Same for Corrupt Boon. I remember people complaining that CB requires facing even two years ago, but personally I could always cast it backwards.
Which btw is not just good for the pure usability in that way, but actually I sometimes turn away from my opponent just to cast CB, this way they are less likely to dodge when they see my big charr hand waving green smoke in their face.

Holl.3109:

Dark Pact too, it’s awesome for those surprise bursts

Flow said one time that after beginning the cast of life siphon (dagger 2), while facing, it doesn’t require facing after that. Handy to know while escaping…

That probably wasn’t me but it’s true. The only moment you need to face your target is when you press the button, you can even turn away during the precast time.

Strangely enough though, Dark Pact doesn’t work for me when I don’t face my target.
In fact, both Dark Pact and Life Siphon go on full cooldown without hitting at all if I face away. Bug?

NeXeD.3042:

k, even so wouldn’t dagger still be optimal for damage given you are in range?

Well, yeah. That’s why dagger is the PvE weapon of choice for power builds.
But in PvP it depends.
Axe definitely has a better burst with Ghastly Claws. So if I just compare the 2.25 sec channel of that with the 2.1 sec AA sequence of dagger I’ll not only get more direct damage with axe but also more Barbed procs.
If you are looking at a longer time interval then dagger will easily overtake the axe. But then you have to ask youself: are people going to stay in dagger range for that long? Do I actually want to auto attack this long or am I more likely to use other skills as well? And how many? Enough so I’d actually have Ghastly Claws off cd again if I was using the axe instead?
Also, you have to take utility into consideration. Like, what is your offhand weapon, what utility skills do you use, or what traits synergize better with each weapon setup.
For example: I use Axe Mastery, but with a dagger I’d obviously choose Chill of Death instead. So what is the better option here? The burst potential might actually shift in favor of the dagger if you can get someone below 50% in the right moment. But is the Spinal Shiver proc a better boon strip than Unholy Feast?
Anyway, you see where I’m getting at. It’s more of a matter of how you incorporate certain skills into your build rather than comparing just the damage of the two weapons.

Bhawb.7408:

It is used because of Axe 2, and its AA, afaik, plus the range.

I use the Axe in a hybrid but definitely not for its AA. And honestly, if I use all the other skills whenever they are off cd I’ll rarely ever get to auto attack anyway.

NeXeD.3042:

Axe is faster? Since when? You sure? I know you can make it faster by some fancy weapon stowing…. but normally I’m pretty sure dagger is still hitting more often …

According to wikipedia the full AA chain of dagger is 2.1 sec for 4 hits, and the axe needs 0.95 sec for 2 hits.
I haven’t tested it with that exact precision but it seems about right to me.

Bhawb.7408:

And all of that is basically because you rely on on-crit condition procs to be “hybrid”.

You’re right, depending on the type of hybrid build you want to use, Barbed Precision will contribute to your damage to some extent. And Ghastly Claws coupled with other attacks like Locust Swarm can actually ramp up a good amount of stacks, especially with sinister gear.
However, what you need to understand when you try to make a hybrid necro work is that unlike other classes you simply don’t have a weapon that does both direct and condition damage equally well like the warrior’s sword for example. Instead you need to pick a condition weapon and a power weapon, and then layer attacks in a way that makes conditions tick on your target while you follow up with direct damage.
Death Shroud innately works this way already, even more so if you trait for Dhuumfire and/or Terror. In a way it works as a natural bridge when you’re transitioning from a condi to a power weapon or the other way around.
So the fact that the axe or dagger aren’t doing any condition damage on their own doesn’t really matter, because usually you still have conditions from DS and your other set ticking until you swap back to them.

L Step.8659:

1. Yes you can, condi builds aren’t crazy in the Meta right now. (And if you’re running a condi build you’ll be fine against every other; also lots of eles and shoutbows are running around for cleanse in teamfights as well)

You don’t need condi builds to eat a lot of conditions. Those eles and shotbows have a lot of aoe burning (among other condis) which you either have to take or you’re forced out of a capture point.
So in that case, if I start out with a decent amount of life force and generally have good lf regen, and then have to decide between protection or pulsing aegis then the choice is obvious: Well of Power, please and thank you.

L Step.8659:

It’s not an instant cast stun break though

The stunbreak is instant, the well has a cast time.

L Step.8659:

that is just so much more valuable to me than converting a few condis into boons.

I’ll just refer you to my earlier post, you’re clearly underrating the utility WoP can provide, not just for yourself but your allies as well.

L Step.8659:

Cba to quote, but I just meant the amount of focus you will take from good teams, it’s the only stun break that’ll be useful to you, Flow.

Like I said, depends on the amount of life force you have.

L Step.8659:

If someone is trying to load up a condi necro with condis then you don’t even need plague signet, and Well of Power is just…slow to pulse and not useful enough with a huge cool down in most fight encounters you’ll have in pvp. And if you’re forcing yourself to stand in a well in most necro builds, you’re basically asking to die limiting yourself to that range.

1. You can’t have too many cleanses.
2. The cooldown is exactly the same as Spectral Armor.
3. If you stand in WoP when it’s cast you’ll get the cleansing buff for its full duration even if you step out.
4. I guess we’ll see how they adapt the change to stability for WoP, but in its current form I sometimes use that 1 sec of stability to avoid stuns entirely, especially when I’m about to get focused in team fights.

L Step.8659:

Spectral Armor is just so much better than the other options in realistic situations.

Realistic situations?

Bhawb.7408:

I’d take SA to replace it. Nothing against WoP, but SA better replaces Wurm for a personal defense, since it brings damage taken to 33% when you pop it and go into DS, which allows you to get out of a bad situation.

It really comes down to how much life force you already have, or if you have decent lf regeneration besides SA.
Other than that I’d argue that WoP has the potential for avoiding a lot more damage than just 33% direct dmg. After all it can give protection as well, maybe some regeneration, extra dodges through vigor, several blocks if you stand in fire fields, or even some blindness if you blast WoP with Purtid Mark. Maybe you get to cleanse confusion, or immobilized which would’ve made you take some follow-up attacks if you were forced to stand in the same spot. So a lot of ways to avoid some hits entirely rather than just a part of it.

Imo there is no reason to take Plague Signet over Well of Power, so it basically comes down to WoP vs Spec Armor. Personally I’d take both of them over SWalk and Wurm even now.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Well of Power – Already used by many players, and rightfully so. The stunbreaks usually comes with Vigor, Protection and Aegis since the three conditions (Bleed, Vulnerability and Burning) are quite apparent in the meta. That is, if you stay inside the well of course.

Whoever stands in the well at the moment it is cast gets the cleansing buff for the full duration even if they step out of the well. Only if you walk in later you get a 1 sec buff per pulse.

Also, chilled also turns into vigor as well and I believe it has a higher cleansing priority than bleeding.

NeXeD.3042:

Roe.3679:

I can’t speak for EU, but nos is in a league of his own in NA. I only know of 3 other necros that come close, and that’s it. I’m not sure who all these incredible necro pvpers are that could be winning thousands of dollars at pvp but just don’t because they are too chill for it.

^ I agree about the “too chill for it” lol.
…

Playing in teams and attending events like the recent WTS is a big commitment. It’s not just something you casually squeeze into your schedule. So to me it is perfectly understandable that some players have no interest in competing at such events, even if the prize pool is attractive.
Also, winning pvp matches is primarily a team effort. Having skilled individual players is definitely an advantage, but ultimately there are more important things at a high level pvp tournament, like map rotation and utility/skill coordination.

In regards to the NA pvp scene, I highly doubt that even the smaller player base you have over there could only produce a total of 4 people who can play a decent necro.
Like I said, apparently those are just the ones you’ve heard of. But I’m sure there are many completely unknown necros on NA servers who play at the very same high level as Nos and whoever else you can think of.
And this is not just a matter of statistical probability, but also due to the fact that gw2’s pvp is considerably easier to master than games you have to train 10 hours per day, 24/7, just to stay competitive. So someone who plays gw2 only a couple of hours can easily be as skilled as someone who invests double or tripple the amount of time. And naturally, that means less exposure in terms of popularity.

Jayce.5632:

manveruppd.7601:

But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

This is where you are wrong. Your character does not need to face the target. Your camera, however, does. the only way to make it more reliable is to make it unblockable, which ironically would remove the only setup required for using the skill. Personally, in my opinion, plague signet could use a 35-40 second cooldown.

Just tested this. Turns out neither my character nor my camera need to face the target for the transfer to work.

Ravezaar.4951:

“The only one in a top team? No.
The best necro? Absolutely not.”

Its the only one Iv seen at any top team atleast and I watch for quite some time
Well I think Nos is best, certainly better then the forum warriors in here

I didn’t mean to say that Nos is bad, but there are a lot of necros that simply aren’t as popular as him. This is mostly due to the fact that Nos plays with Abjured, but honestly, there must be hundreds of necros who could easily take his place.
Also, there simply is no best player at any class in gw2 because the game isn’t that hard or complicated and the player base huge.

That being said, I’ve watched Nos’ stream, I’ve met him on his EU account a couple of times… and in my oppinion there are several necros I’d rather play with instead of him. And those are just the ones I know of, I’m sure there are many players all over the world who are completely unknown but can easily keep up with a well known necro like Nos.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

This was just the first time in a tourney someone figured out the weak link was Nos not having peel.

Really? The first time someone tried to focus the necro before other classes?

Ravezaar.4951:

Nos is the best Neco in sPvP and yes if u see to the whole Tourney scene he is also kinda the only 1 in the Top teams.

The only one in a top team? No.
The best necro? Absolutely not.

Roe.3679:

It speaks volumes to me that they won with 2 engineers and lost when they added a necro. Not that they would have won in any regard, but it’s just an obvious observation.

Orange Logo was hands down the better team in the final.
I wouldn’t say The Abjured lost because they had a necro though. But generally yes, a necro is a bigger liability than an engi. They simply are the easiest target in team fights. And as long as we don’t get a significant sustain boost for those specific situations like being able to receive healing in DS, we’ll stay as unwanted as we are now.

Ragion.2831:

We can get almost a 100% swiftness up time with banshee’s wail and warhorn, we have +25 movement speed passive on locust, we have +33ms from spectral walk, we have +40 from D/D and quickening thirst, we even have trait for +25 ms while in DS.

Quickening Thirst doesn’t add both increases. You get a total of +25% for d/d.
Also, swiftness is +33% out of combat and +25% in combat, and this is as good as it gets.

Junkpile.7439:

or give necro some +25% speed adept trait.

This sounds like you are taking Locust Signet just for the +25% speed.
Keep in mind, you are the slowest profession with or without swiftness or other speed buffs. So don’t make yourself weaker at the cost of getting it.

Actually power necros have a much easier time generating life force, so in a way they are less dependant on starting a fight with a certain amount than condi builds.

Btw, if that necro was smart he could’ve sacrificed minions for some life force before he engaged you a second time.

Smirgel.9460:

But what is this -50% damage in DS thing? I see no mention of it in the wiki page. Source?

We are the source ;P

In July 2013 we got a patch that made it possible for damage to overflow from our life force pool to our regular hp. After that people started to notice that Death Shroud had become a lot more durabel. All this was before you could see an actual number on the life force bar, so with some testing and speculating we could determine that our life force was now 120% of our regular hp. Devs denied this and said it was 60%.
September 2013: we finally get a number on the lf bar, and behold, it just 60%. However, with actually being able to compare numbers we were able to determine that whatever source of damage we take, only half would be substracted from the lf bar.
So who was right? 120% or 60% but with a damage reduction?
The difference becomes apparent when you take overflow damage. For example: you have 100 hp and 100 lf. if you take 100 damage in DS you are left with 100hp and 50 lf. But if you take 101 damage you’ll have 99 hp and zero lf.
Therefore it stands to reason that there is a 50% dmg reduction in DS as long as it doesn’t overflow to your regular hp.

Now that you mention it, I forgot to factor in 4 points in Soul Reaping.
That would mean 26600 life force for rabid, effectively 41561 with 36 % dmg reduction.
For Carrion: 35960 – 43325.

NeXeD.3042:

Muchacho.2390:

…

Pretty sure we have gone over this a million kittening times… and you say the same hlthing everytime and everytime a bunch of people have math that says carrion is better against getting bursted.

Sounds like my cue. ^^

Muchacho.2390:

And yes even if LF generation scales with vitality, toughness still scales better against direct damage.

First of all, the calculations you made in that other thread was a direct comparison of base stats + amulett. It didn’t include traits or life force.
Once you have 4 points in Death Magic you get an additional 200 toughness out of DS and 370 toughness in DS. That means the EHP of carrion is actually higher before healing (27164 vs 27746 to be exact).
Now let’s look at life force:
With rabid you have 18472 hp, factoring in the 50% dmg reduction in DS that means 22166 life force. With carrion: 24972/29966.
Now, let’s see what happens if you add 370 toughness to each amulet. That would be a 36% dmg reduction for rabid = 34634; and 17% dmg reduction for carrion = 36104.

As you can see, if you use the meta condi build with 4 points in Death Magic your regular hp and your lf pool have a higher EHP with carrion.
Also, the bigger pool happens to be the one that can be replenished more easily.

But most importantly, it is absolutely impossible to just take direct damage in a real pvp match. You will take condition damage, a lot of it, more than you could ever make up with the healing effectiveness of a rabid amulett. And you don’t need celestial classes for that, even zerkers inflict conditions.

Muchacho.2390:

And to be clear this post is about the vitality vs toughness debate only, not about carrion vs rabid.

To be fair, the thread title says “why carrion over rabid?”
Also, if you talk about those prefixes it basically comes down to vitality vs toughness because damage wise there’s no contest at all (carrion wins).

Ragion.2831:

Here is the thing, if you come at my thief with a squishy build like the meta, you will die. I will evade majority of your skills. I will out kite, I will hit and run, you will miss and i will cleanse.

That just sounds like you’re better on your thief than your necro.
If played right, even the squishy power meta build (which isn’t at all as fragile as you make it out to be) has a clear 1v1 advantage against any thief.

Ragion.2831:

-The near perma protection is based on a real battle scenario not a guaranteed calculation.

In real battle scenarios people strip boons.

Ragion.2831:

Then look at the new traits and changes we got, specifically spec armour changes and unholy sanctuary. Those changes alone pretty much raised the necro’s level well over 9000.

Are we playing the same game?

Ragion.2831:

Do i have as much power as the meta build does? no, but will i notice the 200 power or so difference? not really. For comparison, the meta has less than 2000 armour, less than 20k hp with 2300 power or so and less than 40% crit with no food.

Judging by your explanations about your stats I would assume you have Signet of Spite just for the passive bonus? I’m sure you know that signets don’t work in Death Shroud, so that’s less power half the time, also you have less ferocity and no 100% crit chance in DS. (not sure how you’re getting less then 40%with full berserker..?)
So, does one notice a difference in damage? Absolutely.

In general you have some decent ideas, and I appreciate that you’re trying a different approach. However, your rant about the current meta and your build having better synergy is in part unfounded.
For example:
If you want defense you need utility, not just a huge amount of armor (sidenote: for necros vitality>toughness). Yes, more stats help, but face tanking with a lot of armor or protection is far less effective than if you’d just take another defensive utility instead of Signet of Spite.
Also, your Death Magic traitline… Dark Armor and Reaper’s Protection. I get that you have to settle for poor traits in that line when you are not using a staff. But why not at least take Shrouded Removal and maybe Ritual of Protection with a well instead of the signet? I don’t know.. the whole line looks like a waste of points to me. Yeah, more toughness and boon duration stack with your rune and whatever, but it just seems like you’re very much overrating Unholy Sanctuary and are glad about scoring some power on the way there.

Anyway, perhaps you could enlighten us with a gameplay video or something? Or maybe a duel, in case you’re on EU? I’ll even fight your thief with the meta power build.

Just a quick update on the necro side. I’m now EU leader of our guild, so should there be any mesmer challengers on EU servers, please contact me. I’ll gladly duel any of you. If you can get more people I’ll just force some of our necros to join me battle!
cheers.

BROKENCAPS.4561:

By my calculations I’m stacking as follows:

Hemophilia: +20%
Lingering Curses: +33%
Rune of the Krait: +20%
Sigil of Agony: +20%

Krait runes give +45% bleeding duration.
You also get +30% from having 6 points in Spite.
If you add Sigil of Agony and Hemophilia you get +115%.

Lingering Curse is a different story.
First of all, the tooltip is completely misleading. There is not a single skill on the scepter that is increased by exactly 33%. Not only that, but a percentage value all too often makes people believe that this trait somehow interacts with other duration increases, which it doesn’t.
What really happens is this:
Auto Attack (bleed/bleed/poison): 5/5/4 seconds. With LC: 7/7/6 sec.
Grasping Dead: 7/5 sec. LC: 9/6 sec.
Lingering Curse simply extends each skill by a fix amount, and that new base duration can again be extended by 100%. So an unmodified 5 sec of bleeding on Blood Curse can be turned into 14 seconds without violating the 100% rule.

So like I said, +100% is as good as it gets. If you have +115% your 30 seconds of bleeding on Blood is Power will still only tick 60 times. With one exception: if you face someone with for example Melandru runes (-25% condi duration) you’d still do +90% against them.

BROKENCAPS.4561:

I take your point about longer bleed times = more chance of condi cleanse, but I’ve made it part of my strategy to pressure certain vulnerable classes to blow their condi cleanse or risk bleeding out fast.

I know what you mean, but different traits might add more pressure than the extra duration.

fracture.9754:

maybe change WoP to lower cooldown with only condi removal, not change condi to boons.

So basically remove the best part of it? How about no.

manveruppd.7601:

I still maintain it’s the least-used stunbreaker in spvp for a reason

And the reason is that metabattle tells people to use Wurm+SWalk.
Also, Plague Signet is probably the least used stun break.

BROKENCAPS.4561:

Bleedtastic – Lingering Curses/Hemophilia/Rune of the Krait/Carrion Amulet all add up to long bleed times and huge DOT.

You are overstacking your bleeding duration. You can’t get more than +100%.
And except for Barbed Precision, all of your bleeds have rather long base durations. So chances are you will not get the full duration before they are cleansed anyway.
My suggestion: change Hemophilia to Weakening Shroud, Lingering Curse to Path of Corruption, Sigil of Agony to anything else.
Also, I’d take Flesh Golem with Krait runes, or a different rune if you want to keep Lich.

I gotta say, you’ve improved your gameplay a lot compared to your older videos. Mabye it’s just your hardware upgrade, either way it’s nice(r to watch now.

Dadnir.5038:

Horror

While wielding it’s hammer the Horror’s minion become it’s bone and flesh. The Horror can’t summon minions but gain a direct acces to their active skills when equiped.

Sounds pretty awesome. But that is actually the new legendary stance of the Revenant. :P

Hello, necro here. According to what I’ve read on our forum and some chats with other necros in game, it seems that most of us want to chicken-out on this epic showdown.

Tbh, up until I read your feedback on the mesmer vs necro perspective I wasn’t even aware that people generally see the odds in your favour. So I hope this will happen sooner or later, I’m always up for a challenge.

So far it seems this will be EU only. ^^
Count me in as well.

EvesDesire.2596:

Also, the reason I chose rampager over sinister is that the precision is essential in damage output in this build (in power criticals and bleed casting). Two bleeds that occur are based on critical hits; through the trait in the condition line, and sigils of earth. So I may be doing more damage per bleed, but there will be fewer of those bleeds.

In context of this specific build (just rampager vs sinister armor) the difference is 4% critical chance and 94 condition damage.
Since Sigil of Earth has a cooldown the proc difference here is rather negligable with either 49% or 53% crit chance. With Barbed Precision (no icd) you’re looking at about 32% vs 35% chance to proc bleeding, not factoring in fury. That means you’ll average a single additional bleed proc every ~33 hits (more with fury). Now, depending on the type of skills and number of opponents you’re facing this might take you as long as a Life Transfer on 5 targets or somewhere between 10-15 seconds on a single target.
On the other hand 94 condition damage means an additional 4,7 dmg per bleed tick. Your condition damage will vary with might, corruption stacks and weapon swapping… but for the sake of simplicity let’s assume you’re averaging 100 dmg per bleed tick with rampager armor and 105 with sinister. And that means once you have 20 stacks of bleeding going you need to proc 1 extra Barbed every 4 seconds.
Like I said, there are a lot of variables to be considered, but I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this by now: there’s no way you’re doing more damage with rampager armor than with sinister.

Rising Dusk.2408:

CPC should block projectiles, but it also needs to pulse more frequently for shorter duration conditions. Pulsing once every 3 seconds is a fairly weak area denial. Enemies can run through it and not get hit if they time it correctly.

Honestly, if I were to encounter someone who not only has enough knowledge about CPC to pull that off at all, but who can also time its pulses in the heat of a battle to the point where they just avoid every hit, I would /salute and gladly concede the capture point to them.

Generally I agree though, CPC getting a projectile block upgrade would be something it needs to compete with other skills over utility slots. But the recent cd and cast time reduction actually turned this into a semi-decent skill, especially if you couple it with Master of Corruption.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

enigma.4873:

Main character name: Simply Vexed
Account name: enigma.4873
Favorite game mode (eg. WvW/PvP/PvE): PvE (non-dungeon/fracs) and WvW
Server: Henge of Denravi
Number of Necromancers (if you have more than 1): 2 (one is in limbo at the moment with leveling).

I played nothing but Necro in GW1, and have been playing GW2 since OB, but it’s taken me almost 2yrs to get my necro to 80. He is not my main (my main is a thief), but he will be seeing more and more of my playtime. If this is okay, go ahead and shoot me an invite.

Yessir, as I’ve said, the only real requirements are that you’re friendly and that Necromancer is your main. You’re more than welcome to play your other characters regardless of profession, we only ask that Necromancer is the one you play most even if you just recently started to play it the most.

We should probably encourage newcomers to join more so than veteran necros. I mean it’s nice to have big names associated with your guild, but it’s probably those who are starting to learn the class who could profit the most from having an in game chat with a necro guild.

Most of it looks reasonable.

Malchior.1928:

Staff 1: Is now a 100% projectile finisher.

Considering that every projectile auto attack has a 20% finisher chance, I doubt this buff is going to happen. Also, it would probably be too strong.

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Marks: Marks remove a boon from enemies on trigger.

That’s an interesting change, it might actually make this trait worth picking.

Malchior.1928:

Weakening Shroud: Weakness duration increased to 4 seconds.

When Anet changed this trait from the original Enfeebling Blood to Enfeeble they discussed having the weakness duration reduced to either 2 or 3 seconds. Apparently 3 sec was too much for them back then, so I doubt they would double the base duration now.

Malchior.1928:

Withering Precision: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.

This trait is too weak to be in a grandmaster slot, a cd reduction won’t change that.

Malchior.1928:

Spiteful Vigor: (Changed to) Gain 5 seconds of Retaliation on dodge.

It needs to be a different boon.

Malchior.1928:

Death Shiver: Added 1 second of chill every 3 seconds.

Too strong.

Malchior.1928:

Entire Blood Magic tree: allowing 50% 100% of healing through deathshroud would vastly improve synergy between this tree and our class mechanic.

I fixed a typo for you there.

Roe.3679:

I find that playing necro well almost depends on the team being strong. I can bring a lot of damage and control and annoyance to an enemy team, but if everyone isn’t pulling their weight, if there is more skill on the other team, it won’t matter at all because Necro is focused so much. I know that this statement applies to almost any class, but it feels especially so with necromancer, as if smaller differences are more pronounced.

Very true.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Those are just facts which remove any bias of people who might say I need to “l2p”.

Falcon.8713:

I think you have l2n issues OP
Here are some tips:

lol