Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

You have both nightmare and reaper’s protection procs.

Imo Reaper’s Protection is a bad trait and no one should use it.
As to the fear proc of nightmare runes: the only reason they are being used over other condi runes is the 4th bonus.

Also, a fear proc with 1 hour cooldown is hardly a good counter measure to being pinballed.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

flow.6043:

Afya.5842:

Then what did that update do?

Locust Swarm:
Fixed a bug which caused this skill to have incorrect skill facts and duration when traited with Banshee’s Wail.

Before the patch you’d only get 13 ticks with Banshee’s Wail. Now it’s 15.
“Skill facts” always said 10 regardless of traited or not.

“Skill facts” said 15 when traited before.

Not for me.

Anchoku.8142:

Draw your own conclusions from that. I know you can.

Every rune’s price is determined by how much they cost to be crafted.
For those that can’t be crafted but just salvaged or mystic-toileted: depends on demand.
Divinity runes where the most valuable for a long time until the rune rework that made Travellers what they are today. After the April patch Strength runes were in high demand for pretty much everyone who’s running a power build.
And before the last patch runes of Scavenging were ~5s, now they are close to 3g because they’ve been made part of a collection achievement.

Obviously you’re hinting at “condi necros are weak…” and that’s why most condition based runes are cheap, but that’s just not the case.
Also, sigil of bursting: 15g.

Afya.5842:

Then what did that update do?

Locust Swarm:
Fixed a bug which caused this skill to have incorrect skill facts and duration when traited with Banshee’s Wail.

Before the patch you’d only get 13 ticks with Banshee’s Wail. Now it’s 15.
“Skill facts” always said 10 regardless of traited or not.

Of course I tried the skill several times, and like I said, I’m not sure because the damage varies a lot.
Either way, at the very least the tooltip is bugged, so I made this report.

I’m not sure if this is just a tooltip error, but the trait Axe Traning doesn’t seem to increase the damage of Ghaslty Claws. Tooltips of skills #1 and #3 are correctly increased by 10%.

On the bright side: the stomp won’t be interrupted if you run out of life force.

@ golem charge: huge bummer :/

Locust Swarm + Banshee’s Wail fix is nice though.

Mexamese.5163:

I wonder how much crap I’ll get for posting my build. lol

That build looks good actually.
I’d probably go for Unyielding Blast instead of Vital Persistance. And as soon as you’re not with a zerg I’d drop Focused Rituals for Weakening Shroud.

Bhawb.7408:

Depends on your build. Staff is an awful weapon for builds that are able to actually make use of axe’s extra damage, and don’t need the ranged utility staff brings. I haven’t used staff since Putrid Mark was gutted, and I’ve reached top 20 in yoloQ.

YoloQ ranking doesn’t really mean anything, but for what it’s worth I use both staff and axe and I’ve been in the top 20 as well.

Rym.1469:

People who already use Axe get something more, people who can’t use or don’t like this weapon will shrug and ignore it same as before.

Correct.

Flumek.9043:

Its still terrible in any level of tpvp.

Not true.

Mexamese.5163:

Can some one please explain what the after cast will do to the axe auto attack? How much of a damage increase will it mean for Rending Claws if any?

One might think that “about 0.25 sec” means that the auto attack will make each repetition faster by that amount.
However, I tried to time the demonstration in the video and the current auto attack:
They did 6 attack chains which took about 6 seconds. Currently you can do it in ~7 sec.
So apparently -0.25 really means -0.17.

How much more damage does this mean? Nothing.
Why? Because no one will repeat that many axe auto attacks in either PvP or PvE.
It might make you a little faster overall because you can queue up other skills more quickly.

Mexamese.5163:

will the 10% damage increase make it any more useful?

Yes.

Mexamese.5163:

Also is there suppose to be a change to the animations of these attacks? and what impact do you think it will have on the axe?

Animations will be the same.

spoj.9672:

Also health trigger traits like that are usually more defensive like last gasp.

But it is very defensive actually. With Gluttony and Banshee’s Wail it can generate up to 130% life force.

This trait used to be in Soul Reaping until the patch of June 25th, 2013.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decaying_Swarm

At 25% health, you become surrounded by a Locust Swarm.

Back then no one shed a tear over its removal.
However, Locust Swarm has seen some really nice buffs since then, and it will get another one next week.
Actually, it’s already one of my favourite skills. Lot’s of aoe damage, perma cripple, perma swiftness with the right runes and Banshee’s Wail, and it has the second best life force regeneration potential of all our skills.
If this trait still existed I would definitely use it.

Like I said, back then nobody complained that it was removed, but today I really wish we still had it instead of Fear of Death, Speed of Shadows or Mark of Revival.

TheDevice.2751:

But you’re also super right about outside healing. They’ve tested allowing healing in DS. They found that a necro can become invincible.

I’d really like to know how they tested this.
There might be a theoretical scenario where 4 guardians are perma healing a necro, but I don’t think there’s any way to run a viable team composition that could actually make use of this in a real match.

Bhawb.7408:

I regularly heal for over 10k on it. It is a decent base heal, plus a large bonus per condition removed…

Yeah, 10k would be a nice base heal. But a non-cleric build neither gets a decent base nor a large bonus. And a full healing power MM necro like yourself should definitely not heal for barely half of his total hp. Other classes can fill their hp in the same time many times over without having to invest that heavily into healing.
What you’re getting so hyped about is the skill’s utility, and everyone agrees here, it is great. However, the amount it heals for is bad. Why? Because it’s a necro skill. If other classes had access to it as well then some of them would be rather happy I’d imagine, but for us it’s just not enough.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So long as Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark hit 4 times, that’s 12 conditions transferred, and there are only 11 in the game!.

There are 12 conditions in the game, and you can even transfer fear if you precast the skills.

Bhawb.7408:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The Consume conditions heal is nice but the healing it provides is poor.

Wat.

djooceboxblast.9876:

How is a 5240 base heal + 724 for every condition poor?

Henry is right.
The utility on it is nice but the healing is extremely poor when seen in context.
Again, healing and life force regen is all we have. There is no other damage mitigation for us. 18-25k hp and all you can do is 5k + some for each condi on a 25sec cd.
I get that some people say it’s a good heal when they compare it to other classes’ heals directly. But if you were to move it into perspective: it’s as if a guardian (10k base hp) could only heal 3k every 25 seconds, no additional healing, just that. But omg best heal in game because full cleanse!!

Bhawb.7408:

Lordrosicky.5813:

We have to run it because contary to popular believe our anti condition ability is woeful.

Waaaaaaat.

I wouldn’t say woeful, but he does have a point.
Without Consume most people just have Putrid Mark and Deathly Swarm.
I’m always running Well of Power anyway, but I would instantly pick up Plague Signet if I could drop Consume Conditions for a proper healing skill instead. As of now all other healing skills just heal you for even less hp, that’s why people are “stuck” with CC.

Cam Ron.4170:

If they just allow necros to get healing in DS they’d have to overhaul the entire class to balance around it.

That sentence alone makes it rather evident that you don’t know much about necros.

Cam Ron.4170:

New pvp meta: 5 Necro running transfusion and unholy sanctuary.

Not sure what Unholy Sanctuary has to do with it since it heals you in DS either way. Also, it’s a bad trait now and it will be after the patch. There is no build that could ever make use of it.

As to the 5x necro transfusion meta:

Again, Blood Magic is not viable unless you’re a minion master… and the viability of MMs is questionable by itself.
But generally the picture your are painting with your “necro-meta” is:
5 necros zerg all together on one point and they are healing each other for ~3k hp every 40 seconds. -_-
I won’t even go into detail on how horrible this build would be or how much you’d be sacrificing proper map rotation just to get this pathetically low heal once in a while. Yes I said low, because that’s what it is when your hp pool is 25k total and you don’t have access to blocks/teleports/stealth/invuln.

Again, 100% healing in DS is a start at best. If anything it’s a QoL improvment for coordinating heals in team fights, but it would barely increase survivabilty for necros overall.

kodesh.2851:

Necros have excellent sustain

lol

Nice try, Mr. Warrior.

NeXeD.3042:

If we got heals in ds we would he ridiculously op in pvp.

Absolutely not.

We can’t heal ourselves, at best we’d get a little bit extra through regeneration. Bloodmagic and Parasitic Bond would be improved indirectly, but picking either one or both would mean a loss in damage or survivability somewhere else.
Basically it comes down to how much our allies would be able to heal us, and that should be possible either way. So arguing that an ally heal is balanced unless a necro receives it just doesn’t make sense.

I’m actually surprised to see so many people say we should only receive a percentage of healing in DS, or that it would be entirely overpowered. Neither is true. We need more healing and 100% through DS should just be the first step.

The bottleneck to our (lack of) attrition game play is definitely healing.
But I don’t think allowing it to go through Shroud is enough. If it was up to me I’d make all of our healing scale with opponents to a point where it could double or even tripple in effectiveness.
Most necro builds get to heal a quarter or maybe a third of their total hp every 25 seconds. That is weak sauce!
While anet has over time buffed our life force regeneration to be quite manageable und reasonable in regards to survivability, the current state of our regular healing is just no where near enough even if we could be healed in DS.

Of course you might argue that ally healing would compensate for that, but don’t forget: other classes with already good healing and survivability can get ally healing as well, always! And it would be foolish to balance with the assumption that your team mates start throwing heals at you as soon as they see black smoke.

3 cleanses aren’t too bad (4 if you count Shrouded Removal). However, if you want more I’d consider using:
- an off hand dagger instead of focus.
- Well of Power instead or in addition to Plague Signet.
- Staff Mastery instead of Shrouded Removal so Putrid Mark is on a 20 sec cd.

unexiist.8167:

Anything past 1v1 and I seem to get creamed,

You have to keep in mind that generally 1v2 on any class or build is impossible unless your opponents are worse players than yourself. Some classes just have an easier time surviving outnumbered encounters.

Lily.1935:

Rym.1469:

Fixing Necromancer in many aspects is so kitten easy that I cannot believe they’re not doing anything. Just one of fast ideas, how to give Necromancer utility in PvE:

Master of Corruption – This trait now also improves Corruption skills. However, it also inflicts random condition on user in addition to existing ones.

I.E:

Blood is Power – This skill now also gives Might to allies around the caster.

Corrosive Poison Cloud – This skill now also reflects all hostile projectiles casted within the area.

Corrupt Boon – This skill now corrupts all boons, but has it’s cast increased by 1/4 second.

Epidemic – Now is a Blast Finisher and cleanses 1 condition on allies within the area for every condition spreaded.

BAM!

That doesn’t even come close to fixing all our problems.

Well tbh, I think this would be an incredible PvE buff.
Sharing might, a reflect skill and a blast finisher… sounds like spoj’s wet dream.
It would have to be made gm tier of course, but Withering being kicked to the curb is long over due anyway.

Ragion.2831:

If you notice, I used the word permanently 4 times. It is worth mentioning that all 4 can be done simultaneously in the same power necro build.

Permanent Protection… how?

Permanent swiftness/cripple: already possible.

Permanent fury:
How about instead of just flashing DS you stay in Shroud and enjoy +50% crit chance instead of just +20%? Which btw makes you inherently more tanky than taking damage to your regular hp while having protection.

Also, condi builds do profit from the Last Gasp buff as well, and of course stomp/rezzing in Shroud.

I think it’s funny how they played up the changes to Last Gasp like it was a trait that badly needed a buff. Seriously, it’s one of the best minor traits we have. I welcome the improvement of course, but there are so many more traits that need a rework instead.

Dirame.8521:

Axe is the most underrated weapon in the Necro’s cache. Seriously, one good combo and you can 100 to 0 people sometimes.

This is true.

Softspoken.2410:

(Someone tries to press DS right before death, overshoots and ends up cancelling their trait-procced DS early)

That will most certainly happen occasionally.

However, the really good part here – which by far overshadows the pathetically low healing – is that DS can be triggered when it is on cooldown. If it wasn’t tied to 6 points in DM it would see a serious popularity boost in PvP.

Rennoko.5731:

So this brings up a fascinating question….

What about those huge 1-shot kill situations in PVE and PVP. If I have say 5k DS left, and 100 HP. I get backstabbed for 6K, so it autoprocs DS. Does the additional 5900 damage overflow into DS?

Because if it did, that would be pretty comical…. surprise!! you just wasted 25% of your DS for no reason.

Well, I assume the 50% damage reduction in DS will still be there after the patch. So if you take 6k damage you’ll really just lose 3k life force. However, 10k and 1 damage (because dmg reduction doesn’t work in case of hp overflow) taken in that scenario would mean you’ll waste all your lf on top of dying.

Hemophilia increases bleeding duration by 20%. It adds this amount to any preexisting duration.

However, some tooltips which are highlighted blue after traiting Hemophilia show a higher duration than they actually tick for:

- Mark of Blood and Mark of Evasion
- Enfeebling Blood and Enfeeble (Weakening Shroud)
- Barbed Precision
- Signet of Spite
- Blood is Power (not the self inflicted stacks)
- Withering Plague

There might be more. I didn’t check all racial skills.

(side note: the 2 stacks of Blood is Power that are not self-inflicted is the only skill tooltip that limits it’s duration at +100%. All other tooltips can exceed this limit.)

What happens to the blue tooltips is this:

First Hemophilia adds 20% duration, then it multiplies the sum of all durations again by 1.2.

Example, Enfeebling Blood:

base duration = 10 sec.
with Hemo = 12 sec.
tooltip = 14.5 sec.

+2 pts in Spite: 11 sec / 13 sec / 15.5 sec
+4 pts in Spite: 12 / 14 / 16.75
+6 pts in Spite: 13 / 15 / 18

Mark of Blood:

base duration = 8 sec
with Hemo = 9.6 sec
tooltip = 11.5 sec

+2 Spite: 8.8 / 10.4 / 12.5 sec
+4 Spite: 9.6 / 11.2 / 13.5 sec

Additionally, the trait Weakening Shroud shows a wrong tooltip when traited with Hemophilia:
As soon as the trait is taken, the trait tooltip copies the duration of it’s respective weapon skill.
It even adds another 20% if you switch to another weapon that has a Sigil of Agony (+20% bleeding duration) on it.

Example:
Enfeebling Blood: 10 sec. Enfeeble: 6 sec. Agony sigil on staff.
Once you you take Hemophelia both tooltips say 14.5 sec. After weapon swap to staff, Enfeeble says 16.75 sec.
Or when the Agony sigil is on the off-hand dagger instead, Enfeeble will say 16.75 at first and 14.5 after the switch.

flow.6043:

Raithe.9825:

One last note, no other skill i know of can cause 25k damage in one hit, granted that Blood is power does this damage over 84 seconds of bleed and only does 22.5k without the additional might granted by the skill for 12 secs

Duration increase in skill tooltips is calculated correctly. However, it doesn’t account for the +100% limit. Blood is Power will never tick longer than 60 seconds.
That means for your build: +55% of your bleeding duration will do absolutely nothing.
The runes and your regular condi duration already exceed the maximum, so you can drop the agony sigils and Hemophilia.

I just realized:
The tooltip duration when Hemophilia is traited modifies the base duration, so it multiplies the sum of your duration instead of adding another 20%, which is what it actually does in game.
So even if you could have more than +100% (which is impossible) your build would make BiP tick for 76 sec.

EDIT: scratch that. Hemophilia tooltips are even weirder than I thought.
I made a bug report here

Raithe.9825:

One last note, no other skill i know of can cause 25k damage in one hit, granted that Blood is power does this damage over 84 seconds of bleed and only does 22.5k without the additional might granted by the skill for 12 secs

Duration increase in skill tooltips is calculated correctly. However, it doesn’t account for the +100% limit. Blood is Power will never tick longer than 60 seconds.
That means for your build: +55% of your bleeding duration will do absolutely nothing.
The runes and your regular condi duration already exceed the maximum, so you can drop the agony sigils and Hemophilia.

Poplolita.2638:

Yep, he’s not the only one using that opening, and ending

Afaik Vee Wee is the only one who does that, and he does it in every post. It’s like his signature. If someone else does the same they are probably imitating Vee Wee.
I’m actually surprised that some people still get agitated about it, especially if they’ve been around as long as spoj.

On topic:
First enable healing in DS, then we can talk about adjusting vamp traits.

I think necros actually deal the most damage in downed state out of all classes.

The warrior’s interrupt is not aoe, so their’s and the engi’s is arguably worse than ours.

The only thing I really don’t like about our downed state is how we cast Fetid Ground without a target: 900 units away from us in whatever direction the character happens to be facing. It should be made zero range by default without target, then I’d be rather happy.

Rasalhague.8270:

no PVE bullcrap
…
I have spent all my gold buying mats to level all the crafting professions to 400.

Why? xD

Rasalhague.8270:

In fact most of these toons are 60s

So let me get this straight:
You’ve leveled all crafting professions to 400, which is enough experience to get one character from lvl 2 to 80. It also costs about 250 gold..?
So most of your characters are lvl 60 now, which means you’ve played them a lot in WvW or collected a lot of Tomes of Knowledge in sPvP.
There is simple no way you’re still below 1k achievment points when you’ve played all 8 different classes (some of which to lvl 60) enough in both PvP and WvW to get mats and gold to level all crafting profs to 400, which btw gives you a total of 320 ap.

Hilarious thread.

Mayama.1854:

You need 100% fear duration to get a second tick fear damage

That’s not true. Fear follows the same mechanic as all other conditions, even a 1.1 sec fear can give you 2 ticks.

Ovid.7135:

I changed the traits to much better ones. They’re self-explanatory.

I don’t think BZB meant to take Focused Rituals and Ritual of Protection when he doesn’t have a single well. It’s probably supposed to say Staff Mastery and Weakening Shroud.

As to the “much better ones” you’ve picked. Hemophilia is weak in any PvP content, especially if you already have +80% condition duration. And in this case same applies to Master of Terror. Unless your opponent happens to have lemon grass or melandru runes this trait will increase your fear by just 20%. Not worth the slot imo.

1. Take Axe Training or Chill of Death instead of Spiteful Marks.
2. Since you don’t have a single source of blindness, take Weakening Shroud instead of Chilling Darkness.
3. Your life force regeneration should be decent enough. I think you can afford to drop Soul Marks for either Vital Persistance, Path of Midnight or Near to Death.
4. Not sure if Spectral Wall is the best pick for a power build. I’d probably take a well instead. Or Spectral Grasp or Armor, in which case you could also go with Spectral Mastery in Soul Reaping.

Carpboy.7145:

i cant kite them with zerker stance, and most of them will pop stability at the same time so i cant corrupt it.

You could still strip stability without turning it into fear and then use different stuns while they are in berserker stance (golem charge, warhorn, spectral grasp).

Carpboy.7145:

so is it just l2p, or are there some tricks of the trade regarding hambows you could teach me?

It’s less of an l2p issue than it is about having the right skills to deal with them. Like I said above, golem or warhorn helps a lot but if you don’t have them or can’t get rid of their stability in time you’ll have to kite (which is hard or impossible sometimes) or activate Spectral Armor and sit in Death Shroud until their stance runs out.

djooceboxblast.9876:

And do not fight on a point even though it is yours. Let the warrior decap/cap it and kite away.

Again, depends on your build and available skills. I always fight warriors on point, but I don’t run a standard condi build.
Well of Power is very good against a warrior’s bow. You can basically sit in their combustive shot because you repeatedly get aegis from burning. Combine that with enough boon strips and maybe Spectral Armor and there’s no reason to leave a point.
But most condi necros run with Wurm and Spec Walk these days, so obviously that setup is less designed to tank stuff.

TheDevice.2751:

the only downside is choosing if you want ritual of protection over staff mastery

Easy: Staff Mastery.

oxtred.7658:

Well, ( ahah, well, i’m so funny) you can use staff for open world because no one minds, but it’s just not that great of a weapon for dungeons.

This is true. Then again, if you want to be king of dungeon runs you shouldn’t play necro at all.

Maybe take a look at this.
Most people use the staff because it has great utility regardless of their build. However, most of it’s damage comes from conditions. Similar things could be said about wells, most people use them, but either they mostly do direct damage (Suffering, Corruption) or they don’t do any damage at all (Darkness, Power).
So when you make a build combining both staff and wells you’ll obviously have to compromise. There are two approaches to this:
1. WvW zergs. In this case people usually want to do ranged direct damage. That means a power build with both damaging wells + Focused Rituals and something that would include Unyielding Blast and Death Perception. It’s a build that focuses on dealing more damage when in Death Shroud rather than using the staff itself.
2. The staff is supposed to be the hero of your build. In this case you want to go hybrid with carrion gear and either berserker/rampager or soldier/dire, depending on how tanky you want to be. This allows you to fill the time between mark cooldowns with utility skills (like wells) and DS skills without losing out on too much damage.

@ traits:

In case there’s some confusion here, Close to Death or any other “+damage” modifiers only affect direct damage, not conditions. With full rabid gear Close to Death will do little to nothing for you.
Same applies to Spiteful Marks, although this trait is complete garbage even if you go full power glass canon. Marks don’t do a lot of direct dmg to begin with and combined with their cooldowns you’ll average more dps with a single stack of bleeding.

@ gear:

I wouldn’t use a giver staff. Imo the difference in stats for just 10% duration is not worth it. If you really want that extra duration you could go for toxic focusing crystals.

I would mix rabid gear with carrion or dire. Some extra vitality will do more for you than a few % higher crit chance.

Runes of the necro are ok, but I’d only take them if I really wanted 100% fear duration. There are a lot of good/better alternatives like Scavenging, Perplexity, Nightmare.

Sigils: Agony is weak, I’d probably go with a static bonus like bursting or on swap sigils (energy, geomancy, leeching,…).

BZB.1658:

-My offhand currently is Dagger, but I dont use much. Opinion on Horn vs Focus?

I wouldn’t use focus in a condi build, but dagger vs warhorn is up to personal preference.

BZB.1658:

-My fear still said 2 secs when I swapped away my givers staff, this a bug?

Tooltip inaccuracy, they always round to 1/4 seconds.

BZB.1658:

-Should I add more condi / boon removal?

You’ll just have to play and see for yourself if you need more of either one of them.

BZB.1658:

Thought to replace Staff Mastery with Shrouded Removal

No. Staff Mastery is just better. Also, you have a lot of condi cleanse already, and if you want more you could add Well of Power or Plague Signet.

TheDevice.2751:

Unholy Sanctuary
Instead of a regen while in ds,
You gain a percentage of all incoming healing based on the percentage of absent LF while in DS. (same as incoming healing is reduced by your current percent of LF, either way is fine)

(example being if you have 40 percent life force while in ds you gain 60% of all incoming healing effects. If you have 100% lf you gain 0% incoming healing.)

Healing should go through DS. All sources and 100% of it, always. Not gated by a trait and not in percentage of whatever.
There is no reason at all why it shouldn’t work and this change needs to happen sooner or later.

The main complaint most people have concerning Death Shroud is that its defense doesn’t scale with multiple opponents. In some situations DS is meaningless compared to blocks, invulnerability or stealth.
However, you’re suggesting: get rid of our main defense completely and replace it with protection. Umm… really? Do you think a 33% direct dmg reduction to your regular hp is the same as having an additional lf bar to soak up all sources of damage?
Combined with the offensive boosts it looks like you’re trying to turn us into the glassiest glass canons ever.

But there is a cooldown on the confusion proc, so even if you use an aoe interrupt you’ll only put confusion on one target.
Also, minions can’t proc any gear related stuff like this.

As to the “goodness” of the runes: imo they were overpowered before, and they are even more so now since fear was fixed to count as an interrupt. So yes, they are definitely a good choice for a condi build, if that’s what you’re wondering.

BonnieWu.3968:

I just don’t get it. How to do that:

-Dark Path> Stomp> Spectral Walk> Spectral Recall

Could someone explain it? Thanks!

You use Dark Path on a target that is somewhere else while activating Spectral Walk. This way you can teleport away and back again during the stomp animation and avoid a potential interrupt.

Rolyate.6753:

it’s for the most part a waste of a utility.

Well, many professions secure stomps by “sacrificing” a skill. And some necros like to use the Wurm+SWalk combo to stomp people, which means they put 2 stun beaks on cd just to stomp someone. Is this a waste? Maybe. Same could be argued about plague stomping though.
Ultimately it depends on the situation. In many team fights in sPvP stomping or rezzing is the most important thing to shift the fight in one team’s favour. So in that case people want to stomp at any cost. Of course you could argue that you might be stronger if you had other utility skills in the first place, but that’s a different issue.

Holl.3109:

-Dark Path> Stomp> Spectral Walk> Spectral Recall

Hehe, nice.

Holl.3109:

-Maybe a haunt from minion?
-dagger offhand Blind (Before Stomp)

Haunt works because you can cast it while stomping. Another way would be exploding Bone Minions on a precast well to combo blindness in the right moment. (then again, who runs minions and wells?)
However, if it’s a precast single blind it will most certainly not help at all except maybe make an auto attack miss. So dagger is useless in that situation.

Holl.3109:

-warhorn daze? (Before stomp)
-Flesh Golem launch?

People in downed state can’t be stunned. You can interrupt their #4 heal with Wail of Doom (or any other damaging attack) but not their #2.
Kock back works but not always with Golem Charge. However, Charge can’t be cast during the stomp animation anyway, and if it was possible you wouldn’t want to knock your opponent out of stomp range anyway.

Holl.3109:

-Well of power stability? (Before Stomp)

Stability is too short, but if the opportunity presents itself you could drop Well of Power in a fire field of an ele or warrior. You’ll get aegis with every pulse if you don’t have too many other condis on you.
There’s some luck involved of course, but I’ve successfully secured a stomp like this many times.

Except for Unholy Sanctuary – which is so bad it could easily pass as an adept minor trait – no healing of any kind is possible in Death Shroud. So why would regeneration work with a trait that is only active in DS?

Tommyknocker.6089:

As for me, I’m in it to win it, and bringing a dull knife to a gun fight don’t bode to well for the guy with the knife.

Except with 100% lf you’re the one with the gun.

EFWinters.5421:

…

Well said.

I think CB counts as instant. I’ve never seen it being interrupted, which would have happened at some point by chance even if the cast time was extremely short.

Holl.3109:

-Wurm teleport
-spectral skills (not wall and grasp)
-Doom

Is this right? Any I forgot? 4 is not that much

Basically it’s just Doom and all stun breaks, so that would be 6.
7 if you include Corrupt Boon.
And there are a few racial skill which are instant casts, like Technobabble or Battle Roar.
Also, if you want to count skills that can be used while stunned: You can swap weapons and go into DS. That means you can use sigil skills like Geomancy’s Rings of Earth. Or if you traited Weakening Shroud you can “cast” Enfeeble.

moi.4398:

On a personnal note , that’s why I don’t like " duel " . People will swap traits / food / gear / uskills just for counter you after the first one .

I think that’s what makes dueling interesting.
Also, if they can beat you just by changing something maybe you should take a look at your own build and try to improve it.

moi.4398:

That’s not revelant of your real skill imo . Real 1v1 happens when 2 solo roamers meets . That’s it.

Is an arranged duel any less real than a random encounter?
And either way, who says that random roamer doesn’t run the exact counter build to yours that the arranged duelist would’ve changed to? Is this still skill related or just bad luck for you…?
Some builds are just better than others, I welcome a challenge like that, it means I get to learn and improve. But that is only possible when you get to repeat the encounter, not when you meet roamers who stomp you and never see them again.

Am I seeing this right? Corrupt Boon turns Stability before Retaliation?

Bhawb.7408:

CB being the only one to reliably remove might) is a big deal for the current meta.

But usually other players don’t have a full bar of boons, so even if might has a low priority it’s a common boon to be removed.

Blackmoa.3186:

Axe #3:
Will be blocked by Aegis
Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

I haven’t done any detailed testing on this, but since I use the axe all the time I’m 100% sure that stability has a lower priority here.

I would seriously consider running Bone Minions in any regular build if they gave 20% lf (or more depending on traits). ^^

On topic: everyone who asks you to drain all your life force before a duel has never played a necro.

In general starting with 100% life force is questionable. You might argue that it’s about as much against duelling etiquette as fighting with kill stacks. You could do it, because you might have the opinion that a duel represents a random encounter on one of the maps. But what’s the point if you just want to have an even match with someone and you’re clearly stronger with that amount of life force?
Others argue that you should start a duel with 20-30% because that’s how much you get at the start of a tPvP match and is allowed on most dueling servers.

Of course, ultimately everything depends on your opponents and your own skill level.
I usually drain my life force if I have more than 30%. And I generally don’t duel with food or elite unless it’s the only way to be evenly matched with my opponent. If I play against people who are new to necro I don’t mid if they start with more life force than I do. This way it’s just a better fighting experience for both players.

I’ve been meaning to test this for such a long time but never actually did it.
I’m looking forward to your results.

I also think there’s a general priority for all skills in the game. Immobilized for example is (one of) the last removed conditions.

@Corruption: I think Rennoko’s test results also apply to Path of Corruption.

NeXeD.3042:

You are telling an experienced player to go play a different game mode with different variables in order to get better at tpvp.

You don’t get it. It’s not a different mode if you’re there to duel. Like I said, the OS just happens to be in WvW.

NeXeD.3042:

They are not the same. The builds are different. The runes are different. The sigils are different. There is food. There is oils, crystals, and stones.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And all if that doesn’t change the fact that you can improve your skills by fighting with and against them.

NeXeD.3042:

If I wanted to get better at basketball I wouldnt start playing kittening slamball.

I didn’t tell him to hit tower gates in order to improve his pvp skills.

Duels and feedback from players (other than his guildies, maybe), that’s what’s important.

NeXeD.3042:

I say you continue to do what you’ve been doing.

Come on -_-
Hey, I’ve played thousands of games but I can’t seem to get any better – solution: do the same you’ve been doing so far!

@Brandon, if you want you can whisper me in game and we can fight on a pvp server, maybe I’ll bring some friends as well.