Guild Wars 2

Well, first and foremost I’m a WvW player and duelist whenever the opportunity presents itself.
If you happen to play on EU, I’ll gladly fight you with double wells

Placing a defensive well doesn’t mean that you have to stand still. 240 radius is actually enough to dodge roll without leaving the well.

Also, there seem to be two different mindsets here concercing the use of wells.
The one being: power build – root – well of suffering – max dmg. Makes sense, but this kind of strategy is of course more effective on npcs rather than real players.
The other aspect to wells is skill timing and area control. You can anticipate your opponent’s skill rotation and positioning and force them out of there comfort zone with wells, similar to how you would use Spectral Wall.

Anyway, I almost always use Well of Power in my build, and in tpvp I run Well of Darkness or Corruption in addition to that depending on the opposing team composition.

NeXeD.3042:

In a 1v1 duel they should let you have 30% lf to start.

I just met another person for a 1v1 who was adamant that I start our duel with zero life force.
And you know, the whole “but warriors start without adrenalin…” discussion ensued, despite him actually having a necro as one of his alts.
Anyway, I just drained my lf everytime.

NeXeD.3042:

Wells blow for 1v1 encounters unless they are complete morons.

I almost always have at least one well in duels.

Tbh I haven’t seen two necros play the same build in tpvp since the last patch.

manveruppd.7601:

but they DO require facing if you’re standing still, causing them to fail if you’re immobilised.

No, they always work.

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

Bhawb.7408:

We have the highest raw healing of any profession in the game if traited for it

That’s just not true.

Actually it is true, having both the highest base aoe heal effect pre tick and 4.4 healing power ratio on it.
Only thing stronger than it is the guardian tome instaheal which actually doesnt have a scaling since its a plain 100% heal.
Ofc if you combine multiple skills on water fields to blast finish you can potentially get higher healing, tho its wasting multiple skills on something which 1 skill could do about as well AND wasting might stacks trough fire fields.

Actually, since Bhawb’s argument was that the raw healing of WoB should be nerfed if it was changed to be a water field, I was thinking specifically of the engineer’s Healing Turrent. I’ve seen a video where someone demonstrated how to blast the waterfield of the overcharged turret 7 times! And that would’ve been done with a pve-dungeon-viable build, not some crazy hypothetical that is never actually used.
This skill also has a 20 sec cd or even less if not detonated, not to mention that it’s not the only source of healing for engis.

On the other hand, WoB with a 40 sec cd, total weak sauce. It might have high raw numbers, but overall it heals for rather little.
You might as well argue that the engi elite supply crate heals for much because it drops 1 Healing Turret and 9 Packs of Bandages if traited, one of which healing 1k + 0.5 healing power. High numbers, but you know… 180 sec cd.

I think you’re confusing line of sight with the requirement to face your target when casting.

Doom needs LoS but not facing your target. It will tell you “Ostructed” if your target is standing behind a wall but never fail because your target is standing right behind you.
It’s the same with marks.

The mechanic Bhawb mentioned – your character turning in the casting direction when standing still – will not interfere in any way with skills that don’t require facing your target in the first place. Not when moving and not when immobilized.

I don’t know what else to say here, the problem just isn’t what you think it is and I’m not sure what else if not because of lag.

I have never had this problem with marks and I don’t think it is in any way related to game mechanics.
When you’re immobilized and cast a skill that requires facing your target in the wrong direction, it will put your skill on a 5 sec cd like when being interrupted.
So a skill not being cast at all can only be lag related, would be my guess…

Old Spice.1264:

- I had a lot of gear that needed to be assigned stats. I wasn’t sure what this was all about, I think it had to do with magic find being taken away from items…?

Yes.

Old Spice.1264:

- As a Necro I assigned Carrion gear to everything… Was that the right thing to do?

Yes.

Old Spice.1264:

- When I left, I appeared to be using a 2H staff and Rod & Dagger. I believe I was going for AOE and Condition Damage… is this still viable?

Yes.

Old Spice.1264:

- What do I do with Mystic Coins? I have 52.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Coin

Old Spice.1264:

- What do I do with Mystic Forge Stones? I have 9.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge_Stone

Old Spice.1264:

- I have multiple Hall of the Monument portal stones? Can I delete them down to 1?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hall_of_Monuments_Portal_Stone
Delete all of them.

Bhawb.7408:

We have the highest raw healing of any profession in the game if traited for it

That’s just not true.

Bhawb.7408:

healing isn’t generally very meaningful except in WvW.

It is more meaningful for a class that relies on nothing but a high hp pool for damage mitigation.
Also, why would WvW be any different than sPvP?

Your Lingering Marks idea is really great and it would actually be worthy of a gm spot, unlike Unholy Sanctuary which is so weak it might as well have become one of the new minor traits.

Overkillengine.6084:

Have Mark of Blood leave a small water field

A 2 sec waterfield every ~5.5sec with Staff Mastery? That, Mr Overkillengine, would be overkill.

Bhawb.7408:

Overkillengine.6084:

Have Mark of Blood leave a small water field instead and change the default Well of Blood to a water field instead of light and you’d go a long way towards improving Necro group support.

If Well of Blood was changed, I’d nerf it so you needed to blast exactly once to get the same allied healing, and the self healing was nerfed a bit stronger (so one blast would take it back to ALMOST where it is now, but just a little bit weaker on yourself).

I know you always praise this skill’s healing potential, but even with cleric’s gear the group healing is weaker than what other classes can provide, and our self healing is just pathetic in its current state. If all of our healing (not just WoB) was doubled and could heal us through Death Shroud we’d actually be in an ok-ish spot.

Healing through shroud should be possible in general and not be bound to any trait.

@Vital Persistence: I’m not sure a standard 2% lf degeneration would solve any of our sustain problems, considering we’re most vulnerable to bursts and being focused.

Another idea: I’d combine it with Death Shiver and move it up to master tier instead of Mark of Revival.

I’ve seen this suggestion quite a few times by now, and yes, it would be a really nice QoL upgrade.

There could be one issue though. The UI would easily allow for the utility cds to be displayed because all it shows currently is a locked skill. But what about the regular weapon cds? Or the shroud cds while you’re not in DS? Should any class generally be able to see any weapon skill cd while they’re on a different set?
Of course, all of this would be nice but at the risk of cluttering your UI, especially if you’re playing ele or engi with a lot of kits. Should necro utility skills get “special treatment” just because the UI space is there and unused?

Andele.1306:

Unholy martyr actually has a lot of potential as a good blood trait…

How?
If anything it should be in Soul Reaping instead of Renewing Blast. You know… put the healing trait (like Transfusion) in the healing trait line and the life force generating trait in the line that buffs DS.
And of course it’s total garbage, at best it deserves an adept or master minor slot.

Overall, Path of Corruption makes sense, and Parasitic Contagion would if it was in Blood Magic and we could heal in DS. The rest is just bad.

It would be great if we could just use any regular skill in the elite slot.

Bhawb.7408:

this trait underperforms

That’s an understatement.
The only new trait worthy of a gm spot is Path of Corruption.
Ask yourself this: would you’ve been surprised if Unholy Martyr or Unholy Sanctuary became the new Death Magic adept minor trait? I’d actually take 170 toughness in DS over both of them.

Also, I don’t understand how Unholy Martyr is supposed to fit in Blood Magic. Let’s assume for a moment that this trait line was actually good… who makes a 6 point investment for this trait?
The slow transfer rate clearly shows that it’s not designed to be a group support skill or a way to increase pressure through transfers. The sole purpose seems to be a way to stay in DS longer in group fights, in which case a 5% lf per 3 sec is just plain worse than Vital Persistance, an adept trait in a line you’d actually expect it to be. Unholy Martyr on the other hand has zero synergy with the rest of Blood Magic since healing doesn’t work in DS.

So, I think your idea is good. But the first thing I’d do is allow all sources of healing in Death Shroud, then apply your suggested change to Unholy Martyr and switch it with Parasitic Contagion.

Sounds like a question for the warrior forum.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Pakmon.2614:

You can summon fiend and shadow at the start of the match and then swap the 2 skills out. The 2 minion deaths will give you 22% lf.

yes this works for hotjoin, but in tpvp skills get locked and life force reset on the last timer ;/

It does work during the 10 sec countdown before the match starts.

The only engi build I know to work well against necros is Silinsar’s, for 3 reasons:

1. It’s a power build.
Don’t even try to make conditions work against necros, because you can’t.
Having condition transfers means condi-necro>condi-everything else. You won’t do enough damage as it is, and some of it will just amplify the necro’s condi pressure.

2. No points in Alchemy.
Having points in this line is a severe liability against a class that can corrupt your boons. Also, many necros run the new gm Curses trait “Path of Corruption”, giving them an additional 2 boons-conversion on a 15 sec cd (13sec if traited).

3. Lots of CC.

@1

Problem: totally agree. There are a lot of aspects of playing a necro that sometimes force your team into an awkward position.
Solution: I don’t think your proposed wurm buff would solve the problem, neither do I think that this problem should be sovled by making alterations to the wurm in the first place. For 2 reasons: for one it would be a build diversity issue, if anything a mobility buff should probably be added to shroud so every build has access to it without being forced to pick a specific utility.
Secondly, imo the wurm sucks as hard as you are making MMs out to be, I think it’s a wasted utility in almost every build and a liability more than a buff to your survivability.

@2

Problem: true, we’re one of the ez stomps.
Solution: it would help. On the other hand, if necros got an invuln added to their downed state, all other classes who don’t already have the same would demand a silimar buff. As harsh as it might sound, I think some classes are just supposed to have weaker downed states and necros are one of them. Imo the actual problem here is that classes that are hard to focus have a hard-to-stomp downed mechanic as well, while the necro is the opposite. So, if you somehow buff our general survivability against being a focus target I’d be fine with the downed state as it is.

@3

Problem: I partially disagree here. In some situations we have no sustain at all, while we’re doing rather well in others. Depends on the fight I suppose, and of course to some degree on your build.
Solution: Well of Power is a rather good source for vigor. I wouldn’t say no to some additional vigor, but I’m not sure a gm minor is the right way. If it severely buffs your sustain game to a point where it’s THE trait to have to even be viable, you’d just create another build diversity limitation. At best you would have to adjust the duration of the boon and the icd of the trait so it’d become too insignificant to be a gm trait in the first place.
Imo the approach to buffing our sustain shouldn’t be through adding boons anyway. The first thing that should be done is: allow ALL healing to work in Death Shroud and buff our healing in addition to that. Most sustain fights are lost because you’re playing against classes that can heal their hp many times over to full throughout the course of a battle, while necros are never able to do the same unless they receive some healing from allies when they happen to not be in DS at the time.

@4

Agreed and agreed. Fear and immob stacking can be so frustrating. On the other hand, should there be a “stacking” limit on non-condition stuns as well? I don’t really see a solution here that wouldn’t cause an imbalance between fear and other stuns if you place a limit on just one of them.
And yes, nightmare runes are stupid. I’ve seen many (bad) necros winning fights they’d never have won without this totally random fear proc. Good thing they didn’t add perplexity to spvp in order to prevent unskillful gameplay…

Arvid.3829:

Now please explain how we go from “in DS, vitality is more like toughness” to “in DS, vitality >>>>>>> toughness”.

Because even if you take nothing but direct damage (which you won’t), the extra amount of hp mitigates more than the damage reduction an equivalent amount of toughness provides.

I suppose we’re talking past each other at this point. Let’s just agree that if you can mix stats, you should.

manveruppd.7601:

Oh god… this vitality vs toughness debate! Have we nbot wasted enough of our lives discussing this over the last 2 years?

I know, right? ^^
Pure nostalgia in this thread!
I’ve always been a vitality proponent, I’m glad to see some people on my side of the argument as opposed to a year ago.

Arvid.3829:

flow.6043:

And not only is this assumption based on never taking any condition damage, but once you start mitigating with DS the difference becomes even more favorable for vitality. Don’t forget, 100 vitality actually adds an additional 1200 hitpoints to you life force pool.

Except it doesn’t. DS starts of at 60% of your total vitality, not 120%. I know there was a lot of confusion about that for a long time, but a dev confirmed it back in august and it’s now very clearly visible in game… https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/DeathShroud-is-now-base-100-HP/first#post2539415
And even that aside, it doesn’t matter (see below).

Oh come on Arvid, I know you’ve been around long enough to know this:

Yes, the devs “confirmed” it. But that was just another case of them not knowing what’s really going on.
In the July 23rd patch of last year, they introduced the damage overflow from DS to our regular hp. In that same patch the community discovered that our life force pool must be somewhere around 120% of our regular hp.

October 15, 2013 patch: this one confirmed everything the players had suspected all along.
Despite what the devs might’ve said, and despite what the 60% life force bar might indicate, there seems to be a 50% reduction on all sources of damage when in DS (except for overflow dmg), essentially making the actual value double.

So yeah, I assumed this was common knowledge by now: the life force pool is 120% of our regular hp. Or even up to 156% depending on how big your investment in Soul Reaping is.

Arvid.3829:

flow.6043:

That golden ratio is bull.
Leaving aside that you can’t predict the course of every actual battle, there’s no math to support any of it. At best it’s a rule of thumb that someone made up a million years ago for classes without life force to give you a general idea for what to aim at when gearing your character.

o.O … like seriously… o.O
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/
Nothing made up there, just simple math based on the equations the game uses… The full formula even incorporates healing and condition damage…

First of all, the only real math in that guy’s thread is the damage formula from the game. Everything else is based on assumptions and cherry picking situations that might come up, like you’ve accused me of doing earlier.

Secondly, this thread is a million years old and that guy’s calculations are not for necromancers.
At this point you would of course argue that this doesn’t matter, but it does.

1. Life Force regeneration is better and more reliable than our regular healing.

2. LF regen is always percentage based. That means you don’t have to worry about healing effectiveness.

3. Our LF pool is 120-156% of our regular hp, meaning that unlike with other classes 1 point of vitality actually gives you an additional 2.2-2.56 hit points.

I get that people counter argue with personal preference, and critical chance for procs and toughness also working in DS, and being able to handle conditions well enough.. and whatever else they think might justify taking rabid over carrion in spvp.
But the choice really should be obvious.

Arvid.3829:

I don’t know why you want to compare them in such an unintuitive manner though, why not just use eHP instead (which gw2buildcraft even calculates for you)? In that case, you see that the difference between +100 toughness and +100 vitality (starting from base) is actually crazy small, i.e. 19373 vs. 19372.

Alright, I’ll give you that one.
With just 100 toughness or vitality the eHP is better with toughness.
But what does this mean, really? If you take nothing but direct damage, no condition damage, no healing, no life force, then you can take exactly 1 extra dmg with toughness instead of vitality. ONE. A single tick of any damaging condition means vitality takes the lead again.

So arguments like this…

Arvid.3829:

is again extremely close… (24806 vs 24802)
Given that we handle conditions pretty darn well and I hope you have some team mates that heal you a bit from time to time, the decision is really not the no-brainer you’re making it out to be.

…don’t mean anything. Handling conditions well doesn’t mean you’re immune.
You will take condition damage, period. If the eHP is that close, the decision is indeed a no-brainer: vitality, please and thank you.

And yes, your allies might heal you occasionally. But you will also generate life force.
Naturally, it’s hard to make a general statement here. If my DS is on cooldown, I’ll be happy to shower in the water fields of engineers. On the other hand, if I’m sitting in DS while I’m getting a hammer massage, I’d rather have Spectral Armor refilling me with every hit.

Arvid.3829:

Well, there’s nothing to disagree here. Given the approximations I said there, math simply dictates it’s right…
…
that’s simply the formula in first approximation and that’s all there is to it.

That golden ratio is bull.
Leaving aside that you can’t predict the course of every actual battle, there’s no math to support any of it. At best it’s a rule of thumb that someone made up a million years ago for classes without life force to give you a general idea for what to aim at when gearing your character.

And as seen in the eHP example, without any gear or traits at all you’re just 100 stat points off the breaking point before vitality starts giving you more raw defense. And not only is this assumption based on never taking any condition damage, but once you start mitigating with DS the difference becomes even more favorable for vitality. Don’t forget, 100 vitality actually adds an additional 1200 hitpoints to you life force pool.

Arvid.3829:

It may be a clear winner for you, which is fine, but it is not a clear winner for necros in general.

Like Bhawb said, there are some builds who can heal enough to make a difference. But other than that, yes, for necros in general: vitality is straight up better.

Arvid.3829:

Except, now you’ve assumed that you already made a large investment in thoughness to begin with (664 to reach 2500 armor). If you had started at base thoughness and 25k health, you’d have reached the opposite conclusion.

If I start at base value an additional 100 toughness is ~5% dmg reduction. In that case your opponent would have to do 20k direct dmg to make it worth not taking 1k hp instead.
2500 was just a random number, but the comparison shows that the more toughness you have the more vitality you actually want instead.

Like I said, I wouldn’t go without any toughness but if I had to choose just one then vitality is always the clear winner for necros.

Arvid.3829:

The basic rule, which doesn’t take into account healing (favours thoughness), condition damage (favours vitality) or death shroud, is simply “armor = health/10”

I would agree if we actually had decent healing, which we don’t. Once you lose a certain amount in combat you’ll probably never heal up full on your own.
Life force on the other hand does most of the work when it comes to our sustain. And since it always generates in percentages there is no magic sweet spot for healing power vs toughness, just one rule instead: the more vitality the better.

Bloodwort MacFangho.4638:

Isn’t the rule Vitality if facing condi damage dealers, toughness if facing direct damage dealers? With an already high health pool, and DS spec’d, I favour toughness in WvW (2k) but then I’m a Terror Condimancer..

The reality will always be that you’re facing both direct and condition damage.

But just to make a more specific example:
Let’s assume your current armor value is 2500. According to gw2buildcraft that gives you a 27% damage reduction compared to having no extra toughness on gear or traits at all.
At this point you’re presented with the option to go with either an additional 100 toughness or vitality. Picking toughness would increase your damage reduction by another ~3%. So the comparison you’ll have to make is rather obvious when you’re taking vitality instead:
Is 1k extra hp worth taking an additional 3% damage with every direct damage attack. Answer: if 1k hp represents 3% of damage not taken, then your opponent will have to do more than 33k damage before you’re getting more survivability out of toughness.
Now, this is assuming you’re only taking direct damage and you’re not using life force to mitigate any of it.

Like I said earlier, I’d rather not go without any extra toughness in WvW as it exposes you to burst damage, but at a certain point vitality gives you much better value in terms of survivability. Especially because it gives you an equivalent of 120% extra life force, which generates more reliably than we can heal regular hp.

alamore.1974:

I hit 3k with feast on corruption on a ten sec cool down.

alamore.1974:

Signet if spite gives u six conditions pop ds give fear pop sOs thats 7
8%damage boost per condition not to mention high crit chance.

Btw, if you get 3k with this skill rotation then it’s hardly on a 10 sec cooldown.
On the other hand, 3k is a very average Ghastly Claws for me with a carrion amulet and pack runes. No Signet of Spite or might stacking required.

So I tried it with Bhawb’s setup, I also added Tainted Shackles to get 2 more conditions.
I admit, I was surprised how high I could get the scepter to hit (first screenshot, 5.9k).
However, I was not surprised at all how much higher I could get with the axe. The screenshots of Ghastly Claws aren’t even all critical hits.
Also, when I used runes of strength and pre-stacked a little extra vulnerability, I got close to 10k with only 6 out of 8 hits being critical (3rd screenshot).

But since this is about hybrid builds, the extreme results of testing this rotation with a berserker amulet under perfect conditions is hardly what you’ll get with a carrion/celestial/rampager amulet against real opponents. Suffice to say, the axe will always do much higher damage than the scepter, because it’s not as dependent on the number of conditions on your target, plus you get all of this on a lower cooldown.

Bhawb.7408:

I hit 4.8k on my scepter 3 in sPvP with a build I threw together in like 20 seconds and using just three skills in a row.

Please elaborate.

There’s some truth to it of course, because the more life force you can generate (a lot in PvE) the better vitality becomes for your survivability.
However, you usually don’t need any defense in PvE at all. If you’re serious about dungeons you’ll want full berserker, or not a necro at all for that matter.

alamore.1974:

I hit 3k with feast on corruption on a ten sec cool down.

Liar liar, pants on fire!

3k would be a best case scenario critical hit with 10 stacks of might, at least 5 conditions on your opponent who also happens to be below 50% hp at that time.

That’s just weak compared to what you could do with the axe.

The scepter is not a hybrid weapon. Even if you go full berserker, have Target the Weak and all 12 conditions on your target, Feast of Corruption will do laughably low damage (on a 10 sec cd!). The rest is even less hybrid material.

Nekroseth.5186:

Not sure what is the best way to speedlevel to 80 after…

Tomes of Knowledge.

Nekroseth.5186:

you simply can not get araond without using staff and scepter

…if you’re running a condition build.

Nekroseth.5186:

4, Dagger…no comment…destroyed my image of “caster” i wished to play.
…
Oh and do Necros wield dual dagger like Thiefs? Kind of looks amazing…

Umm.. what?

Double dagger is rather common in power builds, so yes it’s possible to use them this way.

I am forced to use certain builds to be viable.

True for every class.

Nekroseth.5186:

Are there viable spvp builds that dont rely on DS to much?

No.

Nekroseth.5186:

Does Death Shroud still look the same way irritating when activated?
…
Can you disable the effect on yourself?

I don’t understand what you’re asking here.

alamore.1974:

For.hybrids. i would go scepter, to me axe is more of a power weapon.

If you want to play a hybrid build you need a power weapon. Having both scepter and staff is weak sauce unless your direct damage part of your hybrid setup comes from Life Blasting with Deathly Perception. But in that case you’re probably better off with a pure power build.

Bhawb.7408:

On Necro toughness and vitality have very comparable scaling over even extended battles (with slight variance due to things like what type of damage are you facing, how much healing, etc.)

They really don’t.
Unlike toughness, vitality scales linear. I wouldn’t go with no toughness at all, but in general vitality is straight up better for necros because of life force scaling and bad regular healing.

Troll.4237:

At what amount of toughness should I spec into vitality and offensive stats? Around 1500? (WvW and pve usage)
…
Primarily thinking of useing celestial stats and maybe mixing in some carrion gear.

In that case I would approach it the opposite way:
Gear up for the amount of damage you want to do. If it inclused carrion and celestial you’ll get defensive stats anyway.

Necros are stronger at close range, deal with it.

As to the axe, the auto attack is too weak and/or doesn’t cleave. But that’s more of an issue in PvE where you often need sustained single target dps. In PvP you’ll rarely ever get to just auto attack on any weapon.

What you’re really asking for here is a free Death Magic adept trait.
It would be a flat buff for those who have 20 in DM already and a nerf for those who just have 10 points invested for Staff Mastery. Unless you’re implying that the combined trait should be adept tier, which would be even more op.

Besides, not all cd reduction traits on other classes have secondary effects. And there are many “secondary” effects that don’t come with cd reductions.

Arvid.3829:

Dire… always. Crit chance is overvalued imo: your on crit effects are mostly limited by their ICD, not your crit chance.

Very true.

Arvid.3829:

Also note that pure dire trinkets do not exist, so even if you go as dire as possible, you will still have around 23% crit chance.

And Fury.

Arvid.3829:

… go for max survivability while losing only a couple of percent dps max just seems too crazy to pass up.

People hugely undervalue vitality for necros.
Mabye it’s because many come from other classes where maxing toughness instead gives them better healing efficiency relative to their hp pool.
But for necros it’s exactly opposite: we have weak healing that doesn’t even work half the time. Most of our sustain comes from generating life force which is always percentage based, so having more vitality not only increases our lf pool but also improves the amount of lf we generate.

On topic: I would never go full rabid tbh. If you don’t like dire, mix rabid with carrion.

The necro forum was full of these threads before you could do the minion opener in tpvp. But the issue has been completely resolved since you can start every match with at least 20% lf this way.
It did however create a new problem, the more necros in a team the more life force each player gets at the start. I played some solo arena matches recently with 3 necros in my team and every time we would start with ~80% life force. Is that balanced? Maybe you really should get 20% at the start and the minion thing should be disabled instead. Then again, I haven’t heard anyone ever complain about a necro starting a match with too much life force.

I haven’t read through all of it, but those short stories are really cool. I’m definitely looking forward to the necro-ranger version.

I can only help you with the non-minion related questions though, except one small hint: if you are a MM you probably don’t use condi gear because these two build types don’t really synergize that well.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• What conditions to Necromancer have most easiest access to?

Depends how you approach the question.
Most frequently applied: definitely bleeding.
Access to a condition compared to other classes: fear and chilled.
However, when you play a condi build you make your damage work against other players by making cleansing as hard as possible. That means as many different conditions as possible, not just by applying them yourself but also by corrupting boons and transfering them back to your opponent.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• What is the general mindset versus a Ranger?

• Assuming equal skill, and meta builds, who is more likely to win between a Necro & Ranger?

Generally, rangers are at a big disadvantage, they’d have to be a mad genius to give an equally skilled necro a run for his money. If the ranger is just a tiny little bit less skilled they’re likely to not win a single 1v1. Though I should say, it’s not a matter of skill in this case, but a build-win usually.
Some of these issues are partially due to the meta builds being used in spvp.
In WvW you have a better chance at finding a ranger who runs an exotic or unusual build that can throw the necro off their routine.
Come to think of it, a few weeks ago I had the occasional dance with a ranger in one of the borderlands. I’ve never seen a build like his before, some kind of power build with high stealth up time and lots of CC. I was going to ask him about it, but I couldn’t find him anymore at that point.

Hope that helped.

Bhawb.7408:

Its not an issue of WoP being bad, its an issue of the other stunbreaks being better for condi necros (which is the context of this thread).

Well, that’s where we are in disagreement. Imo WoP is better than any other stun break, even for condition necros who have every other possible cleanse as well. It is that good.

Bhawb.7408:

Positioning yourself relatively out of danger and kiting is the best way to stay alive to deal damage, because you are easy to train down.

Again, I disagree. Staying in range is 1. not always possible, 2. not always the best option for survivability, 3. not always the best damage option.
Also, if people decide to “train you down” standing a little off to the side doesn’t mean you’re safe.

Bhawb.7408:

WoP doesn’t do anything for you in this way, it only breaks the stun off you,

Quite the opposite actually.
Vigor and aegis are very common because burning and bleeding are high up in cleasing priority.
Also, dark field, aoe blindness, nuf said.

Bhawb.7408:

plus the constant application of bleeds from pretty much anything means WoP often doesn’t even get deep into your condi stacks.

Oh what a bummer, guess I’ll have to take perma vigor then…

Bhawb.7408:

and a lot of people will have follow up stuns.

How does this make other stunbreaks better?

Bhawb.7408:

SA will almost negate damage while active

Depends on the amount of damage and if you are in DS at the time.

Bhawb.7408:

SWalk will allow you to run and kite far more easily, plus give you a second break

Situational.

Bhawb.7408:

Flesh Wurm instantly creates distance, and in teh right location will put you on top of walls that the person attacking you will have trouble getting up

Even more situational. And if I had to make a choice I’d definitely take a utility that let’s me keep up the pressure in fight than the one that does nothing and completely moves me away from my allies if I need to break a stun.

Bhawb.7408:

Plague Signet instantly transfers all your conditions to the enemy, often giving them stacks of cripple/chill/immob to kite

Yes it’s a full clease, but compare to WoP it’s rather unreliable, has a longer cd, doesn’t create a combo field and deosn’t give you any boons.

First of all, you are underrating WoP.
Secondly, everthing you said depends on the situation, your own build, number of players and professions/builds involved, the terrain you’re fighting on, whether you’re being focused or not…
A general statement like “you’ll be range-spamming aoe and nothing else…” is almost never going to be what your actual engagements will look like. And usually this kind of gameplay will do less for your team than occasionally standing right in the middle of a fight and taking some hits.

Dietzen.6127:

NeXeD.3042:

Wow lol shows how much I know. I still think cc and the 4s is enough for me then again I have my own guildy calling me an idiot for using wall and walk. As far as wop you might be right on the highest end but even playing with guildies its impossible getting them to sit on a well. Hell even I hate sitting still.

The casting necro doesn’t have to sit in the well, for its effect.

He does for the cleansing pulses.

As to the “sitting in the well” in general, if people are fighting on a capture node in spvp it’s rather likely that your allies will stay in the well for most of the 5 seconds it is up.
Also, you can blast finish blindness with putrid mark and possibly get vigor protection and aegis. Standing in this well can be one of the safest spots in a team fight, even if your opponents are trying to focus you. So usually I’d rather tank it out instead of porting away with Flesh Wurm.

Rennoko.5731:

And people say that +5 infusions don’t matter! Good thing I invested in those.

They are the only reason I crafted ascended armor for my necro.
30 vitality from infusions plus 11 from increased minor stats (carrion). That gives me an extra 410 hp and 492 extra hitpoints in DS without any traits in Soul Reaping. So basically I can take 1k more damage.
All other additional stats are negligible, but the vitality alone was worth the quite outrageous expense.

NeXeD.3042:

You shouldnt need anything more that dagger 4 staff 4 and cc to deal with Condi as a necro…

Depends on your opponent(s).

NeXeD.3042:

Spectral walk and flesh wurm are the best two stunbreak options most of the time especially in tpvp.

Also debatable.
As far as utility and team support is concerned WoP easily trumps all of our other stunbreaks, especially in tpvp.

Rennoko.5731:

I should have spent more time on the video slowing down the parts where I get chain healed for 10k

I actually created a slow-mo of some parts of your video for that very reason, in a super sophisticated manner I might add (hitting the space bar a lot).
Althought, the “heal” that made me most curious was an almost simultanious downed+rally, giving you 7k hp out of nowhere as it seemed.

Which reminds me, a rally I got today actually made me lvl-up and restored my entire hp pool, also knocking back the 3 low-hp guys who were in the middle of stomping me which downed all of them instead. xD

bobo.3098:

More importantly perhaps; what gear are you running; and how can a poor returning player mimick similar results

Build is in the video discription on youtube.

Rennoko.5731:

Also I roam with a healer… so there is that to consider. Without him, the extra healing might be better, but I have found the “sustain game” on necro never pans out the way you want it to in outnumbered fights.

I dare say, the healing you got from your ally is more spectacular than your own gameplay. ^^
It is far better than PC could ever be, so I don’t think picking that trait would compensate. On the other hand, while I agree with your arguments for Dhuumfire and against PC, every little bit of healing counts. You might need it at a later time in case you don’t make it out of combat after the “big” healing-epidemic.

Spoj The Second.7680:

As an example, in the past when my guild actively sold arah we often complained about the number of sellers who sold for cheaper and undercut us while skipping lupicus or going underwater to completely exploit the entire path while afk.

I have no idea what “selling arah” means…

Like I said, you’re likely to not go a single moment without might in a zerg, you also get a might proc from the runes.
Sigil of Fire has a 5 sec cd and can hit up to 5 targets. Obviously there’s a best and worst case scenario for damage here, but let’s assume that one proc will do a total of 2k damage and you’re fighting without might. If that represents the equivalent of the 7% dmg bonus you would’ve gotten with a Sigil of Strength instead, then you’d need to do about 30k damage in the time before the fire sigil could proc again.
An oversimplified example of course, but the point is that those flame blasts will usually do more damage than an additional 7% of your regular hits.

I’d go with Runes of Strength.
Wurm’s crit damage looks promising but I suspect that your damage will be overall higher with the additional power you get from Strength.

Sigils: Fire>Strength. The dps is just higher even with the 6th bonus from the rune, besides you’re likely to get might from others anyway.

Traits: I would definitely drop Vamp Rituals for Target the Weak and Deadly Strength.

No one should ever use Quickening Thirst or Signet of the Locust in combat. Wasted trait, wasted utility slot.

As to the scouting you can do as a necro, if all you want to do is go from one side of the map to the other and report whatever you see in map chat then I don’t think you need a specific build or even class for that.

Bhawb.7408:

and warriors never take fear me.

Actually, one of the strongest (and at this point infamous) WvW duelists on the European servers is a warrior who uses “Fear Me!”.
He plays a full zerker build, GS and sword/shield with +40% condi duration food. Sounds weird but not only is he an incredibly skilled player, his build allows him to apply immob for ages (which is always removed last if you don’t have a full cleanse) and the occasional 5 sec fear.

You’re right of course, warriors usually don’t have this skill, but never say never.