Guild Wars 2

Crinn.7864:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The more they power creep then the stronger evades, invulns become and the weaker extra health becomes. It isn’t rocket science.

The amount of evades has nothing to do with how strong extra HP is. The strength of extra HP is determined by how much DPS is in the meta. Shroud works well in low DPS metas (like the s1 and s2 metas) and performs badly in high DPS metas.

You’re just confirming what Lordrosicky said:
Evades (or any other form of negating damage completely) always work equally well, extra hp only works when you don’t take a lot of damage.

Crinn.7864:

They actually have buffed base shroud post-HoT.

The only Death Shroud buff since HoT was baselining piercing Life Blasts.
Pathetic.

Spartacus.3192:

…

Maybe you should play necro yourself once in a while, because the way you’ve argued so far makes it pretty obvious that you don’t.

Spartacus.3192:

Im sorry but Necro is the only class in the game that gets stronger the longer it lasts in fights

Wrong.

More life force means you can mitigate more damage, but it doesn’t make you stronger.

Also, even if your statement made sense (which it doesn’t), what about adrenalin, astral force or rev energy?

Spartacus.3192:

Necro is the class that is easiest to kill early on rather than later on so of course it will get focused first. Its just simple efficiency. Kill something that’s easier to kill earlier in the fight.

You do realize that life force doesn’t reset to a certain amount out of combat, right?
So it’s very possible that in later fights during a match a necro will start with 100%.
But the bottom line is always the same: necros are the easiest target to focus because – unlike the ability to avoid damage entirely – having more hp doesn’t scale with increasing numbers of attackers.

Azukas.1426:

You guys just really want to complain and not listen to what’s really going on.

Ok, I’m listening. What’s really going on?

Ragion.2831:

Ruru.1302:

reaper is only bad in pugs

Isnt that like 99% of PvP matches?

More like 99.999%.

Then again, it’s a pointless argument. Saying necro is doing well in a premade team applies to litterally every other class as well. So “pugs” in that context obviously means that necros are one of the worst at carrying bad teams, regardless of wether they are pugs or not. In other news: water is wet.

Kuya.6495:

So anet gave reapers chill damage leading to a season where necros were stacked because they hate necro so much. Got it.

That reminds me of the original iteration of Dhuumfire. Proponents of it back then would argue that necros need so much damage because their survivability was terrible. Obvious nonsense. So Dhuumfire was changed, and Deathly Chills was changed for the same reasons. However, necro’s poor defense has remained mostly the same, and that’s the problem.

Azukas.1426:

Necromancer is fine. They are best class in a team fight to win you that team fight.

Unless they die first, which tends to happen rather often.

Azukas.1426:

When I’m on my necro I prekite or enter the fight fashionably late.

So you +1 an even fight when most opponents have half their skills on cooldown. How is this not something any other class can do as well?

Sigmoid.7082:

what was the build(s)?

Here you go. Destroyer amulet in pvp.

I did adress his arguments. And concluding that he lacks experience because of the arguments he made wasn’t an attack, but an observation.

Crackers.9628:

flow.6043:

Crackers.9628:

Also, you can’t tell me a class that has 4 AoE’s in 1 weapon is hard in PvP where everyone is in one spot.

You think a class’ strength in PvP is determined by how many aoe skills there are on a weapon set?

I never said anything about strength, only about ease of use.

???

Are you saying necros are weak but easy to play because you can tag a lot of targets on capture points?

And why would you even bring up aoe in PvP when you think it has no bearing on the strength of the class?

Crackers.9628:

Also please stop attacking my person, not every post has to go paired with an ad hominem, it doesn’t add anything to keep trying to downplay me.

I didn’t attack you personally, I just called you out on your bad arguments.

Zinthos, maybe this helps.

KrHome.1920:

Rampager is one of the useless amulets for necro (due to class mechanics). It is pretty much impossible to create a viable build around that amulet.

On a side note, I used to play Rampager when the specialization system was introduced until we got Mercenary amulets. And since that was removed I switched to Destroyer, which basically works out like a better version of Rampager for my build.
And I solo queued with both amulets to legendary, although that didn’t really mean anything with the matchmaking in earlier seasons.
So it’s not impossible, but definitely niche.

Zinthos.5893:

If you want to prove me to be wrong, play it and test it for 2 weeks.

Actually, the burden of proof is on you here. So instead of making people use your build for weeks, you could just meet up with someone in game and show them how you play the build. I would do it myself, but I suspect you’re on NA.

Also, you should take what we say as constructive criticism rather than insults.
For example, when we point out that you don’t have stun breaks or cleanses, wouldn’t it be reasonable to change some things? Or do you not see that you’ll be at a huge disadvantage against another condi class?
Or regarding your action cam preference (I didn’t even know you could play gw2 with a controller lol), it really is a lot slower and restrictive. So it may well be that this is how you like it, but you have to realize its limitations instead of getting offended when someone says you could be a lot better without it.

I think human.
But you can preview skins in your wardrobe without being lvl 80.

Zinthos.5893:

Not sure what it is with people on this forum, but if you don’t try it, how do you know it won’t work?

Because there are some things you don’t have to try to find out if they work or not.

What KrHome meant to point out is that your build has almost no defense.
You run pure glass stats, which on it’s own isn’t a problem, but there’s also no stunbreak and only one cleanse (Deathly Swarm). That means running this build would allow for way too much counterplay.

So, I’m not sure how you define being successful here.

Zinthos.5893:

this is a team fight build…
you can pick off soft targets.
NOT a tank build
you will not survive long
you are NOT the main dps.

It’s a team fighter with poor defense and low damage even though you run rampager?
It seems that even from your own perspective the build is going through some kind of identity crisis.

Also, regardless of what build you’re running, you really shouldn’t use action cam, it severely limits your mechanical abilities and visibility.

First of all, in regards to those who are complaining about OP’s “no corruption, no pressure, no damage” claim, you’re quoting him out of context. He said some spcialization do provide those and some don’t. Obviously you will still be able to corrupt with utilities and weapon skills either way, but it’s a very noticable difference in your contribution to team fights if you don’t pick offensive specs.

kappa.2036:

Basically, if you are a necromancer, you must choose between damage and tankyness. You CAN’T HAVE BOTH. If you take offensive traitlines, you will do damage but you are squishy. If you take defensive traitlines, you can survive better but you can’t do damage. Or crappy damage. Well, you get it.

I’d go a step further.
Not only do you have to choose, but the opportunity cost in picking defense over offense is way to high to make it a viable alternative.
Of course, there are several decent defensive traits in most specializations, or at least some that buff your defense indirectly, but the fact remains: currently there is no such thing as a genuine necro tank build.

Resolving those issues, however, is not a matter of reorganizing the necro’s trait distribution, but rather addressing some more fundamental flaws:

• There are very few defensive skills or traits that actually scale with how many opponents you’re up against, like Vamp traits, Locust Swarm, Putrid Mark or shouts.
  All of them require hitting a target, and when they do they scale relatively poorly, nowhere near enough to account for the offensive pressure of additional players focusing the necro.
  Obviously, a scaling issue that classes with blocks/evades/stealth/invuln don’t have to deal with.

• Necros can’t disengage properly.
  Every other class is faster or has enough range to catch up to a necro, should they even make an attempt to slowly crawl away from a losing fight.

• Healing doesn’t work through Shroud.
  Blighter’s Boon, Vamp traits and Unholy Sanctuary being the exceptions, but a ton of other traits don’t heal through Shroud, regeneration doesn’t heal through Shroud, sigil and rune heal procs don’t heal through Shroud and all of necro’s main healing skills don’t heal through Shroud. That means Vamp Signet’s leech stacks, Blood Fiend and Well of Blood pulses.
  Classic examples of necro countering its own defensive mechanics.
  But most importantly, ally healing doesn’t go through Shroud!

So, not only do necros have the worst defensive mechanics for team fights, but when they need it the most they can’t even get healed by allies.
It blows my mind that this hasn’t changed more than 4 years after the game was released.

Sarrs.4831:

flow.6043:

I use both.

Well trait’s bad.
Banshee’s Wail isn’t horrible but is horribly outclassed by Vamp Aura in most circumstances, even in sPvP where it’s at its least powerful.
Fair enough if you’re playing fun/dorky builds but it’s not really fit for purpose.

Oh, the irony…
You’re accusing me of using a “fun/dorky” build when this whole time you’ve been defending a Magi/Zealot/Mender Unholy Sanctuary build.

You already made it pretty obvious how unexperienced you are in your earlier posts, but now it’s getting rediculous.

Also, I won’t bother making a detailed response to the rest of your post again.
Every time I counter one of your statements you reply with some incoherent mess that has nothing to do with the original argument.

Crackers.9628:

flow.6043:

Spoken like someone who’s never played necro before.

Also, if it takes you ages to kill new players your real problem isn’t with the class.

Killing new players takes a couple seconds with other classes (bar invuln skills) but with necro it still takes a long time.

Also, you can’t tell me a class that has 4 AoE’s in 1 weapon is hard in PvP where everyone is in one spot.

Lol. You think a class’ strength in PvP is determined by how many aoe skills there are on a weapon set?

At first I thought you just haven’t played necro, but now I’m thinking you might not have even played this entire game at all.

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Also, Flow, while I agree that Blighter’s Boon does give you superior sustain over Unholy Sanctuary, Unholy Sanctuary also lets you run Shrouded Removal, which is a very strong trait. That’s a large part of why I like US so much.

Yes shrouded removel is really strong but i dont think US is that good. I still think the base healing should be a bit higher (around 200).

That plus a soul comprehnsion rework and deathmagic would finally be good.

Shrouded Removal is by far the strongest trait in Death Magic.
US is too weak, and so is every other non-minion trait in DM.
DM could only ever be a reasonable pick over other specializations if they buffed Deadly Strength, Corruptor’s Fervor, Unholy Sanctuary and completely removed and replaced Putrid Defense, Soul Comprehension and Reaper’s Protection.

As it stands, without minions Death Magic can only give you some mediocre stat buffs and a cleanse.

Crackers.9628:

I chuckled when I read this. As a thief, whenever I encounter newer players playing necro it takes me ages to kill him because they’re such damage sponses. When I see a Necro I sigh a little because I know whatever their skill, it’s probably not even worth killing them, cause it even with insane thief dps it takes so frigging long, whereas I make one mistake and I’m dead. How this is considered high skill floor is beyond me. Dying on a necro the hardest part of playing it.

Spoken like someone who’s never played necro before.

Also, if it takes you ages to kill new players your real problem isn’t with the class.

Sarrs.4831:

But you don’t run Banshee’s Wail.
…
But you don’t run Vamp Rituals.

I use both.

Sarrs.4831:

And you don’t run Spite+Blood with this build, because the build needs Death Magic or it fundamentally doesn’t work.

What build are you talking about?
I was making a general statement about Blood Magic based on your definition of how a specialization can provide control. No one said anything about a specific build.

Sarrs.4831:

flow.6043:

it’s wrong to say that Blood Magic is nothing but a dps and healing buff.

That is a thing I did not say. I simply said it does not provide the utility that you need to be effective, with Necro’s current role.

Sarrs.4831:

BM is subpar because it has no output.
… It is good for transfusion and raw damage

Do you not read your own posts? It’s exactly what you said.

Also, again, you’re wrong about Blood Magic.

Sarrs.4831:

flow.6043:

Well, what if I told you that – regardless of what build you have – camping Shroud and spamming #1 is probably the least effective thing you could do as a necro, for both offense and defense. So making some comparison between specializations based on that is totally pointless.

Camping Shroud and spamming #1 while playing an Unholy Sanctuary build might be ‘the least effective thing you could do’ but it may be your only option.

If your health is low and your LF is high and US is on CD, you need to camp DS and heal up. If you are camping and healing up and everything’s already on CD, the only thing there is to do is AA.

So you don’t like Blood Magic because you think it lacks utility, but your best argument for Death Magic/Unholy Sanctuary is: it’s better than nothing when when you’re forced to stay in Shroud with everything else on cooldown.

Also, in this fictional scenario where you’re low on hp and apparently some people are fighting you, thus making you stay in Shroud, how many Blighter’s Boon procs and US tics can you really get out of this?
If you’re really pressured enough to the point where you can’t leave Shroud, you’re probably taking a significant amount of damage and/or being stunned several times. So maybe you can auto attack a couple of times and heal, what… 1k or 2k hp? And that’s only when you’re facing semi-afk opponents.
Not impressed.

Sarrs.4831:

And vitality is far from a bad stat, it’s recommended on its own simply for the sake of already giving you double the HP it gives everyone else. Am I saying it’ll turn you into an unstoppable monster, no, but it’s marginal with other defense stats for regular necros and it helps you a lot for a US build.

I never said vitality is bad. But again, the size of your lf pool doesn’t affect US at all.
So, yes, vitality helps. Is it more helpful for builds using US than others? No.

Sarrs.4831:

flow.6043:

Control? As opposed to which other spec?

Spite has boonstrip and chill.
Curses has access to boonstrip and weakness.

That’s a rather out-of-context definition though.
With that logic I could also argue that Blood Magic gives more “control” if you’re using Banshee’s Wail to improve Wail of Doom, or Vampiric Rituals to lower the cooldown of Well of Corruption, or have Blood Bond corrupt boons because you’ve picked Signets of Suffering as well.

I get where you’re going with this, but based on that argumentation it’s wrong to say that Blood Magic is nothing but a dps and healing buff.

Sarrs.4831:

flow.6043:

That’s not true. US and Blighter’s in Shroud heal for a static amount of hp, the size of your lf pool has no influence on that.

US will heal you for longer because people are attacking you in DS.
… decreasing the proportions by which enemies can reduce your ability to camp DS.

… because you are .. able to camp Death Shroud longer, you will be able to spam your DS skills for longer, and therefore generate more healing through Spite’s granted Might.

Ok, I get it now. You’re saying: by adding defensive stats to your build you can cast Shroud #1 more often while being attacked in Shroud, so you can get some extra healing with Blighter’s Boon and Reaper’s Might.

Well, what if I told you that – regardless of what build you have – camping Shroud and spamming #1 is probably the least effective thing you could do as a necro, for both offense and defense. So making some comparison between specializations based on that is totally pointless.

TheDevice.2751:

flow.6043:

In regards to hitpoints gained, life force regeneration will always be more effective than regular healing.

Thats debatable. LF depletes naturally while in shroud, natural health pool doesn’t. Lets not forget that most the professions who have loads of built in healing dont even have to rely on statting in healing power since the base values of the heals are naturally high.

As the state of the game is right now I would disagree.

So you don’t have access to your life force all the time, and (depending on how much damage you take) you don’t have access to all of it when you do.
And I’m not sure why you would mention the high healing capabilities of other classes here? But both of those points actually support my argument more than yours.

Think back to a time before Reaper and before the specialization system was introduced. Back then all we had was a 5-7k heal every 25 seconds (+1.5 hours cast time) and maybe some regeneration ticks. So that usually represented somewhere between 25-30% of our actual health pool, or in other words: if we were low on hp in combat we needed more than a minute to refill completely.
Bascially, this impossible sustain task forced you to not only have good and reliable life force regen between Shroud cycles, but you also needed awesome Shroud timing so as much damage as possible would be mitigated by life force.
And even though we now have more access to traited healing, that type of life force and Shroud management is still how you should play your necro today. And it’s a lot easier too with the addition of traits like Soul Marks and Blighter’s Boon.

Also, some actual numbers:
For example, Necrotic Grasp generates 4% life force per hit or 4.4% with Gluttony, which means a single auto attack skill can generate up to 22% life force per cast or top off your entire life force pool in a coupe of seconds.
This is our strongest source of life force, of course, but there are other ways to completley fill up our lf pool between Shroud cycles.

So when you say it’s debatable that lf regen is more effective than healing, because we don’t have access to all life force all the time, you’re basically implying that our regular healing generates about as much hit points as lf regen does without having the disadvantge of draining naturally.
Well… not even close.

Muchacho.2390:

Since when does Blighters boon have an icd? I know that some of our might generating traits have an icd but i am sure blighters boon doesnt have one.

Oops, my mistake, I thought of something else. Well, more like other traits or skills that grant boons to you have a cooldown.

Rickster.8752:

If your aim is to win competitively then i think it is a mistake to try and spec for 1v1 as a necro.

My point was that there is no difference.

Can you name an example of what would qualify as build/skill/trait that is only useful in 1v1s but not in team fights?

Rickster.8752:

But duels never happen in real games.

Wrong. They happen all the time.

Rickster.8752:

Necro is too slow to be a 1v1 class in pvp. You will get decapped alot and you will not be able to push far to take 1v1s because any class that does this needs to be able to disengage when its 1v2.
…
You need to always be aware your duel could turn into a 1v2, as such any necro pushing far in pvp to take a 1v1 duel is never going to win many games

First of all, you make it sound like the only place where 1v1s could ever happen is on your respective team’s far point. Obviously that’s wrong, duels can happen anywhere.

Secondly, taking 1v1s isn’t a matter of mobility.
Just keep an eye on the map, there will be lots of opportunities to safely rotate to whatever point you want.
And yes, there is always the chance of you getting outnumbered, but in this case either your team outnumbers the other team on the other points, or you rely on your team mates to have some map awareness as well and that they would reinforce you if necessary.
Like I said, not being a liability to your team isn’t entirely your own responsibility.

Rickster.8752:

as such, if playing necro i would play it where it flourishes and that has always been in team fighting

Well… ironically you could (and many people do) also argue that this is where necros are the weakest because of how fast they can die to being focused.

FrostDraco.8306:

flow.6043:

I think you don’t understand Blood Magic.
Vamp traits are currently by far our best sustain option. And that’s just one part of BM, there’s more to it than just Transfusion, you know.

I kind of disagree here. I run a hyper sustain build that doesn’t use bloodmagic at all. It uses BB, and other sustain tools from spite/soul reaping, to give me massive amounts of life force, which means i can pop in and out of shroud consistently when there are 2 or more enemies (i run shouts as well).

It gives me a lot of team fight presence, and most games (unranked), i never die. Not once.

I phrased my post poorly.

In regards to hitpoints gained, life force regeneration will always be more effective than regular healing. Which is one of the reasons I would never say you couldn’t run tanky builds without Blood Magic.

What I was refering to, however, is a direct comparison of our healing traits.
And this is where Vamp traits are clearly the most potent, because they don’t have an icd (BB) or only tick periodically (US) and they work through Shroud (unlike all others).

kappa.2036:

What build you recommend for 1v1? What kind of choices you make according to the enemy that you’re going to deal with?

I rarely ever make build recommendations, because a lot of necro builds work well in 1v1s anyway or can be made to work with a few tweaks.
And I tend to not promote my own build because it isn’t as self explanatory as builds you might find on metabattle.

Adepting my build to my opponent only happens on rare occasions.
I’m talking strong players that I have the privilege of fighting 10-20 times in a row.
With so many repititions you can statistically weed out the fluke wins or losses from innate advantages or disadvantages of one’s build. So in this case you can make adaptations to influence the outcome. Typically this would involve a shift in defensive skills towards either more condition cleanses, more life force regeneration or additional interrupts.
But other than that I try to stick to a flexible setup that is useful most of the time, which is one of the reasons I play with hybrid stats.

kappa.2036:

What build you recommend in a small scale teamfight? And in large scale?

The same you would use in 1v1s.

Most skills you would use in duels are aoe anyway, so your offensive pressure in team fights (which is why you take a necro in the first place) usually doesn’t require any build changes.

kappa.2036:

What do you think about the meta necro in spvp?

This question very much ties into your previous one.

Taking a necro in PvP is very risky.
You’ve mentioned defensive scaling issues in team fights. This is true for all necro builds and it can hardly be mitigated by picking defensive stats.
And the often frustrating part here is that not being a liability to your team isn’t entirely your resposibility. There isn’t a whole lot you can do when you get focused by several opponents with low or no life force, and depending on your team composition your team might not be able to do anything about it either. Few classes can peel effectively, few classes can safe rez fast enough and few classes share a decent amount of healing for you to recover, should you survive the initial phase of the engagement at all.

Speaking of which, it still amazes me how most healing still doesn’t go through Shroud.

At least once a month there’s a thread about it on the necro or pvp forum, and every time some ignorant people argue against it as if this would somehow be abused into making necros immortal. (It wouldn’t)

At least 10 times more often you get complaint threads about how weak necros are in PvP and how easy they die to focus fire in team fights.

So the general consense seems to be: necro is decent in 1v1, but sucks in 5v5.
All more healing through Shroud would do, however, is improve our position in 5v5 and change almost nothing in 1v1s. It would be the perfect approach to partially fixing the scaling issues with our defensive mechanics.

Anyway, like I said, it blows my mind that heals not going through Shroud is still a thing 4 years into the game. And imo it is the biggest issue that is holding necros back, always has been.

kappa.2036:

Often I see you using base necro. When is better to use Necro and when the Reaper in wvw/pvp?

It’s a matter of build preference.
Most of the the time Reaper’s Shroud is better than Death Shroud. But arguably the Reaper specialization traits are weaker than some combinations of core specs. So that’s where it evens out a little, which is why vanilla necro can be a side grade to Reaper rather than a downgrade.

Although I really wish they’d add a tiny bit of stability to Tainted Shackles.

Sarrs.4831:

BM is subpar because it has no output.

?

Sarrs.4831:

As a necro you need to control targets and BM does not do that at all.

Control? As opposed to which other spec?

Sarrs.4831:

It is good for transfusion and raw damage, but transfusion is middling utility and you get more raw damage out of spite.

I think you don’t understand Blood Magic.
Vamp traits are currently by far our best sustain option. And that’s just one part of BM, there’s more to it than just Transfusion, you know.

Sarrs.4831:

Magi’s/Zealot’s mix (Mender’s, basically).
…more life force, and therefore that much more raw HP from the Unholy Sanc conversion and DS1 spam .

That’s not true. US and Blighter’s in Shroud heal for a static amount of hp, the size of your lf pool has no influence on that.

Okami.7049:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

… I run the sustain game, which requires either Unholy Sanctuary or Blighter’s Boon to work (blood magic life steal is still a bit too weak to work it alone).

Interesting, I would’ve though BM would compliment DM and BB;
…
How wouldn’t BM work well in a sustain build?

He said “too weak to work alone”. So he does use BM as well.
Obviously vamp traits easily outperform Unholy Sanctuary, even with zealot stats.

I know Drarnor is a fan of Unholy Sanctuary, but when you already have Blighter’s Boon you probably get more overall sustain when you combo it with Spite. Also, every specialization is currently better than Death Magic.

Flumek.9043:

Flow is the truth.

He predicted blood magic a year ahead.
He used axe before it was cool.
His flesh golem actually listens to him.
His charr looks rivaled mine.

Remember kids, nobody escapes the flow of time.

I lol’d

#hipsternecro
#charrmasterrace

Eremite, I’m not sure I deserve all this praise just for the things I said in another thread, but thx anyway.

Mikhael.2391:

on my guardian/Dh i think i had the upper hand most times due to the class being better imo.

Hmm I wasn’t keeping score, but upper hand sounds a bit more one-sided than it actually was ;P
Anyway, like I said in game, if I changed some traits (and I will next time) you’d see a drastic win rate increase in my favour. So even if you won more fights it wasn’t because guardians are “the better class” in this matchup in general.

Mikhael.2391:

Hes more experienced power necro than i am.

My interim conclusion from our last encounter was that you simply play your guardian a lot better than your necro. Lack of experience doesn’t seem to be the only issue here, it’s more like you needed a fresh perspective or mentality shift on how you could build or handle your necro against certain other classes.

Btw, I’m definitely more experienced than you on power builds as well, but my own build really is a hybrid, it wouldn’t work without having a considerable amount of condition damage. So it’s like a condition build at heart that does more direct than condition damage. A feature that falls rather flat against DHs though, I admit.

Let’s say against a veteran guard npc, I’d expect to land somewhere between 3-7k depending on crits, might, vuln etc.

Krysard.1364:

I dont know a better kiting skill for strict 1v1s than wurm (obv not in an open field, my build is based in “pvp duels”). What are the alternatives?

I know what you mean, Wurm is indeed good for kiting or getting away from a situation you don’t want to be in. It’s difficult to make up a specific scenario where this would apply, but especially in 1v1s those alternative skills might allow you to not have to kite or escape in the first place.

For example: an opponent with stability is about to land a lot of damage on you. You have the choice between Flesh Wurm and any boon corrupting skill. Clearly, both of these skills would have you avoid that damage. However, corrupting stability is obviously the better option as it allows for counter pressure as well.
Or another example, something you see people do a lot: teleport away so they can safely cast Consume after eating a lot of conditions. Clearly that would be a good use of Flesh Wurm. However, what about other cleansing skills? Not only would they allow you to keep your CC cooldown, but they would also come with more utility than just the 10% life force you’d get from the dying wurm.

Player > build.

Also, there’s no such thing as the best build at every 1v1.
Different matchups require different skills or traits.
For example, against warriors with a power build you need enough corrupts to deal with their stability and maybe Spectral Armor and/or Last Gasp to tank their bursts in Shroud. If they play a condi build you need things like Plague Signet, Plague Sending or Well of Power.
So most necro builds can be tweaked to deal with certain opponents more easily with just a few utility changes. The rest really is up to the player.

ps: for those who posted builds with Spec Walk and Flesh Wurm, those are “run away from noobs” roaming skills. In 1v1s there are almost always better alternatives.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I’m curious about your build and playstyle – do you struggle against stun heavy opponents with only one stun break in your build?

Not more than any other necro build.
Of course there will be situations where I could avoid damage if I had more stunbreaks, but all of my utility skills primarily serve a defensive purpose. I might change them up sometimes depending on the opponent, but CB/WoC/WoP is my default setup, because for me they provide the best mix of defense and utility overall. Besides, counter pressure is an important defensive tool for almost every necro build.
So you might think that Corrupt Boon or WoC are a rather aggressive choice compared to more stunbreaks, but corrupting certain boons at the right times (stab, might, quickness…) can make a much bigger difference. Also, WoC generates a lot of life force and when traited gives protection and heals for up to ~5k hp.

No, Drarnor says that the regular axe skill Unholy Feast doesn’t corrupt 2 boons when you have the trait Unholy Fervor.
But my axe corrupts 2 boons with or without being traited.
Spiteful Spirit on the other hand only corrupts 1 boon.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

When you have the Unholy Fervor trait equipped, Unholy Feast still only corrupts one boon.

Can’t confirm, it works for me.

Drakril.4058:

the way the trait is worded there should be no difference between the trait or axe skill. Lets get this fixed ASAP

inb4 fixed tooltip: renamed the spell cast by Spiteful Spirit to reflect its seperation from the axe’s Unholy Feast, similar to Enfeebling Blood vs Enfeeble.

Seriously though, ever since they removed the trait’s cooldown it did indeed cast a different skill than Unholy Feast (slightly less damage), so it wasn’t surprising that Spiteful Spirit wasn’t automatically updated to corrupt 2 boons as well.
Or maybe they did it on purpose because they felt the trait was already balanced?
Either way I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Ugh… alright let’s do this.

First you say this:

Jskiirawr.2473:

Game isn’t made for 1v1s

Wrong on so many levels.

People duel, that is a fact. They want to test their builds and skill against each other.

Dueling communities have existed since game release.
People have met on random pvp servers before custom arenas were implemented, and people have met in WvW in the south of alpine borderlands by the windmills a long time before the obsidian sanctum arena was added.
And last but not least, we now have guild hall arenas.

So any of the “1v1s aren’t officially supported” arguments that you are just now digging up again from 3 years ago are simply false.

Jskiirawr.2473:

A thread about 1v1s in Itself contributes nothing.

Since we have established that 1v1s are a thing that exists in this game – and I’m not talking about balance yet – why would you call people silly just for talking about it on the forum?
It’s a part of the game, people have discussions about it, deal with it.

Jskiirawr.2473:

All 1v1s show is who has the most “saftey nets”/ what class is most outrageous in terms of sustain, but then again, that all goes back to the “safety nets” of a class. So please get the silly notion of 1v1s mean anything out your head, all it does is cause and illusion of thinking you/someone is good.

Alright, so I didn’t want to respond to this earlier because I thought you’d just shup up and this would be the end of it…. but here it goes:
You apparently do not know anything about 1v1s.
Are we playing the same game?
Safety nets…? What the hell are you talking about?

Jskiirawr.2473:

Yannir.4132:

… go pick a fight with Sindrenerr or Lord Helseth, and we’ll see how that goes.

Lol. “Go pick a fight” ok sure, my team vs any team they make, and I bet you anything they’ll lose.

Interesting. So your team would win against TCG?

Jskiirawr.2473:

But to pick a fight for 1v1 is just silly cause 1v1s still hold no grrounds what so ever.

You do realize that 1v1s do occur in PvP matches, right? Not every fight is a 5v5… right?
I really have to ask this with emphasis, since you repeatedly demonstrate how unqualified you seem to be on the matter.

Speaking of TCG, a huge contribution to their last world champion title was Drazeh winning a ton of 1v1s on side points.

Jskiirawr.2473:

But if they woullld actually do real balance, you think it would be around 1v1?

Yes, that’s exactly what they are doing already.

Remeber what I said earlier? There’s a balance priority for team conquest.
That doesn’t mean that team and 1v1 balance is mutually eclusive.
It just means that conflicting areas of the two will (or should) be resolved in favour of team fights.
But to deny that there is 1v1 balance to some extent because of it is a logical fallacy.

And again, people in this game have all sorts of reasons to duel, for some of which balance doesn’t matter at all, like simply testing builds or training to improve.
So when you come in here and make a blank statement about the entire matter being pointless and silly, you’re just being arrogant and in no way helpful regarding the actual topic of the thread.

And again, you contribute nothing to this thread.
Please enlighten people somewhere else on what you think has or hasn’t meaning in this game.

Jskiirawr.2473:

Game isn’t made for 1v1s, I don’t know where these silly people get this notion

Oh please… really, this again?

It’s silly to assume that only because there’s a balance priority on 5v5 conquest would mean that there isn’t any 1v1 balance at all.
And mind you, I said balance “priority”, you could very well argue that team fight pvp mechanics are a lot more unbalanced than 1v1s.

Regardless, this thread is about dueling other classes. Obviously there’s a disagreement as to which class can or should beat the other. So you coming here and making some abstract comment on how you feel the game is supposed to be balanced adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.

Mikhael.2391:

But im up for anyone showing me how to do it as a necro against these classes and prove me wrong that necros are actually good and on pair with them. I can get good players to duel on each class.

I don’t know exactly when I’ll be online and have enough time, but generally speaking I’m always up for a little sparring session.

Mikhael.2391:

I will never give another necro condies so he can sent back at me. I save my transfers for him when he gimme condis. Till then is just straight up damage.

I won’t go into how it’s practically impossible to not apply conditions as a necro without severely limiting yourself.
But for the sake of the argument let’s say you actually do wait and only transfer until you have all the conditions.
So that means you are using your transfer first. You’ve used yours, the other necro still has his. Guess what happens next… right, the other necro sends all those condis back to you. Do you have another transfer? Alright, but so does your opponent.
Transfering or cleansing first comes at a high price in a necro mirrow matchup.
You could of course try to bring more transfers and cleanses than your opponent, but still, this game of hot potato comes down to luck much more than skill, especially when you factor in Plague Sending.

Anyway, the way you discribed how you would fight a necro is just another clear indication of how much you could still improve on your necro, rather than blaming the alleged op-ness of other classes for your losses.

Mikhael.2391:

i had other necros try killing these same players today.

That tells me more about the skill level of those other necros than class balance.

Silv.9207:

any good player charge head on the first necromancer he saw knowing that he will win at 95%.
Even in top tier ESL matches the necromancer was Always the first target and the first kill. No matter how better the player is, the only thing that save a necromancer is a t babysitting engineer that ress you all the times you go down.

You are confusing two things here.

On the one hand we have Mikhael who is frustrated because he didn’t win some 1v1s.
On the other hand, you’re talking about the initial engagement in a pvp match, which the necro usually starts without life force.
Of course, from the opposing team’s perspective that’s an exploitable weakness. However, since this is likely to be a 3v3 or 4v4, if the necro actually dies you might as well blame the team mates for not peeling/healing/rezzing you properly.
In other words: from a PvP team fight perspective, the real balance question here is whether or not protecting one necro in the initial phase of a fight is too much of a burden for the defending team. A matter of how many resources need to be expended on each side for a status quo. And in my opinion giving necros a starting amount of life force would really help here. But that topic is about as old as the game itself, and it’s pretty irrelevant to 1v1s where you can choose with how much lf you want to start with.

Mikhael.2391:

Rolisteel.1375:

But but… you can kill enemy necros!

True, if they are on equal lvl its a fun fight. Like watching 2 paralized people i wheelchairs going at it with sticks.

You could actually argue that necro vs necro is the most difficult matchup for us because of how unpredictable condi transfers are, which makes these fights more a matter of luck than going up against any other class.

saerni.2584:

Flow I’m curious what server you run on?

Kodash

I know you said equal skill, that’s what I was refering to as well. And I wasn’t talking about fights that a necro starts with a severe disadvatage, like no life force.
Again, pick the best and perfectly played thief in the entire game and I will beat them. Not just because I play well enough to pull that off, but mostly because – in my opinion anyway – the necro as a class has a clear advantage in this particular matchup.

First of all, regarding your questions in the other thread, I haven’t seen all your videos but your Shroud timing seems to be pretty good and that alone makes you a decent necro.
I sometimes feel like you could use your skills more in response to what your opponents are doing, so it feels a bit spammy sometimes and there’s definitely some room for improvement.

As for my personal build, it’s not a secret at all. I’ve had a build thread on this forum for more than 3 years (it’s not really up to date except for the build calculator links) and most of the time I’m still using that build today. This would be the current WvW version.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Also something that has been troubling me is, if I use the blood magic line as a power necro and go with axe/war horn + staff, what am I supposed to choose in the minor trait line? I don’t use a dagger, I don’t cast bleed, and I don’t run with allies often =/

You have Mark of Blood, Mark of Evasion and you could corrupt vigor into bleeding, so Blood Bond is still a good choice here.
Other than that, if you don’t fight in groups I highly recommend Banshee’s Wail over VP when you’re using a warhorn. Personally, I don’t use VP in WvW at all, because the only times it would make a considerable difference (in zergs) there usually are several other necros sharing vamp aura anyway.
The only other thing I would change is sigil of force and Close to Death. I know it’s tempting to stack dmg mods when you’re running a power build, but I think you’d net better results with Spiteful Spirit and another crit or swap sigil in matchups you’re struggling with.

Prince Vingador.8067:

… a thief should win vs a necro with out much problem

Cecilia.5179:

The only thief you can’t beat is one that plays perfectly, which is maybe one per server, and even then they won’t be perfect every time.

Silv.9207:

If you’re talking about a Good thief, you will never be able to kill him in 1v1.

What are you guys talking about?
Seriously, where are those unbeatable thieves? I’d really like to fight them some time.
Before this thread I didn’t even know that beating a thief was considered a big deal.

Silv.9207:

they don’t need to kill you in a single hit like all the bad thief try to do, just hit, kite, hit, kite, hit, kite and then you’ll die without be able to drop the enemy thief under 50% hp.
Easy.

The irony here is that you say what a bad thief wouldn’t do, but in this scenario they are apparently fighting the worst necro in the whole game.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

It’s a bit more than just my word against yours. I am not the only one to think you’re wrong.

You’re the only one here who’s being this condescending.

And nothing I’ve said was off topic. You on the other hand started to attack me personally. So when you say “contribute to derailing the thread”, that’s 100% your contribution.

So are you not going to duel me in game?
That’s too bad. But you’d probably lose anyway, I have really high AP after all.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

As I said before, how long you’ve played is not always an indicator of skill. Speaking of what is statistically likely, the possibility you requested I consider is statistically unlikely. Maybe you just have different ideas of what a good thief is based on personal skill level. Of course, you may have had some really successful fights vs good thieves where you you won, but stating that you’ve beaten every thief in such a superior manner is like saying “yeah, I beat Sindreneer/some other skilled thief in a duel” and conveniently omitting all those other times you got farmed. Either way, you haven’t had a stunning victory or even beaten every thief you’ve ever encountered, unless your 1v1 track record is negligible.
Oh well, at least I got a laugh out of you managing to beat every thief, yes, even the good ones, “in such a superior manner”, so thank you for that.

Needless to say, I have indeed beat Sindrener and every other popular thief you can think of several times in a 1v1, simply because I’ve played long enough to have encountered all of them lots of times.

But of course, you took what I said to literally mean 100% winrate against every thief ever.
No, obviously I meant that I’ve had arranged duels on several occasions in which I won most fights. Or I had single chance encounters which I also mostly won.
The losses among those fights, however, were never ever because that opponent had a build advantage over me.
In fact, most times I used to hold back my elite skill and sometimes even some more utility skills in addition to that, just so I would even the playing field by giving myself a handicap. And yeah, you’ll probably think again that those opponents must’ve been bad, but they weren’t.

Anyway, it’s your word against mine at this point.
If you still don’t believe me, and if you’re on EU, I’ll gladly take yours or anyone else’s challenge to a duel.

Thanks for the support, SpellOfIniquity.

CutesySylveon.8290:

The builds I used at the time were either meta or slightly modified to something I preferred, so build wasn’t an issue.

I don’t know what time you’re refering to, but necro is a great example for a class that has had very mediocre meta builds over the years.

KrHome.1920:

Most players run crappy builds.

^

Cutesy, I’m not saying you did run such a crappy build, but most people do get their builds from metabattle.

CutesySylveon.8290:

Necro burst amounts to rs5+4 combo, and GD, two of the most telling bursts there could be. So burst? Maybe. Practical? No, not against something with numerous evades and anyone with reflexes.

In case GD means Gravedigger and considering greatsword is absolutely not pvp meta, are you saying that all existing necro builds – meta and non meta – have no other hard hitting skills or combos than RS4/5 and GD?

CutesySylveon.8290:

I’m speaking from the thief fighting necro perspective. So I’m looking at what I needed to do against him.
…
The point being made is that the thief has control of the situation, necro doesn’t.
…
The moment shroud pops, run.
…and the moment you drop it, necro becomes vulnerable, giving thief an easy opening.

I’m starting to see a pattern here.

In your fictional fight the necro has this static set of rotations he goes through and all the thief has to do is wait for the right moment to land a hit.
That’s not true, and neither is your presumption that one player is controlling the fight right from the start.
Necros have to play just as reactively as thieves.
And btw, the way you talk about Shroud makes it sound like not being in it is the equivalent of beim moa-morphed.
Shroud isn’t our only defense. When you drop it you can still dodge, stun or counter pressure to make hitting you impossible or at the very least too risky.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

flow.6043:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’m guessing you don’t play necro. That, or you’ve managed to find yourself some seriously garbage-tier thieves. Congrats.

Or third option: I’ve been playing necro for a long time and I actually know what I’m talking about.

It’s almost akin to saying that AP and skill have a direct correlation.

That’s pretty ironic coming from someone who said I’d base my entire dueling experience on fighting trash players.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

To be honest I’m not entirely sure if you’re trolling or not, but then again I’ve met some very interesting people on these forums, so someone thinking that a necro will have the upper hand over a thief on an even skill level fight doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

Alright, let’s assume that I’m not trolling. And let’s assume that in my long time of playing necro (which you would know if you weren’t completely new to this forum) I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in WvW and PvP. Wouldn’t it be statistically likely that I’ve come accross really good thieves at least a few times?
Now when I tell you that this infamous unbeatable thief doesn’t exist from my point of view, would you conclude that:
1. I’m being dishonest?
2. I’ve somehow managed to avoid meeting all the good thieves?
3. Or would you consider the possibility that I’ve actually managed to beat every thief, even the good ones, in such a superior manner that I can confidently say: Anyone who fails to do the same has some other problems that aren’t inherent to the respective class.
And if that’s true then either I’m right about necro vs thief, or you’re right but I’ve just out-skilled all the players I should’ve lost to.

CutesySylveon.8290:

Next time, try giving some counter points to prove someone wrong if you feel they are, instead of just saying l2p. It makes you look like a moron.

Ok, let’s review your earlier comments then…

CutesySylveon.8290:

Thief has every tool needed to stop a necro dead in its tracks, even the more risky thief builds like D/D.

Not sure if this warrents a counter argument yet but it was already enough for me to know that you don’t play your necro to its full potential, most likely because you don’t know how to manage your life force and/or because your build is bad.

CutesySylveon.8290:

Extremely high burst potential, high mobility, stealth and easy reset potential all run circles around necro, who doesn’t have high burst, any mobility, and can’t reset a fight that’s not going well for it.

Thief has high burst potential, yes. But that doesn’t mean he can actually land this damage on your actual health pool if you know how to properly defend yourself.

@necro, the only thing I agree with here is the lack of mobility.
Necros do have high bursts.
And the inability to reset a fight against a thief doesn’t matter. If the thief disengages ooc it resets the fight for you as well. Or did you mean that a thief has better sustain in combat? In that case, that’s not true, and again: change your build and/or l2p.

CutesySylveon.8290:

No amount of starting life force will help you either, because all a thief has to do is kite the reaper shroud, or interrupt everything normal shroud tries to do for massive pulm damage.

Ok, I see where you’re going with this one, but the matter of starting life force in a duel against a thief is only important for the very first attack they try to land on you. This one has to be absorbed by life force otherwise you’re basically starting the fight with half of your hp.
Starting life force isn’t supposed to last you a certain amount of time. After the thief’s initial engagement you need to have proper in combat life force regeneration. If you don’t, change your build. If you can’t, l2p.

CutesySylveon.8290:

D/P thief has all the necessary tools in that set alone to deal with necro from easy stealth access, high damage gap closer and on demand interrupts, MM makes this more annoying, but steal just bypasses the body blocking

I won’t again debunk your anecdotal evidence of what a thief could do to a training golem. But one thing needs to be said here: MM sucks in any kind of PvP environment against any semi competent player and should therefore never be used anyway.

KrHome.1920:

The meta thief wrecks the meta reaper. True! But there are tons of options if you use your brain.
…
Ever heard of Speed of Shadows? Thief ports away when you are in shroud? Just Death’s Charge in the opposite direction and leave shroud! See how he tries to catch up in that small 7 second window you are vulnerable while you are dropping Marks at your feet.

I would never advise anyone to take Speed of Shadows over Soul Marks. Unless they don’t have a staff, but I’d also never advise against using a staff especially against thieves.
Also, your scenario involves mark-dropping so apparently there is a staff.

Anyway, I agree with your general notion. The choice of traits, utilities and gear have a huge impact on dueling thieves. I can’t confirm that thief wrecks the current necro meta build, but there are certainly ways to improve your chances in this specific 1v1 encounter by making some tweaks.