Guild Wars 2

Player.8373:

flow.6043:

Umm… I don’t know what game you’re playing but those proposed “fixes” are exactly how it works atm.

Nope they are still not fixed.

Downed Fear definitely doesn’t hit first in line but the one you’ve targeted.
Corrupt Boon doesn’t require facing your target at all. Blood is Power on the other hand will only inflict the direct damage on your target but not the 2 stacks of bleeding.

If anything Blood is Power needs a fix.

All DS skills scale with your currently equipped weapon’s strength coefficient and all damage modifiers.
So yes, Axe Training buffs your shroud skills as well.

Rennoko.5731:

Such as dummfire, terror, greater marks, AND mark of evasion. A very amazing build for the 2 weeks it was allowed to exist. (I miss you 30 20 10 10 0).

Greater Marks was moved to master tier 1 month after Dhuumfire, and it was the same patch that doubled our Shroud hp. So arguably necros became a lot stronger after that patch.

Fetid Ground (Downed State #3):

If you have a target selected Fetid Ground will be placed at the target’s location, so far so good. If you have no target selected the skill will be cast at maximum range (900) in the direction your character is looking.

There is no possible scenario in which this could be of advantage.

Besides the fact that you can’t controll the direction your character is facing in downed state, this “feature” becomes particularly annoying when someone moves in for a stealth stomp: Instead of protecing yourself like engineers do it with their Booby Trap, your last-ditch effort is casting a skill into the middle of nowhere…

Suggestion:

1. without a target the default range should be zero.

and/or

2. make the skill groundtargeted.

If you want to max just your fear duration then runes of the necro are probably the best choice.
Mixing Lyssa and whatever is obviously a stat compromise, but it extends non damaging conditions as well. And an extra 20% chilled, weakness, blind, cripple and immobilized can make a big difference.

In case you didn’t watch the balance preview last friday, the devs are planning to rework all runes for exactly that reason. They don’t want people to choose 3×2 runes over a full set.

Umm… I don’t know what game you’re playing but those proposed “fixes” are exactly how it works atm.

Cogbyrn.7283:

A 5-step process to determine how a single skill behaved as a blast finisher. Tell me how you convey that to the user in a tooltip that isn’t 60+ words without them specifically running tests or reading about it online, and tell me how that’s good design.

Actually I kept it short this time. I made a few posts about it in the past and they were all much longer.
But this skill is not the only one that requires a 5k-word-essay to fully describe.
And keep in mind the tooltip of Putrid Mark has always been hugely inaccurate. If they wanted to convey every little detail with it, even today, the tooltip would cover your whole screen.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Now, pulling off the blast finisher consists of:

Trigger the mark while in a field.

Same as before.

Also, one reason why people had difficulties with the blast finisher before is because they didn’t know that the center of the mark had to be placed on a combo field. There were so many posts on the forum about how unreliable the finisher was, but all they were doing was randomly overlapping a part of one circle with another and expect it to work.

Cogbyrn.7283:

You might have liked the old mechanic, but you really think it was simple? It isn’t really difficult to understand, but look at all of the confusion in a thread of people who all think they know how it works. Many of them are just straight-up wrong, and they claim to be right. Is that healthy for the game? I get that it’s fun to know some hidden mechanic, but that doesn’t mean it should exist.

Yes it was very simple, and it wasn’t a hidden mechanic or anything like that either.
It sounds a lot more complicated if you see it in writing. I explained the mark mechanic to some people in game as well, I had to repeat some parts in chat over and over until I just showed them. And if you see it once in game you instantly understand how it works.
It’s like explaining the offside rule in soccer. It’s super simply if you know how it works, but takes forever to explain to someone who doesn’t, which makes the rule itself not any less viable or important.

Cogbyrn.7283:

it’s a terribly unreliable blast finisher

It was 100% reliable, now it’s not.

Cogbyrn.7283:

And people would rather use it to “charge” blast finishers instead of transfer their condis to a target? Really?

That’s not the point.
It’s not a question of what I would rather do when I am presented with both options. Sometimes you fight opponts who don’t inflict any or just very few conditions on you, or maybe your mark is just about off cd when the conditions on you are simply not worth the trasfer if you could prepare a blind or spectral armor combo instead.
Or maybe the situation requires you to switch weapons and all you can do is place the mark without a transfer or not use it at all, in which case I’d make sure to hit a combo field if possible, even if there’s no enemy on it to trigger it immediately.
All those examples might sound like niche uses for the mark, but they’re actually really common.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Flow’s explanation of how it worked, which I believe is probably true, is convoluted and unnecessarily complex.

Is it?
It was so simple really… and it’s not like they changed it, they just took the best part away. If anything it makes pulling off the blast finisher more complicated now.

Oozo.7856:

Rennoko.5731:

ronpierce.2760:

spoj.9672:

It was always like that. I assume they just fixed it so it no longer displays a blast message when placing. And no longer double triggers when being set off.

False. I tested it in heart of the mists. I’d align it so it blasted but did not hit the enemy, it’d put a 4 sec weakness on the dummy. If I did both blasts it was 8. It did what it showed.

I never got the thing to ever blast might when placed on a fire field. I never really bothered to pay attention if the activation caused a “double” blast or not, but It always seemed to be a single bast to me.

My interpretation of this was they simply removed the blast notice that did nothign when you dropped the mark,… but I could be wrong.

Tested it a long time ago to get swiftness while roaming but it didn’t work. Swiftness notification would come up but no buff. We weren’t in combat though.

I think someone mentioned above that it worked only when in combat. That is, that the placement blast actually only gave the effect if you were in combat but still gave the combo heart graphic anyway.

For old times sake:

1. Regardless of whether you were in combat or not, placing the center of the mark on a combo field would charge the mark with the respective combo and always show a combo icon as a visual feedback for the successful charge.

2. If the mark wasn’t triggered instantly it would keep the charge for the entire duration it stayed alive (30 sec), even if the combo field expired.

3. If there was an enemy standing on the mark when placed at the same time you would instantly trigger the second combo as well.

4. When the mark is triggered later it will combo with the field that is on the mark at that time (or has combo priority if there are multiple fields).

5. This means that a single trigger could cause 2 different combo effects.

Just like the entire mark mechanic, precasting not just the mark itself but the combo that would trigger later was extremely useful and a strategic asset.
Now, like Oozo mentioned, it’s either pure accident what field happens to end up on the mark when it’s triggered, or you place a field just then if you want to avoid a wasted blast finisher.

I’ll say it again, they removed the wrong part of the double finisher!

spoj.9672:

Still wish it worked without triggering though. I need to be able to stack might out of combat.

Tbh, I’d rather keep it the way it is. You don’t have any fire fields as a necro, all blasts you can do on your own are enemy debuffs, so in a PvP environment it’s definitely preferable if your combo weakness/blind/spec armor is triggered by a foe.

TooBz.3065:

Would have been better to fix it the other way. It blasts when placed.

It would have been a million times better. This way you’re just losing control over the blast finisher in case it doesn’t trigger immediatly.

Bhawb.7408:

It never made sense that it had a double blast finisher. Yes it sucks that they fixed it, but its a mechanics/clarity > balance fix.

It made total sense to me, it was a reliable and clear mechanic once you understood how it works.
My guess is that they wanted to nerf the condition duration a double blast would give, like up to 20 sec weakness for condition necros.

That nerf wasn’t necessary, and it’s a seriously hard nerf at that. -.-

RashanDale.3609:

what about regeneration and other heal-over-time-effects btw? does it use/apply the same timer?

Boons and skills have seperate timers.

Lordrosicky.5813:

So why do people want 50% condi duration (in pvp). That puts dumbfire to 3 seconds. But if what you say is right then the difference between 40% and 50% condition duration is analogue and not digital. I mean by this that 40% will still get 3 ticks of burning most the time anyway.

I suppose that’s because 50% is the most you can get in sPvP, 30 from traits and 20 from runes. But those people are certainly not doing it just for an extra 0.2 sec burning.
And yes, you are likely to get the 3rd tick anyway if burning isn’t applied on the first hit.

Well, just the 200 toughness is kind of a weak argument for going into Death Magic without using a staff or minions.
The minor traits in that line are terrible and the traits you picked are imo one of our worst traits of any line.

If you switch to Spite, your defense won’t suffer as much as you might think. The extra condition duration will extend your fear, weakness, chilled and blind duration.
You could also take a rabid jewel with that carrion amulett to compesate the loss of toughness a little.
Also, axe/warhorn and Last Gasp aren’t too shabby for generating life force (and it would be even better with Axe Training), which is probably the biggest contributer to your survivabilty since you don’t use any utility stun breaks.

The timer for all condition ticks starts with the first condition applied to a target by any player. The game doesn’t have a universal clock for all ticks.

For example: you start with bleeding at T(zero) and apply a 1.1 sec fear at T(zero)+0.9sec then you’ll get two Terror ticks.

I don’t agree with the 20 in Death Magic. Going 20 in Spite for Axe Training would make much more sense, especially in context of the whole lock-down/burst thingy you explained. It would also increase all your condi durations and free up that Hemophilia slot for Weakening Shroud.

Mindx.9610:

Really hesitant releasing this build incoming daze effect OP nerf crys.

I doubt it.
People were using the warhorn in condi builds before they nerfed the sigil of paralyzation, so you could get 4 sec daze without runes of the mesmer. No one ever complained about it, except that the sigil increased fear duration as well, which made the infamous Dhuumfire combo hit even harder.

Andele… the title speaks for itself! xD

I think he might be refering to the bug that puts Lich on cd if interrupted.
On the other hand, spammed interrupt… free cast ability… whaaat?

Oh please… I’m on EU. I don’t want to be all hipster about this, but I’ve been promoting carrion over rabid before it was cool :P
Rabid + Earth in sPvP is sooo 2012, and it was inferior to carrion even then.
Lopez, I’m sorry but by now you’re a clear minority with your oppinion. And as to the positioning and toughness vs vitality issues… you’re wrong, at best it’s an l2p issue. If you can’t handly going melee for a while you’re probably doing something wrong, not to mention the group support of taking some focus off your team mates instead of “hiding” at a safe distance.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

As i roam i find the staff useless.
…
3) No defense (minus Fear Mark on a long cool down)

Except literally every skill of the staff has a defensive aspect: lf regen – regeneration – chill – cleanse and blast finisher – fear.

Question: could a necro inflict Dhuumfire on himself if an opponent uses a projectile reflect skill? Or does it count as the opponent’s Life Blast when he sends it back? And if so, can he proc stuff with it on his own?

Oh nice… then what happens if you take 2x geo?
sorry, it’s late… can’t read anymore -.-

Won’t energy conflict with geomancy? So if you have a swap sigil it’ll either have to be a static bonus or torment (unless they fix it to share the icd as well).

Luke.4562:

PS: So with Dhuumfire not working with crits, all the build is going to shift, we should switch to Dire stats(hoping they will put it in PVP) and throw away superior sigil of Earth.

I thought that’s what everyone was doing already anyway…

I can see why they nerfed minion mancers like this, although I’m more interested in what Bhawb (or any other MM veteran) has to say about it.

@Dhuumfire: hell yeah! This will promote strategic and skillful play, rather than noob-spamming passive procs. I was really hoping they would go through with this one.

Imo it’s more about player skill than profession or build. Anyone who can pull his own weight will do.
Don’t expect any group support from a necro other than debuffing/blinding/chilling/weakening enemies. If you can stay alive yourself and occasionally rez the necro then the two of you will be fine.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

No point being at range if you simply are not doing enough damage to threaten anyone.

This is a silly statement. It’s fine to prefer the other options but now you’re just overcompensating.

It’s not silly at all, power builds have absolutely no reason to take the scepter, period.
And since this is about applying poison to bring down bunker builds: since when do you need to kite bunkers at more than 600 range?

I really don’t think this trait is worthy of such high praise.

For someone who spends a lot of time Life Blasting the two must have traits would be Deathly Perception and Unyielding Blast, right? As a master trait I’d much rather have something that either improves lf regen outside of DS or just the cooldown reduction for DS itself so I can get back into it more quickly.
So imo Vital Persistance is still either niche or a subpar trait depending on the build.

If anything this trait should be buffed:

• Merge Death Shiver with Vital Persistance.
• Move Vital Persistance to master tier instead of Mark of Revival.

Anyone correct me if I’m wrong, but I did some testing with blast finishers about six months ago. Back then I could determine the following priotity for all overlapping combo fields and finishers:

1. The nearest field has priority.
Keep in mind, this is always determined by the center of both field and finisher. That means, if two fields overlap and a blastfinisher lands in between them then the combo is determind by the center of the field which is closest to the center of the finisher.

2. The first field has priority, if they have the same center, like when placing fields on yourself without groundtargeting (at zero range).
For example: a necro uses Well of Darkness, Well of Blood and Corrosive Poison Cloud (in that order). Any blast finisher in this area will trigger blindness because dark has priority over light and poison.

Anyway, that was my observation back then. I hardly think that this mechanic changed since, so according to that you can’t simply overwrite someone else’s combo field, but just make it harder for them to hit their finisher closer to the “right” center.

Impact.2780:

There’s a trait to increase the damage by 10%. Why would you want to waste an adept level trait slot…

Spiteful Marks is a master trait! And yes, it’s a waste in every possible build.

Umut.5471:

Plus they don’t have disabling cc(knockdown, launch, stun, fear), disabling cc is vital part of other classes’ weapons.

Actually it’s rather rare for one handed weapons to have a hard cc unless they’re used off-hand. And of those we get a daze as well, blind and chill isn’t too bad either.

Umut.5471:

This is why there’s only 2 really viable builds for necros in 1v1, powermancer MM and pure condition.

They are common but far from the only viable ones.

Oh kewl, I’m on kodash. Next time our servers play each other give me a whisp ^^
Or we could duke it out in spvp for now…

It hits up to 5 targets.
An unblockable daze is priceless, but if you want to buff the cone angle or add conditions to that, I’ll take it

Well, fyi I play a staff build and I duel a lot.
You wouldn’t happen to play on a european server? I always welcome a good opponent;)

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Staff is terrible for 1vs1

I disagree.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I face alot of Necros in WvW and not lost to a Staff use at all.

Then you just haven’t met a player who can pull it off.

Luke.4562:

Well yes, nerf again the staff. Because of a senseless rant.

No one is asking for a nerf. It’s a sensible request regardless of your opinion of the OP.

Luke.4562:

Why not giving a different name and a gradient color to Mesmer’s clones etc.?

You mean like Phantasms..? Which are all transparent and have different weapons and names?

tattoohead.3217:

Im not sure DS #4 & #5 work on an already stealthed enemy, they do continue to work on an enemy if your channeling while going into stealth but if they are already stealthed i think its a miss.

Can someone confirm… maybe with vid?

There are a few skills that work like this, Ghastly Claws for example.

The general rule is: If you need a target selected to use the skill then you won’t hit a stealthed unit, all other skills (aka untargeted) will work because stealth doesn’t mean invulnerable. Therefore DS 4 und 5 will always hit.
Ghastly Claws on the other hand needs a target at first but will continue hitting in stealth.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I didnt forget chillbains, read it again i stated staff which is the chillblains. But who uses Staff in 1Vs1 anyway?

Ah, sorry.
Well, I use the staff, always. And with proper condition duration and staff mastery the poison uptime with this skill alone isn’t too shabby. Though the real problem against most classes is cleansing anyway.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

i didnt count boon corrupting as it requiries them to have Regen i think is the one that gets turned into Poison, So that doesn’t count as its situational.

Considering you were talking about beating bunkers, it’s rather safe to assume that they will have regen up at some point. And regeneration is a pretty common boon in general, but yeah ok, it’s rather situational..
The self inflicted poison from Corrupt Boon isn’t situational though, Putrid Mark and you’ll have another 6+ sec of poison on your oppontent.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The other problem i have, Scepter just doesn’t do well in a more Power based and DS based build. The Life Force generation is VERY low 3% every 10seconds Vs 12% every 8seconds(Axe)

To be fair, it’s 3% per condition on your target. But sure, I wouldn’t take a scepter just for a little poison in a power build either.

There are a few more ways to inflict poison:
Flesh Worm active, projectile finisher through poison field (lol), and you could use a Sigil of Doom.

But like you said, other classes are better at poison application. With a power build I just wouldn’t rely on it as much, thb this is the first time I’ve heard that a power necro has difficulties breaking a bunker.

You forgot Chillblains, corrupting regeneration and tranfering poison (either from opponents or selfinflicted from Corrupt Boon).

Also, Corrosive Poison Cloud pulses 5 times, every 3 seconds. But I would argue that you’ll always find a better utility skill for 1v1. Just like Plague Form, I would never use that in duels.

Anyone else?

Luke.4562:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Mark_of_Blood.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Chilblains_symbol.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Putrid_Mark.jpg

The problem here is that at first glance they all look like green dots. In the heat of the battle you usually don’t take a closer look, and depending on the textures of the ground and other skill effects flying around it will be increasingly difficult to tell them appart.

The different symbols are clearly there so you can distinguish the marks once they are placed, but imo they fail to do just that.
It would be much better if the symbol in the middle was a circle, a sqaure, an X and a triangle, for exapmple…

And from an opponent’s perspective this isn’t a matter of “do I walk over this mark rather than the other”, but timing cooldowns or positioning yourself so you can’t be feared/pulled into a specific mark.

And btw, Berserker Stance is super easy to see. If you don’t immediatly notice the clearly distinctive icon, you’ll know once your condis don’t have an effect anymore.

As to the cast animations, I’m all for it, but I’m not sure it’ll have that much of an impact. It will never be like seeing an incoming Earthshaker. Again, more of a feature to instantly recognize marks that aren’t immeditely triggered when placed.

Side note: I was only recently made aware that Reaper’s Mark has a different cast animation. A guildy of mine created a charr (I have a charr too) and asked why my animation didn’t look any different from the rest of the mark casts.
Turns out my character is bugged or something, there really is no difference, and I would have never noticed if I wasn’t specifically asked.
Playing necro since start and I’ve never noticed a difference on any other necro: that’s how insignificant the difference in cast animation is. So if they change it for all marks, it would have to be somthing more that waving your hand in a slightly different angle.

I have one problem with this skill, and that is how it behaves when you don’t have a target selected: you’ll place it at max range (900) in the direction your character is looking, which makes absolutely no sense.
The most annoying case would be if an opponent tries a stealth stomp. Why would I place a damaging aoe skill (which could also help allies with rezzing me since it’s a dark field) 900 units away from myself??

Solution:

1. make it zero-range by default if you have no target.

or

2. make it groundtargeted.

Rapier.3675:

any site where u can check which boon turns in to which cond and reverse?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power the notes list the equivalent conditions/boons

Conditions don’t really have boon counterparts. There are more conditions than boons and the few skills that can convert them all behave differently.
For example: Chilled → Well of Power → vigor → corrupt → bleeding → Contemplation of Purity → regeneration → corrupt → poison → Elexir C → random boon…
You’ll have to look up each skill individually on wikipedia.

You missunderstand…
“Hitting a foe with an attack breaks stealth”. This is refering to the one in stealth.
If a stealthed thief hits you he will be revealed, not the other way around.

As to the scepter, only Grasping Dead can hit without a target.

Bacardi Babe.4391:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/PSA-Stealth-is-not-invincibility++

How do I kill a GC Thief? Quite simple actually. A GC Thiefs goal is to land a backstab on you. Backstab, in order to be used effectively – requires them to be behind you, AND at close range! If you are playing anyone other than a D/D Thief, you have instant access to spammable close-range AoE. Simply auto attack around in circles until the Thief emerges in the distance.

All I know is that it works with Scepter 1.

You’re deluding yourself with that assumption.
It can’t hit stealthed units, and being hit in stealth never reveales you, which you would know if you actually read the wiki article you linked earlier.

And that quote just now is not from the necro subforum. The person explaining assumes that your auto attack cleaves, which would make it untargeted and therefore able to hit stealthed units. The only necro weapon with an auto attack like that is the staff… but good luck hitting a stealthed thief with Necrotic Grasp :P

Bacardi Babe.4391:

Hitting a foe with an attack breaks stealth!

Wrong.

Bacardi Babe.4391:

Scepter 1 with Superior Sigil of Fire for AOE Blast works great for this!

Since the scepter auto attack is targeted it can’t hit stealthed units at all.

Wrong link?

Bacardi Babe.4391:

*Use Scepter 1 & spin around to break stealth on theives. Also good for stomping.

?

I believe you are experiecing the bug that applies to all classes and skills if you also use that utility under water, but on a different slot.

For example: you have Skill A on slot 7 under water. On land skill B occupies that slot.
If you swap in Skill A in slot 8 on land it will copy the cooldown of Skill B.

The solution to your skill conflict is: don’t use Signet of the Locust underwater.

Axe/warhorn, axe/focus… cool build, and nice video

Shaorune.2347:

wow what the hell, when did that happen.

Nerfed in June, toolip updated: 5 month later. xD
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necromancer-Putrid-Mark/

Andele.1306:

Also it only counts hit radius not trigger radius.

What?

Dalanor.5387:

it now cleanse only 3 conditions

…per target.

Arachnid.4062:

signet of spite which applies almost every condition in the game.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Spite
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

Six out of twelve… close enough :P

Signet of Spite hardly does any damage by itself, it’s great for cover against classes with bad cleansing though…

@Frenk: I believe you’ll get better help if you post this in the engi subforum. Or ask a necro in game to practice 1v1 with you.

But by the way you descibe your usual encounters and fighting necros, it sounds like your build is being countered…