Guild Wars 2

Pelopidas.2140:

a rabid necro reaches 133% condi duration

I know what you mean by that (I’m sure you weren’t implying that the armor prefix influences your condi duration), but just to make it clear:

1. Plus 100% duration is the cap for all conditions.

2. The “33” comes from Lingering Curse which only increases conditions applied by scepter skills. No trait or sigil procs, just the auto attack chain and Grasping Dead (Feast of Corrution doesn’t appy any conditions).

3. Lingering Curse modifies the scepter’s base durations, that’s why it seems like an exception to the 100% rule, but it really isn’t.

4. The tooltip of Lingering Curse is wrong: no condition is increased by 33%.

Blood and Rending Curse (1xbleeding): 5 sec base duration becomes 7 sec with LC (+40%), apply 100% condi duration and you get 14 ticks each, that’s +180% duration.

Putrid Curse (poison): 4sec -> 6sec (+50%), potentially 12 ticks (+200%).

Grasping Dead:

2xbleeding: 7sec -> 9sec (28,5%), potentially 18 ticks (+157%).

Cripple: 5sec -> 6sec (20%), potentially 12sec (+140%).

Saturn.6591:

Weaker in regards to OFFENSE? How that?

Because that:

Saturn.6591:

Condition Necromancers benefit so little from power, it would be totally useless.

…is not true.

Saturn.6591:

The precision from Rabid on the other hand would give some nice critchance, which in turn helps offensively.

Crit chance for what?
With a carrion/rabid mix you’ll have 30% instead of 50% crit chance, plus the occasional 20% from Fusious Demise. The only thing that really profits from that extra crit chance is Barbed Precision because there’s no icd. Dhuumfire or sigils will proc equally reliable. Imo geomancy beats earth anyway, even more so if you do more direct damage.

For WvW, I assume..?
If you want to be less tanky and do more damage than in full Dire, you should mix Rabid with Carrion. Pure Rabid is weaker in regards to both offense and defense.

Sepreh.5924:

It was nemesis idea and posted months ago.

Move dhuumfire from spite 30 to curses 30. Move terror from curses 20 to curses 30. Now you can’t have both dhuumfire and terror in the same build.

Literally everyone made this suggestion, not just nemesis.

You could actually combine both approaches:

• Torment instead of burning.
• Move that trait to gm Curses together with Terror.
• Keep JonPeters’ “burning on Life Blast” trait in Spite.

Zaganna.6034:

Using Toxic cristal, veggy pizza, Hemophilia and Linering curse I allow myself 130% bleeding duration

100% bleeding duration plus Lingering Curse gives you a total of +180% for scepter bleeds. The tooltip is wrong (it’s really 40% not 33%) and it modifies the base duration.

Nightwrath.1679:

spectral grasp interrupts… lol jk who runs that anyway.

I do…

@fear: I’ve never ever seen it interrupt, and in general it doesn’t, allthough you’re not the first person to say it occasionally happens.
Anyway, if the “interruped” pops up on screen it will trigger the rune.

Are you sure your gear is all Dire (t/v/cond dmg)? Because 3-4 k Life Transfer sounds alot like Carrion.
Maybe put it in a build calculator: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/
so we can also see your runes, sigils, food buffs…

@traits:

1. Spiteful Marks is a bad trait, period. Even if you use all berzerker gear the extra damage is not worth the investment, and even less so with dire or carrion.

2. Hemophilia is ok-ish for PvE, but in WvW against other players your bleeds will rarely run their full duration.

3. Focued Rituals: I wouldn’t use it for just one well. In zergs it’s a good trait, but you should also take Well of Corruption instead of the signet.
If you’re not fighting in/against zergs you don’t need ground targeting for wells.

So what you should do is: Chill of Death instead of Spiteful Marks, or Axe Training if you use an axe. Weakening Shroud (or Focused Rituals in zergs with 2-3 wells) instead of Hemophilia. And of course Terror as a master trait.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

There actually is, in the case of this specific build.

That’s what I said… different weapons = different build = different stats.
Not all hybrids are the same.

TrisusRice.5490:

what stats really define a damage hybrid necro.

Playing a hybrid build means being able to deal both condition and direct damage. This isn’t just a matter of stats because different weapons deal different kind of damage. For example, you would need far more power if you want to do the same amount of direct damage with a scepter as the dagger does without any extra stats.
Therefore choosing weapons comes first, then traits, then balance your stats accordingly.
There is no general stat sweetspot, if that’s what you’re asking…

On the off chance that you are not trolling, let me point out a few things that are suboptimal:

1. You don’t have a second weapon set.

2. Your hobo version of divinity runes suggests a limited budget, yet you’re able to afford Toxic Sharpening Stones…?

3. According to your gear, you seem to be going for some kind of super tanky power setup. Why would you then get 83 condition damage, sigil of agony and epidemic?

4. Signet of Vampirism is weak sauce.

5. Spiteful Vigor and Death Shiver: super weak sauce!

It might help if you tell us what you’re trying to achieve with this build, atm it’s just a big mess.

I’m not sure it would have the desired effect you hope it to have.
Wouldn’t everyone just go 30/20/20 then? And if so, it seems like you actually lose out on defense if you go 20 in DM instead of Soul Reaping.

You forgot the focus :P

Btw, staff – axe/warhorn (the worst possible combo according to your assessment) is a popular choice for wvw zerg well builds. Also, I use those weapons in a hybrid build, so I very much disagree that they are as bad as you make them out to be.

Ugh, they’re not just random pugs who run after any red name tag like zombies… but it’s a guild. 15v3? And then this reaction like they “owned” you now? Just pathetic.

Good job on making them waste some blueprints

A reveal skill won’t help you catch thieves, it’ll just make them more fragile in group play.

The reason why thieves can escape necros is because they have mobility skills which allow them to move out of range regardless of stealth.
Let’s assume you had a new special Skill X and you use it to reveal a stealthed thief. Then what? Either you’re made aware that he’s standing close to you, in which case you’ll use the same untergeted/aoe skills you would have used anyway. Or he is far away already, even if you manage to chill and cripple a thief at 1200 range, that’s not enough to catch him.

If you’re struggling to beat thieves then you should maybe consider playing one yourself some time, you’ll have better intuition regarding their attack patterns and positioning in stealth, so you’ll be able to adept your skill timing accordingly.

Apart from the fact that condition builds are somewhat limited in a zerg environment, I don’t agree with some of you choices:

1. I would never use Hemophilia in WvW. It’s ok if you want to reach 100% bleeding duration for PvE, but against players this will do little to nothing on top of food and 30 in Spite.

2. I would never take Spiteful Marks for any build, not even as a glass cannon power necro. 10% is just too weak, not worth the trait slot, especially with dire/rabid gear.

3. I know this is a sensitive issue for some players, but it’s all the more true in zergs: Signet of the Locust is a wasted utility slot. Never use it in combat.
(You could use wells and trait Focused Rituals instead of Hemophilia)

@Rune Choices: Perplexity (just 5/6) or Scavenging are the go-to choices for condi necros atm.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Why Perplexity? You dont have that much that can proc the 6/6, Maybe the Warhorn but cant think of anything else.

Spectral Grasp works too.
Perplexity is the best damage option even if you only get 5 runes + 1 crest/jewel. Scavenging nets better defense with some extra healing.

However, I disagree that Dhuumfire condi builds are “the best” for roaming, they’re just the easiest to get decent results with.

Btw, I can’t believe that there are so many people who want to get rid of what is arguably the most reliable cleanse we have. That would be the hardest nerf EVER, and for what… group support?? Heeell no, kthxbye.

Andele.1306:

Da Sonic.6521:

I enjoy when people assume this skill has 2 blast finishers, simply because the blast finisher combo thing pops up when you place it.
Let me know how that works for you in actual combat.

If you aren’t feeling quite as into it, try putting down a Spectral Wall on your feet (Ethereal Field) and using Putrid Mark on it, and letting me know how long you get Chaos Armor for?

How many times do i have to repeat this there is both a animation bug (as in the combo field image showing up when you drop the mark instead of when it procs) and possible double finisher, but 2 fields have to be overlapping when mark is dropped and then the mark must be triggered when one expires but before the other, you can/were able to get both effects. Also as all chaos armor blasts this 3 seconds.

It seems I need to repost some stuff:

Things you should know about the Putrid Mark blast finisher for application in combat:

1. Putrid Mark has a double finisher, one when you place the mark and one when it’s triggered, both will only combo when the mark is triggered but the placement-finisher will always display the combo-icon before that.

2. The blast area is the entire mark surface, but in order to get the combo the center of the mark needs to be placed on a combo field.
If you or your target stands in a combo field but you place the center of the mark outside then you won’t trigger the combo. That also means that you can actually stand outside of a combo field but still on the mark and get the combo as long as the center hits the field.

3. Multiple combo fields (this is not specific to Putrid Mark but I’ll mention it anyway):
Which combo has priority when several different fields are overlapping?
There are two rules:
a: the nearest field (again determined by the center) has priority, so the center of the field which is closest to the center of the mark will trigger the combo.
b: the first field has priority if they have the same center (like when placed without groundtargeting). Unlike other mechanics in the game “new” does not push out “old”.
For example, a necro places on himself: Well of Blood, Well of Darkness and Corrosive Poison Cloud (in that order). Any blast finisher in this area will trigger retaliation because the light field has priority over dark and poison.

4. The double finisher actually means that you get double the combo effect, like 6 stacks of might instead of just 3, or double duration of whatever stacks in duration.
Effects like Chaos Armor are the exception, apparently it doesn’t stack and will therefore last 3 seconds either way.

5. The placement finisher can combo the effect even if the combo field it was placed on doesn’t exist anymore, it “remembers” the combo for the entire 30 seconds the mark stays alive. The icon you see when it doesn’t really combo anything (yet) serves as a visual feedback for the player so he knows the mark gives an effect if he or his target stands on it when triggered.

6. The mark can actually trigger two different combos, see attatchment:
In the first panel I charge the mark with Chaos Armor on the eatheral field of Spectral Wall. I then place Corrosive Poison Cloud on the mark and pull the warrior so the mark gets triggered. Result: combo weakness on the npc, Chaos Armor on me.

Ally cleansing is not a nice buff if it means losing the self cleanse, that would be more devestating than the stealth nerf in June.
Again, I’m not against restoring some form of support for Putrid Mark, but the proposed changes here would make this skill absolutely useless, unless some allies happen to be crowding up near a foe in a 180/240 radius.

Bhawb.7408:

Its not like its all that rare for a Necromancer to be close enough for this to work on themselves.

Considering how important positioning is for a necro, it would make absolutely no sense to make the defensive part of a skill (of a 1200 range weapon) only work when moving closer to your foes.

Haltair, are you the sword/shortbow asura with the com tag?
Anyway, whoever it is… I’d like a rematch ^^

Overkillengine.6084:

Yup, got to watch what they have active or you just waste it.

I sometimes still use it to strip stability so I can use golem charge or warhorn daze.

Acandis.3250:

Secondly, why would you precast such an important mark? Unless you’re fighting a 100% power comp, there’s no reason to cast this just to get 1 blast finisher out of it.

I don’t see the removal of 1 finisher as a big deal, especially when you shouldn’t be using such an important mark unless there’s an enemy around.

I don’t always precast Putrid Mark, but when I do it’s because I want to charge it with a combo.
On the other hand, if you never precast it anyway, what’s the point of deleting the placement finisher?

All that aside, precasting marks has its benefits, like area control or that you can artificially reduce cooldowns from one trigger to the next. Of course I don’t spam my marks at any chance I get, but it’s definitely not always the best choice to wait for a big transfer. That’s like saying you should only use Corrupt Boon on stability.

So you would force every necro to run an off hand dagger…

And I disagree on the finisher, I’d get rid of the second one because it allows for less strategic gameplay. Without the first you’d no longer be able to pre-cast a self beneficial combo from range.
Also, if you precast a mark without a field, it’s rather unpredictable which field will end up on the mark when it actually triggers.

And removing either one of them would not only be a big nerf, but you’d end up in situations where the mark doesn’t trigger a blast finisher at all, even though the mark came in contact with a combo field at some point. And that would certainly be unintended, ergo: 2 finishers are not a bug.

Acandis.3250:

I think SPvP is more about teamplay than anything else, and while you do rely on your teammates it’s nice to be able to help them too.

I’m not againts restoring the ally cleanse, but you’ll help your team alot more with a self cleanse. So in the interest of fighting solo and teamplay: self cleanse > ally cleanse.

Acandis.3250:

It makes no sense that a skill should have 2 finishers >.>

Well… it makes sense in context of this particular skill since it’s not one finisher with double the effect, but actually two seperate parts of the skill.
And since the mark has to be triggered and usually hits a dark- or poison field in our case it’s not really that big of a deal.

Just out of curiousity… let’s assume one of the finishers really was unintended, which one would you get rid of? The placement or trigger finisher?

Acandis.3250:

the latest ninja nerf:

You mean the one from 5 months ago?^^

Acandis.3250:

• Transfer 3 conditions from each ally in the mark’s area to the enemy nearest the center of the mark when placed. Do not transfer any conditions from the caster unless he is also inside the mark’s area.

Self cleanse > ally cleanse. It’s an improtant part of ridding ourselves of focus fire and staying alive, which is the actual support we’re doing: stay alive and do damage.

Acandis.3250:

• Remove the double Blast Finisher bug.

Why do people insist this is a bug? It just has 2 finishers…

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

It happens too often that i corrupt boons on a warrior and see that none of the boons corrupted turn into conditions because of some passive traits..

Berserker Stance.
Corrupt Boon works as intended, the worriors are just immune to the conditions that the boons would have turned into.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Build-Staff-Corruption/
gl hf

When leveling: the first trait I’d go for is Staff Mastery, then get as much power and condition damage as you can. Carrion gear is first available at lvl55, I think.

nekretaal.6485:

They can always exit, reset the fight …

Stay at range and use all your soft CC is your best bet.

That’s kind of a contradiction, don’t you think?
You won’t be able to kite someone who has enough mobility to escape any time they want.

My advice: if you want to beat warriors you’ll have to run a different build (power or hybrid).

I’d say Reaper’s Mark is a lot more reliable/controllable than Spectral Wall.
Regardless of fear, jumping in and out of Death Shroud is what you should be doing anyway.

You can only interrupt him if all defiant stacks are gone, doesn’t matter which controll effect you use.
According to wiki: Float, Sink and Petrification ignore the Defiant effect.

Andele.1306:

Actually it is, you can proc Putrid to do 2 blast finishers…

I know how it works (I posted a rather detailed explanation a while ago, here), I still don’t think that’s a bug.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

… that’s a very old bug. It doesn’t do a blast finisher until the mark is actually triggered. it’s just a visual anomaly

I don’t think that’s a bug, and I hope anet doesn’t consider it to be one.
Losing either one of the two finishers would be a huge nerf (like this skill needs more of those..).
As to the “visual anomaly”, that’s actually not an anomaly and can be very useful in certain situations.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

or o want it to be a non aoe.. i mean why aoe with this mark?

The direct damage is relatively high, you transfer 3 conditions per target and the blast finisher is the entire mark’s surface.
Why would it be better if it hit just one target instead of five?

So… you want to nerf the mark to no longer be ground targeted (?) because the tooltip was updated to match what that skill has been doing for the past 5 months anyway?

Btw the cast time never changed.
And… you do know that the self cleanse doesn’t require you to actually stand on the mark, right?

I recently tested Well of Power to confirmed a suspicion a had for some time now:
The well does not cleanse fear.
The stun break removes it of course, but the well does not cleanse it if you’re feared after dropping the well.

I already made a bug report yesterday
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necro-WoP-doesn-t-cleanse-fear/

Shameless bump.

No one else bothered by this?

JonPeters.5630:

Weakening Shroud. This trait now does a smaller version of Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud. Bleeding (1 stack only; 6 seconds [10s with full condition duration spec]). Weakness (2s [3s with full condition duration spec]). No ICD.

I never really payed attention to it, and it probably doesn’t matter anyway since it’s going to be changed, but the weakness base duration of Weakening Shroud is 10 seconds, not 6 sec.

Well of Power doesn’t cleanse fear.
The stun break part removes it of course, but the cleansing pulses of the well do not.

Tested in both sPvP and WvW.

Just hit some random mob once with the auto attack and count the ticks. With 100% + Lingering it’ll be 14 (=2.4 × 5 sec).
And naturally, with no extra duration you’ll get 7 ticks… that’s +40% from Lingering Curse.

@Stand The Wall: I tested in Hart of the Mist, seems to work correctly.

Interesting… didn’t know that. But the MoB nerf isn’t live yet, is it? And 2 glitches like that within a minute?

Andele.1306:

Around the 3 min mark not exactly 3 min, just watch it.

I did. Like I said, there is no condition on the necro by the time the mark triggers.

Andele.1306:

BTW wvwvw counts as pvp for bleed reductions in 99% of cases.

?

Umm… there is one Putrid Mark around the 3 min mark… but there is no other condition on the necro besides blindness which he “cleanses” by missing with the scepter auto attack before the mark gets triggered.

Overkillengine.6084:

messing up the total number of stacks in pve (possibly wvw too)

that reminds me, today I saw a warrior in WvW who was afk apparently. I didn’t kill him but occasionally drop Mark of Blood on him just to check if he would react. Here’s the twist: like 2 out of 5 times I did that MoB only applied 2 stacks of bleeding, there were no other skills, no Barbed Precision or other conditions involved. The icon under his portait said 2 and the damage was 2xx/tick, the next mark said 3 stacks and 3xx damage… then later another mark: 2 stacks.
Is this a warrior mechanic that I’m not aware of? Could anyone else keep an eye out for that?

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

Andele.1306:

…and if you had the rest it applied the conditions to every target hit by it

Definitely not. I’m 100% sure, with or without Greater Marks, it was just one target.

And blindness made the mark miss, therefore the whole cleanse wouldn’t work. Drarnor is right about fear and a precast mark though (but I can’t remeber ever doing that..).

Nope, watch any of the tournaments with necros, all targets within aoe on trigger got all condis applied to them and no, blind prevents skills from hitting a target, not from working on you (it functions as a targetless cast).

Would you mind posting a link with timestamp?
I watched some old footage of mine to find a moment when I cast Putrid while blinded, no success so far…
Btw those old clips confirmed what I already knew for sure: everything got transfered to just one target.

Andele.1306:

…and if you had the rest it applied the conditions to every target hit by it

Definitely not. I’m 100% sure, with or without Greater Marks, it was just one target.

And blindness made the mark miss, therefore the whole cleanse wouldn’t work. Drarnor is right about fear and a precast mark though (but I can’t remeber ever doing that..).

@patch notes: it looks rather poor, but that mark bug fix is actually one of the biggest buffs we got in a long time (for me at least).

Rennoko.5731:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Andele.1306:

As a idiot mod fused my topic, they still didnt fix the 3 condi “cleanse” nor did they fix the incomplete transfer of conditions, making 1/5 targets immune to the skill (if you hit 5 enemies that is).

Well, since it’s 3 conditions per target hit, and there are only 12 conditions in the game, a 5th person hit will never get conditions from this skill (barring any “on-crit” procs). Not so much that 1/5 of the targets are immune, just that there is nothing left to give them.

I think it would be better if it duplicated 3 conditions on all 5 targets, as is implied. All 5 targets are hit at the same time, would make sense to me. I guess that is a double edged sword, as that would be less removal, but more damage potential…. possibly bad.

I’ll take the full cleanse over just 3 conditions any time.

Andele.1306:

You know that if you had all (back then 11) condis on you and you hit 5 people, all of them got the full force of em, right?

Before the nerf you could only transfer 9 condition from yourself: torment didn’t exist yet, it missed when blinded and of course it wouldn’t work if you’re feared.
However, you could cleanse all 11 conditions from your allies.
What is not true though is that you could hit all targets with all conditions. Everything was transfered to just one enemy.

Umut.5471:

Necro has only one viable build and it’s condition build…

No.
You’re heavily underestimating power builds. My guess is that you’ve simply never met a player who can pull it off.

@OP: probably troll.

Haha. Nemesis, round 2?

I’ll just say this, it depends on the build. And yes, some builds don’t counter anything, but others do… even if the opponent is a super skilled bunker guardian. And not every necro build gets one-shot by your mesmer build.

Oh btw, this is also true for warrior>necro. This doesn’t apply to all necro builds.

Blood/Rending/Putrid Curse is the scepter auto attack rotation. He also used scepter #2 (Grasping Dead) which applies bleeding and cripple.
Even if he used Dhuumfire (which I’m sure he did) those alone won’t cause 14k damage in just 10 seconds.

I think the key attack here was Deathly Swarm (dagger #4), you probaly applied some confusion on the necro and got it all back with that skill.