Guild Wars 2

I don’t get it… is this thread a joke?

Greatsword for necros??

In my “Potato” build I use double harpoon gun which has the highest dps burst in the entire game.

Also, every serious necro university teaches you how to access the secret 4th tier traits, higher than grandmaster.
I have 40 in Curses so I can get the trait “The Allmighty Terror”: nearby foes fear you when hit, no internal cooldown.
It’s kinda glassy so you need to use Well of Darkness.
Just pm me in game so I can show you how to use this build correctly…

Cempa.5619:

What build is he using?

The amount of hp he has, the direct and condi damage he puts out, and the fact that he carries an axe indicates that his gear is mostly carrion mixed with a prefix that doesn’t have vitality on it, maybe a few rabid or rampager pieces.
Hard to tell though without knowing what his runes, food and stacking sigil is.

His traits are 0/20/20/30/0

Curses: Furious Demise means he must have at least 15 points but I assume he spent 20, although I’m not sure what his second trait besides Focused Rituals is (he doesn’t have Terror…).

Death Magic: Greater Marks and Ritual of Protection.

Blood Magic: The amount of hp siphoning suggests Bloodthirst, and oviously he has Ritual Mastery and Vampiric Rituals. So definitely 30 points here.

On the off chance that he really just has 15 points in Curses, his build would either be 0/15/25/30/0 or 0/15/20/30/5. Definitely not 5 in Spite because he doesn’t have Parasitic Bond.

Hanzo.9624:

you trait 30/30/10 and have wretched lifeforce gen.
…100% susceptible to CC.

unless you were to take stun breaks and spectral skills (maybe even with Spectral Attunement). Problem solved.

Also, it’s not like you’re significantly more resilient with any other trait distibution. Either way, when you’re getting focused by 2+ players you’re done. So you might as well take the one current build that basically guarantees a win in 1v1s.

Btw I also use my pre-patch build which doesn’t include Dhuumfire, and with it I’m doing alright against other 30/30/10 necros… but that is only because I am a necro as well.
Other classes don’t have skills like Plague Signet or Putrid Mark that just sends every condition back at your opponent. So for me it is very conceivable why there are players complaining about the Dhuum/Terror build.

Wraith Masque on Charr ftw

You can preview dyes on the trading post.

Dhuumfire: nice idea to make it more about lf regen.
Imo this trait shouldn’t allow access to burning at all though…

Death Nova: Interesting… a condi MM.

Doom: intersting idea, could work.

Terror trait switch: No. This would mean you can’t have a condition build without either going 30 in Spite or 20 in Soul Reaping, or both. This would heavily limit build diversity, but as you said… not a necessary change if it wasn’t for Dhuumfire.

Torment – Epidemic: again… not a big issue if you didn’t have 7 sec burning to spread along with it.

Feast of Corruption: Sounds like a reasonable change.

The problem is: Necros were very strong in 1v1s before the patch, but had close to zero chance of survival when up against 2+ opponents.
The addition of Dhuumfire just amplified this effect. A burning/terror/bleed/torment pressure combo is almost impossible to beat if you’re not a necro yourself with Well of Power and/or Plague Signet. Yeah, you might be squishy when traiting for this combo but it’s not like you’d have significantly more mobility or survivability if you ran with a different build.

What most necros really wanted from this patch is more attrition but now it seems that Dhuumfire pigeonholed necros into condi-bursters.

Imo Dhuum needs to go.

Rennoko.5731:

…or another necro with plague sig.

Or just any necro who also uses Doom.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

If they were to attempt to stun break it, they would need to use 2-3 stunbreaks almost immediately after another.

Or as a necro, you could use Well of Power and be immune to that whole rotation.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Toughness alone won’t make you tanky. It’s generally the utilities/traits that makes one tanky.

I know.
But with that statement you are not only arguing against your earlier “glass < 2k” claim, but you also make a point for everyone here who said 30/30/10 isn’t a glasscanon. Because all you need is defensive utilities, like Well of Power, Plague Signet, Spectral Wall…

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Anything below 2,000 toughness on a toughness build is glass, if you didn’t know.

I sure didn’t know that. This basically means that in sPvP you either need to go with a Shaman’s amulet or go 30 in Death Magic and have a rune set with toughness as main attribute to barely make the 2k mark.
So, according to that statement almost every necro build is glassy.

Aoe skills prioritize any proc or utility that comes with them on targets that are closest to the center and then going outwards.
So according to that order, once you proc Withering or Dhuum on one target the internal cooldown starts and can’t trigger on the next.

Sorry, you’re right. My bad.

Power necro op! :P

Just one thing:

By “100% crit chance” I assume you mean you have like ~50% and get another 50 with Deathly Perception.
However, this trait doesn’t mean +50%. It means that your chrit chance is multiplied by 1,5. So 50% regular crit chance really gives you 75% in DS with Deathly Perception.

Not enough Charr here!

Alright, so here are some screens from Gaertan and I testing.

I used 6x Lyssa + Plague for all boons which he then corrupted so I could transfer all of them to him, his golem and wurm.

The second picture shows a “Miss” from the blind that got transfered to the flesh golem.

So the result was:

Gaertan: weakness, vulnerability, poison (=from Corrupt Boon)
Golem: bleeding, poison, blind
Wurm: cripple, confusion, burn

Confirmed!

This is sPvP only, the mark still works correctly in PvE/WvW.

Also, the mark seems to prioritize conditions in some order.
If I have bleeding + some other condis, bleeding will stay on me. Another time I wasn’t bleeding so poison stayed on me.

daimasei.4091:

I’m still shocked nobody complain before about those traits not being removed in the last patch.

Of course people did.
And complaints about Reanimator/Horde are as old as the game itself. They are the worst! Absolutely abysmal. Useless even for minion-mancers.

@ronpierce: nice idea.

Regardless of the minor traits. If unblockable marks is merged with lower cooldowns, then Staff Mastery has to be moved to master tier.
Just 10 points into DM for what would need an investment of 20 points now basically means the same as if current staff-builds had 80 points at their disposal.

Almost no stun breaks?
We have 5: Plague Signet, Spectral Walk, Spectral Armor, Well of Power, Necrotic Traversal.

Other classes: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun_break
Guardian 5, Warrior 4, Engi 6, Ranger 3, Thief 5, Ele 4, Mesmer 6.

Also, having trouble with eles or mesmers depends on the build. I don’t have problems with eles at all. And thanks to Well of Power and Tainted Shackles we are now very well equipped to beat every mesmer build as well.

Yes.

(15 characters)

Marks can be played both, but I believe they are more effective in condition builds.

Wells: power.
But the utility on Well of Power/Darkness/Corruption obviously benefits both.

I don’t think there will be a nerf to a class only because of a Sigil…

On topic:

If I cast fear without the Sigil and then switch to a weapon with it while fear is still on the target… is the remaining duration increased?

Hey guys!

I believe it’s time to put our new balance-buffs to the test in another all-necro tournament.

I won’t set a date yet, let’s leave it up for discussion for now. But I’m thinking somewhen during the upcoming week or two.

And what builds should we play? Uniform or mixed?

If you havn’t signed up for any of the previous EU necro tourneys and/or want to participate:
You are very welcome to join, so just sign up below!

What’s the point of having 1 rune of the Necromancer?

Here you go, freshly updated to include the recent patch.

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

June Patch Update

I’m aware of like ~2 people out there who actually use my build. So for you guys, I updated the guide to accommodate for the recent balance patch.

I’ve rewritten some of the original guide and added a “WvW strategy and 1v1 advice” section.

What changed for the build:

I changed traits from 15/30/25/0/0 to 20/30/20/0/0 so I can take Axe Mastery which is now at master tier.
That’s basically it, gear is still optimal.

To answer some questions that might come up…

• Dropping Deadly Strength for another 5 points in Spite actually gives me less power, toughness and boon duration. So why would I trade this for an axe-trait when this is actually a staff build??
  I’ve explained the reason for this in the guide. But in a nutshell, the buffed utility on Unholy Feast and the burst potential for the “Finisher-Combo” (explained in gameplay) makes Axe Training take the crown.
  Also, my damage is increased when I can’t apply any conditions. Like on structures or Boss battles when bleed caps are maxed.

• Does it even make sense to run a staff-build anymore if you can run a 30/30/x/x/x Dhuum-Terror build instead?
  Yes! The staff is that good and Staff Mastery is that valuable to make it work in this build.

In fact, while keeping the core of the build intact (20 Curses/Death Magic) I’ve tried all sorts of trait combinations to see what the best combo is:

30/30/10/0/0
30/20/20/0/0
5/25/20/0/20
0/30/20/20/0
10/30/20/0/10
5/30/20/15/0
0/30/25/0/15
…the list goes on.

But just to clarify:

Blood Magic and Soul Reaping made this build too weak. So beyond 20 points in every other line the question was: is either Dhuumfire or Close to Death worth losing 30 in Curses.
Answer: nope.

Taking Dhuumfire would mean 100 precision less (-5% crit chance) and with just 15% crit chance left (24 with the rampager’s axe/wh) and all the aoe of the marks… burning was just too unpredictable and not really that powerful, with this not being a full on condition build.
So the choice really was between Close to Death and Target the Weak.
Altough rather situational, with all the different conditions you can apply with the staff and Tainted Shackles, I’m inclined to say that TtW might have the edge over CtD on average.
Also, in Curses I can take Master of Corruption, while the gm minor in Spite is rather poor.

So bottom line: 20/30/20/0/0 is now the best trait combo for this build in WvW/PvE, hands down.

Edit: In sPvP corruption skills are still the most aggressive option to combo with this build. However, with the growing necro population and the meta shifting more towards condition pressure, you might often be better off adding some stun breaks, cleanses and/or spectral skills to you arsenal. And with Master of Corruption then being less mandatory, you could switch to Spectral Attunement, Banshee’s Wail… or just go another 10 into Spite for Dhuum.

I’m inclined to agree on Dhuumfire, either increase the ICD or reduce the base duration of burning.

@Greater Marks: I’ve posted this in a different thread already, but if the greater size becomes standard then “Staff Mastery + unblockable” should be moved to master tier.

Palmski.6419:

from what I’ve seen almost all weapon cooldown reduction traits are majors

Dagger Mastery and Path of Midnight are both adept.

I’m not sure everyone would be too happy if those traits were to replace the DM minors.
I mean, of course they would be happy if reanimator and horde were finally gone. But players who pick the staff would again be forced to take at least 5 points in Death Magic for greater size. Also some might go into this line without using the staff at all, so those traits would again be an imposition.

Aberrant.6749:

flow.6043:

Aberrant.6749:

I’ve plaid MAYBE 2 hours of necro in total TOPS. I was able to 1v3 with ease (WvW Vs. non-upscaled). Far easier than any of my 80’s.

Looool. No.
I don’t believe a single word of this, unless those 3 were afk.
2 hours experience total? 1v3 with ease?? If only…

I’m sorry, but if that’s a true story then your opponents were total noobs. If they were skilled then a 2000 hour necro pro couldn’t have survived.

I’m sorry I’m not a baddie like most in WvW?

I’m not saying you are bad. It’s just not possible to win alone against 3 people as a necro, and certainly not “with ease”.

Aberrant.6749:

I’ve plaid MAYBE 2 hours of necro in total TOPS. I was able to 1v3 with ease (WvW Vs. non-upscaled). Far easier than any of my 80’s.

Looool. No.
I don’t believe a single word of this, unless those 3 were afk.
2 hours experience total? 1v3 with ease?? If only…

I’m sorry, but if that’s a true story then your opponents were total noobs. If they were skilled then a 2000 hour necro pro couldn’t have survived.

Bump for Great Justice.

Also, if unblockable was merged with reduced cooldowns, considering how powerful the 30Spite/30Curses combo with burning and terror has become, I think that Staff Mastery would be a too easy pick if it was an adept trait.

I still believe that the greater size should standard, but a merged Mark trait would have to become master tier then.

Maartac.9457:

Cause they aren’t freeloot in 1v1 Situations now ? And yes ….. Corners are everywhere oO ……

Necros weren’t free loot in 1v1s before the patch.
Increased damage output only amplified this feature, but hardly did anything for attrition in outnumbered situations.

@Lopez:
If you think Terror does too much damage now, do you really believe that -10% will make a difference? Even in a pure condi spec that’s less than 200 damage per tick at best.
Terror is definitely not the problem.
Maybe Dhuumfire’s base duration should be cut instead? (if anything…)

Oh, yeah I agree. It just sounded like you had some sort of insider info…

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

There will probably be a new boon in the future given to Guardians, Warriors, and Engineers. -33% duration to conditions.

Really?

TheStarflyer.9641:

torment currently turns into 3 stacks of might, regardless of the amount of stacks of torment on the character.

Huh… as I said, my well didn’t turn it. I had one or two other conditions on me which all got converted, but torment stayed on me the whole time.
So maybe the well is bugged?

So I just took a closer look in WvW.
I used Well of Power after being hit with torment by another necro.
Guess what happened: nothing!
The well doesn’t remove it, apparently there really is no counterpart for it (yet..?)

Cempa.5619:

flow.6043:

Cempa.5619:

Power, Terror, Condi?

??

As in what build are you running?

Oh, you know my staff-build, Cempa. So that would be power+terror+condi

I’ve always been using the axe in my staff-build, not for the lf regen though…

Cempa.5619:

Power, Terror, Condi?

??

Homonavn.6348:

Well, the no brain build is KIND of true IMO.. Sucks to say it, but the 30/0/10/0/30 thing or something along that is kind of skilless…

You just fear down and auto attack in DS to do like 10k DPS…

I did not use this build. And I don’t think “just fear down” works with thieves that well since they have a million stun breakers.

Maartac.9457:

Think the Necro is now ok Not OP .
The New condition is cool but no bomb. I think the Thief wasn’t good enough and btw the New condition is buggy. It only ticks with 75% when the target is moving.

Oh the thief was definitely a good one, otherwise he would have never survived that long against me. Also I didn’t have Spectral Wall equipped, that would have definitely given me the edge.

I agree that Torment is not that powerful, but Tainted Shackles really is. It’s aoe, untargeted, nice portion of direct damage + condition damage, and immobilized in the end… love it!
Btw Torment alwas ticks with 75%, but it ticks twice if the target is moving. Kinda hard to tell when all the numbers are flying around, but you do get that 150%.

ManCaptain.3154:

ok noob question: how did he chat with you if he was from another server and couldn’t see your name?

You can invite them to a group by clicking on them and then just opening the party panel.

War Mourner.5168:

if people call you OP just laugh in their face.

I did

So I’ve played against this thief in WvW.
He just wasn’t able to kill me. At first he tried Basilisk a few times, then he reset the fight and tried twice with the Thieves Guild.
About ~10 min later some other guys joined the fight and interrupted the duel. After that I chatted with him a little. He immediately accused me of using “the new no-brain build”.
Lol wut? I used the exact same build I’ve been using pre-patch, nothing changed except the addition of Tainted Shackles.

Apparently, people aren’t used to losing against necros. So if they haven’t played against a good one before they blame it on the buffs we just got.

Btw I love Tainted Shackles, that skill is da bomb!
Combined with all the other improvments our skills and traits have received and the buffed lf regeneration… do you guys feel that we are overpowered now?
Or is it just the go-to excuse for opponents who can’t beat us? Because in case of that thief, I really used the same build as before so the outcome of the fight would have probably been the same.

On a sidenote: I’ve noticed that the lf-regen and Tainted Shackles’ aoe-immobilized really did slightly improve our attrition fighting against multiple opponents. But we still lose in the end… :/
So the question “op or not” really just pertains to 1v1s.

Good guy Arachnid, writing essays like a boss

Kravick.4906:

This is assuming that you’ll have 100% life force when you use it, which more often than not, is never the case.

No, this is assuming that every % of life force is worth more hitpoints with carrion than rabid. This is true regardless of whether your lf bar is full or not.

Kravick.4906:

Also, not factoring in heals is obviously going to make carrion look better on paper, but you can’t ignore it, because it is a HUGE factor.

If you want to factor it in (and leave out things like interupting heals in combat etc…), just add as much hp to both prefixes until you see where the EHP of rabid overtakes carrion. That’s exactly what I did in one of my earlier posts.
The bottom line was: you’ll need to heal at least 5 times. And in that post I assumed that you take direct damage only. If you factor in conditions you’ll have to heal for much more.

So healing isn’t as HUUUUUGEEEE of a factor as you make it out to be.

Kravick.4906:

This is why theory crafting sucks. With theory crafting, everyone likes to throw away parts of the equation to make their build/stat choice look better than it really is. In the real world this would be called confirmation bias.

So… basically what you just did for your rabid build.

The cooldown had to be reduced on all skills because the condition itself got buffed.

Why would this only affect PvP when it reduces all hits?

Anyway, what I did is: Corrosive Poison Cloud + Putrid Mark so a couple of NPCs all had weakness for about an hour. And then I watched the numbers… it was like weakness didn’t change at all. There was no reduction to all attacks, just to half of them. And the “Glancing” indicator didn’t appear on all attacks either.

I just played for a short amount of time, but I could tell that NPCs who had weakness on them still attacked me with a mix of glancing and non-glancing hits (twice the damage).

Also, can anyone confirm if the patchnotes are true about weakness now cutting all attacks by 50%? Because the leaked ones stated it would be 25%.

Zindrix.1750:

Sam.7269:

Condi duration has a cap.

Do you know what that % is?

At this point, after messing around with builds, I might end up going full Spite.

100%.

Lingering Curse ignores this cap, so scepter bleeds can get133%.

Also, you can get 115% fear duration with the Sigil of Paralyzation.

Thx for testing, Pendragon.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The highest EHP is when health=armor*10. This is the assumption we should work on.

This assumption of what the golden ratio is has nothing to do with this discussion.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Necros start with high health, but low armor. As such, adding Toughness does more to increase EHP than adding Vitality. EHP determines how durable you are in a vacuum. (other factors, such as signets, Protection, Weakness, dodges, blocks, heals, etc. are not factored in and would be practically impossible to calculate).

All those “other factors” don’t increase your vitality or armor, therefore they don’t factor into calculating EHP.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yes, Carrion does make you more durable, but not as much as Rabid does. There are no perceptions involved in this, just math.

Please… show me that math. Because the one that Pendragon has proven to work correctly is the one I used.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As for increasing our health to match the EHP, yes, you can do that, but now you are dealing with exponential increases. You hit the point where it is easier to just get Toughness to increase your EHP rather than more Vitality. Necros actually start beyond this point.

Actually, when you look at the damage formula… the exponential part comes with toughness because you’ll get deminishing returns the higher you get. Vitality on the other hand scales linear.

Also, you still don’t get how EHP is calculated.
To simplify I assumed that all damage taken is direct, non-condition. That’s why you can determine EHP by multiplying your total health.
If you add condition damage in one specific encounter with another player, you can mitigate less, therefore your EHP is lower in this specific fight.
For example: you have 20k hp. Your armor reduces damage by 20%. If you take 10k in conditions and another 10 in direct damage, then that would mean your armor mitigated 2,5k (10/0.8=12,5). That means without your armor you would have taken 22,5k damage (=EHP). Ergo: taking the same damage without armor but with 2,5k more health would have the same result.
If it’s just direct damage, then the EHP would have been 25k. If all the damage you take is dealt by conditions then your EHP would have been your actual health pool: 20k.

So, I don’t know how to make it any simpler, but that is exactly why you can tell how much health you would need to compensate for the extra damage taken by not having the amount of toghness you’d otherwise have with rabid.

Kitedyou.1720:

Terror…VVTF are these dev’s thinking…they give this ability to two of the most mobile classes in the game…oh wait…every class other than necro is very mobile…

*Torment

I can’t believe they really changed Spectral Wall… seems so op :/

Vampiric: what does “6 points” mean? 6%??

And in case anyone read all of the patch notes:
•Weakness: Changed from 50% fumble on regular attacks to 50% fumble on all attacks. Now only stacks up to 5 times (still stacks duration).

Is this a typo? Or is it really 50% for all attacks now?

Anyway, overall I’m a happy chap, looks really sexy so far.

I didn’t reference any chart.
There is also no assumption being made other than the formula for damage calculation being correct.

Beyond that logic dictates that if your armor mitigates X % of direct damage, then you’ll have the same result if you increase your total hp pool by that amount.
10k hp with 10% mitigation = 11k hp without mitigation by armor.
That’s all there is to it.

Btw I checked with the build calculator:
In sPvP, depending on the type of runes you are using and how many points you invest into Death Magic: you’ll have between 26% and 35% damage reduction with a rabid amulet, and 0-18% for carrion.

Kravick.4906:

It was theory the minute you admitted they were rough calculations.

It’s a mathematic model based on facts.

Kravick.4906:

No, I will not get burst down in one go with rabid. Why? Because I’ve already had this situation occur many, many times by fighting the same opponent using the same build multiple times per stat set.

Did you test this without defending yourself, just to see how much damage you can take with each prefix type? Did you take a look at your combat log? Checked how many times he landed critical hits?

Please tell me more about how I didn’t consider actual in-game combat mechanic, while you experienced it “many, many times”.

Kravick.4906:

Your math is flawed, this much you yourself have already admitted. I cannot accept it as anything but theory.

How is it flawed? And how did I admit to it??