Guild Wars 2

All wells (not just Well of Power) go on full cooldown if the cast is interrupted or canceled.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

…when I say 100 – 0 I mean this rotation can kill someone two and a half times if they tank the full thing,

Chillblains (0.75 sec)
Swap to greatsword.
GS #5, Grasping Darkness (0.75 sec)
#4, Nightfall (0.5 sec)
GS #3, Death Spiral, (1 sec)
“Chilled to the Bone!”, (1.25 sec)
“Suffer!”
enter Reaper Shroud
Soul Spiral, (3 sec)
Executioner’s Scythe, (1.25 sec)
exit Shroud,
spam Gravedigger. (1.25 sec)

I’ve highlighted every skill of your rotation with its cast time. So not counting aftercast delays and such, this adds up to at least 10 seconds, more depending on how often you “spam” gravedigger.
Can we agree that this is just a regular skill rotation and not a burst? I mean, of course this kills someone two and a half times, but so does literally any other class/build with zerker gear if their target stands still in front of them for more than 10 sec.

Flumek.9043:

Spectral wal is currently a useless skill since most current specs have over abundance of stability
…
It is therefore at best protection +1s fear on medium CD, and youre giving up vital persistence for it.

I disagree.
I think those three spectral skills (+Last Gasp) combined with Spectral Mastery are definitely stronger than replacing Spec Wall and taking Vital Persistence (which imo is overrated anyway).
Also, you’re forgetting that Spectral Wall generates life force even if the opponent passes through with stability. Plus, you can blast Chaos Armor, and you can be sure that you won’t be the only one to combo with it if you cast it on a capture node during a team fight.

The only thing I’d criticize the build for would be:

1. the choice of amulet.
I’d go with Viper instead of Wanderer. With all the life force regen and protection you won’t need those 560 toughness, and the extra power really makes a difference.

2. Considering you don’t have any boon strips on weapon or utility skills, I’d go with Path of Corruption instead of Terror. At this point your only source of fear is Reaper’s Mark, Spectral Wall and Infusing Terror. I’d much rather take an aoe-corrupt on a ~7 sec cd.

Bhawb.7408:

The only true burst Necromancer has ever had is either condi terror (now with chill), plus something like CB/SoS/PS for a huge stack of condis, or some big power hit + sigil procs which proc Chill of Death. But traditionally we don’t burst

That really depends on your definition of burst.
In your first example, condi + terror and/or chill, you’re basically just sprinkling a ~1k dot over a regular condi rotation. And considering you were refering to a pre-HoT terror build, that was much less than what a Reaper can do by stacking poison, torment and chilled instead. And I’d argue that this would still be less damage than some power build’s rotation proccing sigils and Chill of Death. Which brings me to the next point:
The key to any burst, regardless of class or build (well… maybe not the likes of killshot), is layering hits. Fire/air sigil + CoD is indeed a great combo if they all hit at once, but the problem is that you don’t have any control over those cooldowns. You can, however, layer a lot of other skills even though this might not be apparent due to some of their cast times. A lot of them can be precast or have a delayed hit like Tainted Shackles, then there are some instant casts, maybe some swap sigils or rune procs that can be controlled, some traits like Spiteful Spirit or Weakening Shroud that trigger on Shroud entry (which can also trigger swap sigils at the same time). There really are a lot of ways to pack a whole lot of skills into less then 1-2 seconds. Enough to 100-0 someone? Maybe, probably not, but with the right gear or amulet stats those combos can easily do more than 10k damage, and for finishing someone off who’s at half hp that is definitely enough.

Cam Ron.4170:

power build: Lich form > then 3-4 #1 attacks

condi: staff 3+4 (or all 4 marks)> signite strip boons> scepter #3> Reaper 4>5

Not sure 3-4 lich hits qualifies as burst, you might as well say 3-4 dagger attacks or life blasts, not to mention how easily all of those can be avoided.
As for the condi thing, that’s just a regular skill rotation, and not a fast one at that.

Ragnarox.9601:

Use condi meta build you can 100-0 everyone. There are no counterplay of that build.

Yes, training golems do indeed not have any counterplay to our conditions.

Obviously a 100-0 burst depends on a lot of things. Your opponent’s defensive stats, their available cds for stunbreaks, cleanses, invulns or other immunities…
But let’s assume they can’t defend themselves, then yes, there are a lot of builds that can combo 10-15k dmg in a few seconds.

It’s been a little more than a month ;P

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-23-2015

Boon and Condition Conversion
Boon to condition conversion and condition to boon conversion has been standardized and is functionality changed. Skills that convert boons and conditions now randomly select from all boons and conditions on the target.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Target the weak – it must stay a crit buff. One of fun things about necro are the 0 precision, 100% crit chance builds. Right now we have 3 traits for that purpose out of which 2 are needed for a successful build. So that gives you 3 combinations of 2 lines to get the job done. It’s flexible that way opening up more builds. Take away one of them (target the weak) and you’re arm-twisted to use reaper and soul reaping lines. That many unique and fun builds down the toilet if you do that.

I agree.

Also, Curses is very viable for core necro builds, it just isn’t as popular for Reapers because most people who go condi-Reaper prefer Spite and Soul Reaping over Curses, understandably so but that doesn’t mean a Reaper with Curses wouldn’t work.

Curses does have issues though:

1. Chilling Darkness:

No one is using this. No one!
I get that they had to add an icd because of all the Reaper’s other chill traits, but this nerf completely killed Chilling Darkness. Again, I understand the change, but that also made the existence of the trait absolutely pointless. Solution: replace it. Don’t try to salvage it by tweaking some numbers or whatever, just get rid of it entirely.
Also, this way Curses could finally get a usable alternative to Plague Sending for any non-jumping-puzzle content. (preferably something for PvE, maybe a revive of the old Target the Weak 2% dmg/condi damage modifier).

2. Terror:

It’s too weak.
I still use it, but only because my build would gain even less by picking MoC or PoC.

Solutions:

Either merge it with a minor trait (I dare anyone to reasonably argue why fear dealing damage shouldn’t be an automatic unlock when picking Curses), and replace it with a new trait.

Or keep it where it currently is, but at least merge it with Fear of Death.
Fear of Death is about as dead as Chilling Darkness, no one in their right mind would ever pick this over Spectral Mastery or Vital Persistence. There’s no doubt that Fear of Death needs to go, the only question is whether or not it should be merged with Terror or be removed entirely.

3. Parasitic Contagion:

Doesn’t work through Shroud, therefore it sucks.
And before anyone says it would be op: allow it to work through Shroud first, tweak numbers later.

4. Barbed Precision:

5 months after the nerf, I maintain my position that a 33% proc chance is too low.
Before there was actually some synergy with Furious Demise, a synergy that could’ve been improved upon with the change to Target the Weak. Back then you would actually see slightly higher bleed stacking when under the effect of fury. Now even if you reach 100% crit chance Barbed bleeds are nothing but completely random passive procs. Skillful play was replaced by praying to the rng-gods.
It doesn’t need to go back to 66% but at least 50% would be nice.

Vydahr.4285:

NeXeD.3042:

I’m more impressed how he was able to do 500k damage with a settlers amulet.

It makes me really sad, considering that’s the highest I’ve ever gotten on Soldier ammy

Here are some screens I made. All played with a rampager amulet.

I suspect the first one has that much Damage Dealt because it included a lord kill on Legacy. All npcs combined probably add up to a lot of hp.
(2+3 was Kyhlo, 4 was Legacy but no lord kill).
As you can see on meow’s mini map they didn’t go for the lord. But their match ran out of time. I on the other hand had 3-4 min left in each match. So considering all that, it seems pretty reasonable that a settler amulet would do 300k/280k in 15 minutes.

Btw, as you can see in my screenshots, the Healing to Allies stat is exclusively produced by rezzing. You can almost tell how often I was rezzing someone in each match.

Acotje.5689:

…

messiah.1908:

…

Like I said, I haven’t seen a signet necro in ages, and I regularly play both PvP and WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Look at dat team healing…

Healing to Allies includes rezzing, ~500k is still impressive though.

Is cele signets really still a thing?
I can’t remember the last time I saw a signet necro, certainly not since HoT was released.
Also, I’m glad it’s going extinct because it was never a good build to begin with.

I think anyone who still plays core necro (including myself) doesn’t do so for Death Shroud, but because they want to play a build that happens to use a combination of 3 core specializations.
However, if you only compare our two Shrouds it’s pretty much a no-brainer: RS>DS.
And the biggest contributor to the superiority of RS is without a doubt the pulsing stability on Infusing Terror.
I’m not saying DS should get the same, but something like 3x stab for 3 sec on Tainted Shackles would be a nice addition to even things out a little.

Ghostwind.4380:

Personally I’d rather they completely remove the pierce and combo finisher aspects. The pierce is far too impractical to hit multiple enemies (let alone the max 5!) with such a slow projectile speed – in fact it’s almost impossible unless they are a grove of angry trees. For bows, guns, and pistols, pierce makes sense, but not for something so terribly slow. And the combo finisher is a bit meh. 20% chance for something that already struggles to hit? So really staff 1 is a bit of a throw away\something to do while you use marks.

The projectile finisher is indeed debatable, simply because a 20% chance makes it too random.
However, those 20% are a standard feature of (almost) any projectile auto attack, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Necrotic Grasp has it as well. One could argue though that the slower the projectile the higher the chance to combo should be. So maybe a 50% chance would be more appropriate, even 100% wouldn’t make Necrotic Grasp exceptionally potent considering we can combo projectiles much more effectively with the Reaper’s whirl finishers.

In regards to piercing I have to disagree. It is clearly the best feature of Necrotic Grasp, not just because hitting 5 targets can actually add up to rather decent damage, but more importantly it can generate up to 20% life force per cast. 22% if you have Soul Reaping. And that makes Necrotic Grasp have by far the highest lf regen potential of all our skills. Of course you can argue that it’s hard to actually hit that many targets consistently, but it does happen, even in PvP.

Elvirais.5472:

flow.6043:

Also, does anyone here honestly think that a necro without a staff could beat a necro with a staff? Or that a non-staff necro is stronger in general?

I do agree that the staff could use a buff or two, but it is still our strongest pvp weapon.

Doesn’t the scepter do much more single target damage? So not for 1 vs 3 but 1 vs 1 scepter would still be better?

It does do more single target damage, but that is mostly relevant to PvE.
In PvP on the other hand you need to factor in a lot more than a simple dps comparison. Like range, positioning, precasting marks, utility skills, Shroud uptime, the opponent(s)…
The bottom line usually is that the staff allows you to outplay your opponent more easily.

vicious.5683:

it’s bad design.

Marks used to be on all weapons, then some genius put them all together in the staff. In addition to a weak and pointless auto attack is what make the staff a mediocre weapon.

All marks on one weapon is bad because a pre-release beta iteration of our class from 3.5 years ago had them spread out on several weapons?

Also, does anyone here honestly think that a necro without a staff could beat a necro with a staff? Or that a non-staff necro is stronger in general?

I do agree that the staff could use a buff or two, but it is still our strongest pvp weapon.

Personally, I don’t think the staff is weak or mediocre at all.
While its utility makes it useful but not mandatory for power builds, it is easily the strongest PvP weapon for condition builds. Of course it can’t match the single target condi application of the scepter since the torment buff to Feast of Corruption, but that is irrelevant to PvP. It matters a lot more that the staff is faster than the scepter, has more range, more aoe and casting marks doesn’t require facing your target. Plus, the ability to precast marks is awesome.
This might not sound like much to some people, but it makes a huge difference.
Also, Putrid Mark and Reaper’s Mark is easily better than any off-hand you could pair with a scepter. So making good use of skills 1-3 is really only a matter of how you incorporate them into your build and a rotation with other skills.

The only thing I would criticize are the 2 stacks of bleeding on Mark of Blood.
They nerfed the mark from 3 stacks to a uniform 2 stacks in all game modes back in June, in the same patch that introduced the new condition stacking mechanics of poison, confusion and burning, as well as vulnerability affecting condition damage.
Now, 2 stacks on MoB would’ve been fine with the originally proposed damage formula that had a 7.5% scaling with condition damage. This was, however, changed when the actual patch went live to only 6% and an even lower base damage.

The bottom line for Mark of Blood: bleeding is now the weakest damaging condition, yet it is still our most dominant source of damage in condition builds (as opposed to other classes that get more damage out of burning or poison). Also, the 2-stack nerf to MoB was made in consideration of a stronger damage formula. So in light of all that there is no reason MoB shouldn’t be restored to apply 3 stacks again.

You can craft exotics with Charged Ambrite, like so:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recipe:_Charged_Ambrite_Orichalcum_Amulet

Or, if you want the ascended version, you can either buy them for laurels or bandit crests, or get them as reward for completing living story achievments, like so:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet_

I’m EU.
I’ll text you in game later.

NA or EU?

Squeezzy.4718:

You kinda lost track of the thread topic in your attempt to correct someone who is just trying to help.

How did I lose track?
All I did initially was correct your false statement in a single sentence. It was a single sentence because our percentage based life force regen/degen and scaling with vitality shouldn’t need any further explanation. Yet you felt the need write a huge reply and lecture me like I’m some newby to the class.

Squeezzy.4718:

Also as i mentioned not everyone has “several sets” to switch around which is probably the reason why he made the post in the first place.

If you had paid closer attention to my first post, you’d have noticed that I actually pointed out that a carrion set for both modes is only advisable if you mostly play WvW and don’t want to bother with gear switching in PvE.

Also, see bLind’s signature? It says Ex-Warrior, which can only mean that he isn’t entirely new to the game. And since his necro obviously isn’t his first character it’s safe to assume that he has enough gold stashed away, even more so when you consider that he already has a full zerker set for “HoT content/elite grind”.
Now first of all, a full set of exotics gear isn’t that expensive, especially if you’re getting carrion or rampager. Secondly, if you want to switch between WvW and PvE you don’t have to get a full set for each mode. You could get a full set of glass gear for PvE and then just replace a part of it for WvW. For example: carrion armor, rest rampager.

Squeezzy.4718:

In full glass condi gear you will get 2 shotted by every thief you meet and kited while you get 2 shotted by every chrono you meet while roaming.

l2p.

Squeezzy.4718:

If he considers himself good enough to go full glass then he should, that still isn’t the topic of the thread.

Are you listening to yourself?
He is asking for gear advice. You are saying he can pick glass gear if he is good enough. And that isn’t topic of the thread… how?

Also, why would you assume that he isn’t good enough to pull off rampager in WvW in the first place? And skill aside, do you know the exact build he’s going to play? Perhaps his trait and rune choices allow for glassier choices for the rest of his build?
Anyway, considering the very little amount of information we got in the original post, you make way too many assumptions on what is or isn’t on topic advice.

Natural degeneration is percentage based. You can have 1 million vitality and you’d still only last up to 25 seconds (or 50 sec with Vital Persistence), not counting in-Shroud lf regen like Life Transfer, Life Reap and some of our traits. So like I said, vitality only improves your Shroud uptime when you’re taking damage.

Squeezzy.4718:

I know that viper and sinister would be a better choice for pve only, but you die as soon as a moa looks at you in WvW and that’t the reason i didnt mention it on my answer.

Necros aren’t that squishy in WvW with full glass stats.
Personally, I play PvP with a rampager amulet, and I have several sets of gear that I switch between for WvW and PvE. However, if I were to stick with just one set for everything I’d definitely go with the glassier version.

Squeezzy.4718:

Vitality directly increases your life force hence giving you more time in reaper shroud

Only if you take damage. It makes no difference with natural degeneration.

bLind.6278:

Long story kept short: is Carrion gonna hamstring me in terms of damage when playing pve content, or should I choose a different armor set-up?

There’s no point in taking any kind of defensive stat for PvE. The only reason to consider carrion over other stats would be if you spend most of your time in WvW and don’t want the hassle of changing gear in PvE.
That being said, rampager vs sinister vs viper is the real choice you have to make, which means you should mix those stats according to how high you want your crit chance and condition duration to be.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Flash DS -> weapon swap, both procced.

Weapon swap -> flash DS, only weapon swap procced.
…

So if you’re going with on swap, then bear in mind that the weapon swap cooldown seems to block the DS proc.

It doesn’t block anything. Shroud “swapping” uses the sigils of the weapon you have currently equipped. So naturally using sigil set A to flash Shroud and then swap to set B will trigger all 4 sigils. However, when you swap to B first, set B goes on a 9 sec cd and can’t proc if you go into Shroud before the icd is up.

Nemesis.8593:

If you don’t stop trolling i will report you…

Yes, everyone who disagrees with you is a troll. -_-

You have not proven or disproven anything in your videos. Then you come on the forums and demand apologies, while being rude, condescending and disrespectful.
You’re even accusing spoj of stealing your work. (wtf?)
And then you have the nerve to call other people trolls?!
k.

Nemesis.8593:

As expected… half the people who discredited me every chance they got don’t dare say a single word (they are the ones who realized just what happened), the other half still try to sugar coat it (the ones who are truly delusional).

Or they just don’t want to bother trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone who’s behaving like a child throwing a tantrum.
Again, if you want people to take you seriously you have to drop this pointlessly resentful attitude.

Nemesis.8593:

Some other people said “well no one believed they were actually doing that DPS”… when you can clearly see Nike… teaching his followers how condition engineer does 20K DPS and it’s much higher then a warrior after 20 sec.

I’ll explain it for you again, so you get it as well this time:

In that engi video Nike says the following things:

1. it’s a build for dungeons and fractals, and it would be most effective in lvl 80 instances against targets with high hp.

2. After 14 seconds the damage exceeds the sustained damage of a zerker engi.

3. It can reach up to 20k dps.

Any normal person will conclude the following:
There’s a ramp up time for conditions, then after a while you will do more damage per second than a zerker engi, not an average damage including the ramp up but the damage per second after those initial 14 seconds or whatever. Also, under the right circumstances, in the right group with the right buffs against the right target, you can get up to 20k dps. That’s not an average damage, as in all damage done devided by the duration of the fight, no, this is peak damage that you can expect to maintain for a shorter duration during the encounter.

Nemesis reaction: this engi says he’s doing 20k dps at all times against all targets, always?! That’s a lie! Also, that means that everyone else has been lying as well, and I was always right. Suck it, people! And apologize while you’re at it.

Nemesis.8593:

you can prove me wrong … if you fail to do it, it means it doesn’t exist

Can’t argue with that flawless scientific method.
I really don’t get how you expect people to take you seriously if you behave like this.

Obtena.7952:

flow.6043:

(I know, I know, in your “math” it’s lower because you’ve included the condi ramp up time for that average value. But guess what: you’re cherry picking your time frame.)

As you would with casting time or execution times with direct damage as well if you were calculating DPS properly …

Honestly, read what you said. You’re accusing him of including ramp up time for damage in an AVERAGE DPS MEASUREMENT!! Be careful if you’re going to argue pedantic points with people to try to knock holes in their arguments if what you say is not correct either.

You’ve misunderstood. I’m pointing out that he accuses other people of cherry picking or using “math-in-a-void” when he is doing exactly that. He thinks he’s seeing some bigger picture that others are too narrow mined to grasp, but all he does is apply a different frame of reference.
As for the 20k dps engi or other alleged fake dps values: obviously those don’t factor in ramp up or pre buffing times, no one was ever thinking that 20k dps means you do 20k dps from start to finish of a fight.
So when Nemesis thinks others are hypocrites for not extending their time frame to better represent the actual average values, it’s rather hypocritical of himself to exclude stuff like burst rotations against targets with lower hp. (=cherry picking)

At first I was wondering why Nemesis’ vids are getting deleted from the forum all the time, then I saw the videos. There’s no content, just trash talking other people, in part 2 anyway. Edit: now I’ve seen part 3 as well, it’s just as bad as part 2.

Nemesis.8593:

Video after video with proof

You mean like the one part where you claim that the engi’ dps peaks at 9k, while you can clearly see on screen that his burning alone is exceeding 10k or even 11k for a short moment?
(I know, I know, in your “math” it’s lower because you’ve included the condi ramp up time for that average value. But guess what: you’re cherry picking your time frame.)

And then you say stuff like: …in order to get even close to 20k dps (…) you’d have to start with 20k burns on top of 6k bleeds.
…what?

Flumek.9043:

flow.6043:

Flumek.9043:

pierwola.9602:

I lost control over my own Sigils. Great.

And you will regain control over a greater power in an hour. Bummer.

What greater power?
I have to change my sigils now because, like pierwola said, I lost control over my sigil cooldowns. And any replacement for one of my sigils will definitely make me weaker overall even if I occasionally get to proc the others more often.
Absolutely terrible change.

Flow,
can you clear me up on what exactly do you lose?

Pvp related you gain so much more potential and combos that its a no brainer.
AI fighter mode im no expert, but the only thing youd lose is fury flashing control when in ranged. If its on the no offhand no mainhand build then a step away is the right direction.

You lose control over your proc timing if you use two of the same sigil on both weapon sets.

Flumek.9043:

pierwola.9602:

I lost control over my own Sigils. Great.

And you will regain control over a greater power in an hour. Bummer.

What greater power?
I have to change my sigils now because, like pierwola said, I lost control over my sigil cooldowns. And any replacement for one of my sigils will definitely make me weaker overall even if I occasionally get to proc the others more often.
Absolutely terrible change.

Booo!
-_-

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

I would balance Reaper by bringing the other elite specs up to its level. Reaper is the benchmark of how an elite spec should be done. Period.

Elite specializations shouldn’t be an upgrade to regular specs, but an alternative. If they were really that much better you’d basically limit any kind of build diversity to “elite + 2 others”.
That being said, Reaper isn’t op.
Death Shroud could use a buff though, because as it stands RS is clearly better than DS.

MeveM.7913:

Why should I try his channel?

spoj.9672:

The people that would know are him and his loyal fans. Which you can find on his channel, not here.

Silverkey.2078:

The last news I got was from Brazil …

MeveM.7913:

Seems like you’re wrong Spoj, what a surprise.
…
It’s really funny to see how people that dislike someone jump on a bandwagon.

Oh, the irony.

Bhawb.7408:

So the new camera and targeting system is really cool. However, I noticed a really big problem when he was showing it off on the Necro, and that is a massive lack of counterplay. This has been an issue for a long time, but with the removal of yet another small venue of counterplay (having to aim them), marks are now literally just press a button and they hit almost guaranteed.
…

That new camera mode doesn’t actually change our mark mechanic, in fact I think this way the staff would be a lot more difficult use.

However, I do support your notion.
I’ve made this suggestion several times myself, and unlike you I actually like the staff.

And not only do I think we need red indicator circles while casting, but I’d also like to have more distinguishable icons on the floor after they are placed. Anet clearly made an effort to have them look different (like smoke coming off Reaper’s Mark) but in the heat of battle they are all just green dots. What I’d like to have instead are icons that are different in shape and stretch across the whole mark.

It’s not like there aren’t a ton of bifrost necros running around out there, so esthetically conforming to some green/death/skull/..whatever theme is hardly a requirement for most players.
Personally, I was never a fan of most of our current legendaries, but those three new ones actually look really sexy. Not sure if I want to use any of them on my necro, but they are certainly something to grind some gold for.

Bhawb.7408:

Not having high crit isn’t “niche”, nor is MM niche in any sense.

Debatable.

Bhawb.7408:

Blood vs Leeching requires you to be able to proc Blood on CD for it to be as effective as Leeching on CD
…
even if I screw up my on-swap rotation, I still have weapon swap. Go into shroud (proc), leave after 5s (no proc), wait 5s then swap weapons. I have lost nothing compared to just using normal swaps, in fact I’ve gained flexibility in how I decide to swap, since now I’m capable of proccing sigils and staying on the same weapon set after RS.

Like I said, cutting your swap intervals down to 5 sec instead of 10 sec is wishful thinking. You can’t pick your in/out Shroud times beforehand, the fight will dictate when and for how long you have to be in Shroud. Therefore you will never surpass the net damage of Blood with Leeching even on a build with low crit chance.
The only class where you could argue that it would be about the same is engi because they don’t have any cooldown on “weapon” swapping at all. But in case of necro, overlapping two 10 sec cd cycles creates nothing but chaos, it turns skillful play into yet another passive proc. And trying to make that seem good because it allows some builds to heal their minions more often is ridiculous.

Bhawb.7408:

flow.6043:

Isn’t your MM build using leeching and renewal, which wouldn’t heal through Shroud anyway?

That’s one of the builds yeah, but not the only one I bring swap sigils on that doesn’t want crit sigils, and yes it wouldn’t heal. But I don’t really care if it doesn’t heal me, Leeching is taken for damage and renewal is to heal the minions. I aim to proc them basically on CD, so RS can be used to overcome an awkward weapon situation

Well, I was mostly making a point about swap vs crit in general, so you must understand that a niche build like your minion reaper has rather little weight in the matter. Also, you could just pick Decimate Defenses and take come crit sigils instead.

Bhawb.7408:

or I go into RS and time myself so I stay in for around 9-10 seconds and then can proc my swap on exit too, which would affect me.

Even if you were actually able to time yourself with that accuracy in the heat of any battle, in a fight against another player you will never have a fixed Shroud schedule, like in and out every 10 seconds. The situation and your opponents dictate the time you enter and leave, and that will definitely never sync up with your 9-10 sec sigil proc rhythm.

Isn’t your MM build using leeching and renewal, which wouldn’t heal through Shroud anyway?

Muchacho.2390:

The icd conflicts you talk about are not as bad as you make them be. Eles, engies and fast hand warriors deal with those just fine.

Yes, they are that bad, and they are among the reasons why I don’t use swap sigils on those classes.

spoj.9672:

I think its a rather split opinion. I was always against shroud procing swaps. Then when i tried it i actually liked it. But i know subli from my guild still doesnt like it. I can live with either way. But i do think DS and RS need to work consistently.

I agree, there needs to be consistency.
So if I had to choose between both Shrouds consistently producing icd conflicts or not, then that’s a total no-brainer: no weapon swap on Shroud, please and thank you.

Bhawb.7408:

Proccing weapon swaps on RS was the best thing ever. It makes things flow far better, otherwise using Shroud completely interferes with your ICDs in the opposite way, you don’t have the chance to proc them nearly enough.

If you want higher uptime on sigil procs you should pick a crit sigil. Almost every swap sigil has a crit counterpart and vice versa. So the only reason you should want to pick a swap sigil is because you’d rather sacrifice uptime for being able to reliably choose a specific time to trigger them: on swap. Controlled timing > passive proc. Conflicting icds would defeat that purpose entirely.
So in regards to swapping to RS being “the best thing ever”, no, it’s not.
It doesn’t flow (heh…) better at all, quite the contrary. For someone who uses swap sigils for the specific purpose of having them trigger on weapon swap, and weapon swap only, changing Shroud to proc them as well would be the worst thing to ever happen to my build. Think I’m exaggerating? Nope, that would litterally be the biggest nerf to my build since game release and I would probably stop playing it.

Muchacho.2390:

Yeah DS should be like RS in that regard. I want my on swap sigil working when i enter or leave DS.

Please no, that just creates icd conflicts. And RS should be changed to not trigger weapon swap sigils either.

swagolas.9732:

what do u think about AoE torment on crit is viable in sigil?

If possible I try to avoid rng which is why I use swap sigils in this build.
Should you prefer a ranged option instead I’d recommend a Sigil of Fire.
Sigil of Torment is functionally the same and with hybrid stats they both do about the same damage. The difference comes down to dealing all damage up front vs a cover condition. Tie breaker: Fire is a lot cheaper.

swagolas.9732:

or do u have any wvw gameplay?

Not at this time.

*your
*then

hackks.3687:

For those keeping score at home: 5sec of Might on crit =/= 17.5s of might on skill activation, or 2 Might for 12 sec. every 1 sec for cleaving targets below 50% HP

You can drop the Warrior nonsense. It is not comparable.

If you want to prove it;s not bugged then you need to find another class capable of doing the very same thing for similar Might durations at a similar resource cost.

1. You still don’t know what a bug is.
Reaper’s Might is definitely not bugged, the word you were thinking of this entire time is “overpowered”. (which it isn’t)

2. For the sake of the argument I will ignore that you’ve been giving the necro some extra might duration (it’s 15 sec for RM and 10 sec for Siphoned Power), but not the warrior.
But that doesn’t matter, we might as well assume that the necro gets 20 sec of might for each trait…
What you’ve completely failed to factor in is that warriors can use every greatsword skill, plus burst skill, to crit proc might. And when you combine all those skills in a regular rotation you have a much higher hit frequency than the necro’s Shroud 1 skill. So naturally the might duration is much lower, a single 100b (cast time 3.5 sec) can almost max out your might stacks on its own if you hit 3 targets. And by “can” I mean this is an entirely reasonable scenario if you play with dps stats.

3. So yes, it’s comparable and necro loses easily, even more so when you factor in Phalanx Strength as group support.

hackks.3687:

out of balance. Period. Simple as that.

hackks.3687:

ICD … bring it in line with the rest

hackks.3687:

It’s extremely strong, and out of balance

hackks.3687:

LOL I didn’t ask for a nerf

wat xD

hackks.3687:

Bugged or Intended?

hackks.3687:

I asked if it was bugged or performing as intended.

hackks.3687:

Just report bugs, the game is better for it.

hackks.3687:

Name 1 other skill that functions like this and I’ll accept it as feature and not a bug

Bug… you keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

hackks.3687:

Finally!!! Someone provides a clear explanation with their example.

If I’d have known about the warrior GS traits, I wouldn’t have had to post.

People, learn from this.

I will now accept it as balanced

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

You could have always, I dunno, looked it up? We do have a wiki available.

… hackks discovers the wonderful realm of Wikipedia:

hackks.3687:

I take it back. This is not accurate at all.

I always no better than to take someone’s word for something without actual proof. Nice try though.

Someone else’s word? You mean like asking people on the forum to approve of your nerf cries although you didn’t spend a single minute on researching the issue by yourself?

hackks.3687:

What do you think the point of having these forums is?

Why do you think the title is phrased as a question?

k.

Suddenly hackks, who apparently didn’t know a single warrior trait, becomes an expert on warrior meta builds:

hackks.3687:

Warrior GS has not been meta since they changed how Haste works.

hackks.3687:

Phalanx Warrior is only ‘meta’ in PvE. PvP has no meta GS Warrior build.

Aktium.9506:

GS/Ham Warr was meta for a long time and was used in the last WTS.

hackks.3687:

Perhaps you should look up the definition of “meta”.

Aktium.9506:

I am well aware of the textbook definition of meta.

hackks.3687:

what don’t you understand about the term “meta”. seriously. look it up. you don’t even make sense.

I can’t stop laughing. Great thread.

hackks.3687:

Show us where this efficient might stacking is mirrored in other classes with only using a single or pair of traits and nothing else.

Please elaborate on how camping Shroud and doing nothing but 111111111 for 20 sec while draining all your life force is efficient.

Also, Forceful Greatsword.

Besides, lots of other classes stack might with fire fields, which is not only more effective than Reaper’s Might but it doesn’t require any trait investment at all. And it certainly doesn’t require them to spam auto attacks or spend some resource like life force, instead they can use a regular skill rotation which happens to have some blast finishers. Bonus feature: fire field blasts affect allies as well, so does Forceful Greatsword when combined with Phalanx Strength.

ronpierce.2760:

I disagree. It’s 95%. VP still needs to be baselined for diversity reasons, and Chilling Darkness needs to be merged into Shivers of dread. Thennn it’ll be perfect. <3

By VP I assume you just mean the 2% degeneration? I’d only consider baselining it if they removed the dmg reduction bug.
As for Chilling Darkness + Shivers of Dread, don’t you think a minor trait that inflicts chill on both fear and blindness would be too strong? I could maybe see it as a major trait, for example if it switched places with Deathly Chills.

I absolutely agree.
This has been suggested a few times on the forums already, including once by myself.

Of course this matters less for allies since you can see a necro’s lf in the party UI anyway, but I really think enemies should have access to the same information. Not only would they get more of a feedback on how and when necros generate life force in combat, but it’s also a good tell on whether or not to enge a necro at all.

Also, there’s a different side to this coin here. Another popular community request is to have our life force reset to a certain amount when out of combat. This way you’d always know a necro has, let’s say 30% at the start of any fight. Still I’d like to see an opposing necro’s lf bar in addition to that.

Kristine Heath.1483:

inb4 people tell me to l2p and the game doesnt need QOL changes

^

I’m actually surprised how often we see this suggestion on the necro forum.

Robert Gee.9246:

One of the reasons we are more conservative about axe when it comes to balance is because axe uses a unique attack action in our game that cannot be avoided using positioning.
…

What do you mean when you say positioning?
The only time when positioning matters is when a player has the option to obstruct their opponent’s line of sight. But Rending Claws doesn’t ignore that.

The only other upside to a non-projectile ranged attack is that it can’t be countered by the likes of projectile reflects. But like many others have pointed out already, the mesmer greatsword is the same and has even higher range while dealing way more damage than our axe. And our scepter has always had 900 range with a better auto attack than Rending Claws. Now the scepter got some buffs on top of that, which are much better than just +10% direct dmg.

And let’s be honest, would anyone be impressed or amazed if the patch notes said +100% damage instead of 10%?

My initial thought was that they reduced the cd of Unholy Feast to make Unholy Fervor sync up the cd of Spiteful Spirit with the cd of Shroud. Guess not…

Love the changes to CPC and scepter.

Axe range is good.
Unholy Feast cd reduction is a nice surprise. I actually made this suggestion once so Unholy Fervor would eliminate the cd conflict of Spiteful Spirit with Shroud.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Rending Claws: … Increased damage by 10%.

OP, too strong, pls nerf.
I guess this is just supposed to be a small band-aid until this skill gets a serious rework?