Guild Wars 2

Moddo.7105:

Can anyone explain why Natural Vigor is 5 pt talent and Adrenal Implant is a 30pt?

Text seems same but maybe I am just not getting it

Natural Vigor : Increases endurance regeneration by 50%.
Adrenal Implant : 50% faster endurance regeneration.

Even though wording is kinda different isn’t it same thing or am I missing something?

Maybe it’s different in PvE but in PvP: Vigor provides 100% increased endurance regeneration. Which would seem to make it superior to Adrenal Implant except that the Engi only has access to Vigor via luck o the RNG on Elixir H toolbelt skill or the Invigorating Speed trait. The obvious synergy of Speedy Kits and Invigorating speed gives a nice 5(+) seconds of vigor on demand. However, Adrenal Implant offers a constant 50% increase to endurance regeneration which can offer a decent dmg increase through the 25pt minor trait Enduring Damage (10% dmg when endurance is full). Ultimately its just two different ways for doing the same thing.

Different strokes for different folks, ya dig?

RaynStargaze.6510:

hackks.3687:

Don’t feed the trolls please.

If you scroll up and look at RaynStargze’s first post you’ll notice he’s complaining about HGH not being triggered by super elixir or med kit “elixirs” – skills that are not actually labeled as “elixir” skills.

So either he has no clue what he’s talking about (which is possible) or he’s just trolling (more than likely).

Uhh i just read that.

If you scroll up even further you`d also notice that i`m actually one of the 3 guys who respond to the question the creator of this thread asked – unlike the wall of pointless olololol HgH sooo guuud posts that follow later on. <3

scroll up to where? yours was the first response.

RaynStargaze.6510:

no idea about the health percentage but it does not get triggered from neither super elixir nor any “kind of elixirs” provided by the med kit

HgH build is terrible imo in general

cheers

you call that responding to the OP? saying “no idea…”, which means you don’t have the answer, and then offering an opinion without reasoning or presenting facts.

you can’t possibly think that EG should benefit from not just it’s own distinct traits, but also elixir traits and kit traits. And anyone who’s been playing this game for more than a week knows not to trust the tool tips.

it’s not even a good troll. I give it a 3/10

From one Engi/Necro to another, I thought I’d share this.

This is the build I run on my necro for tPvP as a roaming bunker buster and point assaulter.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-3c;0kHVB0G4gJVJ0;9;4JJ9-J45-58-1;329-S-k8S;1AgV3HoF21ZK

Generates a ton of might, tons of direct and condition dmg, lots of life force, and Spectral Walk gives a good deal of mobility. Some might say you need to run res signet but you lose too much IMO by giving up spectral walk for it and will force your team to baby sit you which isn’t always ideal. If you need to res someone just use fear mark and DS fear (works while channeling revive with no interrupt).

Clear a point with Staff 2 > 3 > Well of Suffering > Putrid Mark > Staff 2 again > Staff 5 (terror dmg will tick for 1k+ of unmitigated dmg)

Focus down targets with DS 2 > 3 (DS 1 will fire at same time) > pop out of DS > Dagger 3 > Focus 4 > Dagger 1 spam

use Spectral Walk and Staff 3 to aid in kiting and opening gaps. Don’t be afraid to use the Spectral Recall, it can really throw them out of position. Abuse DS 1 Spam for uber might stacking.

obviously you should be thoughtful with your timing of skill usage but that’s basically the gist of it. The main strength of the build is that it isn’t limited to a single play style (i.e. power or condi, ranged or melee) and can’t be easily countered by a condi clear or blocking. And aside from the Spite tree, Greater Marks, and Soul Reaping X the remainder of the traits are changeable based on what you want to favor more in the build (shorter CD on BiP, spectral attunement for longer Spectral Walk, etc). There’s virtually no class/build you can’t win a 1v1 against so long as you have LF and your presence in team fights can be significant.

anyways, good luck!

stopped reading at “…leave-worthy for me”

we don’t need players of your ilk mr. leaver

be gone!

oh yeah, forgot to mention using Sigil of Battle will help pump up your might stacks as well. You’ll see that it quickly outpaces the 5% dmg from Sigil of Force.

just a quick note, Vigor does not stack with Adrenal Implant. I’d suggest taking 10 out of tools and throwing into Firearms for Hair Trigger for shorter CDs on rifle. You don’t really need both and personally I prefer Invigorating Speed (100% endurance regen for 5sec on swiftness) to Adrenal Implant (50% static endurance regen) as the 50% isn’t quite fast enough to make it worth it for me.

Also, if you’re running HGH you might be interested to try running with 2x Rune of Fire, 2x Rune of Strength, 2x Rune of Hoelbrak to make your HGH might stacks hang around (a lot) longer – this will become your new primary source of dmg and is a staple of HGH builds.

fighting against thieves and mesmers is like an entirely different game. any other class is pretty straight forward: you watch animations, position, count dodges and major CDs, and react accordingly. Mesmers and Thieves though turn this entirely on its head though for their own distinct reasons. Regarding the thief, you have to ‘predict’ in addition to react, and their leaps/ports can throw positioning out the window. Unless you’re a full bunker kitten there can be little to no room for errors depending on the skill of the thief. My biggest issue with mesmers though is not the stealth, it’s the virtual “attack with impunity” of shatter mesmers with their incessant chain of CC and burst from behind invul while all being on relatively low CDs.

Winning these fights is certainly doable, but unless you’re playing as either of these classes you definitely have to elevate your game to do so.

sigh… don’t just go blowing CD’s on a stealthed target. That’s just a straight up bad idea. Fact is unless you’re Nostradamus you can’t predict where he’s going or what he’s doing- unless he’s completely terrible. The best you can do is glean some insight into his objective which will allow you to make some initial positioning decisions. If you’re a D/D Ele you’re Auras can give you a decisive response against Thieves. Standing still waiting for them to open is also not advisable.

The only time you drop skills on a stealthed target is a.) when you see the shadow refuge right in front of you – because he’s obviously still standing right there, or b.) because you immobilized him before he entered stealth (this stands for Engi’s and Rangers using the appropriate traits as well) and you know you still have a second or two before the immob wears off.

Re OP: People flock to Thief and Mesmer because they’re not terribly difficult to play, while being extremely difficult for the uninitiated to play against. Meaning it’s a short road to positive results. It by no means makes them an instant pro, but a well played mesmer or thief at higher levels can be equally unforgiving against some classes/builds as you really can’t afford to make mistakes against these two classes when they’re played well.

tournament que finally popped

SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

yer gonna get it nerfed…..

If you’re a necro with a staff you don’t ever have to be hit by a warrior so long as you see him coming – and with Minions I would think it gets even easier with the added cripples and blinds. Every Warrior animation is obvious and extremely telling once you get used to recognizing them. As long as you don’t waste dodges or chills/cripples he won’t ever get to you.

To be clear: an HB warrior will always lead with what looks like a sword throw to cripple you (and immboilize if traited for it) – this typically results in you using a dodge, which is what he wants (good warriors are counting your dodges and after 2 they will know you are easy prey). He’ll then use one of his leaps to try and close the distance and hopefully catch you, but they’ll be happy so long as they get you to use another dodge (your last if you dodged the first attack). At this point the long immob or stun is coming followed by the Hundred Blades, and if he’s good he’ll save the Whirlwind attack for after HB incase you manage to get away or survive the HB. If that fails to kill you they’ll switch to their other weapon set. At this point, if he’s holding a shield then he has another leap and a stun, and other CC – this is why you can’t afford to waste dodges. If he’s holding a rifle (becoming sorta popular it seems lately) the be prepared to avoid the Kill Shot. A good PvPer will know when his opponent is out of defensive options and will be patient enough to patiently, methodically, creat that opportunity.

So what’s the appropriate response to this? Never under any circumstance do you want to let him get or stay within melee range of you. Kite and keep him at range and the fight is yours. Standing in with him will only get you killed. Strafing is a good way to dodge their ranged attacks/CC, save your dodges for when you absolutely can’t avoid the attack any other way, and save your fears for when you kitten up and he gets within melee range. Flesh Golem KD can be a life saver in a pinch as well.

Get the hang of that and a warrior will never bother you again. That being said though, a good Warrior won’t ever let you see him coming before it’s too late.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

I honestly don’t see solo queues as being the answer. The real issue to me, since these most recent changes to the queue scheme, seems to be the obscuring of competitive and casual games and thus the intermingling of competitive and casual players. Paids were initially an answer to this because not only did it require a team in order to queue, but the rewards were structured appropriately as well – providing a natural boundary between competitive and casual games. Currently there is almost zero difference in rewards between the 2-team single match queue and 8-team tournament queue – hence why no one is queuing for 8-team tournaments (well that and the new map holds some additional appeal by merely being new content). If they’d simply restructure the rewards to offer the greater rewards for tournaments than the 2-team matches and keep the full-team queuing requirement (not all barriers to entry are bad for a “team game”) we’ll see the casual and competitive player bases diversified again, and thusly less premades stomping pugs.

As well, ANet can change the queuing scheme all they like but it won’t make any difference until a visible ladder is made available. The biggest thing missing to me since these most recent changes is the utter lack of satisfaction from winning a match. Unlike the paid queues, I have no idea how invested the other team is, if at all, nor where the matches rate competitively. Have I moved up the rankings? Have I moved down? I have no idea, and thus I hardly care if I win or lose, and ultimately it’s becoming painfully boring with a distinct care-bear feel.

ANet: please, find a way to make tournaments relevant again. please, find better incentives for competitive play. and please, for the love of god, find a way to rotate the maps for single matches – the new map is cool and all but variety is king.

I have a feeling the rabid amulet is making the difference. Rampagers is decidedly lacking in dedication to either power or condi dmg so the might stacks are a must to bring the dmg output of either up to snuff, where as the Rabid obviously provides great condi dmg at all times that can only get better with might stacks. I don’t really feel like Rabid is sharing much synergy with ‘nades though due to nade’s direct dmg attribute – for instance, vuln stacking does nothing for condi dmg, and without the might stacking the direct dmg won’t be enough with just vuln stacking alone. It’s just not optimizing the 2nd weapon IMO.

I’ll admit I probably need to familiarize myself more with the build, and timings, and optimal combat decisions from one situation to the next (even though I’ve had a ton of success with it), but I still find even the aoe to be somewhat unimpressive, and over all it feels like just another condi build. To use the necro as an example again, if I drop my staff 2 > 3 > Well of Corruption > Staff 4 > Staff 5 (with Terror traited) = anything that was standing inside is down – bunkers included. I can drop whole teams at the same time with it and I haven’t even switched weapons or jumped into DS or even come close to maxing out my might stacks. When I think of tpvp viable aoe burst, this is what I’ve set my bar at (notably to live up to Mesmer and Ele aoe bursts), and while I want this build to do that, I can’t seem to make it happen.

Or Maybe I just suck at aiming my nades

Ayestes.1273:

• You don’t need the HGH stacks to do damage. You do just fine damage without it. They are merely a bonus.
• Group utility is fine. You have AoE Blinds and Downed State Security. Not to mention most of the damage is AoE, and since it’s extremely high damage to begin with it’s very effective. It’s a Team Fighter and Anti-Bunker build.
• Burst doesn’t really remove anyone that fast from play anymore unless you find someone without cooldowns or doesn’t know what they are doing. It takes time to wear away their cooldowns so the burst can land, and Condi-Burst kills them just as fast in those cases if not faster.
• Might stacking comes naturally from doing battle just fine. B before a fight, auto-B at 75%, H to obviously heal, S to mitigate damage, thrown B/H to condi-remove or while using line of sight, or thrown S to secure a stomp. Again though, the Might stacking is just a bonus.
• For such a high damage build the Blinds and Elixir S utility is plenty of defense. Supply Crate is only icing on top of that.

Necros are comparable certainly. There are advantages and disadvantages to it all. Terror burst is less damage then an Engineer’s condi burst though. Epidemic is a huge advantage to the Necro. Death Shroud is a damage soak while Elixir S and Blinds is damage avoidance. Necro condi-dmg is also much more vulnerable to condi-removal, since it’s all based on the Bleed. If you want my opinion on what is flat out better though, I’d pick the Engi. Honestly though… why not both? Terror and Epidemic on top of Condi-Burst is flat out annihilation.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t really agree with much of any of this. Obviously the build is strong against bunkers and in team fights, but that’s just condi dmg, and not due to anything special this build is doing. Hence why I mentioned that my necro does this with more ease and greater efficiency, while offering more utility to the group.

I also think you’re understating the reliance on the might stacking for optimal dmg output – especially using Rampagers amulet. Without at least 15 stacks of might this build’s dmg output is average at best. Which is OK though since that’s about where you’ll stay through the course of the fight while simply using your elixirs practically and when called for. Maintaining more than 20+ stacks of might though requires impractically using elixirs to reach peak dmg output. Using them impractically though is both a waste of time and a waste of a CD.

The group utility is lackluster unless you swap out Supply Crate for Elixir X. At least then you have tornado to help neut/control points or Rampager for chain CC with brutal direct dmg. Not to mention Rampage is sooo much fun lol

Blinds aren;t really anything to write home about but I won’t even go into that. Elixir S is obviously great but being the only defensive skill means anyone on the other team that’s paying attention knows to focus you once Elixir S wears off. It’s not a death sentence per se, but it’s definitely not as strong as having the tool kit to fall back on once S wears off.

I don’t mean to poo poo the build but I’ve been trying out new builds with my engi and while this build is fun it’s just not living up to my expectations of what a “viable tpvp build” is. 100nades is devastating. This build feels like more of an annoyance.

edit: I want to make this work though! it is a fun build! and pistols look way cooler than rifles :P

I seem to be missing something that others aren’t. I’ve played this build multiple times, and dusted it off again recently when people started talking about how awesome it was. While the build is fun to play it seems incredibly one dimensional with some glaring weak spots:

• one boon wipe and you’re back to mediocre dmg
• lack of any real group utility
• condis don’t remove opposition from field of play as fast as burst
• the might stacking doesn’t come through actual attacks meaning you have to stop fighting back in order to use the elixirs to maintain the might stacks
• lack of CC and defensive capabilities

All in all I just think my necro does this job waaaayyyy better and far more easily. Might stacks come faster and through actual attacks without sacrificing group utility and survivability, while also generally having better condi dmg thru faster stacking (both might stacking and condi stacks) with longer durations. Where as with my Engi I basically just sit back apply sustained dmg and not much of anything else while my group does the bulk of the actual work.

So am I wrong about this? Am I missing something?

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

The difference is the frequency of the burst. Plus you get damage for swapping kits lol. What if 100 blades just did damage when I pulled out my gs, and didn’t need frenzy buff to land it all?

That is the difference.
Tell me oh I need to be on top of them to land it, 100 blades is melee range, backstab is melee range.

frequency of burst? you mean like the HB’s 8sec CD compared to 100nade’s 20+ sec CD?

Dmg from swapping kits? What class can’t grab a rune to do that? Ele’s can trait for dmg on attunement swap. What other class has to give up a utility slot just to have another weapon?

Are you really telling us that standing within 450 range of your target is comparable to landing a skill inside the character model? Which is effectively 0 range? Or that HB being able to hit up to 3 targets at a time with max dmg is comparable to only hitting one for max dmg with 100nades?

If 100nades is OP then Hundred Blades is just as OP. Claiming otherwise is just blatant double standard.

6 months after release and ANet is rolling back and removing features from PvP at a time when new and more features were not only expected but reasonably considered as long overdue. This is a “step in the right direction”?

They’ve mashed everyone, competitive and casual, into the same queues, with only an invisible MMR to distinguish between them, and removed the only queue that was dedicated to competitive game play, and this was a “step in the right direction”?

so which direction would this be because to me it seems to be painfully obvious that these were steps backwards.

type /sit to fit the glitch

been seeing this bug for months

Dude this game is still in Beta. They haven’t finished sorting out the queue formats, the ladder and progression, let alone the rewards. Custom servers are a nice feature to add to a game that’s already fully fleshed out and thriving – i.e not a tiny facet of a game that is still no where near completion and is still leaking players like a busted water main.

Let them finish making PvP playable and enjoyable to more than just us masochists still hanging around (ANet owes us a big ‘Thank You’ IMO for helping them finish their game) and then Custom Arenas will make sense.

CHIPS.6018:

Bas.7406:

hackks.3687:

That being said, Necro’s, if a thief fails to kill you in the first go, then you HAVE TO anticipate the stolen fear. Always keep something in reserve to mitigate that situation.

That’s all that needs to be said!

I agree that the fear is ridiculous, though the 1.5 second cast time is pretty funny since it can be interrupted. I don’t believe they can cast it in fear, but if they pop quickness to hit it than ugh.

Yes it can be interrupted. But thanks to stealth none of the single target interrupts would work. So you would need to rely on AoE intercepts with long cooldown. You also don’t know when he would use Skull Fear. That thief I fought didn’t use Skull Fear right away after he stealth. This was proven by the fact that one time my Fear mark actually hitted him (or some other stealthed thief not sure). But 10 or 15 seconds later he comes near me and used Skull Fear (e.g. My Fear Mark hit him but failed to interrupt his Skull Fear). Maybe he was recharging Initiative for the kill not sure. Either way it is an educated guessing game with lots of luck (not skills) involved.

I mentioned DS3 before. Keep in mind though that DS3 only works by interrupting his damage combo (e.g. those 3 Heartseekers). It won’t work on interrupting Skull Fear itself because he was stealthed.

it’s true, if he fears from stealth you’re going to have to eat it, but you should have DS saved up to help you out there. you also should be moving as much as possible to make it harder for him to land the full fear duration by being right on top of you. Like I mentioned above you have to anticipate that the thief will reset the fight and lead with the skull fear after missing on the opening attempt. There’s no getting around it. You have to save something for it. Also, you do not want to waste a fear mark on a stealthed enemy it serves no purpose and provides no benefit except to limit your options.

Kyskythyn.6471:

If you’re getting killed by 3 hits with 12k health then the thief is hitting you for 4k a HS, no? In that case either:

1. You have close to base toughness, in which case you don’t have much right to complain about getting hit hard.

2. The thief is completely glass cannon spec, giving up all survivability for that burst. If his little combo fails, he’s dead meat.

Not every build is meant to be able to counter every possible situation. If you’re damage spec, you can’t complain about not being able to tank. If you’re tank spec, you can’t complain about not being able to damage.

this is wrong on all counts.

1. if the necro is at 12k health he’s either at or below the 50% HP mark depending on the build, meaning the HS’s are now gaining the dmg boost. Even bunkers get hit hard by that dmg.

2. a glass cannon thief does not “give up all survivability”. He never loses his ability to stealth and disengage, and has evades built into a number of attacks. No class can disengage and reset a fight the way a thief can, and defensive CDs take far longer than it takes the thief to regain initiative for a 2nd run at a burst.

Combined with a free 3sec fear, an auto-aiming, low cost, no skill, spammable attack that only hits harder the more times it lands is insanely effective.

That being said, Necro’s, if a thief fails to kill you in the first go, then you HAVE TO anticipate the stolen fear. Always keep something in reserve to mitigate that situation.

my guess is it’s part and parcel to the growing pains of the matchmaking system combined with generally low PvP population, and the populations recent re-focused attention on paid matches.

meaning, that was probably the best the matchmaking system could do for you at that time.

the incredibly long que times as well seem to yield us more imbalanced matches as well. I’d like to see ANet change the que mechanics by dropping players from the roster after logging out, since the absentees are obviously not in game (otherwise they’d be in the match, even in afk) though they haven’t been removed from the roster (or just didn’t know to remove themselves before leaving the game). Removing players from the que upon log out would also prevent teams from changing characters mid match to accommodate for their poor first-choice comp.

If you care about winning/losing matches then, yes, go to tournaments instead of hot joins.

Can someone explain to me what the big debate is about? I didn’t watch the stream since I’ve come to expect them as just another rehashing of stuff we already knew or heard plenty of times already.

From what I gathered from the “low down” thread was that the bracketed matchmaking system will offer the best of both worlds in a single que, meaning no further segregation of the community (which is a great thing IMO) but matching like comparable queuers together. From what I can tell the bulk of the arguments regarding the “no paid solo que” seem predicated on future features that either don’t exist yet or haven’t even been fully revealed or expressed by ANet yet.

What I mean is that, this all seems very much like trying to put a 1000 piece puzzle together without a picture to guide you. ANet hasn’t given us the big picture yet for PvP (they likely don’t fully know it themselves yet) so how can anyone meaningfully debate the pro’s and con’s of one facet of something greater without knowing what the ‘greater’ is?

Can someone sell me a clue please? (and cheap, I ain’t no rich man!)

Maybe it’s just me and my time spent playing a Necro, but the grenades seem just fine to me and comparably useful to the way a Necro’s staff marks are – staff marks being useless when trying to lay them at a moving target’s feet, you’ll always miss, but if used intelligently while anticipating an opponent’s route/objective allows you to punish/deny them for their choices. Learning to anticipate an opponents movements by gauging their objective (i.e. kill you/take node/escape/etc.) is the key to being successful with all GW2s ground targeted AOE skills. Grenade 1 is also >>>>>> Necro staff 1.

I can’t help but think that if Grenade 1 tracked targets it would end up similar to a other projectile weapons that are easily countered by simply strafing side to side – something that ground targeting can compensate for. Ultimately I would see it as a nerf to grenades in PvP.

personally I think Sigil of Battle >>> Sigil of Strength for any engi using a kit and stacking might. 3x might for 20sec every 9 sec (and works swapping either way – weapon to kit, and kit to weapon) is far better than praying to the RNG gods for 1x Might for 10 sec. So you should probably see better results from Sigil of Battle anyways.

on crit proc sigils share CDs. if you proc’d a flame blast both sigils will be on CD. If you want to keep the Sigil of Fire then I’d suggest using Sigil of Battle for additional might stacking.

Powerr.3649:

hackks.3687:

ummm… if you’re just trying out a new char for the first time, or are just picking up an unplayed character again after leaving them on the shelf for a while, should your first thought be “Let’s see what this char does in a ranked match” ?

well, don’t be so quick to shut him out. I’ll give you a personal example.

While we have not seen the leaderboards, I can assume that my team is most likely either at the top of the list in NA or at least in some middle portion of the top players in the region as we experience 10-15 minue queues between games and only seem to face a small handful of teams. The current implemented MMR prevents us from queuing in free tournaments entirely because it pulls its players from the same buckets as paids. This makes free’s literally take 2 hours to even have the bucket drop us into the free tournament queue (waiting 2/8, etc) We can no longer try comps and strats without risking our rating because we only play this small handful of teams. Hope this makes sense.

I don’t see this as being the same as what OP is concerned with, but it does reflect my own concerns of what MMR might bring. An already small population might not be able to afford further segmentation.

ummm… if you’re just trying out a new char for the first time, or are just picking up an unplayed character again after leaving them on the shelf for a while, should your first thought be “Let’s see what this char does in a ranked match” ?

while they’re at it it would be nice to have a skill chain added to #1, #2 made to cleave, and #3 augmented to be a blast finisher.

voila, axe is a viable weapon

God forbid people add color and creativity to the ideas they’d like to share. We sure don’t want people having fun when they play their video games let alone when they talk about them…

Video games iz siriuz Bidnezz!!!!

btw Darth ‘Nader wins best build name IMO even though I don’t see what Darth has to do with it at all…

p.s. I’ve decided I’m going to make my own build and give it a name. maybe I’ll call it “Meatball Surprise”… spine tingling, right? Stay tuned folks!

Sadistis.4257:

i use a necro in sPvP and tPvP it’s very good if you know how to play it

fo’ sho’

but haters gonna hate…

Necro is still widely regarded as a welcome addition to tPvP groups.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

My main complaint with Spiteful Vigor is that it only works with one of our heals. It does not work with Blood Fiend/Taste of Death nor Well of Blood. While Consume Conditions is the best PvP heal anyway, I still feel really annoyed that we have a trait that only works with a single skill.

combo well of blood’s light field for aoe retaliation. no traits necessary.

Minion heal is just not worth discussing…

So with that in mind, the only heal that actually needs to benefit from Spiteful Vigor is Consume Conditions. Though unless you are bunkering there’s not much need for it since DS is our main burst absorb skill, it just makes more sense to use Spiteful Spirit – soak up the burst and give some of it right back.

Edenwolf.6328:

It would be appreciated for someone to post a screenshot of their cof set from pvp with perhaps a different colour.

sure it would. except 99% of PvPers haven’t reached rank 50 yet….

Skyro.3108:

@hackks

You don’t really grab UB for the vulnerability (that’s just gravy). You get it for the piercing ability. While the DS cooldown reduction trait is nice I don’t feel it is neccessary in a Power Dagger build since I always save DS 2 to combine with Dagger 3 (which has a longer cooldown) for my spike rotation and I always save my DS fear as an interrupt or peel. It’s not bad for DS 4 though.

I see cooldown reduction traits useful for skills you know you’re always going to be spamming those skills once they are off cooldown, which is mostly applicable to DPS skills.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice trait, but I’ve just personally found having more access to my DS skills to be more useful.

I’ve also backed away from going pure power when I’m in a team and opt for more hybrid style build using 20/20/10/0/20, with a Carrion Amulet, lots of might stacking, and minor sigil of accuracy to help pump up crit chance on top of the Fury from the Curses minor trait. Teams don’t really bring a necro for their direct dmg burst and more for the aoe pressure. I don’t like using the 30/30/10/0/0 build or a scepter so this is sort of my way of filling the role while still using my preferred play style.

I prefer to use the Staff as an opener. Our burst isn’t impressive enough to insta nuke someone so I like to soften them up first from range before moving into nuke them with dagger, focus, and wells. It also has our best team utility as far as weapons go. you’ll definitely want to grab Greater Marks though when using the Staff.

Also, you’re Sigil of Rage and Sigil of Energy share CDs. Personally I prefer a sigil of battle on my staff and focus with minor corruption or bloodlust on dagger. Ground Targeted wells and Terror will probably serve you better dmg wise as well. Even with out a ton of condition dmg you’ll get 700+ ticks on every fear. DS2 >DS3 (DS1 Lands same time) can easy net you a 4k spike on top of closing the gap to finish them off.

Unyielding blast is nice but since you already have Focus 4 and Well of Suffering, you could probably lose UB and not notice the drop off in Vuln stacks. I prefer the CD reduction on DS skills for more insta fears for more frequent interrupts in addition to the above combo.

Just some food for thought.

if you’re using a staff in your power build I find 20 points for Soul Marks and Last Gasp will give you more than enough LF on a regular basis.

I don’t believe armor appearances go both ways just yet. I think just recently they began to allow for applying PvE skins to PvP items. I could be wrong though.

looks like PvP Flame Legion set. which means you better get PvPing, since it’s a rank 50+ set and requires a crit on an arcane sliver

scroll down to the Bear sets

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/55030-pvp-mystic-forge-recipes/

Aurum.8793:

If you have gone into structured PvP in the past few weeks, then you have seen them. From what I gather, it is the only viable spec for an Elementalist to run at this time, but it is extremely annoying.

They come in your typical class varieties, ranging from glass cannon to bunker, but they have an inordinate amount of bulk compared to other classes. They are virtually unkillable in a 1v1 situation, and even 2v1 they can hold their own. They cannot be bursted down, as they merely pop mist form and wait the burst out, and they cannot be piled with conditions either, as they typically have Ether Renewal which cures conditions on each pulse, and they always almost have condition removal talents from the Water tree or even the fire cantrip. Even steady, constant damage isn’t of much use because they have two forms of regeneration up and protection. Even if you somehow manage to get their health down to dangerously low levels, they’ll just run away by using ride the lightning. They are like kittenroaches; extremely difficult to get rid of. On top of their extraordinary resilience, they also kick out quite a bit of damage, and have good CC to top it all off.

My question is, how can someone actually kill one of them? Ether Renewal has a very short cooldown, and having their Water Attunement regeneration + regular regeneration means they have a constant source of healing. I just don’t see how someone can kill one of them, short of getting some friends and piling them into oblivion. Does anyone have any tips?

brotherman, nothing will serve you better than just creating one for yourself and experiencing first hand what their weaknesses are.

Daecollo.9578:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I don’t really understand why everyone wants life siphon channel reduced, the longer it goes the stronger it hits and the more healing you get (overall, not meaning it increases heal with each hit, as it does not), not to mention if you use dark armor it’s that much longer you get to utilize that trait. If you’re standing in one spot using life siphon then yeah, I can see why you would want it to work quicker, learn to move around, strafe, make the target move after you. If any change needs to be made, it’s that the heal scales with the damage/siphon so that it gives you incentive to continue the channel to get more out of it. In it’s current state I have never felt it to be too underpowered nor needing a major rework, even with the current healing it isn’t too bad with vampiric traits.

um, it would still heal and do the same damage it does if its reduced, the reason is, is because of the damage it does, and the fact you can’t dodge during it.

wrong. the entirety of it would be avoided in a single dodge.

lettucemode.3789:

DeathenShada.6397:

I pretty much agree dagger is decent. Life siphon however needs a 400% increase on healing….. Cause right now it’s frikin ridiculous…

Yeah man, a skill with a 12s cooldown should totally heal for 7200…

how are you getting those kinds of heal numbers on syphons?

lol I love it. Ask everyone to pay to play a new ranked map and people throw up their arms in outrage. Give the winners a refund though, and suddenly everyone’s happy with the same completely unsustainable model we had before, where most mid level teams end up farming frees for tourney tickets just to play something that’s offered on a regular basis and has no real special value at all, and not to mention leaves nothing to build upon with ticket currency.

The old “bait and switch”. Nice one Anet.

PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE! They want you to buy tourney tickets with real money so they can turn the lights back on in the PvP offices!!!!

It’s hard workin’ in da dark, yo!

Asomal.6453:

hackks.3687:

given Anet’s stated approach of “small incremental changes” for achieving balance, one would think that those increments would fall a little closer together (say monthly patches?) rather than the quarterly or semi-annual as we seem to be nearing.

Facts is facts though. PvP don’t make no money, so PvP don’t gets no love.

Want better patches? Spend mo’ in da sto’!!!

Well, people would actually spend more in the sto’ if there was anything to buy from there, pvp related (aside from tickets). I mean, for a game based on cosmetic grind, we haven’t see one single pvp skin in the store, in the past five months…

Preachin’ to Choir, Yo!

given Anet’s stated approach of “small incremental changes” for achieving balance, one would think that those increments would fall a little closer together (say monthly patches?) rather than the quarterly or semi-annual as we seem to be nearing.

Facts is facts though. PvP don’t make no money, so PvP don’t gets no love.

Want better patches? Spend mo’ in da sto’!!!

I played an Engi back before I got really into my Necro. After a long Necro stint I dusted off the Engi again and I have to say… Engi is hard, yo!

As far as PvP goes though, I’d put both towards the bottom of the “easiest class to play” list.

after reading the title I was certain the OP would start “…walked into a bar… <insert punchline>”

/disappointed

Rennoko.5731:

hackks.3687:

hmmm I never tested it per se but I was under the impression that it removed all conditions from all allies (edit: by ‘all’ I mean the 5 team members) within the 1200 unit range, but only transferred conditions to targeted enemies within the mark radius.

can I ask how you tested this?

Sure,

I had two necros cast BIP on the same mob. I cast first so the mob came to me, and then he stood outside the circle when I dropped the putrid mark. His self bleed stayed on (he was very close but just outside the mark), my self bleed went away (if I was in the circle or not).

If it actually pulled all debuffs from all party members within the 1200 range that would be insanely powerful. I am not sure I ever suspected it of doing that, however I did think that it duplicated your debuffs to all targets hit by the mark, which it does not.

interesting. and good to know. thanks for testing it

hmmm I never tested it per se but I was under the impression that it removed all conditions from all allies (edit: by ‘all’ I mean the 5 team members) within the 1200 unit range, but only transferred conditions to targeted enemies within the mark radius.

can I ask how you tested this?