Guild Wars 2

I don’t have a problem with the long cooldown. To me that says the trait is designed to be used once per fight. I’m pretty sure all other “X happens when you’re disabled” traits in the game are 90s too.

I was having an awesome time with minions as well, but the bugs were annoying. I ended up changing builds later on, not just because of the AI but it was certainly a contributing factor. Here’s to hoping it gets resolved in the Wintersday patch.

Necros can remove 2 conditions every 10 seconds for free, too, not sure why everyone gets hung up on the fact that guardians can do it. Actually we remove 1 every 5s but it’s the same thing over time.

+1 for a change to spectral armor. I’ve been using it in WvW a lot. Spectral Wall + Spectral Walk is basically the same thing but better, but then you are using two utility slots instead of just one. Even testing it myself it’s hard to decide if that tradeoff is worth it. Stability or a lowered CD would help me make that decision.

I discovered a cool thing about siphoning today. I always wondered what those little extra damage numbers were on my attacks – they fly off quickly and diagonally, maybe some of you have noticed them too. I was reading some stuff on reddit and apparently that is actual bonus damage added to your attacks from the siphoning. So if you hit a target for 300 damage, and have Vampiric on, you will actually do 325 damage. Also this extra damage isn’t reduced by anything, I remember it happening to the ancient karkas during the event even though my attacks were doing zero damage. Apparently you can kill the seals in the Cliffside fractal (the one where you free the colossus) without the hammer by doing this.

That is a good point Dakiaris. In sPvP you are fighting constantly so the trait wouldn’t trigger on most of the disables. I used it in WvW so I had it up at the start of every fight, and it was great at countering those “combo” builds like warriors who set up for Hundred Blades. They only had one disable that they used to initiate. I would guess that such builds are less popular in high-level sPvP.

For what I play, though, it’s been a godsend.

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate just how quickly this thread was derailed.

And that fear is 3s base, not 4. If it lasts 4s on you then the Thief has probably put 30 points into their Power trait line, which has condition duration as its secondary stat, just like ours.

Ooo, just thought of something: the fear from Reaper’s Protection would hit him at the same time! So the trait is a decent counter to that, too. Cool.

Maybe it’s like the Focus trait in Spite, which works in sPvP but not anywhere else, and Plague Signet is the opposite. Or perhaps it’s been fixed as a side effect of something else they changed a while ago.

Hey necro pals. I’m wondering if anyone else uses the Reaper’s Protection trait and has noticed how long it lasts. It appears to be at least 2s base. I’ve been using the Master of Terror trait at the same time and it makes the Reaper’s Protection fear last a stupidly long amount of time.

If a Warrior bull rushes me I have enough time to recover from the stun and cast a spell before they recover. Same thing for Eles using Ride the Lightning + Updraft, the fear hits them before the dodge from Updraft happens so I have enough time to get up before the fear wears off. I always passed Reaper’s Protection up before but after giving it a try for a few hours in WvW I am extremely impressed with the performance of this trait. I don’t even have any extra condition duration!

Anyone else have the same experience, or have you found the trait to be useless in practice?

sorrow.2364:

Necros can’t actually AoE clean conditions, or they can’t clean conditions better than other professions.
The AoE condition removals of Necros are Putrid Mark and Well of Power (excluding the Lich skill).

Uh…I think you forgot about Plague Signet, which passively AoE cleanses conditions from your teammates, at which point you can either eat them for a boost to healing, send them back to an enemy three different ways, or convert them into boons.

Has it been fixed yet from merely copying conditions?

Sheobix.8796:

yeah. our heal skill can heal the most in the game without a single point of healing power. if you figure out how long you can wait until you pop it and gain conditions.. just laugh as the opponent balks when you heal for nearly all of your hp.

I just wanted to leave a quick note to support this statement. I got ganked by a mesmer in WvW yesterday and he dropped that dome on me that applies random conditions. I was already at half hp so I stood in it on purpose to let the conditions stack up, then dazed him with Warhorn 4 and healed up. Full hp and I went on to win the fight. That is all, carry on.

I am of the opinion that life siphoning is fine as is (I don’t play sPvP, by the way). I believe that it is intended to compliment a build and not be the focus of one. I feel this way because I have tried so very hard to make a primarily siphon-focused necro. In the end it wasn’t working out – I did very well in medium length fights, but most of the time I would get burst down by Thieves or Warriors, or lose the attrition war to a more tanky build. So siphoning is now a secondary focus of my build and I am doing so much better. Coming out of a 1v1 or 2v1 fight with less than 1000hp remaining, which happens relatively often, justifies my decision to use siphons and feels awesome to boot. Anyway, the point is that siphoning is fine as a “backup” thing to have in your build.

I don’t think the necromancer is made to min-max, as Sheobix said. Other classes who focus into one thing are better than a necromancer also focusing into that one thing. There are better bunkers, better bursters, better condition application, better condition damage classes than necro. The necro’s strength is in having strong performance at two or three of such things at the same time, and all of the best necro builds I’ve seen take advantage of that.

Yes, it does the full damage.

The length of reanimator appears to scale with level. When I was downscaled to level 31, it lasted 10 seconds…

http://youtu.be/GW7eIWAvWgo

However, when I was level 80, it lasted 19 seconds…

http://youtu.be/51Cf4ibIV7M

So it’s better than what Jon Peters said (11 seconds), and it’s much better than what some people around here have claimed.

PointAndClick.5631:

I’m having issues with a retaliation build (traits on DS and on Healing). It didn’t work in Dungeons at all and it doesn’t reflect (fully?) in PvP (WvWvW), damage also keeps coming through.

It feels more like turning on spectral armor than retaliation, something is wrong here.

That’s not how retaliation works. It doesn’t reflect damage, it just does damage to enemies who damage you. It does a set amount and you still take the incoming damage. That’s how it works for everyone.

Weird that it wouldn’t work in dungeons, if that’s true.

Abigor.4952:

Same as with Levian, whether or not I have an auto-attack I always spam 1 key. Don`t have a problem with this in lich form, but it gets really annoying in plague form, since you spam one button more constantly, it would be really easier to just put up one type of damage and then press just once to change to a different one if you need.

That’s how it works right now. All three of the plague form abilities work like a switch. Press one, and it will do that thing on every pulse until you press another one (the damage pulses happen at a fixed interval no matter how fast you press the ability button). I’ve explained this to Powerr and Xelfer on their streams, too :P for some reason it’s not common knowledge. Probably unclear tooltipz.

Lich form autoattack doesn’t stick, though, and that’s annoying.

No problem. 15char

I don’t think that’s correct. There aren’t any skill points in the puzzles, nor vistas, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any points of interest, though I’m not sure about that. I know there aren’t any waypoints.

Can anyone else confirm one way or the other? I’m at work, but maybe someone could post a link to the wiki, get a map of the W3 zones.

Vilar, I ran into that when I was setting up my Shroudstomp keyboard macro. At first my macro was “Press interact key, press DS key” with no time delay in between, and the same thing happened to me. I would do the animation but no stomp. After experimenting for a while I found that it worked reversed. So the macro is now “Press DS key, press interact key” with no time delay inbetween.

So if you’re doing it manually you have to press both keys basically at the same time, but the DS key slightly before the interact key.

Obsidian.1328:

@Brumbull
(had to cut out previous posts, twas too long)

And I will continue to call out players who take an absolutist view of pvp scenarios. I can’t fault you for not being competitive, you certainly are. But I can fault you for not using your head, applying sound judgement, and generally being a grown-up. You found a tiny niche in the game where pvp and pve overlap and the fact that it’s your favorite spot to party speak volumes on your character.

And if you think fair-play has no place in your pvp vocabulary, then I will call you out on it all day and night and make it a point to see everyone you fight down there exits the game before you finish them off if that’s what it takes. I find it incredibly ironic you call out downed players logging off as being somehow unsportsmanlike when you are acting in the same manner, if not worse.

I have to disagree with you on this. You get W3-specific rewards from doing the W3 jumping puzzles – badges of honor and siege blueprints. If players did not receive these rewards from the chest maybe you would have a point, but as it is now the existence of these rewards means that the puzzles become a strategically important location. The server that holds the puzzle gets a bit of a break toward acquiring siege, while the other servers must buy them with badges or money or take the puzzle themselves.

If you prevent the jumping puzzles in W3 from being defended by other servers, then you have created a situation where players can receive W3 rewards by doing PvE activities, which in my opinion isn’t right.

You say that these jumping puzzles are a place where PvP and PvE overlap – can you please explain what you find inherent to jumping puzzles that makes them a PvE exclusive experience? And if a player just wants to do PvE, why don’t they go do any of the other jumping puzzles in GW2, or PvE in an area that is 20x larger or more than the W3 zones, i.e. the rest of the game?

Vilar.2680:

Aleth.9630:

Sheobix.8796:

you can shroudstomp with ds, just hit f1 and F at the same time.

They stealthfixed that, it no longer works with stomping (even if you try to exit DS right before stomp goes off, the animation will finish but the target won’t die) or reviving.

Oh and also, never try to revive in DS, it gets you glitched and unable to move now (until you die or get knocked back/teleported/etc…)

True story.

The one thing you can do is to swap in and out of DS very fast to get stability then go for the stomp, but chances are that the duration of stability won’t be enough.

It is enough with 20% boon duration, I’ve tested this a lot. With no boon duration there’s like a quarter of a second at the end of the stomp where you’re not covered, but you’re probably still okay since the window is small. With 10% it’s even smaller.

I’m surprised to hear the shroudstomp has been fixed, my macro for it worked fine very recently, like yesterday or the day before. I’ll be testing it when I get home, too.

ROFL, Run Fast Dagger Guy. “Run fast. Dagger guys.”

Thanks for the laugh! I’m bookmarking that build to check out later, based solely on the name and description

The real reason it’s somewhat weak is because the trait for it is so, so good. I’ve experimented with the trait and it makes the Axe borderline OP. The problem is that it’s in a bad place; you have to sacrifice that potential 20% extra damage to get it. I think if the trait was nerfed a bit then moved down to the Master or even Adept trait level the Axe would be fixed.

I like your suggestion, but as it stands now I feel the Axe is a good backup weapon to use in power builds, especially when paired with a focus.

I know, I expect there will be ascended knight’s armor and weapons in time. But it seems like they have added all the back pieces and trinkets, none of which have tough/pow/pre.

Closest they have is tough/pow/crit dam, but I don’t want to give up the precision…sigh.
Rings: http://www.gw2db.com/items/trinkets/rings
Backs: http://www.gw2db.com/items/back

With full Knight’s exotics, crit chance is 39%. Without the trinkets it drops down to 22%. If it’s intentional, meaning they didn’t overlook Knight’s armor, do you think this was done because of a balance issue?

I liked this patch. Like the quote from Jon Peters says, they fix the things they have time to test. For necros, they made sure that included changes that every necro would notice, not just certain builds. It would have been nice if fixed minion AI made it into this patch but rewriting AI is hard work. If they had done AI it probably would have been the only necro change and then everyone would have complained that we only got 1 fix.

They also managed to address a couple of the issues that meant a lot to us here on the forums. Plague Blast got its cast time reduced, now we won’t feel so slow and useless underwater. Death Nova fixed so that you can actually use it with the exploding minions, I saw that mentioned in a few threads. The Blood Fiend healing minion is tougher and heals you for more, lots of people didn’t like how squishy that thing was, including me. Vampiric things don’t heal enemies anymore, that thread exploded with angry people so they took note and fixed it.

It sucks that we lost our blast finisher on dodge, but if you read the rest of the notes so did the Ele and other classes that had it (Guardian?). So it was a class-wide change.

So yea, I like these notes They made sure to cover some of the important issues, and the changes are spread out enough so that every necro will notice a difference. It also shows that they listen and fix what they can. Necro will only get better over time.

Oh, okay, I read someone else’s post which said the opposite a bit ago. I’ll have to test it myself I guess. Still too much.

5% additive would be wayyyy too much. Marks giving 8% life force per enemy hit? Spectral Walk/Armor giving 8% life force every time you get hit? That’s OP.

If it was additive they’d have to adjust the number down to 1%, maybe 2%.

It’s only a blast finisher when you take the Mark of Evasion trait. Sorry, I didn’t make that clear.

Once they fix the field location bug on Spectral Wall, you can give Chaos Armor to you and all your minions with it ^^ that utility slot is a lot to give up in a minion build, though.

Mass retaliation is good in WvW because of all the effects flying around. Switch to Well of Blood and Staff if not using them already, and take Mark of Evasion in Blood Magic. Since dodging is now a blast finisher, you can throw a well down, then dodge into it, staff 4, and explode the rat-type minions for 16s of AoE retaliation. Any AoE used on you and your minions will cause serious damage.

Vicarious.3047:

Goshalaten.2415:

While playing the game I wondered whether minions helped at all? wouldn’t it be better just to use non-minion abilities?

depends, you talking sPvP, PvE, or WvW?

in sPvP it is “sorta” viable. going straight up minionmancer isnt what i mean either, but atm im running the power dagger build, with the golem, wurm, and rats as minions, and they serve as a GREAT form of dps, not too mention the wurm serves as a stun breaker. but most my damage comes from my daggers and the well of suffering ive got as a utility as well. its probably not THE best spec for sPvP, but its definitely a lot of fun lol

as for PvE and WvW, no, minion builds are quite useless. bosses kill all your minions within the first 5 seconds of combat, and in WvW theres so much AoE your minions are downed even faster still.

If you find your minions dying to AoE, switch things up a bit. Go Well of Blood and Staff, and take Mark of Evasion. Blast finishers in your well cause AoE Retaliation. So with Staff 4, your dodge, and 2 explosions of the rat-type minions guys you have 16s of retaliation on you and all your minions – anyone casting AoE on them will take retaliation damage from each minion.

There is exotic level 80 armor with those stats, I am at work so I can’t check to see if there’s other armor with it.

For WvWvW I use Knight’s for my power build.

It would be really funny if it was like the “Elementalist sPvP exploit” video where the guy just rerolls Thief.

Thanks for the update! Build looks very solid.

Okay, who’s the bunker elementalist from SoS? Norn, looks like the Citadel of Flame set. He participated in the large attack on Stonemist Castle last night while we (SoR) held on for dear life.

This guy is unkillable. All he does is run around in the front lines absorbing huge amounts of damage, and everyone (including me) falls for it and focuses him. Also he gains boons constantly. At one point he gained like 6 including stability, I corrupted them all into conditions, then 3 seconds later he has 4 more. We managed to kill him once in like an hour, crazy stuff.

Whoever you are, my hat is off to you, sir. Keep on keepin’ on.

Does SoR still have the castle? I went to bed before the siege ended.

Sarrs.4831:

It’ll do, IIRC, 30 damage+healing every pulse. You might want to look into taking something else.

42 (?) per pulse per enemy.

If you Spectral Grasp someone and they get pulled toward you, the casting time on dagger 3 (the immobilize) is the same amount of time it takes them to get back up. So if you can hit Spectral Grasp, you can always land the immobilize.

Frizz.6704:

Aga.8641:

For PvP, it’s not. Toughness is too important for a necro to lose. As a necro you don’t want to think about the raw damage that you do, you want to be thinking about staying alive for as long as possible to apply as many conditions as you can, let thieves/warriors/mesmers worry about the raw damage.

I saw someone on Twitch TV last night who was effective as a power/condi build. It is viable in PvP. Although I personally tend to agree with your reasoning for why not to drop toughness for reasons I have already stated. .

It was Powerr, the thief/necro for PZ.

Don’t come to this forum to ask! The downers (i.e. basically everyone) will tell you no, the class is broken, don’t bother, uninstall necro, etc. JK. No but seriously people will complain.

I do alright against thieves in WvW, I can win probably 50/50 but I’m still learning how to have good control (not spam keys frantically). I would recommend you level a necro, find a build you like, and test it out against thieves yourself. That way you will have strong anecdotal evidence one way or the other.

There is a huge balance update coming and likely a ton of our problems will be fixed, so by the time you are ready to WvW the necro will be in a much better position than it is now.

EDIT: here is an awesome build that can be used for roaming and murdering people in WvW: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Those-having-trouble-with-Necro/first

Ahh, I see what you’re saying. Putrid Mark will transfer the conditions from far away, but you don’t get the regeneration from far away, and you say this is inconsistent behavior.

Personally, I like figuring out game mechanics, so I don’t think a tooltip is needed. But if they add one that’s fine.

Confirming what Rennoko said.

Awesome! Good to know they have such a huge list of changes for the classes! We’re gonna be getting some necromancer love…a woo woo

I think that Reaper’s Precision is the most useless – 33% chance to gain 1% life force on crit. Whoop de kitten doo.

Runners up are Terror, Dark Armor, and Siphoned Power (it seems bad on paper to me, could be good in practice, haven’t tried it).

Nice find. It would probably be easier to notice if you took Vital Persistence.

If they are already in testing then it makes sense that they would be in the next patch. We don’t have any more information than you do

I’ve used it in dungeons with my friends. Yes, it does the initial heal. It will also apply the 3s of protection if you have that trait.

Use well of corruption on someone with the Aegis boon.

Kage.1536:

Andele.1306:

Kage.1536:

I’m not sure is this a bug, need for test?
I have notice Putrid Mark can transfer condition to foe (Staff 4)
and you can use it from far range, it still transfer condition to foe even you are not in trigger circle.
But as Mark of Blood (Staff 2)
You CAN’T get Regen boon while you’re not in trigger circle

Thas a little bigger explosion radius (360~) for from where it pulls the conditions from what i know, but never got condition transfer from more than 1/3 of the range away.

Sorry, but I did a test today.
That is not about explosion radius, you can test it in Mists
I call my friend to help me finish the test, he stand in 1200 distance, and apply condition on me.
then I use Putrid Mark attack him, I still can transfer condition to him.
But I can’t get regeneration when use Mark of Blood
so I think Mark of Blood’s regeneration must be bug
or, Anet should fix the description

You have to be in or very near to the mark to get the regeneration when an enemy triggers it. If you cast it on him at 1200 range you are too far away from the circle.

Spectral Armor and Spectral walk, when used, will give you 3% life force every time you take a hit. Use one of these abilities immediately after DS ends – people usually try to save their burst for that moment – and watch your life force shoot back up to 60% by the time the cooldown is up again. With this trick you can use almost a full DS twice in one fight.

If you are using Foot in the Grave for stomps, you need 20% boon duration to just barely cover the full duration of the stomp. Switch in and out then start the stomp immediately.

Related to the above, you can actually stomp/revive while in DS, and use your fear while in the animation since it is instant cast. To do this you have to hit the interact button (stomp/revive) and your DS key at the same time. The timing is a little tricky but you can get it down with practice.

It would, but stability is last in the corruption “order”. So if they have too many other boons on themselves it might not get converted in time. There is a list somewhere of what converts into what and in which order…<google search> found it!

1. The conversion of a boon always results in the boon being converted into its counterpart condition.
2. Every boon/condition has its own duration of 3/5/10 seconds, independent of the original’s duration
3. When you convert boons with the ‘Corrupt Boon’-Ability, you will always create a 3-stack of any stackable condition that results from the conversion.
4. When 2 different conditions convert into the same boon, it will not double this boon’s duration.
5. Converting a condition/boon converts all stacks of that condition/boon, but multiple stacks don’t increase the duration of the result.

Alright, here we go:

Conditions = become => Boons (thought has been given to ranking: first conditions will be converted first) ………- UPDATE -

1. Bleeding ….= becomes => 5 seconds of Regeneration or Vigor (Necromancer only)
2. Crippled …..= becomes => 5 seconds of Swiftness
3. Vulnerability = becomes => 3 seconds of Protection
4. Poison ……..= becomes => 5 seconds of Regeneration
5. Blind………. = becomes => 5 seconds of Fury
6. Weakness ..= becomes => 10 seconds of Might
7. Burning ……= becomes => 5 seconds of Regeneration or Aegis (Necromancer only)
8. Immobilized = becomes => 5 seconds of Swiftness
9. Chilled …….= becomes => 5 seconds of Swiftness
10. Confusion = becomes => 5 seconds of Regeneration
Fear ……………= did not => get converted in our tests!

Boons = become => Conditions (thought has been given to ranking: first boons will be converted first)

1. Protection …..= becomes => 10 seconds of Vulnerability
2. Swiftness …….= becomes => 5 seconds of Cripple
3. Regeneration = becomes => 10 seconds of Poison
4. Retaliation …..= becomes => 5 seconds of Confusion
5. Fury …………..= becomes => 5 seconds of Blind
6. Might ………….= becomes => 10 seconds of Weakness
7. Aegis ………….= becomes => 3 seconds of Burning
8. Vigor ………….= becomes => 10 seconds of Bleeding
9. Stability ………= becomes => 1 second of Fear
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

from http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/08/guild-wars-2-boons-to-conditions.html