Guild Wars 2

Kardiamond.6952:

I will ask you something : How do you finish the thief? I see you have 2 utility used for escape, which I used to run in WvW. But how do you burst him fast enought before he reset the fight with heal/stealth.

Like you said, with a power/blood build it’s not that difficult. If he stealths, spam dagger 1 and run around. 300hp/s from Shadow’s Rejuvenation is no match for our dagger auto and you can heal through a decent chunk of the bleeds.

As for condition build, it takes a lot longer. But I think people are overvaluing Shadow’s Embrace. A thief gets to clear two conditions if he stealths with CnD and is stealth spec’d, and you should have bleeds, weakness, chill, poison, and maybe cripple on him. So the chance of him getting the bleed off is 50/50, meanwhile he’s still taking damage from that and poison, which also reduces his healing.

I won’t go on, but I’ll say that since hitting 80 and properly gearing up I’ve never seen a stealth thief exit from stealth with no conditions on him or full health (unless he gets his heal off). But if he goes to heal, you can simply fear him out of it (you did save your DS fear, right?). If he uses Shadow Refuge you can try to fear him out of it with staff (pretty much guaranteed to in a Terror build, btw) or just run away since he has to stay in it.

In my experience – it’s not an automatically lost fight, there’s lots of room for counterplay.

It’s fun to go gate-bombing in WvW with this trait. Jump down on the rams to proc it, drop a well or two, enter DS and use 4. If you’re a power build this will do a lot of damage and possibly make the siege-ers back up for a sec. Stability from Foot in the Grave helps but isn’t necessary.

Like all the falling traits, I don’t think it has much use outside of WvW.

Agree with Dranor, Unyielding blast is great in PvP and WvW (punish those rezzers!), and Reaper’s Might is incredible in PvE (I’m still trying to get the hang of using it in WvW).

Death Shiver I haven’t tried out. It seems like it could be good in a DS-oriented bunker build in teamfights. Passively applying vulnerability with no way for the enemy to avoid it is great. However just reading the description, it seems like it stacks up too slowly. But I haven’t given it a proper go yet, so.

Speed of Shadows on the other hand does seem kinda bad given our other options for speed. It seems like it’s a crutch in case one’s build doesn’t use any of the other speed options. But I can’t think of a build that would spend points in SR that isn’t better benefited by the other traits or other speed options. So yea, doesn’t seem worth taking to me either.

Kravick.4906:

PinCushion.7390:

Yes, but it’s only because of Death Shroud that you can count to 10. Most classes can only get as high as 5 or 6.

Unless you’re a thief or a mesmer. Then you just teleport out of it and never take the burst. Engineers can just Elixir S out of anything and go invulnerable for 3 seconds followed by a gear shield for another 3 seconds. Guardians can actually eat that burst and not go down because protection/aegis/knock back bubble combo. Warriors will just endure pain out of it then shield block through the rest of it if necessary.

I think rangers and necros are honestly the only ones left out in the cold here, unless theres something that rangers can do that I’m not aware of.

The difference is that other classes have to blow their cooldowns to do it. Pretty much all the examples you gave are on 40s+ cooldowns even when traited (except for some Guardian shouts). If they get burst a second time (say, by a mesmer) they are basically done for. Necros on the other hand can eat a burst every time it’s up.

Of course, you have to account for player skill and every fight is different, so theorycrafting is only so useful.

Rangers have a “sort of” Endure Pain which transfers all direct damage to their pet for a few seconds. It’s a shout on 60s CD.

Check out the “Facemelter” build in my signature for a unique build with Axe. It’s an sPvP build but I’ve been using a slight variation on it in WvW and it works well in both large and small fights.

With the right build you’ll never be unable to go into DS for the stability when you need it – see Spectral Attunement.

What about something like:

Last gasp: Automatically receive Spectral Armor when hit below 50% health. Spectral Armor also grants 5s stability. ICD to 90s.

Just wanted to poke my head in and say I’m happy with the way this thread turned out – a place for GW1 vets to discuss their perception of the necromancer, and how to bring its old themes and ideas back. Thumbs up.

I have successfully 1vX’d on my necromancer with a few different power builds.

One was 10/20/10/0/30 with the 5-second recharge on DS, a switching build, basically. I was kicking myself for not getting a video of the best fight I had with it. It was basically a series of 1v2s and 1v1s with no break in between (never left combat). First one was a 1v2 with an 80 D/D ele and an underleveled thief who still crit me for like 7k. I killed the thief and chased off the ele. An underleveled, really bad guardian stepped in and I killed him. Then the thief came back with a mesmer. Downed the thief again, fought the mesmer to half when the D/D ele came back. Somehow got the mesmer, then chased the ele for a while before finally killing him.

The other build was 0/0/20/20/30, back when I was experimenting with a full lifesteal build. I was incredibly hard to kill but didn’t do much damage. So those that stuck around to fight me would eventually die, but if they targeted someone else in a small group fight I couldn’t peel them off.

Anyway, based on the above experiences in trying to make a roaming necro and my general WvW experience I have come to the following conclusions:

1) Necro is not really a roaming class. Necros certainly have the ability to take on 2 or maybe even 3 opponents at once, but that’s not the only thing you need to do to be a roamer. There is no ability to disengage if more players than you can handle show up. So it’s very hit-or-miss, either you successfully kill multiple players and feel like a boss, or the zerg comes and rolls over you.

2) You pretty much need full defensive gear. Either full soldier’s or full knight’s. Both of the builds I listed above I used full knight’s, and let me tell you, you can feel the difference between that and any other gear setup.

3) Roaming is less effective the higher tier your server is, and the longer GW2 has been out. I had tons of great roaming experiences back when my server was around the middle of the tiers, but now we’re in T1 and players are smarter and more geared. The days of running into 3 underleveled friends are over, now you run into havoc squads. I’ve also seen far less solo thieves and eles recently, even before the thief nerf. Because of this I’ve switched to a condition build and am sticking with groups. Still got my old gear though, will probably go back to it someday.

TL;DR: You can make an awesome solo build and roam with it and do quite well. Just don’t expect to get away if things go sour.

Or your rating is only a few points higher or lower than those around you, and others are going up and down as well. If the MMR spread is small it doesn’t sound like an issue.

I’m actually sad when everyone tries to kill these people. They are just there for fun, just to prove that they can get there. I had a dance and fireworks party going on with one before some tryhards came in, guns blazing, and ruined it :\

Banners will continue to be overlooked until some high-ranked team or player actually uses them in serious matches, then they’ll be everywhere. That’s the nature of competitive communities for you.

Sannhet is correct, stacking sigils only give you the stacks if you are using the weapons they are in at the time of the kill.

Minor nitpick – DS wasn’t exactly the old down state. When you hit 0 hp you would automatically go into DS. When DS ran out you would go down. They changed it because they wanted to add more skill to the class. Pretty sure they talked about this in the last SotG.

Kilger.5490:

Bas.7406:

I think Oscicat pointed out in the recent mesmer podcast that it’s frustrating because Necro’s have 3 ways to do it on short CD’s, and that because it’s only for 1 to 2 seconds that stun breaking it is not always smart because you may need it again.

Hmmm 3 ways?? Maybe its because I didnt sleep well but I can only think of staff 5 and shroud 3, aside from the reactive traits of course. What am I missing?

Reaper’s protection, down state fear. Nightmare runes too. Maybe Fear of Death if that necro’s a bunker in a premade.

EDIT: also corrupting stability, no reason for mesmers to complain about that though.

I’ve been using my variant on the Terror build in both PvP and WvW, and I think it’s the best condition-burst tool in the game. To demonstrate, I’ll show some numbers from my build when I set up to burst:

Terror ticks: 1100
Bleed ticks: 110
Axe 2 channel: 3.5k

So with 5 bleeds on the target, chaining into a 4 second fear, that’s slightly over 10k unavoidable damage (after they use their stunbreak) plus Barbed Precision and Earth Sigil procs.

If you’re a purely condition based Terror build:

Terror tick: 1400
Bleed tick: 140

We’ll do 9 bleeds for this calculation because of using scepter over Axe. So in total, that’s also over 10k damage, plus bleed procs.

You can put this on a 32s cooldown with the Staff Mastery trait. So I don’t think Fear is gonna get a buff.

Cameirus.8407:

You should never see thiefs jumping in to attack a large group and porting out with impunity.

I don’t see that sort of thing on my necromancer. They do the jumping in just fine, but getting away from a group a necro is near is much harder

This is why there are traits to make projectiles pierce. Additionally there are lots of ranged weapons in the game that don’t use projectiles. For example, necromancer Axe. If you are looking to interrupt heals, necromancer Warhorn daze isn’t a projectile either. If getting body blocked is enough of a problem for you, you should look into such things.

Quotes getting too big!

CHIPS, I didn’t play much GW1, so I have to ask…how similar is it for other classes? There are probably lots of things that GW1 warrior, mesmers, thieves, etc can’t do in GW2 also, right?

CHIPS.6018:

I will simply things, from the opposite camp:

DS transform: If you do not like how DS works and dislike its skills, it is simply extra hp for you. Boring.

Fear: Necro is not the only class that can fear. Nor is the necro the only class that can interrupt and CC. Many other professions can do these better. Not unique.

Life Siphoning: Vampiric Gaze from GW1 (a very underpowered skill btw) can stealing around 10% of the enemy health every 8 seconds. Can the GW2 necro do this kind of damage by life stealing alone? Not even close. Very weak.

Condition Control: As fancy as this sounds, this is just another method to deal damage. And with the Epidemic nerf condition control, for wvw at least, took a huge hit. Not unique and weakened.

That’s how a “hater” of the GW2 necro sees it. The GW2 necro’s skills, traits and themes are boring, non unique or very weak. The “lovers” of GW2 necro will see it the other way, obviously.

Perhaps the worst sin for the GW2 necro was that it is pretty much 0% related to the GW1 necro. There is no roots there. No heritage. No lineage. And that’s a serious problem for GW1 necro veterans. They found it hard to adopt their skills and experience from GW1 into GW2.

I tell you for a fact, that I got to relearn everything when I play my GW2 necro. None of the skills and experience I got from GW1 necro were transferable.

Like I said, this is when the “lovers” say: Go play another profession! And this is what we want to avoid. Anet have to provide more interesting, unique and strong skills, traits and themes for the GW2 necromancer.

Thanks for the other perspective. Like Bhawb said, I was specifically responding to Yoh’s argument about uniqueness, but I appreciate that/your point of view.

It kind of supports my rose-colored glasses point though. If you’ve played a completely different class, also called necromancer, in a completely different game made by the same company, you won’t like this game’s necromancer. I understand that, it just seems odd to me to take that previous experience and say “therefore, this game’s necromancer is worse” when you really can’t compare the two.

EDIT: deleted unnecessary paragraph, added another one.

Point 3.
You then go on to list things you perceive as ‘unique’, which ironically are not unique at all.
Marks are little different to traps, except visible. Functionally, all they do is a little bit of AOE damage and some conditions, both of which a ubiquitous.

Ranged attacks that are not projectile……

Mesmer = Greatsword, Scepter, Focus.
Guardian = Scepter, Staff.
Engineer = Grenades, Flamethrower, Elixergun.
Elementalist = Staff, Scepter, Focus.

You were saying?

Third, your confusing power with unique, sure they have more powerful and wide spread condition usage, but just about every other profession has access to the same conditions and can specialist in it. It’s a gameplay option that almost every profession has, in addition to everything else they do.

Lastly, yeah it’s not like other classes have weapons or traits to use.
So what if they get gap closing a bit easier, other professions can still do it.

Fair enough. But what’s also ironic is your statement above: “I am perfectly happy with every other returning profession”.

What’s unique about the warrior, given your definition? What unique mechanics do they have? Banners and stat auras, I guess, but every other ability they have can be compared to other abilities in the game the same way you compared the necro abilities I listed. And yet the warrior is more unique and fresher than the necro?

So what if they get high damage and tankiness a bit easier, other professions can still do it.

Maybe this one is a bit of a stretch, but Elementalist. They can attunement swap to gain boons, cool, necromancers and engineers can too. And all of the new skills they get from attunement swapping can be compared to other skills too. So what unique mechanics do eles have, besides having 20 weapon skills instead of 10 per build?

So what if they get lots of different skills and boons a bit easier, other professions can still do it.

Ranger. They have a pet, cool, but everyone’s profession skill is unique like that. They can spec into their pet and gain effects on using/swapping it, cool, all professions can do that. Besides that? Spirits – minions, spirit weapons, turrets. Traps – those are just like necromancer marks. Bows – lots of professions use ranged weapons. So given your definition of uniqueness, what’s unique about the Ranger?

So what if they get great long range damage and potent skirmishing potential a bit easier, other professions can still do it.

This is the problem I have with your argument. The necromancer fits your definition of unique, whereas (arguably) other classes don’t, yet it still has a problem with necromancers for some reason. Then when I point out this inconsistency, it hides behind subjective things like “fun” and how the class “feels”. This doesn’t make sense to me, so I conclude that it’s just not the kind of uniqueness you want because you’re looking at things the wrong way.

Yoh.8469:

Point 1.
Yes, fun factor is subjective, I never pretended otherwise, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value, or that isn’t a shared experience. Love is subjective, does it mean it doesn’t have value?

As to the rose-colored glasses, are you saying I shouldn’t hold Arenanet to the very same standards they themselves once set? I am perfectly happy with every other returning profession, because they are fresh and new, but retain the spirit and standards of the original. But I should just make an exception for the Necromancer who fails to do this, I don’t think so.

Fair enough, but I will expound (expand?) more on “I am perfectly happy with every other returning profession” below.

Point 2.
First you ask me what my definition of ‘unique’ is, then you assume one for me.
That would be a strawman argument.

Agree, strawman arguments are bad.

By unique in this context, I mean abilities or skill subsets that have functionality that is limited to one or two professions. (but mainly belonging to one)

So…the only difference between your actual definition of “unique” and what I assumed it to be is semantics. :P

For example, Mesmer clones and shatters is something only they can do, with mechanics unique onto themselves.
In addition, Mesmers are also partially unique with their usage of Stealth, as only them and the Theif have active access to stealth skills. (primarily the Theif, secondarily the Mesmer)

And by utilizing several of these unique factors in tandem, the profession as a whole becomes ‘unique’. So it is possible for a profession to have some unique mechanics or skills, and yet not be unique onto themselves as they share too much in common with other professions, as in this case.

I brought up the GW1 Necro, because at the time in regards to other professions, and indeed other games, it was unique. But the GW2 Necro is not, not just because it no longer has certain mechanics, but rather because very few new ones were developed for it.
It’s a contrast.

So let’s analyze Death Shroud, given your actual definition.

- Functionality limited to one or two professions: No other profession has a non-elite transformation. Other professions with transformations are Elementalist and Engineer (and maybe Warrior? Is that one elite of theirs a transformation?).
- Mechanics unique to Death Shroud: Only transformation with its own health bar, and this health bar can be replenished during battle. Gain boons and cause other effects when entering/leaving Death Shroud, other transformations only grant Stability during their duration.

Heck, let’s analyze Fear:

- Functionality limited to one or two professions: only other classes with access to Fear are thief and warrior.
- Mechanics unique to necromancer Fear: can have more than one in a build, lower cooldowns, necromancer can make their fear do damage.

How about life siphoning?

-Functionality limited to one or two other professions: only other class that can siphon health on hit is Thief.
- Mechanics unique to necromancer siphon: can get an extra siphon on crits, can trait to increase the siphon, doesn’t take up a utility slot, can gain an extra siphon on well pulse, can gain an extra siphon on minion attacks.

Or transferring conditions?

- Functionality limited to one or two other professions: Mesmers have Arcane Thievery. Guardians can use “Save Yourselves!” to pull conditions onto them like Plague Signet, but they can’t transfer them off after that.
- Unique mechanics to necromancer condition transfer: No unique mechanics I guess. But we have the most.

You want to talk about truly unique mechanics? Then why didn’t you mention converting boons into conditions, or spreading conditions on one enemy to others? Because both of those are necromancer-exclusive. So please pardon me when I say that I think you are a little biased against the necromancer :P

Nuzt.7894:

Sevenred.3890:

Removing AoE cap altogether is probably not the best solution. I mean, you all think about the elementalist perspective. Let me give you my thief perspective: Shadow Refuge + Zerg + No AoE cap = Invisible army just like before the end of culling.

You really want to get back to that?

This is the only valid argument I have seen, I’m sure there would be a work around but I’ll admit I’m not sure how without nerfing AoE stealths.

Is it capped now? I think I’ve seen around 10 people use a single shadow refuge before. Could be wrong, though.

Thrumdi.9216:

lettucemode.3789:

You’re forgetting about retaliation.

We already have threads where people are complaining that they throw a few grenades into a zerg and take 10k damage. Now you want to remove the AoE cap so that they take 30k damage instead. Good plan, mate.

Removing the AoE cap will encourage more zerging and more stacking, not less, because the zerg will just stack retaliation and run straight into every AoE and everything casting the AoEs will die from the extra hits.

Retaliation only hits for ridiculous numbers when the zerg is stacked. And the zerg is stacked because there is a limit on AoE.

If zergs did not stack, and spread out, retaliation damage would be manageable.

It goes both ways though. Why would they spread out when they do more damage by stacking together because the AoEs are hitting more people per cast?

Removing the AoE limit isn’t a solution to stacking/zerging while retaliation exists.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

lettucemode.3789:

You’re forgetting about retaliation.

We already have threads where people are complaining that they throw a few grenades into a zerg and take 10k damage. Now you want to remove the AoE cap so that they take 30k damage instead. Good plan, mate.

Removing the AoE cap will encourage more zerging and more stacking, not less, because the zerg will just stack retaliation and run straight into every AoE and everything casting the AoEs will die.

So the zerg will run INTO AoE and die… to kill a single player? I’m sorry, what?

They won’t die, whoever is hitting them with AoE’s will die first. It could be a huge group of people casting them, doesn’t matter. An Ele uses staff fire 3 to hit a group of 12 players for 2k each, ele takes 4000 damage. Grenade engineer hits a clump of 10 players with 1 grenade throw, engineer takes 9000 damage. Clearly, removing AoE cap will lower the dominance of zergs and stacks….

You’re forgetting about retaliation.

We already have threads where people are complaining that they throw a few grenades into a zerg and take 10k damage. Now you want to remove the AoE cap so that they take 30k damage instead. Good plan, mate.

Removing the AoE cap will encourage more zerging and more stacking, not less, because the zerg will just stack retaliation and run straight into every AoE and everything casting the AoEs will die from the extra hits.

Yoh, I disagree with what you’ve posted here.

For one thing, “fun factor” is subjective. Personally I think the necromancer is the most fun of all GW2’s classes. You spend a lot of time talking about how awesome the GW1 necromancer was. I think you are looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Whenever there is a sequel to something, be it a movie, book, or game, there are always people that will argue that the old way was better. I am not saying that you are an old man on a porch, shaking your cane, yelling that them darn new things the kids are doin’ nowadays, but I think your expectations of what you think the necro should be are holding you back from enjoying the class.

Your second point is about uniqueness. What is your definition of the word “unique”? You appear to define that word specifically in the context of GW1 were there were hundreds of different skills that all did different things, then you look at GW2’s combat system with that definition in mind and find that it doesn’t match that definition. Which is faulty reasoning. For example, you talk about how hexes have been removed and how awesome they are in GW1. Well, you could say the same things about any of the classes’ skills, really. All of the classes have been watered down from GW1 to create their GW2 counterparts, so to focus specifically on the necromancer in that regard seems incorrect to me.

On the skill level, necros actually have a good bit of uniqueness:
- Marks (which you said you liked)
- The majority of our ranged damage isn’t projectile-based, meaning it can’t be reflected or absorbed (see Axe, Scepter, marks, focus 5, dagger 5, warhorn 4)
- Best class at condition management and best boon ripper. Corrupt Boon, Epidemic, Plague Signet, staff 4, dagger 4, focus 5
- If other classes want a gap-closer or interrupt, they have to trait for it or take certain weapons. Necros get them for free in every build.

On the build level, necros have even greater uniqueness. I won’t go into all the builds here because that would take too long and you said you’re not looking for a discussion of viable builds. So I’ll just reiterate that your definition of what is and isn’t unique is flawed because of your expectation of how GW2 should be. Maybe you simply like GW1 better than GW2, that’s fine. But to come here and say that the necromancer is a bad class because it’s not as good as its GW1 counterpart when the games’ combat systems are completely different is a flawed argument.

One last point: you spend a lot of time going through every trait line, weapon, and skill category, and many of your points are correct. But I think one of the most fun, unique things about the necromancer is that it is greater than the sum of its parts. All of those problems fade into the background when you put them together and create a kitten build, and finding and playing those builds is the most rewarding thing about this game for me, and it’s something I don’t find in any of the other classes.

wiazabi.2549:

Dark armor only works with channel skills dagger #2 Axe #2 DS #4.

And the downed state channel.

I think that casting times are generally fine, but I agree it’d be nice if they were brought down a bit.

Epidemic would be nice, seeing as it’s now dodge-able.
Spinal Shivers is fine given the potency of its effects.
As a Terror necro, I’d like it if Staff #5 was lowered by 1/4 second.

Transfer conditions if you can. If you’re not using staff or offhand dagger then you should invest in Shrouded Removal.

If you’re using dagger and get rooted, just spam the 1 key, you’ll get out in about 2 seconds. If you’re using Axe, target the roots and use the 2 button. Dark Path will get you out, too. Otherwise transfer the immobilize and dodge away before it re-roots.

I never had a problem killing rangers when my necro was power. Depending on your build you have 4-6 slows, they can’t run away forever.

Blade.9317:

Score update brought to you by Feisty:

Hi Feisty

Harbinger.9645:

EnRohbi.2187:

shortcake.8659:

If you have any other bad advice, please feel free to type it up. Just stop posting on the forums and leave it in notepad.

One could say the same about your complaints.

If you don’t want to change what you’re doing to deal with retaliation, that is your problem, and you will continue to have difficulty with it.

Say what you want, but he’s right though. Retaliation is given way too easily to be as strong as it is right now.

Everything in WvW is given way too easily because of the huge number of people, so I don’t consider that an argument against retaliation specifically.

muylaetrix.2096:

lettucemode.3789:

Culling is – how can we not overwhelm our clients’ computers with drawing too much stuff?

that would be graphic culling which is something different (confusing isn’t it ?)

No, not really, I’ve done some graphics work and so I know what the term means :P Whether I meant the technical term or the Arenanet-WvW term, either way you are drawing less stuff, I chose simple (admittedly ambiguous) words because I’m lazy.

muylaetrix.2096:

Anet’s outbound/upload capacity was the main issue that was responsible for them using culling. as far as i can tell they were able to disable culling after they upgraded their internet connection.

Source for this? Otherwise I’m sticking with my theory. Habib made a post about the changes they were going to make to fix it a few months ago, and the only network change he mentioned was getting the higher-ups to approve using more. They were never anywhere near the cap.

The scepter bleed duration trait is an exception to the cap of 100% condition duration. So yes, you are getting the full 118% from scepter bleeds.

They still take damage from conditions already on them IIRC. You just can’t apply new ones.

Skyro.3108:

So is it just me or does the Chill of Death trait still seem to be triggering at something much lower than the 25% health stated in the tooltip? This is just me eyeballing it from using it on the golems in the mist. The GW2 wiki says it is triggering at 15% but it’s so hard to tell.

It triggers when you hit them when they are already below 25%. It doesn’t trigger on the damage source that brings them below 25%. Try equipping the steady weapons and remove all your armor and traits and see when it triggers.

Okay, I see what you mean.

One way it would benefit you is that the extra condition duration would “free up” some other trait slots or runes. For example, are you using +condition duration runes or sigils? Well, if you put points into Spite, you are now free to exchange those runes or sigils for something else. Same idea if you are currently using the Hemophilia trait.

The early spite line has good traits for added survivability in longer fights. See spiteful removal, death into life, parasitic bond.

Since you are not a minion build nor a bunker build I don’t see much reason to keep the 30 points in death magic. I would say leave 10 in there for Greater Marks, maybe 20 if you really want Reaper’s Protection or Staff Mastery.

Culling not affecting skill lag makes perfect sense if you have a bit of game programming experience. They’re two different problems.

Culling is – how can we not overwhelm our clients’ computers with drawing too much stuff? They tried limiting it on the server side and it didn’t work out too well because it made WvW feel less epic and you were constantly getting killed by invisible stuff. So now they moved the limiting to the client side and let you sort out the details. Bandwidth was never an issue – they have the same servers now as they did three months ago, after all, and in terms of showing me everyone’s locations they are doing just fine.

Skill lag is different. What is likely happening is that when you use a skill, it goes into a queue on the server. Every game tick, the server goes through the entire queue and processes all the different effects, damages and heals and applies conditions to the right people, and so on. Skill lag happens when this queue gets too full. Since you can press the button for a skill and nothing happens (as opposed to it just taking a while to happen) it’s likely that if the queue gets too full they just throw away the overflowing ones because they don’t want to have to drop frames on the server.

So you get skill lag from too many people spamming skills no matter where they are on the map, but in big fights you still see their positions and health and such just fine.

(This is all speculation, by the way, don’t start complaining that Anet needs to make their queues bigger or something dumb.)

You’d need to get a mainhand axe or dagger to make a hybrid build work. You’d also need to trade out some of your Rabid gear for Carrion (which still has condition damage as primary). There’s no point in going power if you don’t use a weapon that can take advantage of it, and there’s no point in taking a power weapon if you don’t have that much extra power.

Check out the “Facemelter” link in my sig for my approach to a hybrid build.

Reaper’s might triggers upon cast. If you don’t have a target and just cast DS1 at nothing you will still get the might stacks IIRC. I know you still get the might stacks if your attack is blocked or reflected or if it misses.

Two data points, then I’ll say something strange.

First is team Cute, who aren’t around anymore. As part of their comp, they ran Khalifa’s power necromancer build and a warrior. At the time there was maybe one other team with a warrior and no other teams with a power necromancer. And yet they were good enough to hang with the best teams, regularly placing high in or winning 3-round tournaments.

Second is Adaneshare talking about his thief venom share build and how it led his tPvP team to 15 straight victories. Thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/My-thoughts-on-classes-after-the-patch

And now the conclusion:

Point #1: Many, many builds in this game are competitively viable as long as you make it a part of your team strategy. That is, if you sit down and plan out your team, you can work almost anything in and have a good chance of winning tournaments.

Point #2: The main problem with GW2 balance right now is that there are a few builds that don’t require this kind of planning. For example, bunker ele, trap ranger, and others can solo queue and do kitten fine. Other builds, like power necromancer or venom share thief can’t perform well without a carefully crafted team.

So I think that two things need to happen (lots of two’s in this thread). One, the rockstar builds need to be toned down a little bit so they are not as effective against a carefully crafted team. Two, and more importantly, we as competitive players need to stop treating this game like other PvP games. Instead of running builds because they are great at soloing and judging builds based on how they perform in solo queue tournaments (that is, with little team planning), we need to take the time to carefully craft strategies that use unorthodox builds and figure out how to fit them into a team. That’s the only way the metagame will grow, not by sitting around waiting for nerfs.

I like the new staff sounds. It doesn’t sound like flushing or anything, it sounds cool, like shadows and darkness and rumbling.

With all the complaining about the old sound I’m pretty surprised that everyone now wants it back.

So I think the general consensus concerning this trait is that it’s not worth the 20 points into SR and is outclassed by the other trait choices at that level. However, I’ve been thinking about bringing my Facemelter build (link in sig) into WvW and I think this trait would be the best replacement for Master of Terror (which I am switching out because of Rare Veggie Pizza). It seems like it would help out a lot with escaping those narrow situations since the build has no sources of swiftness ordinarily, plus the high condition duration I already have would help stack up the cripples. Given that I don’t have much room to play with traits, an extra way to kite enemies would be most welcome.

Are there any necros out there right now that use this trait? What are your experiences with it?

That’s super lame. So I guess the only way to get 100% fear durations in sPvP now is via Necromancer runes. To be fair that’s probably what they intended, but still.

I don’t have pictures, but it works fine on my asura now. The scythe blade extends along the longer gargoyle wing.

daydream.2938:

lettucemode.3789:

New Automated Response trait: Grants immunity to conditions when the inflictor has over 100% duration.

What does this mean? So if I have 100% or more bleed duration, will the engineer be immune to all my conditions or just my bleeds?

I posted on this below. but this is how it works.

with this trait new conditions should not be able to be applied to the engy below 25% life. (conditions already on him still tick for damage/effect, but he cant get more bleed stcks for example than whats already there). Now of course u can get healed above 25% and get loaded up with conditions again.

But what happens below 25% is conditions on you seem to get 100% duration debuffed. HOWEVER if a necro is traited and speced right he might have +133% condition duration. meaning he can put conditions on you still despite this trait , if even for a shorter time. With this bug fix the trait works as intended. Its still a meh trait, only to be used for full bunkers.

As for confusion, i tested it and i didnt have an issue.

Oh, I see. So it is a bug fix. Thanks for the info!

New Automated Response trait: Grants immunity to conditions when the inflictor has over 100% duration.

What does this mean? So if I have 100% or more bleed duration, will the engineer be immune to all my conditions or just my bleeds?

Yes. All competitive games have one competitive game mode and maybe a few other modes for fun. Conquest is GW2’s competitive game mode and I’m looking forward to all the possible variations on it.

Here’s something interesting you said:

Empiren.6401:

Listen, I’m not saying we NEED an “overpowered” build.(even though 100b isn’t technically that). What I’m saying is that we don’t have a build that shines like other classes.

I assume you’re thinking of builds like trap ranger, shatter mesmer, bunker ele, etc. Those builds can only be said to “shine” if they are at the Anet-intended power level. However it’s pretty clear that they need to be adjusted downwards. So when Anet says that they want other classes to have build options like necro, it means they don’t want there to be builds that “shine”, but that each classes’ build list should reflect the one I posted above. Lots of cool things you can do, but none that stand out as imbalanced or “the best”.

Empiren.6401:

From spvp
-That isn’t the condition build to my knowledge.
-Glass cannon(non viable)
-Terror what? Our fears are on long c/d’s with a short duration even if traited.(non viable).
- Ele what? Sounds like a made up build for pve/wvw(Non-viable)
-minion builds. Bad ai. (non viable).
-Xelfer’s : other classes do it better. (viable, but not better).
-Your build doesn’t “squeeze fear” it relies 90% of it on that. Again, fear is a weak mechanic unless you are teamfighting in which case there are many other better builds even for necro than being a “fear bomb”..(not viable).

Listen, I’m not saying we NEED an “overpowered” build.(even though 100b isn’t technically that). What I’m saying is that we don’t have a build that shines like other classes.

That and our minion ai is still horrid, and tooltips just outright lie.(Hell, just give us a +% in our character stats or something).

How often do you play necromancer or watch high-level streams?

Powerr invented, protected, and used build #2 extensively with his team.

You dismiss the listed terror builds almost offhandedly. Have you played them? You can chain into a 4-second fear that does over 5k damage. It seals team fights AND is very strong in dueling, I use it in tournaments with great success. Khalifahaze, another high-level player, commented on my Facemelter build, saying it was a strong build in premades and that he liked it.

Ele killer build, again, Powerr was using it in tournaments on his stream and wrecking face, as was a Anet dev.

Ask Bas about the minion builds, he promoted them a while ago as the bunker-killer on his tPvP team. He had sound arguments and has used minions the most out of anyone on the forum so I believe him.

Do you only consider something to be viable if you see a pro use it? I noticed you had no problem with the build I claimed was Xelfer’s.

EDIT: Made post less angry.

Yes. You need to press the Death Shroud key then immediately press the Interact key. Pressing them at the same time or out of order won’t work. It’s tricky to get the timing down.

Normally, no. Other professions’ transformations don’t break animations so they can enter them mid-stomp (they still can’t interact if already in the transformation), but Death Shroud doesn’t work that way.

Gonna attempt to get this thread back on topic.

Yes, necros have lots of viable builds.
-Standard condition build (0/30/10/10/20, plus a few variations)
-Complete glass cannon that melts everything (30/30/10/0/0)
-Terror condition build (0/30/20/0/20)
-Ele-killing power build (30/20/0/0/20, super fun, 4.2k life blast crits, incredible dagger spam damage, boon removal)
-Minion bunker-buster (20/0/30/20/0, Berserker’s stats)
-Minion bunker (20/0/30/20/0, Soldier’s stats)
-Xelfer doesn’t stream anymore, but he used a hybrid condition/healing build that was very strong at holding a point, his team ran it all the time. From memory it was something like 0/20/20/10/20, Shaman’s amulet.
PERSONAL PLUG
-Hybrid condi/power build that also squeezes in Terror, also melts Eles (30/10/10/0/20) first link in sig
-Well bunker build with crazy life siphoning (10/0/30/30/0) second link in sig
-And more

Do necros have a god mode build that strongly affects the metagame, like trap rangers or bunker eles? No, not in sPvP, though I’ve heard that control WvW builds are in high demand. The point is that the trait lines is diverse enough to support a wide variety of builds, AND there is room for tweaking to suit personal preference, and all of them are pretty well balanced. Whereas there’s only one mesmer shatter build that’s used, or only one thief backstab build, for example.

When the devs say they want other classes to have our build variety, that’s a good thing.