Guild Wars 2

Build link (copy and paste it into your address bar): http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;083Z;1kHkI0p37IkJ0;9;4T99-J16A5;01;328-aJG4;2gk1Agk1A7Fv
Video link (Rampager amulet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRFn-YTEMDM
Another video (Carrion amulet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oodYN5uBSiU

I’ve been messing around with the basic Terror build and stumbled onto the build linked above. It trades some of the condition damage in the usual Terror build for 2-second fear durations and pretty good single target direct damage through Axe. Personally I’d rather have the extra CC time than big bleed ticks. All in all I think the utility this build offers makes it a bit better than the condition-damage-only build.

The build works with either Rampager or Carrion amulet. Rampager has more direct damage, whereas Carrion has more condition damage and health. I think the best choice is Rampager amulet + Carrion jewel so that’s what I recommend in the build link.

Things you can change around depending on preference:
Sigils: Earth, Geomancy, Corruption, Force
Runes: Nightmare or Necromancer
Utilities: Rez Signet and/or Epidemic for higher-level games
Offhand: Focus or Dagger
Spite traits: Spiteful Talisman, Spiteful Spirit, Spiteful Marks, Chill of Death

Have fun and melt faces!

Relair.1843:

Bas.7406:

Relair.1843:

Tenebrous.2451:

Bas.7406:

The only major issue that we currently have is the DS UI issue. That’s the only major problem Necro’s have.

Cough Cough Minion AI Cough Cough

And minion survivability. They could have the best AI in the world and it doesnt help if they’re all dead 90% of the time every boss fight and any wvw skirmish of more than 2 or 3 people.

This is just blatant exaggeration. That’s like me claiming wells are complete crap because if you drop them and the boss doesn’t step on it youa re completely useless 90 percent of the time.

Come on! Minons die, wells, miss, corruption skills have limites, spectral skills are specialized, and signets are pretty weak. Look at it context and quit with the blatant exaggeration. If your minions are dead 90 percent of the time in a boss fight learn to use minions better. You have 3 ranged. If you aren’t an idiot you can place them so they don’t all die at the same time. Bone Minions are supposed to die. Bone fiends are not meant to tank bosses. Stop acting like it’s a game breaking issue.

They are freaking minions. They die, it doesn’t prevent you from playing, you can still do as much damage as a conditino mancer who brought epidemic to a boss fight. You can still wipe out players in pvp.

Yes, MM has issues in WVWVW where large aoe zergs just mow things down. Every pet class has the same issues. That doesn’t mean they aren’t viable.

Sure I was slightly exaggerating but not that much. I guess we just have differing expectations of what it is to be a necromancer. Every mmo since the dawn of time has given them strong, useful pets. If we’re meant to just chuck minions at a target and watch them die in 3 seconds then so be it, but then lower the cooldowns on them. Or at least beef up the flesh golem, if you take all minion traits he is your main source of damage and usually the first to die to a boss because of melee based cleaves and spins and aoes and then you are useless. Its not the same as saying oh your wells or condition utilities are on CD, you have huge power or cond. dmg and your weapon skills are still useful then. If you are a MM you probably have lots of healing and toughness you are pretty useless if all your minions are dead most of the time.

I just don’t understand how you can lump minions in with clones and thieves guild and stuff, most people who make a necromancer make it for pets. But I suppose thats how Anet sees it, they are junk second tier utility and not meant to be your main power source like ranger pets. =/

Careful making such claims around Bas. He’s the bunker-killer on his tPvP team, he has lots of first hand experience with minions and knows that they’re not second-rate skills from that experience.

I wasn’t shocked by the Axe changes, I think they are fine. You cannot put good damage on a no-cooldown attack that stacks vulnerability, otherwise it might become the most efficient way to to do damage and there’d be little reason to use anything else. As it is now you have to choose between doing damage with 2 or stacking vulnerability with 1, and you choose differently depending on the context of the fight. I like that, tbh.

Dang, yo. Power necros, hooooo!!

Excellent buffs and fixes, and great patch overall, thank you very much Anet.

I’ve been using these runes for months and they work perfectly fine…the 2 and 4 bonuses will heal for an extra 1k, not sure if that is affected by healing power or not. But the runes are great and work great.

I’ve only noticed the 6th bonus triggering in DS when my actual health is below 10%.

Loosifah.4738:

I’m glad that your small guild looks at it that way lettuce; unfortunately though this is going to make it so the larger guilds get larger and the smaller guilds have even more trouble pulling in new people.

None of our players are planning on jumping ship to other guilds. We’ve all become firm friends in the time we’ve been playing. It’s likely that many other small guilds feel the same way. You make your statement with such absolute-ness, but it’s likely not representative of a good chunk of players.

I’m actually glad the barrier for entry is so high, it means that the countryside won’t be littered with guild missions being spammed by every single small guild in existence.

I’m in a pretty small guild and we’re looking forward to enjoying this new content in a month or two. Until then, we have even more reason to play together and a common goal to strive for. Thanks Anet, and I mean it sincerely.

Free life force for my dagger necro!

CHIPS.6018:

The “game changers” for other professions benefits all builds. Thief stealth clearly benefits all builds. Mesmer portal clearly benefits all builds. etc.

Those aren’t the class mechanic, those are just regular utility or weapons skills. Why are you comparing class mechanics to utility and weapon skills? Some necro builds take more advantage of the class mechanic than others – so what? It’s the same for all professions…condition mesmers don’t get as much damage off of shatter 1 as power mesmers…not all warriors take the reduced Burst skill CD or shouts granting adrenaline…etc etc

PvE versions of the runes are fine, I used to use them a lot. I didn’t notice a problem with them whenever I went into sPvP, either. Something you have to remember is that they don’t activate when you fall below 10%, they activate when you take a hit when already below 10%. So if you are at 15% and get crit for a lot and instantly go down the runes won’t trigger. That’s how all %-hp based triggers in the game work, though, so definitely intended.

Softspoken.2410:

War Mourner.5168:

In the same vein as the spectral walk bug, if you leave lich/plague form early you lose all stability, not just the stability granted from that form. Seems Anet only knows how to outright remove a boon.

Does this happen on other classes? Like does dropping a thief’s dagger storm remove other sources of stability, etc.?

Yea, that’s how the boon system works. If you gain a boon that you already have, the durations or stacks are combined into one boon. That’s why you can remove someone’s stack of 25 might that they got from a zerg blast finishing into a fire field, for example.

There was a separate change some time ago that if you removed Spectral Walk from your skillbar, you would lose the swiftness you got from it, too. This was to prevent people using the skill then switching it out for something else at the start of a match in sPvP. It had the side effect of removing all swiftness you had prior to that point too since boons are condensed, as stated above. So, unfortunate, but intended behavior, and IMO not a bug.

Bas.7406:

@lettuce, I need to get back into testing non-minion builds. Shrouded removal looks amazing, and I have the issue where I almost never spec for defensive purposes haha. I am honestly thinking of trying

30/0/20/0/20 for tonights pve ventures in ORR. Just to see how much damage I can push out.

do ittttt

Bas, I take Unyielding Blast too. I just don’t use the slower LF loss, using Spectral Mastery instead. I’ve been wanting to experiment around with the slower life force loss, though, as it really improves effective HP when in DS (which I’m sure you know).

I don’t put any points in Spite, either, unless I’m in the sort of mood where I want to gain retaliation on DS switching, which is like once every few weeks.

I used to use Dagger/Warhorn and Staff. But…I just lost so much damage when I switched to the staff. It’s a fantastic weapon, it has so much utility….regen, bleed, chill, poison, full condition transfer, AoE interrupt….but it really came down to the damage for me. It felt like whenever I switched to the staff I was giving my opponent some breathing room.

So I swapped it out for Axe/Focus. So I have a close range set for bursting, a kinda-close range set for setup for the burst, and a longer range option (Death Shroud) in case I want to soften them up before exposing myself by getting close.

I really, really missed the condition cleanse…but then I found out about Shrouded Removal, and took Near to Death so I can cleanse conditions off every 5 seconds. I find that it’s more useful than Putrid Mark in WvWvW in general, however there are some situations where I get like 8 conditions thrown on me and I have to use my heal early.

My power/crit build is full spectral, actually. It made sense to me given the position of the traits in the lines. Spectral Mastery and Last Gasp are in the line that gives crit damage, and Spectral Attunement is in the line that gives crit %. So going 20 into Curses and 30 into Soul Reaping gives you lots of offense, and you still have 20 points to play around with.

The spectral skills become really, really freakin’ good with that spec, too. Wall will give you 14s of protection per cast if you run through it twice, and it’s on a 32s cooldown. Grasp will give you 15% life force if you hit someone with it, and works great as an interrupt or to stop kiting enemies. Walk is great, if you activate it as soon as your life force drains out it will refill pretty quick, you can potentially get another full bar. Armor you don’t need to slot because you gain it automatically at 50% health, giving you even more protection and another potential full life force bar.

As utilities they are themed more toward defense rather than offense. But if you combine them with offensive gear, you become this mobile sort of tank that nothing can afford to stick around and fight, but with all the slows they can’t get away, either (most of them, anyway).

EDIT: Making grasp unblockable (or homing) with a trait would be so awesome…I doubt it’ll get that kind of buff, though :-(

I think he just misinterpreted the question. Even if the AI has no bugs whatsoever there is always a way to make it “better”, like with smarter pathing that leads the opponent or something. I think that’s how he was answering the question. I doubt he actually meant to say that bugs as severe as minions standing around are intentional because they are balanced that way. They could easily just change damage/health numbers to compensate for the better AI if they feel they are too strong.

dank.3680:

So every time a thief uses hide in shadows he firstly removes any burn/poison/bleed as the removal happens before the stealth does

I don’t think this is correct. Just yesterday I had Bleed and Cripple on me, so I used Hide in Shadows, and only the Bleed was removed when the cast finished. It seems like the “remove condition on stealth” trait triggers first.

Laii, one more tip concerning Skull Fear, you can remove fears basically for free with the Shrouded Removal trait. Has saved my butt many times against thieves

VOLKON.1290:

So, here we go! Start trebbing Bay from Garrison, put up white swords. Sneak your full zerg around to, for example, NW gate. Have 20 or so people melt the gates in a hurry, still no orange swords. Do the same on North inner. Entire zerg in the lords room, done. Do this with any tower, keep, whatever. Have thieves go around and put up swords on every structure on the map. Send the zerg to a target, melt the gate with 20 or so, cap.

This will make things worse. I’ll make sure of that.

So you mean servers will actually have to scout and leave defenders at towers and keeps? Clearly, that’s far worse than what’s going on now. :P

Columba.9730:

Budchgon.2108:

Was in W3 today and stood on a tower watching 10 of my fellow server players try to take down a single stealth bs thief… They were using AoE, flailing around and even running around in circles ‘like headless chickens’.
Kudos to the Thief, he knew his class and was wiping the floor with my fellow players who couldn’t target him to hit him.
Shame, as those 10 players could have been useful in taking camps/towers but I guess dying to a Thief was more important.

This happens all the time, and it’s horribly broken. It’s astounding that some people think that this is just fine.

Idk. I tend to think it is fine, but that is probably because (1) I recently got a thief to 80 so I understand the class pretty well, and (2) my main, a necro, has 2 builds that shut this silliness down – a fear build, and a spectral build. With the fear build I wait for them to pop out, stack some conditions, lay marks when they stealth, fear them out of Shadow Refuge and they go down. With the spectral build I can pull them to me, immobilize, and have plenty of chill, weakness, and vulnerability to apply lots of pressure. They go down somewhat quickly or run away.

It’s fun to time how long a group of my server mates fights a stealthing thief. Then I go in and mop it up in 30 seconds.

I think it’s fine because I planned for this scenario and incorporated tools into my builds to deal with it. I’m sorry that signet greatsword warriors, greatsword guardians, greatsword mesmers (pattern?), longbow rangers, and a host of other popular builds can’t catch thieves. Instead of coming here and trying to change the rules of the game, I suggest you delve even deeper into the game to find the tools given to your profession to stop the permastealthing.

Kellhus.8071:

Chill is a condition, it gets removed like any other condition — and condition removal isn’t wildly difficult for a thief.

I guess I didn’t make my point very well. The point is that Thief has ways to remove many specific conditions, and Chill isn’t one of them. Of course he can remove any condition, but if you have 5 conditions on you and use Hide in Shadows, it’s not guaranteed that Chill will be removed.

Kellhus.8071:

I’m a terrible thief (i main necro/warrior/ele) and I can avoid anything listed here. I know how long a well lasts, and that it’s cd is 45/60. If I stealth, I move away. Wait for the drop, then wave at the necro for 5 seconds and re-engage. The real issue is that a moderately awake thief who knows other classes really has every advantage.

You and I could go back and forth all day with this. “But I know that you know the well CD, so maybe I won’t drop it, expecting you to stay away.” “But then I know that you know that I know…..” Having read the list, I expect that you know how to avoid each of them, but can you avoid every single one over the course of a WvW session? Probably not, and I won’t be able to avoid all the stuff you can do either, even if I know it’s coming. We both have dozens of ways to mix up our combos and throw the opponent off guard. These are the tools and mind games that are part of a great competitive game.

The point I was making with the wells is that you can use them for something other than what their description says. About half the thieves I fight do as you do: move out of the well when I drop it. Even so, dropping the well is a win-win situation. The thief either takes the damage or leaves me alone for a bit. I use the time the thief is off of me to do something else.

Heya, I’ve got some good tips for you, I have a power build that works very well against thieves, I love fighting them.

-What stats are on your armor and weapons? I ask because the thief BS build is perfect at taking out other glass cannon builds. I have about 2500 toughness and 19.5k health, I find this is enough to last long enough against thieves to get my damage in.

-Related to the above question: what weapons are you using? I ask because (1) dagger autoattack will hit a thief in stealth, you don’t need to target him (2) if you have similar stats to mine (toughness and health listed above, over 3k attack) a thief cannot go toe-to-toe with you in a dagger autoattack fight. He’ll lose. If he stealths, don’t just stand there – keep running in tight circles spamming dagger autoattack 1. Spin around occasionally (you can bind “about face” to a key in control options). You know he’s regenerating health in stealth, and you know he wants to backstab you, so keep attacking and keep spinning. If you’re successful you’ll see your attack animations change. When you see this, immediately turn around and keep spamming.

-A thief can’t just stealth for free, he needs to hit you with Cloak and Dagger to do it repeatedly. After coming out of stealth, the thief can’t restealth for 3s – this is enough time for a full dagger autoattack chain. So DON’T dodge right after the Backstab hits you. Wait, and count. When you see the 4th damage number and receive poison (his 4th dagger attack), dodge and he will miss the CnD and be out 6 initiative. At this point he will probably run straight at you and try it again. Just dodge again. You have other counters to his CnD as well – blind on dagger 4, blindness well, or chill him so he can’t get close to you (the only way thieves can remove Chill is by stealthing – the heal only removes DoTs, and the dodging traits only removes cripple and immobilize).

-If you can pull off the above tip, be ready for some funny situations One of the funniest things I’ve seen in this game is a thief miss both CnDs, then start freaking out. He shadowstep’d away, used IA to get away more, and used shadow refuge, and all I did was dodge twice. I just stood there for a few more seconds like, wat.

-If it is a close fight and they use Shadow Refuge, you can either spam dagger autoattacks into it, or drop Well of Suffering, or use DS 4. DS 4 has dropped many a thief who thinks he’s safe in Shadow Refuge.

-Some thieves are smart and won’t stand in your wells. So use it as a zoning tool to gain some extra space. For example, I was fighting a thief yesterday who started out the fight with his shortbow. When I saw him switch to his daggers, I dropped Well of Suffering and started spamming Dagger 1, even though he was still 800 range away. When he used Steal on me, he took like 5k damage in the next couple of seconds. Other times when I’ve dropped a well, the thief will back off and wait for it to expire before closing again. This is good, you have a few more seconds to heal or get some ranged damage in. If you see a thief running at you, casting something, it’s probably Basilisk Venom. Drop a blinding well and relax.

-Related to the tip above, marks work very well at zoning, too. If you don’t know where a thief is, lay down a mark or two on top of you and start spinning in circles.

-Axe 3 works really good against stealthed thieves. If you get the retaliation you know you hit them, and they are now crippled. Dodge forwards and turn around.

-If a thief hits you with CnD, count to two, then activate DS. He’ll use the backstab and you just avoided all that damage. The Weakening Shroud trait is great in this situation, it cuts down on his dodges and stacks a few bleeds.

-Consider swapping out one or two of your wells for other skills that will help you build life force and survive. For example, I like Spectral Wall a lot. Even without traiting for it, if you don’t know where a thief is, you can just drop it down and stand in it. You’ll get 5s of protection (5 more if you run through it again after the protection wears off) and the thief will get 10 stacks of vulnerability if he attacks you.

-The best advice I can give you is to make a thief and take him into sPvP. You will learn so much just from the experience of playing a thief. Personally I have found that it’s harder to backstab people than it looks. I also learned some timings and cooldowns on certain abilities, and I can bring that knowledge to bear when fighting thieves.

Hope this helped.

Riselight.3695:

godknows what other Thief Skills are OP

You know, admitting that you don’t know how a Thief works doesn’t really help your argument.

Harbinger.9645:

purpleskies.3274:

Thieves have their abilities do lower damage in spvp and to re-state they don’t have random critters and mobs which gives them a big advantage in wvw. Just thought I would point that out.

They do lower damage on CnD but not backstab right? I agree with you on critters, I never use that in WvW and I would gladly have them remove critters because people can rally off them too which is so lame. I roll that issue into problems with WvW in general. Thieves also shouldn’t be able to stealth off objects.

Well, also, the most critical damage you can get in sPvP is around 65%, plus some conditional damage bonuses (10% when attacking from behind, etc). But with full berserker’s or valkyrie’s exotics in WvW you can get over 100% critical damage. I think that’s something a lot of people don’t consider, you can get better stats in PvE and thus WvWvW than in sPvP.

Voted for “yes, it’s awesome”. Even if nothing changed about WvW from here on out I would still play it several times a week.

Edited to remove a possibly inflammatory sentence.

Daemon.4295:

So can anyone confirm whether Bloodthirst affects downed skill 1 and DS4?

Downed skill 1 yes. Death Shroud 4 no.

I recently leveled a thief to 80 just to see what all the fuss was about. I am close to max possible +crit damage, still working on some of the gear. The highest backstab I have ever gotten was for 9k, and that was on a sub-80 player. Most of the backstabs on 80s are 6k or under. I am in the T1 matchup so it may be that JQ and SoS make smarter gear choices than the majority of players, so my perspective may be skewed.

Playing a backstab thief is not a faceroll combination. Yes, if there’s a lone player running around I can get a good backstab combo off and will probably kill him. But in the larger zerg vs. zerg fights? I have one gap-closer: Steal. And even if I pull off a perfect combo the best I can do is down someone, because if I stick around and try to stealth stomp I will get knocked away or AoE’d to death. The burst is great, but the ability to finish in large groups is sub-par.

IF thieves are nerfed, which I don’t think they need to be, I think the only change that needs to be made is to increase the risk of their combo by nerfing Shadowstep. A 1200 range, stun break, instant cast ability which will return you to your original point is so, so good for escaping when a situation goes bad. Reduce the range to 900 so that it’s slightly harder to get away.

You guys, something very strange just happened to me and I am not sure how to deal with it.

I was running around in Jade Quarry borderlands, just north of the Briar tower (the southwest tower) when I saw a thief. He started advancing toward me and I was anticipating a good fight. But then, he pulled a cross between a pumpkin and a pineapple out of his vest pocket and threw it at me. I was rather caught off guard and so I could not react in time to avoid it and it hit me. Nothing happened. After a brief pause, the thief freaked the hell out and started booking it out of there. I was curious, so I followed him, and after some time he turned around to fight. We dueled for a little while before he retreated, pulled out another pumpapple, dropped it on the ground (at which point I saw that it was called a Spikefruit or something), and swam away across the river. I picked the fruit up and carried it around for a while but that didn’t really help me cope with the situation because the river drakes had begun to swarm so I was forced to abandon it.

What do I do about this? Can anyone help me understand?

duckcheeps.6490:

I have never tried stomping in plague form. Does this work without having to press stomp button and elite button at the same time? If so, plague form is amazing. Ill have to test this out in WvW tonite.

You can transform into Plague Form without breaking the stomp animation. So start the stomp first, then use Plague Form at any time.

Brew Pinch.5731:

So for those that don’t run dagger, Wells or waste locust on heals we’re looking at whatever we get from the heal skill and a negligible few hundo max from vampiric. That puts a more common Necro at less than half the healing of an Ele on average (range from 1/4 to 1/2).
Now I see a stronger argument for an increase in passive life steal.
“Attrition” with the same/weaker sustain to any other class, haha…

Well, they have about half our life, so it seems fair to me.

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

And it always works because once your victim is feared he can’t do anything.

Not necessarily. The only thing you’ve shown in this thread is that if you are in a zerg vs. zerg fight, have taken lots of damage, and are out of LF, fears, and stunbreaks, Skull Fear will kill you. Who cares?

You made it sound like it is my fault for running out of LF, fear and stunbreak (if I got them) in a zerg vs zerg fight. Necro is a high priority target in zerg vs zerg because they always get hit. Skills you use against a necro will “almost” never fail.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply it was your fault. Here’s what I’m saying. Your character had been in the fight for a while, was low on health and defenses and had several key abilities on cooldown. Then he was killed by a character who didn’t have his key abilities on cooldown and had probably been in less of the fight than your character. This has been happening in MMO’s since the dawn of time. It is frustrating (especially since it was a thief, I know) but there was nothing special about it, and nothing needs to be changed.

CHIPS.6018:

And it always works because once your victim is feared he can’t do anything.

Not necessarily. The only thing you’ve shown in this thread is that if you are in a zerg vs. zerg fight, have taken lots of damage, and are out of LF, fears, and stunbreaks, Skull Fear will kill you. Who cares?

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

If you take Shrouded Removal, a 10-point trait in Death Magic, you can cleanse the fear off just by entering DS without using a stun break.

OP’s story is fishy, partly because there is no way the thief could have killed him with just 1 steal and 3 HS. They must have been fighting for some time beforehand, in which case the Skull Fear + 3 HS is likely not the problem. The thief smartly saved the Skull Fear for when OP was low instead of blowing it right away (like most thieves do). Apparently he also waited until OP used all his Life Force because OP could have entered DS while feared to absorb the damage. So apparently OP, even after encountering this several times, didn’t save his life force for the Skull Fear.

I don’t know. Skull Fear is a strong skill, but if you don’t slot a stun break or at least take Reaper’s Protection in w3 you don’t have the right to complain about getting CC’d imo.

It was in the middle of a fight and I was already weakened. On top of my lowered hp, my skills (DS or DS3) were in cooldown. And that’s when the thief use this combo. I am dead due to Skull Fear. I get feared for 3 seconds, cannot control my character, a bunch of damage pops up, and I am dead.

I few people suggested that I save my DS and DS3. Well it aren’t that simple in zerg vs zerg. What you are asking is for me to not use DS until the thief shows up. In zerg fights I pop into DS to soak up damage all the time, not just from that thief. Often I had no choice but to turn on DS because I cannot Ride the Lightning my way out.

So you were in a zerg v. zerg fight when this happened? That’s kind of crucial information to leave out. Your OP made it sound like the thief killed you by himself with a faceroll combo and you were upset at potential imbalance. Now the story is that the thief is picking targets out of a zerg. So what? I like to sit around in zerg vs. zerg fights, identify low stragglers, pull them in and burst them too. It’s not exclusive to thieves (though thieves can do it very well), a warrior could have hundred blades’d you, an Ele could have done the Updraft into fire combo, an Engineer could have knocked you back or immobilized before taking you down…. It sounds more like you just got frustrated with this one thief in particular because you kept running into him and then made this thread for therapeutic reasons.

I can see warriors, eles and engineers and anyone else coming. I can plan ahead. I am actually pretty good at watching the battlefield. But thieves there is nothing I can do. They stealth+culling. They hit super hard. And now they can fear me (and all my nearby allies) for 3 seconds, disabling me completely.

I thought you were completely out of life force, DS was on cooldown, and you had no fears left. Even if you saw those other classes coming, it wouldn’t have mattered, the same exact thing would have happened. They have disables too, remember?

I usually try to save up one dodge for emergencies. Not always available but I try. I usually have no problem dodging away from an ele’s RTL+Updraft, since I can see it coming. When it comes to stealth thieves with Skull Fear, I cannot evade because I have no idea when he will use it. Unless I randomly guess and waste my last evade, of course.

Eles can just switch to earth, close, and disable again. It’s not like you dodge once and then they give up. Warriors can just switch to rifle and spam now that you’re out of dodges. Face it man, there was nothing you could do, there were too many enemies and your defenses had run out.

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

If you take Shrouded Removal, a 10-point trait in Death Magic, you can cleanse the fear off just by entering DS without using a stun break.

OP’s story is fishy, partly because there is no way the thief could have killed him with just 1 steal and 3 HS. They must have been fighting for some time beforehand, in which case the Skull Fear + 3 HS is likely not the problem. The thief smartly saved the Skull Fear for when OP was low instead of blowing it right away (like most thieves do). Apparently he also waited until OP used all his Life Force because OP could have entered DS while feared to absorb the damage. So apparently OP, even after encountering this several times, didn’t save his life force for the Skull Fear.

I don’t know. Skull Fear is a strong skill, but if you don’t slot a stun break or at least take Reaper’s Protection in w3 you don’t have the right to complain about getting CC’d imo.

It was in the middle of a fight and I was already weakened. On top of my lowered hp, my skills (DS or DS3) were in cooldown. And that’s when the thief use this combo. I am dead due to Skull Fear. I get feared for 3 seconds, cannot control my character, a bunch of damage pops up, and I am dead.

I few people suggested that I save my DS and DS3. Well it aren’t that simple in zerg vs zerg. What you are asking is for me to not use DS until the thief shows up. In zerg fights I pop into DS to soak up damage all the time, not just from that thief. Often I had no choice but to turn on DS because I cannot Ride the Lightning my way out.

So you were in a zerg v. zerg fight when this happened? That’s kind of crucial information to leave out. Your OP made it sound like the thief killed you by himself with a faceroll combo and you were upset at potential imbalance. Now the story is that the thief is picking targets out of a zerg. So what? I like to sit around in zerg vs. zerg fights, identify low stragglers, pull them in and burst them too. It’s not exclusive to thieves (though thieves can do it very well), a warrior could have hundred blades’d you, an Ele could have done the Updraft into fire combo, an Engineer could have knocked you back or immobilized before taking you down…. It sounds more like you just got frustrated with this one thief in particular because you kept running into him and then made this thread for therapeutic reasons.

I can see warriors, eles and engineers and anyone else coming. I can plan ahead. I am actually pretty good at watching the battlefield. But thieves there is nothing I can do. They stealth+culling. They hit super hard. And now they can fear me (and all my nearby allies) for 3 seconds, disabling me completely.

I thought you were completely out of life force, DS was on cooldown, and you had no fears left. Even if you saw those other classes coming, it wouldn’t have mattered, the same exact thing would have happened. They have disables too, remember?

I usually try to save up one dodge for emergencies. Not always available but I try. I usually have no problem dodging away from an ele’s RTL+Updraft, since I can see it coming. When it comes to stealth thieves with Skull Fear, I cannot evade because I have no idea when he will use it. Unless I randomly guess and waste my last evade, of course.

You can make an educated guess. The thief Stole from you, the thief stealthed near you, he’s probably going to Skull Fear very soon, especially since (a) you’re out of LF and other defenses and (b) this is the second or third time it’s happening.

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

And do you know that DS is bugged (treated as 0-25% hp) so Heartseeker always deals extra damage against DS?

This is so far out of date it isn’t even funny. All bugs related to HP percentage and DS were fixed months ago. Thanks for spreading misinformation.

CHIPS.6018:

And BTW Skull Fear doesn’t just work on me. It is an AoE skill that works on all my allies. So me being a necromancer is in a way a LIABILITY to my team. I just gave thieves a skill that can fear all my nearby allies for 3 seconds.

Yea, and rangers give their enemies AoE regeneration, right? Put that way, all classes are detrimental to their team when fighting a thief.

AoE regeneration for your enemies won’t kill you. It is probably based on the thief’s healing power anyways (e.g. probably not too high). A 3 second fear for all your allies will. And that 3 second fear will happen even if the said thief was level one and not wearing any items.

Not necessarily. In your case, it only killed you when

1) You were in a prolonged zerg fight
2) You had used up DS, taken lots of damage
3) You had used all your fears
4) You had used all your stunbreaks

Dude, anything will kill you in that situation. Skull Fear is not the problem here. In fact, there is no problem. The thief correctly identified who was prone to burst and out of defenses (in your case, life force and stunbreaks) and seized the opportunity. That sounds like smart play to me. I sympathize with your frustration, but I disagree that anything needs to be done about this.

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

If you take Shrouded Removal, a 10-point trait in Death Magic, you can cleanse the fear off just by entering DS without using a stun break.

OP’s story is fishy, partly because there is no way the thief could have killed him with just 1 steal and 3 HS. They must have been fighting for some time beforehand, in which case the Skull Fear + 3 HS is likely not the problem. The thief smartly saved the Skull Fear for when OP was low instead of blowing it right away (like most thieves do). Apparently he also waited until OP used all his Life Force because OP could have entered DS while feared to absorb the damage. So apparently OP, even after encountering this several times, didn’t save his life force for the Skull Fear.

I don’t know. Skull Fear is a strong skill, but if you don’t slot a stun break or at least take Reaper’s Protection in w3 you don’t have the right to complain about getting CC’d imo.

It was in the middle of a fight and I was already weakened. On top of my lowered hp, my skills (DS or DS3) were in cooldown. And that’s when the thief use this combo. I am dead due to Skull Fear. I get feared for 3 seconds, cannot control my character, a bunch of damage pops up, and I am dead.

I few people suggested that I save my DS and DS3. Well it aren’t that simple in zerg vs zerg. What you are asking is for me to not use DS until the thief shows up. In zerg fights I pop into DS to soak up damage all the time, not just from that thief. Often I had no choice but to turn on DS because I cannot Ride the Lightning my way out.

So you were in a zerg v. zerg fight when this happened? That’s kind of crucial information to leave out. Your OP made it sound like the thief killed you by himself with a faceroll combo and you were upset at potential imbalance. Now the story is that the thief is picking targets out of a zerg. So what? I like to sit around in zerg vs. zerg fights, identify low stragglers, pull them in and burst them too. It’s not exclusive to thieves (though thieves can do it very well), a warrior could have hundred blades’d you, an Ele could have done the Updraft into fire combo, an Engineer could have knocked you back or immobilized before taking you down…. It sounds more like you just got frustrated with this one thief in particular because you kept running into him and then made this thread for therapeutic reasons.

I can see warriors, eles and engineers and anyone else coming. I can plan ahead. I am actually pretty good at watching the battlefield. But thieves there is nothing I can do. They stealth+culling. They hit super hard. And now they can fear me (and all my nearby allies) for 3 seconds, disabling me completely.

I thought you were completely out of life force, DS was on cooldown, and you had no fears left. Even if you saw those other classes coming, it wouldn’t have mattered, the same exact thing would have happened. They have disables too, remember?

CHIPS.6018:

And do you know that DS is bugged (treated as 0-25% hp) so Heartseeker always deals extra damage against DS?

This is so far out of date it isn’t even funny. All bugs related to HP percentage and DS were fixed months ago. Thanks for spreading misinformation.

CHIPS.6018:

And BTW Skull Fear doesn’t just work on me. It is an AoE skill that works on all my allies. So me being a necromancer is in a way a LIABILITY to my team. I just gave thieves a skill that can fear all my nearby allies for 3 seconds.

Yea, and rangers give their enemies AoE regeneration, right? Put that way, all classes are detrimental to their team when fighting a thief.

CHIPS.6018:

lettucemode.3789:

If you take Shrouded Removal, a 10-point trait in Death Magic, you can cleanse the fear off just by entering DS without using a stun break.

OP’s story is fishy, partly because there is no way the thief could have killed him with just 1 steal and 3 HS. They must have been fighting for some time beforehand, in which case the Skull Fear + 3 HS is likely not the problem. The thief smartly saved the Skull Fear for when OP was low instead of blowing it right away (like most thieves do). Apparently he also waited until OP used all his Life Force because OP could have entered DS while feared to absorb the damage. So apparently OP, even after encountering this several times, didn’t save his life force for the Skull Fear.

I don’t know. Skull Fear is a strong skill, but if you don’t slot a stun break or at least take Reaper’s Protection in w3 you don’t have the right to complain about getting CC’d imo.

It was in the middle of a fight and I was already weakened. On top of my lowered hp, my skills (DS or DS3) were in cooldown. And that’s when the thief use this combo. I am dead due to Skull Fear. I get feared for 3 seconds, cannot control my character, a bunch of damage pops up, and I am dead.

I few people suggested that I save my DS and DS3. Well it aren’t that simple in zerg vs zerg. What you are asking is for me to not use DS until the thief shows up. In zerg fights I pop into DS to soak up damage all the time, not just from that thief. Often I had no choice but to turn on DS because I cannot Ride the Lightning my way out.

So you were in a zerg v. zerg fight when this happened? That’s kind of crucial information to leave out. Your OP made it sound like the thief killed you by himself with a faceroll combo and you were upset at potential imbalance. Now the story is that the thief is picking targets out of a zerg. So what? I like to sit around in zerg vs. zerg fights, identify low stragglers, pull them in and burst them too. It’s not exclusive to thieves (though thieves can do it very well), a warrior could have hundred blades’d you, an Ele could have done the Updraft into fire combo, an Engineer could have knocked you back or immobilized before taking you down…. It sounds more like you just got frustrated with this one thief in particular because you kept running into him and then made this thread for therapeutic reasons.

haqqa.8194:

Anyway, my point is, why not start doing LFG threads here, hook up and go 5x necro runs? Would that work/be fun etc?

gw2lfg.com would work a lot better for getting a group together. Whenever I make a TA explorable post there I get like 8 join requests in the next 20 seconds. Just put “all necro” in the post title.

Daecollo.9578:

I just wanted to ask something, since heals are so small.

Does life stealing atm even do damage?

The traited siphons do the same amount of damage that they heal you for.

There was a funny bug in the Cliffside fractal for a while where a necro with vampiric could just autoattack the seals to destroy them, cause they would still take the vampiric damage. You didn’t have to do anything with the hammer to get through.

Levian.6742:

What’s the description? I don’t play atm and I’m not really planning on it, but I’m curious.

“Gain life whenever you kill something.” You don’t have to get the killing blow, though, you just have to tag it. It heals for about 1k.

Ruufio.1496:

lettucemode.3789:

Ruufio.1496:

• Spectral Grasp – Only hits at 1200 range if opponent stands still. Misses extremely easily. Opponents on elevated areas are pulled behind you instead of in front.

Not really correct. Grasp leads the target and so it will hit them if they’re moving. Elevated targets aren’t always pulled behind me in w3. Come to think of it, that hasn’t happened for some time.

Ruufio.1496:

• Dark Path – Misses if opponent dodges before it’s even near them. Should only be dodge-able near hit.

This isn’t true…it is only dodgeable near hit.

Ruufio.1496:

• Spinal Shivers Cast Time – Chill of Death – “Cast Spinal Shivers on an enemy when they hit 25% health” is an instant cast which means this must be a bug because Spinal Shivers having a 1.25 second cast time is ridiculous.

So they saved some tooltip space by saying “cast” instead of “applies the effects of”. Who cares?

Nice trolling. You need to actually try these utilities before saying they work perfectly.

Oh my lord, dude, I’ve been playing a melee power necro for months now. I use these spells ALL THE TIME. If you didn’t even know that Spectral Grasp leads your target so you can hit moving things I don’t even know what to say.

EDIT: Saw your qualifying statement about 1200 range. Obviously if your target is at 1200 range and they move even slightly to the side they are now further than 1200 range away so of course Grasp will miss.

If you want I’ll make you a video when I get home from work today.

And I didn’t say they work perfectly o.0 bad strawman, bad!

Zenith.7301:

Because I like having more condition removal, as you can´t have too many of it? Because you can land a blind before a big hit, and don´t rely on it staying up long for a benefit?

You won´t always have the luxury of standing on a putrid mark to transfer your conditions and consume conditions is on a considerable cd.

Ahh, but you’re assuming I use a staff. Shrouded Removal + Near to Death is all the condition removal I need on my power/crit build. With CC, of course.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Should also be noted that that 75 extra attack the dagger has only applies to the dagger skills and none other. If damage is what you’re going for, Focus is the way to go. Besides, the main point of spinal shivers isn’t the chill (which is nice), but the boon stripping.

Your weapon damage applies to everything you do when you have that weapon set out.

Zenith.7301:

Exaggerating? I spvp so no wvw scrubs skimping on condi removal utilities. You have no other vulnerability on a short cool down. Ele bunker with earth´s embrace trait for stability will laugh at conditions with ether renewal. Null field keeps removing conditions, and mesmers trait for condi removal on shatter often. Ranger with signet of renewal and empathic bond is pretty much immune to condition stacking.

Condi specs are rather screwed in this game relative to power/prec/critdmg specs. I only run focus when I´m on a debunkering spec for the extra boon stripping.

So if everyone has this much condition removal, why use offhand dagger at all? :P Something about your story doesn’t add up.

Zenith.7301:

lettucemode.3789:

Dylninja.4216:

I fail to see how 75 more attack over the focus can be bad

75 extra damage on one weapon set, or the vulnerability from Focus will give you 12% extra damage on anything. When you are hitting for 1k or higher and that 12% is 120 damage or more I don’t know why you’d choose 75 damage.

You should use weapons because you prefer the skills they give, not because of the numbers on them.

Except everyone and their mother has condition removal besides glass cannon warriors, and you´re betting on playing against morons who won´t be pressing water attunement or cleansing wave or empathic bond or shadow arts traits or null field, etc.

I far prefer in that case condi manipulation+blind and an aoe weakness and 3 stack bleed than a single target short duration chill and a bouncing vulnerabity attack.

As for the OP, the reason why people don´t use axe is because it only works against noobs who don´t dodge the channel, which is the only damage and life force generation the weapon has.

I mostly play w3 and I’m on SoR, we’re in the T1 matchup. You are exaggerating the amount of condition removal present. Professions with limited removals don’t waste them on vulnerability, especially against a power necro because they know I can just stack more. Professions like thief or elementalist who have constant removal are going to remove your blinds, bleed, and weakness anyway. Given that, I’d rather have the focus than offhand dagger.

Ruufio.1496:

• Spectral Grasp – Only hits at 1200 range if opponent stands still. Misses extremely easily. Opponents on elevated areas are pulled behind you instead of in front.

Not really correct. Grasp leads the target and so it will hit them if they’re moving. Elevated targets aren’t always pulled behind me in w3. Come to think of it, that hasn’t happened for some time.

Ruufio.1496:

• Dark Path – Misses if opponent dodges before it’s even near them. Should only be dodge-able near hit.

This isn’t true…it is only dodgeable near hit.

Ruufio.1496:

• Spinal Shivers Cast Time – Chill of Death – “Cast Spinal Shivers on an enemy when they hit 25% health” is an instant cast which means this must be a bug because Spinal Shivers having a 1.25 second cast time is ridiculous.

So they saved some tooltip space by saying “cast” instead of “applies the effects of”. Who cares?

Dylninja.4216:

I fail to see how 75 more attack over the focus can be bad

75 extra damage on one weapon set, or the vulnerability from Focus will give you 12% extra damage on anything. When you are hitting for 1k or higher and that 12% is 120 damage or more I don’t know why you’d choose 75 damage.

You should use weapons because you prefer the skills they give, not because of the numbers on them.

How much money do you have from other characters? Maxing a crafting skill will get you 10 levels no matter when you start, and if you follow guides around the internet you can do it for less than 5 gold per crafting skill.

I use Plague Form on my power necro. Lich Form does do insane damage but I prefer more utility rather than raw damage in my playstyle. Plague Form lets me get off stomps in a zerg vs. zerg situation and get out safely and is great against trash in dungeons. I’ve never really felt like I needed the extra damage from Lich.