Guild Wars 2

santenal.1054:

Im not much of a grenade user but aren’t you again pigeonholed into the explosives trait line (grenadier to essential) when you want to use grenades ? i vaguely remember they wanted to avoid that or something?

This is true. Grenades without grenadier suck, even though they feel kind of sucky overall since the mortar being introduced allowed them to nerf the nades range and field.

Grenadier should either do more, or just be baseline.

Also, the other big problem with explosives is shrapnel. The condi pressure from this trait is horrible, in part because bleed does too little damage in comparison to burn that does too much damage. If you don’t run mortar, you essentially have a wasted GM trait, since shrapnel and theromobaric both suck. In fact on most traitlines this is the case. In alchemy HGH is good, but with no elixirs, you don’t get much use out of the other two.

Anyway yeah, shrapnel sucks so bad, that incendiary powder should just be moved back there to replace it, and maybe a cele build can sort of come back again like it was prepatch, assuming damage reduction gets improved.

Phaeton.9582:

nearlight.3064:

Like I said that list was just my opinion of what works in the current meta at a competitive level, and right now for necro, you need to build tanky in order to do well for the most part. Yes some people have made power wells work, but you can’t deny that its a bit outdated right now. I have friends that have made power signet builds work much better than wells, simply because wells are quite easy to avoid when they’re not used as downcleave.

Burn Engi I do consider to be bottom tier, simply because its frail as hell and completely dependent on blowtorch and Incendiary ammo for 80% of its damage. It poses no serious threat to a coordinated team. HGH cele engi is very weak to focus fire and totally outclassed by mightstacking builds on ele and necro.

What I listed as Bottom tier, and between Mid and Bottom Tier, the differences between those two are pretty slight, I just view those in between mid and bottom tier as slightly more viable than bottom tier. While the build I described as bottom tier can work in solo queue or casual ranked play, I don’t think they provide serious value at an actually competitive level. They may be viable, just not optimal. Meanwhile other builds that aren’t even listed, I wouldn’t even call viable.

Literally just come out of this match. Rabid engi.

Oh yay, you have anecdotal evidence, how wonderful. I mean tournament evidence where teams with a rabid engi win against organized teams would be more useful then this.

Like I said that list was just my opinion of what works in the current meta at a competitive level, and right now for necro, you need to build tanky in order to do well for the most part. Yes some people have made power wells work, but you can’t deny that its a bit outdated right now. I have friends that have made power signet builds work much better than wells, simply because wells are quite easy to avoid when they’re not used as downcleave.

Burn Engi I do consider to be bottom tier, simply because its frail as hell and completely dependent on blowtorch and Incendiary ammo for 80% of its damage. It poses no serious threat to a coordinated team. HGH cele engi is very weak to focus fire and totally outclassed by mightstacking builds on ele and necro.

What I listed as Bottom tier, and between Mid and Bottom Tier, the differences between those two are pretty slight, I just view those in between mid and bottom tier as slightly more viable than bottom tier. While the build I described as bottom tier can work in solo queue or casual ranked play, I don’t think they provide serious value at an actually competitive level. They may be viable, just not optimal. Meanwhile other builds that aren’t even listed, I wouldn’t even call viable.

Adjust.6903:

Ok necro I will definitely try out for solo queue I’ll pass the engi for now. So, since you main a necro, whether this goes to pm or here, got any tips and tricks for a newbie like me? And race wise is asura still the nicest looking for necro?

Race really doesn’t matter, so pick whatever you want, but the general outline of the build is here. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Celestial_Signet

Basically learn to manage deathshroud really well. The 2 skill in deathshroud, dark path is probably your best skill for locking someone down since with these traits, it will inflict 5 condis, including 5 seconds of chills, which is tough for people to deal with. In general most of your damage comes from deathshroud, while your other weapons serve the purpose of sustained damage, building life force, and bombing people with condi transfers, with the signet transfer being especially powerful. The main weakness of the build is lack of mobility, meaning you can’t escape a 1v3 or 1v4 situation without plague, and even then its tough, but thats a problem to every necro build and most classes that aren’t ele/thief/mesmer, so just make sure you choose your fights wisely (don’t barge into outnumbered situations). And in general you can 1v1 most classes really well as long as you have life force, but you can build it quite fast in a pinch with spectral armor, so that helps as well. Having good positioning is needed too, as people love to focus fire necros, although this build is tanky enough to handle that relatively well, just don’t go on point right at the start of a match with no life force.

Feel free to PM me here or ingame if you have any questions.

Login.5102:

So much fail in this thread.

If you think a Highly skilled Cele Necro counters a Highly skilled D/D ele…..you really don’t know what your talking about. You have an idea in your head and your repeating it like a mindless parrot.

A good cele necro can destory bad ele’s but thats not what were talking about. Equal skill level is about a 50% chance of winning(what da hell is this!!! truuuth?). If you think that’s a hard counter…i wish you the best and hope you can live a normal life.

So can you propose a counter that has a greater than 50% chance of winning in a 1v1 assuming both players are mechanically skilled with their class at a high level of play? Since right now cele necro looks like the best counter, even if its not an ideal counter, which signifies that ele is too strong.

@ Jekkt yeah I’ll probably be testing cele reaper and condi reaper the most. Condi I have mostly figured out (just take all the cheesey traits and spam fear and chill) but for cele I honestly don’t know what traitline from the current build I’d drop.

Spite seems needed to power blighter’s boon, while the weakness, transfer, and AoE PoC from curses seems like its too good to pass up. Its just that keeping those lines means you wouldn’t be able to take SR, meaning no vital persistance or soul marks. Also I think dhuumfire may finally be competitve with death perception on a cele reaper build, but we’d have to see. But if blighter’s boon lets us drop soul marks and vital persistence, I think that spread could work.

Adjust.6903:

I have to admit I’ve never even attempted a necro. What makes them top tier? And is that versus certain opponents or in general? Like for solo queue for etc.

Trap ranger could be worth a look at also… Ill take a dive into power engi and trap ranger and perhaps necro. Which one of these seems the safest for a constant solo queue? Sorry for the dumb questions btw lol

Well its quite arguable whether or not necro is/will be top tier, but since I main it I placed it there. If it doesn’t become top tier, it will be really close though. Right now theres a really good celestial build that uses signets that is overall really good in both 1v1s and teamfights, in fact it hardcounters most condi builds all together, as well as generally countering every other top tier spec 1v1, especially eles and guardians due to chill and boon corruption. Right now though the necro builds that don’t have toughness and vitality are a bit weak though, meaning that power and terrormancer are lower tier in their current state.

But celestial is really good on necro. It seems like a weird build, but it works out really well, mainly because spite gives you tons of might stacking and you have lots of sustain through life force generation. If its not top tier, then I’d say its really close. Its become quite common on NA, but I haven’t really seen much Necro at all on EU.

Trap Ranger is mainly good because it can condi bomb people in smaller fights, so the only thing they really have to fear is a cele or condi necro. In teamfights they’re a bit weaker mainly due to being easier to focus fire, but the damage is there. I’d say necro is the safest for solo queue, but ranger works fairly well, and engi can too, but only if you’re realll really good at engi.

Yeah Revenant needs another ranged option, preferably one with a hybrid focus, as right now if you make a condi revenant, you don’t really have any way to use any weapons that aren’t mace/axe.

The only thing about ele that needs a nerf is an overall nerf to the scaling of burn damage, since right now burn does way too much damage, while things like bleeds do nothing. Maybe tweak the cooldown or stacks of burning applied by ring of fire too, but thats the only thing I’d really change.

Adjust.6903:

So what’s the meta order like these days? Like 1 being awesome 3 being poor. Top, middle and bottom tier… Who is where?

In my slightly biased opinion:

Top Tier: Fire D/D ele, cele signet necro, D/P thief, Support Guardian, PU zerk shatter mesmer

Mid Tier: Medi/Burn Guard, Power Rifle Engi (soldier or marauder), Trap Ranger, S/D thief, Mantra Mesmer, Stone Heart Bunker Cele Ele (staff or D/D), Soldier Necro (MM or US bunker), GS/Hammer Rampage Warrior,

Between Mid and Bottom Tier: Power Ranger, Condi Mesmer, Condi Necro, Tanky Warrior (shoutbow/hambow)

Bottom Tier: Condi Engi, Fresh Air Ele, Cele HGH engi, Condi Thief, Power Wells/Lich Necro

Thats my take on the current meta, everything else thats not commonly seen ever, I can’t really give a good “tier placement”. Feel free to disgree, but based on my experiences and observations multiclassing, this is what I have noticed.

It looks interesting, but I’d take rifle for more CC and decapping utility than pistol/shield, ans then take the heal reset trait instead.

I’m not sure if magi amulet is ideal. I mean yeah you get tons of bunker down healing, but the lack of toughness will make it hard for you. Overall I feel like soldiers would let you fill the tanky pointholder/decapper role better and let you do more damage.

Jekkt.6045:

the big question for reaper will be how much you will have to spec into life force gain and how many other traits you will have to sacrifice in order to get enough life force.

while greatsword does not have many ways to get life force it is by nature a more defensive weapon than for example dagger imo.

another thing is what role the reaper is supposed to fill (or rather what he will), a duelling build or more of a teamfighter?

this weekend will be a lot of work i guess.. i have a couple of builds in my mind, some traits that i have to test in game to find out what benefits me more.. reaper won’t be the only one i am going to test. reaper, revenant and tempest will all get some long pvp reviews from me..

The GS and RS skills seem generally geared towards teamfights, as are the shouts. I honestly think it’d be better to drop GS for dagger/WH with reaper just because dagger will be way better 1v1 and give more life force and RS should give you enough cleave. Add a staff with soul marks and you’ll be good to go.

Well since MMR is invisible, that would make it a really odd suggestion at all.

The only two viable builds in top tier PvP are overall weaker and less versatile than the old cele rifle build.

1. Soldier’s- This build is being used a lot on EU, but not NA. It focuses on getting decaps in smaller fights and generally being tanky enough to 1v1 and 1v2 comfortably. Zan from TCG uses it. You don’t do a ton of damage in teamfights, but you can sort of hold the point for a bit when needed. This build does well in most 1v1s, but condi builds will end you, since alchemy and inventions with HT, isn’t really enough condi clear, which is a weakness of engi as a whole.

2. Marauder- Chaith uses this build on NA. It focuses on doing tons of cleave damage in teamfights, but its generally weak in 1v1s unless you get the jump on someone. It also depends a lot on the RNG of elixir X, and uses double elixir S and gear shield to stay alive.

So right now the engi meta is quite rough, and you honestly have to be very good at Engi mechanically, to even make it work at all, because there really isn’t a build like the old cele rifle build, where you could be useful in every situation while doing tons of damage/CC in teamfights while being able to 1v1 almost anything. And thats because engi traitlines got changed so much, nades and backpack regen are weaker, incendiary powder in a new traitline, and overall because theives/mesmers/eles do more damage cele doesn’t have the innate tankiness to really soak up hits like it did in the past. So only ele and necro really run celestial now.

Also.. there are cheesey condi burn spam builds, but theres no point in running them at all due to passive cleanses, and the fact that 1 necromancer on the enemy team will be enough to use your own burns to kill everyone on your team

Cecilia.5179:

Bhawb.7408:

You clearly don’t understand Batman at all.

His Utility Belt would be quite useless if he couldn’t grab anything in it, which would make it rather impossible to compete with super heroes. I think I have a fairly good understanding of Batman.

No Engineers are the batman of this game, since they have toolbelt skills, and lack magical/super powers of their own in favor of gadgets, kits, and questionable elixirs. And engi is also arguably worse off than necro in PvP right now, so theres that too.

With scepter/dagger and the chill cheese trait, you may be able to take chilling darkness if only to get extra cheese damage from the deathly swarm or blind transfers.

In this meta, I find that 3 condi transfers in your build as a necro is generally adequate, unless you somehow miss one, then you can actually die to say a trap ranger spamming evades.

Lopez.7369:

Hm. I think you guys are right now that I’m giving the celestial build a serious shot.

I think the problem might be that scepter is just not a good weapon. Kind of a bummer.

yeah thats a huge part of it. I tried running the cele build with scepter/dagger instead of staff, and overall it was just a bit on the subpar side, mainly due to its lackluster life force generation.

And I feel as though the scepter’s condi stacking potential is a bit weak, but then again, most 1-handed condi weapons tend to be that way. Mesmer scepter is only better in my eyes since it can burst torment and confusion while necro scepter is a bit too slow in its condi application in comparison, which is why terror and/or boon corrupts need to make up for that.

I think reaper could “save” condi necro. Having damaging chill (which looks to do about 2/3rd of terror per tick below 50%) and AoE stackable dhuumfire and a low cooldown heal that gives you life force could make it a viable choice again, by giving it overall better condi output and survivability.

Arche.7326:

Roe.3679:

Necro is not bottom tier in pvp. We’re in a better spot than rangers, engis, guards and warriors, so that’s top half right there. Countering eles also helps.

I think you exaggerate a bit. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Necro in tournament play. It’s like what, Noscoc and thats about it. In normal PvP or WvW we are viable, but so is just about everything, when played properly.

Today, there was also OP necro, and the random person on mime’s random team. There was also a well necro on the one team that QT fought, but I forgot his name (he got bodied). In previous weaks sunfish and pheownix have played it in NA ESLs/

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lopez.7369:

I can see the celestial signet build having more survivability once it’s being attacked, although I think it also exposes itself to being attacked much more than the condition build since it requires melee range.

My worry is the damage. I think the celestial signet build’s damage is poor, while conditions can do a lot more, especially with Corrupt Boon. And I don’t feel like the condition build is so lacking in survivability (especially with 20-second-cooldown Consume Conditions) that it should really worry about giving up so much damage for some survivability.

Celestial Signet mightstacks well. Damage isn’t an issue.

Yeah and most of the damage comes from Death Perception boosted autos that are backed by that really good ferocity stat.

I also think condi reaper could be better. This is due to damaging chill, a way to actually use Dhuumfire and the fact that the shout heal is low CD and gives you life force.

So while I only watched the NA ESL today, it seemed that in general, there were a lot less warriors around. In fact Crysis, arguably the most prominent player of the zerker build, was the only one I can remember off the top of my head. Was the rampage nerf really enough to make warrior a much less attractive choice?

On a sidenote, the overall number of mesmers seem down slightly, and people all run domination/dueling/chaos with no inspiration since the mantra nerf, so pretty much just PU. I also noticed slightly more medi guard and cele necro too compared to previous weeks. What do you guys think about this? Will the 5 classes thought to be “meta” stay the same, or do you think things will or have been changing?

Lopez.7369:

I honestly have no idea what people think the celestial signet build has over conditions. The celestial build does less damage, requires melee range to be at its most effective, and corrupts less. It also relies on a much worse heal without the advantage of Consume Condition’s short cooldown. (Using scepter auto to get one blind off is not the end of the world.) It’s just bewildering to me.

People tend to imitate what they see the top players use. So even if condition necro is objectively better than celestial, we cannot prove it unless we see a team run condi necro it at least somewhat successfully in higher tiers.

As for cele, its main advantage over condi necro is life force generation and sustained damage compared to burst damage. Condi necro does have better burst pressure, but lack of life force generation, and the fact that all the best traits in curses occupy the same tier, really hurt it in my opinion. I do think condi necro has potential though, its just that teams haven’t run it, in part because people look to Noscoc as a guide for what to do to make necro work in higher tier, since he has proven that it can work at that level.

As to why he’s using cele over condi, which in turn is why everyone else is using cele over condi, I think the reason lies in the Abjured’s team comp. Phantaram and Wakkey are a bit flexible in the classes they are willing to play, as while they both play ele now, they’ve run guard and warrior in the past meta. Chaithh and Nos aren’t as flexible in what they want to play. While they will change their builds, they only truly play the classes that they main. Now due to engi trait changes, and the power creep of the meta, cele engineer is now widely believed to be unviable, whereas it was very strong prepatch. Since chaith couldn’t maintain the same exact role of a cele engi, he had real two choices as an Engi. Either play the soldiers build used on EU and have similar survivability to the old cele engi but rather poor offensive pressure (many former cele engi mains find it dull and boring), or make his own build that was DPS oriented. He took the second option. In the past Nos ran either terrormancer or power wells based on the meta, but I think that because the division of roles on his team became different, he decided to use cele instead so it would give his team a similar balance of tanky roles vs. offensive roles as before. In the past they had a shoutbow that could allow 3 DPS and 2 Tanky to work because the pre-nerfed shoutbow had arguably better support than what eles do now, but since Shoutbow isn’t viable, they went double ele, so a tanky necro build just seems to fit their comp better.

Anyway that is my analysis on the situation as a whole. Basically the cele necro build came to be as a result of meta changes across multiple classes for the dominant team on NA. I think condi necro could be a strong choice in higher tier, but right now it just seems that cele is easier to fit into a team simply because it can live longer when focused.

Khristophoros.7194:

Bhawb.7408:

Khristophoros.7194:

I suggested this in another thread. Add a trait to apply torment with dagger skills.

Quickening Thirst: +25% movement speed while wielding a dagger and all dagger skills apply 1 torment for 5s.

Move it to Curses to replace Chilling Darkness, and add a brand new Blood Magic trait to replace it.

This makes no sense, dagger isn’t a condi weapon, why make it hybrid for no reason.

We don’t have a melee condition or hybrid weapon. Notice that you’d have to take Curses to do it.

I argue that we don’t need one. Cele signets does fine with dagger MH and if you take dhuumfire and reaper, RS will give you melee condi/hybrid application.

The soldier build is good for 1v2ing and getting decaps, but it also means that you’re a bit more dependent on the rest of your team having better damage than you, but it can hold a point in smaller fights very well.

Unholy Sanctuary is really really good for what it does. That being said, you generally lose some form of utility or damage by taking death over say, curses or spite, which can be tough for builds that don’t have MM or bunker goals in mind.

Yashuoa.9527:

Because I am looking for a fun versatile class that has the option to fight on medium range or long range and is useful to a team (like can help out the team well with cc/heal/other protection or utility. Stuff like that.

Thanks for the links.

I’ll be honest with you, because of the capture point nature of the game there won’t be any really good builds that can stay at ranged the whole time in every scenario. If you run staff ele, which technically is ranged, usually you’re playing it in a support/pointholder role, meaning you’ll have to be on a point face-tanking damage. So this would probably be a better build for you, but it won’t be played fully from range.

Theres also mesmer, but thats damage oriented rather than suppport, and you generally need to be very aggressive to play it well. Ranger has ranged damage but pretty much no support for their team, and they die easily when focused.

Kharr.5746:

If it’s a signet necro, you also have to dodge the signets since they convert 2 of your boons to conditions. You should note that the traited plague signet passively transfers conditions only when the necro has 3+ condis on him. If you stack only burns, it won’t transfer them back to you unless he uses his active signet/staff 4. Your other option is to stay in attunements longer to avoid building up too many boons that can be converted.

Signet necro is only really powerful against boon and condi spammers (e.g. d/d cele ele) so unless you’re playing a different build (e.g. fresh air) you’ll have a tough time.

You also cannot dodge the heal signet. It goes through LoS and evadeframes

If you want to have a chance to survive, you need to dodge Dark Path. It is hard however because they tend to ensure it lands by fearing you during its travel time. The only time you can afford to eat it is if your water attunement isn’t on cooldown. As someone who plays both Ele and necro, I can tell you that 5 seconds of chill is really hard for ele’s to deal with since it prevents you from doing defensive rotations as much. Aside from that, you have to land burning speed consistently as drakes breath and ring of fire will work against you here. You can use ring of fire for might stacking, but be extra careful if they start strafing into and out of it on purpose :p

Odeezee.7362:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t think the necro in abjured is a handicap. The lack of mobility makes it an easier target than a thief obviously, but they also take him out first because they know he is dangerous in a team fight because of the boon hate and condi transfers.

ok, so the fact that Necro can be focused and taken out easily means that the Necro is a handicap as it cannot survive being focused and not having mobility is, yes you guessed it, a handicap as well. what’s the point of being “dangerous” when you die all the time before you can even become what you think people fear of you?

You’re talking about when Nos ran condi builds or power builds in the past. Right now he pretty much only runs cele builds or tanky soldiers power builds from what I’ve seen, and those are both much harder to focus down and have better life force generation than condi builds. They just trade burst condi DPS for sustained DPS and better survivability.

So don’t think of condi or glass cannon power necro as the meta for the class anymore, because it isn’t. I do think condi builds have some potential though, but only if reaper trait/skill synergies fix the current condi builds problems in practice (and with stability and AoE spammable dhuumfire, that looks possible) and if terror and path of corruption get changed to no longer occupy the same tier.

Yeah my issue is that I plan to make a carrion condi build for pvp, but theres literally no point in ever taking any weapon besides mace/axe because nothing else can really apply damaging conditions. I mean with carrion I’ll have power so I could use hammer for range spam or swords… for some reason, but it already feels like I’ll have very little synergy between the weapons on this build because they are all so specialized.

I mean I’ll take corruption, and I can probably find some minor use among the other traitlines on a condi build to survive better, but still it feels a bit strange.

Toolbox.9375:

nearlight.3064:

Signet of Stone is a ranger skill. Theres signet of earth, but no one with a brain runs that.

Ah, that’s right, Signet of Earth. Is it really that bad, even in PvE when going specifically for tankiness?

In this game you don’t go into tankiness in PvE. In PvP you use cantrips for “tankiness”

Signet of Stone is a ranger skill. Theres signet of earth, but no one with a brain runs that.

Also in another thread I posted this comparison of fire traits to explosives, that I will pasted below.

Comparing explosives to the fire magic trait line for Elementalist is almost absurd. Fire magic gives bonus power while in fire, a passive proc condi removal, and lots of might stacking, cooldown reduction on the fire skills, 2 10% damage modifiers that are basically active whenever you’re in fire, and easy blind procs with a low ICD when you inflict burn (which you will do a lot).

Explosives makes grenades functional, gives you a kitten y rocket proc for an extra 1000 damage every 10 seconds (100 more DPS, yay), a 10% damage modifier for your grenades, a bomb on dodge that is pretty much useless, and then either the choice of making mortar functional, or shrapnel, which is honestly the most underwhelming GM trait I can think of across all classes. A 15% chance to proc 2 stacks of a condition that does very little damage with that duration and stacking, and a very short duration cripple? Thats so bad in practice it makes me angry.

There are way more issues aside but thats one reason why I feel that engi is so tough to make viable right now. And comparing explosives to fire magic, just makes me realize how terrible things are. Maybe if we didn’t need traits to make kits not completely suck, things would be a lot better for the engi in its current, deplorable state.

Aeryn.9813:

I play necromancer too and am rooting for the class. Necros are very commitment heavy at a point. The fact that it lacks disengagement makes it weaker overall in conquest.

In death matches, it does extremely well…especially power well mancers.

It would be nice if the game had multiple death match maps. Like convert Capricorn to a TDM sans water combat.

Maybe a frozen over winter version of the capricorn stage with ice physics to make things interesting! I honestly would expect something like that from anet after their “creative outburst” in skyhammer.

Dirame.8521:

nearlight.3064:

Dirame.8521:

Zenith.7301:

Who gives a kitten about fear, it’s useless in PvE all it’s useful for ever since the defiance changes affecting fear is to get you booted out of the party for spreading mobs.

Engineer can might stack better than a necromancer and have similar bleed and poison output, with burning and confusion on top of it all. And engineer is one of the best classes at stacking vulnerability as well.

Why are you answering my post, a post obviously tailored to PvE, with PvP counterpoints?

Necromancer is among the weakest condi specs in PvE. This is not debatable, there’s plenty of spreadsheets and videos showcasing optimal DPS condi setups and builds for PvE out there. Start with DnT.

Sinister Engi>Burning Guard>Sinister Ranger= Condi warrior>Condi ele> Condi Mesmer>Necromancer.

And then there’s the fact that a condimancer, being the worst condi class for PvE also brings no group support or boosts to group DPS remotely competitive with the alternatives.

Well if we’re talking PvE then no worries. I was talking PvP.

Yeah Ceimash (I remember you as Jebro in Deathshroud). I respect Zenith for his argumentative skills, but he mainly focuses on PvE with some exceptions, whereas people like us see these types of topics as PvP debates, which they in general tend to be. On these forums its not always clear which of the 3 game modes is being discussed in depth, which can be frustrating sometimes.

Anyway as far as PvP is concerned, as I said before I beleive condi necro is viable, but not optimal, but reaper trait synergies have the potential to change that.

Yea, I guess I’ll start almost every post with “In PvP” from now on. and glad you recognize me. The problem I have with your thoughts is that, I don’t feel the Cele Necro is that great but, I can’t argue much because it’s just my opinon

You’re on EU right though? Aren’t condi builds used more often over there in general? Also while I don’t follow the EU scene as much as NA, I can’t really think of any well known necromancers in higher tier EU unlike NA.

While occasionally dubious in exact specifications, http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki is a good website to get some basic info on build ideas, but there is a lot of viable variation in things like runes and sigils, and even traits and utilities to an extent.

Elementalist has a lot of viable builds but I’d say the only one thats truly optimal right now is fire/water/arcana D/D. earth/water/arcana D/D and staff come close but fire is really overpowered due to extra power, damage modifiers, blind, and the ability to throw out a lot of burning.

For weapons, on the platform in the main area, there are vendors that sell basic weapons really cheaply, ele can only use dagger, scepter, focus, and staff. All of your build details are adjusted with the build template. You can test out your skills on golems in the heart of the mists. I reccomend going straight to queuing for unranked right away once you have the basic idea of the mechanics of your class. Once you understand conquest tactics such as roations (where you need to go in the match and when to help your team win) you should do ranked as its more serious. There are some good teamfight and rotation guides on youtube as well.

This short video guide was made by one of the top ele pvpers in the game and it will give you a brief but very helpful overview to how to play the class well, even if the game has changed a bit since this was published.

Anyway feel free to message me ingame if you have any questions, I’m always willing to help out new players!

Dirame.8521:

Zenith.7301:

Who gives a kitten about fear, it’s useless in PvE all it’s useful for ever since the defiance changes affecting fear is to get you booted out of the party for spreading mobs.

Engineer can might stack better than a necromancer and have similar bleed and poison output, with burning and confusion on top of it all. And engineer is one of the best classes at stacking vulnerability as well.

Why are you answering my post, a post obviously tailored to PvE, with PvP counterpoints?

Necromancer is among the weakest condi specs in PvE. This is not debatable, there’s plenty of spreadsheets and videos showcasing optimal DPS condi setups and builds for PvE out there. Start with DnT.

Sinister Engi>Burning Guard>Sinister Ranger= Condi warrior>Condi ele> Condi Mesmer>Necromancer.

And then there’s the fact that a condimancer, being the worst condi class for PvE also brings no group support or boosts to group DPS remotely competitive with the alternatives.

Well if we’re talking PvE then no worries. I was talking PvP.

Yeah Ceimash (I remember you as Jebro in Deathshroud). I respect Zenith for his argumentative skills, but he mainly focuses on PvE with some exceptions, whereas people like us see these types of topics as PvP debates, which they in general tend to be. On these forums its not always clear which of the 3 game modes is being discussed in depth, which can be frustrating sometimes.

Anyway as far as PvP is concerned, as I said before I beleive condi necro is viable, but not optimal, but reaper trait synergies have the potential to change that.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I’ve used all three and won plenty of matches with them. Overall I think there’s still balance issues, especially with regard to mesmer and elementalist, but you have got to be kidding me if you think we had more options before June 23. It was Celestial or bust, and there’s no way mesmers and elementalists are staying as-is for much longer.

You make some good arguments, but I’d say the main issue of being “freed from celestial rifle” is that all of our exciting new options and build diversity, are strictly inferior to the old cele build in every way. Its like how ele mains complain about running water and arcana in every build, only to realize that if either of those traitlines were nerfed in terms of sustain, then ele as a whole would fall out of the meta altogether. That is what happened to the engineer.

Aside from that the main reason that cele engi isn’t good is that it can’t keep up with the power creep. In the cele meta, eles, warriors, and engis ran cele because they could do comparable damage to zerker classes (overtime combined with condi pressure) while being tanky enough to handle other celes and take a few hits from those zerkers. Now that the zerker amulet does so much more damage and that mesmers (and thieves to a lesser extent) are so powerfully bursty, you can’t survive against them very easily with a cele amulet, in part because engi hasn’t been able to heal through any damage it takes as easily as elementalist, and because that damage is so much higher, and that things like backpack regen were nerfed, cele engi just can’t keep up.

And to finish that off, the traitlines are problematic and condition changes (like stackable burning) hurt engis more than other classes due to having the worst access to cleanse out of arguably any class in the game. Even if you go all out into inventions and alchemy, and take elixir gun, your cleanse is still on the weak side.

Comparing explosives to the fire magic trait line for Elementalist is almost absurd. Fire magic gives bonus power while in fire, a passive proc condi removal, and lots of might stacking, cooldown reduction on the fire skills, 2 10% damage modifiers that are basically active whenever you’re in fire, and easy blind procs with a low ICD when you inflict burn (which you will do a lot).

Explosives makes grenades functional, gives you a kitten y rocket proc for an extra 1000 damage every 10 seconds (100 more DPS, yay), a 10% damage modifier for your grenades, a bomb on dodge that is pretty much useless, and then either the choice of making mortar functional, or shrapnel, which is honestly the most underwhelming GM trait I can think of across all classes. A 15% chance to proc 2 stacks of a condition that does very little damage with that duration and stacking, and a very short duration cripple? Thats so bad in practice it makes me angry.

There are way more issues aside but thats one reason why I feel that engi is so tough to make viable right now. And comparing explosives to fire magic, just makes me realize how terrible things are. Maybe if we didn’t need traits to make kits not completely suck, things would be a lot better for the engi in its current, deplorable state.

1. Rampage was nerfed but many top teams will continue to run DPS warriors regardless as the rest of the kit wasn’t nerfed. Tanky warriors aren’t as common prepatch though.

2. If the thief is very good and their target is either low on health or in a compromised position, then yes. If no, the thief will probably die. Thief requires you to be cold, calculating, and decisive in your bursts, and not every mentality can pull that off effectively (I know I can’t).

3. Minion Builds are okay, but I don’t suggest that a newcomer play them because they will keep you from getting better at the game. Any build when you spam AI and don’t manage real cooldowns will keep you from improving. Yes necromancers are viable, and celestial signets is considered to be the optimal necro pvp build right now.

4. Yes they can with a fresh air scepter/focus build, but its not optimal compared to D/D builds which are bruisers. D/D ele deals good sustained damage and high damage over time from fire skills, while swapping to water as much as possible to heal off any damage it takes and earth to maintain protection, meaing that good eles are very difficult to kill while dealing good physical damage and damage over time and supporting teammates.

5. It depends on build. PU zerk is weak to conditions, but immosible to lock down. Inspiration/mantra zerk has very high cleanse to conditions and generally high CC, but that build was nerfed and is easily to lockdown. Overall player skill will determine the outcome of a mesmer fight 1v1, but ele and necro (with full DS) are probably the best choices right now, but good thieves or trap rangers stand a fair chance as well.

6. Guards are good at suuport. They run shout builds that cure condis for allies and heal them and give boons while providing rezzes and stomps with CC and quickness. The damage builds deal a ton of damage but are bit outclassed by mesmer.

7. Elite specs provide some new change/or addition in class mechanic to the class and gives them an option of taking a new weapon choice at the cost of a base class traitline. We’ll know how great it works out after next week’s beta.

Egorum.9506:

There’s zero math there? you’re just throwing out numbers lol.

Base Rabid: 19k DS, 19.5k hp pool=38.5k
Base Cele: 19k DS, 25.1k hp pool=44.1k

assuming anything past that point is null and void, you cannot predict every scenario. they dodge your dagger 2, EHP drop. you’re fighting one target, no big locust heal, EHP drop. also, i said that you’re running the same build as condi terror signets as cele signets. the only changes are PoC for Terror and the fear trait in soul reaping for decreased CD. Scepter for dagger, maintaining the WH offhand for all the reasons you’ve listed above. The only utility difference is swapping out SA for SG because you can run FitG over DP and don’t need the stunbreak. SA is great when you get jumped with no LF, nightmare runes provide the same function in an immediate peel and set up for a SG.

The sole difference between the builds in LF generation is dagger AA, which is highly unreliable. No one runs a build that requires them to stay in 180 range because it’s completely unfeasible to keep someone that close. scepter AA is ranged and deals comparable damage to cele dagger even in the ideal scenario where you can sit on top of someone and AA away.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhZ6kGRoyGs1GwzGg/GcgLUwrOAWg4WPBfANNKjvA-TJhHwAB3fAwpAAZZgxPBAA

It’s the same build, based on the same principles. only better.

I used this calculator to run the EHP calculations.
http://output.jsbin.com/ohidik/1

Also you’re wrong because with a rabid amulet, you only have up to about 15K health in life force, assuming your team even kills enough people for you to even get it that full… So know I’m not throwing out numbers since I used a calculator to calculate the balance between health and armor in each build, but you’re wrong because you didn’t even get the true amount of deathshroud health of a rabid amulet build correct.

Also since you take master of terror over vital persistence, your sustain is even lower and you can’t terror burst as much due to cooldowns.

And while it is true that you can’t predict every scenario it is widely accepted that terrormaster is a great 1v1 build, but isn’t as great in teamfights for the reasons I’ve listed in my 9 point post above. Cele necro is also great at 1v1s even if it takes slightly longer to kill things, while it has much more survivability in teamfights, and you can be more flexible in your positioning. Dagger autos deal more damage than scepter autos because the scepter autos stack bleeds very slowly and while they last really long, they will generally be cleansed before their full duration is reached if you’re fighting a team that has a d/d ele or support guard or inspiration mesmer on their team.

As to your point about people not sitting in range to let them be dagger autoed, thats not a good reason. Cele necro is tanky enough to be in melee and unless the enemy wants to give up the point to you, they can’t really kite you effectively. The only threatening thing that really kite dagger autos is a mesmer, but they get wrecked by dark path and life blasts so its a non issue. I have never had trouble landing dagger autos against a target that wasn’t a staff/GS mesmer, but thats only because they can kite anything melee.

Well the expansion will likely draw people back since there will be new stuff to play with.

OneKlicKill.4285:

Roe.3679:

If necro is the “weakest” light armor class, it’s only because ele and mesmer are so strong. Necro is fine. It finally can play the attrition role it was promised, can contribute to a team, and still has all of the major weaknesses it always had.

If you don’t mind me asking, what is the necros “major weakness” cause when i play necro I feel just as strong as my ele or mesmer. They are just the only of the 3 that don’t really have a standard default rotation to approach every fight, you have to actually think which is why so many people think they are weak cause its apparently hard to think… Now I think ele needs the burning stack application tweaked (reduce stack application increase duration) and mesmer could still use some toning down on their burst and/or stun/daze intensity. But all 3 classes are in an amazing place, the same cannot be said for the medium armor classes right now.

The main weakness of necromancer is the inability to disengage and lack of mobility overall, but I feel as though their strengths make up for that weakness. Necromancer also has poor cleave, but reaper will pretty much completely address that.

Also reaper will help a lot with that simply thought greater stability uptime, -66% movement impairing condition uptime trait, and the 600 range leap skill that has a mere 6 second cooldown. Yeah its not a ton of mobility or anything, and you’ll likely have to give up a really good traitline to even use reaper (spite, curse and SR are all really strong in their own right) but I think it will help mitigate the weaknesses.

Well in the past, when the game first came out, if my knowledge is correct, a pistol/pistol HGH elixir condi build was really popular.

Although now if you did that it would probably be more efficient to take elixir gun (since it has 3 skills that proc condi-removal and HGH). And in the current meta you really need either tool kit or elixir S to survive for more than 2 seconds (although both is preferred) since the damage is so high, meaning you wouldn’t have as much room to take fun elixirs like elixir B or C. You can take the elixir heal too, but even with the CD reduction, heal turret still outdoes it in healing over time and condi removal, it just won’t give you might.

So yeah pistols are decently useful on condi builds, however they aren’t that great in the current meta because burn spiking doesn’t work well against real teams, and things like necromancers will utterly end you easily. In the current meta, engineer as a whole is slightly underpowered.

Right now the “best” pvp builds use rifle for the CC, and run either a tanky soldiers setup to be a sort of bruiser with kinda bad damage, or a marauder build with high damage and active rather than passive survivability, that focuses on spamming cleave and CC in teamfights but isn’t as capabable of holding a point in smaller fights. Either way though prepatch cele engi was overall just so much better.

Egorum.9506:

nearlight.3064:

Condi Necro=high Burst Damage, poor sustained damage, low survivability
Cele Necro= Good Sustained Damage, poor burst damage, high survivability

So in my mind cele outperforms condi just because its good at 2 out of 3 things I’m using to grade it, while condi is only good at 1 out of those 3 things.

I wrote an extremely long post 2 weeks ago or so about why condi necro isn’t optimal right now. I dig it up so here’s my indepth analysis in the post below (had to double post because it was so long.

In what way is cele gaining higher survivability over rabid? dagger 2 and 560 healing power is the only difference, and since you’re not running any of the traits that benefit from healing power…? dagger 2 generates 1.7k hp with a cele build and locks you into a predictable skill, that’s not worth enough to cripple your range. the only difference in LF generation is dagger AA, which again, you have to be on top of the opponent to benefit from. Do you allow a dagger necro to sit on top of you the whole game, because i sure don’t. The extra vitality you gain isn’t beneficial, toughness benefits necros far more than vitality because of DS already doubling our ehp pool.

The only time cele has more sustained damage over rabid is if you sit on the opponent, which isn’t practical against anyone other than a warrior. Meanwhile, all your major damage sources (DS, corrupts, condi xfers) are dealing half the damage of a rabid build.

the difference in sustained damage and sustainability is negligible between the two builds, while condi offers much higher burst. the only place where cele signets beats out rabid terror signets is LF generation, and even then it’s only situational.

everything good about cele signets, rabid signets can do as well and to greater effect.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

Celestial offers higher effective health power because it gives you both vitality and toughness, having only one of those stats, even in a higher amount is nowhere near enough to be considered tanky.

Here’s my mathematic proof, assuming pvp stats and Soul Reaping with full Deathshroud
EHP Carrrion: 95,530.912
EHP: Rabid: 96,006.116
EHP: Celestial: 108,938.448

But there is more. You fail to appropriately comprehend the significance of the life force generation difference between the meta cele build and condi builds that you describe. Every way you look it at it, you can’t deny that dagger/warhorn provides much higher life force generation than scepter/dagger, with soul marks on staff being similar between the two. Feast of corruption is horrible life force generation compared to dagger autos and locust swarm. Additionally cele builds usually have spectral armor as a utility (and from the minor trait as your build would have) while condi builds typically bring flesh wurm or spectral walk instead, but regardless spectral armor brings more life force generation over time (SA has a lower CD than Swalk) and gives protection to help the necro survive more. The condi builds you survive don’t have any source of protection aside from the traited last gasp. Additionally where your build will probably want to take signet of spite or corrupt boon, the cele build takes signet of the locus which is a 1.5K per target heal (that can heal you up to 7.5K HP if used against 5 targets).

Now onto damage. The main reason that cele necro has much better sustained damage is because of death perception. Because celestial brings ferocity and power, death perception ensures that your life blasts hit very hard, in fact the damage isn’t much lower than a comparative trait set up with a marauder amulet, due to the ease of mightstacking. Cele necro has much better might stacking than a condi necro traited into spite, since cele necro will actually be able to deal good damage from life blast to proc reaper’s might, and it takes strength runes while condi builds have no might duration and condi damage rune. Additionally the extra sustain and ehp you have on cele lets you use traited dark path (arguably the base necromancer’s best skill) much more often and freely since it won’t be fragile enough to get destroyed by using it in a teamfight.

So I’ve proven that your arguments are completely and entirely wrong. Please know that I don’t think that condi necro is completely unviable, I just think that its suboptimal compared to celestial necromancer in the current metagame for these reasons, and the reasons I’ve listed above. Who knows? Condi reaper could be a thing that could very well save the concept since its sustained condi damage potential looks like it will be stronger with the right trait setup while having more survivability from certain reaper traits, but we’ll have to test it and see.

On NA I’d say Phantaram is arguably the best player to learn things about ele from and he plays ele on the top team in NA. His twitch page has a lot of helpful builds and videos and he streams a lot. You can go to this stream and ask questions about ele stuff, which is pretty helpful.

On EU theres Denshee, Lypion, and a bunch of other people, and theres tons of other eles on NA that are quite good.

Runes tend to vary. If you go fire D/D (which is the best right now until it gets nerfed if it gets nerfed), I’ve seen everything from hoelbrak, to vamp, to strength, or even flame legion (to abuse burning). For earth D/D with stone heart, most take melandru or mercy runes to be more of a bunkery type.

Lets not forget, the team that almost beat the abjured in one match ran 2 mesmers, 2 eles, and a necro, so the light classes are really quite good right now across the board.

Yes to shout recharge, on the temepstuous arias trait. No to warhorn CD, since we get those from the element traitlines, and combinging them would be absolutely broken.

That being said some warhorn skills in should have 5-10 seconds shaved off of their base cooldown times.

Thanks for the responses everyone!

1. Curses traitline is kind of messed up for non-hybrid builds. You basically need any 2 of the 3 master tier traits in curses to be effective, but obviously the system makes it impossible. Meanwhile 2 GM traits are useless , and the useful one, weakening shroud isn’t really build defining like terror actually is.

2. Corruption rework and master corruption is bad. Your corruption skills will have too long of a recharge without the MoC trait, but the extra condis they apply are a bit much as you cannot possibly transfer back all of them without leaving yourself vulnerable to enemy condi bursts. Its just impractical. A heal skill should never blind you. The conditions that they apply to you are also too short to really be useful when transferred but stacked high enough that with condi damage they actually hurt you significantly as you use the skills over time. Therefore the only “viable” condi nec build uses signets over corruptions. Why use corrupt boon and poison yourself when you can just use signets, corrupt almost as much while doing other powerful effects and building might stacks? I can go on and on, on why corruptions are horrible (plague killing you with bleedstacks before it was hotfixed, and only corrupt boon, consume conditions, and plague being worth using at all) but I don’t want this post to get too long. Yeah, its THAT bad.

3. Condi application is still balanced around dhuumfire being strong as it was when it was first introduced, but with the condi rework, dhuumfire is no longer strong or GM worthy. It will be much better with reaper due to faster AoE cleave application, but right now the overall condi stacking output is far too low to have good sustained damage. We still have the nerfs to other skills, like mark of blood, from when dhuumfire was “balanced”, and now dhuumfire does much less damage.. resulting in overall horrible sustained damage pressure.

4. Boon corruption changed to RNG priority removes tactical use of boonstrip, so no more stripping stability reliably into a fear chain, which really hurt the terrormancer ability to secure kills strategically. Terrormancer was always about burst condi application, and this ruined the ability to use boon corruption as burst.

5. With no dire amulet, condi necro is far too fragile on carrion or rabid for the amount of damage it actually brings. Even with foot in the grave, it doesn’t give enough stunbreaks or stability to make up for the innate lack of tankiness.

6. The cele meta of shoutbow/ele/engi made pure condition specs have 0 pressure in teamfights in the past. Now ele/support guard/mantra mesmer has the same effect of tons of AoE condi cleanse just from those classes doing their normal rotations and self heals in teamfights, meaning that condition necromancer won’t be able to keep up with the cleansing without many other condi focused classes that can stack condis better to outpace the cleanse (condi cleave comp). As a rule of them, condi builds become more and more useless the larger the fight becomes, unless backed up by more condi specs, which also suffer from the same lack of tankiness/sustain. So stacking condi builds on a team to outpace cleansing would be bad because carrion amulets don’t let you tank a point.

7. The only decent condi specs on other classes have a lot of similar problems that make them unviable in teamfights, but much better bleed and burn stacking ability that the necro can’t compete with, that actually can be effective in more scenarios. Burning is too strong, and necro has so little of it because of the way in which dhuumfire is balanced for reaper.

8. Condi necro has poor life force generation, mainly due to the scepter 3 being strange. This is relevant to point 5. Deathshroud needs both toughness and vitality to be tanky in larger fights.

9. Few cover conditions too. Very little blind/vuln compared to say a condi mesmer with ineptitude. Torment application is also weak compared to what an unfinished revenant, a condi mesmer, or condi thief can do. Even if those classes have similar teamfight problems and can’t hold a point, they just stack condis with cover condis so much better.

I think that about covers it. Celestial and tanky power necro is really really good though because it avoids most of the flaws that make condition necromancer so terrible in conquest. Cele necro easily gets to 25 might stacks, has boon removal, near perma weakness, and is tanky enough to actually survive in deathshroud in teamfights from base stats alone, and it has good life force generation. Condi necro could be better in stronghold since it has smaller fights generally, but this is not yet certain.

Egorum.9506:

i tried out cele signets earlier and had significantly lower dps. higher healing and that’s about it. kitten near anyone can straight up kite you too. you can’t play condi like you do power or hybrid, DS isn’t for soaking damage unless you really need it to- it’s for dps.

if you’re using scepter 1 to deal damage you aren’t playing condi necro right, it’s not the AA that deals the damage with this build. it’s spectral grasp into 2.5s fears and dark path that deal the burst. plague, locust, and vamp signet are dealing the damage on anyone with stab or high stacks of might. That amounts to all the popular builds right now. play smart and boon eles and guards drop like you wouldn’t believe, i love fighting burn guards when they pop CDs for that 10 stacks of burn only to have them plagued back.

it’s hilarious when people use the long lasting condi skills on a power build, they’re just asking to have it returned with staff 4 or generosity sigils.

Condi Necro=high Burst Damage, poor sustained damage, low survivability
Cele Necro= Good Sustained Damage, poor burst damage, high survivability

So in my mind cele outperforms condi just because its good at 2 out of 3 things I’m using to grade it, while condi is only good at 1 out of those 3 things.

I wrote an extremely long post 2 weeks ago or so about why condi necro isn’t optimal right now. I dig it up so here’s my indepth analysis in the post below (had to double post because it was so long.

Also, now that most of the mantra mesmer bandwagoners have either left the class or respecced to PU, I feel like tempest overlaods will be a bit safer, since the fear of interruption will be at least a little bit more manageable.