Guild Wars 2

No don’t take away my altered life blast! I love it.

And honestly the standard model change will fix this issue for anyone that actually cares

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

i see my necro bros have their happy hats on.

Idk who kittened in all the Necro’s cheerios, but geez people need to lighten up. The two nerfs were absolutely deserved, the buffs were small but nice, and if they don’t introduce any new bugs that’s frankly a pretty amazing patch for us.

I understand that bhawb. I really do. But I was expecting more. Mesmers got everything they ever needed or wanted in this patch, while we got small improvements that won’t change us from being one of the worst classes in gw2.

They listened to the mesmer feedback and fixed nearly everything. For ours, they seemed to almost listen but propose solutions that won’t make a big enough difference overall. It was all QoL imo.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Jelzouki.4128:

Arenanet skipped out on the Necromancer for this feature patch just like they did in the first one. When are we going to see some REAL changes?!!?!?!? Can they just kittening make our siphoning builds effective in PvP already?!?!

Tell that to warriors who literally got nerfed, while the necromancer recieved a list of small buffs.

I’d be fine getting nerfed if my class was top tier in all game modes, but necromancers were not top tier in any game mode save large scale WvW, and those small buffs aren’t enough to move them out of that place. If anything the lich nerf, while fair and warranted will make the few power necromancers in pvp less viable because they can’t sway team fights as easily with lich.

The adrenaline change is a nerf that promotes active play, and those that use a longbow won’t see much of a difference. I don’t think that nerf will make them a lower tier class in any game mode, but they may be a bit less common in pvp in the future.

Lopez.7369:

Geomancy applies slightly more bleeds than Earth — Geomancy keeps 3 bleeds over 10 seconds, while Earth applies about 2.5 bleeds over the same time period — except when you account for cleansing. The Geomancy bleeds are almost never going to last the full duration. The Earth bleeds are scattered. In that sense, you can consider Geomancy a little more “burst” — if 330 damage can really be considered burst — but Earth is much more sustain and condition coverage.

Earth also doesn’t have melee positioning and weapon swapping requirements, which are a huge deal for necromancer. One, going into melee range as a necromancer is suicide in group fights because the class’s survivability is based entirely around positioning. (This is what I was making fun of with my previous post; Noscoc and Zombify do this constantly in tournaments to use Path of Corruption or Geomancy.) Two, swapping to staff is a huge DPS loss compared to scepter if Reaper’s Mark isn’t up, so switching to staff for Geomancy is generally a bad idea.

So Geomancy versus Earth is a little more nuanced and less mathematical than rabid versus carrion, but I’m not really sure why Geomancy gets so much love in comparison. It’s at least closer than people let on. In reality, Earth seems much more effective due to the positional and weapon requirements of necromancer.

As for ranger, I’m not familiar enough with the class to comment. My understanding is that shortbow and other ranger weapons scale decently enough with power that carrion is worth it. In comparison, necromancer’s scepter has one of the worst power coefficients in the game.

Thanks for the advice. These things make sense. What necro build do you use if you don’t seem too keen on PoC? Plz don’t tell me dumbfire.

Hello,

I have never really played a guradian before but I’m interested in possibly playing a DPS/medi build and was wondering what you guys could suggest to me in terms of builds for this purpose.

Also, I need to either buy a new char slot or delete a character.

Hmm lets see, theres the mesmer I never play ever but I might again becuase its getting everything it ever wanted with the patch, my thief thats a muel but has 500 weaponsmithing, or my beloved necromancer that has legendary and 2 400 crafting skills, since the patch is utterly undwhelming towards it.

Sorry if I seem unhinged. I’m depressed and bitter about today’s skillbar and I feel both maimed and disillusioned inside.

Regen ranger builds with axe/dag and sw/torch and settler/apothecary gear will be really strong. Thieves will remain strong. PU mesmer tumors will be ungodly strong. Necromancers will be exactly the same!

Have fun roaming with perma 5 stacks of torment!

Lopez.7369:

I’m not saying you should listen to me. I’m saying you should listen to the math.

With that said, I’m better than Zombify and Noscoc. I don’t run in and die just to corrupt might and protection.

You have to keep in mind that this game is so uncompetitive that the tournament scene isn’t actually reflective of the best players. Many of the best players — and I’m not necessarily including myself in this category — don’t take the game seriously enough to create a team. Pretty much the only serious team, at this point, is TCG in Europe. There are no serious teams in North America.

I wasn’t expecting as thorough or as convincing of an argument out of you as you gave me. I’ll have to wait and see if someone disproves you though. Are you able to do actual damage calculations with a typical condition necro rotation and see how they differ? (using geomancy for carrion, and earth sigil for rabid). That calculation would be interesting to see.

And I do understand what you’re saying. Not every top tier player has the energy to stream or make teams. I’m kind of interested in dueling or playing a match with you to see how you play though, if that would be okay.

Also what would you wager for rabid vs. carrion for ranger condition builds (spirits or traps or weird survival based mixes)? I feel like carrion could work due to the hybridized nature of their weapons and more of a weakness to condition damage compared to necromancer (troll unugent ftw!) but rabid also seems viable due to more/faster attacks and a few attacks that have 5 projectiles (axe and SB 2 at point blank). Its also puzzling me if the new axe would be worth using over shortbow in the future for condition builds.

Anyway, as offtopic as that was, I’m impressed with what you have to say.

warriorjrd.8695:

nearlight.3064:

Prysin.8542:

In terms of ranged single target DPS the “leaderboard” has since before december last year been;
LB Ranger
GS Mesmer
LB Warrior
SB Thief
tha rest

Ranger IS the best ranged damage dealer. The most reliable and tanky? that is another discussion entirely.

Zerker Staff Ele says Hullo?

Even specter fresh air

@ substance E: sharknado getting nerfed next patch. I made a water field with my tears. =’’’’’’’’’(

S/F ele is literally a breath of fresh air to play in this stale game. It is love. It is lyfe.

Anyway back to crying about how underwhelming the necromancer changes were! #someonekillmebeforeIusecheesynightmarebuildonemoretime

Poplolita.2638:

Let’s not forget about Corrosive Poison Cloud horrible cast time. By reducing it’s cast time by half, it could have been an awesome way to increase necromancer attrition capability… It will at least go to a big 0 to 1/10.

And also, some of us proposed to buff other overwhelming utility such as blood is power by addind 6 sec reveal. The fact that they only give it to 2 classes who already have access to stealth, and not to the one who is all about " Attrition, and hard to escape from debuffer" type of class is just ironic.

And many more…. I just pretty much lost hope to even add more… As I said in many other threads, I feel like talking with a wall. Literaly! And hell, how I hate this feeling. Thank you nearlight for voicing necromancer community concern for us.

Yup. I just had to get it off of my chest. I don’t know if I really want to keep playing this game or not anymore.

Its so stale. So sour. I’ve been hyped for this patch for 2 months now, and it turns out to be utterly disapointing unless you main a mesmer, ranger, or guardian.

If I continue to log in, now every time I see my howler, I’ll get a a feeling of frustration and anger. I’ll just see 1400 wasted gold. I have a legendary I can’t use in PvP, since I might as well not play power necromancer in pvp ever again. I should just play a DPS guard, mesmer, or go back to Ele. Why didn’t I make meteorlogicus 0_o

Lopez.7369:

The Spectral Armor buff is great, the Corrupt Boon change is a wonderful quality-of-life adjustment, and being able to interact with objects and players while in Death Shroud is an enormous buff. It all adds up to a decent boost overall, and necromancer didn’t need big changes in the first place.

Also, rabid is already better than carrion. Most people just don’t seem to understand how effective healing works or that toughness works in Death Shroud.

So wait, you mean to tell me that I should listen to you and pick rabid over carrion, when top pvp necromancers such as Noscoc and Zombify run carrion for their build?

Rabid has higher condition pressure, but our sustain in terms of healing is too poor to make it work without eles and warriors and guards blasting water fields for us. Also, something I’ve noticed since playing ranger, rabid is less useful than carrion on necromancer because their attacks are for the most part very slow, while rangers get the kittening shortbow autoattack and Axe 2 and SB 2 that are kittens at once letting them proc more bleeds. People still prefer to use carrion on condi rangers too, but thats only because carrion’s higher health gives more insurance against burst damage and conditions.

Yeah I apologize for the confusion, I was typing this as Grouch was saying it, so I assumed he meant a torment nerf. But guess not.

Anyway enjoy your patch condition mesmers. I’m going to go back to crying about how bad and underwhelming the necromancer changes were. While mesmer was arguably in just a bad state as necros were, your patch will have fixed almost all of your problems in pvp/wvw. MY class is still broken and awful for kittening PvE, low tier in pvp, and only somehwat viable in zerging. Enjoy your day mesmers, you have earned this respite.

Prysin.8542:

In terms of ranged single target DPS the “leaderboard” has since before december last year been;
LB Ranger
GS Mesmer
LB Warrior
SB Thief
tha rest

Ranger IS the best ranged damage dealer. The most reliable and tanky? that is another discussion entirely.

Zerker Staff Ele says Hullo?

See the post I just posted in this subforum to see why I am starting to develop depression over this update.

Other suggestions: I suggest making soul marks baseline and adding a new trait called reaper’s ferocity, which would be a +150 buff to the necromancer and his nearby allies’ ferocity stat, much in the way of spotter, or empowering allies. Make it only active in death shroud if you want. We DESPERATELY NEED SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO KEEP FROM BEING AS EXCLUDED FROM MERE PUG DUNGEON RUNS LET ALONE SPEED CLEARS. Tell me how many speed clear records used a necro? NONE. Its simply unfair to have necromancers so far below the other classes for having no 3 target cleave or offensive group support options.

Anyway, finally in regards to the meta of necromancers in all game modes, they will be running the exact same builds with little to no difference. PvP will still be the cheesy carrion terrorbomber we’ve come to hate fighting against, while power necromancers will be a bit rarer as they can’t sway teamfights as easily with lich. Necromancers will still be subpar roamers and decent team fight pressure in pvp, but will stil be LAUGHABLY weak to focus fire, and will still be unable to fulfill the sustain role that attrition suggests. The GvG scene meta may incorporate MH dagger a bit more, but thats hardly an actual difference as many people do already after being sick of the axe’s kitten iness. In PvE necromancers will still be the definite worst off.

Anyway, I’m honestly baffled devs. Look at mesmer, they’ve been giving feedback on the problems with ileap, Phantasms dying before they can attack in large groups, and a general lack of AoE pressure in large group fights in WvW (now fixed by mantras and phant invuln trait), as well a subpar condition damage option with the scepter, and the kitten iness of mindstab. All of those things were listened to, and they were pretty much all fixed, with appropriate changes that will make the profession in a much better place in all game modes. The scepter may have been too much, but I appreciate the changes to clone death traits and PU.

With the necromancer changes, its like we were almost listened to on many of these changes, but the solutions the balance team has picked are simply too underwhelming and too ineffective to make necromancers undeniably better off in every game mode, especially compared to classes like the mesmer, that got almost everything they really needed in one patch, save for reverted nerfs to glamours or blurred frenzy.

At the end of the day, I don’t know if I want to keep maining necromancer or not. I was sincerely hoping that the things holding this class back could be addressed in a reasonable manner, like they did with rangers and mesmers and engis. I made howler for my necromancer as my only legendary as a huge labour of love for my necro, but I now I regret that since I might as well stop playing my necro and just play mesmer or medi guard instead. I shouldn’t have spent 2 and half months pugging every dungeon imaginable with awful people to make howler. I should of just made meteorlogicus instead, so I could enjoy playing a class that anet actually cares about improving like Condition mesmer or DPS guard. Or even the unchanged S/F ele I love so much. So in short to end this rant, I am woefully disapointed with the necromancer changes and all of the time I invested in playing my necromancer. I should have mained pretty much every other class, because I simply see no point in playing necromancer for pvp (or pve) anymore when I can just outdo it in every way on Ele, guard ,mesmer, or even kittening spirit ranger. Sure there will be WvW, but thats getting boring too as a content graveyard where nothing changes.

/End Rant.

I know most of the necros are feeling similarly, so I’m just making a nice, convenient thread summing up why the necromancer changer will not be enough, and ways you could tweak things to make the profession more viable in all game modes.

Lets start with the weapons:

Axe 1: Okay, Removing the aftercast, is a good start, but the weapon still does pitiful damage with the autoattack, and its almost never worth using unless you’re just targetting something downed.

Axe 2: The 10% damage buff for this skill is certainly appreciated. However, as it stands, the channel did not get reduced like you guys did with the thief’s unload or the ranger’s rapid fire. It will still be a horribly telegraphed skill.

Axe 3: You did nothing. This is a good skill already. I would have LOVED to see this (or enfeebling blood or a warhorn skill) get a blast finisher, or revealed, as we were tricked into thinking with the engi/ranger changes that revealed would be more common. The necro only has one blast, that is clunky to use, and this would have been a great skill to add it two.

Dagger 1: Two target cleave is like putting a used rotting bandaid on the PvE open wound that has been a festering infected mess on this class since launch. MAKE IT A PROPER 3 TARGET CLEAVE SO WE’RE NOT THE WORST kittenING PROFESSION IN PVE.

Scepter: you did nothing. Thats fair, but a lot of us suggested that the scepter’s life force generation should be brought up, because right now condition builds struggle to have enough life force to do damage and survive. Why do I have to kill my flesh wurm at the start of each game on condition necro just to have enough life force to do a condi burst combo before I can try to survive to build it with the 3 skill? I’m also offended that you make mesmer the master of torment (thanks for the PU shave btw) but necromancers still have bad access to the trait, opened to them first, compared to other classes. The 3 skill would’ve been great if it applied 2 or 3 stacks of torment.

Staff: I still have issues with all of the mark related traits. I think greater marks or soul marks should be made baseline, which would also make room for new traits, which I will detail later.

OH Dagger: This weapon is fine, fix the immobolize bug on the transfer though. Best offhand for most of pvp.

Warhorn: As a proud owner of howler I really appreaciate this buff! A blast finisher on the 4 or 5 skill would have been nice though, because the WARRIOR AND RANGER WARHORN SKILLS HAVE BLASTS, WHY DON’T OURS DO THAT TOO????
It would give us better support options in WvW as well.

Focus. Cast times are too long, and a reduction would have been wonderful.

Now utilites:
We were promised more survivability over time through utilites, and all we got was the cooldown of spectral armor reduced by 10 seconds. This is utterly underwhelming in every possible way. I would suggest adding stability=to the length of protection on this skill to actually give us more survivability. Right now, my necro is a green ping pong ball. Thats not fun. Every other class has a way to get a decent amount of stability, through a utility (or elite as in the ranger’s RaO). Why must we be made to be so vulnerable to it, whereas every other class is not? I’m all for classes having strengths and weaknesses, but all the other classes have a way to cover their weaknesses to an extent, but we do NOT. IF Warriors are supposed to be weak to conditions, but can use a longbow with cleansing ire as well as zerker stance to essentially lessen the effect of that weakness, why must necromancers have only one much weaker way to “lessen” that weakness with foot in the grave?

Anyway for the last gasp change. see the above. Why didn’t you lower the cooldowns of spectral walk, flesh wurm, plague signet, or add a stunbreak to locust signet? Spectral armor will NOT be enough to sustain necromancers properly in longer fights.

Unholy Sanctuary: This change might have been decent if I were 90 years old, and blind, and wanted to use this trait so I don’t have to press the button like any able bodies, mentally acute person with good mechanical skill.

For the rest of the traits, blood magic is still VERY weak, and other useless bullkitten like siphoned power hasn’t been made into something useful.

Lich Form: This was honestly a well deserved nerf/rework. One skill should not have that much raw power from procs. However it concerns me becuase the duration decrease was a bit overkill imo, and this change will proabably push the few power necros left out of high end pvp all together, leading to an overall decrease in build diversity.

Signet of Vampirism: Still the most useless heal in the game, and the buff is too underwhelming to make a difference.

Death Shroud interacting. This is a good change, but its an embarassment that you guys took so long to implement it, especially when many people were using the exploit to do it already..

Yup. The meta will still be cheesy carrion nightmare PoC Reaper’s Protection..

I’m jealous of what the Mesmers got. They were complaining of a useless scepter and phantasms that die before attacking and a useless ileap. Now all of those things are fixed in great ways while giving a class with poor AoE decent AoE in the form of mantras. I’m bitter and jealous that the meta will still be cheesy carrion fear spam.

Interesting read for sure, but the build you suggest is nothing more than a gimmick at best. Permanent protection is not sustain when you’re so bad at restoring the basic health itself not nullifying damage.

Look at rangers, they have a great deal of protection, not sure if it can be permanent or not, and can be built to have a ton of passive healing from troll unugent, wild sgnet, and regen, all whole having 3 evades on weapon skills plus the two base dodges with stamina that regenerates 25 percent faster (plus vigor too). And they deal respectable amounts of condition damage with gear like celestial settlers or apothecary, through burning, bleeding, and poison mainly.

I’ll admit it, I got my hopes up and I’m disapointed.

I’m actually jealous of mesmers, who got probably the best patch of all the classes. Every build they have will have gotten a buff and it seems like for the must part with mantras, ileap change, and triupmhant distortion, the devs appear to be listening to them and making steps to change the things that needed to be changed to make them more viable in many areas.

For necromancers, nothing really changed. The meta will still be carrion terrormancer and hope to overload the enemy with conditions before they can do anything. There won’t be a viable sustain option like we hoped for and we’ll still die just as fast to focus fire even with our bugging wurmport and spectral skills. The spectral armor cooldown was a step in the right direction, but its too little, too late. We’ll be able to use the skill more often sure, but what will that matter? Its not stability, its not aegis, its not vigor, like almost every other profession can get in some form.

nearlight.3064:

And yeah ToL had a surprising amount of necromancers, mainly because they counter much of the might stacking meta so well. I wouldn’t call that attrition though, since they rely on things like corrupt boon and fear chaining to win in one 1v1s,

As I see it, corrupt boon is near defining for attrition.

The only thing about the patch that kittenes me off is that the meta spec for necromancers won’t change. It’ll still be carrion PoC terror reaper’s prot with nightmare runes. A necromancer can be a huge boon to a team if they can avoid being focused too frequently and if their team can reliably peel enemies off them to keep them from being focused. One of the reason’s noscoc did so well in ToL against apex is because he had Zoose bursting down anyone that looked at him the wrong way, as well as invincible enigneers that kept pressure up during teamfights.
[/quote]

You lost any semblance of me giving you any credit when you said “invincible engineers”…………………..You were sounding so reasonable and almost presenting thoughtful argument until there………….what a shame. [quote/]

I don’t play engi. I revoke that statement then and admit that it is wrong even if I don’t understand that class. Thats still not relevant to the point of discussing necromancers though. You discredit me for things I say that aren’t the main topic of the discussion. I’m human and I make mistakes, and I’m fine with admitting it. The point was that necromancers did well because they had a solid comp that worked with them well.

I disagree with defining corrupt boon as attrition because it practice its more like burst. Removing boons is attrition, but replacing 5 boons with conditions that cause damage or impede your movement or ability damage all at once makes you go down very fast in a fight. If a boon is simply shattered off by a mesmer, as long as the burst of the shatter didn’t kill them, they can react and keep fighting albeit slightly weaker. S/D thief as mentioned before is probably a better example. Corrupting that many boons wrecks a target and forces them to try and escape or clutch a cleanse or heal. Thats what burst does, forcing so much pressure, whether damage or condition pressure on an enemy that they are forced to unable to continue their original goal of damaging the other player, at least for those moments. I play S/F fresh air ele, a bursty spec, and when I land a phoenix and air burst on a squishy target, they lose so much of their health in one go that they are forced to change their goal of killing me, or they die. Burst is overwhelming your enemy with so much pressure that their core moment to moment objectives are forced to change. Attrition is applying slowly applying pressure, and becoming stronger the longer a fight goes on, by building boons like might, applying conditions (yes it can be attrition) and wearing down enemies with less sustain by nullifying their their burst by recovery or avoidance, and wearing down those with poor sustain themselves.

And we all know that necromancer’s have terrible healing, and terrible damage mitigiation ability, and cannot reset a fight like a thief or even an ele could. Its do or die for them, and that means ending fights as soon as possible. the condition transfer abilities are the most attrition a necro really has in my opinion.

Warcry.1596:

nearlight.3064:

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it).

As someone who enjoys Mantra mesmer, I welcomed that change. The change to Triumphant Distortion was a solid one too. Clones receiving 1 second of Distortion upon creation is nice.

Yeah, its honestly the perfect patch for mesmer and solves so many of their core issues. Not totally, but it seems like they made great progress.

As a necromancer main, I am disappointed beyond belief with their changes. None of them solve the actual issues. Yes lowering spectral armor’s CD and making SoV last a seconds longer (a kittening joke) is a step in the right direction, but their meta builds will not change one bit. Necromancers will still be a great condition class for 1v1s, and will still contribute well to team fights, but they won’t be able to fulfill a sutain role, only a burst/pressure role like they always have been. Thats not attrition.What we have is trying to chain 3 fears, torment, bleeds, and poison together in a few seconds so that we can kill our enemy before they can kill us.

Loyo.8526:

DeceiverX.8361:

Necro’s DS buff is absolutely bonkers. Expect necros to start one-shotting people in WvW with relative ease with their autoattacks while in LF. I’m expecting somewhere along the lines of 15-23k DPH autos.

I cant tell if you are serious or just pulling a cruel joke.

The opposite will happen Deciever as they changed the scaling so that the fire/air chill of death procs wouldn’t be scaled up with the additional power.

So the autos will be doing about the same as they are now, but the procs from sigils and chill of death will NOT be.

dancingmonkey.4902:

TheDevice.2751:

Good job. Now can we actually do those things?

Absolutely, see above post.

TheDevice.2751:

Do we actually provide enough pressure to defeat anyone?

Absolutely. The highest condition damage out pt in the game. As a matter of fact there was a strong showing of them in the recent ToL2. They post tourny class chart showed them being the 4th most played profession.

TheDevice.2751:

Like I said previously, look at what other classes can do.

I do, thanks. I have leveled all 8 professions in WvW long ago. I either play differently then you, play different builds then you, or disagree with you.

I’m not sure if I would call necromancers as the single class with the highest condition output, especially compared to what engineers and soon to be buffed mesmers will put out after the patch. If you want to do the math and find out all the skills which apply conditions, go ahead.

And yeah ToL had a surprising amount of necromancers, mainly because they counter much of the might stacking meta so well. I wouldn’t call that attrition though, since they rely on things like corrupt boon and fear chaining to win in one 1v1s, while applying AoE pressure and more focused condition bursts in team fights. The only thing about the patch that kittenes me off is that the meta spec for necromancers won’t change. It’ll still be carrion PoC terror reaper’s prot with nightmare runes. A necromancer can be a huge boon to a team if they can avoid being focused too frequently and if their team can reliably peel enemies off them to keep them from being focused. One of the reason’s noscoc did so well in ToL against apex is because he had Zoose bursting down anyone that looked at him the wrong way, as well as invincible enigneers that kept pressure up during teamfights.

1. mesmer (every build got buffed. condition, GS shatter, kittening mantra, you name it)
2. ranger (the longbow fetishists will be happy, and signets are now good, and axe opens up interesting new builds)
3. guardian (nothing bad happened, just Ai builds may become okay and medi builds will be stronger)
4. engineer
5. thief
6. Necromancer (the meta for them will be the same…)
7. Warrior (adrena nerf is huge, but arcing slice is interesting)
8. Ele (got nothing new useful for them, and lost “exploits” that made their elites worth using).

dancingmonkey.4902:

nearlight.3064:

Don’t be facetious. GvG is this fun thing that the community on T2 and lower servers organize and do, in which well necros are a core member of. Its a way for us guilds to test our mettle instead of PPTing all day like you would in T1 land!

That is cute and all, but how does your GvG on one tier of servers have anything to do with actual organized WvW play on another tier of servers

Well we’ll find out how good we are at fighting off T1 mega-blobs if SoS gets picked to go up against your T1 server in the season 3 WvW tournament

GvG has everything to do with WvW. I mean you don’t try to karma train around enemy zergs right? You actually fight eachother over objectives, and the same tactics you’d find in GvGs are the same tactics you’d find in any large scale WvW fight. And yeah, ofc its organized.

dancingmonkey.4902:

nearlight.3064:

My build is modeled after this guys build. He’s a necromancer in [NS] a top tier GvG guild on my server.

What does your build have to do with what I am talking about?

By the way, How to you get to the GvG game mode??? I cannot find that button in game.

Don’t be facetious. GvG is this fun thing that the community on T2 and lower servers organize and do, in which well necros are a core member of. Its a way for us guilds to test our mettle instead of PPTing all day like you would in T1 land!

Anyway I was using that build, which I use a very similar version of (Warhorn over OH dagger) to tell you that serious players do use staff mastery on their well builds over laudable traits like ritual of protection. So yes, staff mastery is what most informed necromancers would run over ritual of protection, and does them good if you listen to the whole video’s commentary.

Thats like taking oakheart salve over offhand training as a ranger or protection injection over backpack regenerator as an engineer.

dancingmonkey.4902:

nearlight.3064:

You are misinformed. A well build wouldn’t take ritual of protection over staff mastery, and that’s only if they run 0/2/2/4/6 over 6/2/0/0/6. There’s also the outdated ascii build which is 0/5/4/4 I believe.

Aww, how cute. You use mis information to suggest another is misinformed.

Why would a D/D…… D/WH……A/A……….or A/WH front line, well necro want staff mastery?

My build is modeled after this guys build. He’s a necromancer in [NS] a top tier GvG guild on my server.

You still take staff as an aside weapon for each of those builds. If you want to do well, you don’t camp out in one weapon forever. WvW battles are about movement, adapting, and coordination. It helps to have a lower cooldown on staff skills to increase your potential AoE output while your wells are on cooldown or you don’t have enough life force to life blast your enemies. Its a lot more effiecient than spamming axe autoattacks..

Dagger probably would be more efficient, especially with the new semi cleave, but in a situation where people are constantly moving, its hard to land the autos without burning your immoba, and when that imoba is on CD you’re better off switching to staff. Mark bombs are also a great tactic to baiting out defenses and jukes before attacking with chills and wellbombs.

dancingmonkey.4902:

TheDevice.2751:

As it is that 35% uptime on protection is about 10 seconds every 40 seconds (if traited). That leaves 30 seconds w/o protection no matter how you spin it. It doesnt take 30 seconds to kill a necromancer.

This might be relevant if didn’t apply to every other profession as well.

Poplolita.2638:

coglin.1867:

Poplolita.2638:

Also, no viable build has “35% up time on protection”. Don’t mislead people with misinformations.

Are you disputing my facts? Seems your making accusations with no context.

A “well” build with Ritual of Protection is not viable?

No.

What changed with wells that they are no longer viable? or are you simply trolling?

We have some necromancer commanders who run front line well builds in tier 1 WvW servers who have some pretty good videos that disagree with you.

You are misinformed. A well build wouldn’t take ritual of protection over staff mastery, and that’s only if they run 0/2/2/4/6 over 6/2/0/0/6. There’s also the outdated ascii build which is 0/5/4/4 I believe.

People that don’t seriously play necro in WvW or pvp shouldn’t be commenting on them like they actually know the class.

It was pretty meh. And power necros will be a bit harder to manage without lich being able to one shot as easily. I mean the cleave is nice… but not nice enough…

I like the shroudrez/stomps!

Clone Death traits nerfed! Now they won’t be unblockable or immune to blind!

Debiliting Dissipation loses a stack of bleed!

PU gives swiftness and might as its RNG pool now! NERRF YUS!

Grouch just said they were going to show some more mesmer changes on the skill bar today.

I WONDER WHAT THAT COULD MEAN!?

Hopefully, the scepter auto overbuff will have been reverted! MWAHAHAHA!

Hi, I’m just starting to get into pvp, and I’m looking for people to team queue with every now and then, and maybe do tourneys and stuff like that later down the road if we get good.

I play necromancer (both condition and power), ranger (mostly various condition builds including spirits and regen), and ele (S/F or staff mainly) as the classes I typically play. I used to play shatter mesmer a lot too, but I’m not currently that experienced in it at the moment.

So post here or mail or whisper me ingame if you’re interested in making a team with me!

Zenith.7301:

nearlight.3064:

Zenith.7301:

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

A few things
1. Sword is kind of a hybrid weapon too
2. I hope you’re not implying that longbow based power builds are considered good for high level pvp, because that is incorrect.
3. The axe and shortbow are far from useless. Celestial is a thing you know which makes hybrid great. You can even run a rabid or carrion set up with axe or shortbow and do wonders with it. They are not useless. The axe auto on some builds is less useful, but in two weeks it will serve a very clear and good purpose..

I’m talking from a numbers perspective. Don’t dwell on what they are. Just think about scaling with gear.

A berzerker in full ascended is getting more bang from that gear on their sword/longbow/axe offhand than on a mainhand axe or crossbow, where a portion of the skill borrows in its formula from a stat they don’t have as much of.

It’s also part of why warriors are so powerful. Not only are the base values of their skills really high, but the weapons they use are highly specialized. A greatsword or mainhand axe or hammer all perfectly scale on a power spec.

Splitting power from condition damage was a terrible idea. It heavily punishes hybrid skills and weapons. And celestial is pretty worthless for PvE, and you will do pretty garbage damage in group play in WvW where specialization is more desired.

That’s fair enough. I only use ranger in pvp so that’s where I speak for.

Sube Dai.8496:

This is what I will be trying:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAnfRjMq0vaDLGsw1aA/gaZDEAtvhotGY2vPQFOZC-TZBBwAAOBAYOCAeeEA12fAcZAA

That looks like a decent build. I see the merit of Greatsword but I probably won’t run it just to have more evades and keep up more conditions more often. I’d replace the condition cleanse signet with signet of the wild since that signet+regen on celestial is about equal to a warriors healing signet tick, and the stability from the active I’d wager to be me more useful for sure.

Power ranger will not be viable after this patch for several reasons.

Firstly the amount of conditions we are going to see, from rangers, engineers, mesmers, and celestial ele will be greater than before and not bringing condition removal will literally make you a free kill to those classes that can out sustain you while spiking you with conditions. The damage of a power ranger isn’t anywhere near enough to beat these classes before they can kill you, unlike the burst of an ele or a thief.

Celestial with axe/dagger or carrion with either SB or axe will be the new meta for sure. There are many variants of condi ranger and most have adequate condition removal. Spirits on celestial with better might stacking will allow for greater team support options and using entangle with krait runes on more survival or trap oriented builds (carrion probably) will be extremely strong as you will probably be able to entangle every fight, and krait runes will be a huge AoE condition bomb. I also view celestial builds without spirits that focus more on regen and survival skills to be extremely viable as well.

In the coming meta I wager we’ll see fewer thieves and fewer warriors, but more engis, eles, rangers, mesmers, and necros (necros because they counter the new cheese options so well and will be better with less warriors around). But we’ll have to see what happens.

Phaeton.9582:

nearlight.3064:

Why do you say that when we won’t know the necro changes for another day lol?

because it deals with a lot of the cheese builds this balance patch will produce

Yeah I can see that, since condition necro can destroy most turret engis, PU mesmers, and rangers in general. And it will be easier to bring them since warriors will be a bit less common since now they have to actually manage their bursts well!

Although necromancers could be seen as a tad cheese themselves. I guess I’ll just have to see what the patch brings.

The amount of people that don’t realize that this change is creating a giant metastic tumor in GW2 is making me want to cut myself.

Phaeton.9582:

nearlight.3064:

baerly.7204:

Otaking.4675:

To carry play a d/d or s/f ele really well.

You could also play a very good hambow.

These two classes are the core of the meta right now for a reason.

There is no job those two can’t help with and they dominate at most things. Think about it.

Home guard, far assault, you name it and they are at least as 80 percent as effective as say a pure bunker guard. In assault jobs they are like 120% as effective as most.

haven’t played in a while
why s/f over s/d and is that a fresh air zerker build?

S/F has emerged as a better option in a fresh air set up becuase it has better active defenses, and cen deal all its damage from ranged while kiting. S/D does have higher, more complicated burst potential, but its less practical because many of the one shot combos depend on using lightning flash in the middle of a cast to be effective, and thats not a good cooldown to rely on. Furthermore, being in melee to land some of those skills when you’re glass doesn’t help you against things like warriors.

Anyway yeah, I like S/F ele a lot too. I’m kind of torn though, since some people said to specialize in 1 or 2 classes to really be good at them, but I like ele, necro, and ranger all equally.

I wouldn’t bother specialising in s/f, as your first. Condition Necro will be strong in the next meta, work on that

Why do you say that when we won’t know the necro changes for another day lol?

I don’t understand why all I see in pvp is longbow campers that stay in their longbow in melee range when thats so far off the meta pvp builds for the class.

Its like everyone has a sick bow fetish except for me :o

baerly.7204:

Otaking.4675:

To carry play a d/d or s/f ele really well.

You could also play a very good hambow.

These two classes are the core of the meta right now for a reason.

There is no job those two can’t help with and they dominate at most things. Think about it.

Home guard, far assault, you name it and they are at least as 80 percent as effective as say a pure bunker guard. In assault jobs they are like 120% as effective as most.

haven’t played in a while
why s/f over s/d and is that a fresh air zerker build?

S/F has emerged as a better option in a fresh air set up becuase it has better active defenses, and cen deal all its damage from ranged while kiting. S/D does have higher, more complicated burst potential, but its less practical because many of the one shot combos depend on using lightning flash in the middle of a cast to be effective, and thats not a good cooldown to rely on. Furthermore, being in melee to land some of those skills when you’re glass doesn’t help you against things like warriors.

Anyway yeah, I like S/F ele a lot too. I’m kind of torn though, since some people said to specialize in 1 or 2 classes to really be good at them, but I like ele, necro, and ranger all equally.

Jekkt.6045:

tbh it would be poison for the game to give condition necros more sustain. i don’t mind if they do it for power necros but definitely not for rabid.

don’t get me wrong, im not against buffs for necros just against the wrong buffs. give necros more mobility or even more stability.

and if you want sustain play a lf regen build. barbarian or zerk necklace.

A couple things. Condition necros run carrion, not rabid in this meta. A zerker build is not sustain. It doesn’t tank a point it just tries to kill things with high powered autos and lich form. The devs say they want necros to have more sustain through utilities, which would prevent taking as many burst condition utilities like corrupt boon or spite signet.

KrisHQ.4719:

Necros need more sustain?
I sure dont hope you actually mean sustain. Necromancers already have 25k HP and in a standard fight 2x Death Shroud which is additionally around 30k HP (I’m not really sure about the exact numbers).
If Condimancers got extra sustain they would be unstoppable, and we would like to avoid that.

Power Specs just need some mobility and escapability. But it’s a difficult issue to solve, because doing it wrong, condition specs will benefit from the increased escapability and become too strong. Arenanet really has to make sure the necro buffs will not affect condition specs.
Some Necromancers will probably want condition buffs, but mark my words, we are treading a very fine line here between Necromancers being OP.

You don’t know how well life force scales with HP. If I have say 20 K HP, my max LF pool with 6 in soul reaping is about 16 HP. Not a gross exaggeration like you say. And let’s not forget how horrible LF generation on the scepter and untrained staff is in the typical meta condition builds, I even find myself killing my flesh wurm and blowing my port just to get enough LF to be able to go into DS if I re spawn since we start out out with zero and burst classes can eat through it if we don’t condition bomb them first.

So many ideas here I agree with! Heal as one should be a survival and should work with survival of the fittest and the CD reduction trait.

Furthermore it makes much more sense for fast hands to be a minor trait in skirmishing instead of a warrior trait, since I’d say we need it a whole lot more.

The build on that website didn’t include MH dagger anywhere. .

Sylvari.6083:

nearlight.3064:

Sylvari.6083:

See this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki for builds.

um, not to be rude, but you’re kind of spamming the same message by posting it in every thread that could be considered a build work shop.

And some of your info is just plain wrong.

Under the standard power necro build for pvp, it uses Axe/Focus as weapons (along with staff). Is that a joke? I don’t want new players to be deluded into running things that don’t work just because you’re shamelessly promoting your website, which although is a good idea, needs some serious Quality Checks.

Like I said in the other post, feel free to join the discussions on the wiki website so that changes can be made to the things that aren’t pleasing you, we would need those “serious quality checks” by you. As for now, I choose to trust one of the top PvP guys at Metabattle that worked kitten providing those necro builds.

I just thought people would have common sense to not use axe over dagger on an spvp build. I doubt that person is really top pvp. I’ll join your discussions if I have time. I’m quite busy these days.

Zenith.7301:

Cripple doesn’t work on most bosses so I don’t know what you mean by 15% more damage in any content that matters.

Yes it does. It’s a condition. As long as that condition is up on the boss the damage modifier will work. Maybe it’s useless against something like alphard but it will work fine on most bosses.

Zenith.7301:

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

A few things
1. Sword is kind of a hybrid weapon too
2. I hope you’re not implying that longbow based power builds are considered good for high level pvp, because that is incorrect.
3. The axe and shortbow are far from useless. Celestial is a thing you know which makes hybrid great. You can even run a rabid or carrion set up with axe or shortbow and do wonders with it. They are not useless. The axe auto on some builds is less useful, but in two weeks it will serve a very clear and good purpose..

Quincy.2198:

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

I’d like to ask how builds are decided to be trashed. I posted my killshot build and it was put in the trash section without any voting. Killshot isn’t optimal and I understand that, but I didn’t think the site was for optimal builds only. If it wasn’t at least a “Good” build, so to speak, then I don’t think I’d have gotten top 8 in the first ToL with it.

Your killshot Warrior was under a 10 day rating period, where it received the rating stars 1.2 out of 5. You did not join your own builds discussion page, when we commented and marked it for deletion. We thought you’ve abandoned your build.

And yes, this site is for working builds and killshot isn’t. Your opponents couldn’t dodge a 3seconds time skill and did not focus you, but only bad opponents. Making it unusable.

So wait. A killshot warrior build is deleted, yet your “standard power necro build” uses Axe/Focus and staff. Axe/focus? REALLY?

I do not recommend this website to anyone, since the forums here are a good enough place to look for good pvp builds, as are looking at twitch streamers themselves.

I haven’t looked at what you guys have under PvE, but if it doesn’t match the rT builds, then your credibility drops further.

Edit: I just checked the Ele Pve builds and the staff build on their uses the traits that a D/F build would use. You guys really need to check your info.

Sylvari.6083:

See this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki for builds.

um, not to be rude, but you’re kind of spamming the same message by posting it in every thread that could be considered a build work shop.

And some of your info is just plain wrong.

Under the standard power necro build for pvp, it uses Axe/Focus as weapons (along with staff). Is that a joke? I don’t want new players to be deluded into running things that don’t work just because you’re shamelessly promoting your website, which although is a good idea, needs some serious Quality Checks.

Dahkeus.8243:

Longbow is also pretty great for Skyham. You get an instant knockback with no unique animation or cast time to it away. =P

It’s pretty easy to avoid the axe…but you may have the advantage of catching people off guard since almost no one uses axe offhand in PvP, lol!

Yeah I just can’t really use longbow on a condition build with of gimping myself. I mean I could switch to glassbow to Counter it but I despise power ranger in pvp.