d/p s/d still works in WvW. s/d is just a bit more situational than before, but I personally feel it still provides more utility than any other available weapon set. IS is still good for movement (chained together with your teleport of choice and steal, you can close anywhere from 2700-3200 range in a split second) and as an immob, and boon steal is always good to have. Also, you won’t lose your opener because you can just start with IS > CnD > weapon swap > BS, and you are on d/p for the primary part of the fight, just as normal.
CnD is plenty of stealth as is. Utility are there as backups in case of emergencies.
D/P offers more stealth. Standard deception D/P is less fire power than D/D, but not significantly. It definitely has the most amount of stealth of any build. It’s literally perma-stealth, not just 90-99%% stealth time.
Alternatively you can do signet power D/P, which hits like a truck. It’s takes more finesse though because you will be foregoing shadow step and blinding powder. Definitely the higher risk/higher reward variation.
Starting with D/P deception is the safest bet if you are not spot-on with CnD timing or spacing. Unless you fully commit, there is no way you should ever die with that build.
Standard perma-stealth build of 0/30/30/10/0 outputs enough damage. Heavies will take time to kill but you should be completely unkillable using perma-stealth. You should also be able to take on multiple targets at the same time for the same reason, unless it’s just a team of guardians.
In team fights, just do what you generally do in a team fight as a thief: down someone, apply blind, move to next target. Someone else will finish the job.
Can’t say too much else from just the above information though.
The standard PvP build works in WvW too.
30/30/10/0/0
epi/spectral wall/spectral walk or something else situationally pending
Just focus on one target and AoE with epi. Control the fight using fear mark, fear wall, and tether.
You should win 1v2s pretty handily, and even higher numbers if there is any weak links in their group.
Your test is a good indication of theorycraft vs actual capabilities of the two builds.
Dagger/X is going to be better in ideal situation (never get hit and never have to back off, dodge, etc) as you are not forced to weapon swap to staff to build life force. Each hit of life blast is weaker but the duration that axe/X has to spend in staff is a major disadvantage when compared to dagger.
On the flipside, Axe/X damage output is completely ranged. Axe2 > DS >staff > Axe2 >DS > etc, can be done at a safe distance of up to 600. It is much easier to achieve ideal scenario and maintaining dps output, with the only danger being going in to drop wells once in awhile.
Also, with the reduction in suffering CD, everything lines up very well in a rotation for DS dmg output. Every 3rd weapon swap you will have well and blood power available. Adding in 2 battle sigils, the damage output is easy to maintain and safe to keep.
I personally feel that axe/X is the better choice for PvE as necro has no block/invun/vigor to ensure that he doesn’t get hit. The most important thing in PvE is still raw dmg output and never stop attacking.
I think the only thing left to try is axe/X and dagger/X weapon set. This is mainly for people that do not go 10 in death magic. I think in that situation, you may as well put the staff away, rely purely on DS as the AoE output, and grab 2 weapon sets and find some rotation against single targets. Pretty much use dagger for dmg, and back off into DS in scenarios where you cannot maintain dps in melee.
Shroud stomp is as much a glitch as jump/dodge roll. The functionality is the same.
These types of mechanics are what adds additional depth to game play.
glass power necro focused on DS isn’t going to work outsid eof PvE. You are going to get trained and you will have nothing to defend yourself with.
And yes, iZerker now hits correctly and like a truck.
Should be fine. The only thing I would suggest is that epi is mandatory in WvW. I would say epi and wall as mandatory utility, and walk can be swapped out based on situation.
I also wouldn’t go 30 in soul rip, but that’s not an issue, just a difference in playstyle.
Power build:
30/0/10/0/30
might on blast, axe training, CtD/Greater Marks/piercing blast, mark life force, 50% crit
well of suffering, blood is power, whatever (take utility based on situation. signet of spite, spectral wall/walk, undeath signet, another well, etc)
Full zerker
axe/dagger, staff
Rely on DS to do damage and only active DS when on Axe/dagger for axe training bonus dmg.
As for condi build, you probably want a variation of condi-wells for PvE. Full condi with feardot isn’t going to be that great in PvE due to defiant.
If you want extra duration on fear, get a sigil of paralyzation (yes it works on fear), then you can move 10 points from soul rip to death.
Honestly, you should always just put 10 for greater marks when starting any necro build because if you go staff without greater marks, you are gimping yourself, and if you don’t use staff, you are also gimping yourself. There isn’t another weapon combination that provides the versatility given by staff with greater marks.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
Based on what you already have (for PvE purposes):
-I would swap out spectral walk for well of suffering. The damage difference is pretty significant
-If you are going 10 into curse, grab life force on crit instead. Alternatively, I would still suggest taking 10 in death for greater marks (or staff mastery if there is only 1 enemy).
-In spite, grab might blast, axe training, and close to death.
-In soul rip, I personally grabbed vul/pierce, mark life force, and 50% crit.
-For your gear, you want to get berserker stuff on your rings/accessories/amulet. This is because the crit dmg per stat gain there is much better than weapon/armor. If you want cleric and soldier stuff at all, do that on weapon and armor. Go full zerker on trinkets.
-Additionally, I’d just go full zerker for PvE. If you are going WvW, you may want to consider a hybrid build, so a mix of zerker/carrion may be better. Someone else playing more with hybrid can probably comment on this though. However, I do want to mention that I don’t think 30/x/x/x/30 is a good idea for anything outside of PvE.
-Might stacking is fine. Instead of pirate you probably want fire for 25 more power instead.
Regardless of how you end up approaching the DS build, the primary thing to keep in mind is to have a good rotation so you have roughly 50% DS up time on a single target (obviously much easier against multiple targets).
Honestly, if you just run a rotation of axe 2 > DS (6-7 seconds to do whatever you want) > weapon swap staff > do stuff till swap is off cd > swap back > axe 2 > etc, you won’t even run into the dip in dps from not having dagger auto attack since you are never ever using anything outside of axe 2.
And the best way to maintain dmg output, as already mentioned, is 30/0/10/0/30
Might on blast, axe training, close to death
greater mark (or staff mastery if only 1 target)
vul on blast and 50% crit is necessary imo. 3rd one can vary. I personally use mark for life force, but lower drain or ds cd reduction are also fine.
This is probably only for PvE though. It’s the super glass and while necro has improved significantly, going this glass is still extremely susceptible to being trained in PvP/WvW.
Spectral wall sticks out more so than it’s equivalents because it has a quarter second cast time.
It’s far more reliable on a moments notice than anything else available.
Not sure if it’s worthwhile in tPvP, but situationally useful in PvE, and can definitely be a primary utility for feardot in WvW.
It’s just PvE, so just pistol offhand then entire thing.
The .5 seconds recovery off sword stab is pretty major. It helps chain attack 3 for sure, and I’m assuming it helps infiltrator (which is also a stab) as well. It would help the flexibility of most attacks and also increase dps.
Isn’t this change referencing the Sword/No Offhand 3 skill, “Stab”? Or does it actually effect AA third swing and IS swing as you’ve mentioned?
I haven’t had a chance to test. Hopefully it’s what i specified and not only the no offhand sword #3. It did also specify stab skills, plural, although that may be just reading too much into it (i was more banking on all the abilities mentioned having pretty much the same animation).
The .5 seconds recovery off sword stab is pretty major. It helps chain attack 3 for sure, and I’m assuming it helps infiltrator (which is also a stab) as well. It would help the flexibility of most attacks and also increase dps.
Anything that has 20 in shadow arts for IV and V should be sufficient. The rest is pretty much spec as you please.
I personally run 0/30/30/10/0. I found mug to be pretty useless for any sustained combat while solo/duo (which will be even more so after the patch), and the extra HP and 50% faster movement in stealth to be much more useful as positioning is everything when you are fighting outnumbered.
Additionally take hidden killer instead of executioner (if you go down crit trait line) because you are pretty much doing dmg through bs galore, and knowing exact amounts of dmg you will do (vs the variable of a crit/no crit) is way too important when trying to stomp/dps a downed in a 1v4-5.
TJL
D/P is better for WvW because it has much better sustain than anything else from other thf weapon sets. You can reliably engage multiple targets over a long period of time.
You can do something similar with C&D, but the damage output is abysmal since you are pretty much relying on C&D to do dmg, whereas you can actuall afford to be revealed with D/P.
D/P also benefits the most from shadow arts traitline for that purpose. The large amount of stealth without having to resort to utilities is too good to pass up in WvW.
The issue isn’t the combo. It’s the trait that returns 2 initiative everytime stealth is activated on you. Additionally, other people applying stealth to you (via blast combo, for example), also gives you initiative.
The trait either needs to be much farther down the shadow line (T3 major, competing with stealth regen), or be reworked to be less effective. It’s by far the best initiative trait, and it’s a T1 major.
TJL
I think they mentioned steal being a directional shadow step when without a target. It’s not coming yet but it’s something being looked at.
Additionally thief mobility improved relatively to the massive nerf to RTL for this particular patch.
Change to mug to heal is fine for now, but not really a long term answer. Now there is a choice to whether you want to open full burst or not. The problem I have with the change is that the heal is on mug and not on steal itself, so that trait is still pretty much mandatory.
We’ll see how boon steal works out.
TJL
Shortbow is an ok approach against certain builds. If they have gs secondary, it’s much better to just go in melee. I personally would suggest only use shortbow in team fights. If it’s 1v1, just go in.
In general, the 1v1 match-up between a dueling mes and a thf is 5/5. It all comes down to two things
-The initial burst, and whether the mes can effectively nullify it.
-How much of an advantage the inevitable shadow refuge provides to the thief (don’t get pulled/pushed out, don’t get tracked and eat free hits, etc).
Of course there are other factors, but you can more or less judge how the fight is going just based on the above two points.
If you see a phantasmal build though, just run. You are not going to win if the mes is any good. It’s the most selfish of all builds that really has no utility outside of 1v1, but it is extremely powerful for just that particular situation.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
You have to at least be running condi-cleanse. That’s the bare minimum to be able to fight an engi on-point post patch. It will be very difficult to move them off point even then.
I just want to say that necro is probably one of the best professions for CoE. The reason being that lich form trashes Alpha for free.
When you are in lich form and in very close proximity to alpha, his most devastating attacks cannot hit you. The massive numbers of red circles just miss completely 95% of the time. I run a variation of PvP power necro (90% zerker, 30/15/10/0/15), and with might stacking, vuln stacking, and Time Warp, I am pushing 5.5k-6.5k dmg on alpha per hit (pushing 8k dps under time warp), easily out dpsing a warrior when I’m in lich form. The team I run with can drop the first alpha in under 30 seconds (50%), second one around 30 seconds (75%), and melt the 3rd one in about 1.5 minutes (the first 50% takes awhile. The last 50% just melts).
As long everyone is melee stacking, CoE is brain-dead easy. And necro just make it even more so.
TJL
Finished Incinerator on the 29th. I was bidding on spark for the better of 2 weeks, but I missed the window for a ~500g spark by a week. I end up buying it at inflated price of 625g as I was getting the last of T6 and icy runestones.
It was worth it though. Running Bolt/Incinerator on thief is a pretty good combination, as offhand incinerator has many perks as well.
The only maps that I take shadow trap are Foefire and kyhlo. Every other one it’s too random whether the teleport actually works or not.
I opened 10 more chest, and am now sitting at 3 tickets out of 18 chests.
RNG baby.
6 Keys- 1 ticket
2 free keys from above- 0 tickets
I am also of the opinion that CoF1 has become well-known enough that all other dungeons are more or less ignored unless tokens for skin is needed.
AC, after a few runs, is actually much faster than before for P1-P2. The only problem is P3, because Grast may (auto attack to victory) or may not (CC yourself) protect you.
The issue you are experiencing isn’t limited to AC I believe.
Have you reached a conclusion on sigils?
exum, I’m pretty sure right now is a terrible idea to solo queue. Most PvE players are trying to get that 10 extra laurels. I’d stay waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of the way.
Played around with numbers. For taking 15 in curse, the crit chance increase gives you 4% more effective power when daggering as compared to 30 in soul.
However, while in lich, 15 in curse does about 5% less damage than 30 in soul.
So far that appears to be the direct damage trade-off. Additionally,
-Lose bleed on crit, weak shroud on activate, and fury on activate
for
-Mark +3%/25% slower DS drain/15% cd reduction, 5% more damage above 50% DS, and stability on demand/5s DS cd.
I’m curious to see what your conclusion is for traits and sigils. As of right now for sigil I was actually thinking about going battle, pretty much trying to grab something that I can benefit from while in lich form.
TJL
Now you need continuous pull of sparks by 2 members (1 at the far end, pulling 3, 1 at the close end, pulling 2). In this manner you will only have 4 people fighting simin. When we did it we started with 4-1, and took a little bit of time before we figured it out. That said, the new simin is really really easy, just more tedious. Of course, a simple dps check like before wasn’t the most thought provoking fight either.
Ah, my mistake on reading off spidy.
But my point is not the independent value of the precusor. It is the relative cost, not the cost of your zap/bolt vs the cost of the current dusk/twilight that is important. Similarly to your zap (261 then, 400-450 now), Dusk was about 200g less at that particular point of time.
Just to clarify, the point of doing the comparison is that bolt is a t1 legendary in cost, and having the ability to farm a t1 legendary through mostly gold gain in a month + 1 week is not healthy for the economy. In the discussion of an “honest farm”, I disagree that CoF1 qualifies. Repeating a path 100s of times, with the efficiency not hindered by DR (which is obviously meant to deter repeating a path that many times, but is obviously failing here) is the issue. I would be totally ok with the level of reward CoF1 offers now if it’s on a dungeon path that requires more effort (not more time, but more effort, hense Arah P3 as an example). That’s the main concern here for me.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
If the salvage of vendor items included dungeon armor piece, then I would agree. However, the fact that you can get ectos from doing CoF is what makes it the best money per amount of time. Just counting the guaranteed silver does not make any sense in calculating overall monetary gain.
Zap is a tier 2 precursor, but Bolt is a tier 1 legendary. The reason is because charged lodestones pushes bolt to around the same cost as hammer, gsX2, and dagger.
Again, the problem is the reward for the amount of effort vs the amount of reward. So currently, you can run CoF1 at the rate of about 7-8 minutes (very modest values) for ~60s + wonderous goods + drops. What if that level of reward was instead made to Arah P3 (done in 20-25 minutes easily) while similarly scaled rewards (so over 2g + less wonderous goods + less drops). Wouldn’t that be a more “honest farm”?
Thank you,
TJLbecause 250 gold + 150gold for the value of charged over onyx = 700 gold
For that particular point
-Zap hasn’t been 250g for 2 months at least. It’s been 300-350g for about a little over a month into late Feb/early March, and is at the current 400-500g.
-The difference between gift of darkness (you said onyx vs charged so I’m assuming twilight for tier 1) and gift of lightning fluctuate more between 170g-200g.
-This means Bolt, in total, is ~180g less than Sunrise, ~100g to twilight, on the same level as jugg and incinerator, and about ~140g more expensive than the dreamer (these are the 5 precursors with t1 cost), for top tier legendaries placed at about ~1500g in total.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
If the salvage of vendor items included dungeon armor piece, then I would agree. However, the fact that you can get ectos from doing CoF is what makes it the best money per amount of time. Just counting the guaranteed silver does not make any sense in calculating overall monetary gain.
Zap is a tier 2 precursor, but Bolt is a tier 1 legendary. The reason is because charged lodestones pushes bolt to around the same cost as hammer, gsX2, and dagger.
Again, the problem is the reward for the amount of effort vs the amount of reward. So currently, you can run CoF1 at the rate of about 7-8 minutes (very modest values) for ~60s + wonderous goods + drops. What if that level of reward was instead made to Arah P3 (done in 20-25 minutes easily) while similarly scaled rewards (so over 2g + less wonderous goods + less drops). Wouldn’t that be a more “honest farm”?
Thank you,
TJL
Actually, a friend of mine managed to farm up the cost of a bolt in its entiriety in a month and a week.
It does nothing to level the playing field, primarily in that CoF1 is printing money (guaranteed silver drops) more so than generating material (rares for ecto and molten stuff only).
More than anything else, the level of reward doesn’t match the effort. The reward level of CoF1 would make sense if I can get 5-10g for finishing arah P1-3 (20-35minutes per run), and 15g+ for finishing arah P4 (1-2 hours) (assuming the rate of CoF1 is 8-10g/hour).
6 chests- 1 ticket.
ANet did say that their data indicated that people like opening chests.
It’s why we got those wooden chests for rare or aboves now.
The price of the precursor doesn’t hinge on the sell orders. It’s all about the buy orders. That’s also the reason why sellers try to bait buyers by placing their own buy orders to increase the buy order entries. If people are unwilling to pay 700g for a precursor, it won’t matter if every single one is above 700g.
Just do story to get a handful of keys (5-6) and try your luck a little. There is no reason to spend money on keys.
Honestly, just grab a handful of keys from story and try you luck a couple of times then quit. Buying keys in large quantities to gamble is just a bad idea, and a lesson that should have been taught back in halloween.
I do think this time, having all the skins account bound makes it a different situation than Halloween (assuming no other sources to gain the skin is made available).
TJL
Dungeon monetary reward needs to be revisited entirely. Currently you are not being rewarded per amount of effort spent. While CoF farm has been nerfed, it wasn’t nerfed correctly. Material will be more scarce, but P1 is still printing out the same amount of money.
Those of us that speculated on ectos are happy to see the change. That being said, overall it’s not good for the health of the market.
TJL
I think the potential most significant change to dungeon isn’t listed under that particular category.
Somewhere else, it is listed that vendor items can no longer be salvaged.
I’m almost certain this is directed at getting ectos from dungeon rares (30 tokens each).
From the look at ecto prices just now, I think speculators are thinking the same thing.
TJL
Very good point, admittedly I did not think about that.
In this manner, it’s possible CoF1 has been nerfed and is no longer the most optimal path. It’s probably still the easiest, but you can definitely run AC P1 just as quickly, and since tokens are no longer a factor, you get a lot more silver drops from mobs in there. It’s just harder in comparison to be able to run AC1 in 6 minutes.
TJL
Edit: One more thing to note, AC chests drop t5-t6 dust fairly frequently. With dust prices right now, it’s a major factor. The only down side, outside of being a little harder, is that if you get Dungeon Robbed, the potential rare doesn’t salvage for ectos, and the green can’t be forged.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
Quickness change is interesting. I have no problem with that change for now as a thf.
No one got shafted harder than war though. All they got in return is buffs in banner (lol). Maybe pushing them away from GS is the idea?
I think the potential most significant change to dungeon isn’t listed under that particular category.
Somewhere else, it is listed that vendor items can no longer be salvaged.
I’m almost certain this is directed at getting ectos from dungeon rares (30 tokens each).
From the look at ecto prices just now, I think speculators are thinking the same thing.
TJL
I finished my Bolt around mid October. My playing time didn’t diminish till around late December, and after the holidays, I took January off.
I came back February playing a small amount, but the time I clock in has been mounting and as of now has probably returned to 80% of when the game first came out.
Almost finishing a second legendary (didn’t have to really farm for this one. the amount of stuff from October to now easily added up to a fairly large sum), exploring PvP (not the past 2 weeks or so since it’s dead atm, but a month or so ago there was still enough action to be interesting), Arah, and WvW has kept things fairly interesting for now.
There is definitely sufficient content in the game. I think the problem is that the effort required for content does not match the reward most of the time, so it feels like there is less content for a large number of people (for instance, if any chest should guarantee a rare, it should be the Lupi chest).
Since the second legendary was pretty much on a whim (check that I had over 60% of necessary material, so went ahead and tried to finish it), I don’t think it would have any effect this time around.
TJL
Because it’s just faster than range. Phase 1 is super easy (dodge kick and grubs). Phase 2 just feedback and dps and you will be done with it in 15 seconds. Phase 3 the only danger is dome and he can’t effectively do it if you stick really close to him.
I think it makes perfect sene to just melee Lupi. There is no reason to take more than four-five minutes on him tops.
(edited by ryokoalways.3450)
Weapon switching isn’t allowed in tPvP. You have to commit to what you went in with.
Shortbow isn’t always necessary. Depending on map/composition you may be able to get away with it. It
It’s perfectly normal to want best efficiency when doing anything in my opinion.
That said, zerker war only/ping gear groups generally are worse in my experience. This is primarily because outside of gear, they optimize nothing. They don’t move the NPC before choosing the path, no focus turret/wall pull from mesmer, no signet of inspiration from mesmer, no shout/banner check between wars, incorrect skill progression to maximize dps with adrenaline, no optimization of gate killing, and actually getting KD/downed during effigy fight, reducing dps significantly.
All the advantages you get from gear is easily wiped out by any of the select few problems from the above.