Those intothemists links are misleading. You should never take persisting images. Always take glamour mastery and warden’s feedback. If you go 30 into inspiration you take temporal enchanter.
-> DS penetration <- it’s compared to cleave too 3x 6-9k
And warriors cleave without doing kitten dps. Trying to justify a build because it has piercing doesnt work. The damage from lifeblast isnt good enough even with piercing. You would need to hit about 12k consistantly with lifeblast and pierce to compete with warrior. And im sure I dont need to tell you how unreliable piercing is compared to real cleave. Theres no point comparing pierce/cleave dps when looking at necro. Focus on single target or pick another class.
even in your full “ascended” stuff auto dagger does not do 12k either per second.
The best build is still and always will be the one you are comfortable with not some “math” people do because they think they are smart or whatever.
Please read the post properly. I said 12k lifeblasts which is about 9k dps. Fully buffed over the top dagger auto gives 11k dps. Dagger auto with banners, food, fury but no might or vuln gives 5.7k dps. To beat that lifeblast would have to hit 7.5k every single hit. Not to mention dagger actually gives better dps than 5.7k because you can easily get vuln and might to boost it up further.
-> DS penetration <- it’s compared to cleave too 3x 6-9k
And warriors cleave without doing kitten dps. Trying to justify a build because it has piercing doesnt work. The damage from lifeblast isnt good enough even with piercing. You would need to hit about 12k consistantly with lifeblast and pierce to compete with warrior. And im sure I dont need to tell you how unreliable piercing is compared to real cleave. Theres no point comparing pierce/cleave dps when looking at necro. Focus on single target or pick another class.
The whole reason to take a guardian in fractals would be to provide good support with consecrations and shouts along with good dps. Which means you need traits which effect their cooldowns. There are two options you could take. 10/25/0/25/10 which has a hp cusion giving you a bit more safety against larges groups trash. Or the better 10/25/0/10/25 which retains shout cooldowns but can have both consecration and spirit weapon traits in virtues (and better dps). Theres not much point going 30 in radiance in fractals due to 1h sword cleave being quite bad for the trash clearing sections (dredge). I think you will find the vigor and extra hp in honour will be better for your survivability than the toughness from valor. You wont have a constant heal from boons anymore but you shouldnt need it with the heal cooldowns guard has and the passive regen.
6-9k is mind numbingly low dps. Considering the aftercast on lifeblast. You shouldnt be proud of that. And even piercing it doesnt compete with a warrior. Necro single target dps can compete with a warrior under extreme conditions, but using the DS build you would end up falling short.
The reason for it is because using maths, certain compositions yield better theoretical dps. But in reality stacking mostly warriors gives faster kill times. It would be good to find out why (we kind of know already that its because of easy access to buffs and vuln). But doing an actual test with different classes allows us to compare exactly how much the buffs fall off and how much dps the classes can provide compared to each other in a real environment. Also builds like my necro build are a lot harder to calculate dps in a rotation because of the amount of skills and variables that increase dps.
I use every weapon when the situation arises for all my classes. I havent used the gs on mesmer for months. Theres only one place I would use it and thats on melandru in arah p4 because piercing is good when those pesky trees get in the way.
I did the numbers with similar buffs because like I said necro needs to be carried by other classes for buffs. DS build is slightly less reliant which makes it a good pug build.
DS auto takes about 1.3 seconds so even if you consistantly hit for 11k you are doing less than 9k dps to a single target. Which is quite bad compared to dagger auto.
You’re not going to be daggering Kholer’s face while he’s spinning. You’re not going to be standing in pbAoEs. Generally avoiding an attack is downtime, and melee tends to have that more than ranged.
Obviously you dodge away when he spins. And incase you didnt know, kholer reflects projectiles while he spins so you cant dps with life blast either. Both builds are restricted on damage output during that attack. Avoiding attacks is downtime but even ranged you have to avoid some attacks. And a competent player really doesnt lose much dps in melee because they use their dodges effectively and only when needed. Higher risk, higher reward in terms of damage output and faster kill times.
I really hope anyone that isnt biased ignores that so called “advice”. The DS build has its merits which i have mentioned in the post above. Its also a safer, more pug friendly build. But it is not a build that you should take if you are interested in contributing as much as possible damage wise to the group.
If you were kicked from groups because of being a necro its probably because you didnt meet the requirements the group set. People arent forced to play with you. If you dont meet their requirements look for a more tolerable group or start one yourself.
The people who buy spots are usually players that farm champs all day and make way more money than the average dungeon runner. Selling slots allows us to shift some of the gold into the pockets of people who actually play challenging content.
The reason its harder to find groups for arah is because the non selling groups fill much faster and get removed from the list. Kicking sellers because you dont like it is griefing and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Agree mostly but i regard furious demise as a good minor especially considering its uptime and the fact that its purely selfish. If it was a major I would expect it to be group fury or 10 second duration.
I use to play the DS build yes. The aoe damage from the DS build is better but not by as much as you would think. Most encounters are single target so that slight increase in mob clearing but sacrifice in boss clearing dps is kind of a bad decision. The single target dps of the dagger build beats the DS build with only 3 conditions maintained (necro can maintain 3 conditions on its own easily). And thats assuming you have 100% uptime of DS and are always above 50% lifeforce. So yeah DS build is clearly the best build….
Add in the fact that you’re now doing it at 600 range able to be out of the cleaves and more easily avoid AoEs while in a form that also cushions your HP pool making you even more survivable and more easily able to play a full glass cannon build makes it deserve even more nods as any DPS > dead.
This does not make DS better dps than dagger. If you cant play the dagger build effectively then dont play it. I was simply stating to maximise damage (assuming player skill and survivability is not an issue) you go with the dagger build. Besides, for the limited occasions where you do have multiple targets and the DS build would be more effective. You can still burst aoe with the dagger build and it does plenty enough damage to clear the group so long as your party isnt terrible.
Siphoned power in spite feels like a poorly designed trait. Not only is it a very weak trait but its rewarding you for face tanking and being low on hp. It might be ok for bunkerish pvp builds but thats a very niche role and those builds dont usually go 25 points into spite. It should be something offensive which benefits a wider range of builds seeing as its a 25 point minor. Even just plain might when hit or chance for might on crit would be much much better. Personally I would like it to be changed to vuln on crit though.
Withering precision is also in a terrible place at the moment. I dont think anyone uses it anymore. When they revamped weakness they nerfed it so hard that it just became totally useless in everything except pvp. But there are better choices for pvp. If they change the icd so its per target or just make it chance on crit again with no icd it could be a really good trait for pve again.
In all seriousness I think I know what im talking about when it comes to power builds. Ive done the maths and so have a few others from the top dungeon guilds. If you want to maximise dps on a necro you go 30/25/0/0/15.
The reason is because pve content is doable with full dps specs on every class. And going for efficiency means you dont waste stats on stuff you dont need (toughness, vit, healing power). Guard provides defensive utility on top of really good dps which is why they are picked in dungeons.
A dungeon like arah, where lots of projectiles are involved, is made a lot easier when you have a class than can reflect or defend the group against them. This is why people arent running 5 warriors, they need the utility from other classes to make the run faster/smoother.
Also vit and toughness dont help your group. They only help urself at the cost of group dps (potentially putting the group in more danger because of extended kill times). Healing power arguebly does help groups. But it scales so poorly and the fact that there are no dedicated healers and the dps sacrificed is too great, makes it a very poor choice for pve. You do a lot more for the group by providing good dps along with class utility. Blocks, reflects, condi removal and boons dont require defensive stats to be used.
Rotations arent hard to keep on track of. The things that alter it in real combat is situational skills and utility use and dodging attacks. But thats only a small amount of deviation from the optimum dps and really doesnt require that much complicated maths to factor in.
Actually there are a lot of reasons that are justified (I listed some of them above). Like if the party leader decides to DC or go AFK for an inordinate amount of time..say an hour or so. Should everyone in the group sit around and wait that long for them to come back? Or what if the leader has an attitude problem. Like he starts arguing with everyone else in the group, or he just refuses to do anything or help the group at all? Or maybe the leader doesnt meet any of the requirements that were specified in the LFG post, or maybe hes a sucky player, maybe he has all greens/blues, maybe hes trolling..I could go on and on, but you get the idea. In all these cases it would usually make sense to kick that person, and either rerun it with your group or leave/disband and find another one.
Thats not justifying destroying the hosts instance. If you kick him it shouldnt remove him from the instance. You should all be removed and he can remain solo in his hosted instance. Instance should be maintained by host at all times to prevent griefing.
Necro damage is better than half the classes when built properly (including warrior). Just it has to be carried by buffs and doesnt provide anything special. So I know how you feel.
They arent meta. But the improvements are noticeable. My flesh golem survived full melee on bloomhunger in fractal 38 today, no problems. Means its actually worth taking the minion damage trait in spite solely for flesh golem charge. So its a minor buff to anyone that uses flesh golem as an elite. Doesnt change that necros will never be a meta class for dungeons in the games current state. They are purely a situational fractal class.
Until enboss dies is pretty stupid in my opinion because in some dungeons you don’t get the reward when the endboss died, the path isn’t completed yet.
Examples? All I can think of is COE, and having the record come down to killing the alpha essences is ridiculous.
CM path 2 and Arah path 1. But those you could still count the end as killing the last boss because the rewards are triggered by running over to a telescope and opening a cage.
I agree with COE, it should be the end of alpha because sometimes you get terrible rng with essences. It doesnt end straight away even when all essences have been killed, ive waited a full minute one time. We almost left assuming it had bugged.
Highest dps is usually counted as single target dps. Condition damage builds have much lower dps but they can maintain damage on 5 foes which totals to more damage.
Seeing as most important (non skipped) encounters in dungeons are single target and trash groups can be burned down in a few seconds with any group. You should focus on single target dps. So ill refer to my dungeon build (see signature), which is the highest single target dps the necro can provide. It has good burst aoe for clearing trash groups aswell.
Use slaying potions and appropriate sigils for the dungeon. Force/night/undead in mainhand. Perception on a spare offhand. Frailty/strength or energy on regular offhands.
I dont use battle and perception is better than bloodlust because of reflects. Battle is fine but in a good group 6 stacks of might can be provided elsewhere.
Id say the second option due to some records already taking advantage of building stacks before selecting the path. And it makes more sense on most dungeons.
Could alter it so everyone has to be by the path select npc when you start. Would prevent 4/5 of the group skipping ahead and waiting by the first boss. Which is pretty cheesy imo. Although I just think it needs to be common rules for each individual path.
Force/night/undead are all good for reflect damage and increasing your non phantasm dps slightly. If you run arah alot then its worth having force/undead on your weapons. I personally run force on my mainhand, perception on focus and accuracy on offhand sword/pistol. But im pretty lazy with gearing my mesmer because I dont use her as much.
That seems weird. Arcing arrow doesnt feel that much lower than volley. Is that taking into account that the longbow auto hits twice? Because it always seems like I hit almost twice as hard with the longbow auto.
Its probably a combination of movement and being a bit too far away. Thats my take on it. If you hug close it doesnt trigger. But lupi can get pushed away from teammates and then decide to dome someone who doesnt move back to him fast enough.
