Guild Wars 2

I dont know if this is a meta thing or not, but I came up with two closely similar builds today and Im wondering which you guys think is better:

Version 1:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAS3ejMdUFaZIehwJagqABdlAPUfMYuUbA-TpBCwAAeAAYOIAUOCAiLDc5CA4a/BA

Version 2:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAS3ejMdUFaZIehwJaAlgC9KcBlwxZOAU2FXBA-TpBCwAAeAAYOIAUOCAiLDc5CA4a/BA

Version 1 has more reliable burst skill potential and a little bit more cc with immobilize, whereas Version 2 has some pretty nasty burst damage potential with unsuspecting foe (can get an entire hammer aa chain off while they’re stunned.

Its nigh impossible to kill this 1v1, and Ive had success holding out for long periods of time 1v2, I do die though. Team fight potential is great with the group hammer cc. I will say Ive had the most trouble agains cele shoutbow/sword warriors as is its hard to attrition them down and the condis eventually outstrip the cleansing ires. Those fights still last a long time however. Thoughts?

Turk.5460:

tboneking.2531:

My experience with thieves is that the best way to kill them is with condis. You apply them when theyre not stealthed, and whereas they can avoid direct damage when you cant see them, your condis will still be ticking. So as boring as it sounds Ive found the best build for dealing with thieves is the standard cele shoutbow/sword warrior.

Most thieves you’ll see in WvW are running at least 2 points in Shadow Arts, which takes away 1 condi every 3 seconds while in stealth-the first tick immediately when stealth is applied. And if they don’t attack out of stealth, the minimum amount of stealth thieves get is 3seconds, which equals 2 conditions removed.

I had assumed he was talking about pvp. I dont believe that trait is commonly taken there?

Idk if you know this (I always forget) but tab shifts through the available selectable enemies. So you can target nearest foe and swap through until you find the real one and save yourself some frantic clicking. If you make a mesmer and play for just a little bit, you’ll quickly be able to differentiate between the behavior of the clones and the real one.

Tricky mesmers will play mind games with you like Shaco from LoL and try to mimic the movement patterns of their clones so its even harder to tell them apart. So then the easiest way to find them IS to kill every image of them. Watch out for any condis being applied to you when you do this though or else you’ll kill yourself.

My experience with thieves is that the best way to kill them is with condis. You apply them when theyre not stealthed, and whereas they can avoid direct damage when you cant see them, your condis will still be ticking. So as boring as it sounds Ive found the best build for dealing with thieves is the standard cele shoutbow/sword warrior.

Sabwa.7358:

I love playing bunker necro and I just started using a build very similar to the op’s:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAodWjc00abtNG3wfbChhS6UoDO3IDgIgyuoJA-TJxHwAc2fwwpAAwTAQZZAA

I’ll explain my build with the op’s in mind-

STATS
I’m using zerker amulet for the extra damage which allows me to carry pug groups a bit better and ds absorbs so much I don’t need too much survivability.

If I was going to transition into a dedicated pvp group or wvw I would definitely use sentinel stats. I’ve run the numbers and with deadly strength (5 pts in death magic) and a sharpening stone in wvw sentinel actually does comparable damage to full zerker in ds at least.

WEAPONS
As for weapons, dagger does crazy damage and with the ample amount of chill with the occasional pull, dagger does really well, not that I’m outside of ds very long. Axe works great as well but I think dagger fits my playstyle more. I love staff too much to swap it out for anything else, the cc it brings is really hard to pass up and the 1200 range is nice.

UTILITIES
Sarmor and Swalk are kind of staple utils, I like Sgrasp instead of Swall because it brings enemies into dagger range for a quick combo and when coupled with focus 4 I can fill 50% of the ds bar in 2 secs.

Swall protection isn’t needed imo, 2x Sarmor gives 28s of protection with 5s protection on earth rune proc is near 32s of protection with a 40s cd. I don’t think the extra protection is needed and Sgrasp gives 22% life force compared to 5% from Swall.

TRAITS
Reapers protection trait to help with cc, shrouded removal could probably swap with dark armor, I haven’t tried dark armor much. It’s hard to choose between 6 points in death magic vs soul reaping but I think, for my set-up at least, unholy sanctuary helps a bit more.
———————————
I haven’t played with the build too much, like I said I just started using it. I’ve won quite a few 1v2’s easy enough and I can bunker against a large group for a decent amount of time even with zerker stats. I think the op is on to something

I just feel like youre wasting some stats/ trait points by taking Unholy Sanctuary without a significant amount of healing power. Wouldnt you benefit more from some more weakness uptime or something?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakjmWbbpx2G+bTcMIS9J6AJWQ9zhBB-TpBFwAMOEAEOBALOCAVLDA4BA4b/BA

I used to use something similar to that to some good effect.

Im gonna go ahead and say that when someone comes out, and gives a build theyve been using to good effect for a long time, its pretty demeaning to say “well you must never have been fighting good opponents”.

Lol Im loving the Bunker Necro thread we have started. If you made a hybrid of the two builds that have been posted so far, you would actually end up with something really similar to what I use.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00bbtNG3wfbCihS6T4CG3IDgGgyqIKA-TJRAwAsLDA4iA8b/BPPBAA

It honestly doesnt matter because if you are doing it for a “farm” then you just need to tag things and go, you dont really need to worry about killing everything. So I would recommend either staff marks or Precise Ritual wells for some AOE tags on everything.

You could quite honestly run Nomads and it wouldnt matter because everyone else would pick up your slack, there are so many people there. I dont condone this because its unethical to let everyone else do your work, but you get my meaning.

Thats a fast way to break an economy

I think the success of the Demon Souls/ Dark Souls franchise has proven that there is a market for challenging games. There is clearly a large group of consumers that enjoy unforgiving pve content with strict penalties for death. This game also proves (to me) that pve areas that have some amount of pvp integrated into them would also have some success, as that is essentially the entire premise for that franchise (seamless integrated pvevp).

I am personally of this market, and revel in content which makes me strategize and think on my feet at the same time. GW2 has what is possibly one of the most immersive combat systems out of any game I have played, and I think it is a shame that you don’t really have to take advantage of that for pve content.

CureForLiving.5360:

segman.3560:

The game is easy for you because you learned it.
Now get a fresh 80lvl player with 500 AP and tell him to do any explorable dungeon. Not so easy, eh?

This. It’s not so much that we need harder content, we need new content with new mechanics and challenges that we haven’t mastered yet.

See the problem with this is that there is almost zero replayability

+1 to this. That screws me over so often

Sabwa.7358:

Mesmer and necro are my 2 fav profs. You could make any argument you wanted with the format you have, such as follows:

Compare necro axe skills to mesmer main-hand sword skills.
-Both auto attacks apply vulnerability, but one is melee and one is ranged.
-2 skill is a 2.5 second channel that deals comparable amounts of damage, except that necro’s is much easier to land due to it’s range.
-Oh and the 3 skill for necro is AOE, strips boons and cripples foes while providing the necro with retaliation weird…

I understand your frustration and I’m not saying my above comparison is true but your argument doesn’t work. These are two different profs with different sets of tools. They work in different ways even though there are many similarities between the two. The arguments you’re trying to make is like trying to argue that apples are better than oranges.

Necro as a profession has a lot of tools that mesmers could only hope for. Embrace our differences

Thank you for talking sense into me!

Rav.9475:

tboneking.2531:

Heres a thought: if youre a roaming terrormancer, why not try using flesh golem+ runes of the Sunless?

Edit: Also I recommend using Koi Cakes instead of Bowls of Sweet and Spicy Beans because they cost the same as a single prickly pear, of which you need 10 to make the bowl of beans. You just gotta remember to eat more XD

Thanks for the comments TBone but I have been roaming in WvW since beta so I am not especially new to the concept.

Fleshy should have been on the link, obviously I didn’t quite get that right.

The reasons for the food is as I stated, by normal +condi duration food I meant Koi Cakes (or Pizza or that Garlic stuff!) and yes I know they are cheaper.

Two things:-

1. I am loaded with cash (please no charity requests!) so cost is not important to me.

2. I am after more Power hence that food and the Runes.

Anyway thanks for your interest.

Sorry, I got your food mixed up with Garlic Kale Sautee. I wasn’t inferring you were inexperienced in WvW roaming, I was merely offering input and asking what your thoughts were on that rune set

Yeah I probably should have not made this post. It was a pretty rash spur-of-the-moment thing.

Heres a thought: if youre a roaming terrormancer, why not try using flesh golem+ runes of the Sunless?

Edit: Also I recommend using Koi Cakes instead of Bowls of Sweet and Spicy Beans because they cost the same as a single prickly pear, of which you need 10 to make the bowl of beans. You just gotta remember to eat more XD

So this is definitely just a whine for no reason post, but I think its funny to compare mesmer skills to necro ones that are extremely similar, but the mesmer variations are (in my opinion) so much better.

Compare our Axe 1 and 2 skills to mesmer main-hand sword 1 and 2.
-Both auto attacks apply vulnerability, but one also strips boons and deals more damage at the end of the chain.
-2 skill is a 2.5 second channel that deal comparable amounts of damage, except that mesmers evade that entire time.
-Oh and the 3 skill for mesmer is ACTUALLY a combo finisher. That they can control. Weird

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirror_Blade
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Touch

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirror_Images
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Summon_Bone_Minions

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Null_Field
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Corruption
I realize that our wells convert the conditions and boons instead of removing them, but I feel that null field does the important part, getting rid of the boons/condis, and its all in one skill.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portal_Entre
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Walk
Portal lasts longer, goes farther, and transports your whole team.

Grumble Grumble. End rant.

Actually Feedback is a mesmer skill. Sooo….

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feedback

Ill escort myself out now.

I dont suppose you also get a trail of whatever it is youre siphoning (seriously what is that stuff?) from you to their location?

This thread just fell back to the second page so I thought I’d change that!

As someone who never got a chance to really play very much of SAB, I would LOVE to be able to venture back in there while I wait for HoT. The release of the SAB minis in the chests was a real slap in the face to everyone.

I miss the days when more things were updated than the gemstore

Oh. My. God. This is the best revelation ever.

Reto.6712:

My strategy against thief is to catch them as soon as they come out of stealth. I play power necro 60206, and I’m aware of my burst capabilities. Thief comes out of stealth -> dark pact -> well of suffering. If they port out using shadowstep, no big deal, you just made them use one of their best skills. In case they don’t, I go into DS, fear them and then start pounding them down. I generally save my DS 4 for when they go into stealth, so I can keep great pressure on them at all times.

Wait does DS 4 work when targets are stealthed?

I was just wondering if there are any good youtube channels for necro pvp- I seem to get a lot better just by watching and learning and I was wondering if there are any recognized necro aficionados!

maha.7902:

because this game is balanced around pvp where multiple gear stats are actually used?

“don’t see any use”?

please at least do some research before making bold claims like that.

clearly this thread is about pve and not pvp so you should probably read the thread before telling me to do my research.

NoTrigger.8396:

tboneking.2531:

I dont think that there should be more unblockable attacks, but I think that there should be many more punishing ones so that you either have to be extremely skilled to survive as a zerker, or you have to bring some healers/ wear tankier armor. The whole concept of a glass cannon gear set is large risk/ large reward, and there is currently no risk in pve.

People join a game advertised around no trinity and active combat system.

Get mad that they can’t play pure tanks and have to dodge.

Makes sense.

See my interpretation of them “eliminating the holy trinity” was that they didnt want certain classes to be locked into certain roles, not that they wanted everyone to run the same gear set. “No holy trinity” simply means that every class has the potential to fill the role of dps/tank/support/healer but no one is locked into anything. I believe the 24 different armor types is evidence of this intended diversity, not the DPS is king meta for pve we have today.

in other games you have tank, healer, dps.

in gw2 your tank is your active defense, your healer is your personal healing skills and water field, whats left is dps and most important unique support from different classes.

guardian focus 5 isnt only a defensive skill or a damage skill, it becomes a support skill as soon as you blast a combo field with it.

thats how the game works. why is it so hard to understand?

Its not hard to understand. Its just that I dont believe thats what anet intended. Im not sure how you can see that there are literally 24 gear sets, and see that 23 of them dont see any use, and think that thats how the game was intended to be played.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is a death penalty: each time you die, you have less health in subsequent downed states; die often enough in a short time and you will skip the downed state entirely. It used to cost coin to repair broken armor, but that really didn’t affect the meta; it just annoyed everyone equally.

On the whole, the biggest problem with the PvE meta is that the AI just isn’t smart enough for the current set of mechanics. Change that and everyone would find it more challenging.

Also- thats not a death penalty. Downed state penalty sure. But having less and less health in downed state (an effect that wears off in roughly 60 seconds, might I add) in no way challenges you once you go back to regular state. You could also pay for your armor repairs literally with the junk you got from playing in pve, Im not even sure why they removed that cost it was so negligible.

Im just saying that I think this game is wayyyy tooo forgiving. And I personally beat EOTN in GW1 with only henchies on my first runthrough, so im going to have to disagree with you that it made the content inaccessible. Challenging? Sure. But infinitely more rewarding.

So there are many threads that have to do with the “zerker” meta being broken (I am personally of the camp that something with the meta needs to change, but thats not the topic of this thread). I am starting to think that perhaps the way to encourage a little diversity is not to change encounters, but to actually tie penalty with death. I think we can all agree that There is no penalty when you die, as you can just wp 10 feet away and run back to whatever encounter you were doing.
So what if there was a death penalty? There is so little risk in pve that its a completely no-stress low effort environment. But what if you were penalized for dying? Having your survivability stats nerfed by a certain percentage for the next 45 minutes (or until the end of the VW cycle in SW for example) could be a fun way to introduce some risk/reward into the game.
I am essentially proposing the moral system from GW1. Maybe you could earn your stats back by killing champs/ completing events/ doing certain challenges? What do you guys think?

I dont think that there should be more unblockable attacks, but I think that there should be many more punishing ones so that you either have to be extremely skilled to survive as a zerker, or you have to bring some healers/ wear tankier armor. The whole concept of a glass cannon gear set is large risk/ large reward, and there is currently no risk in pve.

People join a game advertised around no trinity and active combat system.

Get mad that they can’t play pure tanks and have to dodge.

Makes sense.

See my interpretation of them “eliminating the holy trinity” was that they didnt want certain classes to be locked into certain roles, not that they wanted everyone to run the same gear set. “No holy trinity” simply means that every class has the potential to fill the role of dps/tank/support/healer but no one is locked into anything. I believe the 24 different armor types is evidence of this intended diversity, not the DPS is king meta for pve we have today.

For condi damage I wouldnt worry about getting giver’s weapons when you could buy some rare veggie pizza or koi cakes for a +36% or +40% condi duration

Ok so to put this in context-if I have 5.75 seconds of burning, I am only losing out on .25 seconds of burning damage as opposed to a full second activating upon the 6th tick? So it might not be worth increasing my burning duration from 90 to 100% by buying expensive toxic sharpening stones?

Czerny.6530:

Slightly off topic, can you get swiftness as a terrormancer?

If you take warhorn or spectral walk as a terrormancer… sure? What do you mean “can you get swiftness”

The question of when damage ticks has always been a little confusing to me because I’m a musician, and I think of damage ticks like big beats in a measure of music. So my question is this: if I have a burning duration of exactly 6 seconds, how many times does damage tick? And when does the first tick happen? Do you get some damage on application, and then upon completion of every complete second? Which leads to the more important question- if the duration is exactly 6 seconds, do I get a damage tick upon the 6 second mark? Or do you need the duration to be slightly higher than 6 seconds?

and yes you can infer I’m trying to bring dhuumfire back

Id say your biggest problem is that you allow the thief to set up on you. Ill explain: there were a number of times in the video where the thief stealthed, and you remained completely still, waiting for them to make their move so you could react to it. This is either where you lost the fight, or made it much more difficult for yourself by allowing them to get in some backstabs on you without even having to try for it. When I pvp, and Im clearly about to 1v1 a thief and they stealth, I frantically thrash my camera in random directions so that they cannot predict where my back will be facing (lets be honest Im panicking). But there were another of other times where mid-fight, you were standing still while laying down your marks, which really just makes you a sitting duck for whoever youre fighting.

you did WHAT???

this… would fix… EVERYTHING

A HYBRID build using staff might have potential though. Im completing my Sinister set to that end.

I think the Fear hotfix and the FitG stun break has resulted in the first hint of positivity on the necro forums I’ve seen since I joined in January and Im loving it.

I think one of the important things about this trait is that it frees up your skill bar a little bit. Necro has always needed to bring two stun breaks to a fight, and now that we can TRAIT for a controllable low cd one, we have more freedom to pick from our other skills

Yeah I just noticed this change yesterday- when did they do this? I dont remember it in any patch notes!

In regards to your build- this might just be personal opinion- but the fact that youre dedicating an entire trait for each of your utility skills is a little weak to me. And the only one of them that gives a second effect is signet mastery. I would either give up the 20% cd reduction on one of them or try to streamline your utility skills so you have more than one of a type of skill.

Aireroth.7596:

1-6: no
7: they have set damage that can be increased via traits.

Reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Minion

I realize that the wiki says this, but in testing in PvP, I noticed that by just switching my amulet from clerics to zerkers, the auto attack damage tooltip on the minion skill rose, as did their average auto attack damage. This was without changing any traits, only the amulet. So I am unconvinced that your stats dont transfer over.

I just clicked the link to the German forum thinking I would be able to read it. Lol.

Yeah I hope my guild doesnt kick me because I dont think I can play until after April Fools now

Well they most likely have made fear into a damaging condition, so popping those skills as frequently as possible results in more damage. Its also 3-4k damage that you had no opportunity to respond to because you were fleeing in terror.

Also one of the procs might be nightmare runes which cause fear when you get hit once a minute

Ok! thanks! I might still buy something like Koi Cakes or something and run aristocracy runes. (Or Flame Legion and use dhuumfire… BRINGIN IT BACK)

Hi all:
Im theory crafting a sinister build, and I intend on utilizing Bowls of Sweet and Spicy Beans. Can condition duration be increased beyond 100%? otherwise I might not buy these because it kind of stinks to have to pay 1g an hour for a build to work.

Yep I just got down to that post, I hadnt switched to page 2 yet when I made my reply XD

I think where the potential for the raised condi cap is in more interactive boss fights. Fights where you cant just sit there and face tank anything the boss is doing and have to be more interactive. Where zerker builds have to actively be attacking to get their damage out there, conditions are still ticking for damage even when youre running and dodging red rings. So perhaps with newer content and in some fractals condi builds will now have their place. Zerker builds SHOULD have a higher maximum damage and burst potential (otherwise the meta would just reverse and we’d have the same problem), but I think where condi’s strengths will lie is in it’s dependability.

Zenith.7301:

Um, you were probably the cause with your “support” guardian why the group didn’t kill the molten charr within the first reflection wall, which is likely what wipes a group.

This is literally the the one fight in the game where the longer you take to kill a boss the harder/more unforgiving the fight gets.

The real support in this game is boosting your team’s DPS and reflecting/aegis the crap that kills them. They don’t need you to tank. They don’t need you to heal. They just need you to kill that crap asap and give them enough blocks/reflects to get that burst uninterrupted with 25 might stacks and fury.

Stop thinking there are roles other than DPS in this game. The way it functions is you maximize offense and bring the bare minimum of support required so that nobody dies.

This is exactly true. And I hate it.

Atherakhia.4086:

Nekrothaft.6390:

I’ve noticed more than half the times that my downed fear won’t interrupt (no blinds or stab)

I know for certain that the Necro’s downed fear does not interrupt the Ranger’s downed pet heal.

I have actually recently done this. Were you casting the fear on the ranger themselves or the pet? Because if you cast it on the pet it still interrupts it and runs away.

Edit: It doesnt INTERRUPT it but it interrupts it… you know what Im saying