Guild Wars 2

Godless.1857:

@yski.7642

I was also trying to avoid wells, so that if combat is “on the run” you don’t blow a well and have it only tick once or twice usefully.

That’s why you have that dagger immobilize. You don’t let them choose whether they stay in the wells or not

Wells are great for bursting down people, the only tricky part is landing that immobilize. You also don’t want to let them heal, so typically when well bursting my combo goes something like this:

Dagger 3, wells, focus 4, dagger 1. As soon as I see that heal animation or something else I don’t like, I go DS and fear them, usually followed by life blasts or alternatively more dagger. Wells + DS 5 and 4 (with fear when needed) or wells + Lich Form is also lovely when someone is trying to revive.

Basically, wells are the most offensive option necromancers have. If it’s (direct) damage you want, wells are the way to go, though there’s nothing wrong with cc/defense focused spectral skills either as far as I know.

Godless.1857:

…improve on it.

Build

(First of all, I’m a PvP necro, so below is mostly for WvW/PvP)

The build overall seems slightly off both trait and skill wise. It looks as though it doesn’t quite know what it wants to do.

The trait set is rather defensive(Blood, and to lesser extend Soul Reaping), yet the gear is offensive.

Blood magic isn’t really needed at all – your damage comes from dagger 1, which has no cooldown, and dagger 2 should recharge fast enough as it is. The only reason to ever take Dagger Mastery would be for the immobilize, but even then you’d probably be better off going for something else. Quickening Thirst on the other hand isn’t worth spending 20 points for IMO.

My advice would be to go into spite if running a glassy build. I usually run 30/10/0/0/30, but you could give a 20/20/0/0/30 a try.

Next, utilities. I’m not a fan of spectral armor, and without quickening thirst you’ll probably want some mobility. If your really want to keep that spectral focus, I’d go for Spectral Walk instead. I’d personally go for wells, but I don’t want to change your build TOO much.

Basically, your build after slight tweaking: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAod4YjMah7Vbqb07JEIF7CuEpAZUGqHwD68hA-jUzAYrBRTRCExBkABn8jayLgJwkV60YrgCRqFMVJRUt3QRzfIULEwoFA-w
What I usually use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAodWjMah7ZaWaM8JEoHvHu4MRFGGqHrD78hA-jEzAYLBRCCIhBg+Al8KiGbboIasqFMVZSVmRW7C4NUWdHRGA-w

Meet Yski Deathleaf, a powerful asuran necromancer specializing in Soul Reaping, as well as his namesake, the human necromancer Yski Deathleaf, who is, ironically, busily trying to consume his new incarnation from withing. After all, being consumed is how he ended up in his current situation in the first place..

Yski Unseenleaf, an infiltrator and a mist warrior, as well as one of the few asura to ever score a WvW kill with the Summon Power Suit racial ability.

And finally, Yski Shelleaf, the youngest of the three; a ballistics specialist.

I do indeed! He’s a tad bit sneaky, so it’s understandable you didn’t notice despite watching a whole video of him bursting down people :P

My characters aren’t particularly cute (The closest they can get is a only slightly ragged look), so I’ll post them in the general asura screenshots thread instead. Now excuse me while I go take some screenshots before getting back to editing stuff

So long as the stealth gained from Last Refuge can cause revealed, I’d rather not have the trait at all. I don’t care what it does so long as it doesn’t actively try to kill me

tora.3205:

Here’s my Asuran Thief, Yess Man, prepare to die!

Totally off topic, but hi!

I haven’t studied this “Scarlet” yet, but where exactly does the information regarding her college studies come from? You aren’t going to just believe someone claiming to have joined our colleges, are you?

Then again, an exceptional bookah with a knack for mesmer magic might pass for some of the less mentally adept asura I’ve seen, assuming particularly senile professors..

I must apologize for taking way longer than I said I would, but it appears I’ve grossly overestimated my editing speed. I suppose the biggest reason for that is the fact I’m used to simply editing all day (or until I’m finished, at any rate) when I get started, so now that I only have a couple of hours each day my “one day’s work” actually takes… well, lots of them.

Still, I’m working on it, and so far the results are definitely worth the wait. It’ll be rather short by my standards, but I’d say it has some of the best editing I’ve ever done

I’m sort of running out of time, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, or in worst case scenario the day after tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m working on it :P

spoj.9672:

The damage with axe and lifeblasts are still good in 30/25/0/0/5. The builds were discussed and compared on the dungeon forums recently. 3 power builds were considered. 30/25/0/0/15 had the highest effective power at about 9k. While the other 2 were below. The 30/10/0/0/30 was considered the worst. Whereas 15/25/0/0/30 is very close to 9k so long as strength of undeath actually gives a 5% damage boost instead of 90 power (heard it was bugged, may have been stealth fixed).

It doesnt matter what power build you run, all 3 are going to have burst aoe and then nothing for 30-40 seconds.

That’s only from PvE perspective though, and the OP mentions possibly doing some WvW as well. For PvP of any kind I’d never give up my 30/10/0/0/30 Deathly Perception build.

First of all, that’s a guaranteed crit from life blast. Damage being reliable is a big deal.

Secondly, I’m also fairly sure it boosts the AoE burst further than anything else with the guaranteed crits. Haven’t actually tested this though, so I could be wrong.

And finally, there’s simply no way to always be in dagger range, even if we ignore the fact builds like these are rather squishy. Use the dagger when you can, life blast when you can’t.

Without Hidden Killer you really need the fury unless your crit chance is a lot higher than mine. 50% chance of failing the burst isn’t fun considering you blow all your cooldowns to do it :P

I’ve actually managed to get a decent pile of footage, now all I need to do is to it all together. It takes a while to get used to it, but the new build does indeed work

Let me just say, that the 4 signet burst is a nightmare to play. The burst is less likely to work than before, takes longer to set up and you no longer have that handy escape stealth or even a decent heal for that matter.

Then again, the numbers are definitely bigger than before, so I suppose it’s worth it.

I’m using it in my burst builds, it’s handy in case the initial burst doesn’t finish them off since it prevents them from dodging afterward. Makes landing that HS or a couple of auto attacks easier.

Well, it’s 9 am in the morning and my day has already been made

I’ve been thinking, since the build is all about maximizing the damage, there is a way to go even higher. It makes your burst way less reliable AND you lose the little defense Hide in Shadows gives you, but I’ve been messing around with in in hot joins and it seems doable: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlcmKOHcy5E/5Ex2je6Te6VAsaPoZLhJA-jkyAEEIiCAVAM5VEN2ibR0Y1OYqyIrMTq2FwbwoVLFQEjBA-w

That, however, should be close to the maximum. All I can think of is going all ascended zerger gear and swapping panic strike for vuln on crits or might on venoms. I’d have to do the math to see which would boost it more..

I was actually planning to do some programming (I’ve been trying to learn c++), but now I think I’ll go give the above build a try in WvW, and hopefully get a short video done by the end of the day

I’m sort of in the same boat, though I only have a necro, thief, warrior, and ranger, though I’ll probably end up making more at some point. They all look great and so do the animations

Well, give mesmers a +25% speed signet and necromancer a Blink clone and everyone’s happy?

For smaller battles (zergs not recommended, since even if we ignore the aoe problem, you’d be swapping targets too often for your minions to keep up), a power based MM build would look something like this:

20/x/20/20/x, with the remaining points going to Spite, Death or Blood. You’ll want Training of the Master, Flesh of the Master and Vampiric Master, the rest of the traits are optional.

Weapons wise, some combination of staff, axe/x and dagger/x is what you want, though personally I never go anywhere without my staff. Off hand weapons are a matter of personal preference.

For gear, I’d go with Soldier’s. Your minions already deal a decent amount of damage independently of your stats, so going full offence won’t benefit as much as it does on a more direct build; you’ll just end up being squishy yourself. Some also go with clerics, but I find the extra health more beneficial, especially since it increases your life force pool.

Skills should obviously be minions.

Reesha.7901:

This always makes me Wonder.
I mean necromancers do have Spectral Walk(30 seconds of swiftness) and Signet of the Locust (25% movement speed).
I am not saying they are optimal or anything like that, or even that they can be compared to a blink, but necromancers do have a way to increase their speed without taking specific runes or running specific weapons.
In all honesty, it is a pleasure leveling my necromancer. She can actually move with a decent speed, without me having to do anything for it to happen ^^

I think the difference is in how we define mobility. You are talking about the average speed it takes to travel long distances. What I’m talking about is shorter distances, or in combat mobility if you prefer.

Think of it like this: you are alone in PvP of some kind, and suddenly 5 enemies jump out of nowhere, and you must somehow get away. Nothing a necromancer has really helps there, since practically everyone has access to swiftness, and it’s easy enough to slow you down while you’re trying to get away. All you can do is pop DS and take 5 seconds longer to take down.

Mesmers, on the other hand, have blinks and portals, rangers have leaps, warriors have faster than swiftness running skills…

Mesmer has the worst mobility? Have you ever played a necromancer?

The fact you have an instant cast teleport and that ridiculously long range portal alone makes your mobility far superior to that of a necromancer.

For keep sieges, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umWpDwCu4Ts

All berserker gear, 30/x/x/x/30 could do the trick?

All thieves are good for in WvW is solo roaming? I beg to differ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umWpDwCu4Ts

Hype.8032:

Anet nerfed thieves damage too much to consistently instagib people anymore. That being said, fast reflexes and high damage can still end fights pretty quickly.

You can still instagib pretty consistently if that’s what you really want. I’m starting to feel slightly bad about spamming this all over the place, but it can be done.

As for gear, I admit I personally suck at optimizing gear, but you might find this thread interesting: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/page/1

Coming from a PvP power necro, we are good at something that’s in the grey area between burst and pressure, a good chunk of it being aoe. A necromancer burst takes some 5 seconds or more, but it can deal ridiculous amounts of damage.

There have been times when I’ve wiped out entire teams foolish enough to all stand on the point..

Dustfinger.9510:

snip

Talking about engineers, what about the elixirs? Are you telling me a potion that turns you into a tornado is completely natural? There’s also a personal story mission where pact uses ghostfire against the undead (in “A Grisly Shipment” according to a quick search, though I doubt that’s the only time), something the charr apparently learned while fighting ghosts in Ascalon. The point is, even charr or engineer technology isn’t always completely “pure”.

I agree, if you define that charr technology is the only technology in the game, then that is indeed also the most advanced, but if that’s the case, there’s not much to discuss, is there?

(Just thought I should warn the less philosophically inclined lore people, but I’m sort of going philosophical debate mode below)

I don’t really see why magic couldn’t be used in technology anyway. It’s a bit tricky to define what metaphysics actually is, but a rough definition could be anything dealing the fundamental nature of the world. Looking at the more modern real life physics like quantum mechanics, isn’t that exactly what the computer you are using to read this is based on?

Uncertainty principle for instance; it’s a bunch of equations that have to do with fundamental limits of precision we can measure certain pairs of variables in, for example energy and time. Because of that, we now have particle-antiparticle pairs popping in and out of existence all over the place simply because they can, so long as they annihilate each other fast enough.

In case that isn’t metaphysical enough for you, you could look into the whole particle-wave duality. It turns out we are all actually waves.

It also turns out, that a good chunk of our technology is based on those theories. Looking at the wikipedia page, lasers, transistors (—> microchips —> computers, and a good chunk of other electronics for that matter) and magnetic resonance imaging are all based on quantum physics. Is your computer not considered a technological device?

How is magic different from other natural phenomena anyway? Saying you can’t use magic in technology is like forbidding electricity and saying only mechanics and thermodynamics based applications can be considered technology. Is there any reason it should get special treatment, other than the fact we don’t have it back home?

EDIT: Added the quote to clarify what I’m talking about there ^

Ehecatl.9172:

Essentially, magic is using the metaphysical laws of Tyria to one’s advantage and technology is using the physical laws of Tyria.

Can’t, or won’t? It’s hard to deny the asura are smart. Perhaps the reason you don’t see asura using “ordinary” technology is simply because they prefer to use their magical technology that allows them to do far fancier things?

As for the distinction between magic and technology, I’m inclined to disagree with you there. If you build a machine that uses magic, that’s technology. If it’s you channeling the magic and not the machine, then that’s just plain magic.

I want to see this zerg slaughter an ordinary zerg. Seriously, do it!

Bud.5617:

Could be sigil of blood lust, 25 stacks of might and some food.

WWW is very poorly balanced, the refinement is more in sPvP. As a result there are a lot of cheesed out builds out there, that would never be allowed in sPvP.

Bloodlust for example can net you about 250 extra power by killing random animals in the area. Then another 600 some from stacking might. You can use bloodlust in sPvP, but it’s risky, because you have to face a human opponent instead of a bunny NPC. If you lose and chances are high, that’s a whole stack gone.

Then there’s food…

Funny that, I find bloodlust easier to stack in PvP. I’m too lazy to go hunting some silly animals, and asking for 25 player skills for max stats is pushing it, even with my amazing skills :P

Mesket.5728:

Transformations are bad. Period. They are a bad designed feature in the game. There is not a single transformation that comes handy in the game.

Necromancer elites say “Hi!”

Interestingly enough, most of the war technology used by Pact against Zhaitan (and the mist war golems for that matter) seem to be asuran technology rather than charr made. Just saying

Perky bits? Oh, you mean these perky bits, I found them lying around and decided to pick them up before someone steals them.. :P

/offtopic

I’ve never even noticed the sound is different, now I can’t unhear it

Count me in, it was a neat mechanic that made a lot of things possible, and there wasn’t real harm done by it as far as I can see.

Drakkon.4782:

Spoken like a true sockpuppet of the Council. Asuran culture has no use for apologists.

Excuse me, but are you really suggesting a bookah dabbling in something it doesn’t understand learning our most advanced theorethical models faster than the asura keeping an eye on it? If the krewe utilizing them really is that incompotent they deserve to lose the great discovery to a bookah

It’s like overloading a flux capacitor – there’s the possibility of an explosion, but do it right, and the power output is multiplied.

The portals do cost, but it appears famous adventurers like us get a 100% discount. I mean, lorewise our characters are a part of quite a few organizations (one of the three orders+ pact AT LEAST, not to mention any race specific things like charr legions), so it’s easy enough to imagine someone else paying our travel bills.

I can’t see order of whisper agents tapping into their own pockets when on a secret mission, for instance

That, or it’s possible everyone feels it’s best to let that scary necromancer surrounded by a horde of undead go undisturbed. My character isn’t the nicest fellow out there, and minions do need feeding every now and then :P

^That for PvE, but for PvP of any kind I’d rather go with defensive gear for a minion build. A good chunk of your damage comes from your minions anyway, so you’re better of being hard to kill than focusing on your own damage. Go PVT and you can simply overpower your opponents.

Travlane.5948:

thief burst is dead. thief combos are still few around

Look at the video I linked a couple of posts ago and say that again.

It may not be viable for high end tournaments, but it works just fine in WvW and a more sensible build (swap out some of the signets for some defensive utilities) should still be doable for casual tPvP as well. The damage isn’t too much lower in sPvP environment.

Burst isn’t dead, it just isn’t the optimal way to do things anymore.

Geiir.7603:

A few more ideas:
-snip-

All true, I’m just too lazy to stack blood lust 1 kill at the time (I LOVE the sPvP blood lust) and I cheaped out a little bit there as well – ruby orb is ~20s while sigil of force is ~2g and buying extra weapons is even more expensive. I’m somewhat of an altaholic so I’m constantly struggling to fund all my fancy build ideas anyway.

For instance, I’m just dying to try something similar to what I did here with a kill shot warrior (currently lvl 2, I’m drooling over those hits in sPvP) and I also have a few necromancer WvW builds I’d love to try, and when I last checked I had some 15g total for all that, and being mostly a PvPer (worse, a buildcrafter) my daily income isn’t exactly huge, even when I’m not wasting all my time on the forums lol

That’s what you get for not including nessessary modules to provide independant return functions on your golems. Always include a personal transportation device of some description or at least an emergency gate usage fund, I say. Statistically speaking it’s slightly cheaper than not doing so.

That being said, has anyone checked if there’s a price out for returning it? I’ve been experimenting on improved AI for my golems, and autonomous tasks like these are just what I need to gather more data.

Drakkon.4782:

Approaches, but never reaches. The derived equations for probability show that there will never be a statistical chance of 0. Are you willing to risk our secrets in the hands of bookah? I’m not. If the fools on the Arcane Council are willing to put our most advanced secrets in the hands of bookah, then I believe it’s time to consider alternative governance.

It’s hardly relevant considering the bookahs are constantly monitored anyway. If they find something interesting, we’ll know about it, and we have the best means of utilizing whatever it is they find.

The council knows what it’s doing when it comes to manipulating bookahs, it’s the recent actions of arcane eye and the fact the council is both stubborn and corrupt that we should be worried about.

Did we lower them?

Knowing the arcane council they are charging the same amount as always and Kiel is paying the “missing” part of the price tag from her own pockets, or if the bookah is a smart negotiator it could be part of the fractal deal.

On top of that, the reduced price is likely to result in an increased amount of waypoint traffic, resulting in a greater amount of total income despite the reduced price.

Despite being a bunch of close minded senile fools, the arcane council did play its cards well. They are seen as generous, yet they end up increasing their profits. I’m starting to see a pattern here..

Just keep in mind the damage from a full volley (7 seconds cast time) is about the same as a single back stab(1/4 second cast time from stealth). Actually getting a kill with that thing was one of my proudest moments in WvW so far :P

That being said, just reducing the cooldown and perhaps allowing movement during some of the skills would make me a happy asura. I can deal with it being weak, just let me actually use it!

More often than not the fact my enemies had never seen anyone stupid enough to actually use the suit scared them off, and since it’s not exactly an ideal chasing tool they could just walk off and leave me with my gigantic cooldown.

The thing is, the build is all about maximizing that burst. It’s not much good for a fair fight, and to use shadow trap for a burst means you must open with back stab. While it does make your back stab stronger, it’s not enough to compensate for the loss of mug+CnD, so we end up with a smaller burst.

If the boons were longer than the stealth it would be amazing, but since they aren’t I wouldn’t use it for this particular build.

I bring you lots of 3 signet bursting!
Offence is the Best Defence

To quote doctor who:
“State your name, rank and intention.”
“The Doctor, Doctor, Fun”

As in, that’s not a serious build or a serious video, so don’t take it too seriously :P

I know it’s an old topic, but since the asura forums don’t see much action anyway and I like shamelessly spamming my video on as many places as possible, here’s what the screenshot above came from:

(Power suit used in the intro and first clip of the dragon bash song starting at 4:34)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzIWX-AQV8

Of course, what I didn’t show are the 3 (I think? I already deleted the clips so cant check) deaths and the couple of times when the enemy simply ran away after I popped a 240 second cooldown. Seriously, why on earth is it that long?

Actually, Kerrsh did extensive research on the subject of human deities hundreds of years ago, though I’ve been unable to find his results.

Still, gods are nothing new. While studying one myself would have been interesting, that reactor explosion was never sufficiently explained.

Sounds like a 3 signet instagib build: put all your traits into increasing damage and run 3 signets that each give 5 might on use and you have a pretty decent burst.

Of course, you’re now running practically naked with no stun breakers or any other defense for that matter, but it’s fun so who cares? :P

Shameless plug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzIWX-AQV8

EDIT: Looking at the builds posted before, I’ve never thought of running signet of malice as well. That would boost the spike even further, though I’m not a fan of losing the only non-C&D stealth

Still, you could do a 4 signet spike instead of 3 signet one

It is possible to perma stealth though, just take D/P and a few traits and you can smoke field + heart seeker for stealth as long as you like. Get 3 or more HS/field and you have a permanent stealth

If you’re good and run a stealth spec, you can pick off players from the back of the enemy zerg.

I also managed to clear off a nice amount of arrow carts a while back when our zerg had blown a hole in SM wall but couldn’t get in due to all the aoe; I went sneaky mode, stealthed my way inside and proceeded to take out every single arrow cart on the walls (recorded it, too lazy to check but it was like 5 ACs on the outern walls and a few more on the inner walls.), effectively winning the battle for us.

But yes, I suppose we are bad for WvW :P

Be sure to record some of that, because I want to see this

I’m more of a solo player, so I think I’ll pass, but the idea is great.

Talking about necro burst, I’d say necromancers have some of the biggest burst in the game, but it’s also some of the slowest, to the point where it’s hard to tell where the burst ends and pressure begins. Necro “burst” is often more like extreme pressure for ~ 5 to 10 seconds.

Not complaining though, especially since a good chunk of that damage is actually aoe. My zerker necro can burst down an entire team in spvp if they are stupid enough to clump up for me to nuke :P

Elementalists on the other hand, seem to deal smaller bursts that are more or less instant. I’m not an expert here though, since I’ve never played a burst ele myself.

uberkingkong.8041:

ele has the best burst in the game, they can take a treb down in 5 seconds, they can take people down as well in 5 seconds.

About that ele burst..

If it takes 5 seconds to kill someone, that’s barely even burst. You’ll want to watch some warrior kill shot compilations or thief 3 signet bursts and you’ll know what the word means