Curse

Potential Murder · Mar 07, 2009, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Hi, short backstory here, but I'm a casual Guild Wars player and have been playing on and off over the past year. Initially, I made a few characters but found owning a single campaign too limiting to make a character effective and left my highest level (level 14 R/Me, like wtf? right?) to rot whilst I took ~8 months away from the game. I finally got access to all of the campaigns when my friend bought me the Guild Wars: The Complete Collection about 2 months ago. Now, more determined than ever to make a successful PvE character, I began to look around google and stumbled across the 55 N/Mo build.

I've finally got her the armour and most of the skills required, with exception of SS/SV due to them being Elite Skills and Insidious Parasite because I'm too lazy. However, when running about with Protective Spirit, I was shocked to see 60 damage fly from my health bar in one foul swoop by Barbed Signet. My question is:

Which skills (if any) can bypass PS and its reduction power?
Is there any way to prevent bypasses effectively?
Is it possible to farm pre-20 with this build?
For a beginner, which is better? SS or SV? (Keep in mind that as a Canthan born character, SV would be easy as hell to get)
And, off topic but still would like answering: Can Elite Skills be unlocked in PvP and learnt through their respective skill trainers in PvE, or do they *have* to be "capped"?

Thanks in advance =]

MisterB · Mar 07, 2009, 08:34 PM // 20:34

1. Any skill which steals life, or causes you to lose life, is not damage, and PS can not reduce life steal.

2. See above. You can run a "600" build with [[Spirit Bond] and low armor. As long as you are taking damage above 60 in addition to life steal, Spirit Bond may be able to heal you up.

3. Level doesn't matter for "55" builds, but max health does. Use whatever combination of runes to lower your health. Keep in mind that leveling up will boost your health by 20.

4. It's up to you which you like more. SS kills groups faster.

5. You can unlock any skill with Balthazar faction and then use a tome to learn it. You'll need Elite Tomes for elite skills, naturally. You can't learn elite skills from skill trainers, only from tomes(if you have already unlocked it) or from [[Signet of Capture].

Boneyard Spleeneater · Mar 07, 2009, 08:43 PM // 20:43

In addition:

3: Having less health is sometimes better for a 55 build, because you can aggro more monsters. If you reduced health is 30, then you will only take 3 damage per hit. This is why 55s often incur death penalty. This goes away as DP disappears/you level up.

4. SV is also often preferred for farming bosses. It is worth the investment for both. Equip the one you will need for whichever purpose you need. If you are farming for lots of loot, go for the fast mob kills with SS. If you are looking for a specific boss green/skill/tome, go with the high individual damage of SV. Keep in mind that they are different attributes as well, and require different armor sets and synergize with different skills.

Potential Murder · Mar 07, 2009, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

1. Any skill which steals life, or causes you to lose life, is not damage, and PS can not reduce life steal.

Ah D: That explains a lot. So this doesn't apply to... say, Jungle Strike which would give additional damage under certain conditions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

2. See above. You can run a "600" build with [[Spirit Bond] and low armor. As long as you are taking damage above 60 in addition to life steal, Spirit Bond may be able to heal you up.

I still prefer the ideas behind 55 builds, the sort of "immortality" aspect really appeals to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

3. Level doesn't matter for "55" builds, but max health does. Use whatever combination of runes to lower your health. Keep in mind that leveling up will boost your health by 20.

Noted. Is 55 the best health for these sort of runs, or is it a case of "the lower the better" but 55 is the lowest obtainable at level 20?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

4. It's up to you which you like more. SS kills groups faster.

Again, noted. I think I might go for SV to begin with and work towards getting SS and comparing by trying them both, but I'm glad to hear that there's not a huge difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

5. You can unlock any skill with Balthazar faction and then use a tome to learn it. You'll need Elite Tomes for elite skills, naturally. You can't learn elite skills from skill trainers, only from tomes(if you have already unlocked it) or from [[Signet of Capture].

And they'd be expensive in-game? :x I imagine it'd be faster just to capture the skills, no? That said, using a tome would make the skill a permanent addition, right?

Sorry for all the questions and posting in the wrong section D:

MisterB · Mar 07, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potential Murder

Ah D: That explains a lot. So this doesn't apply to... say, Jungle Strike which would give additional damage under certain conditions?

Correct. PS will reduce that. You'll lose a little more health if your foe happens to have a vampiric weapon, but that is rare.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potential Murder

Noted. Is 55 the best health for these sort of runs, or is it a case of "the lower the better" but 55 is the lowest obtainable at level 20?

Lower health is better, until you get below 15, I believe. 55 is the lowest health that a level 20 character can achieve before Death Penalty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potential Murder

And they'd be expensive in-game? :x I imagine it'd be faster just to capture the skills, no? That said, using a tome would make the skill a permanent addition, right?

Once you use a tome, you learn the skill permanently, yes. Elite Tomes cost more than a cap sig to buy, from what I have seen. I've never seen anyone offer them for 1K or less.

zling · Mar 07, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

[jungle strike] will still deal 5 damage to a 55 character under [protective spirit] cause the bonus damage is still physical damage.
only life steal like [barbed signet] that you've mentioned and degen from spells like [life siphon] will deal all their damage, therefore all 55 builds bring some form of health regeneration, [healing breeze] is very popular, however some necro 55s use [blood renewal] instead, especially those that use [spoil victor]

so basically 55ing works for any area without either of the above, and of course enchantment removal. an exception is the duo teams of 55+SS in which the 55 monk brings spell breaker to make it immune of all spells.

Potential Murder · Mar 07, 2009, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

[healing breeze] is very popular, however some necro 55s use [blood renewal]

Any particular advantage to Blood Renewal over Healing Breeze aside from possibly freeing up Attribute Points? ;x Seeing as I can't imagine that +100 health bonus helps with such a low HP cap

zling · Mar 07, 2009, 09:15 PM // 21:15

nope, it's just about attributes, since you're using blood magic for [spoil victor] and stuff

MisterB · Mar 07, 2009, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potential Murder

Any particular advantage to Blood Renewal over Healing Breeze aside from possibly freeing up Attribute Points? ;x Seeing as I can't imagine that +100 health bonus helps with such a low HP cap

[[Blood Renewal] does not increase your maximum health, it heals you for the listed amount.
[[Demonic Flesh] is the only Necromancer skill I am aware of that increases your max HP.

riktw · Mar 07, 2009, 11:29 PM // 23:29

ow and most of the time 19 health is the best you can get, 1 damage per hit becouse of weard rounding and with 7 regen or so you can tank a lot of mobs.
and if healing breeze gets interrupted you have 19 hits till you die.
degen can kill quickly when you have 19 health so it is not the best always.

My Lipgloss is Cool · Mar 08, 2009, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potential Murder

I still prefer the ideas behind 55 builds, the sort of "immortality" aspect really appeals to me.

Well, both have immortality aspects when you think about it.
55s reduce all damage (except lifesteal) to 5, then use Regen or [[Spirit Bond] to quickly heal that damage. With 10 regen, it takes ~1/4 of a second to heal that.
However, 55's are severely limited in any areas with lifesteal, moderate enchantment removal, decent healing, a lot of casters that won't attack, or serious degen
600s reduce all damage to 60. Then they use [[spirit bond], which heals them for a lot every time they're hit for more than 60 (which takes place before prot spirit, so I should say every time you would have been hit for more than 60.) 600s are less hurt by enchantment removal because they can take a few hits with out [[Protective Spirit] (the most important enchantment) and still live. 600s don't depend on regen, so massive degen isn't a big issue. 600s usually deal more damage, and have room for anti-healing skills, so healing is less of a problem. 600s use [[Spell Breaker] so casters who don't attack will start attacking. This also stops them from using enchantment removal spells or other scary things.
All that being said, 55s are still fun =)

Fuzzy Taco wrote a huge guide on necro 55ing. Once you get some skills, check this out, it will give you some tips and good farming places.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10259746

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

[[Blood Renewal] does not increase your maximum health, it heals you for the listed amount.
[[Demonic Flesh] is the only Necromancer skill I am aware of that increases your max HP.

I think he means that he can't see the heal at the end of [[Blood Renewal] helping with only 55 HP.

Boneyard Spleeneater · Mar 14, 2009, 11:50 PM // 23:50

A heal boost might help if you are suffering degen, conditions (bleed/poison), or lots of attackers. Mo 55s tend to have an easier time because of the DF bonus. A little spike of healing can make the difference of taking on a mob of five vs a mob of ten, or of taking on a mob of slow attackers that poison you.

I have experienced this first hand with my Mes 55. She takes twice as long to farm some areas because she has to aggro smaller mobs due to the natural regen of spells not keeping up with the DPS. If you had DF or Blood Renewl's spike, it might make all the difference, and you could take out the mobs faster.