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Feb 22, 2005, 10:25 PM // 22:25
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Feb 2005
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My necro skill guide
My skill guide to primary necromancer.
Right off the bat, I'd like to say I have played many a necro. I've played Bipper, Death nuker, Minion master, Curses focus fire enhancer, Curses melee debuffer and Order of Pain spammer. I hope other players will appreciate this skill guide I have put together based off that. Skills are ranked from 1 to 5, 5 being the best. Soul Reaping - General: Soul reaping gives the character X energy whenever anybody in the radar range dies(minions included). It works well with minion master types of builds and in PvE. - Problems: 1. Its benefits are conditional. 2. Hardly works if oposing team is heavy on monks. Expect next to no use of it if facing 3 monk team. Don't forget 3 monk oponents will also likely have low damage output, that means nobody on your side won't die for a long time either. 3. Returns are not big. I rarelly had over 8 SR and that's less than one spell's worth of energy per death. (assuming here average spell is 10 energy, which isn't far from truth with necro). 4. No linked skills. Curses - General: Curses is a very versatile attribute. It can do a lot of things and you are sure to find at least 3 good skills for what you want to do in this attribute. - Problems: 1. Lack of decent healing. There are 3 skills with potential healing and they are all lame as far as healing goes. 2. Lack of good direct damage. Sometimes you just need to nuke someone. You won't find the skills to do that here. Feast of corruption is good aoe damage, but you have to consider it is elite and has 30 sec timer. 3. Anti-hex can mess you up. 4. Most hexes in this attibute line are good at what they do, but they often are not versatile. Generally reducing healing and enhancing damage are better choices than reducing melee damage or degenerating energy. - Skills: Barbs: - Plus: 30 sec duration for minimal cost, good damage output, damage can be improved if put on focused target. - Minus: it is a hex, 30 sec recharge, so you can forget about hexing more than one person, weaken armor gives more damage to anyone doing more than 16 damage. Lacks versatility(for instance if you are on caster heavy team then it is next to useless). - Rank: 3 - Comments: Good skill to use in focus fire enhancing builds. It isn't anything special though. Chillblains: - Plus: Aoe enchant removal is pretty sweet. - Minus: Cost, cost, cost, disease sucks unless whole team is ready for it like war machine guild was, it always spreads to your own team as well, making it something like a nature's ritual, low damage - Rank: 1 - Comments: This skill sucks. Players could use a skill that only removes enchants in aoe for 15 en. Not this. Defile Flesh: - Plus: Compared to Lingering curse cheaper and not elite. The reduced healing effect rocks. Cheap. No rechage. Versatility. Useful in any type of team. - Minus: The sacrifise cost is ludicrous. If you go for 14 curses for other skills you will end up paying almost 100 HP just so you have 19 or 20 seconds instead of 18. - Rank: 3 - Comments: Effect is very good, but I never managed to keep this skill in my build for more than 2 missions. Sacrifise is just a bit much. Has use in focus fire enhancing builds. Unlike many other curses it works with any type of team. You can never go wrong with lowering healing. Desecrate Enchantments: - Plus: Nice AoE. Really hurts if many enchantments are stacked. - Minus: Costly for that amount of damage. - Rank: 2 - Comments: Tried it and swapped it out quite fast. Damage is just too low. Enfeeble: - Plus: Cheap, low recharge, isn't a hex, weakness is strong - Minus: Sometimes you could use AoE better. - Rank: 3 - Comments: Skill that's worth taking. But beware, there are plenty of situations where it will just sit there unused(like facing casters). Enfeebling blood: - Plus: Good at what it does. - Minus: Sometimes it doesn't make a lick of difference - Rank: 3 - Comments: Good at foiling melee trains. But if you need to kill their hero, guild lord, relic carrier or when facing a caster, it just fails. It is good in melee debuff builds. Same as enfeeble, it doesn't get a 4 because it lacks versatility. Faintheartedness: - Plus: Stacks with shadow of fear and has degen. Also long duration for low cost. - Minus: Shadow of fear is generally better, if you can afford only 1 slot for attack speed debuff. Lacks versatility(works vs rangers and melee only). - Rank: 3 - Comments: Good, but won't be used unless you run all out melee debuffer. Feast of Corruption - Plus: Cheap, aoe, good damage, heals. - Minus: Elite, recharge makes it fall short of being a nuke. - Rank: 4 - Comments: A worthy elite, could be used in any hex heavy build, but most of the time you will want elite with a special function to reach a specific goal with your build and not a generic nuke. Insidious Parasite - Plus: It heals. - Minus: No longer healing hands vs a single warrior. Cost is pretty steep. - Rank: 2 - Comments: This one falls into "meh" category. It doesn't exactly suck, but you could do better. Lingering Curse - Plus: Mass enchant removal. Reduces healing a lot. - Minus: Elite. Cost. Casting time. - Rank: 4 - Comments: The problem this skill has is that if you use it at the beginning, the enchantment stripping effect will likely go to waste. And cost. If it only reduced healing for half for 15 en, it would totally own. Currently it is best used in N/E. Grab a glyph to reduce cost and cover it with another 1 second cast hex as soon as you put it on. Another problem is the long casting time. 3 seconds is practically asking for some R/W or mesmer to interrupt you. Blam! 25 energy down the drain. These probs make it miss 5. Malaise: - Plus: Nice anti caster effect, but works vs wars and rangers too! Cheap, quick casting, long lasting. - Minus: Health drain. That's a minus primarily because curses lack decent healing. - Rank: 5 - Comments: This is a great skill. If your team can heal you, you can spam this baby around without problems. I can still hear my guild's monks shouting over teamspeak how they can't heal cos they have no energy. Mark of Pain: - Plus: Best damage potential in game. Long lasting. - Minus: Recharge is same as duration. You have to yell at your team to stop changing targets. Sometimes it has no effect at all. - Rank: 5 - Comments: With curses specced really high you have some major damage potential. I have often did more than 120 damage per sword hit because 3 people stood in effect and I was the only one hitting. Now imagine several people hitting the hexed target in a packed enviroment like king of the hill maps in tombs. That's easily more than several hundred damage per second. Parasitic Bond: - Plus: Hmm... low rechage? - Minus: Useless. Damage is negible. - Rank: 1 - Comments: Damage sucks. And all it does is delays the healing. Seriously, how many times you know 20 seconds in advance, when you will need healing? Compare it to ether feast. Ether feast heals quite a bit more for half the cost and it also drains 5 energy off target. This skill seriously sucks. Plague sending: - Plus: Useful for sending cripple you get with illusion of haste. - Minus: Sucks compared to Plague Touch. Double cost and cast time. Not to mention sacrifise climbs up while effect stays the same. - Rank: 1 - Comments: Just read the minus. This skill ain't worth taking. Plague Signet - Plus: It is a signet, means harder to disrupt. Works at range. - Minus: Elite. Recharge time. - Rank: 2 - Comments: This one is totally not worth elite with that recharge time. The only good use is losing the dazed condition. Price of Failure - Plus: Long duration - Minus: In any anti-melee build it usually doesn't get a slot because other skills are better. - Rank: 2 - Comments: Damage does crop up. It also stacks nicely with Spirit of Failure for 45% miss chance(both effects fire on that miss). But usually due to limited number of slots it loses in slot battle with other skills. Rend Enchantments - Plus: A much needed effect - Minus: Recharge time, you take damage, long cast time. - Rank: 3 - Comments: I guess it is decent, but that's more due to lack of other mass enchant removal skills than anything else. Damage taken is hardly small and protection monks have a lot of spammy enchants like guardian which will neatly leave you sitting there with your recharge. Rigor Mortis - Plus: One of most needed curses out there. - Minus: Not so many occasions when you can use it. - Rank: 4 - Comments: This is the most underused powerful hex out there. You know what are the favourite defensive tricks? Ward against melee, guardian, shield of deflection, and stances. This hex puts an end to that. With all the guardian and shield of deflection spam going around this days, this should be in any focus fire enhancing necro's arsenal. Shadow of Fear - Plus: Long duration, good AoE - Minus: Situational - Rank: 4 - Comments: Good anti-warrior and anti-ranger hex. But it doesn't help to bring the enemy healers down. Soul Barbs - Plus: Good duration, works nicely with the rest of the attribute line. Works well in team. - Minus: Well if you don't have many hexes it doesn't do much. - Rank: 4 - Comments: Combo this with Wastrel's worry for killer damage. Over 70 damage if both fire, for minimal cost. It also works on enchantments, providing a little bite when oposing monks spam guardian on target. Also triggers when other teammates put hexes on the target. Spinal shivers - Plus: All kinds of stuff you can do with cold damage wand and this spell - Minus: You need curses so high you get 5 energy cost and if someone else on your team is packing cold damage you could find yourself empty of energy. - Rank: 3 - Comments: This is very good for disrupting troll unguent, heal sig, raise dead, resurrection, or just plain old costant monk nagging. 5 en per interrupt is pretty cheap compared to spells that do the same. Spiteful spirit - Plus: Kinda like empathy only tons better. Nice damage. - Minus: A bit costly. Elite. - Rank: 5 - Comments: This could be the king of "stab yourself in the foot" skills. It works like a charm on those freny users. Their attack speed gain only brings them more damage and they take double damage as well. The fact that it is aoe makes is very good versus melee trains. Heck it even does damage on skills. Suffering - Plus: AoE - Minus: Nothing special about it - Rank: 3 - Comments: 100 damage over time in an AoE. It falls into that "meh" category. 15 energy cost ain't helping. Weaken Armor - Plus: it enhances physical damage by 50% - Minus: Casting time, recharge time is as long as duration - Rank: 4 - Comments: If on physical heavy team this skill is best choice for enhancing focus fire. 3 second cast time is begging for interrupt though. Wither - Plus: Doesn't degen life like malaise - Minus: Costs more, elite, ends when energy reaches 0 - Rank: 3 - Comments: Not quite as good as malaise. Of course you can still stack them if you really want, but all negatives considered(elite) it isn't a great skill. Summary: Curses offers quite some directions for any character. If you want to debuff melee, you should go with Spiteful Spirit, Enfeebling blood, Shadow of Fear. If you want to devote extra slots to that aspect of your character go with faintheartedness. If you want to improve the effects of focus fire go with weaken armor, rigor mortis, mark of pain and defile flesh or lingering curse. Any extra slots in that direction should go for barbs or scourge healing if you have it. Malaise and Rend Enchantments are good as well, but for those you don't need high curses and so they do really well when trying to fill a few extra slots on anticaster builds. You should get some other attribute to do your damage or healing though. Death Magic - General: 1. The minion attribute line and some nukes is the best way of describing it. - Problems: 1. Let's say that all skills that involve minions or corpses or something dying are corpse skills. Now let's count them. 16 out of 24 skills are useless until someone dies. That's 66%. 16 skills for those measly few deaths. 2. Huge redundancy of skills. Look above. 3. No healing if you ain't got a corpse or minion. 4. The out of remaining 8 skills that don't require dying, there are 3 nukes(1 sucks) and 3 disease spells(disease sucks unless whole guild build packs Tainted flesh like Warmachine did last BWE). 5. If you ask me this attribute seriously needs a revamp. Too many skills fighting for very limited resources(corpses). Corpse skills and 2 average nukes and 1 sucky one. One suggestion is that corpses that get exploited can be exploited again in 30 to 45 seconds. That would help in PvP. 6. Only 3 elites. They all suck. - Skills: Animate Bone Fiend - Plus: When a lot of them, they kick ass. They can also trigger the mark of pain a lot. - Minus: High energy cost. Minions are largely ignored. Requires corpse. They lose health over time. - Rank: 2 - Comments: I would prefer other 2 minion skills over this one as I haven't been able to see any real advantage for getting ranged minions. Needs a corpse. Animate Bone Horror - Plus: Same as with bone fiend - Minus: Same as with bone fiend except the cost - Rank: 3 - Comments: Mainstay minion spell. It is nice to have a few of them if you can get corpses. Animate Bone Minions - Plus: Same as other minion spells - Minus: Requires corpse - Rank: 3 - Comments: This spell is good if you want to get as many minions as you can off one corpse. They are weak and numerous and thus ideal for use with death nova. Aura of the Lich - Plus: It doubles regen effectivness - Minus: Elite, often useless, 3 sec cast time - Rank: 1 - Comments: This skill is a lot like nature's ritual. It is a door that swings both ways. Except when it swings your way it is prone to hit you in the head. Halves damage, but it also halves healing. It effectively enhances regen, but also degen. You many think, great, I'll pack Healing Breeze with this one. But think this way as well. What if they put life transfer + conjure phantasm on you. Congrats, you've just spent an elite skill slot so you could get owned. Here we have a skill that works both ways like the ritual and it is linked to death attribute. An attribute that has 0 regen skills. As an added bonus, the fact that skill is elite prevents you from using Life transfer and such. Because of 3 sec cast time you can forget about casting in a hurry if any interrupter is on you. Dropping that elite tag would make it earn a rank of 3. Maybe giving the caster undead immunities(no bleed, poison, disease or something). Right now it is like spending elite slot on something of no value. Blood of the Master - Plus: It is effective - Minus: Not much use in PvP - Rank: 2 - Comments: It works, but hey, when was the last time you saw anyone with it in PvP. In PvP nobody cares if minions die. More fun with Death Nova! Consume Corpse - Plus: It teleports - Minus: Teleporting isn't ever direly needed - Rank: 1 - Comments: There is absolutely no reason to use this spell instead of Soul Feast. Soul feast give much more life. Avoid this skill. Dark Aura - Plus: Well, the damage is nice - Minus: They nerfed it by giving it a health loss - Rank: 3 - Comments: This is an "OK" skill. If you are strong on healing you can try to use this skill with touch of agony for some good damage. Death Nova: - Plus: It is cheap and moderately strong - Minus: It requires dying or minions. No longer poisons enemies. - Rank: 3 - Comments: It is great skill if you have a build specifically built for this, like having Animate Bone Minions. But if you can't get corpses, you will end up doing no damage with it. Deathly Chill - Plus: None - Minus: Everything - Rank: 1 - Comments: This skill sucks. Don't ever use it, unless you are desperate for a third death nuke. In ideal case where target has more than 50% HP and has 60 armor, this skill does 56 damage. Vile Touch on the other hand has 62 armor ignoring damage with much smaller recharge timer. In worst case you are hitting an 80 AL target that has less than 50% HP. In that case 28 cold damage becomes 19 cold damage and you can forget about shadow damage. Vile touch still does the same damage. So it is 19 damage vs 62 for the same cost. I really don't understand what arenanet was trying to do with this skill, but I want some of that stuff they've been smoking. Deathly Swarm - Plus: Good AoE, good damage per cost on 60 AL targets - Minus: Casting Time is horrible - Rank: 3 - Comments: What could be a good nuke becomes average nuke because of that 3 seconds casting time. Deathly swarm has to be number one reason I got dazed so many times last BWE. 3 sec cast doesn't help any vs mesmers as well. Infuse condition - Plus: Good at what it does - Minus: Very specific - Rank: 2 - Comments: To be of any use, you have to be minion master type of build and then get hit by condition. That's pretty narrow right there. Malign Intervention - Plus: Makes one more minion, than you would get normally. - Minus: You have to percive who will die soon. Also requires you to spend another slot on Verata's Gaze to use it to its fullest potential. - Rank: 2 - Comments: Well you need a 2 slot combo to use it and it takes a lot of observing the enemies to use it correctly. Not exactly good. Putrid Explosion - Plus: No recharge and it works. - Minus: Better way to use corpses, AoE is small - Rank: 2 - Comments: This spell may look good until you think about it a bit harder. So you need 5 corpses to bring someone down provided they don't heal. 5(!) corpses. Not to mention you have to hit with it. AoE is not big you could have a problem hitting someone who is chasing your monk with it. The last straw is that Well of Suffering offers more damage per corpse in a much larger radius. Look at Well of Suffering for details. The damage of Shatter hex is higher and hexes on alies are way more common than corpses. Corpse skills need more punch than other conditional skills because corpses are the scarcest resource in any combat. Rotting Flesh - Plus: Well disease sure spreads good. - Minus: Usually to your own team as well. Large casting time. - Rank: 2 - Comments: Tried using it and I didn't like it much. It ALWAYS hit both sides. Disease in general sucks. Soul Feast - Plus: Very good heal - Minus: Requires corpses - Rank: 4 - Comments: Great and cheap heal. It also foils other necros who want to make minions. The corpse requirement costed this spell rank of 5. But if you intend to take no corpse exploiting skills, you could take this one. It always comes in handy. Tainted Flesh - Plus: Gives immunity to disease. - Minus: Immunity doesn't do much if it hurt all 7 of your guild mates. Elite. - Rank: 2 - Comments: The only disease spell that can work. Warmachine had a group where everyone had this spell and it worked. That is quite extreme and most of the time it just affects both teams. Totally not worth the elite tag. Taste of Death - Plus: Excelent heal, cheap - Minus: Requires Minions - Rank: 3 - Comments: Great skill but it requires ammo. If you run a build without minions then it does nothing. Even if you do, doesn't mean you will have a minion when you need a heal. Average mark on this one. Verata's Aura - Plus: Long-lasting and powerful effect - Minus: Requires the player to be all-knowing - Rank: 1 - Comments: Looks great on paper, but then you realise it is only useful if enemy has a minion master. Minion necros are rare in GvG, so why bring a counter like that, when you can just pack Verata's gaze and use it on Malign Interverntion as well. Thumbs down. Verata's Gaze - Plus: Cheap, works great - Minus: Rarely useful - Rank: 3 - Comments: Great spell, but only useful if you plan on enemy minion necros or you're using Malign Intervention. Verata's Sacrifise - Plus: Enemies may pick it. - Minus: It really serves no purpose. - Rank: 1 - Comments: Nobody cares about healing minions in PvP and if they did, they would take blood of the master. This one heals less and also transfers conditions. Why would I want that? The only conditions minions could have is Burning, Cripple, Blindness. And nobody even tries to give them conditions, usually people will go right for necro. Stupid spell. Vile Touch - Plus: Ignores armor - Minus: It could have more damage, not being AoE. - Rank: 4 - Comments: The only good nuke on death. Virulence - Plus: Cheap - Minus: Elite, disease sucks, requires condition to set it off - Rank: 1 - Comments: More than 80% of condition inflicting skills of necromancer inflict either weakness or disease. And here we get the same. Not to mention disease sucks, it is an elite. Well of Suffering - Plus: Good way to use corpses, huge radius - Minus: Requires corpses, crappier than Well of Blood - Rank: 4 - Comments: Corpses are scarce and this is a good way to use them. As promised heres the Well of Suffering vs Putrid Explosion comparison: At 12 death magic: Putrid Explosion: 101 damage in a small radius Well of Suffering: 144 damage in a really large radius At 14 death magic: Putrid Explosion: 125 damage in a small radius Well of Suffering: 200 damage in a really large radius As you can see, well of suffering is clearly superior, it also increases in damage faster than putrid explosion does. Having at least twice as much radius as putrid explosion means it covers 4 times as much area. But people can run out of well area. That often causes loss of an important position, and sometimes, like when well in center of king of the hill map or next to guild lord, players don't have much options. Well of the Profane - Plus: Really strong effect - Minus: People can just walk out of it, prohibitive cost, consumes a corpse - Rank: 2 - Comments: Again a good skill on paper, but in real combat, when a body falls, and I have to decide between this or well of suffering. Most of the time I don't even have the energy for it. Then it's a no brainer. Even when I have a choice which one to use I usually use the latter. Its a shame, but there's just too many skills competing for corpses. Summary: Death magic is, in my opinion, the worst necro skill line. It is up there right next to beast mastery. Only 3 elites and none of them even got the grade of 3. Whole truckloads of skill have that "we needed to put in another skill to get 25 skills per line" feeling attached to it. So much duplicated functionality in death magic. Consume corpse=soul feast, 3 animate skills, Blood of the master=Verata's sacrifise Too many corpse spells. Disease is crappy as currently implemented. And finally one of the crappiest spells in the game, Deathly Chill. Notice huge amount of skills ranked 1 or 2 and no skills ranked 5. Blood Magic - General: 1. Blood magic is good, if somewhat one-sided attribute line with good elites. Best healing in the whole necromancer class. Death is weak, curses forces you to get another attribute for healing. Still it has a lot of potential and gets a lot of good skills. - Problems: 1. A lot of healing comes in regeneration, and you can only get up to 20 HP per second with regeneration. 2. No counters. - Skills: Awaken The Blood - Plus: The only attribute raising skill in necro, helps curses as well. - Minus: Doesn't help Death magic. Hurts if you use sacrifises. - Rank: 3 - Comments: Would give it rank of 4 if a lot of the best skills out there didn't require sacrifise: Order of Vampire, Blood is power, Defile Flesh and the like. Other than that it offers a lot to blood or curses builds. Death magic is discriminated against. Barbed signet - Plus: Free damage - Minus: Long recharge - Rank: 3 - Comments: A solid 3. Not for every build, but if you find your build too costly in terms of energy and would like to keep the damage, this could be what you need. Blood is Power - Plus: Great support spell - Minus: Requires good monks, elite - Rank: 4 - Comments: Great support spell, well worth the elite. You just need to make sure your monks know that they must heal you. Blood Renewal - Plus: It may surprise enemy when you regain life - Minus: Only regens 60 HP - Rank: 1 - Comments: Definitely not worth a slot in any build. Why make yourself temporarily vulnerable so you can regen 60 HP? At high blood attributes totally owned by Life Siphon. Blood Ritual - Plus: It is a good support spell - Minus: Specialist builds prefer BiP - Rank: 3 - Comments: Nothing wrong with this skill, but the support builds that are there to recharge energy generally prefer its bigger brother. You should too. Dark Bond - Plus: It increases survivability by a lot. - Minus: It requires a minion, which requires death magic and a corpse. 60 sec recharge is teh ouch if you get dispeled. - Rank: 3 - Comments: Good spell, but puts in a specific mold. Needs quite a bit of setup to set it up. Dark Fury - Plus: Nothing - Minus: Many better spells out there that do way better at supporting melee. - Rank: 1 - Comments: Energy cost and sacrifise and duration is identical to Order of Pain and Order of Vampire. Those 2 produce way more damage than a bit of extra adrenaline ever can. What makes this skill even worse is that it affects warriors only, while Orders affects wand and bows as well. Thumbs down. Dark Pact - Plus: Cheap, Fast, Spammable - Minus: You get hit with same stick as the target - Rank: 3 - Comments: When playing blood necro with life siphon and the like you will find yourself overflowing with regen as necros are rarely the targets of choice for players. This is a good way to dish out damage when that happens. When you are getting hit this skill becomes a big no-no(unless you are going to finish someone off). Demonic Flesh - Plus: Long lasting - Minus: This is one-shot-per-fight deal - Rank: 3 - Comments: Never was a big fan of this skill. It gives you 170 extra health if you use it before battle, but that is one shot thing, just like energy storage. If 170 extra health is worth a slot is debateable. Life Siphon - Plus: Good HP swing, stacks nicely on separate targets for regen - Minus: You have to have 12 blood to have really good effect - Rank: 5 - Comments: A great and popular blood skill. At 12 blood it produces a HP swing of 264 per cast. Stack a few and you are all set for a while. Well too much focus fire can kill you since you can only have 10 regen. Life Transfer - Plus: Gigantic HP swing, scales good with high blood - Minus: Nothing really, except if it gets removed early, it doesn't do much - Rank: 5 - Comments: One of the best spells and elites out there. If you don't have a specific elite in mind when making your build this is what you should get. Produces HP swing of 288 at 12 blood and a HP swing of 384 with 14 blood. Mark of Subversion - Plus: It foils the spell - Minus: Cost, small HP swing, works for only 1 spell - Rank: 1 - Comments: Could be a nice spell but not at that cost. If you wanna add some anti caster flavor, try getting Soul Leech. Offering of Blood - Plus: Gives as much net energy as mesmer Energy Drain elite - Minus: Sacrifise, elite, long casting time - Rank: 3 - Comments: If you really need some energy. Energy Drain is much better though. Order of Pain - Plus: Incredible damage potential, works with wands as well - Minus: Very short duration, high HP and energy cost per second - Rank: 4 - Comments: Very short enchantment, but totally worth basing a build around, incredible support spell. The cost may be too high for a non-dedicated build, but that's what GW is about. Order of Vampire - Plus: Same as order of pain, and it heals as well. - Minus: Same high cost as OoP - Rank: 5 - Comments: One of the best support spells in the game. Making a build that uses this skill as effectively as possible is a good idea. Shadow Strike - Plus: Nice damage if target is above 50% HP - Minus: High cost, crappy damage if target is below 50% HP, situational - Rank: 3 - Comments: If you are short on slots, then you are better off taking Vampiric touch, which is only slightly worse than Shadow strike if target has about 50% and vastly better if target is below 50%. Signet of Agony - Plus: AoE, you can transfer bleeding to someone with plague touch - Minus: Sacrifise - Rank: 1 - Comments: I see no purpose to this skill. YOu should skip it unless you know exactly what you are doing. Soul Leech - Plus: Nice anti-caster skill - Minus: Crappier than Backfire, elite - Rank: 3 - Comments: Sure it heals. But blood line has lots of other healing, and total HP swing is barely 20 HP better than backfire and this is elite. Not worth it if you have backfire or if you are not focused on anti caster role. Strip Enchantment - Plus: One of the rare enchantment removal skils in necro arsenal and in GW in general. Also heals nicely. - Minus: Recharge time - Rank: 4 - Comments: If you have blood line already high up and you have a spare slot, you could grab this While it may not stop protection monk spam, it performs admirably vs Illusionary weaponry and conjures. Touch of Agony - Plus: Can be used with Dark Aura. Though not as good any more. - Minus: Just a weaker touch range version of Dark Pact - Rank: 1 - Comments: There is no use for this skill. Unholy Feast - Plus: If it hits more than 2 persons, then it beats Vampiric Touch - Minus: If it doesn't then it is just a waste. Also has 30 sec recharge time. - Rank: 2 - Comments: If you have a free slot beside Vampric Touch, use it in crowded situations, otherwise ignore it. Vampiric Gaze - Plus: It is ranged - Minus: Does less damage than touch and it takes 3 sec to cast - Rank: 3 - Comments: Not a bad skill but gets creamed by Vampiric touch. 3 sec cast is a mesmer bait as well. Vampiric Touch - Plus: It does a lot of damage and heals - Minus: Cost can run you out of energy fast. If you want only damage then Vile Touch is more cost effective - Rank: 5 - Comments: A staple blood skill. Good, quick effective. Not much reason not to try to find a place for it in your build. Well of Blood - Plus: Best of all wells. Owns Well of suffering. - Minus: Needs a corpse. But since blood doesn't so many corpse skills as death, it shouldn't be as much of a problem. - Rank: 5 - Comments: It isn't just one more regen than suffering has degen, that makes this well own well of suffering. There is also the fact that it is a lot of easier to keep allies in a well of blood, than to keep enemies in well of suffering Well of Power - Plus: Energy regen is great. - Minus: Elite, lower regen than blood - Rank: 3 - Comments: I expected more of elite. If it gave +5 HP +2 energy then it would be worth an elite, not I prefer well of blood. It also has 3 second cast time. Summary: Blood magic offers a lot of good support builds, a lot of effective skills. There is a bit of overabundance of life draining and sacrifise->damage skills. Still a very good attribute line. Conclusion: Blood offers dot healing and 3 or 4 support builds. Curses offers a lot of hexes for all tasks. Death needs the most lovin' out of all 3. I see no reason why is Well of Suffering one pip weaker than Well of blood. Another thing that doesn't make death attribute any better is the fact that Awaken the blood totally skips it. This is another balance mystery. Hmm...... my left wrist claims it hates me.... |
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Feb 23, 2005, 08:40 AM // 08:40
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While I havent been around in a while, I guess its good to see someone posting about necros
 That said, I dont agree with everything here because it's not all so cut and dry but I'm sure you have alot more to say on some of these skills, but did this for simplification purposes. I'll try and keep this short: Curses: Oh how I love this line. Barbs: I think weaken armor is better also. I would have given it a lower rating than a 3 though. 2 at most. Chilblains: 1. Completely useless. Agreed. Desecrate Enchantments: hmmm...whatever. Reverse the damages and I'd take it though. Defile Flesh: Always overlooked but should be played with more. Reduced healing=energy inefficiencies on a monk. Go for it. The only thing holding it back is the health sacrifice and the tendency to get spammy if you're too hyper. A 3 is reasonable. Enfeeble: Useless Enfeebling Blood: The Aoe Version with an hp sacrifice. You can bear it. It's solid. Not game breaking but good enough to plug and play with ease. 2 or 3 is ok. A 2 because it can be subbed out for "better" hexes easily. With Sof in the same build it gets a potential 4 though, Jelly  .Faintheartedness: Gets overlooked because of SoF. Whatever, it's spammable with a degen. Works vs EVERYONE. Casters out of energy, especially elementalists, start swinging wands. With the current state of the game that isnt such a bad idea. Gimp them. 3 is ok. Feast of Corruption: 30 second recharge and 3 second cast time. Skip. 2. Only reason it doesnt get a 1 is because Suffering exists in the Curse line. Insidious Parasite: Abusable in PvE. Decent in PvP. It's pretty much an inverted Healing Hands but potentially better. If it wasnt for the 15 energy cost I'd smack every sword warrior build with this asap. 2 or 3. Could go either way really. Lingering Curse: 25 energy. 3 second cast time. I'll pass. It gets a 2. 10 second recharge and shitty alternatives save it from being a one. If RE wasnt around I'd be forced to give it a 3. Malaise: At first I was asking why people kept glazing over this skill. Then I remembered most people are just lazy at reading skill descriptions. It gets from a 3-4 depending on many factors. Biggest one being on if you've got mesmer support, buffer hexes and when its cast. Casting it at the beginning of a fight is a waste. You're not going to scare everyone since you haven't "stopped" them from casting. However, when the energy crunch starts to hit in this spell causes nightmares. It gets a 5 when combined with Wither. Mark of Pain: 3 or 4. Solid as can be. Punishes body blockers. 2 second downtime barring hex removal. Price of Failure: 3 second cast time is horrible. Narrow use, but combined with other miss spells becomes useful. Still nothing more than a 3. Rend Enchantments: 4. With the current state of the game it took people months to figure out this skill was good.It will always have a use no matter what though. Even though guardian,rof and Sod can be spammed to hell, it gives you something to work with instead of letting them go unhindered. Rigor Mortis: Really really tricky to call. It can be as low as a 2 or as good as a 5. Depends easily on the trend of the game. But nerfing alot of other skills in the process is nothing to pass up so fast. Shadow of Fear: One of the most solid spells in the game hands down. works with any curse build easily. Stacks with FH. It's the peanut butter to Enfeebling Blood. Soul Barbs: Way to narrow for my tastes. Then again, its in a line full of hexes. I'm just being bitter. 2 or 3. Most likely a 2 from me. Oh wait, I forgot it works with enchantments also! 3 or 4. Wastrel's Worry is a waste of a skill slot. This is a skill that actually makes it playable, how sweet :/ Spinal Shivers: Hell no. 2. Necros have crappy energy management. I'll be damned if I lose 5 energy per interrupt. Only reason I gave it a 2 is because I think it interrupts everything. Spiteful Spirit: What a sweet skill. Too bad its elite.A more sinister version of Mark of Pain. 3-5. What makes it so devestating is that alone its good enough, add in MoP on his ally and things could get interesting. Suffering: a 2 in most cases. 3 in some. It's an Aoe hex and makes a good buffer. Can put uncoordinated teams into a world of trouble if they dont know who has the really bad hex combination on them. Weaken Armor: Better than barbs, but not spectacular all around. With buffer hexes and focus fire it becomes a monster. 3 second casting time and 30 second recharge is annoying. 3 or 4 easily. Wither: it's ok. Worth the elite slot when combined with malaise. Only drawback is the ends on 0 condition. NEVER use this alone, it's pretty much a complement to malaise. Absolute murder to a caster if they get low. Death Line: Skip almost all of them except: Infuse Condition: 2 or 3. Makes a necro untouchable by conditions. Thats damn good if you have minions alive. Soul Feast Taste of Death: Soul Feast on crack.3-5 depending on your minion raising skill. Well of the Profane: Looks useful on paper for dias maps until you read the energy cost. Good luck. Blood Magic: All out support line, Who cares about counters Far from one sided, very far from it. Has some insanely good stuff, but some incredibly bad stuff. Awaken the blood: Ok, potentially great. Dont use it with alot of blood skills though. 3 is fine. Realistically will end up with a 2 in most cases. Barbed Signet: useless.1. Blood is Power: a 5. Too damn good. Only hard counter to this is really energy degeneration. Blood Renewal: useless. 1. Blood Ritual: It gets a 3 only because its spammable and +3 energy regeneration is still good shit. Dark Bond: 4. If you've got alot of minions, you make protection prayers look iffy. If you dont have alot of minions and its not physical damage well.... Dark fury: It boosts adrenaline and causes a bigger boost than initial looks can show you. I give it a 2 or 3. a 3 only if you're a war/nec though. Dark Pact: Never. 1. Demonic Flesh: 4. Great skill for anyone to have. Combines well with things like Illusion of Weakness and Infuse Health. Insanely low downtime barring enchantment removal. Use it by all means! Is 170 hp worth a skill slot? Definetly so. Life Siphon: 2 or 3. At level 12 it gets a 3. Anything else and I never will touch it. Life Transfer: I used to love this skill. Not really sure now, but its not getting anything except a 3 or 4 from me. 3 in most cases. MoS: Didnt ever test it to see that it ended on effect. 25 energy makes me gloss over it anyway. Offering of Blood: 2. I'll never use it though. I cant stand the casting time. Order of Pain: godly. 4-5. Order of Vamp: Uber. 4-5. Shadow Strike: 2 by all means. Just gives you something to do while waiting for other things to cooldown if ever. Signet of Agony: Useless except possibly combined with something like Melandru's Resilience from rangers. 1 or a 2. 3 if you could abuse it. Soul Leech: It's ok. 3. Strip enchantment: Useless. 1. IW builds will still kick this in the ass. Touch of Agony: dont ever take it. Unholy Feast: Potentially very nice. I'd give it a 3, in PvE becomes sick. In dias maps W/N or N/W will love it. Vampiric Gaze: 2. If it wasnt for the 15 energy cost and 3 sec cast time I'd give it a 3. Vampiric Touch: 4. Warrior/Necro and Necro/Warrior combinations almost always have this with them. Well of Blood: Under-rated, incredibly good skill. I give it a 5. On dias maps its ludicrous. In the Arena, it's ludicrous. Just about anywhere you take it, its damn good. Ever seen multiple spammed Wells of Blood? I have, and it's damn pretty when people try to fight you while you run around in that huge glow. Well of Power: Dont care. It's elite and Well of Blood craps on it anyday. 2. Last edited by Blackace; Feb 23, 2005 at 08:58 AM // 08:58.. |
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Feb 23, 2005, 11:22 AM // 11:22
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#3 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Profession: Mo/
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Nice skill reviews, all necro players should read this as it includes a lot of experience.
Will put some of my comments later on. |
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Feb 23, 2005, 12:08 PM // 12:08
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#4 |
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Just Plain Fluffy
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Berkeley, CA
Guild: Idiot Savants
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Just to bring up some of the skills that actually merit discussion:
Faintheartedness has the same "12 or bust" issue that Life Siphon does, and as far as shutdown goes Shadow of Fear just outclasses it. It's not a bad skill, but you only get to use eight skills from two classes, and 'not bad' just donesn't cut it. You have AoE shutdown in Enfeebling Blood and Shadow of Fear at comparable energy costs and cast times, leaving Faintheartedness on the bench, permanently. People seriously overrate energy degeneration (people even use Ether Lord!), but Malaise is solid. It's cheap, spammable, and is a slow but potent form of energy denial. Just make sure that you have Life Siphons or the like running so that you can eat the cost. Rend Enchantments isn't good, perse, but because it is the *only* playable piece of enchantment removal it's stock is through the roof. It won't be the most amazing skill on your bar, but it had better be there anyway. The damage on Spiteful Spirit really doesn't scare me. Against casters it's a joke, and for shutting down Warriors I'd rather use SoF / EB. It isn't a bad skill, but is this really what you want to be spending your elite slot on? Didn't think so. Wither is trash. As Blackace mentioned, energy degen isn't scary until someone's at low energy. When someone's at low energy, Wither has a nasty habit of ending, quickly. You're going to end up denying yourself more energy with Wither than your opponent. Stick to the good denial options like Malaise or Debilitating Shot. Death requires corpses, and that's a huge strike against it. If you want to use corpses, just use Well of Blood - it puts you into a deeper attribute and you don't need all that many corpse exploit skills anyway. I don't think any of the Death self-heal options are all that impressive. They're way too conditional, and while they're decent as one-shots the options you'll have available elsewhere are just going to be more effective in the long run. Blood is Power is that good - use it at level 0 and pump the fist. It isn't just great energy regeneration - it's energy regeneration that you get to dole out to the rest of your team, making everyone go nuts. The original statement about the elite mechanic being invented to break up broken combos was correct - but the combo isn't a pair of obscure skills, it's an absurd spam skill comboed with absurd energy regen. Blood is Power allows you to create that combo on multiple teammates, effectively dodging the elite mechanic. The only downside of Blood is Power is that it is at it's best at a Blood Magic of 3, locking you out of the attribute if you really want to maximize its use. But you should really be running BiP, your won/loss record will thank you. Demonic Flesh is decent but unspectacular. A couple hundred health in a PvP match really isn't all that much - a focused target will easily take and be healed for thousands of damage over the course of just a dozen seconds. What Demonic Flesh gives you is a larget margin for error - that heal that otherwise would have been a half second too late will land with Flesh up. I wouldn't cut something important for Demonic Flesh, but it's definitely playable. Life Siphon is great at attribute 12, and just kinda eh below that. The big selling point of Life Siphon is that it is spammable, that you can keep multiples running at all times to keep you in good shape and slowly whittle away at your opponents. It isn't as swingy as some skills, but if you have the 12 in Blood then you should be running this. Life Transfer is pretty mediocre - the 30 second cooldown kills it. Each cast has the potency of a Life Siphon, but the fact that you can only cast it twice a minute means it just doesn't have enough of an effect on the game to justify the elite slot. I don't even think it would make the cut if it wasn't elite. The Orders are still playable but they're just plain fair at 10 energy - you're going to up and choke yourself if you try to spam these the way you did two months ago. They're also particularly niche, only useful if you have a dedicated, physical heavy team, and can avoid the standard shutdown that physical attackers normally encounter. Definitely not for general use, but they're good enough to try to work around with an organized team. I think you're rating Vampiric Touch far too highly. 15 energy is a ton for a skill with such a small effect - there are just better things to do with your energy. No way I'd run it with all of the other options available. Well of Blood isn't just a good skill in its own right - the fact that it also denies other Necromancers the use of corpses pushes it over the edge. They aren't going to be animating anything if you're springing wells out of everything that dies. That two second recycle is a sexy beast, at that. It has the standard problem of requiring a corpse to function, but giving up just one skill slot on an eight man team to make use of any corpses that arise is a small price to pay. Peace, -CxE
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Don't argue with idiots. They bring you to their level and beat you with experience. |
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Feb 23, 2005, 12:12 PM // 12:12
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#5 |
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Feb 2005
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I would like to comment on some of Blackace's reviews.
One thing is weakness. I don't know how much Blackace tried playing with Enfeebling blood, but that skill deserves more than a 2. It reduces melee damage by a lot. Enfeeble isn't useless. Often it is better than enfeebling blood in Arena. You can put weakness on 2 people that are far apart for the same energy and without sacrifise. Often you will get a single warrior on you and then Enfeebling blood is kind of a waste. Rigor Mortis is a 5 because it kills a lot of defensive skills that are either: a) Hard to counter(like ward vs melee and stances) b) Enchantments that are too spammable to be countered by enchantment removal like guardian and shield of deflection. And all those defensive skills are very common. In fact, you can find most of them on pre-made builds. Why is wastrel's worry a waste of skill slot? It works great. I got hit by it a few times during last BWE with it and usually before I reacted with a 2 sec cast spell, I was already too late. It also always hits runners, and it servers as an excelent buffer hex to protect other hexes. I think Postopac can testify here that wastrel's worry is an excellent skill. I will have to disagree about Strip Enchantments. I have faced Me/W with IW 3 times while using it, and every time I hit them with it when I saw them cast it, and their damage went into nether regions. IW builds never pack swordsmanship, because it doesn't do anything when they are using IW. But without IW, they do next to 0 damage. It is useful just to kill random enchatments off W/Mo. Ok now that I am done with that, I would like to add another relevant topic not discussed in my first post. Damage vs HP swing HP swing is defined as damage+healing a skill does. It is the relative HP change of your HP vs your opponents HP after using the skill. Thus skills, that do damage and heal, like Vamp touch and Life transfer have the biggest HP swings in their category. But sometime you aren't under attack, and thus don't need healing, and you only need damage to help bring someone down. This is, essentially, the reason why biggest HP swing doesn't make a skill the best skill in all situations. Consider Vamp Touch and Vile Touch. Vile touch costs 10 en and does 62 damage. Vamp touch costs 15 en and steals 62 HP. That is a 124 HP swing. Sounds like Vamp Touch is better, right? I mean for 50% more energy you get 100% bigger HP swing. But if you are at full HP and there are 3 of you chomping on a monk, you will find Vile Touch better, since it will do more damage with that 30 energy you have. Charles is right. Vamp touch costs a lot for that effect. But really what are the other options? If you are getting 15 blood or so, support role is out of the question. OoP, OoV, BiP they all suffer from the same problem as all necro sacrifise skills. When attribute goes beyond 12, sacrifise cost heads for stratosphere while the skill's power barely even moves. There really aren't any cost effective nukes in necro's arsenal. The only skill that does good damage per energy without using up corpses is Deathly Swarm. And it takes an eternity to cast and is in death line which sucks. But here is question that keeps nagging me: If I use awaken the blood and death pact, does the extra 50% sacrifise yield 50% more damage as well? Spura [Myth] Last edited by Spura; Feb 23, 2005 at 01:01 PM // 13:01.. |
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Feb 23, 2005, 04:24 PM // 16:24
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#6 |
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Magog, Qc .. Canada
Guild: SCUM
Profession: N/Me
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Props
This is an excellant thread a must read for all .. I'm impressed. I'd love to see the other professions analized like this also.
Pax |
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Feb 23, 2005, 05:03 PM // 17:03
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#7 | |||||||||
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Ascalonian Squire
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Profession: Mo/
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 Coupled with soul barbs can produce up to whooping 80 damage per cast, not to mention team that is heavy on hexes can yield very high damage output with this skill. Quote:
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My 2 cents. |
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Feb 23, 2005, 07:17 PM // 19:17
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#8 | |||||||
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Guest
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Ok I'll admit it! I tried to reply to everything without analyzing all options, because that would take forever
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With that said, I'll agree on Enfeeble. It's definetly good in the Arena and decent for a pickup group in Tombs. Somehow I skipped the 1 second cast time too. Damn me Rigor Mortis, is again solid depending on whats going on. Focus Fire skill all the way, and is truly good depending on how much people want to abuse evasion skills. Right now I think there is no question that people should start using this.(Charles is going to say something about Shield of Deflection before all this is over) Quote:
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Illusionary Weaponry Illusion of Weakness Illusion of Haste(buffer) Hundred Blades Phantom Pain Snare skill Illusion of Haste has no downtime. They either really didnt think their builds through, cast their enchantments in the wrong order or just didnt have the skills to complete their build(highly likely). Vamp touch. It's narrow but like Spura said, what are the other options? It's a solid health steal and of course the 15 energy makes it unspammable but it should only be used as a supplement anyway. In a blood necro only build with warrior skills its not going to do bad. Add in Curses and ok, you're not going to use this. Quote:
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As for Spiteful Spirit, would you use it if it wasnt elite? I'd possibly only use it with MoP anyway. I think it has high potential, but it may only work vs careless people. Demonic Flesh. I just cant pass up 170 hp that can combine well with things like Infuse Health and Illusion of Weakness. Its not going to do anything for someone not under the gun alot, but if your a primary target(monk) this buys you extra time. Of course like you said, I'd never cut something important for it if it's not central to the build. The orders: still worth making a build around Well of Blood: I love this skill so much. |
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Feb 24, 2005, 01:12 AM // 01:12
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#9 | ||||||||||||
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Just Plain Fluffy
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Berkeley, CA
Guild: Idiot Savants
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RE: Faintheartedness
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'In situations where Faintheartedness would be better, how reasonable of a substitute is Enfeebling Blood?' 'In situations where Enfeebling Blood would be better, how reasonable of a substitute is Faintheartedness?' The deal is that when you want the AoE of EB, you *really* want the AoE. Faintheartedness wouldn't even come close to cutting it. On the other hand, against a single target Faintheartedness is clearly better, but you're really after the weakness and EB still does a reasonable job. Basically, EB is *always* an effective tool for the job, while Enfeeble and Faintheartedness will come up short in the most important situations. Given that, I still think there are reasons to run Faintheartedness - if you have that 12 curses, if you have other DoTs to back it up with - but in general, if you want a weakness effect you want Enfeebling Blood. It's just better. RE: Spiteful Spirit Quote:
Combining Empathy and Spiteful Spirit in an attempt to shut down Warriors isn't nearly as good as combining Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood. Why? First off, the SoF/EB combination is Area of Effect. If multiple Warriors are ganging up on someone, you can knock them all out in one shot. Second, SoF/EB is much more spammable. If you need to spread them around to different targets quickly, the instant recycle of Shadow of Fear allows you to do so while Empathy/SS choke on the cooldowns. But, most importantly, Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood doesn't give your opponent the choice. A Warrior hexed with those two is not going to be dealing any damage, period, whether he likes it or not. It's a hard shutdown. When you're using Spiteful Spirit and Empathy, they'll take a lot of damage for attacking, granted - but they can still do so if it makes sense for them to. I'll happily eat the damage to get off a Concussion Shot at the right time, or a well placed knockdown effect. That option is still there. Taking away your opponent's choices is always preferable to just making their choices more difficult. RE: BiP Quote:
But there's a bit more going on here - you're also concerned about just how effective you're being with your own time and energy. While a level 0 BiP only nets you around 3 energy per second casting time, level 3 BiP gets you close to 5 energy per second cast. You also need to take into account the fact that you aren't getting any of the energy you net from BiP, so your own energy supply needs to be taken into account. Two casts of BiP costs you twice the energy, and if you can cram that into a single cast you're a whole lot better off. Basically the energy transferred per health ratio dips slightly, but the energy transferred per time and per energy increases dramatically, and that's what makes the level 3 BiP better. Two casts are going to be wiped out by a single Orison in any case, so the health loss isn't that big a deal. Quote:
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Life swing isn't a particularly good metric because healing is so much more efficient than damage. Casting a 110 health Orison for 5 energy and 1.5 seconds of cast time is par for the course, decent but unspectacular, but damage at those numbers would be patently ridiculous. If you just care about life swing, straight healing is going to blow away all of the siphon effects. Given the efficiencies that damage and lifegain run on, is Vampiric Touch efficient? Not even close. 15 energy is just far too much to pay for this effect. It's a playable skill at low levels when skill availability is an issue, but once you start having access to better skills Vampiric Touch should quickly find its way off your skill bar, making room for much more efficient uses of energy. Quote:
The reasons why it's unplayable have already been touched on in this post. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to put it all together - understanding why Wastrel's Worry sucks is one of the most important lessons one can learn, and I'm a huge fan of the Socratic method. =) Quote:
I'd give Rigor Mortis a 2, even using the scale used here that gives out more 5s than skill slots. It's just a very conditional skill that isn't even a particularly good solution to the skills that it's trying to fight - it costs more, takes longer to cast, and has a long cooldown. It's never good, but sometimes it's useful enough to justify the skill slot. Stick to your guns Blackace. =) Quote:
Rigor Mortis isn't it. They still get the armor boost, they can spread it around, and the cooldown on Rigor Mortis is too high to matter if you switch targets. You're getting tackled for loss and are somehow happy about it. Don't be. Quote:
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Malaise is strong because it's cleap, it's spammable, and it actually hits their energy pretty hard. If someone's at low energy, as you say, it's a solid way to put the hurt on at a low cost to yourself. Wither on the other hand turns to junk at low energy - they regenerate a couple points, cast themselves down to zero, and it promptly ends. You spent 10 energy to cost them a fraction of that - not exactly what you want from any skill, not to mention your elite. Add in the other ways people have of regaining energy, and degen really needs to be pulling its weight. Quote:
Enchantment removal is neccessary. Single target removal is too bad to even consider, and Rend, even though it isn't spectacular, at least hits multiple targets, letting it pull its weight. You're not happy to be playing it, but you have to if you want to win. If enchantment removal got buffed up and there were other viable alternatives, then yeah, Rend Enchantments would lose some priority as people messed around with better alternatives. But that's a big if. In the meantime, the best solution to problematic enchantments is to interrupt them - the only solution to stacked enchantments after the fact is to pound through with Rend. Just smile and bear running it. Quote:
But would I run it if it wasn't elite? Yeah, I'd use it in some builds. Peace, -CxE
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Don't argue with idiots. They bring you to their level and beat you with experience. |
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Feb 24, 2005, 01:30 AM // 01:30
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#10 | ||
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Elite Guru
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Guild: Idiot Savants [iQ]
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Life Transfer is mediocre because of the 30 second cooldown, not because of the health swing. Even +10 regen arrows aren't going to save you if you are really the target being focused. That's 20 health per second and dedicated attackers are going to do 35+ DPS to you EACH. Healers don't cast Healing Breeze on you when you're going critical, they cast it on you when there's a relative lull and you're maybe at half health. Vampiric Touch is mediocre for the same reason- when you really need health, Vampiric Touch will not save you. It's nice when you have a moderate amount of damage that would be nice to heal but you can't bug your healers. But as Ensign said, any target getting focused is going to take thousands of points of damage and healing. Two Vampiric touches and you're out of energy, and you can't use any of the other 7 skills on your bar. Does that 120+ health look so attrative then? 1 Orison of Healing from a decent monk will heal about the same amount for 5 energy as opposed to 30. As for coupling Faintheartedness with Awaken the Blood- do you really want to waste one of your eight slots on Awaken the Blood? So you're turning a mediocre choice into a fair choice. And the AOE of Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood really do make them superior choices in most situations. Are you really afraid of one warrior? I hope not. I'm a monk, and I laugh when one person is attacking me. I fear 3 warriors who are up in my face. That's when I want the necro on my team dropping Enfeebling Blood or Shadow of Fear on them. And finally, BiP. 3 is indeed the sweet spot. It's certainly usable at 0 blood, but the extra health sacrifice is negligible. It's an extra 26 health sacrificed for an extra 3.33 energy. Why were you using BiP in the first place? To avoid losing health or to turbocharge your healers? Again, a 5 energy orison is going to heal you for 110-130 health. Give your healers more to work with and they will be better equipped to help you out if you suddenly become the focus fire target.
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Feb 24, 2005, 02:03 AM // 02:03
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#11 | |
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Guest
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Like you said, it's good at some times. One of those times is now because of people using every evasion skill they can find(includes Rangers). I should have noted that my rating on Rigor Mortis wasnt exclusively for trying to counter SoD though. Rend Enchantments: I always thought the skill was good, but never took it when the old strip enchantment was available(4 or 6 second recast time). At those times, RE was still usable but you didnt find many enchantment spammers. Hopefully enchantment removal will be fixed soon, as every build now-a-days is running so many enchantments. |
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Feb 24, 2005, 02:11 AM // 02:11
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#12 |
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Academy Page
Join Date: Feb 2005
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just a side note on the use of necro in pvp, ppl seem to overlook the wealth of available npc corpses to exploit. not to mention the necro/ranger with 0 in beast mastery and the whole ranger pet, die, exploit, rez, repeat fun.
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Feb 24, 2005, 02:16 AM // 02:16
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#13 |
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Pre-Searing Cadet
Join Date: Feb 2005
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hmmm i may start a necro hmmm
youve inspired me to start a necro hmmm |
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Feb 24, 2005, 07:54 AM // 07:54
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#14 |
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Wilds Pathfinder
Join Date: Feb 2005
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If rigor mortis sucks at countering defensive skills, how do you propose to counter guardian and shield of deflection then? Rend Enchantments does next to nothing, enchants are back up instantly.
Besides you are too hard on the skill. Even if Shield of Deflection still gives armor, other skills like Ward vs Melee and guardian, which are poplular enough, still get countered completely. I would also like to ask, can anyone think of any Death attribute build that is not minion master? I've been trying out hard to come up with one whole BWE and now that I am in alpha and I can't find any decent skills. The only alternative to minions are death nukes. Deatly chill sucks compared to Vile Touch, Vile touch is mediocre compared to lightning nukes, and Deatly swarm, while being cost effective, is very cumbersome to use because of the 3 sec cast time. Death magic needs some new and inventive skills. |
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Feb 24, 2005, 08:26 AM // 08:26
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#15 | ||
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Just Plain Fluffy
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Berkeley, CA
Guild: Idiot Savants
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The only good way to deal with these defenses is to be proactive - interrupts, energy denial, the various debilitating hexes that you can drop onto a Monk. You have to keep them from being cast in the first place, because you're pretty much helpless once they're up - Rigor Mortis doesn't do enough, Rend only buys you a couple of seconds, and then you're sitting there waiting for your skills to finish cooling down. I think that, to fight defensive enchantments, you need to be hitting their Monks with Energy Drains and Debilitating Shots, Power Leaks, Distracting Shots, Arcane Conundrum, Backfire. In the meantime you need to switch targets frequently because you can't pound through these buffs - as soon as that Shield of Deflection goes up that target is lost for 10 seconds. So move to a different one, make them recast their buffs, get them down to the point where they're choking on the energy it takes to keep casting these skills. Defensive buffs are a fight you cannot win, so don't fight it. Pick another battleground, one that you can win on, and win there. Quote:
The tools to break down those walls simply are not there. Trying here is an exercise in futility, a fight that merely exhausts you and brings you closer to defeat. You need to stop the walls from showing up in the first place, or to find a way to sneak around them, or otherwise avoid the problem altogether. The one thing you're not going to do is go through that wall. That's just the state of the game at the moment. Adapt or lose. Peace, -CxE
__________________
Don't argue with idiots. They bring you to their level and beat you with experience. |
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Feb 24, 2005, 03:05 PM // 15:05
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#16 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada
Guild: Mostly Harmless
Profession: W/
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Let me start off by saying, excellent post. Very good. I personnally LOVE reading posts like these.
1) I'd have to disagree with Faintheartedness. At attribute 12, we're looking at a 3 degen spell and decreased IAS curse that stretches for 37 seconds! I mean, this is almost better than any condition out there, with low cast time and 5 second cooldown. I'd bump that one up to 4, personally. 2) As well, Mark of Pain would be so situational (godly on things like King of the Hill maps with multiple heros. But skilled guilds would move out as soon as they saw themselves taking damage from Mark of Pain. Therefore not pumping out as much damage as you can. Is it a good skill vs PuG or not-very-experienced guilds? Yes. Will it make a huge difference vs an experienced guild? Nope. I'd bring this down to a 2. 3) I agree 300% with Rigor Mortis, you summed it up nicely. Regardless of what Ensign may say 4) Life Transfer. I've used this skill for a while. It's not all that great (I think Ensign can agree with me on this one). We're looking at such a long recharge time and we're looking at something with Soul Reaping. Energy can hardly be a problem with this character (especially with a Mesmer secondary). I don't see any use bring Life Transfer when you can spread disease and cast lesser effect, MUCH LONGER hexes that recharge for a 1/3 of the time. (See Life Siphon and Faintheartedness). If it wasn't an Elite, it would be a 4. But it's an Elite.. 2. 5) Order of anything. Such a short duration (they can get what.. 3 swings in?) I'd rather spam degen or other things, than use any Order of the XXX skill. Order of Pain gets a 2 and Order of the Vampire gets a 1 (because it's an Elite) |
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Feb 24, 2005, 04:13 PM // 16:13
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#17 |
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Lion's Arch Merchant
Join Date: Feb 2005
Profession: Me/E
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Any thought on how to best use Grenth's Balance? I looked at that skill and could not find a really good use for the skill. With the 60s recharge time it will probably only be used once in a battle, and it's elite.
How would you guys rate this skill? |
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Feb 24, 2005, 04:34 PM // 16:34
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#18 |
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Krytan Explorer
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada
Guild: Mostly Harmless
Profession: W/
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Freyas has a nice GvG build utilizing the power of Grenth's Balance here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...s-3-id1152.php |
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Feb 24, 2005, 04:48 PM // 16:48
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#19 |
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Lion's Arch Merchant
Join Date: Feb 2005
Profession: Me/E
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Oww... the thought that NPCs may have a lot bigger health than our characters never crossed my mind. Shame on me
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Feb 24, 2005, 10:18 PM // 22:18
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#20 | |||
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Just Plain Fluffy
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Berkeley, CA
Guild: Idiot Savants
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Quote:
1) Are you going to run Faintheartedness over Shadow of Fear? 2) Do you really need two attack speed debuffs with no recharge? I agree that it's not a bad skill, at all. I just can't see myself running it over the alternatives. Quote:
Quote:
Peace, -CxE
__________________
Don't argue with idiots. They bring you to their level and beat you with experience. |
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