Curse

vOddy · Oct 25, 2010, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Hello. I am a pretty serious and good RTS gamer, but I am new to Guild Wars. I'd like to get into PvP, but as I currently lack knowledge of the game I would be pretty useless for any guild, so I'd like your feedback on these ideas of necro builds I've had.

I'm very new, so I'll be thinking more about overall concepts rather than specified builds. I'll tweak them as I go along.

You're also welcome to give me suggestions, as long as they're necromancer builds!

Alright, here we go.

Idea #1:

Necro / Mesmer.

The secondary class should obviously complement the first class. If I specialize in curses as my necromancer, and take Mesmer as my secondary class, will I be able to become a debuffing spellcaster of doom? Since both Necros (if you specialize in curses) and Mesmers can debuff, would this be a decent build in PvP? The idea of just focusing entirely on debuffing and making the enemy worthless is appealing to me.

Idea #2:

Necro / Ranger

Would it be viable to make someone weak with curses, then kill him from a distance? From what I've seen many ranger abilities are quite cheap on energy, so I could blow most of my energy on curses and still do damage. Basically, I'd be a ranged annoyance able to cripple an opponent with curses and then kill him off. If this would actually work, that is.

Also, I had another idea - specializing in death magic rather than curses, giving me a lot of minions, who I can stand behind and shoot arrows. However, I don't know if this would work in PvP. Is it hard to summon minions in PvP since people don't die that often?

Idea #3:

Necro / Monk

I'd basically summon a lot of minions then heal them with AoE heals ( I know there are some of those because Charr used them against me and I saw Ascalon monks do it too :P )

Idea #4:

Necro / Warrior

I've always liked Blood Magic, and since some warrior abilities (hammer bash, those sword attacks) only take adrenaline and no energy, I could use all my energy on blood magic (vampiric touch, blood renewal, life siphon) and just use my warrior abilities whenever possible. I'd kind of be like a monk / warrior or warrior / monk. I'd be in the thick of battle dealing a lot of damage with my blood spells like life siphon and vampiric touch, but I would just never die because I'd constantly heal.

Also, if I want to use a lot of summons, maybe it would be better to go Necro / Warrior and use a ranged truncheon? It'd be like Necro / Ranger 'cause I'd still be attacking from behind my minions with range, except this time with a truncheon and shield / scroll / symbol. Also, the truncheon apparently gives you the same attacks as a sword, but ranged!

You are probably laughing your ass off at how nooby my ideas are, but I just got this game like a few days ago and I am just theorycrafting :P

Tell me if any of the concepts are viable (specific builds doesn't matter as long as the concept is the same). Other suggestions are also welcome as long as they involve necromancers, preferably as main.

X CDH X · Oct 25, 2010, 07:41 PM // 19:41

If you use this site... http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
then it has a whole bunch of builds for a range of arenas and for PvE/PvP.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page has info on other parts of the game - a walkthrough if you like

Though in PvP people with all 4 Guild Wars games/expansions will have access to the full amount of skills so may have an advantage over you at the moment if you just own the first Guild Wars one.

Also don't use a melee Necromancer - you will get wiped plus people will laugh at you.

I guess if I was starting GW again and just wanted to do some PvP i would do some Random arena matches to get faction and a hang of the speed there.

I'm guessing you have prophecies campaign only atm so I'd guess a curses anti-melee build would be the best you can make up.

Something similar to... http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:N/an...pt_Necromancer

Though at the moment you might be quite lucky as you can join a holiday event called Costume Brawl where you will get all the fixed build skills on a necro so this might be helpful for you - Some kind people in GW should be able to direct you to that arenas

Hope it's helpful

vOddy · Oct 25, 2010, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by X CDH X

I'm guessing you have prophecies campaign only atm so I'd guess a curses anti-melee build would be the best you can make up.

I just ordered the complete collection, actually. Thinking about ordering the PvP items and skill unlocking packs.

Also, that website seems pretty cool. Reminds me of Liquipedia for StarCraft

Skyy High · Oct 25, 2010, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Skill unlock packs are largely unnecessary, unless you're DYING to get into PvP immediately. By the time you get the hang of the game from using PvE as the tutorial (as you should), you should have ample skills unlocked to play around with in PvP. Making characters and buying skills / ID-ing runes and upgrades will get your PvP chars in playable shape soon enough.

Lysinc · Oct 26, 2010, 12:39 AM // 00:39

The skills and items unlock pack are very unnecessary. In PvP, you'll barely use half the available skills in the entire game. Regularly playing GW or PvP will give you all the skills you'll ever use.

The items unlock are pretty unnecessary to. Play PvP regularly to get balthazar points and you can unlock it yourself. It's very quick. Just like skills, you're not going to use all of them. It'll be a waste of money to buy the unlock packs imo.

Sarevok Thordin · Oct 26, 2010, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Maybe not a good idea to recommend him PvE wikia atm...wait until they migrate.

practicing01 · Oct 26, 2010, 04:59 PM // 16:59

If you can manage to win a lot, unlocking is easy. Atm it's hard because of inactivity. The following assumes Heroes Ascent pvp.

Thoughts on your thoughts:
There are only 8 skill-bar slots & 40~ max energy (shield set), so you have to build around those limitations.

Idea #1)
Not sure what you mean by debuff, mitigate damage maybe? If so then that can be achieved by many ways: snaring (no direct snare skills for necro), weakness, damage from spiteful spirit/similiar anti-melee skills. The only anti-melee mesmer skill in the meta is empathy, it's difficult to make the other ones work. No necro anti-caster meta builds currently. If by debuffing you mean mitigate healing, that's tougher to understand as a concept. You can do it directly through mesmers skills such as blackout which force the skills to recharge. You can do it indirectly such as with diversion, which causes most monks to pause and scream for someone to remove it. For necro anti-healing, it's mostly done indirectly through degen (drain monks energy forcing him to heal often) or punishing skills such as spoil victor. Although the meta linguring curse causes 20% less healing.

Idea #2)
Trying to kill from a distance doesn't work in Heroes Ascent. There isn't enough space and you can't keep everyone away. With 40~ energy, spamming a 5 energy skill would drain your energy quickly. Also, rangers can't dps fast enough to bypass healing (not to mention prots). It's difficult to cast minions effectively in pvp because things don't die often enough, 15 energy is difficult to manage, 3 sec casts are easily interruptable and minions get aoe'd quickly.

Idea #3)
I don't think any aoe heal spells that effect your party only, also effect your minions. Heal area also heals foes, which is bad if your team build relies on pressure. It's not humanly possible to heal minions singularly effectively (death nova is barely usable).

Idea #4)
For adrenal building, warriors use skills to reduce the time it takes to build for increased pressure (would be difficult to use that technique because of the 8 slot limit). Vampiric touch, Life Siphon are not spammable without heavy energy management. The life gain from all of the skills of the blood magic attribute are not sufficient to keep you alive, but they can help mitigate dps. Dps from a caster weapon is negligable because most of the time you will be casting instead of attacking.

Meta Builds:

Soul Bind:
Concept: pressure from punishing healing/melee & dps from barbs.

Spread soul bind and put it on the target being spiked. barbs on target for dps. insidious for anti-melee. defile defenses as cover hex. faintheartedness to stop ranger interrupts. rip enchantment to remove channeling from monks (energy denial). Glyph for energy mangement.

Taint support:
Concept: pressure from aoe degen, support from rit skills.

weapon of warding on ally being spiked (good luck catching the spike if you're not used to watching the field for warriors). resilient on the ghost at altar & allies. life on recharge, pwk when needed (don't hold items unless it's necessary (double-drop on recharge) because you lose your weaps bonuses (armor+hp from shieldset or energy/hct/hrt from wand/focus). taint on allies being attacked by melee & allies with disease (you don't need to spam taint). member with flesh of my flesh is primary resser (don't flesh monks unless they ask you to).

Depravity:
Concept: pressure from Energy denial, speed boost for runners.
remove channeling from monks with rend/strip. cover depravity with malaise.

Lingering Curse:
Concept: pressure from aoe degen & 20% less healing
spread lingering curse + suffering, can also use them as cover hexes if you coordinate with members. profane to force balling & to stop protting. snares for melee & relic runners.

Spiteful Spirit:
Concept: anti-melee
spiteful/insidious on melee, faintheartedness on interrupt ranger.

Spoil Victor:
Concept: dps/degen pressure on healer
maintain masochism & barbed signet, cover spoil victor with life siphon on healer, spam dark pact to dps (on healer) and as energy management.

Toxic Chill:
Concept: same as taint but toxic chill on spike.

Grenth's Balance:
Concept: non-meta/ineffective build demonstrating what boredom leads to. dps
maintain dark aura/demonic flesh/blood renewal, dps with wallows & touch, heal with grenths, interrupt with distracting blow.

All of the builds can be changed to fit a teams need. All of the other necromancer elites not posted here either are used for niche team builds, aren't effective or haven't had an effective build discovered for them.

Good luck, have fun!

pic for build reference:

vOddy · Oct 26, 2010, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Thanks for the builds.

I haven't unlocked a lot, so I can't use them yet, but for now I am using a Necro / Mesmer. I shut down melee characters by doing insidious parasite and empathy, while I try to disrupt casters by doing diversion, backfire, and power spike.

I use Parasitic Bond to heal myself. My other two spells are faintheartedness and ressurection signet.

I'm not sure if this is a decent build, but it works in random arenas (lol, but I imagine a lot of things do) so I'll use it to get more faction with Balthazar and then unlock more builds.

Anyway, it's a fun build to play. It's almost like playing a monk, except I don't heal people, but it's kind of the same feeling. If someone is getting chased by a warrior, I will shut him down. If an elementalist is killing someone, I will disrupt him, etc. And I love denying monks

Edit: Wow, this Necro / Mesmer thing is really nice, especially when you're in an organized team. I played with 1 monk, 2 necro / mesmers, and 1 ranger in Random Arena's, and we were organized so we akways shut down one each. The ranger usually shut down the enemy monk or elementalist if they had no monk (the pet forced the monk to heal himself, and interrupting arrows were a pain in the ass)

while me and the other Necro / Mesmer shut down one person each, either an offensive caster of an offensive melee combatant. They could never attack, meaning our monk never died. It was awesome. We heroically swept through the unorganized masses of RA!

Caw521 · Oct 27, 2010, 04:28 AM // 04:28

Impressive, but you'd probably need to have an elite skill, just because most players expect you to have one anyway :P Faintheartedness isn't the best option when running empathy/IP because it slows attack speed, causing less damage/life steal. Power Leech, Spiteful Spirit, or Soul Leech might be useful once you can cap it or unlock them, for more pressure. Once I used a build like that in JQ with soul leech + backfire just for sh*ts and giggles, and it worked pretty well... even though I was facing 99% bots

galactic · Oct 27, 2010, 04:51 AM // 04:51

vOddy,

just a few tips for pvp in general (not just builds):

1) Use click to move - if you want to be a really good player, click to move is a necessity. there are so many little perks to using click to move that i dont want to list them here. Since you have rts background, you hopefully already use click to move. trust me, you want to get in the habit of click to move

2) Weapon swaps - if you look in the bottom right corner of your screen, you will see a bunch of weapons in grey circles. swapping between these weapons can give you different perks. I would recoomend bringing a "40/40" set (a wand and focus that both have 20% to halve recharge, 20% to halve casting time). this lets you spam skills faster/avoid interrupts. bring 4040 sets for both domination and curses (or whatever attributes you are using) also bring a STRENGTH shield and spear set. bringing a sheild might sound stupid because you dont meet the requierment, but even if you dont meet the req, it still gives you 9 armor. use your 4040 set when casting, then swap back to your shield set to negate damage. your spear should have a +5 energy, any spear head, and a +30 health/+5 armor mod. also, bring a ton of shields in your inventory, (+10 armor to all damage types, -5 vs physical 20% chance, -33 crip). before you engage the enemy (or even in battle) select a shield. good pvpers always fill all 4 of their weapon slots. you only have two of them selected right now. you can open up the rest of them by going to your inventory, clicking the blue box that says "weapon slots" (or something like that) and checking the other two boxes. tip: hitting esc before your f1-f4 keys will cancel your auto attack and allow you to swap weapons without the 1 second delay. this may sound pretty stupid, but the armor from the shield set = 10(vs x damage)+9. this is about 7,15% damage reduction (alot over time)

3) zaishen combat quests - go to wiki.guildwars.com and search for it, it farms you a shit ton of faction (i only reccomend doing the RA quest for now, HA and GvG when you get better)

4) dont play fort aspenwood, jade quarry, alliance battles - this isnt real pvp, its immitation pvp

5) screen layout (UI) - the default screen layout is not ideal, change it up so the health and energy bars are big and can be seen clearly without directly looking at them. (so you can watch the field constatnly) hit f11 and then the right most tab to drag around your UI. make stuff big so you can see them easier. go here for more examples of people's UI: http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2475

7) armor - when you have the balth faction, unlock these armor insignias/runes. NEVER use superior runes. -75 health is deadly. major runes should be avoided as much as possible. only use minor runes. just a rule of thumb, +armor is almost always better than +health. (no matter what other people tell you)

so in your case, i would take
- +10armor -5 vs holy damage insignias on all (no one uses holy damage) (i think its called tormented insignias.)
- +1 curses +1 soul reaping
- +50 health superior vigor
- and vitae runes (+10 health) on the rest

8) observer mode - after your a little bit more advanced, go to observer mode and watch people play. look at what they do in certain situations.

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14392 (for you people who believe +health > +armor)

there is much that i cant really explain, you just have to earn the experience.

if you need people to play with, i would be happy to teach you how to play (i know getting into groups as a newbie can be almost impossible)

pm me in game: galactic pves

edit: also, you have all campeigns + eye of the north? and do you have ventrillo + a mic?

kedde · Oct 27, 2010, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caw521

Impressive, but you'd probably need to have an elite skill, just because most players expect you to have one anyway :P Faintheartedness isn't the best option when running empathy/IP because it slows attack speed, causing less damage/life steal. Power Leech, Spiteful Spirit, or Soul Leech might be useful once you can cap it or unlock them, for more pressure. Once I used a build like that in JQ with soul leech + backfire just for sh*ts and giggles, and it worked pretty well... even though I was facing 99% bots

Faintheartedness on the contrary is one of the best skills on his bar. There are 4 players on the opposing team, not just 1, there are an abundance of melee players, therefore it's still good.

vOddy · Oct 27, 2010, 06:11 PM // 18:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by galactic

vOddy,

2) Weapon swaps - if you look in the bottom right corner of your screen, you will see a bunch of weapons in grey circles. swapping between these weapons can give you different perks. I would recoomend bringing a "40/40" set (a wand and focus that both have 20% to halve recharge, 20% to halve casting time). this lets you spam skills faster/avoid interrupts. bring 4040 sets for both domination and curses (or whatever attributes you are using) also bring a STRENGTH shield and spear set. bringing a sheild might sound stupid because you dont meet the requierment, but even if you dont meet the req, it still gives you 9 armor. use your 4040 set when casting, then swap back to your shield set to negate damage. your spear should have a +5 energy, any spear head, and a +30 health/+5 armor mod. also, bring a ton of shields in your inventory, (+10 armor to all damage types, -5 vs physical 20% chance, -33 crip). before you engage the enemy (or even in battle) select a shield. good pvpers always fill all 4 of their weapon slots. you only have two of them selected right now. you can open up the rest of them by going to your inventory, clicking the blue box that says "weapon slots" (or something like that) and checking the other two boxes. tip: hitting esc before your f1-f4 keys will cancel your auto attack and allow you to swap weapons without the 1 second delay. this may sound pretty stupid, but the armor from the shield set = 10(vs x damage)+9. this is about 7,15% damage reduction (alot over time)

edit: also, you have all campeigns + eye of the north? and do you have ventrillo + a mic?

I ordered the complete collection. Right now I am playing on my brother's account (which is also the complete collection) because my copy hasn't arrived yet. I have vent + mic.

Also, thanks for the tip about weapon slots. Why didn't I think of that? There's really no need to not fill all of them. Right now I have one set for mesmer spells, one for curse spells, and one for just armour, as well as my normal set.

I'd really like to get in to some real PvP, like Heroes Ascent, because random arenas is pretty much just a roll of the dice. I got a 19 game win streak with like 50% flawless victories because I got lucky and got put in a group with players who were co-operative, and a decent class combination.

Then I lost like 5 games in a row after that 'cause I had bad luck instead.

I'd like to pick up your offer of training!

galactic · Oct 28, 2010, 01:11 AM // 01:11

whats your name in-game?

vOddy · Oct 28, 2010, 08:29 AM // 08:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by galactic

whats your name in-game?

Character name: Evelon Selendis (my copy arrived)

galactic · Oct 29, 2010, 10:29 PM // 22:29

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/h...t10456894.html

attend this if you can