Kuulpb.5412

The reason(s) I have an issue with this, are as you mention taking blighter's boon/Soul eater is a dps loss, Necromancer overall does not have a lot of defensive abilities or traits, it's all rather Mild or Hindering, Like if a necromancer gets CCd, good luck doing anything before you die, sort of thing, or if you get chased, good luck escaping anything that has more than one movement skill, Removing something that could let Necromancer survive - also note this was ONLY within Melee range, Is a Horrible change that should be re-thought. Necromancers have never really been loved, they have a lifesteal mechanic while is extremely bad compared to GW1 lifesteal ( and revenant's Lifesteal is getting a 400% buff so Necromancers are even further left behind), the Removal of Hexes means Necromancers should be more about Conditions, However we get left with Bleed... Bleed and Poison, while you look at someone like Mesmer who gets torment and confusion, Which are MUCH stronger, then there's Renegade who gets bleeding and Piercing on the same skills, meaning more Bleeding at the same range, without Any self-hurting skills like blood is power. That and the fact that I haven't seen a GOOD Necromancer Skill Rework, Ever. Focus and Warhorn got gutted, and They removed the One reaper trait I loved after Hot dropped which was Chill dealing damage, It was Unique, it made necromancers Feel like condition masters as they made a normally non damaging condi Do damage, but no, they instead get a trait as a GRANDMASTER that is WEAKER than a core Revenant skill. ( 2 bleeds on chill vs 1 torment on chill, 1 torment does the same as one bleeding, and that is without moving, moving doubles it)

Thanks for info. I was always sceptical about eso and its classes but if they have necromancers now ill gladly jump ship from this trash implementation of such a great concept.Punching bag that cant move or get healed, fake magician with 0 magic skills, just throws severed hands at people and toy level minions ai. Elite spec with devs laughing face to mock you, corrupt bot with no dynamics and pigeonholed role. necromancer with a bucket of hands BY THE POWER OF DARKNESS throws hands randomly

Yes, meaning it is meaningful to choose an elite spec over core because you lose effects.

I think you never dying is because reaper shroud was doing more damage per second than out of shroud, especially if you took the quickness + ferocity trait

It's so stupid how every patch in recent "balances" have Just Given necromancers something to hope for, then Removed it just as fast, while leaving Other builds that do WAY too much on other professions fine, ALSO - Thief is getting portal ( one way portal), and That is STILL better than the "Poor excuse of a portal" Sand swell is scourges get. Based on wording so we'll have to see, Thieves get one direction portal that does not require Line of sight or valid path, Scourge requires both and limited to 900 range.

"all in order to make the choice of an elite specialization more meaningful." - Reducing effectiveness of reaper survivability, while buffing core necromancer, the only "meaningful" thing I see here is choosing an elite spec is becoming more of a hinderance. No scourge changes, No Life steal reworks, Reaper Nerfs, No Staff or Focus tweaks. What is the point in choosing an Elite Spec if they just Nerf it to hell and buff core?

My Vampire spec would be nice, Either a Longbow or vampire hunter Dual pistols with hand crossbow skins, focusing on life steal, or a "similar mechanic" that ACTUALLY is life steal and not the current "Heal a very small amount unrelated to the small damage you do".

Nothing after the initial patch, however I will state a few things that got reset were: An Exotic backpack in the IG collection on sandswept, Mawdrey(Ascended), Mordrem Loop, Caladbolg weapons. One Mist ring from fractals. These did not: Raid rings, the other mist ring from fractals, Black ice earring, mist accessory, SAB Weapon, Raid weapon drop. Mawdrey and Caladbolg were supposed to get reset?So were living season trinkets like black ice earring. but mine was not.

Nothing after the initial patch, however I will state a few things that got reset were: An Exotic backpack in the IG collection on sandswept, Mawdrey(Ascended), Mordrem Loop, Caladbolg weapons. One Mist ring from fractals. These did not: Raid rings, the other mist ring from fractals, Black ice earring, mist accessory, SAB Weapon, Raid weapon drop.

Just to say point of view on this because I only have my view: My changes were as follows: Dagger/Dagger becoming more mobility and power with focus changing to condition for the purposes of a cater being condition/spells and a dagger stabbing people, The dagger boon rip and daze/stun is just a weaker thief F1, since thief F1 can: do damage heal you stealth poison give you boon steal boons stun and guve you an extra skill. The dagger 5 works off the dagger 4 daze The warhorn change states an area, by this i meant a 900 radius around you i probably should specify, so tou get increased area but lower cc duration. And my control was more applying hindering effects to enemies or helping allies in a more you control the people not so much battlefield,Regarding mark triggers I assume it would be damage and not like an actual ground targetted mark except for staves, and the triggered by allies would be if the condition is met, so the remove condi mark would only “trigger” if you or an ally had a condi in it. Otherwise it would stay dormant, i guess my idea was a mix of Symbols (duration effect) and Traps (Effect on trigger), Any changes in this I said were about Utility i meant as could be used in a way other than damage, and the greatsword changes were so you felt castery while also reap-y. However despite these being my intentions I don’t know how well they came across, so thank you for replying. Edit: the “army” isnt an actual ai npc its a visual replacement for the slow movin g hand necromancers usually get.

The main issue I have with boon corruption or removal is that corruption is a LOT weaker, Sure you can turn stability into fear etc and make someone use a stunbreak, but for example: Mesmer sword auto attack removes 1 boon on the 3rd hit, Necromancer sceptre at once point corrupted boons on the third hit, Because this was "too strong" or whatever that got moved to skill 3, meaning Mesmers are still better at removing boons, Mesmers as Mirages are also Much better at applying conditions, as torment is just a better bleed and their axe has tons, not to mention sand shards bleeding and conditions lasting 20% longer, so mesmers are better at that too, then mesmers also have survivability by mobility and stealth, necromancers get basically nothing, so if necromancers has boon strip instead of corruption, or boon transfer instead, then they might eventually get access to a suitable amount that can easily handle boon heavy foes they just cannot otherwise, as you cannot corrupt ALL boons ona foe at once, I believe the maximum is 3, whereas you can strip boons with spellbreaker elite every 0.5s. Edit: I am glad you like the staff idea, I've tried suggesting it a few times, or variants of it, but people either don't comment on it, or dislike it for some reason. That has never worked out.Since release people have been going "If they just nerf X about Necro, Necro can finally gets buffs over all", which always resulted in said nerfs, without any compensation. What did Necro get in return for Epi being nerfed by 50%?Scourge already lost about half of it's ability to corrupt since it launched with no compensation too.Necro lives and dies by it's ability to corrupt, providing it's overwhelming cover conditions, which is why it often struggles to find a place in PvE since launch. The reason Mesmer is allowed to keep all those things, like Boon removal on AA while it got nerfed off Necro, is because Anet loves Mesmer, while not understanding Necro at all, not because one of them was a corrupt.Mesmer skills are just bloated like crazy in general with what they do for no reason. As for the ideas themselves, a lot of it seems a bit over complicated/loaded for no reason as well, although I do like a lot of it.Don't see a reason to turn Dagger offhand into a power weapon just to pair it with Dagger MH though. All it needs is a slight bump in damage somewhere, and it's in a solid place as condi weapon without any rework necessary. the dagger was so : Dagger/Dagger could be power and sceptre/focus could be condi so for Power your would be a bruiser and for condi you would cast spells,

I can VEEEERY easily assure you it was not, one major example are Two items owned by two different player, but other than that the exact same item, One got reset one did not. Unless the Hotfix was "player specific", I can safely say that not ALL that were supposed to did.

I apologise if “bumping” is bad- i would just like more people to say what are the issues, as seen earlier in this ghread some people have issues with changing some weapons, but others are fine. I know there is a VERY high chance this wont amount to anything however if we can all agree on some changes fhat sound balanced maybe Anet sill have a look at changing some things.

Incorrect if mawdrey was classed as ceafted mine shouldnt have bren reset, it is also not ascended exclusive as my exotic backpack from sandswet isles reset, however some armour and trinkets that should DEFINITELY have been reset were not. I am still 100% with my decision that should make all ascended armour stat selectable, any armour created after the patch would not be, but all ascended items would be stat selectable that are made and owned by a player at the time of the patch. Edit: i should also mention i sent in a ticket and they said they are currently working on a patch for this - I think the absolute best thing would be make an npc that takes “old” ascended items and will give you a new ascended one along with any runes and infusions the item had and change the code for ascended, since they all now will have all stats available there is no need to have “some” items reset while unfortunately not successfully resetting those items.

Well rampagers is a core stat it looks like core stats wasent affected earlier in this thread I stated my knight's backpack did reset, the "type" of stats on the gear does not correlate.

There are a few items that were missed in the reset and will be reset in an upcoming hotfix. Sorry about that!When exactly is this hotfix coming, any ideas?

Well that's even odder. Okay, there's no pattern? Regardless: I stand by my statement that I'm glad that any of my gear was reset, since two weeks ago, I didn't think any of it would be. TBH I thought all stat swap ascended items would be reset, and I even hoped ALL ascended would be reset just so that people could choose because of the entire choice rework and moving stats, so people who make viper gear could change that if they so wished etc., I do not know if this is buggy or intended but not all has been reset as is obvious by this thread.

Not the case, My knight's Mawdrey got reset and my Viper raid rings didn't get reset.

My viper's rings didn't reset and viper isn't core, so I can only say that it's a bit random what got reset, not necessarily " general rule" for core stats

TBH Gw2 should just do a Game Wide ascended stat Reset, make EVERY ascended item that is already owned by players stat selectable, so any crafted after the "wipe" isn't reset, but this would fix issues people have while also letting people who do not have many ascended items have a different set for what they need instead, such as a lot of people may have gotten the ascended boxes from fractals and not gotten the right stats and just chosen some, making ALL Ascended reset would solve this issue. The Only issue from this as far as I can see are people who would claim that "They had to work hard/spend money for a stat and now everyone gets it free" and all I can say to that is the stats were always available to everyone and you didn't need to spend gold to farm them when you could just get lucky.

I have this issue too, and we tried testing ,my friend and I, I would cast 2 and they would teleport behind me etc, and it wouldn't stop, and yet during fights it would randomly stop, so there's no real... reason for it stopping other randomness Glad somebody else noticed this. Hope more attention gets put on this so Anet can take a look at this. Dagger MH is one of my Favorite necro weapons and this been making it pretty unusable in SPvP for me. as the ONLY melee necromancers and scourges get, it should be more useful, so having a major bug means you can't do much :P, especially after warhorn nerf

I have this issue too, and we tried testing ,my friend and I, I would cast 2 and they would teleport behind me etc, and it wouldn't stop, and yet during fights it would randomly stop, so there's no real... reason for it stopping other randomness

one main issue I have is: Things seem to basically "require" other things to even function normally, lifesteal as it is now, is more "50-100 healing a hit" which is Almost nothing when you consider necromancers have 20-30,000 health and very low armour, so healing already has a lower "effect" on necromancers as Healing benefits from toughness over vitality. the build you mention I assume is a Blood magic and Death magic thing, but as death magic outside of some general use PvE builds is REALLY bad it doesn't really mean much if you're "unkillable" when you do very low damage, Minions don't benefit from your power etc at all and for you to get any noticeable healing from it you need healing power or to hit lots of things fast: reworking lifesteal would mean reworking traits too, so the "unkillable" build wouldn't be unkillable since it'd be tweaked from a balance standpoint, although having said that necromancers need something they excel in because they have nothing atm, Healing is druid, condition is Mirage, tankinees is spellbreaker, Power is basically anything. Blood, Death, Reaper yes, used to use Soul Reaping pre HoT.Designed largely around maximizing minions and heal sustain.. it's very hard to kill in PvE and prior to minion changes and the addition of Elite specs it was really hard to kill in PvP too pre HoT.I don't actually use Healing power (except the 150 I get from Last rites).. I use Soldier stats so my damage isn't as terrible as you might expect neither is the incoming healing.In many fights I can maintain around 10-11 minions sometimes 12 depending on what i'm running and how many enemies are around and that does add up both in damage and in incoming life steal.Sure I'm not going to win any DPS awards or anything but it's good enough to go toe to toe with just about anything solo. Adding to that I have access to regen on dodge (Lesser Mark of Blood) and protection when leaving shroud (Beyond the Veil)Sometimes I use Death Nova for more minions = more lifesteal + more damage and tons of poisonfields when they die :D or Corrupter's Fervor for more toughness.I get more toughness per minion with Flesh of the Master amd More damage from minions and they take conditions with Necromantic Corruption.Minion and Player Lifesteal with Vampiric and Vampiric Pressence as well as stopping ally bleedout and being able to pull rez them in shroud. Then in Reaper line I have lifesteal on shout + reduced cooldown for Rise per target, 15% damage increase to chilled foes which is easy to exploit with focus 5, Reaper Shroud and GS auto and lastly I get 300 ferocity and quickness while in shroud which goes really nicely with Decimate Defences 2% crit chance per stack of Vulnerability on foes allowing me to get 50% crit chance without needing any precision stat in the build at all.I can get more ferocity and power from food etc too if I want extra damage as well as more crits from Superior Sigil of Preception(25 stacks combined with 25 stacks of Vulnerability = 66.90% Crit chance without a single investment in precision) Contributing to the healing factor as well I have constant health regen from Superior Rune of the Dolyak and I AoE heal on crits with Superior Sigil of Water. So as you can see I have a lot of constant incoming healing from multiple sources mostly life steal from on average 10ish minions. (can also get more from food)Likewise multiple pockets of damage being done by myself, minions and poison fields caused by their death which are numerous thanks to timegated minions I get when I kill stuff and the minions summoned with Rise.I can get almost 70% crit chance without precision (which is ridiculous)My stats bounce around 2,382 Power + 2,340-2,500 Toughness depending on how many minions I have (2660 in shroud) which gives me a max Armor rating of 3,307- 3,500 (3600+ in shroud) Not so "very low" after all is it :PCombine that with 29,812 base Hp (30K + with food) and 20,571 Life force and you can see what I mean when I say lifesteal is already capable of making you nearly unkillable as it is without needing to completely sacrifice your damage. Functions great as a solo build and benefits from a moderate damage buff when playing with others thanks to 25 vulnerability and perma chill being extremely easy to maintan with a small group.Dagger 2 even functions as a main healing skill thanks to it's bigger heal and 6 second shorter cooldown than sacrificing the Blood Fiend. I highly recommend giving it a try sometime if you like the power tank playstyle, more than happy to give you the exact build I use, all traits, gear etc.It's never going to be best DPS meta or anything but it's still very capable, definitely the kind of build you use to help people out when they get in over their heads which is a fun pastime for me.Oh yeah the Shroud skill 4 does AoE healing too, I've managed to get upwards of 6K AoE healing on it in some situations (around 4-5K normally) which is a nice boon for fractals and stuff, I've saved a lot of people with this build over the years not to mention being the main reason my fractal pug group hasn't wiped multiple times in the same encounter ^^ It is very low since you're ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability. I'm not though.As I said it's main stat is power not toughness and despite no stat investment I can still hit 70% crit chance quite often.That's why I call it a Power Tank not just a Tank. You'll just have to try it yourself to understand, it's by far the best build I've used that you could call a highly proficient Jack of all trades.It could be more tanky, it could be more dps focused, could be more healing focused but it sits nicely in the middle being respectably competent at all 3.I've attempted to make similar builds on other classes but they simply cannot replicate the same level of tankyness while possessing the same level of damage output and sustain, that's mainly where the minions and lifesteal come in and Necro is the only class that can use summons to that effect.There are ways to make other classes play Jack of all trade playstyles but they cannot compete with the Necromancer on that front.. not even remotely close. Two of your stats are defensive, meaning the MAJORITY of you stats are defensive. that makes it Defensive. Defensive yes but that's not what you said.You said i'm "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability." and that's not true. I may only be using 3 defined stats on my gear.. Power(Main), Toughness and Vitality but my traits and skills give me the ability to function as a character that's utalizing 4 different stats at high investment, therefore i'm not entirely specced for toughness/survivability.The 69.90% Crit chance I can get upto through the combination of my Sigil stacks and the enemies applied Vulnerability (which like I said is almost constantly 25 in any group based content) effectively means that my build can operate with more base crit chance than a character running a full set of Bezerker gear without me needing to put a single point into the precision stat on any of my weapons, trinkets or armour. My Ranger in full bezerker gear has 2,145 precision giving him a base total of 59,52% Crit chance.. that's 10.38% crit chance lower than what my Necromancer can get without any gear precision stat investment at all.Granted the Ranger can self apply Fury and Might and my Necro build can't but it can get that from allies easily and often.The difference comes down to Ferocity and that's the only real weak point of the build, high crit chance but low ferocity crit damage. It's still enough to make a noticable difference when I am operating at my peak though.High crit chance and raw power combined with high toughness and health.. and add to that a significant amount of constant incoming healing.No other class in Gw2 can function like that.. i've tried to replicate it in various ways on most classes but none of them can gain the same level of tank, damage and sustain at the same time.. Necro is the only class capable of it thanks to it's unique traits and skills. The way the build works essentially means I am more or less running the exclusively PVP Paladin stat set in PvE and WvW.Power, Precision Main - Toughness, Vitality minor..Only i'm doing it with higher stats than the Paladin stats can provide. Paladin Amulet + Superior Rune of Dolyak2050 Power2050 Precision (55.00% Crit chance, easily caps 100% crit chance with Vulnerability)1860 Toughness1660 Vitality (25,812 health, 17,811 Life Force) My PvE Build + Superior Rune of Dolyak2381 Power1000 base precision (5% crit chance) +250 Precision Sigil (19,90% Crit chance) + Decimate defences Vulnerability (69,90% Crit chance)2261 Toughness2061 Vitality (29,822 health, 20,578 life force) 2 Primary stats are defensive yes but with maxed sigil and Decimate Defenses taking advantage of 25 Vulnerability it technically remains as offensive as it is defensive since when my crit chance is at 69,90% i'm effectively functioning as if my precision stat is 2384 which is higher than my base toughness, vitality and power.Factor in additional Toughness from traits though my two main stats are typically Power and Toughness.. but when operating at my peak they are Toughness and Precision.So either way my two highest stats at any one time are one offensive and one defensive, so I cannot be as you said "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability" when the offensive capabilities of the build are equally present.If anything at best combining Power/Precision against Toughness/Vitality i'm technically more offenisve than defensive stat wise. did you try mirage, or revenant of any kind with a mace, with runes of tormenting? that heals as much as lifesteal and you proc it every hit Yep, I have a Hybrid Mace/Axe Renegade build with Sigil and Runes of tormenting, the heals are nothing close to the Necromancers lifesteal though.Necro Dagger is faster and lifesteals on hit as well as the big skill 2 heal, plus Revenant doesn't have 5-12 minions feeding it lifesteal either. Yeah but did you try Mallyx's AoE skill + the torment on chill trait? you apply torment ( in an AoE) really fast I will have to check to be sure but I think so.I don't use my Revenant all that much tbh but It is built to maximize torment so I probably do use it considering each traitline is kind of defined to a legend and I do use Mallyx.Regarding the whole lifesteal thing, The existence of the rune of tormenting states lifesteal needs work, as lifesteal is on the following: Necromancer, Thief, Revenant.Torment is on the following: Warrior, Revenant, Thief, Mesmer, Necromancer. This means that the Rune of Tormenting for Condition-centric builds is much better than lifesteal as in this list, professions like revenant get a TON of torment. On the flip side, Lifesteal is NOT good for Crit-centric builds because it CANNOT CRIT, so it is Lacklustre in both condition and crit, which having a replacement in condition. The only professions that should have Lifesteal as a central point are Necromancer and Revenants, these do as a "central" idea, however due to the lack of any real benefit to taking lifesteal over some other trait ( e.g. taking lifesteal wells over Transfusion, or taking Assassin's Annihilation over Swift Termination), If lifesteal was an entire mechanic that could be built around, like torment for revenants etc, then I feel that it'd be in a much better place.

one main issue I have is: Things seem to basically "require" other things to even function normally, lifesteal as it is now, is more "50-100 healing a hit" which is Almost nothing when you consider necromancers have 20-30,000 health and very low armour, so healing already has a lower "effect" on necromancers as Healing benefits from toughness over vitality. the build you mention I assume is a Blood magic and Death magic thing, but as death magic outside of some general use PvE builds is REALLY bad it doesn't really mean much if you're "unkillable" when you do very low damage, Minions don't benefit from your power etc at all and for you to get any noticeable healing from it you need healing power or to hit lots of things fast: reworking lifesteal would mean reworking traits too, so the "unkillable" build wouldn't be unkillable since it'd be tweaked from a balance standpoint, although having said that necromancers need something they excel in because they have nothing atm, Healing is druid, condition is Mirage, tankinees is spellbreaker, Power is basically anything. Blood, Death, Reaper yes, used to use Soul Reaping pre HoT.Designed largely around maximizing minions and heal sustain.. it's very hard to kill in PvE and prior to minion changes and the addition of Elite specs it was really hard to kill in PvP too pre HoT.I don't actually use Healing power (except the 150 I get from Last rites).. I use Soldier stats so my damage isn't as terrible as you might expect neither is the incoming healing.In many fights I can maintain around 10-11 minions sometimes 12 depending on what i'm running and how many enemies are around and that does add up both in damage and in incoming life steal.Sure I'm not going to win any DPS awards or anything but it's good enough to go toe to toe with just about anything solo. Adding to that I have access to regen on dodge (Lesser Mark of Blood) and protection when leaving shroud (Beyond the Veil)Sometimes I use Death Nova for more minions = more lifesteal + more damage and tons of poisonfields when they die :D or Corrupter's Fervor for more toughness.I get more toughness per minion with Flesh of the Master amd More damage from minions and they take conditions with Necromantic Corruption.Minion and Player Lifesteal with Vampiric and Vampiric Pressence as well as stopping ally bleedout and being able to pull rez them in shroud. Then in Reaper line I have lifesteal on shout + reduced cooldown for Rise per target, 15% damage increase to chilled foes which is easy to exploit with focus 5, Reaper Shroud and GS auto and lastly I get 300 ferocity and quickness while in shroud which goes really nicely with Decimate Defences 2% crit chance per stack of Vulnerability on foes allowing me to get 50% crit chance without needing any precision stat in the build at all.I can get more ferocity and power from food etc too if I want extra damage as well as more crits from Superior Sigil of Preception(25 stacks combined with 25 stacks of Vulnerability = 66.90% Crit chance without a single investment in precision) Contributing to the healing factor as well I have constant health regen from Superior Rune of the Dolyak and I AoE heal on crits with Superior Sigil of Water. So as you can see I have a lot of constant incoming healing from multiple sources mostly life steal from on average 10ish minions. (can also get more from food)Likewise multiple pockets of damage being done by myself, minions and poison fields caused by their death which are numerous thanks to timegated minions I get when I kill stuff and the minions summoned with Rise.I can get almost 70% crit chance without precision (which is ridiculous)My stats bounce around 2,382 Power + 2,340-2,500 Toughness depending on how many minions I have (2660 in shroud) which gives me a max Armor rating of 3,307- 3,500 (3600+ in shroud) Not so "very low" after all is it :PCombine that with 29,812 base Hp (30K + with food) and 20,571 Life force and you can see what I mean when I say lifesteal is already capable of making you nearly unkillable as it is without needing to completely sacrifice your damage. Functions great as a solo build and benefits from a moderate damage buff when playing with others thanks to 25 vulnerability and perma chill being extremely easy to maintan with a small group.Dagger 2 even functions as a main healing skill thanks to it's bigger heal and 6 second shorter cooldown than sacrificing the Blood Fiend. I highly recommend giving it a try sometime if you like the power tank playstyle, more than happy to give you the exact build I use, all traits, gear etc.It's never going to be best DPS meta or anything but it's still very capable, definitely the kind of build you use to help people out when they get in over their heads which is a fun pastime for me.Oh yeah the Shroud skill 4 does AoE healing too, I've managed to get upwards of 6K AoE healing on it in some situations (around 4-5K normally) which is a nice boon for fractals and stuff, I've saved a lot of people with this build over the years not to mention being the main reason my fractal pug group hasn't wiped multiple times in the same encounter ^^ It is very low since you're ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability. I'm not though.As I said it's main stat is power not toughness and despite no stat investment I can still hit 70% crit chance quite often.That's why I call it a Power Tank not just a Tank. You'll just have to try it yourself to understand, it's by far the best build I've used that you could call a highly proficient Jack of all trades.It could be more tanky, it could be more dps focused, could be more healing focused but it sits nicely in the middle being respectably competent at all 3.I've attempted to make similar builds on other classes but they simply cannot replicate the same level of tankyness while possessing the same level of damage output and sustain, that's mainly where the minions and lifesteal come in and Necro is the only class that can use summons to that effect.There are ways to make other classes play Jack of all trade playstyles but they cannot compete with the Necromancer on that front.. not even remotely close. Two of your stats are defensive, meaning the MAJORITY of you stats are defensive. that makes it Defensive. Defensive yes but that's not what you said.You said i'm "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability." and that's not true. I may only be using 3 defined stats on my gear.. Power(Main), Toughness and Vitality but my traits and skills give me the ability to function as a character that's utalizing 4 different stats at high investment, therefore i'm not entirely specced for toughness/survivability.The 69.90% Crit chance I can get upto through the combination of my Sigil stacks and the enemies applied Vulnerability (which like I said is almost constantly 25 in any group based content) effectively means that my build can operate with more base crit chance than a character running a full set of Bezerker gear without me needing to put a single point into the precision stat on any of my weapons, trinkets or armour. My Ranger in full bezerker gear has 2,145 precision giving him a base total of 59,52% Crit chance.. that's 10.38% crit chance lower than what my Necromancer can get without any gear precision stat investment at all.Granted the Ranger can self apply Fury and Might and my Necro build can't but it can get that from allies easily and often.The difference comes down to Ferocity and that's the only real weak point of the build, high crit chance but low ferocity crit damage. It's still enough to make a noticable difference when I am operating at my peak though.High crit chance and raw power combined with high toughness and health.. and add to that a significant amount of constant incoming healing.No other class in Gw2 can function like that.. i've tried to replicate it in various ways on most classes but none of them can gain the same level of tank, damage and sustain at the same time.. Necro is the only class capable of it thanks to it's unique traits and skills. The way the build works essentially means I am more or less running the exclusively PVP Paladin stat set in PvE and WvW.Power, Precision Main - Toughness, Vitality minor..Only i'm doing it with higher stats than the Paladin stats can provide. Paladin Amulet + Superior Rune of Dolyak2050 Power2050 Precision (55.00% Crit chance, easily caps 100% crit chance with Vulnerability)1860 Toughness1660 Vitality (25,812 health, 17,811 Life Force) My PvE Build + Superior Rune of Dolyak2381 Power1000 base precision (5% crit chance) +250 Precision Sigil (19,90% Crit chance) + Decimate defences Vulnerability (69,90% Crit chance)2261 Toughness2061 Vitality (29,822 health, 20,578 life force) 2 Primary stats are defensive yes but with maxed sigil and Decimate Defenses taking advantage of 25 Vulnerability it technically remains as offensive as it is defensive since when my crit chance is at 69,90% i'm effectively functioning as if my precision stat is 2384 which is higher than my base toughness, vitality and power.Factor in additional Toughness from traits though my two main stats are typically Power and Toughness.. but when operating at my peak they are Toughness and Precision.So either way my two highest stats at any one time are one offensive and one defensive, so I cannot be as you said "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability" when the offensive capabilities of the build are equally present.If anything at best combining Power/Precision against Toughness/Vitality i'm technically more offenisve than defensive stat wise. did you try mirage, or revenant of any kind with a mace, with runes of tormenting? that heals as much as lifesteal and you proc it every hit Yep, I have a Hybrid Mace/Axe Renegade build with Sigil and Runes of tormenting, the heals are nothing close to the Necromancers lifesteal though.Necro Dagger is faster and lifesteals on hit as well as the big skill 2 heal, plus Revenant doesn't have 5-12 minions feeding it lifesteal either.Yeah but did you try Mallyx's AoE skill + the torment on chill trait? you apply torment ( in an AoE) really fast

one main issue I have is: Things seem to basically "require" other things to even function normally, lifesteal as it is now, is more "50-100 healing a hit" which is Almost nothing when you consider necromancers have 20-30,000 health and very low armour, so healing already has a lower "effect" on necromancers as Healing benefits from toughness over vitality. the build you mention I assume is a Blood magic and Death magic thing, but as death magic outside of some general use PvE builds is REALLY bad it doesn't really mean much if you're "unkillable" when you do very low damage, Minions don't benefit from your power etc at all and for you to get any noticeable healing from it you need healing power or to hit lots of things fast: reworking lifesteal would mean reworking traits too, so the "unkillable" build wouldn't be unkillable since it'd be tweaked from a balance standpoint, although having said that necromancers need something they excel in because they have nothing atm, Healing is druid, condition is Mirage, tankinees is spellbreaker, Power is basically anything. Blood, Death, Reaper yes, used to use Soul Reaping pre HoT.Designed largely around maximizing minions and heal sustain.. it's very hard to kill in PvE and prior to minion changes and the addition of Elite specs it was really hard to kill in PvP too pre HoT.I don't actually use Healing power (except the 150 I get from Last rites).. I use Soldier stats so my damage isn't as terrible as you might expect neither is the incoming healing.In many fights I can maintain around 10-11 minions sometimes 12 depending on what i'm running and how many enemies are around and that does add up both in damage and in incoming life steal.Sure I'm not going to win any DPS awards or anything but it's good enough to go toe to toe with just about anything solo. Adding to that I have access to regen on dodge (Lesser Mark of Blood) and protection when leaving shroud (Beyond the Veil)Sometimes I use Death Nova for more minions = more lifesteal + more damage and tons of poisonfields when they die :D or Corrupter's Fervor for more toughness.I get more toughness per minion with Flesh of the Master amd More damage from minions and they take conditions with Necromantic Corruption.Minion and Player Lifesteal with Vampiric and Vampiric Pressence as well as stopping ally bleedout and being able to pull rez them in shroud. Then in Reaper line I have lifesteal on shout + reduced cooldown for Rise per target, 15% damage increase to chilled foes which is easy to exploit with focus 5, Reaper Shroud and GS auto and lastly I get 300 ferocity and quickness while in shroud which goes really nicely with Decimate Defences 2% crit chance per stack of Vulnerability on foes allowing me to get 50% crit chance without needing any precision stat in the build at all.I can get more ferocity and power from food etc too if I want extra damage as well as more crits from Superior Sigil of Preception(25 stacks combined with 25 stacks of Vulnerability = 66.90% Crit chance without a single investment in precision) Contributing to the healing factor as well I have constant health regen from Superior Rune of the Dolyak and I AoE heal on crits with Superior Sigil of Water. So as you can see I have a lot of constant incoming healing from multiple sources mostly life steal from on average 10ish minions. (can also get more from food)Likewise multiple pockets of damage being done by myself, minions and poison fields caused by their death which are numerous thanks to timegated minions I get when I kill stuff and the minions summoned with Rise.I can get almost 70% crit chance without precision (which is ridiculous)My stats bounce around 2,382 Power + 2,340-2,500 Toughness depending on how many minions I have (2660 in shroud) which gives me a max Armor rating of 3,307- 3,500 (3600+ in shroud) Not so "very low" after all is it :PCombine that with 29,812 base Hp (30K + with food) and 20,571 Life force and you can see what I mean when I say lifesteal is already capable of making you nearly unkillable as it is without needing to completely sacrifice your damage. Functions great as a solo build and benefits from a moderate damage buff when playing with others thanks to 25 vulnerability and perma chill being extremely easy to maintan with a small group.Dagger 2 even functions as a main healing skill thanks to it's bigger heal and 6 second shorter cooldown than sacrificing the Blood Fiend. I highly recommend giving it a try sometime if you like the power tank playstyle, more than happy to give you the exact build I use, all traits, gear etc.It's never going to be best DPS meta or anything but it's still very capable, definitely the kind of build you use to help people out when they get in over their heads which is a fun pastime for me.Oh yeah the Shroud skill 4 does AoE healing too, I've managed to get upwards of 6K AoE healing on it in some situations (around 4-5K normally) which is a nice boon for fractals and stuff, I've saved a lot of people with this build over the years not to mention being the main reason my fractal pug group hasn't wiped multiple times in the same encounter ^^ It is very low since you're ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability. I'm not though.As I said it's main stat is power not toughness and despite no stat investment I can still hit 70% crit chance quite often.That's why I call it a Power Tank not just a Tank. You'll just have to try it yourself to understand, it's by far the best build I've used that you could call a highly proficient Jack of all trades.It could be more tanky, it could be more dps focused, could be more healing focused but it sits nicely in the middle being respectably competent at all 3.I've attempted to make similar builds on other classes but they simply cannot replicate the same level of tankyness while possessing the same level of damage output and sustain, that's mainly where the minions and lifesteal come in and Necro is the only class that can use summons to that effect.There are ways to make other classes play Jack of all trade playstyles but they cannot compete with the Necromancer on that front.. not even remotely close. Two of your stats are defensive, meaning the MAJORITY of you stats are defensive. that makes it Defensive. Defensive yes but that's not what you said.You said i'm "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability." and that's not true. I may only be using 3 defined stats on my gear.. Power(Main), Toughness and Vitality but my traits and skills give me the ability to function as a character that's utalizing 4 different stats at high investment, therefore i'm not entirely specced for toughness/survivability.The 69.90% Crit chance I can get upto through the combination of my Sigil stacks and the enemies applied Vulnerability (which like I said is almost constantly 25 in any group based content) effectively means that my build can operate with more base crit chance than a character running a full set of Bezerker gear without me needing to put a single point into the precision stat on any of my weapons, trinkets or armour. My Ranger in full bezerker gear has 2,145 precision giving him a base total of 59,52% Crit chance.. that's 10.38% crit chance lower than what my Necromancer can get without any gear precision stat investment at all.Granted the Ranger can self apply Fury and Might and my Necro build can't but it can get that from allies easily and often.The difference comes down to Ferocity and that's the only real weak point of the build, high crit chance but low ferocity crit damage. It's still enough to make a noticable difference when I am operating at my peak though.High crit chance and raw power combined with high toughness and health.. and add to that a significant amount of constant incoming healing.No other class in Gw2 can function like that.. i've tried to replicate it in various ways on most classes but none of them can gain the same level of tank, damage and sustain at the same time.. Necro is the only class capable of it thanks to it's unique traits and skills. The way the build works essentially means I am more or less running the exclusively PVP Paladin stat set in PvE and WvW.Power, Precision Main - Toughness, Vitality minor..Only i'm doing it with higher stats than the Paladin stats can provide. Paladin Amulet + Superior Rune of Dolyak2050 Power2050 Precision (55.00% Crit chance, easily caps 100% crit chance with Vulnerability)1860 Toughness1660 Vitality (25,812 health, 17,811 Life Force) My PvE Build + Superior Rune of Dolyak2381 Power1000 base precision (5% crit chance) +250 Precision Sigil (19,90% Crit chance) + Decimate defences Vulnerability (69,90% Crit chance)2261 Toughness2061 Vitality (29,822 health, 20,578 life force) 2 Primary stats are defensive yes but with maxed sigil and Decimate Defenses taking advantage of 25 Vulnerability it technically remains as offensive as it is defensive since when my crit chance is at 69,90% i'm effectively functioning as if my precision stat is 2384 which is higher than my base toughness, vitality and power.Factor in additional Toughness from traits though my two main stats are typically Power and Toughness.. but when operating at my peak they are Toughness and Precision.So either way my two highest stats at any one time are one offensive and one defensive, so I cannot be as you said "ENTIRELY specced for toughness/survivability" when the offensive capabilities of the build are equally present.If anything at best combining Power/Precision against Toughness/Vitality i'm technically more offenisve than defensive stat wise.did you try mirage, or revenant of any kind with a mace, with runes of tormenting? that heals as much as lifesteal and you proc it every hit