Tips on sustain Necromance

[angrax.1372]

Hi Folks.

 

I like to play high sustain classes so I can solo the game as much as possible. I have a very good mechanist build that can tank pretty well. I now created a Necro (currently reaper) using the Greatsword build from metabuild. It is great but not as survivable. I plan on experimenting on it so I can swap between high survivability and more DPS, but to try and reduce the costs with experimentation, can I ask you what build you recommend to make it a better sustain? I do not mind loosing DPS as long as I can survive and eventually kill whatever challenge I am facing.

 

I picked a bunch of barrier and leech skills from the blood tree and I am thinking into getting another set of gear (non zerker) to add runes of sanctuary to it. Is it viable? Or is there a better or quicker  approach (I will have to farm Honor of the Waves for that, which I can but takes time).

 

Note: I'd like tips for reaper as I want to try some power dps rather than condi for a change, but if you have other builds and other specs, feel free to chime in. I will eventually have the points to fill up all three specializations.

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited April 21, 2022 by angrax.1372

[Dadnir.5038]

First and foremost, what's your targeted gamemode? PvE, PvP or WvW?

[KrHome.1920]

Signet trait in Spite

Signet of Vampirism

Signet of Undeath

Spectral Armor

That's a good start into more sustain for the standard PvE DPS Reaper build without sacrificing too much damage - in fact the wells damage you lose you get back to some extent with your increased shroud uptime.

Side Note: just in case you are not aware of the mechanic: you cast Spectral Armor right before entering shroud. This and the Signet will greatly increase your shroud uptime. The 30s cooldown of Spectral Armor in PvE is absurdly low so you can use it almost every time you enter shroud. The high shroud uptime will also greatly lower the cooldown of your heal (which is also an active and passive leech in shroud).

Edited April 21, 2022 by KrHome.1920

[angrax.1372]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

First and foremost, what's your targeted gamemode? PvE, PvP or WvW?

Open world. Metas, champion hunting, solo fractals and solo dungeons.

 

For harder fractals or Strikes, I will go with a more specialized build.

[angrax.1372]

36 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Signet trait in Spite

 

Thank you very much. In this version, you go with Blood Magic for more leeching or do you keep Soul Reaping?

[Dadnir.5038]

There is:

- the "lazy path": Full minions + blood magic (any spec). There are many way to achieve good survivability from this point.

- The condi path: Harbinger + curse + death magic for perma prot/weakness and good amount of heal over time.

- The Bligther boon path: Reaper (obviously) + Aristocracy + spite + as much source of weakness and might

- The healing power path: Scourge + blood magic.

- ... etc.

 

Edit: To develop a bit:

- The "lazy path" rely on the Blood magic minor Vampiric which allow your minion to grant you health everytime they hit a foe. The disadvantage is that you need as many minions as possible. This pair well with death magic as the traitline can also make your minions more durable and death nova can even summon extra minions. Reaper will offer you "Rise!", Scourge will share barrier to your minions and Harbinger will grant them quickness (granted there is no players around you.

- The "condi path" focus on exploiting the high condition output of the harbinger to quickly raise carapace stacks through corruptor's fervor which will in return give you protection reliably. Add weakness which you can reliably apply with harbinger, the natural regeneration of the harbinger and the boon regen for a reliable sustain. (you can obviously push thing further but it's at your own discretion)

- The "Blighter Boon path" focus on this reaper trait that grant you health/LF everytime you grant yourself a boon. The Aristocracy runeset is a good way to push this kind of sustain and the bonus is that you apply weakness on top of that all while getting a nice amount of might. (Corrosive poison cloud is a very nice tool added to such build)

- Pushing healing power on Scourge is the best way to take advantage of it's barriers. You might want to pair that with Blood magic and especially the GM Blood bank.

- Blood Bank: You can also build and play heavily around this specific trait. If you chose to do that, a good strategy is to engage with a skill that will heal you in order to build Barrier as a buffer. The gameplay is peculiar as you don't want to let your health pool take damage so you need to manage barrier as much as possible. Main hand dagger and signet of the Locust are amongst your best tool in this kind of gameplay.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[angrax.1372]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

There is:

- the "lazy path": Full minions + blood magic (any spec). There are many way to achieve good survivability from this point.

- The condi path: Harbinger + curse + death magic for perma prot/weakness and good amount of heal over time.

- The Bligther boon path: Reaper (obviously) + Aristocracy + spite + as much source of weakness and might

- The healing power path: Scourge + blood magic.

- ... etc.

 

 

TYVM for the details and time. I will try some stuff up.

 

I think I will still stick to reaper as I liked the direct damage game play as a break from condi builds I have been playing since forever.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

16 hours ago, angrax.1372 said:

I like to play high sustain classes so I can solo the game as much as possible. I have a very good mechanist build that can tank pretty well. I now created a Necro (currently reaper) using the Greatsword build from metabuild. It is great but not as survivable. I plan on experimenting on it so I can swap between high survivability and more DPS, but to try and reduce the costs with experimentation, can I ask you what build you recommend to make it a better sustain? I do not mind loosing DPS as long as I can survive and eventually kill whatever challenge I am facing.

So what I’m going to link takes a bit of farming, but I really value self boon builds. You sacrifice a bit of stat damage for high uptime in offensive and defensive boons and it usually tends to beat out the raw stat builds when you’re solo. However that’s personally how I like to make my open world builds, others may value different play styles.

 

Open World Boon Reaper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSyEcEWoMBmCzj1wKxx25t1B-zRJYwRHfZEWKEYFo2lQMVgUPk/aCxZE-e

It’s a reaper build with 25 might, perma fury, quickness, swiftness, protection, and insane stability uptime. It also reaches 100% crit chance with 18 vuln stacks (very easy to do) and crazy condi cleanse. It also has great toughness for a power build and insane power stats. Fully self buffed and it’s 3750 power. All while having decent healing through blighters boon.

If you have any questions about how it plays, just message me or ask

 

(P.S. If you don't want to use that ascended food, at least use 'Fried Golden Dumplings', the might generation from it is huge.)

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by UncreativeGreen.2019

[angrax.1372]

7 hours ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

 

 

Open World Boon Reaper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSyEcEWoMBmCzj1wKxx25t1B-zRJYwRHfZEWKEYFo2lQMVgUPk/aCxZE-e

 

 

Thanks. I will try it. i got my DPS to acceptable stats (around 25k constant) with exotic gear. I think I can push it further once I have full ascended armor and replace trinkets by zerker ones.

 

On another note: is there a convenient list with all boon removal/conversion available to the reaper? I remember a video talking about it but now that I looked at my current build, there is no trait or skill that does it and I can no longer find what the appropriate trait or skill for the build was.

[angrax.1372]

8 hours ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

 

 

Open World Boon Reaper

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSyEcEWoMBmCzj1wKxx25t1B-zRJYwRHfZEWKEYFo2lQMVgUPk/aCxZE-e

 

 

BTW, I took a closer look at the build. Toughness is one of those things I never see people talking much about. It is good to see it come about. I am obsessed with Rune of Sanctuary and making it work. I wonder if replacing Spite by blood magic and add the Rune of Sanctuary would severely weaken the dps to the point the build is no longer viable.

Edited April 22, 2022 by angrax.1372

[Asum.4960]

55 minutes ago, angrax.1372 said:

BTW, I took a closer look at the build. Toughness is one of those things I never see people talking much about. It is good to see it come about. I am obsessed with Rune of Sanctuary and making it work. I wonder if replacing Spite by blood magic and add the Rune of Sanctuary would severely weaken the dps to the point the build is no longer viable.

In the linked build, Spite is responsible for both Might and Vulnerability (which aside from being a +25% damage mod, in this build on top of that contributes 50% Crit Chance through Decimate Defenses), as well as Fury and some Quickness uptime. Replacing it with Blood would probably cut the builds damage by more than half - while also reducing sustain through taking out most Boon generation in Shroud that's feeding Blighter's Boon.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, angrax.1372 said:

Toughness is one of those things I never see people talking much about.

Toughness is a stat that's generally avoided in PvE. It tend to draw the aggro to your character which mean you take more damage and thus need more sustain.

[taara.3217]

21 hours ago, angrax.1372 said:

I think I will still stick to reaper as I liked the direct damage game play as a break from condi builds I have been playing since forever.

 

23 hours ago, angrax.1372 said:

champion hunting, solo fractals and solo dungeons.

Understand you - have Power DPS Reaper and Scrapper for fun.

But neither is suitable for champion hunting (think, the same with fractals and dungeons).

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

5 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

In the linked build, Spite is responsible for both Might and Vulnerability (which aside from being a +25% damage mod, in this build on top of that contributes 50% Crit Chance through Decimate Defenses), as well as Fury and some Quickness uptime. Replacing it with Blood would probably cut the builds damage by more than half - while also reducing sustain through taking out most Boon generation in Shroud that's feeding Blighter's Boon.

Yeah, out of the lines, death magic is actually the extra one. Spite carries all the boons and most of the build’s utility to fuel the rest. If it was replaced with blood magic it would in fact make blighters boon obsolete. And I don’t know how many people use that quickness/fury trait in Spite. It’s hilariously broken when churning through mobs. Every 2 mobs (that count as kills, aka give exp) resets reaper shroud 3 for more and more stability, fury, and quickness. Pair that with the quickness autos that generate 2 might with a chance at a 3rd. You get quite a bit of sustain. Also Spite fuels decimate defenses and death magic carapace. Every chill procs vuln (we stack chill on utilities and rotate them with reaper 5) and it generates 4 stacks per chill to help be above the threshold on protection. Otherwise on a power build, it can be quite difficult to make death magic work.   

[angrax.1372]

Thanks. If solo sustain hunting means condi, it is what it is. I am happy switching when the need arises.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

1 hour ago, angrax.1372 said:

 

Thanks. If solo sustain hunting means condi, it is what it is. I am happy switching when the need arises.

 

That boon power reaper build I posted is easily capable of soloing champions and hero points and such. It’ll just fall off when soloing group meta events and legendary bounties. If you find power reaper more fun, try it out. 
 

people tend to just run raid builds that are meta with all the damage modifiers and no sustain into open world and then say that stuff isn’t possible. It requires tweaking and changing the mindset. Meta is no longer meta when you take an individual out of the group effort.

Edited April 22, 2022 by UncreativeGreen.2019

[Asum.4960]

8 hours ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Yeah, out of the lines, death magic is actually the extra one. Spite carries all the boons and most of the build’s utility to fuel the rest. If it was replaced with blood magic it would in fact make blighters boon obsolete. And I don’t know how many people use that quickness/fury trait in Spite. It’s hilariously broken when churning through mobs. Every 2 mobs (that count as kills, aka give exp) resets reaper shroud 3 for more and more stability, fury, and quickness. Pair that with the quickness autos that generate 2 might with a chance at a 3rd. You get quite a bit of sustain. Also Spite fuels decimate defenses and death magic carapace. Every chill procs vuln (we stack chill on utilities and rotate them with reaper 5) and it generates 4 stacks per chill to help be above the threshold on protection. Otherwise on a power build, it can be quite difficult to make death magic work.   

Dread is fantastic, not even just for solo Power Reaper (where it's especially fun due to the mentioned Stab spam), but even for solo Cele condi Scourge - Might from Reaper's Might, Vuln from Bitter Chill and Well of Darkness, Signet's of Suffering with Vampirism for extra sustain and Undeath for more Damage, Barrier, Cleanse and CC through Fx spam via more LF, as well as Quickness and Fury through Dread well outperforms Soul Reaping with Viper's or Trailblazer for solo Scourge builds. 

 

Unfortunately Harbinger didn't get any Fear on Shroud for some reason, missing out on all that core Trait interactions - aside from that Dread/Spite is a solo play power house on any spec, Power or Condi.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Maultrace.5761]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSzEs8NssBGITjxxIxi5q6VC-zRJYkRLfh0SIkbC0RB49FIcNwD-e

No matter what i tried, i eventually returned to this, it's just too good for solo champs. reaper either can't outlive the damage, or just don't have enough cd's to do enough damage to survive, harb is second best, cause he gets regen from blight stacks and can benefit from parasitic contagion, but halfing health by blight is ouch... so in the end you get a tank that does 20k dps and sustains itself by standing still (most of the time), had to use this build when my hand was busted, basically can be played with mouse alone.

If you find something better, let us know.

And yes, this build is old as dust, but even despite the nerf, it still manages to work...

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

 

Unfortunately Harbinger didn't get any Fear on Shroud for some reason - aside from that Spite is a solo play power house on any spec, Power or Condi.

Oh yeah, that made me sad. I was hoping there was going to be an alteration to that GM trait to include daze or just reword it to shroud skill 3 or something. Granted Harb still gets quickness spam, but it would have opened doors to build diversity. 

[Asum.4960]

20 minutes ago, Maultrace.5761 said:

If you find something better, let us know.

I still think this is one of the strongest, if not since the Rev nerfs the strongest, solo builds in the game. 

 

Vuln is a bit spotty with just Bitter Chill, but you get 25 Might, perma Fury and ~50% Quickness uptime (as well as being able to take Lingering Curse), resulting in between 15-20k DPS solo self buffed with even after Tormenting Rune nerfs still fairly substantial sustain via Vampirism, Regen and spamming out Barriers and Condi to Boon conversion through Shade Skills (fairly comfortably outsustaining raw 1000 incoming damage per second, much of which as Barrier going through Poison and especially Agony for Fractal soloing). 

 

But yea, for soloing I'd say Scourge > Harbinger > Reaper > Core as of now. 

Reaper is just too far behind in both Damage and sustain, while simultaniously struggling more as Power and Melee spec with kiting, as well as for Fractal soloing especially really falling behind through Weakness and Prot prevalence.

[angrax.1372]

22 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Toughness is a stat that's generally avoided in PvE. It tend to draw the aggro to your character which mean you take more damage and thus need more sustain.

I missed this comment :). Well, this is for a solo build so I guess I don't have much of a choice on pulling aggro :P.

 

Now, is toughness really used by GW2 AI mechanics to decide which one to attack? I actually never saw any studies about this in GW2, as opposed to WoW in which it was highly scrutinized and part of the success strategy of boss encounters.

Edited April 23, 2022 by angrax.1372

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, angrax.1372 said:

I missed this comment :). Well, this is for a solo build so I guess I don't have much of a choice on pulling aggro :P.

 

Now, is toughness really used by GW2 AI mechanics to decide which one to attack? I actually never saw any studies about this in GW2, as opposed to WoW in which it was highly scrutinized and part of the success strategy of boss encounters.

No no, it's very true.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toughness

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

 

[Asum.4960]

11 hours ago, angrax.1372 said:

I missed this comment :). Well, this is for a solo build so I guess I don't have much of a choice on pulling aggro :P.

 

Now, is toughness really used by GW2 AI mechanics to decide which one to attack? I actually never saw any studies about this in GW2, as opposed to WoW in which it was highly scrutinized and part of the success strategy of boss encounters.

Toughness tanking per se is mostly a Raid mechanic on certain bosses. Overall there is no consistent tanking mechanic in GW2 though and there are various methods used, everything from a Fixation mechanic - either randomly or selected, closest target, furthest target, highest toughness, first to hit, pure random, or even most damage per second sometimes determines aggro. 

 

The "avoid Toughness in PvE" really just applies for Raid builds, if playing Toughness tanking encounters, if playing with low Toughness tanks.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Asum.4960

[KrHome.1920]

Toughness alone does not grant you aggro, it's the mechanic "threat" that does. And this does make sense. For example:

A high toughness / low dps player (bunker) is not a big threat (just a punching bag).

A zero toughness / high dps player (glass canon) is also not a big threat (can be oneshot by the A.I.).

So the highest threat will generate a build with a superior mix of armor and dps. In WvW you can easily pull the aggro of lords, when running a celestial dps build. 🤪

Edited April 27, 2022 by KrHome.1920

[Rhingeim.3974]

Harbringer + full minions + Lich rune set+ death magic + blood magic allows pretty much face tank everything. A lot of incoming health, free summons gives carapace... My go to for any new content. So far it died only once due to one-shot mechanic when I went afk...