Celestial on Necro in fractals and raids worth it?

[Imba.9451]

To be honest, I just like tinkering around with different ideas and how to apply changes to current builds.

The heal-necro has proven to be a beneficial addition to team comps as a reset-button if someone messes up. However, it does not provide that many boons and most of it's heal comes in form of barriers, wich are pretty strong in their own way, but to me, I always had a problem with dedicating a necro to "only" keeping up barriers and revives, despite knowing how strong it is.

With the new celestial stats and the change to torment, I thought you might be able to combine the best of 2 worlds - decent condition damage and the afromentioned support capabilities.

Could this allow for some new, interesting build or do you think this would cause Necro to underdeliver in both areas?

Edited May 21, 2021 by Imba.9451

[QuirkyDM.2351]

I don't know. Scourge doesn't need power that badly, except maybe precision for crits. It seems to me you'll likely do more damage and heal more using Plague Doctor or Seraph than using Celestial. (no numbers for backup here)

 

But does Scourge really provide much in the way of boons? Outside of Might, it seems like there's not much, and might is easy for every class to generate.

 

Still, I'd like to see Celestial do something fun. I've thought about hybrid Reaper, but it doesn't look to stack up very well.

[Anchoku.8142]

Celestial equipment contains toughness. For this reason alone I recommend against using it on raids.

 

As you suggested, Scourge may not need a full heal/barrier build to provide adequate support. A reduced amount of barrier with increased dps can work fine. Change out some equipment and review your traits for a more aggressive build. Condition damage was increased with the last patch so review the patch notes for affected skills and traits.

[Obtena.7952]

I don't see how celestial can possibly be optimal or even good in most PVE situations. It has lots of stats you won't benefit from being given at the expense of stats that you can benefit from. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Support Scourge doesn't benefit from power/ferocity, at least not with the sacrifice of condition damage; it doesn't really need boon duration either; you only share mights and regen.

The low level of condition damage/precision without or with only Curse won't really help either for DPS.

So actually you're just a support scourge but more tanky with less healing, less condition damage.

 

Celestial could be interesting, in Pve, for few niches builds; like a carrying FB, or tempest, but if you want to optimise your build, your group you'll find a better set of stats.

 

[jpsssss.7530]

Celestial is more of a WvW Stat prefix.

[Infusion.7149]

No , even in WvW celestial was only run for trinkets.
You really don't need or want the toughness in fractals due to potions, you're better off with full viper or plaguedoctor's. In raids because you want maximum DPS unless running heal scourge and tanking is sometimes based off toughness it is also a bad idea there unless you want to tank.

[Asum.4960]

19 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

To be honest, I just like tinkering around with different ideas and how to apply changes to current builds.

The heal-necro has proven to be a beneficial addition to team comps as a reset-button if someone messes up. However, it does not provide that many boons and most of it's heal comes in form of barriers, wich are pretty strong in their own way, but to me, I always had a problem with dedicating a necro to "only" keeping up barriers and revives, despite knowing how strong it is.

With the new celestial stats and the change to torment, I thought you might be able to combine the best of 2 worlds - decent condition damage and the afromentioned support capabilities.

Could this allow for some new, interesting build or do you think this would cause Necro to underdeliver in both areas?

If you want a hSC that still does decent DPS, I'd go with Shaman's or Plaguedoctor and Tormenting Runes and Sigil (with Scepter ofc).

Carries pretty much just as hard but can still squeeze out ~15k DPS. 

I wouldn't really invest into Concentration on Scourge. Same goes for Power, Ferocity, much Precision (without Curses) and especially for group content, Toughness.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Excursion.9752]

No its not worth it. Maybe if you run with friends. But Most pug groups want you to min max your build for which raid boss your fighting.

 

Fractals it depends on your group as well. It seems like these days people have fallen into the "meta comp group" so necro is typically frowned upon as a dps class since you don't provide much in giving boon support and generally low dps comparing to other classes. The group could have the worst alac and quick in the world and be critical of you just because...

 

 

[Sarrs.4831]

Nah, I looked into this before. It doesn't turn up better than any of the current statspreads for raw damage.

Celestial pieces might be okay if you are overcapped on condition duration or boon duration as a healer/boon support who is willing to trade a little healing power for a little damage, but that's a really weird set of conditions under which the statspread is viable and I honestly don't expect it to happen. Maybe the EoD espec will like it.

It's good for casual open world, though, especially with Spite since it will make your Might stacks last longer and thus translate directly into more Power and Condi Damage.

Very good for WvW as well. The broad statspread gets better with more sources of allstats, and Bloodlust is no.1 source of allstats.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Sarrs.4831

[Firebeard.1746]

There's a video of a meme necro clear where it's all necros on Dhuum and VG. I think it's a German guild that does it. It just shows how fungible raids really are, even though the community as a whole gravitates towards a particular meta. Is it possible? Maybe. The hardest part is probably finding 9 other willing people who will tinker with you.

Is it worth it? Maybe not. That said, the memers could have been using the appropriate raw stats (they had reapers, I imagine running full zerkers). Enrage timers are a thing and there's very few builds that scale well off of condi and power. I've been experimenting on a greiving set for reaper using bleed and chill. While i can get tons of bleed, it just doesn't mean much because there's just not enough traits that overlap between the two damage types. Same goes for runes and sigils.

[Nimon.7840]

On toughness tank bosses, you don't want to have toughness as a heal scourge.

Yes you rezz really fast, but it's usually a bad idea, to pull downed allies into the bosses cleave.

Unless you play with another tank with more toughness, I don't think it's good.

 

Condi scourges power dmg is usually around 10% of your overall damage. It's not really worth investing into power and ferocity.  + You don't give any meaningful amount of boons as scourge so concentration is kinda wasted as well.

 

Yes power scourge is meta for wvw, but for different reasons.

 

Overall cele might be decent on some classes (firebrand, tempest - both of these classes make better use of the power stats than scourge), if you have a very specific role, or if the encounter has very specific "conditions":

- you need a toughness tank (or it doesn't matter, if you have toughness)

- you want to heal.

- you want to deal decent damage as well.

-the incoming dmg isn't that high.

 

Some bosses might come to mind. For example Keep Construct.

 

 

 

 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I've change my judgement. I've done some runs on my pve account with different sets, mostly fractals (No CM) and some Cairn, boneskinner...

It's not thaaaaaaat bad, but it really depends of your objectives; your runes, sigils and traits.

If you want to challenge the "tourment healscourge" on the DPS; with runes of tourment or whatever, scourge 1-1-2 (or 1-3-2); plaguedoctor will tick way higher (10-12k average) than celestial with the exact same amount of healing power, concentration. You mostly feel the difference on exposed/burst.

If you want the "basic healscourge"  BUT with spite and scepter, and you wanna keep Sand Savant, runes of flock, sigil of water,  healing food, etc, may be even a dagger/x on swap,  celestial is a pretty good option. With the precision bonus from Spite and the power/precision/ferocity/expertise from celestial you easily compensate for the lost of condition damage, and even more.
DPS is still a bit low but it's a good compromise if you want to adapt easily and switch between Soul Reaping and Spite.

 

One  issue with  celestial : take the aggro ... and try to tp/rez people in the same time. 👍

Edited October 4, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508