Game:

Guild Wars 2 (2012)

Duration: 7:15

837 views

3

Here's a short video showing the sustainability of Blood Magic. I've been wanting to stress test a power necro build with Spite, Soul Reaping, and Blood Magic. Today there was a TC omni blob in EBG so I tagged along with Commander Kalkz of KILL for a test drive. I have to be honest, I'm torn. I love the Death Magic build I've been running, but looking back at today's raid, it's amazing the amount of siphon heals you get during combat. Pay notice to all the green numbers that keep popping up. And while some numbers are small, watch my health replenish with siphon heals. Traits are displayed at the end of the video.

This was a stress test so I did go bold & deep, just to see if the build could take heat. And during couple hours of blobbing, I died once. It was when I was overloaded with condi. While Curses have Plague Sending, Death Magic have Shrouded Removal, Blood Magic relies more on Consume Conditions and weapon condi transfers. So when those are on cooldown, you could feel the heat a bit unless you have team support. Nothing worse than not able to get rid of the pesky chill/immob/cripple.

My gear isn't built for Blood Magic, I'm still wearing zerker + a few pieces of knights. Knights for the Death Magic's synergy with toughness (toughness to power conversion trait Deadly Strength). I suppose if I'm to keep going with this build, I would swap knights out with valkyrie. But I just want to mention my gear isn't optimized yet. Still using Fire/Air sigils on Staff, Fire/Bloodlust on Axe/Warhorn. And Strength Runes.

I don't take warhorn much these days, but since Banshee's Wail is in Blood Magic, I had to give it a try. I do miss warhorn, but I wouldn't use it without the trait. With the trait, it's worth using as you get near 100% swiftness uptime, you increase daze duration, as well as shorten weapon recharge. If you take Blood Magic, I highly recommend using warhorn with it. The reason I skipped Vampiric Presense is because there's a debate going on whether vampiric aura procs retaliation. Some say they do, some say they don't. I opt to just not use it for now so I don't get yelled at by commanders.

The overall feel of the build is pretty good. You get shortened recharge on Wells, your go-to big bombs in WvW. You get siphons to sustain you through fights and heal you from random aoe's and retals. I did lose power going with this build, and I lost the focus Reaper's Touch, which I have grown to like using as a small burst (focus 4 + axe 2). As well as boon strip combo of focus 5 + axe 3. But you have to lose some to gain some.

I think this build will satisfy most WvW commanders. Big bombs, good survivability, great sustain, and near 100% swiftness uptime. Give it a try it you like.

Music added to mask teamspeak chat during combat (random music from Youtube's free audio library)

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About my videos:

I make these videos for fun. I like to capture good fights, as well as give shoutouts to commanders that did well making the calls leading folks to victory. Sometimes I capture videos just so I can look back and improve upon my own build and technique. I also like to see my own mistakes so I can learn from them.

These are not videos made to showoff or brag. The way I play these characters are also by far not perfect at all. I play strictly WvW in group/zerg battles, so my builds are not ideal for sPvP, solo roaming, or PvE.

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