Necro talk

[Xanthippe]

I saw a nice post somewhere in this subforum for a necro build, but now I cannot find it, so I thought I'd start a new topic. Can anyone point me in the right direction? It referenced this build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNBIhZakRrSvYzdjhTBIp4ZehUsrtRKIeYqCuD;TgAg0CnoqxUjoGbNuak1A

[Xanthippe]

My necro is 40 now, and I put 20 (trait) points into Curses. Wondering what to put the other 20 into.



10 into Blood Magic (vitality/healing) and Soul Reaping(critical damage/life force)? Or would Death Magic (toughness/boon duration) be better for Blood Magic?

[Lantyssa]

I go full Curses and Blood, with the remainder into Death Magic.  I want to do higher Death Magic, but pets just aren't up to snuff right now.  I focus heavily on Wells though.  My second set often changes between dagger/focus and staff.  Staff is more likely in WvW.

My traits, skills, and runes.

[Xanthippe]

Thank you - that is very helpful.

I started a mesmer (necro is 42, ele is 32). Oh wow, how fun! Especially after playing squishy elementalist. I'm having a little trouble with a good leveling build (mostly because I want to blow shit up fast, and I'm overestimating how fast I can blow shit up at 30).

I am bouncing between all 3 of these characters - I like them all for different reasons.

[Draegan]

I played up a Necro some.  The only real powerful build to run with is a Conditionmancer.  I mean you can play with pets and a power build, but condition damage is the way to go.

Run with Blood is Power and Epidemic.  Then bleed on crits, condition duration, then the buffs from when you enter DS.  The best thing to do is buy Malign then Ravaging gear as you level  Make sure you apply Minor Sigils of Agony and Earth as well.  Don't forget to spend some coppers on Minor Runes too for your gear.  They have pretty big stat boosts that really help in the first 40 or so levels.

Search for conditionmancer over at gw2guru and you should find a few different decent guides.

[Lantyssa]

I started a mesmer (necro is 42, ele is 32). Oh wow, how fun! Especially after playing squishy elementalist. I'm having a little trouble with a good leveling build (mostly because I want to blow shit up fast, and I'm overestimating how fast I can blow shit up at 30).

Mesmers are a little rough on damage output at first.  Even later it's not the highest of all my characters, but I'm damn near impossible to kill.

Unless I'm fighting Orrians.  Bastards ignore most of my illusions.

[Reborne]

I want to do higher Death Magic, but pets just aren't up to snuff right now.

I'm glad I'm not the only person that found this.
I was really disappointed with the on kill minion spawns, mainly because I was so excited to see that I could make more minions by killing things, only to find out that they don't last long enough to actually be of any use.

I've pretty much stopped playing my minionmancer because the feel of it is all off.

[Lantyssa]

And the only minion that is up to snuff aggros on stuff 2400 feet away.  Supposedly they were going to let necro minions regenerate, but only the golem does.  I think that change alone would get me playing a minion master again.

[murdoc]

I go full Curses and Blood, with the remainder into Death Magic.  I want to do higher Death Magic, but pets just aren't up to snuff right now.  I focus heavily on Wells though.  My second set often changes between dagger/focus and staff.  Staff is more likely in WvW.

My traits, skills, and runes.

How come you go focus instead of warhorn? I have a baby necro that I have been running dagger/warhorn and staff and am thinking of trying your spec with it.

[Lantyssa]

I don't like the look of warhorns, and I don't care for the skills.  Totally down to personal taste.

Keep in mind my Sylvari Necro is wielding a Wooden Wand skin (the sparkle and ribbon make it) paired with a Flower focus.  I may not be a unique snowflake, but I am a pretty special one...

[Draegan]

I've been messing around with a tankish build.  Gear for Power/Tough/Healing though I'd prefer Power/Tough/Vit.  There are several builds that are posted on other forums if you search for them.

Anyway it's generally using Marks and Wells and using DS to heal other people.  Along with Dagger/X to do some damage.  It's somewhat effective in WvW.  Here's one good thread on it:  http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/79535-quentas-front-line-support-necro-build/

[murdoc]

I don't like the look of warhorns, and I don't care for the skills.  Totally down to personal taste.

Keep in mind my Sylvari Necro is wielding a Wooden Wand skin (the sparkle and ribbon make it) paired with a Flower focus.  I may not be a unique snowflake, but I am a pretty special one...

Perfect - I was hoping it was more asthetics than anything as I prefer the warhorn abilities and was hoping there wasn't something spec specific you needed the focus for.

[Fraeg]

I run with this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQRBIhdG2IjWlemmyG/eCA6xu46cUhjpeUe6oD;

sometimes i use Pain inverter as well.  Asura racial that gives 5 seconds of retaliation

Stats:

2,261 power with 3,201 attack power
44% base crit chance which i boost with sigils and food to 61%
Crit damage is +57
1,486 toughness with 2,406 armor
and a little over 20k hitpoints

run with superior sharpening stones and omnomberry pie
I have Precision stacking sigil on 1 dagger and 1 warhorn, so I only have to kill 13 mobs to get 25 stacks of precision, then swap to my other dagger/warhorn set which have:

+5% crit on dagger
superior sigil of rage (quickness 3 seconds) warhorn.  undecided on this one, put it on last night, thief and ranger friends love it, and it is very cheap, normally i have sigil of air for random 1k+ proc.

second set is axe/focus, same sigils as dagger and warhorn.

Axe gets a very bad rap, but the debuffs you have with the axe/focus are great, so I generally lead into a fight with axes then drop to daggers.   When I get the drop on people with my wells and debuffs I can melt them pretty well.

I did the staff/scepter/or dagger condition thing at release.  and while conditionmancers are great.  I really enjoy playing a power necro.  I can dish out decent damage and take a pretty big beating.

IMO something that gets overlooked that is simply game changing is:  Near Death (drops Death Shroud down to a 5 second cooldown), being able to go into DS every 5 seconds with the 15% DS skill cooldown reduction and extended fear duration is simply amazing.

I use rune of dolyak on all my armor, not cheap, but damn it is good.   the regen plus the omnomberry pie means I have a steady stream of incoming health (not a huge amount, but it is nonstop while in combat because I am critthing all the time).

  anyways, I am just throwing this out there, it works for me, for the WvW necros, I am interested in your take on my build, criticism, skills I might be overlooking and all that.   One thing that appeals to me about the necro is that there is no one way to build them, there are several very viable ways to play/build them.

cheers

[Draegan]

I played something like that a while ago but I didn't like it because the damage wasn't really there for me, but I didn't really focus on fear.

I'm running around with this build as a support/tank necro:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNBHhZakRrSPTTZjfPBI94ZsveSR3jDpYXdB

My gear is not appropriate but I'm running Clerics, but I am going for straight PVT.  Pretty beefy in the survivability world.

[Fraeg]

the fear helps a lot, but yeah the damage is  , I do pretty good in small scale stuff, have a ranger buddy that I duo with, sometimes we have a thief or mesmer... but yeah no OMFG dps.

I dunno,  I have other classes but I just can't be bothered to grind something else to 80.  I would enjoy tinkering with a thief/mesmer/engineer

checked out your build, how well do you do against burst builds?

[Draegan]

My experience is with WvW but very well.  It's incredibly difficult to die.  I can survive a Thief burst pretty easily.  With full Clerics and Crests of the Soldier I have around 22k hps.  If I ever get my set of PVT (Invaders) or whatever dungeon gear there is that I'll never get because fuck grinding for tokens, I could hit around 29k or so.

If I wanted, I could spend a few gold on rare soldier trinkets for more hps.

[Fraeg]

been running my build long enough that it is time to try something new.  Gonna give something similar to what you are doing a whirl for this next matchup.  Will be the third week in a row with the exact same server mathup   (AR/NSP/BP)   need something to freshen things.

[satael]

My experience is with WvW but very well.  It's incredibly difficult to die.  I can survive a Thief burst pretty easily.  With full Clerics and Crests of the Soldier I have around 22k hps.  If I ever get my set of PVT (Invaders) or whatever dungeon gear there is that I'll never get because fuck grinding for tokens, I could hit around 29k or so.

If I wanted, I could spend a few gold on rare soldier trinkets for more hps.

You can buy PVT gear with karma from Orr (42k/piece) including exotic jewellery now. 22k hp isn't that much (I have that on my thief) and if a (pure glasscannon) thief manages to suprise you 1vs1 you'll be dead in no time (then again, those glasscannons will die in seconds when in larger group vs group combat)

[Brogarn]

Draegan, you ever thought of going 10 into Curses for Chilling Darkness since you use Plague? Heard it's a zerg killer.

[Der Helm]

You can buy PVT gear with karma from Orr (42k/piece) including exotic jewellery now.

Is there more than one Karma Vendor in or for this type of gear ? Last time I went there, there I saw only one guy and he sold armor with really strange bonuses that did not look like they would be of much use.

[satael]

You can buy PVT gear with karma from Orr (42k/piece) including exotic jewellery now.

Is there more than one Karma Vendor in or for this type of gear ? Last time I went there, there I saw only one guy and he sold armor with really strange bonuses that did not look like they would be of much use.

Each of the temples there have a karma vendor that sells exotic gear.

[murdoc]

You can buy PVT gear with karma from Orr (42k/piece) including exotic jewellery now.

Is there more than one Karma Vendor in or for this type of gear ? Last time I went there, there I saw only one guy and he sold armor with really strange bonuses that did not look like they would be of much use.

http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/

[Draegan]

Draegan, you ever thought of going 10 into Curses for Chilling Darkness since you use Plague? Heard it's a zerg killer.

I actually use a new build now that is 20 Power, 20 Curses 20 Death Magic.  I'll post more on it later, but it uses blind -> chill, minion recahrge redux, minion ->poison cloud

I run D/D and D/Focus with Knigh gear now.  Superiror Sigils of Ice.  I blow of bone minions for burst damage and poison.  Run Well of Suffaring and a speed boost.  Kind of a neet build.

[Brogarn]

I actually use a new build now that is 20 Power, 20 Curses 20 Death Magic.  I'll post more on it later, but it uses blind -> chill, minion recahrge redux, minion ->poison cloud

I run D/D and D/Focus with Knigh gear now.  Superiror Sigils of Ice.  I blow of bone minions for burst damage and poison.  Run Well of Suffaring and a speed boost.  Kind of a neet build.

Build you found or build you came up with? Sounds interesting as hell and different from most of what I'm reading.

My Necro is 54 and I've so far been following the Conditionmancer guides out there. BiP > Epidemic is  for groups of enemies. Have yet to take him out to WvW though. Waiting on 65 for triple stat gear and to slot my Runes of the Undead. That's the other thing... I've been sticking with Conditionmancer because it's cheaper than power builds. Those runes were 6sp each. Although honestly, I'd probably do better mixing bleed stack runes, I couldn't pass up a full set with a bonus at that price.

[Draegan]

I made it up.  It's not that bad honestly.  Bone Minions act as bombs because you can't damage them as they are being summoned, and you can explode them during this time.  Oh it's 30 death magic.

Here's what I posted on my guild forum, I hope it makes sense:

I wrote the above over the course of a few days trying a few things.
 Here's the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRAoY4djQal6VaKb87JApHR/70QKyd3IFFfMA

You have 5 extra points in Curses that you really don't need.  The 2nd Major trait in Blood Magic isn't necessary, but you can switch to losing a condition on DS which is really helpful.  This is my WvW build.

You can modify it to support a staff if you're doing PVE dungeons or something.

[Draegan]

Oh, also a power D/D and Staff well build works for leveling if you get tired of conditionmaster.

[Brogarn]

I'm surprised you're using Well of Blood without Ritual Mastery. 40 seconds is a long time for a refresh on that.

Interesting though. I like that you're trying non-standard stuff. Especially using minions, even if it is just to blow them up. :D

[Draegan]

I'm surprised you're using Well of Blood without Ritual Mastery. 40 seconds is a long time for a refresh on that.

Interesting though. I like that you're trying non-standard stuff. Especially using minions, even if it is just to blow them up. :D

I use well of blood because it's team oriented.  If I'm soloing or in a dungeon I switch it up especially with condition heavy fights.  That part is not essential to the build.

Minions can kinda hurt.  In my mostly yellow and non-exotic gear (blue jewelry, yellow armor and one exotic helm) I can get them to crit for up to 3500 or so on soft targets, and that's twice + poison field.

I can also drop them into well of blood for area retaliation which is nice.  Well of Blood light field is neeto.

[Brogarn]

The Necro is now 80. I leveled with a condition build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNArYGmAkU881TKy+7oHEbcyA;TsAAzCpoay0koJbTumkNtIYUxsCA

Using whatever Rabid gear (Condition Damage, Precision, Toughness) I could find. Worked fantastically.

Once I hit 80, though, I swapped to this build, which I got from a guy named Nemesis on the GW2 forums. I used it in sPvP and friggin loved it. It's a Power/Tank spec:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNAodWjQaV6daia87JAZGPj90DuHXc4D5C;T0AA1Ctocy4kwJrTOnkOtCZEyJkXITHA

With it I'm using Superior Sharpening Stone and Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup. I'm still working on figuring out which food I want to roll with, but in the meantime wanted the reduced condition duration since I won't be using Consume Conditions. I get too much from Wells to not take Well of Blood. Plus it's group healing AND a light field which is very handy in PvP and dungeons.

[Brogarn]

After playing the previous mentioned build for a few weeks, I decided to go back to a Rabid gear Conditionmancer build. Things die way faster and the condition control is just too awesome.

Solo build

Group Build

[Crumbs]

I've gone back to my Necromancer.  After playing Engineer and Guardian to 80, and messing with Mesmer (40) and Warrior (40) and Ele (60) I can say that I get the most mileage out of the Necro.

Build is 30/0/30/0/10.  Staff/DW.  Consume conditions, Epidemic, Signet of Spite, Corrosive Poison Cloud, Plague.  I've tried the condition builds but I prefer outright damage and survivability; I can tag multiple targets with Epidemic AND stay alive to loot them. :)

Relatively speaking, survivability is barely an issue in WvW or PVE.  Between Death Shroud and Plague, the only thing that usually kills me is lag.  Those are 2 emergency buttons that are practically god mode.

Damage and CC for days.  Bags drop in WVW faster than I can press F.

[Xanthippe]

What build do you use in wvw?

I can't quite figure out what to do in that. With staff ele, my role is clear (get people off walls/towers with area spells, switch to water for some group healing/cleansing, keep speed buffs up while moving with the group).

[Crumbs]

What build do you use in wvw?

I can't quite figure out what to do in that. With staff ele, my role is clear (get people off walls/towers with area spells, switch to water for some group healing/cleansing, keep speed buffs up while moving with the group).

I never felt as comfortable as I would like to with the Ele in WVW.  I love DD PVE, but when I brought that into WvW I couldn't get it to feel as effective as Necro or Engy.  Just my play style.

[Xanthippe]

What's your necro's spec for wvw, and how do you play? What do you do? I find myself floundering a bit.

[KallDrexx]

What's your necro's spec for wvw, and how do you play? What do you do? I find myself floundering a bit.

Ground targetted wells ftw.

Or at least that used to own when I played a long time ago.