Guild Wars 2

My necro doesn’t feel like a caster, hes current level 71 and dd build. there is no castering. I am melee.

I want to play a caster and there is no necro build that provides that feel. The best we have is a staff build. But this requires minions and i hate the minions in this game. They simply agro everything. I find myself slipping into a secondary weapon set just to move around the environment.

If i am just standing around holding my staff (no pun intended) surrounded by the undead It looks nice has a caster feel to it. But once i run off into the wilds the minions go all over the place. Moving quickly from site to site is not a real option. minions are a pain in this game. I can make them very strong and the build i use for minions can keep them standing but gosh the are dumb just dumb, 1980s Atari dumb.

Another option is the scepter but that also requires minions to have the caster feel so you can cast. Plus the thumping noise the scepter makes doesn’t lend itself to the caster feel. part of the problem is the caster auto attack it does the bulk of our damage and auto attack doesn’t lend itself to a caster feel.

Basically all effective builds for all classes in this game are melee builds up close or minimal distance fighting. Range that is easily closed by anyone.

So is there a build to make casters (especially necros) feel like a caster or am I stuck with melee (light) builds.

I had the same feeling for Elementalists. I rolled one cause I’ve always loved casters, from day one. But everybody tells me that for the most part, to be viable, I have to run D/D. But I don’t want to be a melee character as an Ele! ><

Yeah I totally understand about the whole caster thing. My mesmer feels caster like.

No profession in this game feels quite like the caster I’d like though.

Take care.

I’m currently going staff/axe-focus/wells Necro and enjoying it. not using any minions. If the wells are still too up-close and uncastery, you can make them ranged and just sling them around like they’re marks on the staff.

Or you can go staff+wells build on necro. No minions.

I do staff and wells on my necro, and it seems to work pretty good.

I too use staff scepter/dagger and wells which is based around conditions and casting. Good for a very limited roles but surpassed by other classes in what we can do. I enjoy the playstyle but the limitations of viable builds do place us in a very limited range of roles which can make it a bit boring after a while. We have a lot of potential but need some work on our traits and abilities to achieve them. Many of our traits for particular builds are scattered over non-synergistic trait lines and some of the compulsory traits (reanimator I am looking at you) are lame at best compared to the other professions. Although the ANet vision for the necro looks impressive it is not achievable (IMO) at the moment….and I have asked the devs for help in doing that….time will see if we get any assistance in matching their vision with viable builds.

Delusion.9543:

I had the same feeling for Elementalists. I rolled one cause I’ve always loved casters, from day one. But everybody tells me that for the most part, to be viable, I have to run D/D. But I don’t want to be a melee character as an Ele! ><

Then why don’t you actually try other setups? Just keep in mind that each weapon will fulfill a different role, and you are set.

Ualtar.5047:

I do staff and wells on my necro, and it seems to work pretty good.

Yeah. That’s the build I’m using on my necro. I really like it.
But to be honest, I never even considered minions. I just hate pets that I have to keep my eye on.

I play a Minion Mancer Necro and the pets are frustrating until they fix their complete random kittenedness, but I do not have to keep up with them because I can pretty much destroy everything in my wake up to this point (level 52).

I focus my gear on condition damage and my traits in defense and health using Staff mostly with Axe/Dagger on switch right now but every 10 levels or so I change up to Scepter/Horn or Scepter/Focus and play around with it as the weapon success seems to change as I level.

I feel like a caster, even though I am casting marks and wells and dealing with groups of mobs by a slow painful death.

I enjoy it quite a bit, but it’s not for everyone.

You can add me to the list of staff/wells necros who feel like a caster w/ the caveat that if ANet fixes minion AI, I’m so switching out of wells