Guild Wars 2

I am new and I just got a necromancer. Condition Damage? Power? Precision? etc… what does every one of those do ? What do I need to use?

Power contributes to the direct damage a skill does. Every skill in the game has what’s known as a Power Coefficient which means some weapons do noticeably higher damage with more power. For comparison, a scepter has a low coefficient so even at large Power values the direct damage output from that weapon won’t seem that great. On the other hand, Dagger has a very high coefficient so any increase to your Power stat will be noticed.

Condition Damage (also known as Malice) is the secondary form of damage. To where Power does immediate direct damage, Condition damages does damage over time. Conditions add ‘damage stacks’ onto your target. So long as they have those stacks your target will continue taking damage (even if you’re not directly attacking them) so long as they don’t do anything to clear the condition, and there is still seconds left on the condition stacks. There are multiple damaging conditions (burns, bleeds, poisons to name a few), and each of them have their own coefficient. For example, Bleeds have a low malice coefficient, but generally you can apply that condition very easily and very readily. Burning has a much higher coefficient, but the methods for applying burning are a little scarce.

Precision improves your chances of delivering a critical strike. For Direct Damage that adds an extra 50% damage to the your attack. Ferocity improves the damage beyond the base 50%. Critical strike do not modify the damage of conditions, but there are a lot of traits that trigger upon delivering a critical strike (a few of them applying conditions).

What stat do you need? Well, that’s kinda up to you. It really depends on what aspect of the game you’re playing (PvE, PvP, WvW), and what role you want to play.

there are two schools of thought for high end necromancy in PvE:

Condition Damage and Life Stealing.

You can combine them for a more balanced build, but focusing on one or the other will show their individual strengths. Keep your power and prec high in either case.

stats to avoid:
Vitality (necromancers have a ton of health, and a second health bar)
Toughness (see: vitality)(also: minions mitigate this a lot)
Boon Duration (you don’t have enough of these to benefit from this)

stats to boost:
Condition Damage (make use of staff and scepter)
Power / Prec (trait into life stealing)
Ferocity (useful in life stealing burst builds if you have high prec)

In short, necromancers are excellent for glass cannon stats due to their huge health pools and built-in control and damage mitigation. go with Sinisters, Berzerkers, or Assassins, or Rampagers stats.