Guild Wars 2

Hey there, my name is Dustin.
(moved this thread to the pvp section)
I’ve played Necromancer ever since this game launched, and it has always and always will be my main and most favorite class.

I’ve played pvp with necro ever since the beginning. I’ve played pvp with Vanilla Necro for as long as I could remember, and when Necromancer got evolved into Reaper, it was a massive buff to Necromancer and it really set Necromancer as one of the powerhouse classes in PvP.

In this thread, I’ll be going through things that could potentially make you a better Necromancer PvP player, for the beginners out there trying out this great class, to veterans out there that have been loyal to this class like me, I hope everyone gets to learn a little bit of something and get a bit better at Necromancer. Now, let’s clear something up before we start. These are JUST MY OPINIONS on what’s essential to play Necromancer in PvP. Some of you might have differing opinions, and that’s completely alright. I’m just asking you respect mine, and I’ll respect yours as well let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Controls
Keybinds
Kiting
Builds
Weapons
Reaper Shroud
Tips and Tricks
1v1 Matchups
Finale

Controls

This section doesn’t just go for Necromancer, it goes for every class out there. As a PvP player, you will need to change some controls up to give you the upperhand in PvP. I have taken screenshots of my own settings, so you guys can see what options you should HAVE ON, and what options you should have OFF when you are pvping. (Some of these options are up to player preference, and some of them depend on your class. Mostly, they are a must have or a must turn off if you want to PvP.)
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3

For the first screenshot, you should always have Health Percentages on, and Skill Recharge on as well. For your camera, always have Rotation Speed to full right, Field of View to full right, and Zoom sensitivity to full right. Having the biggest Field of View in games is essential to map awareness, so zoom out your game the entire way, and only zoom in if you can’t see something.

The second screenshot, you should as a Necromancer have Free Camera on as it helps with kiting. (Will get to this later) Also turn off Camera Shake if it is turned on. And as for Combat/Movement options, just turn off all of them as they are practically useless in PvP. As for Standard Enemy Models, it is up to player preference. What it does is that it makes everyone in PvP be the Human race, no charr, asura, norn, or sylvari.

The final screenshot goes for anyone who listens to in-game music during a match. Listening to in-game music during a match can actually help you. Turn off Music and Environment volume all the way down, as they are unnecessary. Turn the rest to full.

Keybinds

Keybinds are VERY important in order to play PvP well. If you click your abilities on the skill bar, you will be at a massive disadvantage against players who have keybinds. Now I won’t tell you what keybinds to use, as everyone has their own personal preference, but the general commonly accepted keybinds by PvPers is rekeybinding A and D to Strafe Left and Strafe Right. To turn, you just turn by dragging your right mouse button and turning it to the direction you want to go, as this turns your character. This allows your Q and E keys to be free. The setup I have for Necromancer is this:

X= Stow Weapon
R= Dodge
Q= Reaper Shroud
Z= Consume Conditions
F= Plague Signet
E= Spectral Armor
C= Rise
G= Chill to the Bone
6= Stomp/Rezz Interact with objects (located in the Miscellaneous section of Keybinds)

Sidenote: Stow Weapon is a hidden keybind in Guild Wars 2, located on the very bottom of Keybinds in the Miscellaneous section. Why should you keybind this? Well it allows you to do something that all necromancers MUST do, something called Bait Cast. Bait Cast is a very useful tool that you should as a necromancer know how to do. Basically, let’s take Chill to The Bone for example, it has an obvious and easy animation to spot, and it also has a 1 ¼ second casting time, people can easily dodge this ability if they have a brain. So to avoid this, do the following. Whenever you cast an ability that needs time to cast, you will see a bar on the bottom of your screen that will fill up the closer you are to fully casting an ability. Cast Chill to the Bone, and at the very last second, press the keybind that Stow Weapon is keybound to cancelling the ability, but the animation of Chill to the Bone will still play, making it look like you casted it, but in reality you didn’t. Always try to do this, unless there’s panic and confusion in teamfights and people are not paying attention. It’s always good to Bait Cast, as if they dodge roll your Chill, it gets put on a 80 second (or 90 second) cooldown, wasting your Elite skill.

Kiting

One of the most important and essential things to master and learn as a Necromancer is kiting. This thread is long enough, so I’m going to list down links of a in-depth tutorial to kiting made my Metabattle.

Battle of Kyhlo
Forest of Niflhel
Legacy of the Foefire
Temple of Silent Storm
(All credit goes to Metabattle, fantastic kiting guide!)

Side Note: Kiting can be hard for necromancer at times when they run Plague Signet, as they will have permanent Chill or Cripple, or even both. Even with these conditions on you, still try to kite as much as possible if you are getting focused.

Free Camera

Free Camera is a great camera to use in PvP. What it does is it detaches the camera from your rotation, so you can rotate your character without rotating your camera back to your character. Basically what this means is, while you are running forward, you can turn your camera to look behind your character, and it wont reset the camera, it will stay there. This is great for disengaging from teamfights or running away from an enemy while kiting to cast down your staff marks behind you. Yes, I do know about the keybind called “Look Behind” but I personally think Free Camera works A LOT better because you don’t need to have a finger on the keybind it is on. Also, Free Camera it’s not only used to look behind you, it can be used for a lot more than that. You just have to find a way to get used to the camera first, as it can take some time getting used too. When you finally get used to it though, it will help you tremendously when kiting.

Builds

Let’s start off with the most important thing there is to every profession and not just Necromancer, your PvP build. There are a few builds you can choose to take into Ranked, but some of them have different play styles, and some of them also matter on your team composition.

Solo Que
If you are solo queuing for Ranked, I highly recommend a build that let’s you survive in teamfights, while also dishing out some amazing damage. For these kinds of builds, I have chosen only 3 to list here, but I know there are so many more out there, so feel free to list them as well if you know any. Also, if you want to change some things like a sigil, amulet, rune, trait, or skill to any of these builds you can certainly do that, remember there is no right build, the right build is the build that fits into your playstyle.

Corruptionmancer- Corruptionmancer is the build I personally run when I que for Solo Ranked because it dishes out a ton of Condition Damage and can massively Condition Pressure enemies at teamfights. This build also gives you a great chance to boon corrupt enemies, as it’s also built for that. It has a nice mix of great sustain, and massive condition damage to pressure enemies.Overall if you are looking to survive teamfights while doing a ton of Condition Damage, Corruptionmancer is for you.

Chillomancer- The Chillomancer is also another excellent build that I ran last season when Solo Queuing. It can do massive Hybrid Damage, meaning it can do both Power and Condition damage, it can sustain itself with Spectral Armor, and a second heal in Signet of Locust. It can also corrupt boons that the enemy team has, converting their boons into conditions. If you love doing Hybrid Damage while supporting your team by taking out boons from enemies, Chillomancer is for you.

Power Boonstrip- Power Boonstrip is the current meta (most popular) for Reaper PvP. Axe can do massive damage to enemies that are not paying attention, out of blocks, or out of Endurance to dodge. Power Boonstrip also comes with a lot of Boon hate, turning enemy teams boons into conditions. The survivability like the other two builds, with Consume Conditions, Rise, and Spectral Armor ready to sustain you. The ability Corrupt Boon is an emergency boon corrupt in case you are facing anyone that has boons that can mitigate your power attacks. As the meta build, this is a highly recommended build for beginners out there that want to learn how necromancer mechanics work. If you love to do power damage, while applying boon hate, Power Boonstrip is for you.

Duo Que
If you can Duo Que with someone during Ranked that is either an Engineer, Support Druid, or Elementalist that is willing to support you wherever you are, these builds are for you. Also, if you are solo queuing, ask if some of your teammates are support, if they are you can certainly switch to one of these two builds.

Procmancer- Procmancer is a very powerful build. If you have a support friend with you, this build can do absolutely massive damage. The amount of spike Power/Condi damage this build can do is off the roof, but it is a glass cannon. You can do mega damage with this build, but this is where your support friend comes in. They will have to be ready in an instant moment to revive you because you will go down a lot with this build if the enemy team knows to target you. This is a highly recommended build for Reapers who have a support friend that can sustain them and revive them consistently, because if you are sustained, you can hit like a train.

Signet Chillomancer- Signet Chillomancer is another excellent choice if you are duo queuing with a support player. While not being able to hit as hard as Procmancer, it does bring mass boon corruption to the table, and can still hit pretty hard. Blood Magic will give some kind of support to the table as well to your teammates, overall this is a good build to run if you want a unique play style to your Reaper.

Weapons

(I won’t be going through all weapons that Necromancer has, only the main ones that are most used.)

Staff: I feel it necessary to start with Staff. Staff has always been a necessity to mostly all Necromancer builds, and for good reason. If you pick a build with Soul Reaping as one of the specializations, Staff is your main go-to for Life Force to build up your Reaper Shroud. For the marks on staff, you want to stay in Range and away from any danger as possible in the beginning of the match. Do NOT spam all your marks on one spot, as one dodge can make them all useless. (Also all your marks are unblockable IF you have Soul Reaping) The only mark that you can spam is Mark of Blood, as its cooldown is low and it isn’t necessarily categorized as an important mark.
Chillbains is a great mark, as it increases cooldown rating of enemy players skills with Chill, it grant’s a Poison Combo Field, and the Poison condition decreases the effectiveness of enemy player’s healing skills by 33%. Putrid’s Mark is a great AoE Condition Transfer, and Reaper’s Mark can be used to CC enemies off a point, CC them off an ally that’s about to die, or CC them off an ally that is downed that other allies are trying to res, also to CC enemies off a downed enemy that they are trying to res. (Just make sure the boon Stability isn’t active, or Reaper’s Mark is useless)

Scepter: Scepter is also another weapon that is mostly used in all Necromancer builds. The first ability is a chain that can be spammed while waiting for abilities to go off cooldown. Grasping Dead is great for teamfights, as it can do AoE Bleeding and Cripple, making enemies slower in a teamfight. Feast of Corruption can build up your Life Force if you hit an enemy that has a considerable amount of conditions on him. Also Torment can do Condition Damage on the target, and stack depending how much conditions the enemy has that you hit Feast of Corruption with. The general rule is, Condition Bomb an enemy, then use Feast of Corruption on them.

Warhorn: Warhorn is another offhand weapon that is used mostly in all Necromancer builds. Warhorn is a great utility weapon, with Wail of Doom being unblockable, and the Daze that lasts for 2 seconds. It can target up to 5 players, the only problem is, the aiming of this ability. Aim carefully, as the range is a cone pattern in front of your character. This is a great ability to use to daze someone’s heal ability, or a powerful attack, or daze them from stomping an ally, or stop them reviving an enemy player. Locust Swarm is an amazing utility ability, giving you Swiftness to get to points faster, giving you Life Force and crippling enemies. A good combo is to activate Locust Swarm then go into Reaper Shroud, as the effects of Locust Swarm will still be active in Shroud.

Axe: Axe is mainly used in Power Necromancer builds. Rending Claws, it’s first ability does decent damage, but it’s main use is it is spammable and can stack Vulnerability on someone. Ghastly Claws is a very powerful ability, giving you Life Force and doing massive power damage to an enemy if they are not paying attention. Finally, Unholy Feast is a great utility ability, as it gives you Retaliation, cripples enemies, and can boon corrupt. (Try to use before going into Reaper) Also, a nice thing with Axe is that you can stay in Range to cast your first 2 abilities, as Rending Claws and Ghastly claws have a range of 900.

Reaper Shroud

Every profession has a unique ability that are usually bound to the FN keys. Necromancer’s unique ability is to be able to transform into another being with another set of health called the Reaper.When you are in Reaper Shroud, you cannot use any of your healing, utility, elite abilities but it more than makes up for it with the amount of insane damage Reaper Shroud does. As I said Reaper Shroud is another form, with another set of health so going into Reaper will save your life as the damage you take in Reaper will decrease another health bar called Life Force, and not your original health. If sustained, Reaper becomes a VERY powerful offensive tool in teamfights, capable of counter/cleave attacks, and can take down enemies very quickly.

Life Rend: First ability of Reaper, does decent damage also can be used as a semi cleave if you are trying to cleave for a downed enemy or downed ally.

Death’s Charge: Can be used as a getaway from any sticky situation, or to catch up to an enemy escaping.

Infusing Terror: Can be used for the Stability it gives to stomp an enemy, rezz an ally, or not be knocked down when using Soul Spiral or Executioner’s Scythe. Can also be triggered for a Fear CC. (Pro tip: Do not trigger the Fear CC if enemies have Stability)

Soul Spiral: One of the greatest cleaves and damaging abilities in Guild Wars 2, if the enemy team is trying to res one of their own, use this on top of them and the cleave this ability does will be enough to kill the downed enemy, kill the people trying to rezz him, or force them to stop rezzing and flee the capture point.

Executioner’s Scythe: A great ability to stun and do damage to a crowd of enemies in a 240 radius, but this ability is easily dodged with the 1 1/4 second casting time and the easy animation to spot so make sure to Bait Cast this ability.

Tips and Tricks

Always stay in range at beginning of matches with Staff, if you have the specialization Soul Reaping, build up your Life Force.

Before going into Reaper Shroud, cast Locust Swarm then Chill to the Bone. Locust Swarm should always be cast in conjunction with Reaper Shroud because of the Cripple and Life Force status it gives, and Chill to the Bone should always be cast before going into Shroud because of the stun it gives, and the stability it gives. (Remember to Bait Cast if you think they will dodge your Chill)

Never use Infusing Terror casually, as it can grant you Stability in shroud to use to stomp an enemy, or revive an ally.

The minions that spawn from using Rise can be used to trigger Dragonhunter traps.

Plague Signet can be blocked, so be careful when casting it..

Plague Signet can also be used as a Stun Breaker.

When you use Executioners Scythe, it will create a Ice combo field. Use Death’s Charge inside this field to grant yourself a Frost Aura.

Wail of Doom can be used to counter any block abilities that other classes have, so make sure you use this ability wisely and not casually.

Do NOT spam all your marks on staff all in one place

Never roam around the map, always stick to teamfights.

When using the heal Consume Conditions, make sure you are out of range or cast it while hiding behind something so it doesn’t get interrupted.

Make sure to kite as much as possible if you are getting pressured.

If by some chance, you get a 1v1 with an Engineer, take that 1v1. Reaper’s will always destroy Engineer’s in 1v1’s.

Finale

I hope all of you enjoyed my Reaper Guide in PvP. As always, these are just my honest opinions, and would love to hear other people’s opinions on what I missed to say. I hope everyone learned a little bit of something from this guide, and I hope it helps people to become better Necromancers themselves. A lot of people complain that Necromancer doesn’t have sustain anymore, and while that is partially true, a good necromancer can still be a force to be reckoned with in PvP.

curious why you didnt take the signet trait on the meta signet chillomancer build… as far as i know the META version of that takes the signet trait.

NeXeD.3042:

curious why you didnt take the signet trait on the meta signet chillomancer build… as far as i know the META version of that takes the signet trait.

Oh crap! Didn’t even see that mate, thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now, sorry for the mistake!

Also, Consume Conditions has a 5 hour cast time, so prepare to be interrupted. :P

Just a small question: which is better, condition damage or condition duration?

Avigrus.2871:

Also, Consume Conditions has a 5 hour cast time, so prepare to be interrupted. :P

That’s why you use it when you are LoS or behind a wall. If a necromancer uses their heal and they are not behind something to keep it from getting interrupted, that’s a major flaw they need to fix.

trixantea.1230:

Just a small question: which is better, condition damage or condition duration?

Condition damage is more important for a Necromancer

Revised the builds a little bit, as there has been a shift in the Necromancer meta.

I have a small question, in your corruptionmancer you take master of corruption buy only your heal is a corruption skill. It also makes it so it gives blind (for 4 seconds). I was wondering if this isn’t to big of a downside since you run rune of scavenging and this pretty much negates the (4) bones as far is i know. Or can you transfer the blind with plague signet or something? Sorry but im pretty new to pvp.

TimeTower.3952:

I have a small question, in your corruptionmancer you take master of corruption buy only your heal is a corruption skill. It also makes it so it gives blind (for 4 seconds). I was wondering if this isn’t to big of a downside since you run rune of scavenging and this pretty much negates the (4) bones as far is i know. Or can you transfer the blind with plague signet or something? Sorry but im pretty new to pvp.

The Corruptionmancer build has been revised, Rise is no longer taken now Corrupt Boon is (another corruption skill so it’s cooldown is reduced) As for your question about the healing skill, I completely overlooked that and I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t include it in this guide. The way that I personally use consume conditions when I run this build is that I transfer the self-blind off, or kite around and wait for it to disappear. Yes, you can transfer the self blind off by putrid mark, the 2nd plague signet you have on the Curses tree, or the regular Plague Signet.

Some builds have been changed and some errors and some tips I missed now is written into the guide.

Just a friendly bump to my guide so that people who want to try necromancer in pvp can see ^^

I feel like power boonstrip is kind of over-rated and not played very well by the vast majority of necros running it. I mean this build didn’t exist until about 2 months ago. I feel like one of the million HoT condi reaper builds will be better for just about any player. A few top necros like Nos have success, because he would be good with any of the necro builds, and that means its strong to the bandwagon. The massive condition damage and chills you can put out with the pure condi spec imo in the long term swamps the advantage from the power spec. You will win more duels with the power boon strip but you will not be as big a force in team fights. Im guessing the idea is its a specialized spec for solo queue (like I said it literally didn’t exist before it that I ever saw one day I got to meta battle and this build magically appears with 100% rating) but Im not a believer in general in power specs of any sort for Necro.

Hello, thanks Dustin for writing this up – currently studying the Necromancer in Season 6 and it’s a lot different from the bunker builds and classes I’m used to run. In all honesty, I’m pretty much used to bum-rushing and fighting on-point (War, Engi, Guard, Ele), so what I’m used to is absolutely counter-intuitive to my Necro’s well being (read: just another scrub).

Granted there are some impressive moments when – anyone/monkey can do this honestly – you find the moment to dive into a team-fight, target someone for boon-stripping and wipe everything inside of ten seconds (like you said, killing some guy, killing his rezzer, killing whoever is unfortunate enough to be caught in the spins and AoE)…

I’m just struggling to kite and run from half the team trying to gank me when they see me a mile away. I have to work on my non-existent kiting skills.

This guide is giving me a lot of helpful tips.

P.S. If anyone from the Necromancer community can chime in regarding matchups like Dragonhunters, D/P Thieves and Power/Condi Warriors, that would be awesome.

Bzzt, this thread is old and needs to be severely updated. I didn’t know people still looked at this, and honestly I haven’t played the game at all this season due to the fact that ques are so unbelievably long. I will update this guide today, and as for matchups with Necromancer I will also add to that. Cheers!

Ralkuth.1456:

Hello, thanks Dustin for writing this up – currently studying the Necromancer in Season 6 and it’s a lot different from the bunker builds and classes I’m used to run. In all honesty, I’m pretty much used to bum-rushing and fighting on-point (War, Engi, Guard, Ele), so what I’m used to is absolutely counter-intuitive to my Necro’s well being (read: just another scrub).

Granted there are some impressive moments when – anyone/monkey can do this honestly – you find the moment to dive into a team-fight, target someone for boon-stripping and wipe everything inside of ten seconds (like you said, killing some guy, killing his rezzer, killing whoever is unfortunate enough to be caught in the spins and AoE)…

I’m just struggling to kite and run from half the team trying to gank me when they see me a mile away. I have to work on my non-existent kiting skills.

This guide is giving me a lot of helpful tips.

P.S. If anyone from the Necromancer community can chime in regarding matchups like Dragonhunters, D/P Thieves and Power/Condi Warriors, that would be awesome.

I can give advice about power boonstrip. Against DH, trigger their passive trait with either warhorn 4 or staff 5, make sure to step on the trap to trigger it. I usually use staff 5 for that. That will give them stability, corrupt that and it turns into fear. Switch to axe/warhorn and hit them with axe 2 while they’re feared. From there you should expect longbow 2 or 3 if they haven’t used it yet, be prepared to dodge True Shot and look for the animation. If you feel like you have enough LF then you can go into shroud at this point, if not then depending on your positioning you can try to hit them with axe 3. Remember that they get protection when Test of Faith is triggered, so don’t burn your high-damage skills on them without first corrupting it. This is a winning matchup if you walk into it with around 5k LF or so. If you’re empty when you start then you have to play carefully. Make sure you know the animations for True Shot and Spear of Justice so you can dodge them.

Against thief, you usually lose. To win you need a good bit of LF to start. Things you need to do to win, not necessarily in this order:

1. Corrupt their Fury into blind
2. Land Axe 2
3. Dodge Steal
4. Land Staff 5 and Warhorn 4. Remember that Warhorn 4 is 600 range, you can land that when it would seem the thief is out of range.
5. Land most of your shroud skills
6. Don’t get interrupted a lot

There’s no point in me giving you a rundown of the fight like I did against DH, the thief mostly controls this matchup. If you can’t anticipate when they’re going to use certain skills then you will always lose against thief. Remember that if they haven’t used Steal yet then LOSing them isn’t safe. Letting them steal your stability is ok if you’re going to corrupt it right away, if not then it’s a bad move.

Against warrior, it’s pretty easy. Stay at range, kite a lot, corrupt their stability (they get it in Berserk mode), and don’t waste high-damage skills when one of their Endure Pains is up. Really it’s just about proper kiting, timing your corruptions well, and landing your CCs. Pro-tip: your CCs are unblockable so use them when the warrior is using shield 5. Also it’s ok to use axe 2 if you need LF but the warrior is damage-immune. Axe 2 has a low-CD so it’s spammable.

@Huskyboy.1053
Many thanks! I’d write something reflective, but I think I’ll get more out of your tips by doing more queues and watching what’s happening as I fight these builds.

Ralkuth.1456:

@Huskyboy.1053
Many thanks! I’d write something reflective, but I think I’ll get more out of your tips by doing more queues and watching what’s happening as I fight these builds.

Best of luck. You’ll learn more about how to beat these specific builds by playing as them rather than against them. Watching streamers (Sindrener for thief, maybe Drazeh’s past broadcasts for warrior) will help you tremendously. Nos streams power necro so watching him will be very helpful to you. Obindo and some others stream warrior but I’m not up to date. For DH there aren’t many high-profile streamers, but Meditrapper is easy to understand and counter. Symbolic is a bit trickier. Feel free to send me a letter in-game and I can help you practice.