Guild Wars 2

or is it useful

Lol… Just carry a staff. Pick and choose to dagger.

Staff + dagger/dagger isn’t that bad. If you land spectral grasp use the immobolize on dagger and dagger away. Running into a group with dagger/dagger is probably sucide unless maybe you are in clerics gear and drop a flesh worm to teleport out when you are about dead. Perhaps flesh worm + spectral grasp + spectral armor/well of darkness with spectral mastery and minion master and maybe ritual mastery. Unfortunately that doesn’t synergize well with plague elite since activating it destroys your worm.

I personally prefer corrupt boon + blood is power + something depending on the situation + staff to do lots of damage and remove boons(with corrupt boon) off people who stack them. I switch to dagger on overextenders to immobolize them then use focus 5 or dagger 5 and dagger 1 and life siphon.

Dagger + focus + pull utility + entanglement = good fun when you want to break it out in WvW. But yeah casters in WvW generally want to stay ranged cuz of the endless zerging. Still, try it, and if you find it fun, enjoy

From what I’ve seen, D/D Necros normally get pretty soundly spanked close quarters. There is just so much intense burst dps from other melee classes, It’s hard to keep up with a light armor, non-bunker build.

BUT if it suits your playstyle and you make it work, more power to you!

The problem with dagger necros is that most of their damage is single target and while they do very good sustained DPS they lack the burst and get out capability of a thief. There is no cleave on daggers. This makes necros inferior to other close quarter melee classes that have a ton of cleave damage.

I’m speaking from experience. Dagger(power) necro is a solid dueling class, but is not so-hot in the larger scale WvW fights.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOsHFGqB-Hp8lPulc8Jioy-iXg90GRQ3l&feature=view_all

Yeah, one vs one you can do well with a dagger. Or one vs two if you clearly outclass your opponents. Sometimes I use a mainhand dagger to quickly finish off a weakened opponent even in Zergtown. Otherwise, I put that dagger away and start dropping marks and only use it for it’s AoE skills. At least, in my kittenty opinion, that’s the best way to roll dagger-style.

I heard dagger necros are very good at manning Arrow Carts…

Basically, yes…but you always need a weapon to pair with your warhorn. I find it kind of hilarious to be pairing my “in your face” melee weapon with the item that lets me run faster.

Necros are at their best when ranged.

Raf.1078:

Basically, yes…but you always need a weapon to pair with your warhorn. I find it kind of hilarious to be pairing my “in your face” melee weapon with the item that lets me run faster.

Well, running faster so you can get away, or if you want to chase your enemy… Also you can always use the axe as MH.

Done alright. I can outmelee warriors and guardians because of interrupts & clever use of deathshroud to stop the big attacks.

Some choppy gameplay footage if it helps:

Raf.1078:

Basically, yes…but you always need a weapon to pair with your warhorn. I find it kind of hilarious to be pairing my “in your face” melee weapon with the item that lets me run faster.

Necros are at their best when ranged.

Yes, I find the warhorn is a semi-recommended weapon.

No, I don’t find it funny, in fact, I think the warhorn complements a melee weapon quite nicely. The speed is just an added bonus, what you really should focus on is the damage/cripple aspect of it.

Not necessarily, I find that even with the staff, that I like to be close to my opponent. Mark of Blood and Putrid Mark lose their cool bonus at range, plus your auto counts as a projectile, which can combine with your poison mark to stack more poison. On top of that, death shroud skills work better close up especially the #2 which takes forever to reach your opponent. Also, Plague is always needed at close range.

Jeknar.6184:

Well, running faster so you can get away, or if you want to chase your enemy… Also you can always use the axe as MH.

Personally, I run a zergier build and I use the axe/warhorn as my secondary weaponset. The amount of AoE cripples and attacks benefit the group as a whole, not to mention the axe #3 helps with survivability.

D/D necro is viable in a small group situation, but in bigger groups you’re gonna want to use axe/scepter and warhorn imo. If you are set on using D/D always, I would suggest well of blindness and plague along with the trait that you chill on blinds. This will help in those small engagements when you want to keep the enemy close to you, but unable to attack. This can also be effective in larger groups.

This is coming from a condition tank necro that is always first into a zerg and usually last to get killed btw ^^