Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

I’m about to build my 2nd character (kinda new to the game still) and I need some advice on building it!

I’d like to make a condi minion necromancer. Here is what I am using so far (just reached level 80) :

My build is :

Death Magic : 1-1-1
Curses : 3-3-3
Blood Magic : 2-3-3

I am using Scepter / Dagger (#1) and Dagger / Focus (#2).

I am using all minion spells to make a little army (I know you’ve heard that before but I wanna try it :P ).

I am planning on using Viper as stats for armor and weapons.

This character will be to play solo PVE (no PVP or WvW for now).

To all those who are playing Condi Minion Necromancer, does that make cense?

Thanks! Good night!

If I’m being brutally honest the idea doesn’t work. The Minions simply do not compliment a condition based playstyle very well.

Your DM setup is pretty much standard for any minion necro build with it you should be able to maintain 7-8 minions easily. That said, it does nothing to supplement condi damage of any kind it is there purely to give you and your minions extra survivability.
Your curses setup is not really useful; your blinds chilling enemies does nothing to help you as you have maybe 2 blinds on long cooldowns, there is no point in Terror as you have 1 fear on a 20s cooldown, and lingering curse only really works in your favour if you’re running scepter mainhand for both weapon sets.
Bloodmagic is kinda all over the place as well, you’ve taken quickening thirst to supplement your daggers(good) , but then youve taken vampiric presence and transfusion, neither of which are useful for “solo PVE”.

You weapons don’t fully compliment a condi style of play either, the dagger/focus is purely power and a little crowd control. The vipers stats however will supplement a condi playstyle nicely.

In all, the build is a bit all over the place, you’ve taken things that work with your minions and your dagger and then half kitten d the rest.

I would make the following changes. Ditch weaponset 2, keep just a scepter dagger, or at the very least ditch the dagger on weaponset 2.
Run curses 3-2-3(2-2-3 if not HOT), DM 1-1-1, and then Reaper 2-2-2 or Soul Reaping 3-2-3 if you don’t have HOT.

Chilling darkness is quite useful in combination with Reapers Deathly Chill, however outside of that its quite useless. Plague sending would be a better option if you don’t have HOT, and even then its kind of superseded by your minions passive condi cleanse.
Path of corruption will give you a bit more condi pressure against foes that buff themselves with boons. Lingering curse buffs your scepter attacks which is now all the time.

DM remains the same.

Reaper will increase chill on foes which supplements Deathly Chill, which in and of itself will make use of the chills you apply. In addition attacks from Reaper Shroud can apply burst condi’s #5→#4→#2 can apply 12 stacks of poison and burst up to 42 stacks of bleeding through deathly chill.

If you’re using soulreaping instead, your autoattacks in shroud will now apply burning, you’ll gain access to your shroud quicker and stay in it longer. Meanwhile your minions are just there to look pretty, buff your toughness and provide you with a strong passive condi cleanse.

See if this suits you better, it should in theory provide stronger condi damage while still maintaining your full minion roster.

Thanks a lot for your reply! It is exactly what I was looking for as I knew something was strange with what I was using.

I made a lot of change in my build. Right now, I don’t have enought skill points to unlock Reaper 2-2-2 so I’ll use Soul Reaping 3-2-3 with Plague Sending until I can unlock it all.

I’ll start looking for items with Viper Stats too.

Should I use a Staff for 2nd weapon set instead of Scepter / Focus?

Using a staff in your second weapon set? It’s entirely up to you there are pros and cons it.

As your build stands you wouldn’t benefit much from running a staff, with the exception that you could add a slight condi burst to the start of your attack rotation. To do this you would enter combat in staff, lay down all the marks, swap to scepter and stay in scepter for the duration of the fight. Swapping back to staff during the fight wouldn’t produce any notable condi damage increase and would in fact hinder your condi damage.

You could change speed of shadows in soul reaping to soul marks, this makes your staff marks generate lifeforce which would help you get into shroud quicker, but you’d lose out on the bonus movement speed in shroud for positioning, and the reduced cooldown on shroud.

My suggestion would be to grab a warhorn, and run scepter/dagger & scepter/warhorn. Warhorn gives you access to a nice hard cc for breakbars, and is a reasonable source of swiftness. Staff is not a good damaging weapon in pve, nor does it provide enough utility to make it worthwhile.

As a side note, I understand you’re wanting a “pure minion setup” so that each of your utility skills is a minion, I would ask you give serious consideration at dropping one minion keeping a utility skill open for different scenarios. The necro has a lot of utility in its skills if you know how to use them, anything from dramatically increasing damage, area denial, projectile destruction to buffing and increasing survivability.

Thanks for your suggestion for 2nd weapon set. I’ll go with Scepter / Warhorn.

Maybe I could remove Bone Minions and use something else. I’ll see in time

My last question would be, is this final build worth trying? I mean putting gold in getting items and so?

Necro’s shine beautifully with their condi damage potential, having a full set of vipers gear to supplement that damage is worth it in my opinion. You can also play around with the traits and skills if you find one part of the build or another just doesn’t suit you and the gear still works fine. In addition if you find that condi damage isn’t too your liking, the vipers stats will still allow for good, if somewhat limited power damage through their power and precision stats.

As a final thought I would say, Don’t Rush. Start with a scepter dagger, add a warhorn or focus into the mix after a bit of time. Add things to the build as your playstyle grows and you get more comfortable with the class. There is nothing worse than running headlong into something, finding it doesn’t suit you and then feeling sad because you spent so many resources on it in the first place.

I’ll take it slowly! Thanks for all your time! If there is anything, I’ll post again

if u played or playing wvw, u can buy hero points with proofs of heroics on wvw maps at npc to train those skills

and yes vipers all the way for open pve… that condition duration called expertise will make stacking conditins easier.

trinkets u can get just by farm on the maps like doric lake… for the armor just farm ley line sparks and black cry.

I didn’t know I could buy Hero Skill Points in WvW! I’ll take a look at it because I did a lot of WvW some months ago!

I could buy armor pièces with Ley Line Sparks and Black Cry? What is this?

And what Rune or Upgrade should I put into my items? Haven’t checked that already but if you have any suggestions!

Thanks again!

You’ll have to craft armor and weapons. For ascended lay line sparks are needed. For exotics black diamonds which are not so expencive to buy + Vial of Linseed Oil which is easy to craft/farm mats.

Builds you can find here : https://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer
I used to run with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWnM0Albid3AW3A0biFcBL+K+FHjRbgOwIA6qFAOAA-TVyCQB3TfAVWeIc7AcRlfHU9nWqEUBnAAAcEAQ2jAgQALWDA-w
if u’ll have trouble with surviving switch in courses, lingering curse to parasitic contagion.

anyway there are many trait combos for condition builds. some use soul reaping tree for duumfire etc…

I beg to differ on people that don’t think Minions don’t compliment condition damage:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBLRhG2IDN0Ujd1gbNwejjghaOD7w6GTgAICknQKUCA-ThTAQBU4ACcNlBBUfgYUilOzTR7JAaEwgSwZoBRanAgXs/ohQBHIAAcQAio6PMRphAgaA-e

I’m sure that’s nothing new here but I can’t think of a better way to combine minions that tank for you, bounce aggro between themselves and give you some good utility, keeping you safe from the fight … and a weapon that applies lots of conditions at ranged with garbage direct damage that is optimal when you aren’t in melee range. Unless I’m mistaken, minion damage is also based off your condition damage stat? Seems like a perfectly natural combination of traits and skills if you ask me.

That being said, it’s not a build that gives you FAST kills; it’s specifically for easy HOT HP’s and it does that with a minimum of mechanics and skill. It’s a very simply played build.

Also, to be frank, I think Vipers is questionable if you are using a Scepter because the direct damage is so crap on a scepter that power as a main stat is pretty wasteful. I know that generally you get more damage from the duration increase but really, you have no shortage of condition duration without Vipers to begin with.

well vipers/trailbraizers makes stacking alot easier. here u go some demo with minions: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYRjM0QXNWdD+1A7NWKGMqhwU4WFFAGAJg4eYRMJC-TxhHQBZUJI50HQP1fAwpAoWPBACq8rc7PEA4AQiP+4j34jP+4jnUALqsC-e

I don’t follow: What are you stacking? Stacking with minions out is like herding cats … it doesn’t work because the mobs don’t follow you, they aggro your minions and stick to them.

Anyways, if you are in any armor but offensive for PVE, you’re doing it wrong. I can’t recommend trailblazers … nothing you encounter using ranged condi and minions should require you to invest in any defensive stats whatsoever if you are playing well enough.

Minions do not care much what you wear, wield, or do. You are perfectly fine as a Conditionmancer with minions.

Minions will do their thing regardless of your stats and weapons. They make excellent training wheels for new Necromancers and are well used by veteran players for specific tasks in a variety of situations.

Just do it.

+1 to keeping an open (option) spot for utilities.

Also, i may have missed it but you can also jump in the pvp lobby and play around with different types of gear, stats, runes sigils. I think you would be able to play with full reaper trait line as well.

So I can finally use what Prime Shock recommanded and it seems to be working good.

Started getting some Vipers items. What whould you guys recommand for runes and sigils?

So far, I think Rune of the Krait would be good as it gives me some condition damage and bleeding duration.

For weapons, I’ve spotted, Sigil of Malice, Geomancy, Agony, Bursting and Corruption. If I want to stack bleeding and increase duration, I was thinking of using Bursting (6% condi dmg) and Agony (20% bleeding duration).

What would you guys say about this?