Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for an alt to my mesmer, but after seeing how much more loot my engineer friend gets from DE (especially ones with lots of players) I don’t want another class that is weak at tagging, so is the Necro any good? (specifically at the busier events like the Orr ones)

Or is the inital damage on the AOEs too low (even if power specced) and everything dead before the dots do enough ticks to tag?

Pretty much best way to do it is to pre-place marks on the ground. It helps to have sigil of fire for a chance to aoe fire blast.

One word here: Epidemic

It is a utility that aoe bursts all the conditions of your target to everything in a very large radius. I tag EVERYTHING with my necro.

Now the downside is that I frequently find myself dodging like a madman while 5-10 mobs aggro the kitten out of me.

Sylosi.6503:

I’m looking for an alt to my mesmer, but after seeing how much more loot my engineer friend gets from DE (especially ones with lots of players) I don’t want another class that is weak at tagging, so is the Necro any good? (specifically as the busier events like the Orr ones)

Or is the inital damage on the AOEs too low (even if power specced) and everything dead before the dots do enough ticks to tag?

Depends on the event and the number of people. Like Pentinent you won’t tag a single mob, they are invulnerable on the run up so marks will be triggered and not do damage. Conditions won’t even have time to tick. On spider side you might get some but again they will die very very quickly and only a few ticks of a condition damage will hit.

Epidemic is nice but 90% of the time the mobs die before it can be used. On events like Grenth it can be useful but for most events it isn’t.

If you want the best AOE tagger then get a greatsword/longbow warrior. Greatsword hits stupidly hard. A single whirlwind is almost always enough to get the tag. The blade trail is good too for getting in some extra damage to insure you’re getting loot. The DD AOE bow shot hits hard enough that you can get most tags, the giant fire AOE allows you to cover a huge area in times when there are tons of mobs. At pentinent you can use 100b if positioned correctly and tag the mobs as they go vulnerable.

I’d say Necro’s are pretty good at tagging.

Marks (pre-set marks as well), staff auto piercing, life transfer, wells, axe’s aoe.

I don’t think any other class except maybe ele is better in tagging/ getting loot in DE than necro. I won’t claim it when we talk about single target/ champion, but on group of mobs….. I often participate in DE’s that are 5-8 lvls above me (sill 50) and I always get gold reward and a lot of loot. It happened to me in some chained events that I couldn’t pick it up any more because bags were full.
You have some excellent AoE skills. Learn where mobs come in, it’s always 2 or 3 directions, not hard to do it, place staff skills in their path, dont stack them one ontop of the other but spread them a little, when they trigger them jump in the middle, enter DS, skill 4, and if you have any traits in death magic, life siphon will heal allies. It’s really great when you see white and green numbers flying all around you. With little practise you can tag every mob in DE and you DS bar will always be full.
Main line you have to follow here is: you are not dumb war or guardian who jumps in the middle of the mob, swing his axes or greatsword and he is “ohImsobadkittenIwipedouteverythingonmyownnealinfrontofmygreatnessyoumaggots”. You have to plan ahead. You alone can put group of mobs, no matter how big it is to 50% health before dumb war can even spot them. But then you have to retreat and recharge. Since mobs are running in from different directions go to the other one, place staff marks in their path, wait for them to come in, repeat procedure from spot no1, then go to spot no1 and pick up the loot, return to spot no2, pick up the loot…. Once you tag them and do some damage ( marks have initial burst dmg) loot and XP is yours, so there is no problem in running here and there and tag them all.
Necro is profession of skill, it has long learning path, but when you master it you’re the biggest badkitten there.

I agree with Stenc. I have no problems getting gold in DEs. Life Transfer, Marks, Well of Suffering, Well of Corruption, and Plague are all great AOE tools. You have to get right in the middle of the fray to get the job done, but at the same time be aware of the limitations of being a clothie.

Edit: I’ll generally avoid using Reaper’s Mark if there are melees trying to hit the same mobs since the fear is then counterproductive.

For example, recently I’ve run that 3 part DE chain in Straits of Devastation that pops constantly a bunch of times and always get Gold, using wells, marks, epidemic & life transfer. You’re juggling your whole skill set, which means EVERYTHING, but you’re hitting everything as well. Lots of players there essentially farming the thing since you get around 1000 karma each round.

Holy crap, I never even considered having the staff in one setup and another staff in the other. I’m going to have to try this, but I do love the AOE combo’s from Dagger offhand. Enfeebling blood has a higher radius than most people think and the Deathly Swarm hits multiple targets. If you spec curses you also get ground targetting on all well skills so you won’t have to run up to drop all those nice AOE’s. :P

Dorn.5867:

Holy crap, I never even considered having the staff in one setup and another staff in the other. I’m going to have to try this, but I do love the AOE combo’s from Dagger offhand. Enfeebling blood has a higher radius than most people think and the Deathly Swarm hits multiple targets. If you spec curses you also get ground targetting on all well skills so you won’t have to run up to drop all those nice AOE’s. :P

If you like dagger offhand (as do I) then just put the sigils on the dagger. Staff/Staff won’t improve cooldowns; it’s pretty wasteful.

MrPowell.7695:

One word here: Epidemic

It is a utility that aoe bursts all the conditions of your target to everything in a very large radius. I tag EVERYTHING with my necro.

Now the downside is that I frequently find myself dodging like a madman while 5-10 mobs aggro the kitten out of me.

^This lol. It gets scary though for sure lol. Cant tell you how many DE’s I end up having to dodge the rest of the time because I just pulled aggro with Epidemic haha.

One word here: Epidemic
It is a utility that aoe bursts all the conditions of your target to everything in a very large radius. I tag EVERYTHING with my necro.
Now the downside is that I frequently find myself dodging like a madman while 5-10 mobs aggro the kitten out of me.

Epidemic for tagging mobs in DE’s? Things die in about three seconds how exactly do you plan to get a decent condition stick, hit epidemic and do enough damage to tag in 3s?

I’d reckon we’re one of the most proficient classes at tagging mobs in events, perhaps the absolute kings of DE tagging.

Drekor.5217:

One word here: Epidemic
It is a utility that aoe bursts all the conditions of your target to everything in a very large radius. I tag EVERYTHING with my necro.
Now the downside is that I frequently find myself dodging like a madman while 5-10 mobs aggro the kitten out of me.

Epidemic for tagging mobs in DE’s? Things die in about three seconds how exactly do you plan to get a decent condition stick, hit epidemic and do enough damage to tag in 3s?

Larger scale DEs with lots of veteran and champion mobs.

I agree with the guy above me, necros are probably the kings of DEs.

Just close your eyes and drop marks and wells somewhere in the middle go get something to drink and a cookie and you got gold and all the loot you can carry. Ground base marks makes all the difference here last thing you want to do is to run out in the middle of a fight to drop them then you just be dead . I’ve gotten gold with one round of casting . This is where a Neco shines and out kills every other class.

I have little problem getting gold from any DEs, between marks and wells. But getting actual loot from anything against the zerg is problematic, considering our REAL damage comes from conditions, not DD. Trash is dead too fast, if I can even target or see it. Its astounding to me how badly/slowly players and enemies are drawn in. This is 2012 right? I think I saw more players back in 1999 on a 56k modem in DAOC=)

On the Champions, Lich Form with a barrage of crits insures I’m doing plenty of damage. The trash is just a toss up.