Guild Wars 2

I’m currently lvl 24 and am running scepter/dagger + staff conditions. And it’s working quite well. But, I feel like I’m not using my profession defining mechanic (Deathshroud) at all except to escape death (panic button). Is a power build utilizing DS feasible at low levels for leveling PvE?

Condition seems to work best for me. I stopped trying to incorporate DS into my playstyle a long time ago.

DS is hard to build a good build around since you want power and precision and crit damage or health but you need spite, curses, and well the last tree since they have the traits so divided for us right now it makes it really hard to get this done well. I am not saying its not possible but its hard to balance them right with everyone’s play style. We are forced into a hybrid build regardless so best bet is to focus on a condition build since you can at least then not worry to much about DS trait line.

You could go with a good bunker build for lvling so you can get more use out of wells and have tons of health and defense.

30/20/0/20/0 lv1-80

Took traits V,X,XII for spite
IV, VII for curses
I and VIII for blood magic

Running dagger/warhorn, DS is a mixed bag of treats

The traits I run with allow good cooldowns on wells, dagger and warhorn skills. I also pop DS as much as I can because it puts bleed and weakening on enemies as well as retaliation and fury on myself. When there are 6+ mobs, I drop all my wells and go into DS and utilise skill 1 and 4. When there are less than 6, I drop well of suffering and just pop in and out of DS, and dagger skill 1 and 2.

It depends on what build you’re running. If you are rolling with a sceptre, condition damage wins all day long. If you’re playing a wellomancer with a staff, they’re fairly equal but most people (including myself) prefer power in that case. Power would also be better for a MM.

Condition is typically better for levelling in my opinion, go with Carrion gear which is Power, Vitality and Condition damage and you will do fine irrespective of which weapon or abilities you use. You just wont have brutal crit damage.

pump more condition damage + lots of AoE Bleed Stacks to a group of mob + Epidemic = PvE ownage

I prefer power since condition builds just feel so slow while leveling. Both are viable though and it basically comes down to what you enjoy more.

Power by far is better for leveling.

Condition can get pretty boring rather quickly when you’re just leveling, you’ll get sick of chaining 3 aoe bleeds back to back and then just sceptre autoing stuff slowly to death. Epidemic aoe’ing stuff is always nice and all but still.

Power is just more flexible, you’re not screwed if stuff dies too fast, you can kill objects better, you bring arguably stronger aoe dmg, and death shroud is alot more useful.

Although it usually ends up just being Life Blast spamming which can get boring too, it does hit pretty decently, and again, double well + life transfer just wrecks stuff. And you have a little more weapon diversity, can switch up between Axe/Dagger and Staff.

Nothing stopping you using both, If your happy with kiting around a bit

here’s a staff hybrid I came up with for pvp, it may be a valid build for PvE but I haven’t tested it in that environment

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Hybrid-Staff-Build-for-all-pvp/first#post498589

Honestly, necro is a meat grinder profession either way. all our best damage sources are DOT, not burst.

So it seems like there’s a nice even split for Condition v. Power for leveling. So I might give power a try. What’s the basis of a power build? Is it just axe, wells, and DS?

…and Lich Form.

Power has always been my preferred method for most things. Between Staffs 2-5 nuking, Well of Corruption and Well of Suffering and DS’ Life Transfer i have never had a problem tagging mobs in dynamic events or taking down groups of 10+ on my own.

30 in Spite is a must (V/ VI – VII – XII)
15 in Curses for fury apon DS entering helps alot for Life transfers damage (V)
25 in Death Magic if you want a tanky power build whilst converting toughness to power (II – V)
or
25 in Soul Reaping for faster Life Transfer spamming and +25% crit damage (III – X)

And yea Lich Form destroys pretty much anything.

hmpz … sure Nukerbuild for leveling?

For Leveling do a Pet build with Vita und Tough. So easymode leveling.

Copy&Paste:

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3810004m4p4q8blnae00k005fhe

Funny that people post traits built when you’re 80 when the topic clearly says he’s 24 (should have about 14 trait points) and wants to level…

I don’t care about writing too long story so I try to make it simple:

power/tough/vitality + targeted wells + greater marks
staff main weapon
flesh golem + other minion + well of blood + 2 wells

Viable “power” build for pve. Work something from there, it depends a bit on play style. If you go max damage probably soul reaping and some curses instead of tough/vit since you can get enough tough/vit from items etc. there’s tons of choices.

i leveled so easy puting points in death magic and using pets and staff

I have 2 sets of armor, one with toughness/vitality (and rune of earth) and another set with power/condition with some precision and I only lose ~2000 health and ~300 toughness/armor and I kill things MUCH faster with the power/condition suit and eventually I respec’d to power/prec 30/20/20/0/0 traits from my original 0/20/30/20/0.

Go with power for leveling, I leveled with toughness and sometimes it takes forever to kill some mobs. If your main weapon is scepter then invest in some more condition and let feast of corruption (scepter #3) do the rest of the work.