Guild Wars 2

Hello! I decided to boost my necro since i really enjoyed playing one but i am kinda lost when it comes to builds. Which build should i be using as a boosted character? ( I enjoy more staff/GS play style)
I looked into meta battle but it confused me even more.

Ive never boosted my necromancer to 80 so i dont know what you have limited if any
aslo what type of build do you need.
are you playing in pve, wvw or PvP?

Boosting gave me Rabid Winged gear with Necromancer runes. I am looking for a PvE build mostly.

if you are using rabid you will want to use scepter/x either usually warhorn and dagger
this is because your wearing condition damage armor

if you want to do more condition damage i recommend getting either trailblazer or viper gear expertise increases your condition duration. keep in mind if you plan on doing raids you will want low toughness unless you plan on tanking.

you said you like to use the greatsword id recommend using bezerkerers to maximize your damage with your greatsword and if you want some surviveablitily you could go with marauders instead. dagger/warhorn and greatsword will offer the highest potential direct damage you can do however if you wish to use a range weapon i’d recommend using axe as it does more damage than the staff.

hope this help you can message me in game if you need more help

If you prefer the GS/Staff playstyle, then just make some good old fashioned Berserker gear. It’s perfectly viable in PvE to simply swing your Greatsword around at groups of enemies, and spam Gravedigger whenever any of them drop below 50% HP. If you want to be a little more durable while playing this kind of build, I recommend balancing some amount of Cavalier’s and Valkyrie pieces to increase your toughness and vitality. As for traits, you can run Reaper with any combination of Soul Reaping, Spite, and Blood Magic.

Thanks guys! I think i will try and build a condition necro as it seems more fun. Any thoughts about what weapon sets i should use for condi build?

For Condi, you’ll traditionally find that the most common weapon sets are Scepter/Dagger and Scepter/Warhorn. You can easily use a Staff instead of the warhorn if you prefer to. The reason is because Scepter is the highest Condition-based DPS on the Necromancer, mainly from the auto-attacks alone, so you never really want to swap away from it except for a bit of additional utility.

If you have the impression that Condi will be more fun than Power because Power is simply mashing 2 on Greatsword, then you’ll find that Condi isn’t much better, since Condi is literally spamming Scepter 1 and using Scepter 2 and 3 off cooldown.

I just feel that condi builds have more AoE potential, am i wrong?

Condi is more AoE in regular terms of the concept, but Power has a lot of cleave, which means its abilities hit multiple targets simultaneously. It also does have some of its own AoE, though.

I use Death, Blood, and Reaper for a 2 Handed Minion Master Build for PvE.

Then I use either a Dagger/Warhorn or Staff for Weapon Swap.

Power builds have more variety and can be a lot of fun, too. Reaper, once you have the hero points, is also a power trait line.

Get yourself a berserker set when you can. With a berserker power build, staff pierces for 1k, dagger can do 4-6k per cycle, and axe is almost tolerable when used with minions. Focus hits like a truck and Life Blast does several thousand damage with its slow moving blob of Death.

If you are gathering hero points, power is best. Condition damage is the only viable build for raids and PvP but power is OK or better for other content. Condition damage builds need optimal situations to get meta: bleed stacking in PvE, or boon corruption in PvP. Condi pulls Necromancer into the meta, else Necro would not be in the meta. Power builds, on the other hand, are durable, have no real dps ramp-up time (turbo lag) for bleeds, and allow play style ranging from Berserker to Cleric to bunkering as soldier or MM.

Yeah i think i will go for Minion Master with Staff/GS, something similar to the build in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6SjSmcZ580

Anchoku.8142:

If you are gathering hero points, power is best. Condition damage is the only viable build for raids and PvP but power is OK or better for other content.

Not entirely true. Even all on your own you can still average about 11-13k dps on the raid build and you can just slot parasitic contagion to make all hero point champs in hot maps into a complete joke.

@Velon just keep in mind the nerf to Rise that has happened since that Vid.

What kind of nerf was it?

Velon.5016:

What kind of nerf was it?

50% dmg reduction to 33%

not sure if the cd was increased aswell..

Ravezaar.4951:

Velon.5016:

What kind of nerf was it?

50% dmg reduction to 33%

not sure if the cd was increased aswell..

They decreased the health of Shambling Horrors by 25% and their toughness by 20% as well.

Due to how reaper trait interact. I suggest staying away from zerker gear for a power necro.

For one, fury will put you at 20%, banner is another 8%, and spotter is around 7%, if you add in food, you could easy hit 50% due to the lack of valkyrie trinkets. After that decimating strikes will do the rest. Or, you could opt for chilling victory for might.

If you do a lot of shround dps (which is optimal for a staff/GS build until the enemy hits 50% due to sustain and might), then depth perception will give you another 50%, eliminating the need for crit chance over around 20% period.

Like someone said earlier you have a lot of options. Zerker for basic gear. Valkyrie for my maxing/necro only gear (i suggest rune of the wurm for this set, or scholar, or strength runes).

Here is the power build i currently use. Swapping out utilities as needed.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQJARWnMbCdbilbCubC0biFcBDaAEAaBUph2wzKuK2FDjA-TxhBABLqEMp9Hk4KAknuAAeEAVq+zVK/IFgg6sA-e

Your build looks nice but tbh i am so confused right now. I really don’t know what to pick as both power and condition build are fun. I guess i will decide on a build that i can use both for pvp and pve.
Got any suggestions?

Your PvE gear are not used in PvP. In PvP game-mode you have normalized gear, so you don’t need to worry about having a set of gear that works for both PvE & PvP.

Now I’m not sure if when you said PvP you really meant WvW, but WvW is different and it does use your gear. In which case the build you want for WvW will depend on what you intend on doing in WvW (solo roam, small group havoc, zerg v zerg, guild raids, etc)

Nah i am more of the instanced PvP type of person. I like WvW roaming also but i don’t do that often.

Well for PvP you won’t be using your PvE gear so what you use for PvE won’t affect your PvP build. When you setup your PvP build, you simply select the specs, amulet, runes, sigils, and weapons you want to use. For PvP you’ll want to run some sort of condi reaper build, you can find some popular builds here: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer

Metabattle is a good place to start for new necros. As you gain experience with the class, you’ll tweak your builds to fine tune it to your liking.

gavyne.6847:

Well for PvP you won’t be using your PvE gear so what you use for PvE won’t affect your PvP build. When you setup your PvP build, you simply select the specs, amulet, runes, sigils, and weapons you want to use. For PvP you’ll want to run some sort of condi reaper build, you can find some popular builds here: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer

Metabattle is a good place to start for new necros. As you gain experience with the class, you’ll tweak your builds to fine tune it to your liking.

I second this. Learning the class’s strengths, and what you can and can’t get away with goes a long way in developing your own builds without needing a guide. Use meta battle as a starting point, and tweak from there.

Power builds are good for all PvE unless you exclusively do T4 fractals and raiding. The gear is cheaper to get than Viper gear (which you must craft yourself and farm for the trinkets). And you can easily switch between minion master (e.g., Death Magic/Blood Magic/Reaper, with full minion bar) and non-MM shout/wells shroud build (e.g., Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper) for 2 entirely different playstyles that use the same (zerker or valkyrie) gear. Both power builds also use GS and either staff, axe/x or dagger/x for other set, depending on your preference. Fantastic builds. The only reason I eventually switched to Viper condi build is to get set-up for T4 fractals and raiding.

Sounds good then! All i have to do now if farm some gold to buy the gear.
Is Zhed’s gear a good start?