Guild Wars 2

[EDIT] I discovered a “small detail” that make this build a fail… Signet of Spite is not taken into account when in Death Shroud. That means it is still interresting while using the dagger or even the axe but Life Blast is too weak and Life Blast is far too important for a power necro to not be used (dagger #1 is way too risky to be our auto attack). T_T

Hello, everyone.

I came here to share my current necromancer PvE build. I’ve discovered many interresting builds by reading Tararazuka’s posts on gw2guru and watching Nemesis (thank you so much for your videos!) channel on youtube. I used to play Nemesis’s glass canon build with a few changes (10 pts in Curse rather than Blood Magic and different sigils) but recently a guy named Clinton Poovan made me rethink the build a bit more. So by mixing Nemesis, Takarazuka and Clinton Poovan’s ideas I came up with this :
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|7.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|8.1g.h2.d.1g.h1|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8g.67|f6.p4a.0.0.u46c|0.0|3r.4d.49.43.4e|e

In fact I only use one focus and only change the weapon in my right hand when swapping. Also you have to manualy add 90 in power to get the right numbers since the singet gives now 180 powers and not only 90 anymore.

I know it looks odd to make a power build with only 15 in Spite, but the Signet of Spite give us 30 more power than would have going 30 in that line.
I do not benefit from “Close to Death” but I do benefit “Target the Weak” : no more 20% more damage when the target’s health is lower than 50% but in dungeons a boss has between 5 and 10 conditions on him from the begining to the and of the fight, which means between 10 and 20% more damage from the begining to the and of the fight.
Takarazuka used “target the Weak” in one of his builds but he took points from “Soul Reaping” in order to have it. I did not want to lose my 30 points in “Soul Reaping” because Death Shroud is too useful : I did not want to lose 15% crit damage and I did not want to lose “Near to Death”. Only 5 seconds CD for Death Shroud means I can use it more frequently to :
- damage foes through Life Blast when I’m not close enough to use the dagger
- protect myself by letting Life Force take the damage instead of my own health
- being under the effect of Fury more often, especially when using the dagger since I switch to Death Shroud and immidiatly switch back to my normal form just to maintain fury 100% of the time.

Concerning traits :

Spite :
- Reaper’s Might : best trait for the mid range rotation with Deatn Shroud, to my opinion

Curse :
- Weakening Shroud : weakens the target and also applies 2 conditions that boost my damage thanks to Target the Weak
- Spectral Attunement : Spectral Wall is very useful and this trait makes it stay for 16 seconds instead of 9 (so more occasions to apply vulnerability on foes and protection on allies) and also gives me Life Force on use (as I do not use Spectral Grasp this helps).

Soul Reaping :
- Spectral Mastery : lower CD for Spectral Wall for more vulnerability/protection but also Life Force.
- Unyielding Blast : more vulnerability and the ability to hit up to three targets at once for more damage
- Near to Death : for more Death Shroud and more Fury

About the gameplay :
- at mid range it is just like Nemesis glass canon except the use of Spectral Grasp
- at close range : aplly vulnerability when it is up and trigger Fury by double tapping the Death Shroud button while you auto attack with the dagger
Of course it is not always that simple but you get the idea.

That’s all. ^^

Thanks for reading and please forgive my english since it is not my first language. ^^’

Again I would like to thank Tararazuka for sharing his builds, Clinton Poovan for his commentaries on Nemesis’ channel and most of all I would like to thank Nemesis himself for his videos which are extremely detailed and well explained with some humor I really appreciate.

hello, is this for pve/pvp/wvw or all 3? also I do like it and im going to test it out but I never really play without a staff its just so useful to me, could i swap staff for the axe or would that kitten the build?

I use this build in PvE.

Concerning the staff, as it is more a jack of all trade weapon you cannot DPS much with it. I still have one in my bag for some specific situations.

I find this build intriguing, but I question your choice of just having one Focus instead of another off-hand. I know it must be to have access to it regardless of your active main hand weapon, but once you use it, the cooldown is almost as twice as switching weapons, so you lose 2 others skill options.

You’re right, I only have the focus to have access to vulnerability stacking even when I have the dagger in my right hand. Also focus #5 applies chill which is a way to benefit more from “Target the Weak” but it takes so long to cast…

Do you think it would be better to have a warhorn along with the dagger to have the locusts doing some damage and filling my life force while I’m at close range (also cripple for “target the Weak”)? (and the daze for a little bit of defense)

Well I would close range with Axe/Focus (use all skills if needed to boost damage via vulnerability, cripple, and Chill and gain some retal) then switch to dagger/warhorn (only as an example, off hand dagger would add blind, vulnerability and bleed for a 6% damage increase) for the real damage dealer and keep warhorn #4 to prevent a heal. You’re gonna be 20 sec with Focus #5 on cooldown, keep count and you can switch back to axe if really good boons pops up that you want to remove.

Warhorn is also a really good lifeforce generator with #5. With Axe #2, Focus #4, Warhorn #5 and your Spectral attunement, you will fill it up in no time.

I’m not found of off hand dagger in a power build… It sounds more usefull for a condition mancer. I mean #4 is useful for defense at it transfers conditions to the target and blinds it at the same time, but #5 is not useful to me as I already got that spell by going into Death Shroud (“Weakening Shroud”).

But Locust Swarm sounds interresting enough so I’ll give dagger/warhorn a try. Thanks for the help.

I wouldnt recommend relying on focus 5 to apply chill. You lose a lot of dps by channeling that ability. Best to save it for boon stripping. I would recommend a warhorn with the dagger. But you could get some nice target the weak bonuses by using an offhand dagger and traiting into chilling darkness. This gives you an instant blind + chill every 18 seconds which is more often than the focus chill, plus its an extra condition. You also get more access to enfeebling blood.

But then target the weak isnt that strong. You do more damage by going 30 into spite and taking close to death (you have more power and a huge boost in damage once they are below 50% hp).

Both are even nicer

Heres a build i just put together using target the weak. In my opinion its only worth taking in a power build if you scrap going into soul reaping for stability or lower DS cooldown. Basically you get alot of access to multiple conditions to get around 10% bonus damage from target the weak most of the time. Coupled with 20% bonus damage under 50% hp. Get spectral skill cooldown to be able to spam spectral grasp for single target chills more often.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQRBIhdu1IjW1elmmGDfiA6x7zlziecslxMqCwD-TEAg0A

You could take well of darkness with chilling darkness trait like i said in the previous post for aoe chill + blind, buts its a long cooldown and you would need to swap banshee’s wail for chilling darkness. If you do this you should also swap spectral mastery for unyielding blast.

@ Panhauramix

I’ve tried warhorn again and I’m really not a big fan of it… #4 is useful when fighting other players but not that much in PvE. Locust Swarm does some AoE damage but I miss the possibility to apply at least 3 stacks of vulnarability on my target even with the dagger in my right hand.

@ spoj

As I already said, I do not use focus #5 that much. In fact I only use it when I need to kite. Focus #4 is what makes it that nice for a powermancer.
Sure off hand dagger would provide some conditions for “Target the Weak” but I cannot pick an off hand weapon just for that. First I can apply bleeds by other means and it is the most shared conditions, so in donjons (where “Target the Weak” really shines) the target always suffers from it. Even if I really like dagger #4, I would not trade it against focus #4.
Concerning warhorn, I answered above but I forgot to say that I do not find Life Force regen of #5 very useful : at close range I only use Death Shroud for the buffs it gives (perma fury and retaliation) by switching it on and off immediatly. Also dagger auto attack, focus #4 and Spectral Wall give me enough Life Force.

I do think target the weak is that strong in PvE. Also I do not have less power in my build than if I had 30 in Spite : with only 15 in Spite I lose 150 power but I get 180 power from Signet of Spite.
As I said, Close to Death is indeed a great trait, but the 20% boost it gives only triggers when the target is under 50% HP, which means before that it gives no boost at all. In donjons, a target as several conditions on it right from the begining (bleed, vulnerability, burn, poison, cripple, etc…) so the boost may be not as huge but it will be here from the begining to the end of the fight. 5 conditions on a boss is common and it gives me 10% more damage, so with that number in mind we have in the one hand we have 10% during all the fight and on the other hand 20% during half of it. And there can be more conditions on the target for a higher percentage.

As I said in my first post, Takarazuka found a 30/25/0/0/15 build that was not bad but that reduced the effectiveness of Death Shroud. So he took some points from Soul reaping to put in Curses to get “Target the Weak” just like you did. But I do not like a power build without 30 in “Soul Reaping” and here is why :

- you get both “Close to Death” and “target the Weak” but you lose the 5% damage boost from “Strength of Undeath” and 20% critical strike damage. The former is active in permanence and the other is also permanent on criticals which represent between 58 and 78% of your hits (depending on if you benefit from Fury or not).

- you lose “Near to Death” so you have “Fury” 50% of the time at best when I can have it up to 100%. Mors crits = better DPS

- you lose “Last gasp” which is not wonderful but a minor trait that gives Protection for 6 seconds and some Life Force on top of that is kind of welcome.

- you do not have “Unyielding Blast” wich applies vulnerability (so damage boost again) to all targets it hits. As it pierces it can hit up to 3 targets for kind of AoE damage.

About your traits :

- “Well of Corruption” synergies well with “Target the Weak” except that its CD is much too long, that mobs rarely have any boons on them, that most conditions I will get with it would already be on the target thanks to the other players in the group. So I prefer Signet of Spite wich gives me more power than what misses in Spite in my build. This well has a better use in PvP or WvW.

- “Spectral Grasp” is not as strong as “Spectral Wall” as it does not provide 10 stacks of vulnerability (or even more if the target crosses the wall several times) and it does not provide protection for me and the other players. So it gives less DPS boost and less protection. Concerning Life Force regen I also have it with “Spectral Wall” thanks to “Spectral Attunment”.

If I should pick 30 in spite I would definitly run Nemesis glass canon build (as I used to for many weeks) since it makes more sense to me than the other builds I’ve seen on the internet.

The wells arent for condition application they are for aoe damage. I run a 30/10/0/0/30 build in PvE. Ive experimented with a lot of glass cannon builds and I find that this build provides the most dps while also giving you access to foot in the grave. Well cooldown isnt an issue for me as most mobs and groups of enemies are dead within seconds so the wells are perfect for adding dps for those fights. I run dungeons with very high dps groups. Also a reason i shy away from curses is the condition damage doesnt really benefit a power build and you dont need any more than 50% crit chance. Condition duration on spite is very useful. It helps amazingly with vuln stacking which boosts you and your groups dps massively. I do usually use unyielding blast in most builds. The reason i didnt put that in the build i posted was because I was trying to give a build which got the maximum use out of target the weak.

Also nemesis’s burst build is pretty much my glass cannon build. Except I use WoS and WoC at all times for boosted aoe and single target damage in dungeons. I can hit just as hard as his and also hit very hard on groups of trash with axe retal + well bombs and life transfer. Also taking the signet of spite is pointless unless your group already provides you with max stacks of might. Blood is power gives way more power than the signet but obviously its wasted if you already have those might stacks.

I agree with you about the 30/10/0/0/30 build : it is really a great one.
I also agree that condition duration is usefull for a glass canon build because of vulnerability stacking.

You do not have any condition spec player in your group ? Not even an engineer with grenades kit ?

Anyway, even without any condition spec player, it is common to see bleed, vulnerability, blind, burn, weakness, cripple on the target. Doesn’t matter if the DoT do damage since you get 2% more damage for each of them. Even a 10% damage increase during all the fight sounds good to me. My numbers will be not as big as yours during the last half of the fight but they will be bigger in the first part.
Take in account that several classes/builds have some damage boost when the target has less than 50% damage thanks to traits and runes (5% more damage for some traits and superior rune of the eagle, 10% more critical strike chance for an engineer, etc…) which means the second half of the fight, when the target is under 50% health, last less than the first part. So in the end you’ll benefit from “Close to Death” for less than half of the fight.

50% critical strike chance is enough for a condition build since it is only useful to trigger some conditions. But critical strike chance is never enough in a power build. At least until you reach 100%. ^^
Critical strikes do 50% more damage than normal strikes so if you have 100% more damage thanks to your traits and gear it means that a skill that does 1000 damage with a normal hit will do 2500 damage if it criticals.
So if I take this exemple with 50% critical strike chance over 10 strikes :
- 5×1000 + 5×2500 = 17500
Now with 80% critical strike chance :
- 2×1000 + 8×2500 = 22000
So with the same power and critical strike damage you do more damage if you have more precision/critical strike chance.
The fact is with the stuff I have (full berserk) and Nemesis glass canon build (with 10 in curse rather than in Blood Magic) I have a base of 2333 power, 106% critical strike damage and between 45 and 57% critical strike chance depending on hwo many stacks I have from sigil of perception. With my build I have a base of 2374 power, 106% critical strike damage, 57% critical strike chance without “Fury” (which is the most I can get with the other build) and 77% critical strike chance with “Fury”.

Signet of Spite is not pointless at all to me. It means 180 power all the time. Blood is Power gives you 10 stacks of Might (that is 350 power so 170 more thant with SoS) for 12 seconds with a 30 second CD which means that you spend 18 seconds without any power boost (that is 180 less than with the Signet of Spite). So all in all, SoS gives more power on a whole fight than BiP (even if you use it each time right on cooldown).
Also, as you mentioned it, BiP means you have 10 stacks of Might to get your power, which means that if some of your team members give you like 20 stacks of might and you have BiP on, 5 stacks are wasted. But with SoS I do not use Might to get my power boost, so I can benefit from the maximum Might stacks my team can provide me.

Yes all your points are valid. But they are assuming the fights last long enough for you to worry about cooldowns. In my experience they dont. If I wanted absolutely max dps I think I would take 30/25/0/0/15. Ive tried glass cannon builds without spite and i lost a lot more damage than was acceptable. The signet is not good enough to use most of the time. You can boost your damage in other ways like taking an extra well or take a stunbreak to start dpsing straight after being stunned. I have been known to use the signet in cof path 1 though. As I didnt need a stunbreak and my group already gave enough might. I constantly change skills to what is needed in the next fight. So relying on a signet is just not viable imo.

I assume fights take some time because that is for those fights you need a good build. A boss or a champion is more of a challenge than some random mobs.
Also, a trait like “Close to Death” shine more in long fights : the longer the fight, the more you can benefit from it.
Then a high crit chance with both high power and critical strike damage is also welcome in short fights.

I already said why I do not like the 30/25/0/0/15 build.

I like your build. I’ve got a very similar build, but with more survivability, that I’ve been playing around with. It’s my roaming build for WVW. Call me a masochist if you will, I have 2 decked out awesome roaming classes (thief & mesmer), yet want to roam with necro???. I use d/w with a/f offhand. Below is my build, just keep in mind I’ve already accounted for the 100% uptime of fury, and I have the foods as well. Buildcraft counts the 200 power assuming you’ve had a kill in the last 30s, so the effective power is inflated. This is fine when I’m in a zerg because I always have the 200 power up. Still trying to find a food that will better mesh w/roaming.

Roaming build

When I’m running w/a group or in a zerg I change it up, and take everything out of spite (seems silly with “power” build, but I hate all the spite traits).

Group/Zerg build

With the 2nd build even if decide to drop the staff for roaming, I can change the trait to cleanse condition on DS (5s condition removal), and I don’t have to revisit the trainer to respec. I’m still learning axe/focus, so I find myself going back to staff due to being used to using it as a survival tool. I think a/f will be more viable once I l2p.

@ Dasboba

That’s right, our builds are quite similar. ^^
I understand all of your choices as you play in WvW (more toughness with gear, ground targeted wells, etc…) except one : why the superior sigil of earth on your dagger ?

I must be a masochist myself since my main is a grenadier which can do more DPS with more defense and support but I just love playing my glass canon necro… My engie is both more complex and easier to play than my necro. More complex in the sense that I have more things to think about and do (healing turrets + 3 kits) but easier in the sense that as I can stay at max range and use many skills to heal, regen and protect me on top of more toughness so it is easier to stay alive. Playing a glass canon necro is so much fun and also a greater challenge than playing a grenadier… And necros are so stylish. ;p

About Spite, it is not that the traits suck but I would not have been so high in Curse if Furious Demise and target the Weak had been in Spite instead of Death to Life and Syphoned Power…
Death to Life could have been in Curse with that effect : 10% of your condition damage is given as a bonus to healing (since when you go for a condition build you take 30 in Curse and 30 in Blood Magic).
Furious device in Crse makes no sense since you do not need fury in a condition build : you do have enough precision with rabid gear and 30 points in Curse.
Target the Weak makes no sense in Curse since it is a boost to direct damage which is not what you looking for in a condition build.

Also you made me think of thomething so I just edited my build and its description : I forgot a very important thing : Reaper’s Might as an alternative to Spiteful Spirit. The later is useful for PvP/WvW/farming but the former is a better choice in dungeons and PvE in general since with no armor reduction at all you’d better not get hit. ^^

Well the sigil of earth is just something I’ve been testing. I’m deep into the curses tree even in a power build, and that is mainly for the 2% per condition. With my roaming build I have access to 5 conditions that I can put up by myself pretty easily for 10% extra damage on my attacks. I initially had a sigil of frailty on there, but it had a low proc rate. Since I usually pop BiP before a fight, I get at least 75dmg/tick bleeds, and if they clear it, the thought was I would be able to stack them right back on (80% chance to crit w/fury up, 66% to proc bleed on crit from traits and 60% from sigil). It’s almost overkill though since enfeebling blood and bip itself cause bleeding. Most likely though, I’ll swap that sigil out for something different. I had ice in there, which I’ll probably go back to until I can afford fire.

I also think you have enough ways to put bleeding on your target to take another sigil.

I used to have Frailty on my axe and dagger but I now use Force. The fact is Force gives me a permanent 5% damage boost which is more than can offer Frailty (30% chance to proc is too low to give 5 stacks even with almost 80% chance to critical hit).

But I do not know if this is a good choice for PvP or WvW…

I said Ice, but I meant air. There’s an old reddit post where someone did some testing on the different sigils. The sigil of air gave an average of 8.3% damage increase. Fire gave a 7.5% increase. That was with 56% crit chance. So for all my characters with high crit chance, I typically take an air sigil while saving up for a fire sigil since the result is a higher average damage increase over force (5%).

Thanks for the informations! I should change my sigil in that case… ^^’

What about the superior sigil of blood ? It hits not as hard but it heals and it has a 2 seconds CD instead of 5. Does anyone test it ?

Wiki says it has player tested 5s cd, instead of stated 2s. I just bought a Deathwish on the trading post that comes slotted with the sigil of blood. I’ll test it when I get a chance.

Too bad it’s a 5 seconds CD… :/