Guild Wars 2

ok now I have a 80 thief and warrior I want to start a necro

but I cant decide

Condition build or Minion army build for lvl ing ?

opinions on both ? strength and weakness ?

gearing for low lvl ? vitality cond or power cond or power vit ?

necros seems pretty complicated.

Well, this is an interesting time to be asking that question because the patch today is supposed to include a major hitpoint pool increase to minions (71% increase from what I’ve heard, but the patch notes coming very soon here today will tell us exactly), which will very much make a minion master probably the prime choice for leveling, especially with the other recent changes to minions (better AI, and out of combat regen for non sacrificing minions).

My personal recommendation is go minions (especially after today) for outside world leveling, and as for stats, the general consensus yet is go power over condition dmg till around 60 or so as power seems to just scale better at the early levels.

If anyone has a better recommendation, feel free to chime in.

Good luck out there! Necro is a pretty complicated class, but I find it an incredibly enjoyable experience.

so MM all the way seeing a lot of good changes for minions.

and power vit gear.

The patch is pretty new, however:

For leveling I always recommended going Dagger/Focus with Power as your primary stat. Condi damage does not scale well at low levels, avoid it for now.

Try going dagger with minions. I haven’t tried it since the patch is quite new, but I have a feeling it might be quite good at low levels. If you try it give us some feedback, other players leveling a Nec might find your insights quite useful.

You can lvl up very easy using minions, even before this patch it was never a problem, but if you think you are dedicated to actually playing the class I’d suggest you start with Cond builds, they might not be as effective in early stages, but it’s a great opportunity to learn those basics from early on.

Guess my point is just that your time is better spent on teaching how to max out conditions and time those macros, since minions is the easy way out that you’ll be able to pick up at any point.

Personally, start off with Minion Master up to level 65 or so, you would not have to worry about surviving or gear (for minion do PTV and Condi just rabid) as much, also Minion master does not depend solely on traits (though still invest in death magic) after 65 start gearing to condi. If you find Necromancer too hard stick with Minions, much easier, though conditionmancer can be very fun and the aoe is just insane.