Guild Wars 2

hello everyone, im new to guildwars 2 and im a level 35 necro but im not sure how to build my char so that it can handle dungeons and wvw events fine in the future

which is better for wvw condition or power mancer

any help is greatly appreciated

also advice on the trait slots would be great

thanks guys

I have played both and my opinion is if you like to hang back in a zerg conditions are better. If you are comfortable being a little more in your face front lines, you would go power. I started off with the former then changed to the latter. Being sub-80 might factor in here too, because your survivability is different. Personally I prefer all the small numbers ticking away, but I didn’t feel like I was tagging enough because I would rarely get bag drops. If you go power you can also lay down wells at a door and hammer away on flame rams. I routinely and I believe perhaps single-handedly scare zergs away from doors. That’s when they bring in the catapults.

I go with 30/30/10/0/0 (or maybe it’s 30/20/20/0/0, I can’t remember right now) with reasonable choices like greater marks and in my case focused rituals. I use staff at range (fear to interrupt revives and stomps, chill to prevent escape) and switch to dagger/warhorn to finish the job.

thanks for the input, since im working from the bottom up i feel like the gear to be a powermancer would be harder to achieve so would it be a good idea to stay back and condition till i hit a higher level and can purchase better tanking gear ?

also what stats should i look for in both builds ? or are they the same for a necormancer across the board. im new to guildwars but im glad it reminds me of diablo 2

An extremely aggressive condition necromancer can definitely wade into a zerg and routinely scare it away with wells and Epidemic.

I’d try to offer more details, but I cover this all in my in-depth guide. Here is the thread for it if you’re interested: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Massive-guides-for-condition-necromancer/

im sorry guys when i said wvw i meant pve i got the two confused and thought they were the same thing. But thank you lopez ill look into your guide for some more details

You want both Power and Condition Damage. Necro has no true Power options because the majority of Necro damage is not affected by power. There is no exception to this rule.

PinkFloyd.1469:

im sorry guys when i said wvw i meant pve i got the two confused and thought they were the same thing. But thank you lopez ill look into your guide for some more details

Sounds good! I do have both a PvE and world vs. world guide, so both should help.

XiL.4318:

You want both Power and Condition Damage. Necro has no true Power options because the majority of Necro damage is not affected by power. There is no exception to this rule.

Actually, main-hand dagger scales well with power. The downside is it scales horribly with condition damage because it doesn’t have any conditions.

Scepter scales well with condition damage, but its coefficient for power is really low (about 10 percent).

Staff is in the middle; it scales decently with both condition damage and power. It can be used for AOE and utility for condition builds and AOE and range for power builds.

Also, the math shows it’s counterproductive to stack both power and condition damage. It leads to less survivability and DPS. The survivability part is obvious; it’s harder to obtain toughness when so much is being put into DPS stats.

The reason it leads to less DPS is because proper power or condition builds combine power, precision, and critical damage or condition damage, precision, and occasionally toughness to make damage scale exponentially. Here is an in-depth description for how this works that I wrote before for my guide:

The main reason hybrid builds are mediocre in Guild Wars 2 is because the stats from the main DPS archetypes — condition damage, precision, and toughness in rabid and power, precision, and critical damage in berserker — scale semi-exponentially when they’re placed together.

For example, with berserker gear, precision is geared toward making critical strikes more frequent, but in the same set-up, critical strikes actually get stronger. So every percent of critical strike chance (21 precision at level 80) actually becomes better as the critical strikes triggered become stronger through power and critical damage. The math behind this is simple: With no extra critical damage, 1 percent chance to crit, or 21 precision, only adds about 0.5 percent DPS. With 50 percent extra critical damage, that 21 precision suddenly adds about 1 percent DPS because the critical strikes triggered are now doing double the damage.

It’s the same concept with condition damage, toughness, and bleeds in the rabid set-up. With rabid gear, precision triggers more bleeds, while condition damage and, to a much lesser degree, toughness all add to bleed damage. So each point of precision becomes stronger with each point of condition damage and toughness because the more frequent bleeds also tick harder.

In other words, it’s better to focus on two or three main stats, especially as each individual stat gets higher, because of how the stats synergize with each other. If a hybrid approach is taken to gearing, the lack of focus actually makes a build do exponentially less damage.

The highest possible damage output you can achieve comes from a hybrid build. Period. In all content the hybrid is superior, if you are focused on damage.

Not a single syllable of the mountains of text matter beyond this. You cannot focus Necro in any single direction without nerfing yourself.

Like I said, that’s not what the math shows. You’re obviously free to disagree, but I think my post gave a more objective analysis.

Show the math. Not a wall semantics. Dagger damage is useless in WvW and PvE and tourny. The only exception being hot matches where you can ride the zerg and poke stuff. Did you forget to consider the oppertunity costs in your Math? Or are you just trying to win an argument on the internet with someone who has much more experience than you do?

In any respect, show the math you have so confidently hailed as the objective basis for your opinion. If you can.

The basic math is in the post. The post is long to give it context.

If you want to talk about dagger falling behind due to the opportunity cost, then yeah, I agree with that. That’s one of the reasons I run a condition build.

XiL.4318:

The highest possible damage output you can achieve comes from a hybrid build. Period. In all content the hybrid is superior, if you are focused on damage.

Not a single syllable of the mountains of text matter beyond this. You cannot focus Necro in any single direction without nerfing yourself.

For once, god help me, i have to strongly agree with xil. Hybrid builds are the golden key to the best dps. This is found in curses25, and both grand traits for spite and curses. If you flush both types of damage in a generally balanced manner, you can get enormous dps for very little setup.

There are mant ways to do it so that defense is gained through crit procd vampirism, or ds, or both.

I run every hot build i get my hands on through my holy grail excel sheet, and i can assure you that hybrids rule.

Lopez.7369:

Actually, main-hand dagger scales well with power. The downside is it scales horribly with condition damage because it doesn’t have any conditions.

Scepter scales well with condition damage, but its coefficient for power is really low (about 10 percent).

Did you read before writing guys?

Im not great at english, but I read before hitting my keyboard keys like a frantic

I ignore your experience Xil, but i tried hybrid power and condition NECROS, (i’m not talking about other classes), and hybrid are the worst,

And I play gw2 a lot, (the only game i play) and necromancer it’s the only class i play…

PinkFloyd.1469:

hello everyone, im new to guildwars 2 and im a level 35 necro but im not sure how to build my char so that it can handle dungeons and wvw events fine in the future

You’ll want to stat full Ascalonian armor/weapons as that gives you the only combination of Toughness/Vitality… no other armor selection gives you this (other than a couple of higher dungeons, but they’re the same stats). Currently they don’t have a Condition Damage/T/V armor set yet so it’s your only reasonable option for SUSTAINABILITY in a dungeon/WvW setting. You could go to a glass cannon build of something like Power/Condition Damage/Magic Find for dungeon farming, but if you’re exclusively towards sustainability, go the route I suggested above.

Here’s a link to the exotic armor stats:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Apm7-NVTY0WKdG9qVlQ3bVM3UWtVeXBOV0V2THA0VHc#gid=0

There’s also another build I saw, which is great, that focuses on 50% crit, Power and Condition Damage, but it’s also a glass cannon so it’s not recommended for everyone. Here’s a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCcT7iJUrA

which is better for wvw condition or power mancer

I don’t care what anyone else says, for WvW you want to focus on AoE conditions that you can stay out of the fight and kite enemy mobs. Seriously, I use Well-o-mancer in WvW and it rox my sox because you don’t have to get a direct kill to get the point for your achievement, all you have to do is help in the kill and since there are tons of ppl gathered in specific spots in a heated battle, your AoE conditions will inflict at least one of them that your thief ally will bring down rather quickly… congratz on an easy kill.

For S/T PvP, Powermancer all the way… only because there’s no CD/T/V armor yet.

also advice on the trait slots would be great

If it’s Powermancer, focus primarily on Power, Toughness, and Vitality. Do a search on this forum for the ‘Juggermancer’ build. It’s pretty much a great place to start for a Powermancer and it shows the math behind Toughness/Vitality.

If it’s Conditionmancer there are several good builds on here, but my Well-o-mancer runs 20 in death (w/ focus on Marks/Staff), 20 in Curses & 25 in Blood (w/ focus on Wells).

Hope that helped some!

When it comes to condition vs direct in WvW i believe there is no ‘better’ build.

Condition builds have really good control (stuff like mass crippling and chilling, keeping bleeds on enemies for other classes to benefit from) Direct builds have raw damage bursts and good support through well combo fields.

I would recommend playing around with both builds and finding the one that fits your typical play-style.

http://www.twitch.tv/gw2ascii/b/353567741 I play full direct damage Necro in WvW if you scroll to about 20 mins in my steam you can see the kind of damage i can put out at short notice.

Hope this helps!

Sheobix.8796:

For once, god help me, i have to strongly agree with xil. Hybrid builds are the golden key to the best dps. This is found in curses25, and both grand traits for spite and curses. If you flush both types of damage in a generally balanced manner, you can get enormous dps for very little setup.

There are mant ways to do it so that defense is gained through crit procd vampirism, or ds, or both.

I run every hot build i get my hands on through my holy grail excel sheet, and i can assure you that hybrids rule.

This isn’t a matter of opinion or agreement. It’s math. It’s numbers. One is greater than the other.

Condition damage and power do not scale with each other at all. They both scale linearly regardless of how much of the other stat is there. Meanwhile, condition damage and precision work together to scale exponentially, and power, precision, and critical damage also work together to scale exponentially.

This is particularly exacerbated by how the weapons work. Dagger’s overall coefficient for power is about 40 to 50 percent, while its coefficient for condition damage is very close to 0 percent. Scepter’s overall coefficient for condition damage is 40 to 50 percent, while its coefficient for power is about 10 percent. That means stacking the right stat for each weapon is extremely beneficial.

Staff scales decently with both condition damage and power, but it also has middle-of-the-road DPS to make up for its AOE and utility capabilities. So it’s not ideal to use staff in any DPS-focused situation.

Ascii.9726:

When it comes to condition vs direct in WvW i believe there is no ‘better’ build.

Condition builds have really good control (stuff like mass crippling and chilling, keeping bleeds on enemies for other classes to benefit from) Direct builds have raw damage bursts and good support through well combo fields.

I would recommend playing around with both builds and finding the one that fits your typical play-style.

http://www.twitch.tv/gw2ascii/b/353567741 I play full direct damage Necro in WvW if you scroll to about 20 mins in my steam you can see the kind of damage i can put out at short notice.

Hope this helps!

Considering the targets you were hitting and how much damage you were doing, it becomes pretty clear how axe damage scale is weak atm compared with other classes that can invest in power builds, specially considering the range you have to be for attacking and the gear you need to invest for that damage. I can give you a good example, for instance, a rifle warrior running knights + zerker or full zerker, will outdamage an axe necro, out range an axe necro, and willl have far more survivability than an axe necro. Imo, I prefer running as conditions. It has some drawbacks tough, and they usually will not tick for that long in zergs since everyone and their mom can easily remove then. I just find necro power damage atm to be very lacking if in comparison to other classes.

@Lopez: What are you smoking and where can I get some?

There’s a lot of stuff wrong with what you said there, but this takes the crown:

This is particularly exacerbated by how the weapons work. Dagger’s overall coefficient for power is about 40 to 50 percent, while its coefficient for condition damage is very close to 0 percent. Scepter’s overall coefficient for condition damage is 40 to 50 percent, while its coefficient for power is about 10 percent. That means stacking the right stat for each weapon is extremely beneficial.

The game mechanics don’t work like that… at all!
Direct Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
Bleeding = 2.5 + (0.5 * Level) + (0.05 * Condition Damage)
Etc.

This means that a skill’s skill-specific coefficient determines if it is a high or low direct damage skill, but all of them scale exactly the same (doubling power is doubling direct damage whatever the skill coefficient is). Also notice the absence of weapon coefficients for power or condition damage…

And finally: look up what exponential means, cause I don’t think you do.

You just proved part of what I said. In general, scepter’s skill coefficients for power are about 10 percent, meaning it gets about 10 percent of power in its DPS. (This is a rough estimate because each skill is slightly different, with Feast of Corruption scaling the best.) The auto-attack in particular scales horribly with power.

Each bleed scales with a 5-percent coefficient for condition damage, but since scepter can reliably stack way more bleed stacks (I was using 8 to 10 in my math to be generous, but it’s really more 12 to 16). That means scepter gets about 40 to 50 percent of condition damage in its actual DPS numbers, so it gets a roughly 40-to-50-percent DPS coefficient.

Dagger obviously gets next to nothing from condition damage, barring traits, which makes condition damage’s DPS coefficient close to 0 percent. Its power coefficient is about 40 to 50 percent, though.

Here’s an example for how power, precision, and critical damage interact: For the sake of simplicity, let’s say I have enough power for 2,000 DPS without any critical hits, and I want to find out how much I benefit from precision and critical damage

The formula for this is D = 2000 * (1 + P * (0.5 + C)), where D is DPS, P is precision, and C is critical damage.

Now, let’s say I have enough precision for 10-percent critical hit chance and enough critical damage for 0-percent critical damage. My DPS in that case would be 2,100. If I got another 10-percent critical hit chance, I would get a 10-percent DPS increase to 2,200; with 20-percent more critical hit chance, I would get a 20-percent DPS increase to 2,300; and so on. It would scale linearly.

But let’s throw critical damage to the mix. Let’s say for every 10-percent critical hit chance I get, I also get 10-percent critical damage. (That’s actually pretty realistic with how gear currently works in the game.) Suddenly, I will be getting exponential increases: Getting 10 percent in both stats means 2120 DPS, 20 percent means 2280 DPS, 30 percent means 2480 DPS, and so on. Each increment is increasing exponentially.

That’s what I mean when I say the stats scale exponentially when put together. As all the stats are increased, they work off each other to become stronger. That concept applies for power, precision, and critical damage when put together, and it applies to condition damage, precision, toughness through consumables and runes, and condition duration when put together (I usually leave condition duration out due to bleed cap, but it works until the cap).

I hope that clarifies my math a bit. I’m not just using the basic formulas for each skill and stat. It’s a more complicated analysis of the math behind overall DPS.

EDIT: Changed this post up a bit to have more math!