Guild Wars 2

I have been playing as an MM, but I don’t think I can tolerate it anymore. I mixed in some condition skills yesterday and found it much faster and more exciting than my pure minions build. Now I face the dilemma of whether to go hybrid power/conditions or pure conditions.

I like the idea of Lich Form, and for that I know I’d need some power. Not wanting to go with a full power build, that leaves me with hybrid. I also like using lifeblast while in DS, which is also a plus for including power in my build.

However, I’m not sure I like the “glass cannon” sort of approach that a hybrid Necro takes. It seems like such a build would be incredibly vulnerable in dungeons and WvW, which are the primary environments that I hope to have success with this build. If I need more survivability in those environments, I’ll have to build for Vitality, Toughness, and Condition Damage.

Which of those two paths is the better choice, and how would I gear for it? My current theory of a hybrid build looks like this, with minor variations (but no reallocation of points) for WvW:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQUQRArY3djMat7VaiaM8JCoHvHXOL6BxKWyoKsOA;T8AZVCqkUpqSRFVUmoE4YjyFlMqlIjK2QMXA

This forum likes to break links, you may have to copy/paste the above to see my theoretical hybrid build.

My build that I came up with an currently run in WvW is very similar. I went hybrid Power and Conditions and currently am liking it. I hit hard enough when I stack bleeds that people will back off and fast if they aren’t getting constant heals but I also can burst single target if needed.

The only thing I found lacking in your current build is your Life Force generation. You don’t really have anything that will allow you a more hands on way to regain lifeforce.

Blood is Power and Epidemic are a must IMO. If you are going conditions there is no reason not to get Epidemic. We stack bleeds slower than most other classes however we have the unique ability to mirror the conditions. No other class in the game can do this in an UNBLOCKABLE/UNAVOIDABLE AoE.

I would also recommend dropping the 10 pts in Spite (10% damage when people are 50% and below isn’t as good as it seems when your not doing high damage.)

Replace those points in spite with points in Soul Reaping. This gives you the minor trait for spectral armor at 50% (amazing survivability and life force generator) and allows you to either take LB pierces and causes Vuln or what I always choose, Marks generate 3% life force.

My reasoning is this… when I built for hybrid I picked 3 different things that I wanted to be good at.

1) Conditions:

Scepter/dagger + staff
1100 condition damage
Blood is Power
Epidemic

2) Death Shroud and single target Burst:

Fury when entering DS
Might when casting LB
Reduction in LF drain
1900+ power with food and Berserker Sigil

(Staff 4 crits between 1.7-2.3k)

Death Shroud UpKeep: (Because the damage scales with Life force amount making it worthwhile with 75% or more LF.)

Spectral Armor – minor trait
Soul marks – major trait
FoC – Scepter 3
BiP – Utility 6-8

The reasoning why I place so much emphasis on LF regeneration is because the faster we have full LF the more aggressive we can potentially be. If you need to pop DS as an emergency second HP bar, you can easily survive to get away, reuse half your LF generating abilities and already be back up to full. Thereby once again allowing you the choice of using the LF to burst or once again as a survival mechanism.

This allows you to stack and spread conditions throughout the opposing team but also allows you to focus targets down. LB is amazing for when people are downed but you can;t get to them. I was seeing 3-4k crits on downed opponents which in 3 shots will kill them.

The key though is constantly swapping in and out of DS.