Guild Wars 2

I’ve been working on getting Frostfang (still got a ways to go) as my first legendary (casual player, so yes, it is taking me a while). As such, I’ve been working on a build to use it in. I decided on a condition duration build to capitalize on the Sigil of Ice the weapon has as well as the other conditions we can get with relative ease.

The focus of the build is both WvW and PvP. I will post a version for each game mode that makes rather small changes to compensate for what is and isn’t available.

WvW:
Weapons: Frostfang, Givers Focus (sigil undetermined)/Berserker’s or Cleric’s dagger (sigil of Blood), Giver’s Warhorn (sigil of paralyzation)
Beserker’s Spear (Sigil of blood), Giver’s Trident (sigil of fire?)
Armor: Knight’s armor, 2*Lyssa, 2* Mad King, 2* undecided (likely Melandru or Monk/Water)
Precision/Toughness/Power ascended gear, Beserker’s backpiece. WvW vital and precise infusions on all gear.

Traits: 30/20/0/0/20.
Spite: Reaper’s Might, Chill of Death (Or Spiteful Talisman, since it will be fixed), Axe Mastery (likely swap to Close to Death, but the build is meant to showcase Frostfang)
Curses: Chilling Darkness, Banshee’s Wail (possible swap to Spectral Attunement)
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Spectral Mastery

Healing/Utilities/Elite: Consume Conditions, Spectral Grasp, Spectral Wall, Spectral Walk/Flesh Wurm, Plague

Foods: Superior Maitenence Oil, Rare Veggie Pizza

All condition duration is doubled, lettingg Chills really make an impression and vulnerability to stack up really high. As a bonus, Dark pact lands a 6 second immobilize on a target. Swapping a skill for Epidemic could make this particularly nasty. Plague becomes terrifying for small groups as anyone caught by it for the entire duration suffers 40 seconds of chill. 20 seconds of “can’t hit, heal, or run” is pretty potent, especially when the “can’t heal or run” lasts for twice that duration. General play is to chill and vulnerability stack, swapping to Death Shroud for some Life Blasts. If the situation is favorable for it, Dark Path in and swap to dagger. Pop Locust Swarm and stick on the target. If focused while in melee, pop Plague to disable the group.

PvP: As above, though prefixes, consumeables, and Ascended gear are removed. Runes are replaced with 2 Lyssa, 4 Lich. Condition duration is only +50%.

Sigils are replaced with Energy on the Focus and Hydromancer on dagger.

So, with Banshee’s Wail, Wail of Doom becomes an AoE 4 second daze I am strongly considering Spectral Attunement in WvW and Banshee’s Wail in PvP. Any suggestions for how to improve on the build or tips for playing it?

Frostfang which looks cool, is unfortunately a really bad weapon for necros. 600 range is terrible, you might as well go into dagger range and do 2x the damage and pressure. If they buffed axe range to 900 I’d start using it more, but 600 is about 3 steps away from the target.

I suggest if you want to go power necro, go for the incinerator.

The problem lies in the fact, our gap closers are really slow. DS2 takes a while to move, and spectral grasp takes a while to come out as well. Not to mention it gets constantly obstructed all the time. Flesh wurm port takes 1.5s to cast so its not that viable for quick movement all the time.

Necro is really bad in WvW for roaming, its okay in zergs, and decent in siege defense/offense. A power necro generally has low toughness so it gets bursted fast, which is going to happen in WvW, and necros lack stability so you’ll get cc chained and ganked.

Power necros I feel its not worth it going into precision at all. The other secondary trait benefit is condi power which is useless as a power necro. And the traits are not suited for power. Warhorn is nice, however using 20 points just for that isnt worth it.

I would put points either in Soul Reaping for for bigger crit damage and stability on DS. Or more points into Death Magic for toughness. Or you can go blood magic if you want to try that.

If you want to increase the daze duration, use Runes of Mesmer + Sigil of Stun duration.

Additionally the thought of a chill necro, for a power necro doesnt make sense. Sure it slows people down, but doesnt do damage which a power necro is all high constant damage, and it reduces cooldown which is more attrition condi style. You want the condi duration for FEAR length. Since fear is a condition, and taking the 50% fear trait, makes your fears last ridic long.

Epidemic is mostly a condi users traits. Since the damage that is spread is based off your condi damage amount which as a power user, is really low or zero.

Also signet of locust, try it.

Knight’s Gear prioritizes Toughness, so being squishy will not be happening. For WvW, the build is meant to do all right in both zerg and solo situations.

Also, Runes of the Mesmer do not combine well with the sigil (I.E., they don’t, at all) plus the Runes would remove my 100% condition duration.

The build is not, however, a power necro. It is primarily a condition necro, but with the non-damaging conditions. Crit damage is useless without Precision (and/or Fury, oth from Curses) to deliver said crits. As an aside, it’s not “+100% chill duration”, it is “+100% condition duration.” Fears are doubled too.

Signet of the Locust is fantastic. I currently run it all the time. However, between Warhorn and Spectral Walk (traited for both), movement speed is not an issue, and Spectral Walk gives me a stunbreaker. Flesh Wurm is likewise useful as a stunbreaker.

I am quite experienced with necro and its weaknesses (long cast times and slow projectiles are annoying, but not insurmountable).

How do you handle conditions when your heal is on CD? Well of Power(lots of vigor) and Putrid Mark from staff usually get me by, but that’s already at least 30 trait points down the drain, because WoP without the reduced CD is meh, and good luck running the staff without Greater Marks. I’d say reconsider shelving the staff — Putrid Mark alone is digustingly useful, and being able to fear through blocks is also nice.

I don’t know about spectral grasp in group play. You could probably switch it out for something more useful. Consider:

• Signet of Undeath with Signet Mastery
• Epidemic to spread chill, immobilize, etc.
• Flesh Wurm for getting the hell out of there and for securing stomps when used with Spectral Walk.

How well does Spectral Wall work for you? I haven’t played around seriously with it because battles are constantly on the move.

I really like Spectral Walk over Signet of the Locust. Gives swiftness, and if you’re being focused, rapidly refills your DS. It’s especially good if you’re running any gear that increases your vitality (Soldier’s, Sentinel’s, Carrion, etc.)

Offhand warhorn is amazing. After switching it out to experiment with offhand focus, I find our long cast times make us very suspectible to blind and Locust Swarm effectively works as an anti-blind. The AoE daze with a Sigil of Paralyzation is potent as hell, just be careful not to waste it in groups running high stability uptime.

Axe is fine for blob v blob, especially the retaliation synergy with Plague. Dagger might work too if you can spread the immobilize or chill from focus, but again, very suspect to blinds and CC. The most annoying thing about Dark Pact and Spinal Shivers is the long cast time coupled with the fact that it won’t hit if your target moves behind you.

I suggest learning how to cancel your skills because there are times where you can save a skill from going on full CD if you can see that it will miss (out of range, blinded, wrong target, etc). Go to options and bind Stow / Draw Weapons under the Miscellaneous tab to a key you can easily reach. This will be your skill cancellation key.

Look into Superior Sigil of Hydromancy or Superior Sigil of Geomancy.

Why are you running Giver’s? I suggest running whatever is most appropriate for the weapon (eg. Rabid on staff; Berserker’s on dagger; Soldier’s/Sentinel’s on axe). If you crave more survivability, consider switching out Knight’s for Soldier’s or Sentinel’s. The extra vitality scales well with DS, and allows you to get more out of foods that give stats based on vitality and toughness.

I actually already have stow weapons assigned to ] because I didn’t like running on my hind legs all the time as a charr.

Spectral Wall I have learned is a very useful skill in dueling situations, but placement of the skill means far more than any of our others. Placing it in the friendly zerg is probably more useful, given the ethereal field and long-lasting protection for those that recognize it for what it is. In objective taking situations, it may get swapped out, though it is handy to drop in an opened gate. Oddly, this skill, while stationary, does far more in a mobile fight than a stationary one in my experience.

Spectral Grasp, however, is a sure way to pick someone to die in ZvZ. In both of these cases, swapping for Epidemic is very much in the picture (especially if I land Dark Pact and immedietly follow up).

The problem with staff is, as you already mentioned, the fact that Greater Marks is just so necessary for it to be useful and I don’t want to give up Last Gasp or Furious Demise. If we had 10 more trait points, I would drop dagger/warhorn in all likelyhood and use staff instead.

As for using Givers, it’s so that I have universally doubled condition durations. I could probably make do with only 90% duration, I just like having the max possible duration. If they don’t cleanse, they are sitting for a very long time and if they do cleanse, I can usually just re-apply it.

Another strategy idea I’ve had is to pop Spectral Walk and Locust Swarm, use Dark Path to dive into the enemy zerg, follow it up with Life Transfer, possibly drop a Daze, the pop back to my start (the return function of Spectral Walk isn’t removed by death shroud).

And yes, condition clear is indeed a concern for me. I have half been considering a Sigil of Generosity/Purity on the dagger just to at least give something more than my healing skill.