Easiest PVE HOT Necro?
Berserker gear, scholar runes, spite/blood magic/reaper, wells, dagger/focus (I personally use dagger trait for movement speed) is easiest PvE build. Probably the most damage as well.
Condition does not kill as fast in general PvE and I don’t think the sustain is as good either.
Easiest HoT roaming builds are berserker power MM or viper/sinister condition Minion Master. Minions add sustain by holding aggro.
After them is berserker shouts. The shouts add the necessary sustain to a glass build by its AoE conditions.
I would only use Death Magic on condition damage builds but that is my personal preference. Spite can let you trade staff for axe-focus, which is good for minions.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Berserker gear, scholar runes, spite/blood magic/reaper, wells, dagger/focus (I personally use dagger trait for movement speed) is easiest PvE build. Probably the most damage as well.
Condition does not kill as fast in general PvE and I don’t think the sustain is as good either.
Yes this is pretty much perfect. As for traits, it’s spite top-top-mid, blood magic mid-bottom-top and reaper mid-bottom-mid
Utility would be Well of Suffering + Corruption, Signet of Spite (never use the active, you want the 180 power), heal of your choice (consider Consume Conditions if you struggle with them as you don’t really have cleanses otherwise) and for elite, flesh golem is best. If you like messing around in open world, Chilled to the Bone is really fun to use imo.
Feel free to look at your utilities and trait lines too, changing stuff if necessary. If you do plenty of big open world events with tons of mobs around + you enjoy reaper shroud a lot, using Your Soul Is Mine as heal along with Augury of Death + Reaper’s Onslaught in the Reaper line and Rending Shroud in the Spite line might be more suiting for you etc., however this would perform worse in instanced group content such as fractals in comparison to the former builds
Berserker gear, scholar runes, spite/blood magic/reaper, wells, dagger/focus (I personally use dagger trait for movement speed) is easiest PvE build. Probably the most damage as well.
Condition does not kill as fast in general PvE and I don’t think the sustain is as good either.
Yeah but as far as EASIEST HOT Necro goes … I’m not certain this is good advice. Most of the mobs in HoT aren’t just ones where you go up to them face to face and beat them to death and pop a well. If you do, it’s certainly not ‘easy’ compared to ….
Easiest HoT roaming builds are berserker power MM or viper/sinister condition Minion Master. Minions add sustain by holding aggro.
After them is berserker shouts. The shouts add the necessary sustain to a glass build by its AoE conditions.
I would only use Death Magic on condition damage builds but that is my personal preference. Spite can let you trade staff for axe-focus, which is good for minions.
This is better advice for an Easy HoT build. Personally, I use …
It kills slower? Depends. The trade off is … I never die. I also solo Champ HP’s with it. Don’t think your typical Dagger Power build can do that … at least not as easily as I do.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
^^
Pretty good build, Obtena.
For kicks, try Putrid Defense instead of FotM to let your minions die a bit easier (and explode) because you run sceptre and will perma poison.
The dagger build should be completely fine and offers enough ways to survive in most cases, also higher damage ends fights quicker = less room for errors. Kiting at range constantly isn’t going to help him. On top of that, you do HPs once per char, usually. He also seems interested in keeping reaper and playing a lot in shroud, neither which your build provide.
All in all your build definitely is a safe one, imo too safe and boring, however if you ever find yourself having to solo a champ which you can’t kill otherwise then it’d work I guess. Though even then I’d swap Death Nova for Corrupter’s Fervor and Unholy Martyr for Transfusion to keep your minions alive longer, as they’re supposed to facetank mobs for you, or so I guess.
OP here, with followup. I should have mentioned my gold limitations before.
I couldn’t afford Scholar runes, so I went with Ice. I know, not as good, but I have multiple ways to keep my targets frozen with GS, Focus, or Staff, so + 7% damage isn’t so bad. I also couldn’t afford to try a complete switch to a condition build. (I thought I could, but I’d run out of gold.) I need to stay with my zerker gear for now.
So last night I went into HOT with Spite/Blood/Reaper – Greatsword and Dagger/Focus, Wells for Utilities, and Golem for Elite. I like that I can keep a utility slot free by using dagger to increase run speed. I have Sigils of Blood and Accuracy on Dagger/Focus, and Lightning/Blood on Greatsword. These wells are especially satisfying when I can run into a nest of mini raptors, which used to give me problems, and watch them all fall within a couple seconds.
Just charging into melee range and firing off the wells kills most enemies or groups of enemies quickly, and the healing keeps me alive. I don’t even need to go into Shroud to kill quickly, but if I miss it I can drop Spite and use Soul Reaping again.
The real problem are those enemies that don’t stand in one place – Veteran Mushrooms and Breakers and Leapers that charge or teleport all over the place. I feel I need to keep the staff on hand for those battles, because the fight takes forever (with a lot of stuns/knockdowns) against certain enemies. But otherwise, not bad at all.
Other options for a power build are..
Drop staff for axe-focus
Drop Blood Magic for Soul Reaping and trait shouts, Cv, and BB while slotting power/might duration runes.
Run a power MM
There are several playable builds for roaming Hot.
I actually don’t remember, but I’m sure most of those enemies have breakbars. If you see the blue bar pop up, just use your CC on them in order to ruin their day and get some extra damage. The second skill of your reaper shroud (Death’s Charge) can be used as a gap closer in case something is trying to get away or jumps around. Getting the timing on the CC right might be difficult at first, but you’ll get a feeling for it.
Staff is still a decent pick if you’re looking to tag plenty of mobs during events for example and yes, it’s not bad if you’re still trying to learn. However I’d suggest not getting used to it too much for PvE as you’ll find yourself taking much longer to kill things with Staff. Having a proper one in your inventory should the need ever arise is still good, of course.
As for the scholar runes, they’re crafted by tailors, maybe that approach is more tangible for you over long term. It’s also 1g cheaper than buying them off the trading post if you put everything together on your own. Strength runes are interesting if you’re on your own and want to focus on shroud usage (for longer fights), though sticking to Scholar is a better investment and overall more efficient. You eventually want to replace your fire with force sigils, too. It’s just so very strong for power builds.
The dagger build should be completely fine and offers enough ways to survive in most cases, also higher damage ends fights quicker = less room for errors. Kiting at range constantly isn’t going to help him. On top of that, you do HPs once per char, usually. He also seems interested in keeping reaper and playing a lot in shroud, neither which your build provide.
All in all your build definitely is a safe one, imo too safe and boring, however if you ever find yourself having to solo a champ which you can’t kill otherwise then it’d work I guess. Though even then I’d swap Death Nova for Corrupter’s Fervor and Unholy Martyr for Transfusion to keep your minions alive longer, as they’re supposed to facetank mobs for you, or so I guess.
I’m just providing a build that is inline with the OP’s request. Yup, it’s safe and boring but it is by far, the easiest HoT PVE build you can play.
Based on the OP’s feedback, he’s doing fine without the advice I provided, which is great because no one really should strive to play the easiest, boring and safe builds.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
We really should post some low-cost, easy-play builds for new Necromancers and get the list stickied.
We really should post some low-cost, easy-play builds for new Necromancers and get the list stickied.
Yes PLEASE. Actually for all professions, really. I almost never have more than 20 gold, if that helps with the “low cost” part.
The dagger build should be completely fine and offers enough ways to survive in most cases, also higher damage ends fights quicker = less room for errors. Kiting at range constantly isn’t going to help him. On top of that, you do HPs once per char, usually. He also seems interested in keeping reaper and playing a lot in shroud, neither which your build provide.
All in all your build definitely is a safe one, imo too safe and boring, however if you ever find yourself having to solo a champ which you can’t kill otherwise then it’d work I guess. Though even then I’d swap Death Nova for Corrupter’s Fervor and Unholy Martyr for Transfusion to keep your minions alive longer, as they’re supposed to facetank mobs for you, or so I guess.I’m just providing a build that is inline with the OP’s request. Yup, it’s safe and boring but it is by far, the easiest HoT PVE build you can play.
Based on the OP’s feedback, he’s doing fine without the advice I provided, which is great because no one really should strive to play the easiest, boring and safe builds.
Well of course, it just sounded to me like he wanted to keep reaper as part of his request, which wasn’t the case with your build. If we’re just going by the thread title, then sure, your build definitely fits that.
Other options for a power build are..
Drop staff for axe-focus
Drop Blood Magic for Soul Reaping and trait shouts, Cv, and BB while slotting power/might duration runes.
Run a power MMThere are several playable builds for roaming Hot.
This is similar to what I do. I think my current build is something like this:
I pretty much always run Soul Reaping just because I like being in shroud with 100%+ crit pumping up might and Spite for the damage bonus traits and vuln and might. I don’t bother with better runes because in PvE it just doesn’t seem to matter. Same for food. I just run something cheap. YAAW is for the stun break. If I need condi removal I run Suffer instead. CttB is fine too. Traits can be swapped as needed. Reaper is very survivable and usually mindless fun, even in HoT, no matter what one runs. I use ascended equipment, but exotic should be fine. Maybe swap in death magic instead of Spite if survival is an issue. Trinkets mostly come from WvW with tokens and laurels. Cheap is good. :-)