Guild Wars 2

Hi,
I am bored of hearing how impossible to play as necro on tpvp in SPvP channel, so I decided to make this post to help new necros.
First of all you won’t be good necro player overnight, you need a lot of practice for this class. If you want to join some game and own people without spending lot of time practicing, necro is not you choose. I recommend to go with Thief or Ele. I don’t want to say that they are low skill classes, but they don’t require so many hard work at beginning level.

If you love Necro as much as I do, then stick with it!
As necro in team you must know you role:
-Power Necro
-Condition Necro
-Support/Hybrid Necro
-Bunker Necro

Each of role need deep researching before you go to game.

Power Necro (won’t recommend to start with this role for new players):
If you decided to go with it, make sure that your team is able to support you and protect you from thief (good thief will kill you in no time).
Basically max out you power and condition and but bit to survivability (you’re choice, depend on you gameplay style).
As skills you definitely want to take you well’s, as they make a huge AoE damage.
Weapons D/H and Stuff for self-protection mostly. You can go with Axe, but with you will make better damage and you can stop people to use you’re wells belief them.
As for tactic is pretty easy:
It is good if some of you team can buff you some might, use well’s on point’s to make dmg, to catch you target use death shroud teleport skill and kill you foe with dagger.
Use Staff to clean conditions and fear people and some damage when you are low HP and need a break (position you self on high ground and use marks). Undeath Signet is good skill for this build, because you need death shroud to survive longer and it is good to res you teammates. (Cast of Undeath Signet is 2sec., while stomping someone is 3 sec.).As Elite skill are good both transformed skills. If you have thief in your team, they should tell you if they are teleporting while downed before you use your signet. Not best build for Grave Yard Map. Amulet: Berserker

Condition Necro (not a bad choice to start with)
Max out Conditions traits, rest is you choice, as it will not be so important. (You can max out death shroud for better survivability and stability to stomp people). You are mostly bunker like in this build’s, but you dmg is not so high. You need epidemic skill and Signet of Undeath (you team will be thankful for that)
Your weapons are Scepter/Dagger and Staff.
In this build you are condition god (well not as good as engi, but you have epidemic)
Your job is to make all your enemy’s bleed, cripple, blinded and freeze them.
Try not to waste you Fear pointless and it is good is you are not only one who is playing condition build.
As Elite skill you need Plague (!!!!!There is bug: Radius of this skill is misinform you, because that what will be shown is depending on how tall is you character, but the function radius will still be the same).
Tactics:
90% of you time will be on high ground , because there is no need to go melee range, all you skills have good range. You can protect you home point and support on middle point without big problems. All you do in mass fight is setting one target on mass condition and use epidemic skill. This build’s won’t require much practice, but they can be effective.

Support/Hybrid Necro:
This is place where all you creativity will find it place. Most of this build are based on MM (Minion Master). I would recommend it to Necro’s who want to find something new, because they are bored with META build’s and some of thus Hybrid build are really effective. If you decided to make MM, you should be prepared for stupid minion AI. There are no really META sets here, so with what I can help you is be creative and don’t start with this kind of build’s. If you think otherwise, contact me and I can share some of my Hybrid builds.

Bunker Necro:
Basically you want good protection and good Death Shroud. So you Traits will go like this
Curses 10 points for Spectral skills and rest is maxing out Blood and Soul Reaping. This build require good filling for death shroud skill. With Blood magic you can steal lot of life to keep you self-alive till Death Shroud is recharged.
Weapons: well what do you know, we are taking staff again and axe ore dagger with focus
Tactic: You job is to control mostly middle point. It is achieved really easy if enemy don’t have enough range damage. In melee distance you will be a monster. Good evades and right time death shrouds will help you a lot. For still it is good to have healing well and some spectral armor. Elite skill plague again, as it will give you some extra HP and protection + AoE blind. Don’t forget, that your attacks will steal life, so in plague you can heal yourself really good (against melee range enemy’s)

Sorry for my bad enlish, but i hope this post has help at least one new necro.

I haven’t read it all through, but thanks for the post to help people out, Necro can be hard to start in tPvP (especially build wise); hopefully this will help out.

For some reason i can’t edit my post, so i am going to write in here:
Condition Necro Amulet : Rabbit if you going for bleeding from crit. ,otherwise go with Carrion
Bunder Necro Amulet : Soldier

I future I am planning to make Instructions videos , hope where I can show newbies in game how to play one or another build and explain most of the skill + bug’s in detail.
As well as how to counter thief, because I notice that this is really big problem for some.

If you need help more help, just PM me here or wisper in game.

Here are some build for the role’s
Power Necro – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRrSPTTajfPBA9YXddOmByDTfwcA;ToAg0Cno4ywlgLLXOukct+YAB

This is very aggressive build and it take time till you can go with this kind of build.
This build was very popular some time and even atm I find many necros that are using one or another Power Build. The idea of this build is to make huge damage. Nice think about it that deal most of you damage from range: 900. This build work perfect in chaos fight as well as against newbies. Most of people you will play against will try to exit you wells. This is why I am recommending you to use dagger in main hand to Immobilize them for 4 sec (most of players know immobilize skill animation, so they will try to evade it). After you main Well AoE damage, you can easily finish them with you dagger. As I already said it before, run to them -> auto attack few times-> daze them when they are trying to heal them self (it will interrupt skill) and if they will try to run against you, just go in Death Shroud and teleport your-self to them.
Practically it is a lot harder to do as you will probably imagined it.

Condition Necro – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNArYWjMat7xbSb87KApCPPV4boC9G9gYjTmqg5A;ToAAzCpo+y8l4LrPuvk+s+YsA
This is one really easy to play with. Corraption bood can be replaced for you needs.
I think there is not much to talk about. Key to success is well used epidemic.

Hybrit Necro http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZakRrdPeTajfPRIzIaUbmB3AHki3LNA;ToAA1Cro2yslYL7Wutkbt+YAB
Experemental MM Build
Very interesting MM.
This build will be easiest think to master, as it requires mostly no skill at all and it can be played in Tpvp as well as in Hot Join. This is my last build I made for myself (because my team is not playing lately, so I needed build where I don’t need much support + I am tired of condition builds). The main idea of it was to be able to stay alive without support at all and make mid. Damage. So I made build based on Siphon (life steal) that is working from mine and from minions attack. So let’s go thru minion attacks: 1.Bone Minion – are really important, as they do 1,592 damage in 240 radius to all you enemies, but you must look pay attention where are they standing before you let them explode(it will heal you as well). 2. Bone Fiend – Basically all you need from him is Immobilize ability + it is range attacking minion who will heal you mostly all fight. 3. Shadow Fiend – in good use can be really handy, as it can AoE blind. 4. Flesh Golem – I will annoy your enemy’s as hell, because every attack will cripple + it can knockback multiple target at one and give you stability. In this build you can be part of the fight nonstop. Your main attack will be auto attack from daggers and Bone Minion Explosion.

Bunker Necro http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZaESLbPdzbjfPBIp4aenUwt2UPgn9zB;ToAA2CuoyyklILbWuskZt+Y0A
Another Experemental Build
Never try’d this build myself. sry.

All build need to be tunned for most of the player.

What rank are you op?

You have said a lot of things in your post that makes sense and i would consider good information,

But(no offense) there are some things I can’t imagine tpvp necros would agree with.

I use d/wh more then most( I’m good at stopping heals and rez’s with daze), but can’t recommend warhorn to new power necros due to the overall usefulness of offhand focus/dagger. Not sure what you mean by self protection..

And you say you max out condition for power builds(unless you mean the 30% duration all power necros take due to the spite line) which makes no sense to me. I love zerker but knights/zerk jewl is better against a decent team. I love being a zerk well/lich necro being able to lay waste to everything, but good teams will focus you kitten kitten way to fast.

In condition builds you don’t mention anything about terror..
In support builds the last thing I think about is minions.
And the only (some what)viable bunker build I know is a soldier MM guarding a close point.

And your links are bad >.<

Login.5102:

What rank are you op?

You have said a lot of things in your post that makes sense and i would consider good information,

But(no offense) there are some things I can’t imagine tpvp necros would agree with.

I use d/wh more then most( I’m good at stopping heals and rez’s with daze), but can’t recommend warhorn to new power necros due to the overall usefulness of offhand focus/dagger. Not sure what you mean by self protection..

And you say you max out condition for power builds(unless you mean the 30% duration all power necros take due to the spite line) which makes no sense to me. I love zerker but knights/zerk jewl is better against a decent team. I love being a zerk well/lich necro being able to lay waste to everything, but good teams will focus you kitten kitten way to fast.

In condition builds you don’t mention anything about terror..
In support builds the last thing I think about is minions.
And the only viable bunker build I know is a soldier MM guarding a close point.

And your links are bad >.<

d/wh to power: it is still effective. But as I already said, I won’t recommend power necro to any new necro player. D/Focus is good combination, too. But it is good to know the basics. Max out condition on power necro will make more damage over all, as with Well of Corruption as well as with Staff.

Fix’d they link

As for Support and Bunker most people are experimenting (at least in EU). So i just postet some of posobility’s

Btw. i said as well that every build need tuning, depending on players gameplay)

I prefer dualdagger+staff. Started out with terrormancer (was a lot of fun) but since then, grew tired of conditions. Now I’m running zerker and even though it requires more effort, it’s more to my taste.

I played necro a lot, but to be honest i dont feel like necro is an easy choise for a tournament. Necros got lots of really useful utilities and some are a must, like signet of undead and/or a boon corruption skill. So we end up with 2 main builds:

Wellmancer → well of suffering, well of corruption, signet of undead

Condition spreading → epidemic, corrupt boon, signet

these two builds can give some hard troubles to the opponent team, and ofc they know that, and they also know you have no breakstun, no blink to get away, no invulnerabilities, so combining the fact we can be really nasty and we are easy to burst down we always become the target #1 in a teamfight.

Even if we have 2x 3x the hp pool of a thief we often die way faster lol.

begging devs to switch Dark path to a ground target blink

cuge, your point is ?

If you want to start tPvP as Necromancer I hope you like to be the guy who will be focus the whole match.

Silverthorn.8576:

If you want to start tPvP as Necromancer I hope you like to be the guy who will be focus the whole match.

Naw. If you are just starting you won’t get focused all of the time, because you probably won’t be playing good teams right out of the gate.

I would suggest also if you are green in tPvP that you should probably start with Shaman amulet, Nightmare Runes, Scepter/Dagger, Staff. You give up some of the condition damage that you can have otherwise, but the survivability will give you more time to learn and less time respawning.

agree with Myrmidian, if someone like necro they should play it.

Necro is one of the weakest tPvP classes. However, if any of you are serious about getting into PvP. Hit me up any time I’m ingame, I’ll be glad to help you get started.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Necro is one of the weakest tPvP classes. However, if any of you are serious about getting into PvP. Hit me up any time I’m ingame, I’ll be glad to help you get started.

Nice to see that you want to help new necros ,too – it still be great if you can tell them about you location (NA/EU)

Btw i can’t help too on EU servers.

I’m on NA, of course I often forget I have to state that, generally on somewhere between 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM GMT -7 (Not for that long, but somewhere inbetween that I’ll probably be on)

So if you want advice for Necro, want to learn how to start out in PvP, or need help theorycrafting/want to bounce ideas off me. Feel free to whisper me.

Necros are not weak at all in pvp.
My tip is that you shouldnt go glasscannon.
You can go zerker amulet but then your build and runes have to make up for it in defense.

Khadorian, Necromancers are infact weak in comparison to the capabilities of other classes in PvP.

QFT

Khadorian, Necromancers are infact weak in comparison to the capabilities of other classes in PvP.

But who cares, the game is not balance, we have only a domination mode and we are playing the class with the less mobility.

Well atleast Necro is not the worst class in tPVP.
Yes Neco have not so much mobility as some class’s.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

Khadorian, Necromancers are infact weak in comparison to the capabilities of other classes in PvP.

what fact? I trust myself since i play thief, necro, guardian pretty regulary in tpvp.

unless your like the top ranked 5% group that I never get to fight anyway you shouldnt feel bad for using a necro.

I planned to share my tpvp build but since there was verry little response to my wvw build im going to wait until i start record some videos.

khadorian.6417:

unless your like the top ranked 5% group that I never get to fight anyway you shouldnt feel bad for using a necro.

This is absolutely true. With that said, Necromancer has a very high skill floor in relation to other classes (engi being the only class I feel is really comparable in this regard). This is what leads most people to think that Necro is trash. They try, they fail, they quit and say,“that profession sucks”. One can pick up a Warrior (which is terrible at the high levels) and play it decently well far easier than one can play Necromancer decently well.

Most of this stems from the fact that in a conquest match mobility is at a premium, and the combat system for this game specifically is very focused on effective mitigation of damage (whether it be through stealth, boons, invuln, blocks, dodges, what have you). Necromancer has both terrible mobility and very limited mitigation compared to other classes, and learning to compensate for that by facetanking everything (since you can’t disengage) and really making sure you want to dodge when you dodge is one of the most challenging things you can ask of someone just starting with a class.

Don’t know how tPvP on NA servers are, but on EU i see mostly only really bad Necros.
Thats why I am tryng to help them, theoreticly and in game.
I undersand that Necro is class ,where people can be really creative, but I see mostly sensless builds.

Btw. forsaken is helping new necro players as well.

emon.1863:

Well atleast Necro is not the worst class in tPVP.
Yes Neco have not so much mobility as some class’s.

this was my point in my previous post, mobility is a must in a team fight, unless u are a guardian bunker….

Silverthorn.8576:

QFT

Khadorian, Necromancers are infact weak in comparison to the capabilities of other classes in PvP.

But who cares, the game is not balance, we have only a domination mode and we are playing the class with the less mobility.

In my opinion, the Necromancer is strong but needs a little love from the developper because they are not many viable build compares to other class.

I created a thread here in suggestion : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Necromancer-bug-and-enhancement/first#post1881919

I would be glad to have your opinions.

(no offense) but necro has a ton of builds , compare to most of the classes.
Necro can play easily any role in the game – how many classes can do that ?!
Mate, try to understand me right – to play necro you need a to make a good research about it, you have to undestand deeply your class (did you even read this post ?)
I gladly would help you (if you are EU player, if not contact TheMightyAltroll.3485) and explain you everything.

Please don’t ever use staff in tPvP unless you run Greater Marks in Death Magic. Staff isn’t worth using without it.

Source – Over 2000 PvP Games as Necro.

Tenderly.7019:

Please don’t ever use staff in tPvP unless you run Greater Marks in Death Magic. Staff isn’t worth using without it.

Source – Over 2000 PvP Games as Necro.

Staff is also used for fear , condition removing and fast DS recharging.
“Greater Marks” are good, but they still can be evaded and they have bug’s.

emon.1863:

Tenderly.7019:

Please don’t ever use staff in tPvP unless you run Greater Marks in Death Magic. Staff isn’t worth using without it.

Source – Over 2000 PvP Games as Necro.

Staff is also used for fear , condition removing and fast DS recharging.
“Greater Marks” are good, but they still can be evaded and they have bug’s.

? Greater makes is an absolute must for staff. do you understand how #4 works and how important it is to your teammates?

In a perfect world, Plague Signet would be OP. Transferring all your ally’s conditions to your tanky kitten just to send them off to another player using Staff 4.

But it isn’t. It’s actually bad, and on a ridiculous CD.

Login.5102:

emon.1863:

Tenderly.7019:

Please don’t ever use staff in tPvP unless you run Greater Marks in Death Magic. Staff isn’t worth using without it.

Source – Over 2000 PvP Games as Necro.

Staff is also used for fear , condition removing and fast DS recharging.
“Greater Marks” are good, but they still can be evaded and they have bug’s.

? Greater makes is an absolute must for staff. do you understand how #4 works and how important it is to your teammates?

Dude, i just said the same thing!:D

emon.1863:

(no offense) but necro has a ton of builds , compare to most of the classes.
Necro can play easily any role in the game – how many classes can do that ?!

Last I checked, all of them.

Mate, try to understand me right – to play necro you need a to make a good research about it, you have to undestand deeply your class (did you even read this post ?)

That’s the trouble isn’t it? Very few players really research the game or understand their class deeply. By that logic, Necromancer is only competitive in the hands of a minority of players and is only balanced if you ignore everybody else. The effort to get resources and information to lower level players is laudable but at the end of the day, it’s still basically “l2p”. Necromancers are undeniably the underdog class of the game.

necro isnt the worst class, atm warriors are, i think, and i said this quite alot for now, that necros are almost fine as they are, the only thing that we still need to be fair with other classes is a way not to be such an easy target, thats it.

Necro has plenty of options, you can run lots of builds:

condition spreading
terror
wells
tanky-heal
MM tanky
MM conditions
berserker

Ruruuiye.8912:

emon.1863:

(no offense) but necro has a ton of builds , compare to most of the classes.
Necro can play easily any role in the game – how many classes can do that ?!

Last I checked, all of them.

Mate, try to understand me right – to play necro you need a to make a good research about it, you have to undestand deeply your class (did you even read this post ?)

That’s the trouble isn’t it? Very few players really research the game or understand their class deeply. By that logic, Necromancer is only competitive in the hands of a minority of players and is only balanced if you ignore everybody else. The effort to get resources and information to lower level players is laudable but at the end of the day, it’s still basically “l2p”. Necromancers are undeniably the underdog class of the game.

That was not what i wanted to say. Necro is hard to begin and only balance it has is that it can do any role, but skills need a good balance .

Not every class can play every role in tPvP. If you need an example, look at warrior. They have one build; glassy burst. You can run other builds, but they are just, well, bad. Guardians can run a damage based build, but those are pretty bad too.

And I think emon was referencing how hard it is to make Necromancer builds that are effective, because of the weird way we end up making builds. There is no easy “put 30 in water/arcana and win” build, so you need to be a lot more inventive, and when you make a build you need to really know the class to put it all together.

Compare that to a warrior.I have a level 10 warrior that I take to pvp sometimes. I went into the Mists, threw together a 100b build (not hard to figure out), and went around facerolling people. Why? Because it is stupidly easy to play, and building it is similarly easy. You can’t just do that with Necro though, so you need the knowledge to be able to make decent builds (or just copy Nemesis, like a lot do :P).

These builds are fine but I wouldn’t go around telling new Necros to PvP to not use Greater Marks.

It is absolutely essential if anyone wants to use staff. There is no way that staff is worth using without it, no matter how much you try and justify it.

I’m sorry.

Tenderly.7019:

These builds are fine but I wouldn’t go around telling new Necros to PvP to not use Greater Marks.

It is absolutely essential if anyone wants to use staff. There is no way that staff is worth using without it, no matter how much you try and justify it.

I’m sorry.

With or without Greater Marks, Staff is very effective for team play and for survivabilty.
Fear people when they are stomping you teammate ,clear cond. and fast DS refilling.

It becomes a much weaker weapon without greater marks; you lose almost all the AoE control, and it becomes a secondary (weak) utility weapon. I wouldn’t say it is worthless without greater marks, but it is significantly less all-around useful.

It deppends more on team, if that what you mean Bhawb.

No, just the weapon overall. Without the trait, your marks don’t cover almost an entire point like they do with it. You can still do single target hits, maybe two people if you are lucky, but you lose the AoE control you get. You also lose the ability to really condition cleanse your frontline player as well as yourself; you are probably only going to get one player. Same with the fear, you are only going to hit one person.

This doesn’t make it worthless, you can still bleed people or give regen, you can still cleanse your own conditions, you can still fear a guy off a stomp, but you can’t do that to half a team, which makes your AoE much worse.

I did not know people complained about necro in Tpvp that much…. yeah its not a top class more the bottom of the middle power level its ok.

Not taking greater marks and staff is crazy as a necro in Tpvp imo, staff #3 and #4 are kitten near the only reason to Necro.

If I didn’t have to waste 10 points into Death magic for Greater Marks, I could turn staff into a very viable AoE burst weapon.

But nooooooooooooo

I played a necro since launch and did some pvp…nothing serious though.
But in my experience i can very well suggest running MM both as starting necro and experienced. There is not really a team contribution to it except for the damage, you are very hard to kill and using staff as main weapon to support.

Yes i am having some problems with the AI of the minions sometimes. But in my necro career i only died once or twice from it.

AND as an MM you can beat bunker elementalists. or atleast (if they are really good) fight for eternity

@Deathgrin : On hotjoin you can play as MM without big trouble, but on most of tpvp
-you will focus’d and die fast (in most of the MM builds)
-you won’t be making same damage as Condi and Power builds
-“some problems with the AI of the minions sometimes” hope it was a joke, because there are huge problems almost all the time. (mostly with bone minions)
-You mostly have problems with mesmers and engis (becaus of turrents and clones bad AI)

If you play agains Bunker ele, they will mosty kill you minions first (but you can kill without problems a noob ele)

necromancers are generally fine, in terms of viability it depends on what enemy you’re playing against. Alot of listed builds are outshone by other professions which to me means they’re unviable since another profession fills the role better.
I’d also like to point out I honestly don’t think necro is a high skill cap/floor class, it’s heavily reliant on positioning and kiting to negate damage.

Oblivion.8307:

I’d also like to point out I honestly don’t think necro is a high skill cap/floor class, it’s heavily reliant on positioning and kiting to negate damage.

Interesting comment. Please expand on this. GW2 isn’t a terribly high skill cap game to begin with since everything is a hit scan or autohit for the most part, but I am curious why you dont think the skill floor is high on necro.

I agree with you about dependence on kiting and positioning, but as a necro you have pretty much 0 mobility in most of the better builds making kiting extremely difficult (by comparison to other classes) and making repositioning near impossible in the event that you are flanked/out manuevered into bad position. This dependence is exactly why I feel that the skill floor for Necro is higher than other classes that have options to mitigate damage in ways other than Positioning and Kiting in addition to being better at kiting to begin with and more forgiving in the event that they get out of position.

Necromancer has a high learning curve just for the fact that you have to resist the urge to commit suicide/pull your ethernet cable the moment you get stun locked for 4+ seconds eating 20+ stacks of assorted conditions with your only breaker on a 60 second cooldown.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

I agree with you about dependence on kiting and positioning, but as a necro you have pretty much 0 mobility in most of the better builds making kiting extremely difficult (by comparison to other classes) and making repositioning near impossible in the event that you are flanked/out manuevered into bad position. This dependence is exactly why I feel that the skill floor for Necro is higher than other classes that have options to mitigate damage in ways other than Positioning and Kiting in addition to being better at kiting to begin with and more forgiving in the event that they get out of position.

Kiting is all about comparative speed once in combat. So while we are pretty slow if we were to have a footrace with someone, when you are talking about relative speed in combat, we do okay with the cripple/chill/fear to keep people away (obviously some are pretty hard to keep away if they really want to get to you). Repositioning is very difficult though, because of our lack of instant movement; you’ll need to walk there.

For people who started necro in tpvp………….delete it till you waste so much time like we did

Amityel.5324:

For people who started necro in tpvp………….delete it till you waste so much time like we did

ok, thats funny.
But i would not delete necro, because as i said before “some people just like to play necro”. They could be really effective . I pesonaly find necro class very interessting to play with.
AND EVERY PATCH THEY ARE REBALANCING ALL CLASS’S. Do you remember how much effective were engi and ranger few month ago ?! So necro could be change in better direction really soon (i hope so).

Update
——————————————————————————————
It’s good new for all new player [EU/NA]
There was done new guild for helping new player in tpvp game aspect.
You wisper me or write P.M. and i will add.