Guild Wars 2

Whats the build i should be running on necromancer in high lvl fractals? Viper? Weapons set? I have no idea lol

I’m only at t2, but I can do everything up to there comfortably with a full set of vipers, I heard power is also effective, but condi is generally better in boss encounters.

I second this, full viper is very effective. I personally use scepter/dagger with Greatsword as offhand.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Necromancer and http://qtfy.eu/build/necromancer has “the best” builds listed, for some values of best.

Generally a condition build gets more valuable as the enemies live longer, and T4 fractals live much longer.

play what you are comfortable playing. I find condi is easier, but power more fun for fractals. both are viable at any level frac even through 100CM

Celestial is in general also viable for fractals: it will take longer to clear fractals when you have a skilled group with good build synergy, but you will be able to prevent more wipes when with less experienced or coordinated players.

When choosing stats remember also that in tier 4 it is common to use the fractal potions https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal_Potion. So build on the basis that you’re going to have those extra bonuses.

Zeek.6743:

Whats the build i should be running on necromancer in high lvl fractals? Viper? Weapons set? I have no idea lol

Full viper, except rings and amulet(sinister).
Runes – Thorn.
Weapon – Scepter/Warhorn + Scepter/Dagger.
Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhjakhG6uxmbw6GYvxSxgF3DLiJxoAwAIBMtCmBxAA-TBiHQB7S5B9U/5d7PAgHCgGVCSrTAA50LQQlYAA-e

White Hunter.3416:

Zeek.6743:

Whats the build i should be running on necromancer in high lvl fractals? Viper? Weapons set? I have no idea lol

Full viper, except rings and amulet(sinister).
Runes – Thorn.
Weapon – Scepter/Warhorn + Scepter/Dagger.
Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhjakhG6uxmbw6GYvxSxgF3DLiJxoAwAIBMtCmBxAA-TBiHQB7S5B9U/5d7PAgHCgGVCSrTAA50LQQlYAA-e

While that is the min/maxed gearing, if you’re not running best in slot food, you’ll actually get more dps out of full vipers… So if you never plan on taking your necro into a raid and don’t wanna pop food in fractals, that’s something to keep in mind.

narcx.3570:

White Hunter.3416:

Zeek.6743:

Whats the build i should be running on necromancer in high lvl fractals? Viper? Weapons set? I have no idea lol

Full viper, except rings and amulet(sinister).
Runes – Thorn.
Weapon – Scepter/Warhorn + Scepter/Dagger.
Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBLhjakhG6uxmbw6GYvxSxgF3DLiJxoAwAIBMtCmBxAA-TBiHQB7S5B9U/5d7PAgHCgGVCSrTAA50LQQlYAA-e

While that is the min/maxed gearing, if you’re not running best in slot food, you’ll actually get more dps out of full vipers… So if you never plan on taking your necro into a raid and don’t wanna pop food in fractals, that’s something to keep in mind.

Im going to try and run t4 fractals so food probly wont bother me so much to use lol. Ive alrdy got the amulet from seeds of truth. Should i keep going for this build or go full viper

I heard the current “meta” build is everything vipers except a sinister backpack.
Scepter/dagger + gs is used, should be okay for fractals but ur dps wont be that high without the ice field.

I run marauder’s and have no issues in T4. Wells and epidemic go a long way.

(backpack is viper too)

Hesacon.8735:

I run marauder’s and have no issues in T4. Wells and epidemic go a long way.

What’s the point of running epidemic with zero condition damage?

narcx.3570:

Hesacon.8735:

I run marauder’s and have no issues in T4. Wells and epidemic go a long way.

What’s the point of running epidemic with zero condition damage?

25 stack of bleeding is still 550 damage per second and there are conditions like vulnerability that the typical condi necro won’t generate. With might it can go as high as 1675 damage. In a 5 necro party it still adds a lot of damage without needing condi damage.

Hesacon.8735:

narcx.3570:

Hesacon.8735:

I run marauder’s and have no issues in T4. Wells and epidemic go a long way.

What’s the point of running epidemic with zero condition damage?

25 stack of bleeding is still 550 damage per second and there are conditions like vulnerability that the typical condi necro won’t generate. With might it can go as high as 1675 damage. In a 5 necro party it still adds a lot of damage without needing condi damage.

Or you can run more wells and do more damage because of 20% recharge on bloodmagic? Epidemic is only worth taking on power necro when you have someone who is applying a lot of burning, or you have another necro to bounce it back so you dont kitten the condi dmg and duration, outside of that it is literally useless on power necro when you can just drop a well, do the same damage and cleave.

Also marauders in pve is trash on a necro. You give up power for crit. The one stat a necro undoubtedly, does not need. You kitten your own damage for minimal health increase and the one stat necro’s not need…

Professor Sprout.1560:

Celestial is in general also viable for fractals: it will take longer to clear fractals when you have a skilled group with good build synergy, but you will be able to prevent more wipes when with less experienced or coordinated players.

When choosing stats remember also that in tier 4 it is common to use the fractal potions https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractal_Potion. So build on the basis that you’re going to have those extra bonuses.

Celestial is bad, and you should feel bad for recommending it. It’s not ‘viable’, its absolutely terrible. Might as well just run death magic, and we all know how useless that is these days in pve.

Also the only build that should factor fractal potions is literally, boon duration on chronotank.

FrostDraco.8306:

Celestial is bad, and you should feel bad for recommending it. It’s not ‘viable’, its absolutely terrible. Might as well just run death magic, and we all know how useless that is these days in pve.

Also the only build that should factor fractal potions is literally, boon duration on chronotank.

People are so quick to hate on Death…

If another necro is already running blood and you’re willing to give up the party-saving utility of Transfusion and Last Rights, Death actually out dps’es Blood in fights where the boss summons adds (Swamp, Aquatic, Cliffside, Urban, Underground, Chaos, Aether, Volcanic, Snow) due to the extra bleeds and poisons from Death Nova. And the free/automatic condi-transfers will up your dps in any fractal with Afflicted too…

All that said, I haven’t ran Death in a real long time.

death magic and blood magic are obsolete in light of the new soul reaping build. we are dps class not downed state ressing class, we have druids and other no dps classes (mes) to ress people.

(talking about condi necro ofc, power takes blood always for well recharge)

Sublimatio.6981:

death magic and blood magic are obsolete in light of the new soul reaping build. we are dps class not downed state ressing class, we have druids and other no dps classes (mes) to ress people.

(talking about condi necro ofc, power takes blood always for well recharge)

No class has any forced or fixed role, and while necro lacks the “healing others” focused stuff that most other classes hide somewhere, “downed state ressing” isn’t an unreasonable role for the class.

Heck, I personally think that the utility value of “don’t bleed out”, and “pull out of bad, and partially rez”, are significantly undervalued by most of the pug raids out there — who would benefit from this, by making it much more likely a mistake is “slightly slower kill” rather than “wipe”, but hey….

You, personally, might not like that utility, but it’s definitely something of value. (it’s also 90 percent passive, since you just need to stand near people, or shroud up and hit a damaging skill button, to make it happen.)

Regarding the viability of Death/Blood Magic: it simply depends on what you want to get out of the class and get out of the build. If your premise is that the only goal of necro theorycraft is to maximise DPS then on this basis you may conclude that the non-DPS BM and DM trees are sub-optimal or even sub-viable. But I think it is important to emphasise: that assessment of sub-optimal or sub-viable is only true (if indeed it is true) for that paradigm. Hence if you think that there are other legitimate goals for necro theorycraft then your assessment is likely to differ.

For fractals I think that balancing DPS and survival/support is also legitimate goal for the reason given in my previous comment and within this paradigm Blood Magic is strong in pretty much all fractals. Death Magic is also good, although as narcx mentions you might only want to run it in certain content.

@FrostDraco To keep this thread from fragmenting too much I won’t go into detail here about the merits of celestial stats on a necromancer. I do run it on multiple characters across all fractal tiers and from experience I find it works very well – if however you would like to debate this point in another thread I would be more than happy to put my case ::)

i dont see balancing dps with survival as a legitimate goal, i believe only people who can’t skillfully play the game need to do things like this.
you can survive by dodging and positioning, especially since potions give you 50% endurance refill rate and 15% damage reduction.
reapers fill the party slot as a dps role. it is only reasonable to leave ressing to a mesmer or a druid who doesnt have that much dps.
to me its completely unreasonable to think classes dont have a fixed role. they do. warrior is for dps and buffs, chrono is for utility and buffs, druid is for buffs, then we have 2 pure dps slots for class like engi/ranger/tempest/dh/reaper.
if you compromise your dps traits as a dps class just to have some downed state advantage is just foolish, as getting downed is something people shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
dont get bitter, just get better

The Soul Reaping build is sort of useless… You’re sacrificing all of the necro’s utility skills/traits for straight dps, but it’s not higher or even easier dps to churn out than a ranger, thief, ele, DH, or even Condi War. So if a group is willing to sacrifice having the group leech, transfusion, epidemic, and plague signet, they’re probably just going to take another class that does more dps anyways.

nobody needs group leech, transfusion or plague signet. dps is much more important. faster kill = less time risking death = support.
+ you are wrong, dps is much higher and competes with condi war. most of the times i have slightly more dps than war and about 2k less than condi ranger. and if i can epi a stray mob then im top1 or same as ranger, depends

Leeching is currently worthless, but with some adjust it can be useful for a dps increase and to let peoples stay above 90% hp more easily.

Sublimatio.6981:

nobody needs group leech, transfusion or plague signet. dps is much more important. faster kill = less time risking death = support.
+ you are wrong, dps is much higher and competes with condi war. most of the times i have slightly more dps than war and about 2k less than condi ranger. and if i can epi a stray mob then im top1 or same as ranger, depends

Maybe in the Training Room or in fractals you get those numbers… But in 10 man content, I don’t think so—unless the ranger and war are drastically screwing up their rotations/gearing.

EDIT: I just realized this is a fractal thread, so carry on. :P

nobody is screwing up anything and yes talking about raids here too. all i stated is purely empirical. maybe you dont get these numbers as you’re an advocate of blood magic, but thats exactly what you called – screwing up rotations/gearing. i dont, therefore my dps is competitive with the other classes

No I mean the ranger and warrior must be messing up if you’re able to match their dps in 10 man content.

Sublimatio.6981:

nobody is screwing up anything

the only time warrior is above me is on KC. rangers tend to be 1-2k dps more than me if there is no epi. if there is epi or/and ice bow for me im easily top2 or top1. usually if there is a good engi in the party i may not outdps it.
also on matthias and cairn condi mesmers are pretty competitive, sometimes i outdps them, sometimes i dont

Well yeah, if ele’s are letting you steal their icebows that’s another, what, 30-40ish stacks of bleed every 60 seconds? But that’s your guild catering to your class choice to help make your necro competitive…

Nero’s stealing ele’s bows is never going to fly in the raid community as a whole, especially when they could just take a condi ranger instead and have their eles not tank their own dps to boost the necro’s.

you assumed i need the ice bow to be competitive which is incorrect.

+you clearly don’t know the ice bow’s role. its a dmg generating tool, one class generates more damage with it and the other class not so much. the obvious choice is to give it to the first class so the team produces more damage overall. i’ve already made a thread about it in the dungeon subforum.