Guild Wars 2

Hey there,
I just a´hit the level 80 and have absolutely no clue of how to gear my necromancer up. So far I think that I would like to go for a critmancer build or something like that, and now I wonder where I can get the best gear for it, or if Critmancer is viable in WvW in the first place.
I tend to go with zergs, whenever I play WvW, so Critmancer may not be the best choice, is it?
I just bought the Invader’s Staff, and it somehow feels as if the staff contradicts the critmancer build, since it has no precision and Crit Damage on it.
Could you give some advices? (e.g. alternative builds or item suggestions and how to get them)
Thanks for any help,
MelcorScarr

(powermancer)
power/tough/vit gear (nicknamed ptv gear – soldier’s prefix) is found in Invader’s armor (wvw gear) AC, SE.. etc. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature use this to find more sources.

(higher damage less hp powermancer)
Power/tough/precision (knights) for more crits (more damage) and proc’d bleeding/healing.. forego the vitality and pump more precision. knight’s jewel is emerald.

(conditionmancer)
Cond/tough/precision + cond/power/vit
Rabid + Carrion (Khilbron’s + Carrion trinkets) for stacked cond damage with toughness, vitality, power and precision reasonably balanced in the same range.

(Conditionmancer – Hybrid1)
Full Carrion (cond/power/vit) scepter/w + staff

(Conditionmancer – Hybrid2)
Full Rampager (Precision/Cond/power) Scepter(or Dagger)/Dagger + x/Warhorn//Staff

put points in curses and blood to proc healing and bleeding. D/D is viable as a substitute for scepter due to balanced power/cond dmg ratio and procs of bleeding w/ sigil of earth+barbed precision making it 100% on crit effect.

the critmancer build is a rampager based hybrid setup. It uses the crit to proc bleeding and healing to greatly benefit your necro offensively at the same time as defensively.

I know I use this video all the time, but i recorded it to showcase a few really strong points of the necro. 1:48 is where the necro shines, proc’n bleeding and healing simultaneously.

The only problem is, critmancers lack toughness due to the gear hole, and the death line doesn’t lend much to the builds thereof except for PERHAPS greater marks and staff mastery.

imo you want at least 500 toughness in your necro when hitting WvW regularly or you will fall to the first noob who builds a glass cannon (100b warrior or any thief)

Also, build your necro for 1v1, since any group with a brain will focus-fire on the class that doesn’t have any form of invincibility at all. Get a retaliation skill so that you can at least do some damage before you die.

Of course, there’s plenty of groups that don’t have a brain, so you could hope to run into one of those.

Sheobix.8796:

The only problem is, critmancers lack toughness due to the gear hole, and the death line doesn’t lend much to the builds thereof except for PERHAPS greater marks and staff mastery.

imo you want at least 500 toughness in your necro when hitting WvW regularly or you will fall to the first noob who builds a glass cannon (100b warrior or any thief)

The con’s of this build is dead on. Its hard enough to play WvW without a least some toughness. But doing it w/o Toughness and w/o 20 into Death would be no fun for me.

I personally have a hard time imaging running a build without both Staff traits.

I run full Knight’s gear – weapons, armor, jewels, everything. I was thinking of soldier’s/invader’s but I like siphoning so much I decided I need the crit chance. Even with no extra health the insane amount of toughness makes me extremely durable – I have time to kill the burst thieves that don’t simply run away, for example.

In the end your gear depends on what build you want to do and what traits/skills are the most fun for you to play. Just don’t go full Berserker’s. At least, not for your first set.

if your gonna go zerker i would go with the armor set as zerker and your accessories with toughness on it or vitality or better yet both!

Hybridization is fine for a starting necro, it essentially makes up for any deficits that starters have when making mistakes or lacking gear-stats they dont have.
Of those:

Power is not a ‘useless’ gear stat in terms of ‘Actual DPS’ (as opposed to conditions over time) with any necro weapon on any spec, it just becomes less desirable if you push further into a pure condition-spec.

Vitality, for the obvious reason that those with the most = last man standing and in WvW, the last man standing wins. It is a perfectly acceptable survivability stat if you can’t get a lot of toughness- we all have problems getting toughness on accessories, so in a sense most of us are ‘making do’ in some form or another until Anet gets its crap together.

Armour
When I was leveling up through wvw, I basically had Karma & no Cash, so I made do with Invader, Trade Post (when they eventually fixed it) and other Heart-stuff from the few bits of PvE I reluctantly stumbled into. To some extent, from pre-launch to hitting 80 I probably had an easier run of it, because we where all bloody terrible

The Orr 42k Karma exotic armours are very good for what they are. Quite a lot will give you Tou-Prec-Con/Dam. Head, Gloves, Legs & Shoulders where all easy to get. Body & Shoes, not so easy… in fact, kitten hard would be a mild understatement.
There are also some dungeon armours which have the same stats, personally I would rather drill a hole in my skull than ‘grind’ a dungeon because PvE is dirty and populated by the lowest denominator in MMO’s… the ‘Mob Fondler’.
Killbron’s also has the goods on the trade post, but it is a premium armour in terms of cost, so I bought a couple I couldn’t get quickly elsewhere, there for hard cash.

What to stick in the armour slots?
Up to you. If you want to ‘Crit’ more often, aim for those runes that will increase the precision.
Want to hurt more, the Con/Dam ones.
On a personal level, I found hurting people is more effective than critical-hitting them and possibly proc’ing a bleed, so I use Undead Runes for the synergy of also making my prodigious toughness add to my Con/Dam.
I have found ones that extend the ‘time’ of conditions to essentially be “mostly worthless” as anyone with a brain will clear the ones you put on them ASAP and anyone who isn’t, is already a dead idiot anyway

Weapons
As I mentioned earlier, Power and Vit are not necessarily worthless ‘ad-hoc’ replacements, they’re just less desirable on armour for a con/dam spec.
On weapons, they are much the same, most Necro weapons I’ve been happy with are Toughness (for my rune synergy) Precision (to make it hurt often) and Condition Damage (to just make it hurt more)
How much of what/where of each is up to you and simply what you can lay your hands on. If you have to ‘make do’ with some Power, it’ll be just fine as well because the initial ‘belting’ will hurt more than if it didn’t have power on it.

What to stick in the weapon?
There’s really 4 choices in my opinion and not in any real order:
+10 Power every time you kill someone +25 stacks = a lot of hurt!
Rating for Necro 5/10 (Expensive and not that great, better for warrior-types)
+10 Precision every time you kill someone +25 stacks = crit-a-lot!
Rating for a Necro 8/10 (Cheap, and effective)
+10 Con/Dam every time you kill someone +25 stacks = +25Damage tick on a bleed
Rating for a Necro 8/10 (Mid-price and very effective)
Earth Sigil 60%chance to proc a 5sec bleed every time you crit = more bleeding!
Rating for a Necro 7/10 (Very cheap and does what it says on the can)

Other options, the lightning strikes, fireballs, +5% to Crit and life-steals are fun to drag out if you want and they’re not entirely worthless. Remember if you can’t stomach the pain of the +10 sigils, the +7 ones do ok as a substitute and at about 2% of the price!

Food
Risottos + Tuning Crystals = dead and dying bodies everywhere
Using both will make people scream, run around and bleed like crazy until they fall down, or stick a tampon in it and go bother else.