Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently been trying to get into DS-centered builds and come up with a seemingly balanced build:
It uses rabid gear, Sceptre/Dagger and Staff, has 20/20/10/0/20 traits and uses increased Staff recharge, Weakening Shroud, slower LF drain and Soul Marks.
The basic Strategy is to amass Bleeding on an enemy, using BiP and going into DS to stack more might.

Is this a good start? So far only tested it in the Mists, because I currently have no money for full on rabid gear.
If this checks out I’d go to whispers and get some rare equipment.

I found myself hardly using DS at all so i decided to spec for it to force/encourage me to use it more.

I took 10/30/10/10/10 using a sceptre (sigil gives acc stack) and swap between the 2 30 curses traits when i use another weapon. Iirc, traits are reapers might (might on life blast) weakening shroud/haemophilia, focussed rituals (well use ground-targetting), greater marks (usually) mark of evasion (mark of blood on dodge) and vital persistance (LF drains slower in DS). With sceptre/dagger having a stackable weakening shroud is fun.

One thing i noticed though is that we can’t ‘tap’ DS like we used to be able to- it goes into it’s full CD when u exit it no matter what, which slightly annoys me, but never mind. I’m having quite a bit of fun in pve with this build atm.

Wayfarer.2051:

Is this a good start? So far only tested it in the Mists, because I currently have no money for full on rabid gear.
If this checks out I’d go to whispers and get some rare equipment.

You can get rare rabid gear off the TP also. It’s one of the several stat combinations using the “Strong” prefix.

I’ve done some testing with leftover gear I still had.
Carrion gear and Rampager Accessoires prove far better than Rabid.
HP scales with LF and a critbuild without Power is like a Cannon with .45 calibre.

As for DS hopping:
I dont intend to. I tried the same build with 30 in SR and getting the 50% less cooldown, but I noticed that LF lay below 50% most of the time anyways when it was ready to use, since I was using staff. That’s why I went 10 into DM.
I go DS as a grand finale or the opener, to stack might.
Because I go both Conditions and Power, I can utilize the full sprectrum.
What’s left now is testing it in Dungeons and bigger PvE events. I’m not that interested in PvP, but I guess I’ll try.

I really liked my DS build for a while. 30/0/10/0/30 is how I specced…it had really awesome crit damage. I found that by giving conditions some attention and switching from Berzerker to Rampager, I’ve increased my damage, AoE, an utility. DS/Power builds can burst well and all, but I think neglecting conditions is a mistake for Necros…especially with Epidemic as good as it is. This is mostly PvE btw, WvW and PvP are probably different.

Martacus.4085:

I found that by giving conditions some attention and switching from Berzerker to Rampager, I’ve increased my damage, AoE, an utility.

A very large portion of damage comes from conditions for Necromancer. Buffs to condition damage will naturally pay off so nerfing that stat completely in favor of another can gimp total damage. Those little numbers squirting off over a mob’s head really add up fast. I agree it is nice to see a large damage number but this job was designed around condition damage, not pets, crit bursts, or OP AoE.

So, playtesting with:
Exotic Carrion Armor, Exotic Rampager Trinkets and rare Rampager Weapons (Staff and Scepter/Dagger. Using Consume Conditions Plague Signet, BiP, Epidemic and Golem, 6 Runes of the Adventurer, thinking about switching them with gems.
2,975 Attack
45% Critical Chance
1,936 Armor
20,612 Health
Plus the bonusses form traits (such as 92 HP from power and 20% critical damage boost).
Bleedings tick for exactly 100 before Might or Sigil of Corruption.
Poison ticks for 199.
Staff crits for 800-900, LB crits for 1.8 without might or vulnerability, can go up to 3k in large group fights with lots of vulnerability and might stacks. Very usefull, since Condition Damage means squat in those situations.
Can easily uphold 7 bleeding stacks on an enemy, Scepter goes up to 10-12.

Tested in Dungeon (Arah P3) and was able to support team, Focussed rituals might be used instead of Weakening Shroud, to up support role, but without the 20% recharge Wells seem kind of underwhelming however. 10% boon duration works fine with Well of Power. Same goes for WvW.
sPvP forces the 10 out of DM and into one of the others (depending on taste really, but I found myself going for SR because of Stability). Because of the lack of any good survivability however, this is not sPvP material

Bottom line: One of the most versatile builds I’ve tested so far. I like it, it works well in any situation and allows for just mindless playing into the day, without having to go back an grab another set of gear if you come across a dungeon group.
Only remaining field to be tested: Fractals.