Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I have a guardian and thief. I LOVE them! I faceroll maybe 3 buttons and things die (in PvE). That’s how I like it. Onto the next mob!

I recently started a necromancer. I… can’t kill anything. Every single mob is like a battle with a veteran mob to me. I have to use my entire kit three times over just to kill one enemy. I am level 17 right now and all my equipment is level 15 and I still feel weak and helpless, like I had terrible gear. Is this supposed to happen? I tried getting some minions but they don’t really help much and I still kill just as slow. But then, without them, I feel so…VULNERABLE </joke> like I just lost my 3-hit-tank blood fiend and now I have no damage because my minions are gone.

I read some guides but a lot of them are for WvWvW or PvP and talk about higher level stuff and traits. I just need some kind of strategy to get my footing on killing stuff, I can’t seem to kite very well even with 2 cripples, maybe I’m doing it wrong. I nearly die from everything my level or a bit lower than me and all 6 of my points are in toughness because of that whole minion bonus thing. Also, WTF is the point of “jagged horrors” if they just die in 3 seconds before I can even walk to the next mob?

I use Axe and Warhorn. Please help! I want to like necro (she is my only girl character and I wanna dress her up after I found out what cute clothes girls in GW2 get!) :(

Howdy! I’m certainly no expert on the Necromancer, but if you want DPS for PvE, I think one of the “stronger” ways you can go is:

• Dagger/Whatever (Focus for survivability, Warhorn for Control, Dagger for Control + Support)
• Staff
• Wells (Well of Corruption and Well of Suffering)
• Bone Minions in 3rd Utility (when it becomes available to you)
• Elite: Whatever. For early PvE, Flesh Golem is fun. Later on, Lich is fun, too. Plague is boring, but arguably the best elite in our repertoire.

As for Traits, do whatever you like! I say you can’t go wrong with 10pts in Death Magic to grab Greater Marks. Also 20pts in Blood Magic will get you a 20% recharge reduction for wells, which is awesome. But since you’re level 17, you don’t have to really worry about that just yet. You will get to respec later, so just go with whatever works for you!

From my experience (watching Guardians fighting the mob I’m fighting), you won’t get the same “Hit 3 buttons and move along” feeling. However, dropping wells and blowing up minions provides substantially AoE damage, and Chillblains (Staff 3) does a superb job of maintaining distance. Use daggers whenever you aren’t at a huge numbers disadvantage or when it is safe to enter melee range. Also Death Shroud. It is a life saver. In PvE, it is a fantastic “Uh-Oh” button even without any traits in it. You won’t get immeasurable damage out of it, but it can provide 5-10 seconds of “invulnerability” while your skills recharge.

Anywho, I hope this was of some assistance! I hope you enjoy the Necromancer and find the right build for you! Take care!

PS: Conditions + Epidemic are fun also.

EDIT: Avoid Axe I started with Axe, switched to Dagger, and never EVER looked back.

Probably you’re having problem with a necro because your previous character used to be the close encounter ones.

I used the video guide by Nemesis.8593, Video tutorial.
That video more or less explains the basics so you can pretty much modified it to your own playstyles later

Hallo! I think the problem stems from you trying to play another profession as if you are trying to playing another. I started with a necromancer and really enjoyed how it can decimate 6-7 foes with AOE in PVE while I ignore the damage. Leveling is so fast because I tag everything. I like the mindset that I am the master of death and I can do most dynamic events alone. When I started my thief I find it does great damage 1 v 1 and I find that if I engage more than 3, I cannot dodge enough to mitigate the damage. This too me is a problem because I’m not used to killing mobs one by one and makes leveling feels slower to me.

I also played a guardian and it feels too easy to me. Which bored me quickly. In the end what I’m saying is, every profession is different. Find the strengths of the class. If you want single target burst damage. I think that would be a bit hard to achieve with Necro. But it can be done with a dagger. Oh, and master DeathShroud.

At your level, if you have the skill points I’d use Consume Conditions for healing, put your 6 trait points into Curses for Barbed Precision (then Hemophilia when you hit 10 points), and use Scepter/Dagger for weapons. You can kite much easier at 900 distance than the 600 of axe.

I too felt fairly weak as a necro when I started, but it only got better as I leveled. Hang in there

Generally speaking, Necromancer is more of a conditions specialist than a burst specialist. As such, a lot of the attacks take a bit of time to stack and really achieve full rate dps. A slow start and plethora of AoE attacks may not have much in the way of instant gratification but the job really shines in crowd control and boss battles. In crowd control, you can tag many mobs at a time for more drops and have the ability to survive until victory. In boss battles, it may not look like you are doing much damage but all those stacked conditions and boons really help your team mates wipe the floor with the boss. Many people do not fully consider the contribution of a major heal AoE, a special attack interrupt, or any of the conditions that can be applied. For instance, a Necromancer can stack bleed, poison, blind, cripple, and vulnerability on a boss that keeps its outgoing damage down, mobility limited, drops combo fields, and boosts incoming damage from your team.

Also, all those seemingly minor ticks of condition damage actually add up to be a decent amount. Otherwise, some in other professions would not complain about Necromancer being OP.

Play style, though, is definitely different from what you are used to.

I struggled greatly with my first necromancer as well. Several things that hepled me:
-Get rid of the axe ASAP. I definately got more Life Force with axe, but the damage is… well it’s just really bad. Dagger tears through stuff more easily and the warhorn can be used for the swiftness AND to help in melee range with the same skill. As suggested above Dagger/warhorn, and Staff cover all your bases. If you join an event, pull out the staff and AOE everything you can.
As far as builds, wells are fun for events, but I find minion builds to be better early on. Not only are the minions independent from your traits (which helps early on), they also serve as a discraction, and with ponts in Death Magic (which has abilities for minion skills) you are tougher to kill, which I found to be a fun side-effect.
And don’t forget about Death Shroud! Early on, I often died with a full life force bar and was kicking myself for forgetting about it. Later, I started to outright incorporate it in my attacks, poppoing into Death shroud for free AOE damage with the 4 attack (while being protected while I was doing that damage), and for saving myself when I was low on health. It has now saved me many times.

I have a lvl 80 Necro as my main, and I run a minion based build that the majority of forums goers look down upon. Why do I run it? Survivalbility baby. With the + toughness per minion trait, minion heal via DS and staff, life transfer to me per minion attack and the healing well, I can maintain a healing synergy that keeps myself and my minions alive and fighting. While my minions hammer away on mobs, I round them up and then lay waste with mark combos from my staff. The staff combo burst damage alone isn’t as high as a thief’s or warrior’s, but when added on top of the constant minion damage being done, and the damage you can inflict by jumping into DS, it’s more than enough to do massive AOE damage which heals everyone at the same time.

It’s awesome watching your entire screen fill up with numbers (both white and green) in DS while everything melts around you.

Edit: Oh and btw, don’t ever listen to anyone criticize Necromancers for dungeon runs. I ran Arah once with only four people and I was one of two folks who always seemed to be alive when others were respawning… It’s all about your personal skill.

Have fun leveling your AOE killing machine!