Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

With my Necro about to hit 80, I began thinking of a good (PVE) build for it. Up until now I have played in a more defensive style with some condition damage and it’s worked well, so I thought I’d continue in that fashion to complete my story and run some dungeons.

Here is what I came up with:

Curses 2 (VI)
Death Magic 6 (IV, V, VII)
Blood Magic 6 (II, VIII, XII)

Heal – Well of Blood
Utility – Well of Suffering, Well of Darkness, Well of Power
Elite – Plague (absolutely unsure about this one, really)

Staff
(Sigil of Minor Corruption & Superior Sigil of Momentum)

Dager+Dager
(Sigil of Superior Geomancy & Sigil of Superior Doom)

Full Exotic Jatoro’s set
(Superior Rune of the Undead x6)

Exotic Carrion Amulet
Exotic Carrion Rings x2
Exotic Vallog’s Demise x2
Exotic Spineguard of the North
(Exquisite Passion Flower x6)

All this aided by a Bowl of Orrian Truffle Soup and a Master Tuning Crystal.

What I aim for is to be able to agro and survive while my conditions take mobs down, using blinds (area blindness combo and Well of Darkness), regeneration (from Mark of Blood, as well as siphoning with Life Siphon and the wells) and the protection from wells for more survivability.

These will be the final stats I’ll have (according to one of the calculators online)

Health 28152 (9780) Vitality 1894 (978)
Armor 2630 (794) Toughness 1710 (794)
Attack 2372 (475) Power 1391 (475)
Critical Hit 9% (5%) Precision 1016 (100)

Boon Duration 30% (30%)
Condition Damage 1580 (1580)
Damage 981 (0%)
Defense 920 (0)
Experience from Kills 20% (20%)
Healing Power 450 (450)

Do you think this build would work the way I intend for it to work and what would you improve upon it?

There are a few issues with this build that stand out to me. Whether or not you agree with my analysis is up to you, but I’ve been playing necromancer since the game was released so I hope you at least consider my input.

First, if you’re intending to focus on condition damage and survivability, don’t use only wells. As a condition necro, you absolutely need to have epidemic (utility) and scepter – you need AoE condition spread from epidemic and reliable conditions from scepter in order to get the most out of condition damage necro. Staff is fine and offhand is your choice, though I like using warhorn for the speed buff.

As far as other utilities go, signet of the locust is useful for roaming in PvE or WvW, corrupt boon is useful in some PvE fights and in PvP. Some wells are OK as well, so long as you have epidemic. If you want more advice on utilities just say so.

Secondly, your armor. Carrion isn’t that good for necromancers. Either go berserker for pure damage, or rabid/dire for condition damage. If you go rabid, get that trait that applies conditions on critical. Dire is good if you want an insane amount of survivability without sacrificing conditional damage. The reason why I don’t like carrion is because it’s one of those hybrid armors that doesn’t get the best of both worlds. Either go to one extreme or the other, but you aren’t doing yourself any favors by getting carrion armor. Another benefit to using dire/rabid is that it gets toughness, which synchronizes very well with the rune of the undead, which gives you condition damage based upon toughness (7% toughness -> condition damage).

As for traits (besides the one I mentioned, the one that applies conditions on crit) get the entire line that gives you condition damage. The rest is up to you.

Chipofsalt.4673:

Carrion isn’t that good for necromancers…

Blasphemy!! :P

I don’t want to turn this into yet another huge debate about carrion vs rabid, but in general:
1. direct damage: power>precision.
2. survivability for necros: vitality>toughness. (if you can, mixing stats is best)
3. if runes of the undead is your argument for rabid then you might as well take scavenging runes with carrion for the same result and get some extra healing on top of that.

The only obvious upside to rabid is having more reliable crit procs.

@borisslav

borisslav.6984:

These will be the final stats I’ll have (according to one of the calculators online)

Next time just post the calculator link.
This should be about right, I hope:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4Yjk00SbRN+0wfbihBR6VpyM9sg/iKAA-TxyCABA8AAUVJoCm/QR3gRKPaSJmQ7P4p6PTcEAk4gAQ9FAgQATWDA-e

Now, two things come to mind right away:

1. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to slot weapons like this anymore, but the 2 kill-stacking sigils won’t work together.

2. Appart from some issues the build itself has for what it is intended to be, there’s only one type of build that is worse for PvE than tank builds: tanky condition builds.
Glass canon power builds rule pretty much every PvE content, that’s just how it is.
Of course, you’re free to play the game however you want, just know that you’re almost always better off not making any investments into defense.
Also, among all classes in the game healing power is probably the least useful on the necro. We have very little healing to begin with and non of it works while we’re in Death Shroud.

Hey thank you guys for the advice! I’m not here to agree or disagree, but to learn, and thus I certainly appreciate your input

Armor-wise I am not planning on using Carrion, I have already gotten Jatoro’s set (I think it has the same attributes as Dire). I was planning on my trinkets being Carrion, as I couldn’t find anything closer to the stats I wanted on the calculator I used, but I did actually find condi/tough/vit trinkets on the TP that I bought (and if I could log in to check what exactly their names were…) .

If I may explain what makes me look for a high-survavability build for PVE.. I started off with an Ele, full Berserker, built around power and critical damage. It did work well for group events and all, but trying to complete the last several parts of my story was a pain, as I was dying all the time, overwhelmed by the number of mob I had to fight at once. Exactly this I wanted to avoid with my Necro but I wasn’t sure if I could rely only on its natural survivability.

@Chipofsalt- you advice me to get the entire Curses line. What would you sacrifice in order to get that – Death Magic or Blood Magic? I am assuming for the pure stats, I would prefer vitality over toughness, but that would also mean sacrificing the traits that help Staff (Greater Marks and Staff Mastery) – do you think this would be crucial and which traits from Curses would you advice me to take instead?

That advice on utilities would be most welcome – I admit I never really tried Corruptions, as I’m not sure how to go about getting rid of the self-inflicted conditions – would you say Staff 4 and dagger 4 would help with that, and should I worry about them at all?

@Flow – you say “Apart from some issues the build itself has for what it is intended to be..” – would you please elaborate a little more on that? What would you do differently if you were going for defense+conditions with emphasis on defense? Oh, and how would you slot your weapons to complement the build (and actually work lol)?

Reading your comments guys, I am getting the inspiration to actually build two sets and swap builds as the situation calls – one set for the glass cannon condition build that you both talk about, and one set for the high defense+some conditions that I was originally thinking on.