Guild Wars 2

A short while ago I levelled my necromancer to 80 and put together the following build for him:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|6.1o.ha|b.1o.h1d.d.1o.ha|1b.712.1b.7g.1h.7g.1b.7i.1b.7i.1b.712|1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.1b.63.1b.63|k2a.a6.k28.0.k49|0.0|3r.3w.47.48.0|e

It’s designed as a condition hybrid build to directly combat the boon-stacking builds that are oh-so-popular these days on guardian, elementalist and engineer players. Spinal Shivers, Chill of Death, Corrupt Boon and Sigil of Nullification all allow me to de-boon targets consistently, while the condition damage ticks and laughs off the best efforts of protection to prevent damage. Fear, Reaper’s Touch, Reapers Mark and Corrupt Boon (Stability) all offer excellent ways to control targets. The build works, but I’ve run into a few problems.

Against decent Greatsword mesmers, I have a lot of trouble, since their long ranged attack is better than mine, and I don’t quite have the burst to make them disengage consistently. Constant-stealthing thieves also don’t get spiked hard enough before they can stand back in stealth and start cleansing conditions. I’m trying to see if there’s any space in my build to add more power into it, without affecting my condition damage too badly. Any suggestions?

Are you roaming or running with a zerg?

Primarily a roamer, zerging only when necessary.

Edit: A little background on me so people don’t end up offering too much unnecessary or obvious advice -
I’ve been on the Sea of Sorrows server since headstart and spent most of my time in WvW. I have 7/8 of the professions now at 80 (only missing guardian) and all of my 80s are geared for some kind of WvW build or another. I personally dislike mass-zerging because even though it’s the most efficient use of groups I feel like it SHOULDN’T be that way so I roam and hope for the day that organized small-man teams can make their mark on the game.

Ah I see. Thats going to be a problem. Roaming with a necromancer in WvW is like playing Battletoads on the NES, but with only 1 hand. Mesmers, thieves, and elementalists are THE WvW roaming classes and you are going to have a lot of difficulty with the smart ones. Other classes are going to have a much easier time trying to do what you want to do.

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of experience with hybrid builds in WvW. I personally don’t find that they have any kind of survivability. My best advice is to ether go 30/15/0/0/25 power build or 0/30/20/0/20 terror build for roaming.

The link doesn’t say which elite skill you are using.
The best choice for keeping thieves out of stealth is the golem, but I assume that’s what you are using anyway…
I can also recommend 6 mad king runes instead of 2/2/2. You’d have more power and the 6th ability (an aoe adaptation of hunter’s call) also hits targets that are stealthed. Plus: with your precision and power stats this should hit for ~3k direct damage and proc some bleeds on top of that.

My build is pretty much a variant of the terror build, only sitting at 20/10/20/0/20 for extra boon removal, and a universal 40% boon duration increase without food.

I do about 1000 damage per tick with terror specced, and my bleeds are based at 93 damage per tick. That said I’m mostly looking to see if there is anywhere to juggle my stats to do more spike damage when I need it, especially for those classes that drop targetting regularly.

And yes I know Necro roaming is a bit unfortunate, but it works reasonably so far. If I ever want to pick up easymode roaming I’ll hop on my thief :-P

Edit: Currently using Plague Form as an elite for survivability and Stability.

After glancing at the Runes I may have to think about full mad kings. I’ll lose 10% Condition duration but it definitely has some perks to it. If only they weren’t so expensive…

Hmm.. I think Plague is the worst choice for solo roaming.
Also all of your gear stats are offensive, at this point plague for survavability just seems inconsequent.
Btw the runes… I started out with a rune setup like yours, then changed to all mad king. Super expensive but totally worth it.
check it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Superior-Rune-of-the-Mad-King/

Pick up necromancer runes, drop 10 points from Death magic, put em into spite = 2 sec fears pew pew.
atm you have 1.7 sec fears which is all cool and stuff but it is waste of traits if you dont go for full 2 sec cause your terror ticks only once per sec.
If you want to stick to this then you might aswell just change Master of Terror into soul marks for a lot better life force generation.

A couple things: yes, unbuffed my traits give me a grand total of 90% increase in Fear Duration. However I was under the impression (haven’t tested) that Terror on a target with conditions already had a good chance to tick damage twice given 1-3/4 listed fear.

Secondly, when I run food buffs, an additional 36% condition duration is usually all I need to fear to hit that +100% mark. I may play around with Soul Marks anyways since I have some issues with keeping up my life force, but I currently think Master of Terror is worthwhile