Guild Wars 2

My first toon in GW2 was necro… I have left him for good at lev 20 or so to play may war&mesmer and it was not a mistake – I hated original shroud and visuals of summons are no go for me.

However now I am thinking about coming back to GW and buying HoT – how is reaper?
I solo a lot so I need good personal DPS and survivability but also want to group sometimes and still have in memory LFG chat with “looking for dps no ranger/necro”.

So how is necro today?

Necro is pretty spectacular in HoT. Reaper brings a lot of cool new tricks to the table, but even the base Necro is quite good at weathering the jungle. For soloing content in particular, you could do a lot worse than a Necro.

I can’t speak much to the Necro in raids since I’ve barely touched raiding, but I will say that I’ve only seen one group ask in their LFG for “not Necros” — because they already had 5 Necros and wanted to mix things up.

As a necro player with some experience under the belt i can say one thing – reaper is awesome. Dive right on in. If you hated the old necro shroud, you’re not the only one.

Reaper puts that and much more to rest. This specialization outright saved the necro. It’s not only awesome on it’s own, but creates great synergy with other lines and brings many underperforming traits back to the light, making them a viable choice. For example the infamous Dhuumfire, or Transfusion. With the reaper you have a ton of new synergies, good ones at that and new builds available.

Necro is now a certifiable kitten with reaper spec. Don’t be afraid to dive into it!

Thx this is good to hear!
What is more viable – power (I like GS in general, but am bit afraid of animation speed on necro) or condi (scepter/x + dhuumfire)?

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

Thx this is good to hear!
What is more viable – power (I like GS in general, but am bit afraid of animation speed on necro) or condi (scepter/x + dhuumfire)?

Yes.

I’m curious to hear this as well — currently, is power or condition preferred in raids and fractals? I currently have an ascended zerker set on my Necromancer/Mesmer, and while I like the GS/power in general, the lack of ranged options on a Power necro and the slow animation has caused some problems. I also like a playstyle that I can adopt for both PvE and PvE (e.g., Condi or Power). Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Maelwro.7562:

I’m curious to hear this as well — currently, is power or condition preferred in raids and fractals? I currently have an ascended zerker set on my Necromancer/Mesmer, and while I like the GS/power in general, the lack of ranged options on a Power necro and the slow animation has caused some problems. I also like a playstyle that I can adopt for both PvE and PvE (e.g., Condi or Power). Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Both are viable, for the first time in practically ever. Zerker Reaper has a tougher time for the first 50% of an enemy’s health, but once they drop below that? They drop fast. Especially if you break their defiance bars.

Condi builds are more consistent all the way through, and are probably the better pick right now for WvW or PvP.

I’ve basically created a more effective and fun shout warrior on my necro…..and I love my shout warrior…..haven’t used him since I unlocked all the reaper traits if that says anything.

I feel like the best change in the entire expansion is the new breakbar system. It opened up a niche to make so many more builds viable.

Thanks for the feedback Drarnor. Another question for you all — how does Reaper Condi DPS compare to other top tier classes? (e.g., Condi Engi, Berserker, Power Herald, Tempest).

Show me this math.

Lopez, we both know that that DPS meter is… controversial at best. Tossing a questionable program at us isn’t the math you were asked for.

As far as I know condi necro is just fine and from what I have seen in videos posted they see plenty of action in raids too (power necros however are not, again as far as I know). I just got my necro to 80 geared him out in cheap rabid gear (with the intent of eventually upgrading to viper) I have no issues whatsoever in HoT jungle, dungeons or fractals (granted I haven’t tried going over fractal 50+ yet). I don’t know about “mediocre” necro DPS, I’m not a great engi player but in my experience engi is 5x harder to execute while being twice as squishy and I don’t find the theoretical “superior” engi dps to be worth all the micro.