Guild Wars 2

Greetings fellow Necros!

It seems that most Necromancers I find myself in PUGs with are either straight condition builds OR glass cannon bursters. Personally, I could never build a glass cannon for ANY profession because, as they say, a corpse does no damage! I also wanted to separate my character from the typical scepter/dagger and staff condition builds that many run. So, as a dungeon and mid-to-high-level Fractal enthusiast, I’ve hopefully added a bit more survivability to the hybrid Necro (in keeping with the minimum desired armor rating of 2300 as prescribed by Sheobix).

Since rolling my Necromancer to L80 I’ve been doing a lot of build research as I wanted to create a more user-friendly hybrid. What I’ve come up with is based on Nemesis’ hybrid burst/condition build, but sacrifices some power in favor of toughness and (what I consider) pertinent sigils and runes.

So, without further ado:

Gear:

Keep in mind that this build incorporates Ascended trinkets and back piece, and I’ve included the amulet in these figures (I obviously don’t have it yet, but will be buying it once I accumulate enough laurels. Right now I have a Rabid exotic amulet with an Exquisite Coral Jewel). If you don’t have Ascended, you could substitute any combination of trinkets with Knight’s/Rampager’s/Rabid stats. I’d suggest enough Knight’s to keep your armor rating at least 2300.

Armor

Full Rampager’s set
3x Superior Rune of Lyssa (75 Precision, +10% Condition Duration)
3x Superior Rune of the Mad King (75 Power, +10% Condition Duration)

Weapons

Rampager’s Scepter (Superior Rune of Generosity)/Knight’s Dagger (Superior Rune of Battle)
Rampager’s Axe (Superior Rune of Generosity)/Knight’s Focus (Superior Rune of Battle)

Trinkets

Back – Tome of the Rubicon (Rabid)
Amulet – Hymn to the Prophets (Rabid)
Accessories – 2x Emerald Orichalcum Earring of the Knight
Rings – Khilbron’s Phylactery and Ouroboros Loop (both Rabid)

Traits

30 Spite, taking major traits II, X, and XII
30 Curses, taking major traits II, IX, and XII
10 Blood Magic, taking major trait I

Totals

Power 1753 > Attack 2718
Precision 2146 > 62% Critical Chance
Toughness 1404 > Armor 2324
Vitality 1016 > Health 19372
Condition Damage 976
Condition Duration 50% (70% for bleeds with Curses II trait)

Utility Skills

Of course they are situational, but I typically use Well of Suffering, Blood is Power, and Epidemic. Epidemic gets swapped out during boss fights, but it absolutely decimates hoards of trash mobs after stacking conditions on with weapon skills and other utilities. Plague for elite skill, as it grants stability, doubles power, quadruples toughness, and triples vitality for its duration.

For healing I tend to stick to Well of Blood so I can offer a tiny bit of support. If I know conditions will be a problem and the 10s cooldown on Sigil of Generosity won’t be fast enough I’ll use Consume Conditions.

Summary

This build is predicated on a few things:

1. No added vitality (except for 100 from trait line), taking advantage of the Necro’s large base health pool, as well as the Death Shroud and Plague abilities to extend life
2. Normal burst damage may leave a little to be desired, but with 62% base precision (plus another couple percent with consumables) you’ll be critting most of the time – nearly all the time if a party member gives you fury!
3. High Precision is also important to proc bleeds from Curses’ first minor trait and weakness from major trait XII, in addition to triggering our main-hand weapon sigil condition removal
4. No Critical Damage. Sorry, but couldn’t afford to add any and still achieve the goals of ~2300 toughness, ~1000 Condition damage, and as much power as possible. Ideally I’d give up some of this build’s Precision for Power or Critical Damage, but with the current gear stat combinations it just wasn’t possible.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by my Guardian (Rune of the Soldier-wearing, Altruistic Healing Shout build), but I’m really unimpressed by the Necro’s lack of access to condition removal (without having to wait on long cooldowns) and ability to heal. Perhaps that has everything to do with this build. Am I losing out on healing because I don’t use the Siphoning mechanic?

Anyway, since I’m new to this profession, I’ll appreciate any/all feedback on this build – as well as any suggestions/ideas for its improvement. Cheers!

I forgot to mention that the traits are taken to increase weapon effectiveness/decrease weapon cooldowns and add to the conditions you’ll be stacking on your target. And focused rituals (Curses IX) lets you plant your Well of Suffering from range so you don’t have to put yourself at risk.

With 0% critical damage and 17xx power, grabbing an axe is just not worth it. Your damage on axe swap will be less than on your S/D swap, and you are losing the utility granted by staff.

Unfortunately, while boring, the standard rabid gear S/D + Staff build would be superior in overall damage and equal in survivability. I think the problem is that you are trying to do too much with one build and as a result spreading yourself too thin. The other problem is that axe is a power weapon that needs both high power and high crit damage to be marginally effective because it is only really used to axe 2 burst. In the end, there is no niche that your build can fill that a standard condi build can’t do better.

To address other points in your post, skipping siphoning is fine (to be blunt it sucks). Necros actually have among the best condition removal in the game. Taking untraited well of blood is not worth it, especially with zero healing power, so take consume conditions. If you opt for staff swap, staff 4 removes all conditions (and transfers them). Sigil of Generosity is a very mediocre sigil for a necromancer, and with such high crit chance you are sacrificing so much damage by losing the Sigil of Superior Earth.

Hope this helps!

Hey, thanks for the input. Unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to give up my dream of being a hybrid Necro for now. Part of the problem might be that I refuse to trait for any toughness simply because of the infamous first minor trait that summons a jagged horror. I absolutely do not want a single minion running around with me, which means that the 1st minor trait is annoying and the 2nd minor trait is wasted (since it gives extra toughness for minions). This is also a bummer because the staff is enhanced in the Death Magic Line. Is traiting in this line (and that bloody jagged horror) something I’ll have to suck up until Arenanet (hopefully) answers the call to reorganize Necromancer trait lines?

I also don’t particularly care for Death Shroud as it currently stands. You can’t see your boons in the UI, Life Blast has a 1s attack speed, and if your Life Transfer is interrupted there goes huge, multi-target DPS. I use it mainly for Life Transfer or to buy time for skills to recharge, as I suspect most do. Is there any utility to traiting for Death Shroud or is it wise to spend points in other areas and continue to use DS as a panic button?

With this build I wasn’t really counting on doing huge damage personally, and would’ve used the axe mainly to stack on some vulnerability before using Epidemic. I was aiming to provide party support by greatly weakening whatever we’re going up against. Also, I didn’t use Sigils of Earth because the first minor trait in the Curses line is 66% chance to bleed on crit. While this game is kindest to builds that don’t lean too far in any particular direction, it’s like you said, this build seems to be spread too thin to do anything really well.

So, I will definitely be speccing to a condition build over the next few weeks (or however long it takes to make gold to buy gear). Should I go full Rabid everything in that case, maxing out condition damage? What are some suggestions for transitioning to that type of build?

On the other hand, pure burst Necros seem kind of pointless to me, as our damage still feels relatively weak (to compensate for the conditions we can pile on) and we don’t cleave at all. Plus, to max out burst potential it looks like that is at the cost of all survivability. And that’s not cool either.

If you are playing PvE/dungeons, most builds work and there is a good bit of variety, so don’t feel like you HAVE to play a cookie cutter build.

That being said, if you do want to resort to it, Rabid is the best armor for the standard condition build. Unfortunately, rabid gear on the tp is like the most expensive exotic armor in the game. Thus, the easiest way to get this is through karma vendors in orr or doing dungeon runs (TA/HotW and something else I believe). If you don’t have enough karma and want transitioning gear, I suggest level 80 rare rabid gear. It won’t cost much more than 2g for the entire set and is pretty close stat-wise to exotic.

Most condi builds avoid traiting for DS because it’s damage scales with power. Besides a panic button, entering can give you fury which is useful for procs. Sigil of Earth stacks with barbed precision, so I would still take it.

As for Death Magic, it’s your call, but very few condimancers run without Greater Marks. While Reanimator is useless and many people hate it, it generally isn’t THAT much trouble. Greater Marks is usually too good to pass up.

As for pure burst necros, there are viable builds and aren’t pointless, but they generally center around dagger and wells rather than axe and other utilities. But yes, pure burst sacrifices almost all of their survivability, and will be up close with dagger range.

Lopez has a pretty good guide on condimancer somewhere in the first few pages of the forum if you want to check that it.

EDIT: I just want to reiterate that many builds work for PvE so play what you like. GW2 isn’t about min/maxing your stats if you want to have fun.

destijl.3769:

Personally, I could never build a glass cannon for ANY profession because, as they say, a corpse does no damage!

These two are not mutually inclusive. You could absolutely build glass cannon and still complete runs without being downed a single time. It all comes down to player skill.

Oh, another question since I’m new to Necro: Why do people run Scepter/Dagger + Staff?

It seems like Scepter/Dagger is suboptimal to, say, Scepter/Focus where you have the Vulnerability burst.

I run Scepter/Focus + Dagger/Dagger, and I find it’s been working out great. I plan to switch to Rabid gear at level 80. Basically, I’m using Dagger/Dagger as the Life-Leech/Condition Removal weapon set while using Scepter/Focus for most of my damage.

Maestro.5376:

Oh, another question since I’m new to Necro: Why do people run Scepter/Dagger + Staff?

It seems like Scepter/Dagger is suboptimal to, say, Scepter/Focus where you have the Vulnerability burst.

I run Scepter/Focus + Dagger/Dagger, and I find it’s been working out great. I plan to switch to Rabid gear at level 80. Basically, I’m using Dagger/Dagger as the Life-Leech/Condition Removal weapon set while using Scepter/Focus for most of my damage.

Because Scepter is a condition damage weapon. Dagger main-hand has 0 condition damage, making it almost useless for condition builds. Staff has 3 damaging conditions, 4 if you’ve traited terror. Dagger off-hand is all condition damage, you get bleeds and whatever you are transfering.

They use it because it is the best build for 99% of condition damage builds, and even many hybrids.

Bhawb.7408:

Maestro.5376:

Oh, another question since I’m new to Necro: Why do people run Scepter/Dagger + Staff?

It seems like Scepter/Dagger is suboptimal to, say, Scepter/Focus where you have the Vulnerability burst.

I run Scepter/Focus + Dagger/Dagger, and I find it’s been working out great. I plan to switch to Rabid gear at level 80. Basically, I’m using Dagger/Dagger as the Life-Leech/Condition Removal weapon set while using Scepter/Focus for most of my damage.

Because Scepter is a condition damage weapon. Dagger main-hand has 0 condition damage, making it almost useless for condition builds. Staff has 3 damaging conditions, 4 if you’ve traited terror. Dagger off-hand is all condition damage, you get bleeds and whatever you are transfering.

They use it because it is the best build for 99% of condition damage builds, and even many hybrids.

But why would anyone ever switch OFF of scepter? I don’t really understand that. It seems like staying on Scepter and using Epidemic would be a lot more efficient than switching to Staff for the AoE and potentially losing the bleed stacks you’ve accumulated from scepter auto (especially if you have the scepter bleed trait).

I feel like having the Staff there is just kind of pointless because it doesn’t supplement your damage in any way. I’d rather have an offset that increases my survivability (D/D for the lifesteal which heals a TON with blood traits and the condition damage transfer) and have a mainset that uses Scepter for damage and Focus for AoE Vuln/Chill burst than having a mainset of Scept/Dag and then have to worry about Staff diminishing DPS whenever I switch to it for…some reason, I don’t even know why you’d switch to staff.

You switch to staff for the utility;
- #2 gives regeneration
- #3 chills, poisons and gives weakness if chained with #4 (useful in PvE, vital in PvP)
- #5 fears (can be good in PvE, is amazing in PvP)
- and of course the #4 transfers all your conditions and one for other people (iirc) standing near it on activation, which makes it one of the best support skills on any weapon imo.

You can also start the fight with the staff #2 and immediately switch to scepter to stack bleeds a bit more quickly.

Scepter is the main damage of course and especially in PvE you will spend the majority of your time using it.
The real question isn’t why would you switch to the staff though, it’s: why would you switch to anything else? (in a condition build).

I dont think your build has enough survivability to pvp with, and for PvE the stats arent really ideal for dealing damage.

Im not sure this is what youre looking for, but Ill summarize my build that I use for PvP, it is a tanky hybrid build.

25curses, 25death, 20 blood. Knights gear, Undead runes, PVT weapons, Rampager Jewels. D/D, Staff. Sigil of accuracy/earth, and whatever you want on staff, I use earth but you could use corruption or bloodlust.

Basically, in the end I have 3k attack, 3k armor, 23k HP, 50% crit chance, 700 cond damage. The weakness is no crit damage, but the strengths of this build include a high mix of power, armor, crit, and condition damage, and also a high amount of life siphons through blood traits and food, making you very hard to kill. Condition control is easy with dagger offhand, staff 4, and heal.

For utilities, I switch them almost constantly, but I mostly use Blood Is Power(this build makes it shine), epidemic, well of suffering, locust signet, and corrupt boon. Traits, I go with hemo and enfeebling shroud, greater marks and shrouded removal, bloodthirst and vampiric precision.

Snafoo.2869:

You switch to staff for the utility;
- #2 gives regeneration
- #3 chills, poisons and gives weakness if chained with #4 (useful in PvE, vital in PvP)
- #5 fears (can be good in PvE, is amazing in PvP)
- and of course the #4 transfers all your conditions and one for other people (iirc) standing near it on activation, which makes it one of the best support skills on any weapon imo.

You can also start the fight with the staff #2 and immediately switch to scepter to stack bleeds a bit more quickly.

Scepter is the main damage of course and especially in PvE you will spend the majority of your time using it.
The real question isn’t why would you switch to the staff though, it’s: why would you switch to anything else? (in a condition build).

I changed my build abit and switched the offhand dagger and focus (So it’s S/D + D/F).

Well, I play my necro as a condition damage/condition drawing build, so a lot of times it’s useful for me to switch to D/F so I can tank the conditions I take from other people if Locust/Consume is down. Siphon Life heals for quite abit with Vampiric/Bloodthirst/Vampiric Precision. I find this better utility than Staff, and it does let me facetank some hits to rez someone if I need to.