Guild Wars 2

It has always been said that necromancer is more of a self-contain and selfish profession that can handle itself quite nicely but does not offer much group support as oppose to, say, a guardian which has more supportive abilities readily at its disposal.

Nonetheless, is there a support oriented build for a necromancer? If any, what sort of support will it be focusing on? How effective would it be in say dungeon, fractual and WWW?

Thanks!

Is there a support build? Yes, there are two or three types that I can think of: healing (just spam out heals), wells support (generally condition removal and well of darkness), and condition support (tons of condition output to make enemies weak, plus some condition transfer from allies to enemies via Plague Signet).

Overall though, Necromancer support is absolutely never worth running in any kind of optimized setup. It is strictly for fun only.

There may be a full support build involving healing life blasts somewhere that’s impossible to master. Skill shot heals just do not work in this game.

If you want to offer decent team support without compromising build viability, Plague Signet is an option. Cleansing your teammates of conditions every few seconds can be a great form of support, as the signet prioritizes dangerous conditions like fear and immobilize first. The conditions then boost your heal with Consume Conditions, or you may choose to severely shut down an opponent with the signet active. If you need a stun breaker, Plague Signet fulfills that role too. It’s a very versatile skill.

So a standard 66xxx condition build with Plague Signet is actually a support build already.

As far as necro support goes, it just doesn’t work.

Much of it is tied to skills that have CD’s which are too long or are tied to other skills which makes using them far to much of a sacrifice to yourself.

Condition builds with condi transfer could technically be called support, especially when necro could keep weakness up on a champ all the time. Sadly they cannot do that now so they are not nearly as good as they used to be.

Oh My God.8423:

Nonetheless, is there a support oriented build for a necromancer? If any, what sort of support will it be focusing on? How effective would it be in say dungeon, fractual and WWW?

Yep there is. Its called full zerker meta Necro.

A player by your side that can pop the enemy you are fighting in 2 seconds is the best kind of support.

Dawdler.8521:

Oh My God.8423:

Nonetheless, is there a support oriented build for a necromancer? If any, what sort of support will it be focusing on? How effective would it be in say dungeon, fractual and WWW?

Yep there is. Its called full zerker meta Necro.

A player by your side that can pop the enemy you are fighting in 2 seconds is the best kind of support.

True. But not all enemy “pop” in 2 seconds. I am thinking along the line of “force multipler” type of support so that your team can all “pop” an enemy in 2 second.

Cleric necro was a thing a year ago. They used mark of blood and wells to heal the zerg .

Often with PUGs I find myself finishing dungeons with a support build. There are a few ways to do this.

Minions are bad at a lot of things but they make good distractions. If you need bait to peel for you, this is one option but do not expect it to work particularly well.

Wells offer the most support of any type of build. WoP is not just good for using when hit with a lot of conditions, it can also be used on a stacked fight to convert conditions as they come from the boss to augment the burn-down, and WoP can be used at the end of a fight to clear conditions so everyone gets out of combat and back to full speed. WoB makes a fair heal, though pretty much every other job can do better, faster. Like all wells, it works better when stacking. WoD is probably only used in a super-bunker support build for a group in dire need of help. Trait it with Chilling Darkness and the pulsed blind with chill gives your group a few seconds of free dps. If you run wells, I recommend taking OH dagger and traits that remove conditions like Spiteful Removal, which is great for trash mob use but nearly useless against bosses. Shrouded removal would be better for bosses.

Transfusion is a powerful adept trait in Blood Magic I have found easy to use to help keep my group standing. Just use it whenever possible. It does not prevent the Necromancer from going down due to low health but the group can help you back up if they are all comfortably healthy. When they get low, then you are in trouble so keep their health up.

Staff is a great support weapon. The regen on #2 and condition transfer on #4 often go unnoticed but can be powerful. Staff does, unfortunately, handicap your damage output tremendously so camping out with staff is generally bad. Start with staff initially after the boss hits with AoE conditions, transfer them and regen your group, then switch to another weapon for dps.

There are other group support skills but I use them less frequently. Necromancer can bunker fairly well but its support will never be appreciated. Heals are not strong enough or fast enough and the cost in dps is high for a lot of support. The best support I do seems to be resurrecting downed players next to the boss. Keeping enough of DS to do that and survive makes a big difference.

As Anchoku said you can play “support” in a sense. Transfusion is a great heal on a short CD when traited. Wells can be traited to give protection though you will sacrifice dps. You can deal with condition heavy fights like Mai Trin very well. You can pull off very dangerous rezzes with DS. I’ve saved a full whipe more times then I can remember in fractals. We definitely lack the support of some classes but spec’d the right way can do fairly well with saving your group of that’s what you’re into.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZakkmea7sx3G+bTgNUSFATvAHQvS9JEC/KA-T1hXAB2dKAW8JAwgyvX0HAw+D0oEUJ1fEF0bB-w

This build with delicious rice balls as food ( +100 healing and +10% outgoing heals) works pretty good, though i haven’t played it in a long time. Of course, you dont have to go full celestial, the build works well with clerics. (Same with dagger and Axe)