Guild Wars 2

New Build Link

[NEW!]Power Building Blog for Necromancers: http://necronotes.blog.com/

=Update [3.3] – Tweaks to Setup from Dec. Patch=

• 3.2 – Re-calculation of stats with new build (15/0/25/20/10) reason: perma swiftness and DS bolstering w/ +10% crit damage to compliment staff swapping in DS for high hits. recorded 3400’s with DS1 crits
• 3.3 – Replaced Warhorn with Focus, changed trait setup to reflect changes, dropped perma swiftness in favor of other traits. Updated list to include which crests/sigils im using, and noted Bloodlust. Removed Shukov’s launch codes due to not being a viable way to obtain earrings, recalculated stat spread properly to reflect the changes.

Royal Signet of Doric
Lost Seal of Usoku
Koss on Koss
Emerald Pendant
Invader’s Earrings
Sorrows Embrace/ Ascalonian Catacombs/ Invaders/ HotW gear
Invader Weapons (Or PTV Fractal Weapons if they come out )/ SE/hotw/AC weapons

• Ideal setup: Invader Dagger/ Focus + Invader Staff for skins.

slotted upgrades
All Crests of the Soldier x14 (weapons, armor, accessories) unless user decides to use sigil of blooslust in MH dagger.

Utilities:
Wells, and 3rd slot open for a non-well utility. I use the new locust sig for running but i swap it for Spectral Walk in most cases. This relieves the now gimp warhorn and saves 10 points from the old soul reaping lineup.

SSS weaponsmith consume buff: “Superior Sharpening Stone: Gain power equal to 6% of your toughness; Gain power equal to 4% of your vitality”

And either of these two (these do not stack with each other):
1. Plate of Orrian Steak Frittes: +100 power, +70 vitality, +10 Experience from kills
2. Loaf of Omnomberry Bread: +100 vitality, +70 toughness, +10 Experience from kills

Total Stat Spread:
+2355 power
+2153 Toughness "
+2153 Vitality "

Boil down:
2355 power + 1111 staff attack rating = 3466 Attack Rating (unbuffed)
2153 Toughness + 920 Graytyped Defense from Armor = 3073 Armor(unbuffed)
Base HP + (2153-916) = 18,372 base HP+ 1187 vitality = 30,242 HP (unbuffed)

with buffs:
SSS power= (2153 × 0.06) + (2153 × 0.04) = 129.18 + 86.12 = +215 Power
+ Steak Fries (100 power 70 vit) = +315 power
or
+Omnom Bread (100 vit 70 toughness) = +1000 hp and 70 armor

• Buffed final Power and rating: 2,570 power / 3,781 Attack Rating (w/ Fries)
  • Buffed optional final HP and Armor: 31,242 HP 3143 Armor

I would like to give special thanks to the necromancer community and Glock for giving insight and changes/advice on new items, different bugs, and things i did not catch in the initial version of this post.

BUILD THEORY AND PLAYSTYLE
Hi! Welcome to the Juggermancer. For many of those who do not want to read the following posts to this thread asking about the viability of this build in _______ area of the game, I will highlight the strong points of the build.

• Incredible Tanking ability in Dungeons, PvE, and WvW
• Ridiculously high Attack Rating and Power base, no need for crit stacking
• Utilizes the best gear in game
• Minimizes the weaknesses inherent in the Necromancer Class
• Is a duelist/holdout build that relies on player placement and skill to win, not combos
  • note: Strongest play comes from these areas (in order) : WvW, Dungeons, PvE, tPvP
    • note: This build requires more condition damage for sPvP or pug tPvP. Please refer to a critmancer rampager build or bunker/cond build for heavy PvP play.
• Always last man standing (Improves Deathshroud through the roof) Even above tank warriors and Staff Guardians

If you have any questions, you can pm or whisper me or Glock in the forums.

Err, somehow you have Death Magic V two times…

I believe “Juggermancer” has been reserved for Giant Norn Women. j/s

rofl hackks. sorry, the build editor putin two of the Death V’s. greater marks should be in the first slot.

what about focused rituals? as a power staff necro who’s yet to reach lvl80, i’m looking at that trait and thinking that it will be very important, ofc if i want that i’ll have to sacrifice a lot of good traits and focused rituals seems like a must.

Focused rituals imo is nonessential. more utilitarian wells like darkness,power, and corruption are more useful when they’re triggered on your position. Darkness counteracts melee burst chains, power converts harmful conditions into boons (like in Fractal- Giant at the fire part when you need 5s of purity to land the hammer) and Well of corruption helps to keep guards/wars debuffed to kill them as quickly as clothies without any buffs.

focused rituals is nice, but the points can be better spent somewhere else.

This build seems interesting, and I was testing it out in the mists against golems using the power/vit/toughness amulet/gem.

Even with 10% more dmg from marks traint and 3000 attack the damage on the marks is still kind of lackluster. Stacking them all on a light golem does maybe 30% damage? With the biggest being putrid marks hitting for like 1.3k? Am I doing something wrong? How does this almost instadown an opponent?

Too many minor traits that only work with minions but wont do anything in your build imo

My Necro:
29,652 Health
2,791 Armor
3,191 Attack
I am a mobile fortress.

Torvarren.6295:

My Necro:
29,652 Health
2,791 Armor
3,191 Attack
I am a mobile fortress.

Can you share your spec/armor/upgrades?

yea!! share it!!
anyway.. i leave deadly strenght and blood to power to take 10 points in Reaper (spectral mastery )..
in this way u don’t waste 2 traits

I need a few more runes to buy for my power set atm but for now i looke like 22-24k hp 2600 armor 3150 power 50% crit dmg 33% crit chance

Will give the stats when i buy my last runes and sigils mine is not pure survival like these builds coz u have tons of powe tho and vit and no crit witch makes all the power not that usefull atleast for meh :P

TheAgedGnome.7520:

Torvarren.6295:

My Necro:
29,652 Health
2,791 Armor
3,191 Attack
I am a mobile fortress.

Can you share your spec/armor/upgrades?

Yup, same here. Would love to know how you got those stats.

May i ask whats the point putting in 14 crests of the soldier if only 5 hawe some bonus stats? each after 5th gives only 25vit. And what jewelery you guys recomend for this build?

I’ll prob reach around 26k HP 2.7k armor and 3200 attack when i finish gearing. I would love to afford the food but those kitten cost a fortune not to mention the oils are bug when you teleport or die it gets remove.

Torvarren.6295:

My Necro:
29,652 Health
2,791 Armor
3,191 Attack
I am a mobile fortress.

Can you provide your un-buffed stats?

Edit: This post is now irrelevant. Updated Armor setup is now in the OP

second thought, when it comes to death magic tree, you could drop the staff cooldown trait and swap in dark armor for the extra +400 toughness when you use dagger2 and DS4. great synergy when soaking up burst damage/using ds4 by Popping DS.

Edit: This post is now irrelevant. Updated Armor setup is now in the OP

Miniacalz.5697:

This build seems interesting, and I was testing it out in the mists against golems using the power/vit/toughness amulet/gem.

Even with 10% more dmg from marks traint and 3000 attack the damage on the marks is still kind of lackluster. Stacking them all on a light golem does maybe 30% damage? With the biggest being putrid marks hitting for like 1.3k? Am I doing something wrong? How does this almost instadown an opponent?

I stated that it nearly instadowns opponents in WvW. Please read carefully.
please understand that most players in WvW are running berserker glass cannons or pre-80 toons that go down really fast. (i’ve been using the tactic lately and have had roughly 65% success)

Also, take into account that all tooltips are calculated using a heavy armor target. light armored or toughness-lacking mobs or players will take much more damage from your marks.

Second tip: PvP amulets don’t give anywhere NEAR the stat bonuses you can get from PvE gear. You won’t achieve the same results in the mists. if you want to truly test it, obtain the gear specified and try it in Mariner’s in Lions Arch w/ the dummies.

Soulutions.6450:

Too many minor traits that only work with minions but wont do anything in your build imo

I don’t think any necro player specs into death magic for the minor traits. points were put into there for +250 toughness, +25% boon duration, and the two staff related majors including the opportunity to slot in Dark Armor for channeled skills.

thanks for your two cents though, /troll

The stats on the gear you recommend are only obtainable from dungeons and not crafting? Karma?

Cempa.5619:

The stats on the gear you recommend are only obtainable from dungeons and not crafting? Karma?

Power/Tough/Vit gear can also be obtained from the temple karma vendors in Orr, all except the legs for some reason. If your with the Order of the Vigil all their stuff is also Power/Tough/Vit as well as WvW gear. Ebon Vanguard weapons sold by cultural vendors in Ebonhawke are also Power/Tough/Vit though they aer only rare not exotic.

Great link for finding all the gear out there with the best stat combos your looking for here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

Aexrael had posted in another thread a nice spreadsheet for light armour that i found very useful in getting the right equipment from the Karma vendors in Orr.

Spreadsheet

As was said earlier the only downside is that you cannot get leggings from the Orr Karma vendors for some strange reason. It costs I think from memory 42k per item so make sure you have lots of Karma stored up, although with karma jugs for daily’s and monthly’s its not hard to get the karma built up. Also its the vendors that only show up when the bosses have been killed at the Cathedrals, so you may need to wait till this is done if you cant get a big enough team together to do it and/or there isn’t already a group going around.

Plus a big thanks to Sheo for posting this build, im definitely having tons of fun in WvW with it. Ive tried a good few builds and this is by far my favourite, it suits my play style nicely.

My wannerbe necromancer for now.

seems pretty interesting.is sorrow’s embrace hard to run?

Sorrow’s embrace is not that hard to run. It’s bugged, and can be difficult, but get one experienced player to help organize and run it. It should take roughly 2-3 hours to do all 3 paths for the day.

And as for karma spreadsheets….
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_nomenclature

this wiki page has ALL available stat combos in game already compiled and pre-calculated. I’ve been using the info from there to do my builds for a long time.

if you wanted the stats faster, just run AC, SE, Hotw, and pick up the last couple pieces from any uncontested cathedral out in Orr. Or check the entrance to Arah for the karma vendor that gives the boots. After that, check the WvW vendor for the “invaders” gear.

If you focus for a couple days, you can get a full set, easy.

ascended gear is a little harder to obtain. Traits listed in build link are flexible, please don’t take them as concrete slotted traits. I just run with greater marks/ staff/dagger cooldowns and might blast ramping for general building.

Thoughts on Knight’s (Toughness/Power/Precision) over Soldier’s for armor?

Could some post a gameplay video with that build?
ATM I roll a condition mancer and i’m looking for some new build for PvE.

I don’t have fraps installed, but I can attest that loading up on Soldier’s gear turns necros into absolute powerhouses. It’s a completely different playstyle than conditions. Rather than dump bleeds on someone and wait for them to die, you’re more in their face keeping them from running away. I enjoy not being afraid of burst classes, and having consistent damage output. There’s no “super move” to dodge, and cleanses really don’t help your opponent that much.

I am trying out a variant of this build, with slightly different traits, and runes for boon duration. It’s still a work in progress, but I can say that Soldier’s gear really turns Death Shroud into a major class feature. Spectral Walk and Spectral Grasp really become game changers, since nobody expects a necro to actually run them down.

One thing that bothers me is I can’t tell if I’m doing well because it’s a great build, or if I’m doing well because most WvW players run glass-cannon builds that fold if they can’t burst DPS their way out of a fight.

Main issue I have is just how kittening annoying it is to get a full set of Exotic Soldier gear. I have 6 pc armor and back so far. Thinking of just grabbing rare jewelry and weapons for the moment. I dread farming AC for weapons and WvW is not a viable farm for the gear. 30g+ for neck sucks as well and that is making it yourself.

PinCushion.7390:

One thing that bothers me is I can’t tell if I’m doing well because it’s a great build, or if I’m doing well because most WvW players run glass-cannon builds that fold if they can’t burst DPS their way out of a fight.

Latter is more likely, as crunching the numbers that showed up in a warrior kill shot video recent required that the shooter was massively into crit and hit people that were virtually naked.

Thing is that WvW and sPVP plays so very differently because WvW usually means bring PVE gear while sPVP allows you to pick the setup you want. So likely you will find a lot of targets that run their PVE gear and survive because of the zerg, because they can’t afford the time to grind for hold and gear to adapt to the WvW. Hell, they may only be in there to get their monthlies filled and will vanish from that part of the game until the monthlies roll over again.

So in the end WvW is a poor test case because you do not know if people are running in their finest or simply popping into to grab the monthly chest.

replicant.3620:

Main issue I have is just how kittening annoying it is to get a full set of Exotic Soldier gear. I have 6 pc armor and back so far. Thinking of just grabbing rare jewelry and weapons for the moment. I dread farming AC for weapons and WvW is not a viable farm for the gear. 30g+ for neck sucks as well and that is making it yourself.

You won’t see a noticeable difference in using exotic Knight’s jewelry.

use either wvw rare trinks until you get ptv trinks.

I just grabbed the Lvl 80 Soldier Jewelry off the TP and Crested them, so it was about 50s per item for the moment. I’ll decide on weapons when I log in later tonight. I’ll prob start the AC grind tonight, but may grab Ebonhawke rares or Knight Exotic as temp uses. I very much dig the idea of this build and since i have 3 sets of gear on my Necro already. No harm in making a 4th set. :-p

Thank god i got colossus it should help me fund another set of necro gear lol

would you recommend this build for a more general pve/istance focus than wvwvw? i play wvwvw just once/two evening at week, and run a lot of dungeon, i have just capped the level with my necro alt i was looking fo something different than the usual contion build. Which utilities you would go for Istance? wells?

I’ve tried this build, almost all exotics etc, and I love the tanking/surviving/constant dps ability. I could run from Greenwater to my spawn while been shot and chased by 3-4 defenders and waste them instead of dying on the spot.

I do find that I lack some burst though, when WoS is on cooldown, what do you think about Close to death (30/0/20/20) instead of your build for added burst when they’re down to 50%?

This thread got my attention but I am more a fan of bleed and dots than the raw dps skills
So I made my necro with all exotics with the following build
0/30/25/15/0
I have about 25k hp 1600 toughness 1400 condition dmg.
Ill be taking it out for a spin in wvw tonight.

I think the extra tankiness and boost to healing will be a huge boon and combined with my dodge marks and dropping bleeds when going into ds itll be fun to see if i can outlast my competition in 1v1s

Those back items require players to run fractals and i hate that, there’s no other way to obtain them so i’m waiting for anet to put other ways for players like me to get it.

EDIT: I had sigil of bloodlust for more power, it works well in dungeon runs but not so good in WvW so i switched back to crest. here’s my stat, no omni or any food that cost like 1s+ each, i use cheap stuff.

@ sheobix

why not use AC weapons too ? for pwr/tou/vit

Interesting thread and my first necro set was similar to the listed one … for pve its much fun.
Atm i’m not sure to try runes of melandru (-25% Stun and condi duration, 165 tough)
vs soldier crest (120 power, +84 toughness, +84 vit) …. for wvwvw

I like this build a lot and it is very similar to what I was trying to put toghether for myself.

One thing that seems odd though (to me at least): Is it viable even if it doesn’t have any precision whatsoever?
I always thoght that in order to dish out dmg with dagger you had to rely on crits…

Endy

Question for Sheobix:

Only thing I’m confused about this build is where does your condition removal come from, could you specify in regards to condition removal which remains vital in WvW?

thanks for posting this great build!

i dont see this build being viable for spvp. do you have any experience there? runes/amulets?

nerva.7940:

i dont see this build being viable for spvp. do you have any experience there? runes/amulets?

This build is viable for wvwvw have not tested in pvp itself but theory should be the same, just takes work to succeed. My build was very similar setup of this build and fought 1 vs 3 with my necro. Issue was I just could finish them off but I kept fighting them for close to 5 minutes before more help showed up to finish me off.

ok, going with soldier’s amulet then. do i need any precision? even with high power, and no condition/precision, seems im hitting like a wet noodle.

how is perfoming in dungeon? i’m gearing armor and weapon full soldier and triket knights (without the medallion) to stack some precision, i dont really need 28 k health for dungeon if i have so much thoughness, and some more precision truly help

Alex.4186:

how is performing in dungeon? i’m gearing armor and weapon full soldier and trinket knights (without the medallion) to stack some precision, i dont really need 28 k health for dungeon if i have so much toughness, and some more precision truly help

Well you wont be dying easily but i feel running this setup in instances a bad idea since the longer a mob can live the more chances you have for things to go wrong. Instances are one of the few times i will go all out damage whether it be a hybrid of condition and power, too just straight power and or conditions.

With my necros naturally high health i find getting more toughness and health just slows down the group and doesnt add really much else. This is just how I feel about them. I have 5 exotic sets of gear from instances so I could have an armor set to fill any role i want to play as. I can strongly say the more damage the group does as a whole the better the chances the instance will go in most cases.

Everyone does actully have to play, dodge and such but everyone going for damage just seems to work better then everyone trying to build for support and bunker setups.

gamefreak.5673:

Alex.4186:

how is performing in dungeon? i’m gearing armor and weapon full soldier and trinket knights (without the medallion) to stack some precision, i dont really need 28 k health for dungeon if i have so much toughness, and some more precision truly help

Well you wont be dying easily but i feel running this setup in instances a bad idea since the longer a mob can live the more chances you have for things to go wrong. Instances are one of the few times i will go all out damage whether it be a hybrid of condition and power, too just straight power and or conditions.

With my necros naturally high health i find getting more toughness and health just slows down the group and doesnt add really much else. This is just how I feel about them. I have 5 exotic sets of gear from instances so I could have an armor set to fill any role i want to play as. I can strongly say the more damage the group does as a whole the better the chances the instance will go in most cases.

Everyone does actully have to play, dodge and such but everyone going for damage just seems to work better then everyone trying to build for support and bunker setups.

True, but soldier offers high damage + survivebility.

Full soldier armor/weapons with emeralds + berserkers jwelery, still have 30 cc and 30 cd