Guild Wars 2

Im struggling to come to a conclusion on which armour stat set would be best for my Necro in WvW. I generally do large scale blob vs blobbb fights and so my build is centered around Staff + Wellspam + Plague with Chill on Blind.

My obvious choices seem to be Knights (Toughness/Power/Precision) or Soldiers (Power/Toughness/Vitality)

Currently my traits look like this: GW2 Editor

Traits: Yes its wonky but this is currently for my PVT setup and im unsure what to do=/. Now, it is worth noting that if i went the Knights route i would crit more meaning more life siphon from Vampiric Precision. As a bonus it would make sense to get rid of Deadly Strength and just get Withering Precision which applies Weakness(5s) on crit. I dont need to crit high, i just need to crit at all and cause havoc AND heal! Win win!

However, if I went the full Soldiers route my higher HP should give me more staying power overall in fights i think. Id sacrifice Target the Weak and get Ritual of Protection instead. I consider this option to be more defensive and conservative.

Would the Life Siphoned crits offset my lower HP pool in big zerg fights when i spam my three wells and marks etc? Would Withering Precision make a noticeable difference for my team or is condition cleansing too rampant anyway? Build editor is good but i dont wanna commit to the gear ingame just yet:P

Arenanet need to swap Deadly Strength and Protection of the Horde minor traits so i can have my cake and eat it too

I run the Ascii WvW build in Zergs though I am mostly roaming. It does pretty well, you’ll be tanky, deal a lot of damage and tag pretty much everything.

Link

Ascii’s build with knights and cavalier trinkets is almost unkillable in a zerg fight… well, not unkillable but if you play decently, you will survive as long as anyone else in the zerg. That includes PVT guardian commander builds as well. Lots of armor, decent health pool and the siphon ensures it has more than enough to stay in a fight. Just make sure you run Melandru runes and Lemongrass food.

If you run this, I’d suggest not taking Withering Precision. Weakness is good and works great in a 1v1 but a lot of the time, it’s only going to hit one person so it’s not very reliable in a zerg fight. Oh, and, yes, your instincts were correct: as a condition, count on it to be cleansed rather quickly. It’s probably best to stick with Deadly Strength to maximize damage.

Next, it’s more than feasible to run a tankier build with PVT armor and trinkets. You’ll have a massive health pool and elite survivability. That being said, your lack of crits is going to hurt your damage output.

To offset this, you can turn yourself into more of a disruption-style necro. If you take 5 points out of Death (difficult because you’ll have to sacrifice 50 toughness and 100 power from the bonus) you can reinvest it into Curses. This will allow you to take both Chilling Darkness (don’t forget it procs off of Well of Darkness as well as Plague) and Banshee’s Wail for greater access to warhorn.

I would stay away from Ritual of Protection. It doesn’t synergize with ground targeted wells as you actually need to be within the target to get the protection.

Good luck!

I have found Knight’s to be by far the best stat combo for a powermancer in WvW. When you pair it with a little zerker you can survive a lot of damage between siphons and Deathshroud and also deal respectable damage.

Stats I aim for when making a Power build: 2k Power, 50% crit, 70% crit damage, 3k Armor. Knights combined with a few Cavalier pieces and zerker orbs gives me this with my build.

I am not a fan of using Soldier gear with Necro, I feel toughness benefits us much better due to our naturally high HP.

Btw, I am not a fan at all of using Melandru runes and lemongrass. I find conditions extremely easy to deal with between Consume Conditions, Dagger #4, Shrouded removal, and sometimes I use staff #4 too.

Thanks guys for taking the time to reply that is extremely helpful. Im farming Arah atm to build my knights set =D A long, slow, arduous process for sure, but worth it in the end I think.

I’d love to know Stx, which runes do you use instead of Melandru on your Necro? I thought they were pretty much standard in WvW with any class?

I find it funny i actually used Ascii’s trait distribution by accident. He seems to favor warhorn over Plague Chill though. Chill on blind is too much of a gamechanger for me and i cant do without it. It makes Plague #2 probably the most devastating Zerg-Vs-Zerg skill and turns Well Of Darkness into a CC to boot. I use WoD to catch the tail of zergs and watch as the stragglers stupidly get chilled and cut down by my team.

I use Ruby orbs instead of runes to boost my damage since my armor is all toughness.

I think melandru runes would be more suited for classes who don’t have a lot of condition removal. Between my heal and Dagger#4 I never feel bothered at all by conditions, and I use shrouded removal for little things like cripple or roots.

In my opinion you should avoid starting too tanky and rather start squishy, so you learn the hard way to avoid damage and how to play as a caster.
Knight’s with berserker is usually a good starting point though. [Something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW3YjMaV6Zaia87JgJFdPekihLm6R5ofOA-jUyAYLBZCCM9JQJvklAHEbboIasqFM1JRUt3oIa1SBcxYA-w]