Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, newbie necromancer here again. So since my last post asking about powermancer I have put in quite a few hours on my necro, most of it playing power, with differential success that was very dependent on team composition. So now I’ve decided to move on and try the terrormancer build, and I’m here to ask for some pointers from you guys.

I am just using the standard build linked here: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Traditional_Terrormancer

So far I’ve really had good success when I had decent team support, however 1 v 1 I do not seem to fair that well, primarily due to my lack of knowledge of when to use what. One of my big questions is what are the rotations? When is the best time to use corrupt boon? What is the most efficient way to generate life force?

As a newbie necro I find life force one of the most frustrating mechanics in the game. On the one hand, if it is full you have 2 full health bars. On the other you start with zero so if you get jumped out of the gate you are at a huge disadvantage being that you don’t even have access to your primary class mechanic.

Finally I’m a little confused about where your damage comes from. On my engineer I can land one shrapnel grenade and a prybar and in those two abilities I have really put out some decent damage especially if I can then go on to interrupt them with shield 4 or 5 and keep them from cleaning those condis.

What should I similarly be looking to do on the necro to put out good damage?
Currently I usually open the fight with staff 2 and 3 and then I try to close distance with them before using staff 5 and then weapon swapping for geomancy proc, after which I use dagger 5 and scepter autos, or if I have LF I’ll swap into DS and use ds 2 followed by fear and ds 5.

Sorry for the long windedness of the post, just really trying to figure this class out. Thanks,
Zaragoz

My first char was a necro but i main a warrior because in pve warrior is easier and i prefer high mobility in wvw. I have been playing mainly power necro and some other bizzare builds that i made. I have only been playing condi for a month now and i either so really good or really bad. There are some tips on youtube videos like this one http://youtu.be/2dyiUVGLXQE

I will still try to answer your questions though^^

Rotations: A terrormancer does not necessarily have a rotation like d/d ele does. But you must also never just spam your important skills. You can spam like 1-3 weapon slots but high cooldown stuff should either be saved for a better situation or comboed with other skills or CC to make sure they land. Save corrupt boon for when your target has stability but less than 6 boons in total (stability becomes fear, you wont transform stab as its last priority boon). Furthermore if you are in a team fight, you can save it for when an enemy with stability is stomping your friend, also devastating against lich form necroes as your team can focus on him once you rip off his stab. Signet of Spite should be casted if opponent is disabled somehow. DS 2 should be casted before casting Doom to make sure it hits. Follow this up with DS 5 and thats a strong condi bomb right there. If you notice you miss some skills. Or get interrupted, make a note-to-self so you ensure 100% accuracy later.

Life force: Not easy to generate it compared to standard power builds. At start of the fight try to stick with your team and kite from 600-1200 distance. If you go home or far for a 1v1 odds may not be in your favor. After dropping 6+ condis on a target use scepter 3 which is one of your sources. Also spam staff 1 on downed bodies if nobody is coming to rez them. You can also spam this to surroundings like window in khylo or gates or NPC etc.

Damage: Your damage comes from, well everything. You dont have one burst skill or something you should absolutely land. As you said your DS combo can be devastating. Its usually a steady fight unless you are facing a thief which procced all yoir passive fears and ate your other fears and DS combo. Then its GG in under 10 seconds. Happened to me a few times its so funny On a side note try to kite even when you need to fight on node, use your range to avoid soke damage from melee classes. Now if ots a LB ranger just teleport on their face with DS2. But yeah we dont have much defense other than CCs so try line of sighting and kiting when necessary, especially if you sre gonna use heal.

Edit: Sorry for spelling, on phone limited time.

The best time to use corrupt boon is when your enemy has stability and less than 6 boons total. That means you will corrupt that stability into fear, which will deal more damage. It will also set up your teammates to gank tanky characters like guardians, warriors, and elementalists. If you are fighting a class that doesn’t have stability on their normal builds, i.e. ranger, thief, mesmer, or engineer, then you want to use corrupt boon when they have their maximum number of boons. For thieves this is immediately after steal, for mesmers generally it is when they are in chaos storm, for engineers it is when elixir B goes off at 75% of their health, and for rangers it is after they use lightning reflexes.

As a condition necro, generating life force is hard. Your goal should be to hit feast of corruption, scepter 3, right after you hit a condition transfer, or when your enemy/ies has 4 or more conditions. That, the staff auto attack and the Spectral Armor that triggers at 50% health should give you more than enough LF to hit your 3 main skills in DS (dark path, doom, and tainted shackles). You can also summon spectral wurm at the beginning of the game and immediately teleport to it, this will give you a little bit of life force, but you’ll be down one stun break.

The damage as a condition necro comes from 4 places. The first is bleeds, necro bleeds are pretty long duration and deal a good amount of damage. The second is boon corruption, corrupting enemy retaliation, stability, aegis, and vigor gives confusion, fear, burning and bleeding respectively. The third and most important are condition transfers, with Putrid Mark and Deathly swarm, the conditions other classes apply to you become their own problem. Transferring conditions effectively can completely turn around a fight and should be regarded as a priority against anyone who applies conditions which is most builds. The fourth place necro condition damage comes from is fear/fear chains. These can deal a lot of damage because you can potentially far someone for 4 seconds which is 4k damage, if you have 10 or so bleeds on them as well your looking at 8k damage easily. The real use of fear though is to land other skills, landing condition transfers or corrupt boon becomes much easier if your enemy is feared.

I generally break up necromancer skills into 2 groups, essential skills that have to be landed and kiting skills that you want your enemies to blow their dodges on. The essential skills are deathly swarm, putrid mark, reaper’s mark, doom, corrupt boon, dark path, and probably enfeebling blood (weakness is strong). If you land all of these in a given fight at the right time (for instance don’t waste putrid mark, or deathly swarm when you don’t have a decent amount of conditions on you), you will probably win that fight.

You wanna see what these guys are talking about in action? Visit Noscoc’s (you know who that is I presume) Twitch and watch his pvp vods, study and replicate what you see there. It’s honestly what did it for me. Watch the best play like the best.

His profile: http://www.twitch.tv/noscoc/profile/past_broadcasts

Can’t really add anything to what zapv said, but an important thing to remember is that terrormancer is more of a control class than a damage class, or at least, it is to me. Oh, and kite a lot because you will be targetted. So try to put yourself in positions where it is hard to get focused. Like Pyro said, watching good players can help you learn that skill too.

Hi, zaragoz.

I could answer your questions one by one, but I think it would be generally better to describe to you exactly what condi necro’s role is, what you’re capable of doing and what you should avoid.

As a condi necromancer your biggest assest are:

1. being relatively durable
2. ranged AoE pressure
3. shutdown & interrupts
4. boon corruption

Your weak spots:

1. close combat & node fighting
2. mobility
3. life force generation
4. downed state pressure

Now, I won’t go through all these, but let me say that with the above in mind you should:

• put pressure from outside nodes – your main role is to survive and wait for an opportunity to use your skillset to add a finishing touch. I’ve found through my experience, that condi necro won’t usually be able to bring a good opponent down by himself in teamfights (not 1v1’s, we’ll come back to that). This is connected to how much condi clease there is in the game and a few other factors.
• push for fights where you have some assistance – you are most effective in small skirmishes – 2v2’s, 3v3’s with your team to support you and with you to support your team.
• interrupt stops/rezzes- this is rarely mentioned and I find it to be a crucial part of the necro gameplay.
• Plague-rezz, -stomp or -bunker

Notice how the above align with your biggest assets.

Let’s move onto the gameplay you should avoid:

• standing on nodes over longer periods of time – if you’re required by the circumstances to stay on a node – something is going wrong and your team is getting either largely outplayed or you and your team are rotating improperly.
• roaming too far from nodes – you should carefully push for objectives where you know you’ll contribute rather than hinder your team. You don’t have the capabilities of thieves to quickly bail out and fix a mistake and it will take you a relatively long time to rotate somewhere else if you happen to be in a wrong spot. I’d say your role should be something in-between a point-holder and a roamer. It’s hard to explain, but well come back to that.
• tanking with life force, unless Last Gasp Spectral Armour pops – you need the DS always ready off cooldown for Doom fear and Tainted Shackles.
• going in for stomps or rezzes, unless you have Plague ready and it’s a clutch moment – if your enemies get rezzed it’s usually someone else’s fault.

Okay, we have some general idea, so we can now think on how to achieve those things at the same time answering your questions.

1. Rotations – don’t think about it this way. The question should be how to be most optimal with your skills. There are skill you can usually fire at will (Mark of Blood, Grasping Dead, scepter auto :> ) and some that can’t be used unless justified (fears, condi transfers, Corrupt Boon and Dark Path, stun breakers).
2. Damage – you won’t be easily seeing damage comparable to some other professions and specs. This is how the build works. Your offense comes through stacking some bleeds and torment as an addition to the damage coming from your teammates, putting poison and weakness wearing down the opponents’ defenses and timed condi bursts with fears and boon corrupts.
3. Life Force generation – as you’ve noticed LF isn’t very abundant in this spec, especially if you’re having a hard time staying alive in some tough matches and even more so after the minion LF stacking nerf. This is where two things meet – using your LF sparingly and generating it at every opportunity. When opening a fight or when on staff you usually should go for landing a couple of staff auto-attacks – it is quite easy after all the buffs the skill received. Don’t expect Feast of Corruption (scepter#3) to give you a sustainable amount of LF, staff is the key here. Also make sure to land some autos on downed players after your team secures a win in a teamfight and consider sticking around to get the death bonus (you won’t get if if you go away too far).

To be continued…

<continued>

Putting it all together…

Match highlights:
When a match starts, you should focus mostly on surviving, building LF and putting pressure before you can move to the juicy part.
I like to go over close with whoever caps it to make sure it’s not being pushed by someone (engies and warriors like doing that, and you’re a perfect deterrence).

When you start fighting over mid or close, stick to ledges, place your Wurm in the escape spots and start putting pressure. On average, your favourite targets would be engies, other necros and squishies.
I like to pick targets myself, if you play solo a lot, this is the best thing you can do in the beginning. At this point, there is usually someone already training you hard and this is the crucial moment, because you now have to survive and put pressure waiting to make use of your true strengths. If your team focuses correctly, opportunities for Corrupt Boon and Terror spikes should happen and this is the time where you add your damage interrupting the targets and fearing them to negative hp, i.e. the downed state.

At all times I’ll try to stay at a safe distance to make sure I can avoid as much pressure as possible and not to get gibbed by some crazy spikes or cc-locks.

In practice though, you will find that having a thief and a warrior jumping at you with all their cooldowns forces you to start kiting them around and usually it’s best to stick near to the node so that if things go south you may get rezzed by your team.

As for the duels, I honestly don’t feel comfortable dueling over a node as a necro. I not only find other professions inherently better at fighting over small areas than the condi necro, I also believe that the current meta makes it rather hard for condi necros to perform that already difficult role. I also don’t think that’s where necro can shine the most and thus doing it as necro isn’t optimal.
However, fighting for a node against an engie, another necro, a thief or a ranger I find, on average, to be skill-based, so you may very well go for it. With the others it’s more tricky, but a thing to remember is to avoid celestial eles above everything. Fighting them is a waste of time that will likely result in you getting killed with fire.
If you’re wondering on how to actually fight, I’d say try to force your opponents to dodge and pop their defensive cooldowns. You should bring their health as low as possible (around 50%) and push for a Terror spike. You should also aim at interrupting their heals and maintaining poison and weakness on them. When playing against other condi specs you can try playing with Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark condi transfers – they can absolutely devastate your opponent.

Some additional advice:

1. I consider Nightmare runes not worth it because you don’t have any control over the proc and it was nerfed lately. Personally, I use Traveler’s and I’m happy with the passive mobility they provide, allowing you to rotate and kite more effectively.
2. similarly to the previous one – I hate Reaper’s Protection and instead have been running Greater Marks for a long time now.
3. I also use Soul Marks instead of Master of Terror to generate LF with my turbo marks – unblockable, with lower cooldowns, generating LF, what’s not to love? I also think that in general it’s easy to lose value on Master of Terror, because good players break stuns and dodge properly so the increased duration may never happen.

As you can see, my build is less focused on damage and more on keeping myself alive and performing careful, timed interrupts and corrupts, so playing on the strengths and offsetting the weaknesses.

I think that’s it for now. It’s quite late here and I still have some learning to do.
Tell me what you think and ask if you have any questions.

Interesting reading! Will definatly have to try this the next time I PvP, autoattack dagger didn’t quite do the trick ^^

This should probably get stickied. A lot of work went into these posts.

Just want to thank everyone who has replied! Overall I seem to do okay with terromancer, but I have found that to really depend on my team. Of all the classes that I just can’t seem to face shatter mesmers and celestial eles give me the most grief. Celestial engineers can be tough to if I don’t have any LF.

I will give the traveler runes and greater marks a try and see how it goes.

Again thanks to everyone!

P.s any advice for fighting mesmers would be great, I generally find that dodging zerker and mirror blade just isn’t enough as I generally get caught with illusionary leap, and then 3/4 of my health is just gone, and I am fighting a losing battle from that point on.

You have to range engineers. If you let them get close to you they’ll just keep you on your back with Ckittenil you die. This means you have to give up the point if you’re standing on it, and in places like mid on Kyhlo, or the side points on foefire, where the point is a little ranged mound that the engi can hide behind and block your line of sight, you also have to get up onto a ledge. Spots like that are hard, there’s lots of cover for the engineer to hide while still capping, and a good one will use the cover to get close enough to knock you from your perch. Also, be ready to dodge his Tool Kit Magnet! As soon as their Hidden Flask trait procs at 75% health, pop into DS, Doom, then Corrupt Boon.

Thanks everyone for the informative posts. Very interesting read and it kinda triggers me to start PvP’ing, haha

Okay, so I’ve have several hours on the terrormancer at this point. However one thing I’m really perplexed about is when and where to use Wurm? Like sometimes the kitten thing just seems like a waste of a utility. Where and how should I be using this thing? It has saved me a few times, but sometimes it seems to bug and throw me into a wall, or just move me like 2 ft over?

Any advice is appreciated.

instead of wurm try plague signet its a life saver and a killer that extra stunbreak catches opponents off guard and they inevitably end up killing themselves I love when guardians try to burn me its just more fuel for the fire

You need to know the shadowstep mechanics. Also check this vid for where in pvp maps it actually works (unless obstructed, sometimes still works through obstacles)

http://youtu.be/LeQDfFHGAT8

Just to update this I’ve been playing with plague signet all morning just to try it out, and I won’t lie I feel like I get quite a bit more mileage out of it than wurm. My issue with wurm is that most of the times when I need to use it to escape, it seems like I’ve already waited to long to get out anyway and I end up dieing regardless.

I’m sure most of that has to do with the fact that I am a newb necro, but plague has really turned some fights around for me especially in 1 v 1 scenarios, whereas wurm wouldn’t have done anything.

Considering I mainly play team unranked for fun, I find that my team just doesn’t support me the way you see good teams support their necro. Many times I’m left alone to hold mid etc.. I guess a lot of necro will just come with time. However with engi I usually just roam and point support or assault where needed, but on necro the lack of speed really seems to make that difficult.

zaragoz.6351:

Just to update this I’ve been playing with plague signet all morning just to try it out, and I won’t lie I feel like I get quite a bit more mileage out of it than wurm. My issue with wurm is that most of the times when I need to use it to escape, it seems like I’ve already waited to long to get out anyway and I end up dieing regardless.

I’m sure most of that has to do with the fact that I am a newb necro, but plague has really turned some fights around for me especially in 1 v 1 scenarios, whereas wurm wouldn’t have done anything.

Considering I mainly play team unranked for fun, I find that my team just doesn’t support me the way you see good teams support their necro. Many times I’m left alone to hold mid etc.. I guess a lot of necro will just come with time. However with engi I usually just roam and point support or assault where needed, but on necro the lack of speed really seems to make that difficult.

I can agree with you that sometimes wurm can be useless. BUT if another enemy comes to join your 1v1 plague sig won’t do much :P Learn teleport places and setup a wurm there before the fight so you actually have a chance to get away!

zapv.8051:

The best time to use corrupt boon is when your enemy has stability and less than 6 boons total. That means you will corrupt that stability into fear, which will deal more damage. It will also set up your teammates to gank tanky characters like guardians, warriors, and elementalists. If you are fighting a class that doesn’t have stability on their normal builds, i.e. ranger, thief, mesmer, or engineer, then you want to use corrupt boon when they have their maximum number of boons. For thieves this is immediately after steal, for mesmers generally it is when they are in chaos storm, for engineers it is when elixir B goes off at 75% of their health, and for rangers it is after they use lightning reflexes.

Some nice tips here, even some I didn’t know >.>

If you want to improve and move closer to the skill cap, use the Wurm.
It may look redundant at times, but it’s the only skill that lets you reset the fight.

As I’ve said before, Kyhlo and Legacy – can’t imagine playing without it. Learn the spots and practice.

If you’re from an EU server I can show you around, just whisper me (Leman) in game.

Plague Signet is an interesting skill, but I rarely see a reason to use it. You’ll see as your MMR increases that Wurm becomes more and more valuable.

Dont know about the travelers rune leman mentioned but i found that new scavenging runes are better choice than nightmare runes. Also i think greater marks > reaper protection. Some ppl also argue that well is power is better than wurm (also has team support and make you stronger staying on point), but personaly i like wurm more. For placing wurm i suggest location that doesnt put you completely out off action, maybe higher ground but in a way that still hits enemy, since wurm auto attacks can be strong especialy in those 1v1. Only downside of wurm if you precast it is that it gets destroyed if you go into plagueform.

And dont forget to peel as necromancer. If you see in teamfight an weak ally chased by enemies, apply them regen (staff 2), slow the attackers (staff 3), apply weakness with staff 3,4 combo (if you assume the weakness is atm more important than your condi transfer) or even fear to give them some breathing room.

leman.7682:

If you want to improve and move closer to the skill cap, use the Wurm.
It may look redundant at times, but it’s the only skill that lets you reset the fight.

Yeah, it’s good for him to practice using it, but the metagame is different at different points on the ladder. Plague sig is probably more useful at his level cause there’ll be more condi warriors and PU mesmers running around, plus teams will be less coordinated so he’ll have fewer enemies +1ing his fights and forcing him to disengage. I think it’s best to play what’s effective at your metagame and adjust it as you go up or down the ladder and the game changes around you rather than just say “well, this is what the best players are using so it must be the legendary Most Efficient Necro Build, I’ll keep using it even if it’s not actually optimal in my gaming environment.” As a bonus you get to try different skills out and not get bored And it’s bad for you to train your muscle memory to work with the same 3 utilities in the same 3 spots (as I learned when I first swapped Signet of Spite for Spectral Walk, took me 2 days of suiciding and wasting my utility skills before I learned I was relying on twitch reflexes too much instead of thinking while I was playing).

manveruppd.7601:

Yeah, it’s good for him to practice using it, but the metagame is different at different points on the ladder. Plague sig is probably more useful at his level cause there’ll be more condi warriors and PU mesmers running around, plus teams will be less coordinated so he’ll have fewer enemies +1ing his fights and forcing him to disengage.

Than i would more suggest using well of power than plague signet, its muchmuch better. Especialy since burn can give you also aegis, bleeds give you vigor, which we dont have any other acess to it and vulnerability gives you protection (good vs power rangers) and much more + its shorter cooldown and ally friendly + it gives dark field for siphons. And melee enemies will think you are using dmging well and would go away from you.

Emapudapus.1307:

manveruppd.7601:

Plague sig is probably more useful at his level cause there’ll be more condi warriors and PU mesmers running around, plus teams will be less coordinated so he’ll have fewer enemies +1ing his fights and forcing him to disengage.

Then i would more suggest using well of power than plague signet, its muchmuch better. Especialy since burn can give you also aegis, bleeds give you vigor, which we dont have any other acess to it and vulnerability gives you protection (good vs power rangers) and much more + its shorter cooldown and ally friendly + it gives dark field for siphons. And melee enemies will think you are using dmging well and would go away from you.

leman: Mind if I add you ingame tonight for some tips?

I agree that WoP is better, my point was just that he’ll learn best by experimenting, and feel free to use what works best in his environment rather than building for where he eventually wants to end up. That’s just a personal preference of course, and not just in GW2, but in all the games I play. I mean, when I’m deckbuilding for Netrunner, I’m not putting counters to Blue Sun in my runner deck even though nobody in my area plays it yet! :p Then again, I don’t have the pressure of preparing for international tournaments (where everyone will be using the latest meta) on me, but my guess is neither does the OP (yet).

@Azeriath:
Sorry, I didn’t visit the forums past few days. Sure, if you still need some tips.

One thing of note is, I lately have been feeling less and less useful on terror spec for some reason. It’s probably because EU meta right now sees just too much mild-to-hard counters that make condis really a difficult thing to pull off and it’s directly reflected in me not seeing any buddy necros in Ranked matches of late. There is very little time for condi build-up. Seen much more success coming from rangers, warriors and engies and even mesmers using condi specs (burning with burst condi applicarion is the key).

Things that I am most discomfortable with are mesmers, eles and offguards. Stacking spiky specs with CC-specs and with celestial roamers is condi necro’s worst nightmare.
Been feeling more useful and much more comfty with a non-standard power spec. Non-standard means warhorn instead of dagger and obviously Plague Form, because Lich is unreliable.

Also one thing of note that I were very painfully reminded on Sunday morning is that terror spec requires the team to work with the necro and if it doesn’t you’re in for some harsh times. If you have a team that, as I wrote in my original post, doesn’t focus or doesn’t do any damage, terror necro is a liability. But I guess a team that doesn’t do damage and doesn’t focuse will lose no matter the spec you play

I have also had much more success overall running the standard power necro spec. I have had real issues on terrormancer keeping condis up while mitigating pressure.

Medi guards literally eat me alive while removing all my condis. Eles and shoutbows are also ridiculously hard counters, and over the past 2 weeks the games I’ve played have literally been eaten up with them. Combine that with the Longbow rangers, and celestial engi’s that have the ability to 100-0 you very quickly and things get rough. Especially since I que alone.

Power actually allows me to put out a good deal of counter pressure, and turn around some team fights especially with a well time double well lich form.

Exactly,
I duo queue with one of the best multiclass players on EU and most things are going to work for us, because he has the flexibility to support me and provide the damage that is necessary for me to do my job. Joining solo as condi, I’d say, is straight hindering your team. It’s like picking a mes vs 2 thieves.

But being able to stay mostly independent of what your teammates are doing is what makes a good spec in solo queue. Power gives me some of this independence.

How exactly does the power necro play out in PvP? Tried searching for something about it but no luck. Is it like a in, do dmg, get out kind of build or?

And is it Dagger main /warhorn off?
Thats what I am using with wells for leveling atm so any tips would be nice cause yes, I have noticed that if a team backs me up, I am kind of unstoppable as a terrormancer but if not then I get focusfired as soon as they see me

It’s like a get in do a bunch of burst damage with lich get focused go down pray your team can res you (bring crysis) get up for one second drop as many wells as you can swap to ds press 4 get stunned press 1 go down again. End of fight.

I only use lich when I know its going to change the tide of a fight. Otherwise I pick a target that someone on my team is focusing on and cleave it. Normally save immobilize for the moment after they dodge, then you drop double well, assuming they are not blocking or invuln I usually toss warhorn 4 on them to stun/reset their abilities after which you ds and fear them, normally that is gg.

After playing engi since release I will say in the current meta necro is really tough to play, and I’ve had better success with power than with terror, due to the fact that you have limited condi application and the sheer amount of aoe condi removal in group fights has just gotten to the point of being out of hand(engis, eles, guards, shoutbows all tossing out aoe cleanse).

With power you have the ability to apply some serious pressure on point, and if timed right your burst can be absolutely devastating.

I end this with saying I am not a great necro, but these are just observations made from an average player.

I remember when I used to be terrified of necromancers on my engineer. Now that celestial has come to prominence, I can literally 100-0 a necro in one cc chain if they don’t have a good amount of life force or a stunbreak ready, and while they are still tough, I feel that the amount of pressure condi necromancers put out now is nothing compared to what it was in the past.

As power don’t forget that you get 50% extra crit while in death shroud. So when u drop ur wells immediately go into ds and the pulses will crit. Hits super hard.