Guild Wars 2

I’m a PvEr and Necro is my love. I’ve tried Thief and Rev, but I always end up back with Necro. No other class interests me, regardless of their ‘viability’.

That said here’s a build I’ve been looking into trying, but before I invest fully into it I wanted to get some feedback on what you all think is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (I don’t want to waste my gold lol).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQNAnYRnMbCdbilbCO2A0bilaBbaJMFiCQdtAwMIeLWGXjA-TxBBABVcKAyTfAW7PklyvKV/hRlgA8EA+GQAMIIEAWr1ataIEChAA-e

Obviously I’m a Power Necro, I personally hate Condi Builds simply because I like to burst and do raw damage instantly rather than having stuff stack over time. I’m debating on swapping GS out with D/D (not a fan of Warhorn, CDs are too long for my taste and I don’t want to sacrifice Vampiric to make the Off-Hand decent) due to the fact that I already have Quickening Thirst and as such not only would the attack speed on the autos be faster than GS but the skills themselves would be up far more often. However, GS packs more power with the downside being slower attack speed. The more I think about it the more I’m deciding to switch to D/D since I have practically no health and being up in an enemy’s face with a mediocre-slow weapon is probably suicide.

Hence why this is here and I’m asking you (lol) I’m looking for some outside input so I can figure this out. I like to solo a lot as well, if possible, hence the Utilities chosen. Spectral Armor used to be a choice for me but its CD is relatively long so I don’t really see the point in using it anymore over Rise.

Thoughts and opinions? Thanks in advance for your time!

It’s a viable build, the signet of Spite grant you Power and in a common PvE or easy dungeon can be good to increase your dps.
The GS is slow and don’t work at its best more or less 80% of the time because if you can’t spam gravedigger isn’t the best weapon you can use, expecially if you use the vampiric trait.
The best weapons for melee are Dagger/Warhorn at 100%, expecially with the vampiric trait, and you lose only a low amount of damage compared to the full potential of the GS but are able to inflict your top damage without problems also if you need to dodge or miss a hit.
To use the warhorn you don’t need to lose vampiric, instead it’s a good choice use it with the WH because the skill 5 inflict 10 hit and grant you extra damage and health with the vampiric trait.

In PvE the rune of scholar aren’t the best choice if you can’t fight by range or enter shroud at the start of the fight because an aoe of a boos can easly take you under 90%hp. Strength are the best option, atm.

I would suggest to go full berserker and drop the Valk+Zerker trinkets. You could also equip some wells (specially well of suffering) alongside Vampiric Rituals instead of Transfusion for maximizing damage (vulnerability stacks) while granting Higher survivability (-33% damage from Protection).

To maximize Bitter chill I suggest going with Chill of Death, Chilling Nova and equipping an off hand Focus (Vulnerability stacking and Chill).

Would drop Axe (no cleave) and use Dagger/Focus-Dagger/Warhorn (The CC is great and fast). You can still keep GS to pull enemies and Dagger/Focus on the other hand.

What I’m telling you is that you can do a lot better if you drop Axe, also drop so many shouts and go for Chills (Vulnerability on chill and exploding Chill), Wells (For more vulnerability stacking+Protection). For heal I strongly recommend Signet of Vampirism.

If you don’t have Might stacking on your party you can always change Decimate Defenses for Chilling Victory. If you are doing so change Runes of the Scholar for Strength.

Here’s a draft:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQRBIbhG2JNiQjNYLNgRNA9mYBXwmKCNhqA0VLA0CivifxxIA-ThRBABA8EAq4kAc1+jyPKV/xMlg4pfIAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fDA-e

Silv.9207:

It’s a viable build, the signet of Spite grant you Power and in a common PvE or easy dungeon can be good to increase your dps.
The GS is slow and don’t work at its best more or less 80% of the time because if you can’t spam gravedigger isn’t the best weapon you can use, expecially if you use the vampiric trait.
The best weapons for melee are Dagger/Warhorn at 100%, expecially with the vampiric trait, and you lose only a low amount of damage compared to the full potential of the GS but are able to inflict your top damage without problems also if you need to dodge or miss a hit.
To use the warhorn you don’t need to lose vampiric, instead it’s a good choice use it with the WH because the skill 5 inflict 10 hit and grant you extra damage and health with the vampiric trait.

In PvE the rune of scholar aren’t the best choice if you can’t fight by range or enter shroud at the start of the fight because an aoe of a boos can easly take you under 90%hp. Strength are the best option, atm.

Interesting, I figured since I’d have such low health healing up would be easier since Blood Magic’s ‘lifestealing’ is a small flat amount rather than an actual percentage (unless I’m totally wrong in which case my apologies). I used to run Strength Runes, but wouldn’t the Ferocity from Scholar be beneficial? I mean I already have a base of 51% Precision, with max Decimate Defenses I’ll have 100% Precision so wouldn’t Ferocity be important for damage at that point or is losing 6% Ferocity not a big deal?

I’ve been thinking the same thing about GS, at first it was fun but now that I’m deep into the HoT content it just doesn’t seem to be working for me. The ‘cleave’ and AoE seems to be the only good points about it, but that attack speed is getting to be beyond annoying (not to mention boring). What about the Warhorn CDs though? Especially WH 4, isn’t that a stupidly long CD for just a 2s Daze? WH 5 I like, for the very reason you pointed out, but it’s WH 4 that’s put me off from using WH in the past.

NumenorLord.6539:

I would suggest to go full berserker and drop the Valk+Zerker trinkets. You could also equip some wells (specially well of suffering) alongside Vampiric Rituals instead of Transfusion for maximizing damage (vulnerability stacks) while granting Higher survivability (-33% damage from Protection).

To maximize Bitter chill I suggest going with Chill of Death, Chilling Nova and equipping an off hand Focus (Vulnerability stacking and Chill).

Would drop Axe (no cleave) and use Dagger/Focus-Dagger/Warhorn (The CC is great and fast). You can still keep GS to pull enemies and Dagger/Focus on the other hand.

What I’m telling you is that you can do a lot better if you drop Axe, also drop so many shouts and go for Chills (Vulnerability on chill and exploding Chill), Wells (For more vulnerability stacking+Protection). For heal I strongly recommend Signet of Vampirism.

If you don’t have Might stacking on your party you can always change Decimate Defenses for Chilling Victory. If you are doing so change Runes of the Scholar for Strength.

Here’s a draft:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQRBIbhG2JNiQjNYLNgRNA9mYBXwmKCNhqA0VLA0CivifxxIA-ThRBABA8EAq4kAc1+jyPKV/xMlg4pfIAwBgzP/8zP/8+93f/93fDA-e

If I go ‘full’ Zerker then I’ll be way overcapping my Precision with Decimate Defenses, which seems to be key to me since Necro is about selfish-sustained damage rather than burst. Plus the Trinkets are technically still Zerker, they just have slightly less Precision which (like I said) is a good thing so long as I run Decimate Defenses.

I’ve tried Wells and they’re fun, but I feel like they’d be better suited for a more ranged/support oriented build given their longer CDs. Not disagreeing with you, just saying I’ve tried Wells and they just didn’t work out well with my playstyle. I figured Transfusion would be good for aiding anybody that fights alongside me, so long as I don’t accidentally teleport them to the Boss’s feet (lol I’ve done that before on accident, pretty funny). I have been debating on giving Wells a second try though, just trying to figure out how I should tweak my playstyle to incorporate them.

Bitter Chill is honestly only there for GS, that way the GS autos have a stable Vulnerability application rate. If I switch to D/WH then I’ll most likely drop that trait for Spiteful Talisman for that slight damage bonus instead.

The problem with running dual-melee sets instead of a ranged/melee one is you’re highly vulnerable to area denial. If a Boss is loaded with AoE’s, the last thing you’re going to want is to stand at their feet poking their toenails (at least that’s from my experiences in the Labrynth back on Halloween). I personally like Axe, reliable ranged weapon that applies Vulnerability, a good LF burst-restore that deals respectable damage and the 3rd skill is great for when you’re swapping into melee (or when the enemy bum rushes you). Dagger Off-Hand allows me to remove Conditions while Blinding and has a mediocre Bleed/Weaken AoE that also converts Boons and works well when transitioning into melee. It’s just my personal preference, that’s why I ran GS with it since GS does cleave but it’s so slow I’m starting to look into swapping it out for D/WH. Faster attack speed and a bit more reliable Utility, though I’m not entirely sold yet. Still doing my ‘research’.

I thought Signet of Vampirism was widely considered to be pretty weak? I mean you heal after getting hit, which is kind of redundant if the enemy does more damage than you’re healing for right? If I’m wrong then please correct me, that’s just how I’ve always thought that Utility worked. Since I’m running Augury of Death Shouts both lifesteal and steal LF, all on a low CD. I also was told that the Necro Shouts are widely considered to be ‘best’ for Power Reapers, or was I being mislead again?

Not arguing btw just asking questions and discussing. Even though Necro has been my one and only class I’ve stuck with, I still have much to learn.

Well, I think that you must ask yourself what you want to do in the game. If you want to have fun, run your own way that is perfectly fine and it’s a way to approach the game. On the other hand, if you want to have an optimal performance you’d have to focus what the power necro is meant for. In both cases you must realize that power necro is far from the highest classes’ DPS so you might get a hard time running endgame content like Raids and high level FotM. That being said, there are ways to optimize your damage, that are those I told you and I repeat here:

1. Build Vulnerability on your foes fast.
2. Constant Chill, that will inflict damage and Vulnerability. Chill can also be spread to nearby foes.
3. As an option, you can build Might for yourself.

That being said I answer your questions:

1. Power and melee means to be near bosses, foes. You must learn to dodge and use your utilities to mitigate damage (Wells will help you doing so when traited reducing 33% of incoming hits).

2. Dagger will be your best melee weapon because of its speed and its cleave, that meaning that you can hit multiple foes in one swing, GS is slow as you state and Axe is a single target weapon. Dagger offhand is a Condition weapon, you’ll be better with WH for breaking bars or Focus for faster Vulnerability application and a Chill.

3. As you’ll see, with the build I suggested you’ll have a TON of life siphoning (Wells, Signet of Vampirism and Vampiric Presence) that will help your health to constant regenerate, therefore having the Rune of the Scholar bonus constantly activated. Signet is for this and for a slight DPS increase when activating it (no, it’s not weak at all), the Signet Siphons enemies’ life when hit, it will not cure more than what you have been hit.

4. About necro’s shouts you were mislead, Viper Necro (closer thing to a Meta we have) does not use a single shout. Shout are not our top utilities (except CTTB in Power builds). You can always keep Rise! if you are having trouble surviving.

Now, all this is to be ignored if you want, as I said before, just to have fun and run what pleases you most or feels right for you. Hope you have good luck with your research and, most important, that you have fun with the build you come up with.

Thank you for the reply, Signet of Vampirism always kind of confused me because of the way the Passive is worded. It just always seemed redundant to heal once you take damage, though between the time from my last post to now I actually came to view it as a sort of ‘damage mitigation’ ability. So if I would’ve taken, say, 1000 damage I instead take 640 not factoring in Cold Shoulder and the Protection buff, so I had to get it through my thick head to not view the Passive as some kind of healing mechanic but rather as a pseudo-Damage Mitigation.

I did take your build to heart and went in running around the low-tier zones to get accustomed to using Wells and, honestly, after taking the time to thoroughly understand them mechanically (such as when to use them and how to best utilize them) I’ve started to grow quite fond of them. I just need to practice on my rotations and the CDs won’t be a problem; they should be online again once I make it through a proper rotation (or really close to it). Running around with Axe, I see why it’s lackluster. It’s a good safe ranged power weapon but that’s all it really provides: safety. GS is actually now an amazing burst weapon thanks to your suggestions and some thinking outside the box of my own, so I don’t have to worry about it being slow anymore if I use it for burst and burst alone. I think my big issue, and why I was so discombobulated, was because of that Labrynth event back on Halloween. That Horror and the Lich had so many Condis it was ridiculously difficult to deal with them even with a group, but considering they were event ‘Bosses’ that should make sense.

I’ve learned to dodge/roll INTO the enemy to utilize the Mark of Evasion trait properly, while still paying attention of course. I used to just dodge/roll backwards or to the side, then close the gap between me and my enemy thus wasting the Mark.

Here’s what I’ve settled on: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQNBIhF6kGRolGsoGwxGgeTsgLYTFhmQVI+K+FHjQXtAQLA-TBiFABE8AAA4IAckyPj2fYQ1fOTfwAnCA9UCGA4A43+23fDc+5nf+5n3v/+7v/+bA-e

I also was stuck in the mindset of ‘Bleeds/Condis are for Condi Builds only’ without realizing Bleeding is a strong DoT and Reapers can stack Bleeding very easily with just GS autos alone, not to mention our other skills/utilities.

Thanks a bunch for the input and help, it seriously did teach me quite a bit and help me find what fits me best. Honestly, I’ve never had this much fun with Reaper before, I actually feel like an end-game player for once. Granted Reapers are about self-survivability and as such won’t be able to compare to a Warrior or Thief but I just can’t play any other class, I get pulled right back every time xD

P.S: I wouldn’t ignore someone who’s helping me like I asked, that’d just be stupid in my book