Guild Wars 2

Day one of the new meta & everybody does soo much more damage that if you can just survive a punch and hit back almost as hard, then you ought to win. Game is faster paced, higher stakes and less attrition based so far.

Here’s what I’ve had one success with:

Marauder Amulet
+1050 Power
+1050 Precision
+ 560 Vitality
+ 560 Ferocity

Axe/Warhorn + Staff
Sigils of Generousity & Nullification on main
Sigil of Doom and Energy on swap

Rune of the pack
+175 power
+100 precision
Might, Fury, & Swiftness on hit

Consume Conditions
Well of Suffering
Spectral Walk (variant corrupt boon here)
Spectral Armor
Lich Form

Soul Reaping
Soul Marks
Spectral Mastery
Foot in the Grave

Curses
Plague Signet
Path of Corruption
Weakening Shroud

Death
Shrouded Removal
Reaper’s Protection
Unholy Sanctuary

If you get tired playing power signets, and want to try power spectrals, I’m here to tell you that it is also viable. Spectral Armor’s current traited values are 9 seconds of spectral protection on a 40 second cooldown.

This also applies to your last gasp trait. So, In between your weakening shroud, your good protection uptime, your good spectral uptime, your extra vitality which does double duty on necromancer, your good condition removal, your automatic bailout, your tons of stun breaks and stun break conversion, you have good tankiness on what’s still essentially a Berzerker build.

Thats defense against burst, conditions, & stuns.

While retaining boon ripping abilities.

I think Necromancers are going to like the Marauder Amulet. It’s the next best thing to the extra stats from celestial, but all of the extra stats are put to good use. We have poor native access to fury so the extra precision helps, & vitality stat does double duty for us.

Basically you’ve got a puncher who can take a punch. The traditional weaknesses apply (no mobility, focus target, bad team support, sitting duck against range), but we’re used to those.

A special note about Lich Form: Lich form got two buffs that I haven’t seen anybody here talk about. First, the Cast size of Lich skills increased just like the staff marks increased. The second buff to Lich, is that leaving Lich form will not interrupt your last cast skill. Of course, a build with Lich form and unholy sanctuary is one where you’ll not have to worry about death while in Lich form so you can play aggressively.

Feedback welcome