Guild Wars 2

How are melee necromancers? I’m coming from playing WoW, and I found I liked the death knight class a lot because it was a melee class, but instead of being a traditional tank, it relied on life stealing to stay alive. Are melee necromancers like that or would I be better off just playing a guardian if being ranged doesn’t interest me all that much?

I would play guard, necros aren’t much good at stealing life.

Well i like to run a high crit dagger necro 1v1 its rather nice but in wvw id personaly go axe and dagger build. Axe range well sux so ur practicly fighting up close. And the main reason i take dagger offhande is i can practicly keep perman haste with some traits that boost speed. For wvw i like axe. When i run into a stragler i pull out dagger and warH. I havent playd much in the last mounth so im not sure if much has change with ma builds but its effective

Which game mode? WvW and PvE we can life steal tank really well, but in tPvP I don’t know of any builds that work well that way.

thebignasty.8193:

How are melee necromancers? I’m coming from playing WoW, and I found I liked the death knight class a lot because it was a melee class, but instead of being a traditional tank, it relied on life stealing to stay alive. Are melee necromancers like that or would I be better off just playing a guardian if being ranged doesn’t interest me all that much?

Melee Necromancers are very strong for bursting, but not so much for tanking (which would be the result of strong life stealing, which we do not have). Guardian is a far better tank class for that. In PvE/WvW, you can still get far using life stealing on Rabid/Knight’s, but it all depends on what you want to accomplish with such a build.

If a melee necromancer isn’t really about life stealing, how do they work? Do they have other ways of mitigating damage? Is it closer to an unholy DK (still using WoW terminology) where you apply curses and have your minions deal damage while swinging away?

Again, it depends on what game mode you are in. Are you talking PvE, PvP, or WvW? In PvE/WvW, you can do just fine life stealing, but PvP melee necros are either MMs, using minions as a damage/control source, or as a glass burst build (in general).

thebignasty.8193:

If a melee necromancer isn’t really about life stealing, how do they work? Do they have other ways of mitigating damage? Is it closer to an unholy DK (still using WoW terminology) where you apply curses and have your minions deal damage while swinging away?

Well, a Melee Necromancer can survive using Deathshroud, or Wells. Well of Darkness is a strong survivability tool. As is interrupting an opponent with Warhorn or DS. However it depends entirely on the build, again. Survivability in GW2 is broken down into offensive and defensive mitigation:

Defensive such as invulnerability, block, Invisibility, and raw Healing mitigation. Necromancer has access only to one of these (raw healing mitigation).

Offensive involving Weakness, Blind, Interrupts, Corrupting/removing their damage modifiers, and Clutter. Necromancer has access to ALL of these.

Defensive Mitigation is much stronger for pure survival, where as offensive mitigation is stronger for simply allowing you to ‘outlive’ your opponent.

Okay, cool. So they are pretty viable for PvE and semi-viable for WvW? Also, if I wanted to be a melee necro, would I have trouble getting into groups or guilds or anything later on?

Prepatch? Yes. Post patch? Not really. Most people that even main Necro don’t understand Necro, so considering Necro was patched to the point of being blatantly overpowered/broken, I feel you’ll get into any group/guild you want if it’s ran by someone competent. If you aren’t accepted, you didn’t want to be there anyway.

I play main hand dagger Necro in spvp. I used it in tournaments and I had pretty good success up until a certain point. This was pre patch. I’d imagine Powermancer is a little stronger now. Condimancers are all the rage right now, but a D/D Necro can still hold their own. Yes off hand dagger is a condition weapon, but it provides very good utility. Unfortunately life stealing for Necromancer is very weak. You don’t receive any healing while in Death Shroud, which really puts a damper on things.

If your talking about pve. There is no reason for damage mitigation in most pve content. GW2 isnt like other mmo’s. Everything is made easier by dps and dodging key attacks. There are a few exceptions but in those cases the damage mitigation necro has is overshadowed by other classes which have boons like aegis, vigor and protection (blind is good but other classes have plenty of it, weakness is ok but not needed in pve).

But yeah melee beserker necro is viable. Its the most damage you can do in pve content with a necro. Its just not the best choice for organised and optimized groups.

Full soldier D/WH neco with staff and 20 into Blood – melee works, you can even tank bosses for a while (4-7 seconds depending on their attack speed) but then you must kite, lucky for us D2 at least doesnt reqire you to face a enemy and ds is a good mid range form (sadly we no longer have real power siege from range, but its at least ok).
One problem a melee necro might face in pve is the introduction of more blinks and cc on mobs, so unless they are balanced out to be fought solo (like the guys in Molten F were) or are plain stupid on ai (reworked orrians and veterans in mini dungeons), you need to time your Reapers Mark, Doom, VoD and Spectral Grasps perfectly not to die (like in the new AR, a melee power necro sadly cannot really solo it with the amount of cc and condis going on).