Necro Armor
it depends of the build, and where you want to use it. Rampager’s armor has a mix of condi damage, precision and power, having the main stat precision, which gives crit chance. Carrion has power condi damage and vitality, main stat condi damage. It’s better to have two sets of armor, one for condition builds, and one berserker’s set for power builds.
Thanks for info. How about trinkets? Do I need two sets of those as well? Seems like Anet needs to fix this, as we tend to have to keep many armor sets in bags or bank……
I’m running zerk and sinister sets. Have two sets of trinkets as well. One full zerk set and another is part rabid and part sinister. Having one set of armour and swapping only trinkets makes for a very sub par build
After you get to L80, you will be able to crit frequently enough to proc critical hits and effects from sigils, runes, etc. so generally armor with power and precision is one of the standards to keep in your bags. A second set for Necro should provide plenty of condition damage for times when you need to kite and bleed or fear. One thing to remember about Necromancer is that actual condition damage comes usually from fear, bleed, and poison. Fears are almost all in DS and have cool downs. Likewise, bleeds are almost all on scepter, which has terrible direct damage. Staff and war horn are your other fear and bleed utilities but their cool downs are long-ish. That means your armor and maybe traits will determine what weapons you need to run and vice verse. It is easy to get equipment and builds locked together because without synergy, they tend to underperform.
Beyond that, there is a vast array of choices to provide more toughness, healing, vitality, and critical damage. Sometimes having some extra armor is good. Keep an eye on the rune choices you have, too. Some sets convert one stat into a bonus for another.
Toughness gets aggro and is somewhat negated in Fractals but otherwise does a fine job of reducing the amount of health you loose on a hit.
Healing is a challenge for Necromancers because Death Shroud means you will miss a lot of heals from your team mates while you avoid further damage hiding out in DS. Most team members do not wait for you to come out of DS for the heal so it is up to you. At any rate, sometimes you will just want more healing power.
Vitality just makes the bathtub of health deeper but Necro has trouble avoiding damage. It is a face-tanking role. You will go through more health on Necro than any other profession. That is why you have DS and more health to begin with.
Something always has to be traded when selecting armor. A full berserker build with armor, weapons, and trinkets does great damage but you have minimum healing and your only defenses are a couple of dodges, DS, and some utilities. None of the weapons have much in the way of defense and those weapon skills you do have, like a stun, blind, or fear, are on longer cool downs.
Power and precision are always rewarded and too much defense will take away from power. Critical hit bonus (on top of the standard bonus you get even with no investment) can be wasted if you do not have enough precision to proc a critical hit.
Likewise, vitality without healing just gives you a buffer. Healing is needed to restore the health you lose so having a larger pool of vitality is its own double-edged sword like toughness is with aggro. Fortunately, Blood Magic adds healing bonus when you put points there so losing, for example, a quarter of your health face-tanking a hit is as easily recoverable as if you had less healing and less health or else the Blood Magic line would be even less attractive than it is now.
Start with a set for a power build but do not hesitate to moderate it as you see fit for your own survival. Trinkets are a great way of making up for deficiencies. You can switch them without messing with your armor. For example, you may have berserker’s armor and a mix of cleric’s, valkyrie, and sentinel’s, or anything at all to give you a bit more defense without buying defensive armor.
While I am remembering it, if you have a boatload of karma, temple armor from Orr is a deal and those armors are all mixed stats. The runes are mostly not good for necromancer with the exception of Melandru’s but, hey, you might have been playing a while and just started your Necro. If you are new to the game, though, you will get rare and exotic soulbound armor for leveling and completing areas. That stuff is free, too.
Thanks for all the information. I will take a look at the various options mentioned above. Appreciate all the feedback