Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, this is a second of a series of general PvE class guides written by members of [rT]. This one by sp0j on necromancer.

Last Updated: Aug 2, 2015

• Overview
• Death Shroud
• Weapons
• Utilities
• Core Specializations
• Builds
• Gear &Consumables

Enjoy and let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions/corrections etc

Just a note, since that looks like a hell of a read, is it any different than spoj’s guide that’s stickied up at the top of our forums? It looks like it might be more in depth?

Well the first thing I noticed is that the editor shows a cooldown of 34 seconds while the guide said 32 seconds. The trait description also suggests 34 seconds. A minor flaw but not unimportant.

The second thing I noticed is the lack of underwater combat in the guide. It still has a role in PvE ( two path in HoTW and the Aquatic ruins fractal come to mind), so maybe a build and rotation can be written for that as well.

For the rest it was a good guide.

Bhawb.7408:

Just a note, since that looks like a hell of a read, is it any different than spoj’s guide that’s stickied up at the top of our forums? It looks like it might be more in depth?

I think it is a bit more in depth in a couple of places like weapons/utilities etc and also a bit more picture heavy. Spoj can probably tell you the exact differences though.

dulfy.1493:

I think it is a bit more in depth in a couple of places like weapons/utilities etc and also a bit more picture heavy. Spoj can probably tell you the exact differences though.

Cool, good to know.

Why Focused Rituals on Curses for the Death Shroud build? You’ll almost always be at close range, so you’re better off using Reaper’s Precision or Weakening Shroud.

Overall, I liked the guide. Very informative and useful.

Cause you place 2 wells, go in deathshroud, where you have 100% crit chance, and all your wells+life blasts crit

Bhawb.7408:

Just a note, since that looks like a hell of a read, is it any different than spoj’s guide that’s stickied up at the top of our forums? It looks like it might be more in depth?

Its a more in depth guide for necro in general. And covers more about general utility usage and non build specific stuff etc. My guide stickied on this forum is pretty much just focused on the dagger build.

I kind of need to update the stickied one anyway (nothing major has changed just needs some cleaning up and changes to optimum gear choices). Ill do that later this week i think.

Pelopidas.2140:

Cause you place 2 wells, go in deathshroud, where you have 100% crit chance, and all your wells+life blasts crit

I wasn’t questioning the wells, I was questioning the trait. You don’t really need wells to be ground targetted, since you’ll mostly be in melee range. I guess it’s just a matter of preference, though.

exactly…or you can go for 2 points in death magic for 10% extra might duration, not sure if thats already in the guide

Pelopidas.2140:

exactly…or you can go for 2 points in death magic for 10% extra might duration, not sure if thats already in the guide

The 100 precision and bleed on crit trait is much better than 10% duration. You can take any curse adept trait you like if you feel focused rituals is pointless for you. I only put it in as that because people who play the DS build are usually people who arent comfortable being completely melee. And reapers precision is really weak.

What an excellent guide spoj!!! Lately I’ve been getting bored of PUGing with my ele, since most pugs don’t care about blasting might fields which is aggravating, and the only thing I feel I do in dungeons is icebow 4 or the FGS wall exploit, which although effective, become tiring. I started leveling a ranger to PUG with instead due to the frostspotter build looking really useful, but after this I might just stick with my necro instead.

Necro has pretty much always been my main in WvW, and I’d only need to get a few more zerker pieces to use it in PvE. I feel like it would be much easier to use with great DPS in pugs than ele, since DS helps with surviving and I won’t be as dependent on fire fields or conjures. Anyway this guide is great, and I really liked the idea of using bone minions as blasts, which makes me feel like necros aren’t as abysmal for PvE as everyone says. Sure evn then, I guess the utility is a bit lacking, but in PUGs thats fine, because in a non-ping group I’ll probably outDPS most people anyway.

I’m also impatient for leveling ranger, and since I’m making howler in the next few weeks, I’m grinding dungeons as much as possible, so I might just switch to necro to finish the farming up.

Good guide for power builds, but no condition builds. I know they are generally not the best, but with a well formed dungeon group a single condition user can be a kittenet.

Oh well hopefully some day Anet will make condition users more viable.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Good guide for power builds, but no condition builds. I know they are generally not the best, but with a well formed dungeon group a single condition user can be a kittenet.

Oh well hopefully some day Anet will make condition users more viable.

I was actually going to include a condition build. But i decided against it because the only place it is viable is when soloing content. And i believe theres enough players who run condition builds despite it not being good for groups, I dont want to further encourage it. In a decent group enemies will die too fast for a condition build to reach close to their max damage. You would have to be in a really low dps group for a condition build to be decent.

I may change my mind and write up a section for a condition build in the future though.

Conditions aren’t ideal because of condi caps, but I think conditions got too short-changed in this guide. (Scepter didn’t even get a mention, sadface.)

I love my condi necro but I definitely tend not to take her to dungeons anymore, however there are a few situations where condi is valuable in PvE:

• As spoj said in his last post here, soloing/solo content. Conditions dominate the Queen’s Gauntlet, including Liadri.
• Condi necros seem to be preferred over condi builds on other classes for the Partially-Digested Husks spewed out by the Triple Trouble Wurm. Having a good condi team at each wurm is critical to the success of this encounter.
• High-scale fractals, where condi can get up to its max DPS due to toughness/vitality scaling on bosses.

Condis also do better when playing “canon,” i.e. no LOS/corner-stacking/etc. But that is certainly not relevant from a speed clear perspective.

Thanks for the guide Spoj! I haven’t done dungeons in some time, and now that I have time I may start running them gain with the Dagger Build.

Just a question: thoughts on Hybrid builds?

Spoj, for your deathshroud pug friendly build, would you suggest running staff instead of axe on it for the extra lifeblast damage? I hate that our lifeblast damage is kitten when we use a onehanded weapon, thats not really fair and I’d prefer to take both focus and warhorn rather than have marks that mostly do kitten in PvE.

Axe with axe training deals the same damage as staff. So i would stick with the axe for the life force regen. Basically staff has a weapon damage of 1100 and axe has 1000. When you have axe training it becomes 1000*1.1 = 1100. So its the same.

I didnt include hybrid builds because they dont work. To put it simply we dont have a hybrid weapon. Life blast, axe, dagger all benefit from pure damage. Scepter benefits from dedicated condi. When you go hybrid you lose too much effectiveness in both to justify the option of having two sources of damage. Basically if you are in rampager, your life blasts / dagger do terrible dps and your scepter condi damage is also quite bad. We would need a different type of rampager stat for hybrid builds to work on the necro.

The only classes that i feel work with rampager/hybrid is sword warrior and nade engi. Because they have decent direct and condition damage on the same weapons.

spoj.9672:

Axe with axe training deals the same damage as staff. So i would stick with the axe for the life force regen. Basically staff has a weapon damage of 1100 and axe has 1000. When you have axe training it becomes 1000*1.1 = 1100. So its the same.

I didnt include hybrid builds because they dont work. To put it simply we dont have a hybrid weapon. Life blast, axe, dagger all benefit from pure damage. Scepter benefits from dedicated condi. When you go hybrid you lose too much effectiveness in both to justify the option of having two sources of damage. Basically if you are in rampager, your life blasts / dagger do terrible dps and your scepter condi damage is also quite bad. We would need a different type of rampager stat for hybrid builds to work on the necro.

The only classes that i feel work with rampager/hybrid is sword warrior and nade engi. Because they have decent direct and condition damage on the same weapons.

So does the axe trait also raise lifeblast damage as well? Cause I think you’ve just made me a happy camper spojy spoj.

Also what ideas would you have for unique group utility that could be added to the necromancer in the future? I posted a thread discussing my ideas among others in the profession balance forums, mostly because I feel motivated by the stigma and borderline discrimination happening in many PUG groups regarding necromancers (like taking much longer to join a party, or getting kicked out of zerker groups for not switching to ele etc.), and I feel spurred to campaign for changes that help out with the image of necromancers in PvE. No class should be considered the worst in a metagame in every situation, and I want to dedicate myself to improving our reputation and functionality, so that maybe a team will take a necro in the next PvE tournament

Until then though I’m going to keep discussing this topic when I can, and I’m going to use my zerker necro in PvE (mostly pug) exclusively to try and and break the stigma that necromancers are bearbow ranger bad through example, so that people in the casual pve community don’t face as much stigma towards us.

This a pretty big change for me since I posted the “WTB competent PvE necro” thread a few weeks ago, and I’m sick of seeing condition necros trying to solo the gate in CoF p1 for ages.. so I might as well lead and advocate for change by example instead of complaining behind my old wall of FGS exploits and icebow 4 elitism.

Yeah it works on life blast damage.

Ive suggested things before and often agree with many others suggestions ive seen people make. Id like to see vuln on crit as the 5pt minor in spite to replace siphoned power. Might on crit would also be nice from a more selfish perspective.

Id also like to see a ferocity version of empower allies and spotter. All boons on Deathshroud entrance should be group boons instead of selfish. New utilities such as orders which give group life steal, conditons on hit/crit or damage boosts. And more combo finishers on weapons.

And if and when we get a new weapon i hope its an aoe cleave weapon like the greatsword.

Hm, I see about the hybrid problem.
Last question: if I’m not confident enough with zerker builds, should I jump straight in Scholar runes or I should stick with Ruby Orbs until I practiced?

Lelouch Sothoth.1982:

Hm, I see about the hybrid problem.
Last question: if I’m not confident enough with zerker builds, should I jump straight in Scholar runes or I should stick with Ruby Orbs until I practiced?

Scholar runes are still very good even when you cant maintain the 6th bonus. Ruby orbs are completely terrible since the ferocity change. They are fine for super cheap alternatives i guess. But if you plan to eventually use scholar then you may aswell get them as soon as possible for the increased damage.

Another decent rune set you can use is ranger runes. The 6th bonus works on minions and mini pets, so its very easy to get the bonus permanently just by carrying a mini pet with you (just checked, it still works).

Ok, thanks! Didn’t know that Ranger’s sixth bonus triggered on minipets.
It’s time for Mini-Liadri to get some screen time!

while the guide looks great for the Meta, it should be titled as such. PvE can cope with condition builds and hybrid builds (tho not optimal). I think the guide misses a lot of opportunities to explore other parts of the PvE game.

The purpose of these guides has never been to allow exploration. It provides an optimal build for specific content; Dungeons.

If you want to explore different aspects of the necro, Nemesis features numerous Necro builds on Youtube with a different philosophy towards gameplay.

lets not start a mud slinging match here but… to quote OP (dulfy)
“Let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions/corrections etc”

this is feedback.. the PvE necro is not just meta, its a diverse class that has many options. The guide is great, no denying, from a certain focus and perhaps should be entitled PvE Meta Necro rather than generalised title.

and Obtena’s quote “The purpose of these guides has never been to allow exploration. It provides an optimal build for specific content; Dungeons.”
since when. Wher does it say this is for Meta Necro designed for PvE dungeons.

Full props to Spoj, he has been a great Necro representation and put alot of good details in this guide and the forum in general.

Let me just clarify the reason why i didnt include condition or hybrid builds. Its simply because if i added them many people will use them in group content and take them into dungeons even if i say they arent suited for that content. People are lazy and dont like to switch builds for different stuff. I dont want to encourage this as it already happens enough. The guide is more focused on how to get the most out of the utilities and weapons. The utility aspects of them are independant of gear so dont just assume im saying always play the meta. You can ignore the build section and use your own and simply take the tips with utility usage etc. Most of the guide is written to be relevant to anyone even if you dont play one of the recommended builds.

That said. There is no place where hybrid is remotely good and worth posting about. Condition builds however do work for open world solo, dungeon solos and three headed wurm husks. If you use them for open world bosses or many dungeon groups you are going to 100% leech thanks to your capped damage.

Im fine with writing up a quick condition build section if thats what people really want. But im certain many people will just use it in places they shouldnt just because they feel necro should be a condi class or because they are too lazy to switch to a more appropriate build when the situation arises.

I hope that clears that up and makes you understand why I chose to exclude some things.

Yeah Spoj, I personally wouldn’t write a condition build for the reasons you mentioned, and for the good of necromancer’s reputation in general PvE, we need as few people running a condition spec as possible.

I brought my necro to CoF p2 yesterday and another necro joined who was condition spec. I asked him why he ran it, and he said because Anet made this game so you could play it however you wanted.. and he also said that if player’s had separate condition tracks on enemies that condition builds would be great for PvE. Do you think that a solution like that would make condition builds as viable or more viable than power builds right now?

Also, that necro also said that he saw/heard of leaked information about necromancers getting scythes in the 4th quearter of this year (and other professions getting new weapons as well).. which would probably be a cleave and outperform dagger builds.. but this is the first I’ve really heard of that, so I wouldn’t say it’d be likely.

The stack limit is the least of condition builds problems in PvE. The main problem is the lack of synergy and build up time for damage.

I tried conditions recently just to see how it worked with my current group. It was horrible. Everything died before i could even epidemic trash mobs. And bosses barely lasted long enough to get a good amount of damage aswell.

spoj.9672:

The stack limit is the least of condition builds problems in PvE. The main problem is the lack of synergy and build up time for damage.

I tried conditions recently just to see how it worked with my current group. It was horrible. Everything died before i could even epidemic trash mobs. And bosses barely lasted long enough to get a good amount of damage aswell.

Thats what I was afraid of as well.. I mean in PUGs where people don’t run efficient set ups, separate condition stacks could make condi necros do comparable DPS due to build up time, but in any group of competent players with zerker gear then nothing will last long enough to make it worth it.

A friend said that in other games like WoW, which I never really played, damage over time builds like on thier “warlock” class were viable because it kept doing sustained damage when other direct DPS classes had to back off their damage due to boss mechanics or threat or whatever, but I never played that game to endgame or similar games to endgame, so I don’t know how true that is.

Yeah condi builds definately arent as bad in really low dps pugs. But otherwise theres no reason to take them.

My wow experience is very limited but from what i remember when i played is that i got told i should go destruction magic (direct damage) on warlock instead of curses (DoTs) because it was better dps. Dont know if thats changed now, it was a long time ago. There wasnt really any fights where you had to back off as far as i can remember, although i didnt experience that much raiding so i guess i dont have much credibility in that regard. I still played DoT though because i was casual and the dps wasnt too far behind, i was able to keep up in the regular dungeons fine. Plus fights lasted longer in that game.

spoj.9672:

Yeah condi builds definately arent as bad in really low dps pugs. But otherwise theres no reason to take them.

My wow experience is very limited but from what i remember when i played is that i got told i should go destruction magic (direct damage) on warlock instead of curses (DoTs) because it was better dps. Dont know if thats changed now, it was a long time ago. There wasnt really any fights where you had to back off as far as i can remember, although i didnt experience that much raiding so i guess i dont have much credibility in that regard. I still played DoT though because i was casual and the dps wasnt too far behind, i was able to keep up in the regular dungeons fine. Plus fights lasted longer in that game.

Weird, Affliction warlock (In multi target 2-3 max and solo substained damage) and demonology (Had the best aoe burst dps ) were king back in the day in pve (can’t say much about mist of pandaria, left it for gw2 pvp hoping they will add death match like wow). Destruction, not so much, it was in fact one of the worse spec in the game for a really really long time until blizzard finally revamped completly destruction in mist of pandaria.

Anyway, back on topic, I would like to thank you for contributing to necromancer community, your guide helped me a lot! People like you are what we needed! Also, the part where there is absolutly 0 mention of signet of vampirisme or w/e that crap is called in heal part was shady toward anet, and I love you more for thatXD

nearlight.3064:

A friend said that in other games like WoW, which I never really played, damage over time builds like on thier “warlock” class were viable because it kept doing sustained damage when other direct DPS classes had to back off their damage due to boss mechanics or threat or whatever, but I never played that game to endgame or similar games to endgame, so I don’t know how true that is.

Generally DoTs were viable because bosses had more mechanics that forced you into situations where you couldn’t keep applying damage. So you’d load up the boss with DoTs and then while everyone wasn’t able to keep dealing damage your dots sat around still dealing damage. Basically DoTs were truly that, damage over time, whereas everything else was burst, each had its place.

Unfortunately in GW2 that line has been extremely blurred. There is sustained power DPS, burst power DPS, sustained condi DPS and technically speaking there is burst condi (although rareish). So ANet has removed the normal way that you’d make content work for both, and the addition of a condition stack limit plus the fact that power builds randomly inflict conditions and those conditions overwrite yours… Basically they’ve got to first fix the condition stack system a bit, and then make bosses where conditions have meaning (aka no more 10 second boss fights in optimized groups).

Bhawb.7408:

nearlight.3064:

A friend said that in other games like WoW, which I never really played, damage over time builds like on thier “warlock” class were viable because it kept doing sustained damage when other direct DPS classes had to back off their damage due to boss mechanics or threat or whatever, but I never played that game to endgame or similar games to endgame, so I don’t know how true that is.

Generally DoTs were viable because bosses had more mechanics that forced you into situations where you couldn’t keep applying damage. So you’d load up the boss with DoTs and then while everyone wasn’t able to keep dealing damage your dots sat around still dealing damage. Basically DoTs were truly that, damage over time, whereas everything else was burst, each had its place.

Unfortunately in GW2 that line has been extremely blurred. There is sustained power DPS, burst power DPS, sustained condi DPS and technically speaking there is burst condi (although rareish). So ANet has removed the normal way that you’d make content work for both, and the addition of a condition stack limit plus the fact that power builds randomly inflict conditions and those conditions overwrite yours… Basically they’ve got to first fix the condition stack system a bit, and then make bosses where conditions have meaning (aka no more 10 second boss fights in optimized groups).

“So you’d load up the boss with DoTs and then while everyone wasn’t able to keep dealing damage your dots sat around still dealing damage.”

I agree with everything you said but this part, I think there is a little misinformation here that I would like to clear it out:

What really made DoTs strong in wow pve was multi doting in 2-3 and sometime 4 bosses fight (Cleave outshines it once it reaches 4+). It has nothing to do with “wasn’t able to keep dealing damage your dots sat around still dealing damage”. – I don’t want to further go off-topic just to explain you why, so I’m just going to stop here.-

Poplolita.2638:

spoj.9672:

Yeah condi builds definately arent as bad in really low dps pugs. But otherwise theres no reason to take them.

My wow experience is very limited but from what i remember when i played is that i got told i should go destruction magic (direct damage) on warlock instead of curses (DoTs) because it was better dps. Dont know if thats changed now, it was a long time ago. There wasnt really any fights where you had to back off as far as i can remember, although i didnt experience that much raiding so i guess i dont have much credibility in that regard. I still played DoT though because i was casual and the dps wasnt too far behind, i was able to keep up in the regular dungeons fine. Plus fights lasted longer in that game.

Weird, Affliction warlock (In multi target 2-3 max and solo substained damage) and demonology (Had the best aoe burst dps ) were king back in the day in pve (can’t say much about mist of pandaria, left it for gw2 pvp hoping they will add death match like wow). Destruction, not so much, it was in fact one of the worse spec in the game for a really really long time until blizzard finally revamped completly destruction in mist of pandaria.

Anyway, back on topic, I would like to thank you for contributing to necromancer community, your guide helped me a lot! People like you are what we needed! Also, the part where there is absolutly 0 mention of signet of vampirisme or w/e that crap is called in heal part was shady toward anet, and I love you more for thatXD

Dunno. Maybe they were wrong. Although when we did a raid the other warlocks were using destruction and beating my dps by quite a lot. Could of been simply a gear issue though. This was back during Cataclysm. I was a noob and i only played for one summer. Account got hacked when i decided to check it out again and i told blizz to lock the account because of their poor email security.

Non-cond builds stealing bleeds is a killer at least in WvW. When I drop 15 bleeds on a target and I see the damage tick for like 400 before they cleanse, I get frustrated.

Guide has been updated to the latest patch

Updating all those guides can’t be easy!

Respect for all involved.