Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I’m coming back to gw2 after 2 years and I’d love some advice for a necro. First off which race looks good with the armor/animations combo for them and second I’d love to know how does necro/reaper hold up in all pve content. Have no interest in any form of pvp, just dungeons, fractals, raids and whatnot. I’ve been trying to find this information in a nicely explained fashion somewhere, but am at a loss really for what class to boost to 80 and play with, seems necro’s in a good place and I liked the playstyle before, but would appreciate any class that’s good in late game pve content…so please, advise away.

Hi friend, welcome back. Let’s dive straight in.

The race is really dependent on what you find aesthetically pleasing: Human and Sylvari animations are very smooth, and not a single one of them feel out of place in terms of native modeling, but you might find them bland since many abilities of the Necro class use similar animations. They also look great in regards to armor. Charr animations are very large and telegraphed, although many are rather clunky and Charr light armor is, in my opinion, pretty horrifying to look at. Asurans are reminiscent of humans, but much smaller, and Norn are a bit larger. If you really can’t decide, then make one of each and take them into the PvP lobby “Heart of the Mists”; Everything is unlocked in PvP, so it’s a great place to bring a brand new character to look at all of the skill and weapon animations.

Necromancer has a solid place in PvE after the release of Heart of Thorns. Dungeons have fallen off the radar for the most part, but are very easy for most any class. For fractals and raid, most people favor towards Viper’s Condition Reaper for it’s extremely high potential damage output, heavy soft CC, and the usage of Epidemic. The thing to note is that raid meta is tending to pull away from Necromancers in favor of a higher Elementalist count with Condition Druids, but that’s mostly just on the radar of high-end groups, so pugging should still be quite easy as a Condition Reaper.

With the release of HoT, and more specifically the extremely heightened group strength that came from Chronomancer Quickness and Herald Boon-Botting, most every class is capable of high-end PvE content, as long as you are properly specced (meaning gear quality moreso than specific gear) and knowledgable in the encounter. You may remember from the past how dungeon parties would kick players almost instantly for being a certain class, Rangers and Necromancers especially. That practice really doesn’t see too much usage anymore, with the exception of the most min-maxxed, dedicated Raiding groups.

All in all: Perfectly safe pick if it’s what you enjoy playing. Best of luck and have fun!

Necromancer has 3 modes of end-game play: melee power able to pinch-tank for a short time, ranged condition damage, and minion master variants of both where minions tank for you like a Ranger’s pets.

As reaper main – it’s looking good in pve – that is if you have HoT and can unlock reaper for yourself. Now you can go in your face, and given you spec right (reaper +blood magic) and use skills well you can tank a loooooooot of damage.

A lot of necro woes have been fixed with reaper spec, also shroud is finally fun. Both in terms of skills and it’s relationship with healthpool (heal some hp in shroud before it goes down, build life force In normal form, before you take too big of a beating).

I would add one more mode of play for reaper in pve, or rather a variant – the medic. This is a very underestimated “cause druid” part of our job, but one that plays a huge role in actual combat. Believe me, spreadsheets and min-maxing aside – when you need lifes saved, people healed, and npcs kept alive, the healer portion of reaper along with his tankyness delivers the goods.

Thank you for all the answers, really helps out and pretty sure I’ll be boosting my necro then and see what happens:)