Guild Wars 2

I have been leveling up a Necro so I don’t know all the skills yet and how to use them to their fullest, but the one thing I have yet to figure out is what my defensive skills are. I have been in wvw and when I get rooted I cannot figure out how to escape! Also if I am being attacked heavily other than my death shroud I have no idea how to counter. Any pointers would be great!

Necros have a ton of very viable defense. The basics come with our health pool, we automatically have the natural highest vitality. Beyond that most necro builds come down to timing and positioning. Like you mentioned DS is our main defense, but secondary to that we have our spectral abilities. They allow us to gain LF while either kiting (Spectral Walk) or tanking (Spectral Armor) opponents. Spectral wall does give protection but I don’t like the utility much. Spectral armor and well specific traits are the best ways to get protection outside team play. I play a staff- scepter/dagger build so I personally have access to fear, chill, blind, and cripple which when played right can give you plenty of survivability in PvP and make you near uncatchable from the little questing I have done in PvE. Beyond that there are traits that allow you to siphon health (currently way underpowered in my opinion) and gain stability. Finally the debuff weakness is necros easiest way to mitigate most damage. In PvE with mobs who rarely crit you simply take 50% less damage. In PvP it may not be perfect but it will still reduce your incoming damage while you take down your opponent. Plague form gives you additional health so it can be a good way to mitigate damage while waiting on healing cds. Not to mention with all the condition removal we have access to as necros, attrition damage is usually weak against us. I hope that at least answers some of your basic questions.

Lots of what Reedju has said is valid, but something I think he’s neglected to mention is that we as a class have access to a LOT of blind spam. Where Guardians get to to throw around a lot of Aegis [and blind to a lesser a degree] and block stuff, we ‘block’ via spreading the Blind condition making opponents miss.

The Elite Plague form is largely considered a very defensive/supportive elite. Even condition spec’d the damage tends to be meh, but if you slap on the Blind Plague it’s more or less 20 seconds of going ’Can’t touch this’. Whether you want to take up an elite slot for this kind of play is a questionable tactic depending on your playstyle though.

Alternatively you have access to blind via Dagger 4 and Well of Blindness.

In addition you can trait up Blind with ‘Chilling Darkness’ in the Curses line which slaps on an additional 1 second of Chill for every stack of blind you lay on an opponent effectively snaring them much like a cripple allowing you to remain mobile.

You’ll find that a lot of the Necro’s playstyle that the devs seemed to have in mind involves less ‘buffing yourself’ and more ‘debuffing your enemy’. So instead of swiftness we have access to cripples and chills to slow the enemy down. Instead of aegis to block, we have blind to make the target miss, etc, etc. Again though, how successful the devs have been in making this reality you’ll find to be a controversial topic on the board.

Running a build with dagger/warhorn and staff, I have a relatively easy time escaping opponents, including WvW zergs.

With spectral walk and locust swarm I always have perma-swiftness. I can’t count how many times I’ve been able to fool people with spectral walk, by pretending to jump off a cliff or from the outer walls of a keep, only to teleport back 8 seconds later.

Necro cannot die from fall damage while in death shroud, so during a chase you just have to find the biggest cliff around you, jump off it and hope anyone is stupid enough to chase you down.

Locust swarm cripples anyone near you and with staff you can chill and fear people running towards you. Dark path can often work in confusing enemies if you port to a random NPC away from your direction. Dagger has an immobilize and warhorn has a daze which can be used for defensive purposes.

Necromancers have so many ways to remove all conditions that it shouldn’t be a problem even if you get focused with immobilizes, chills and cripples.

Plague form of course can be a last resort when all else fails.

Ratphink.4751:

You’ll find that a lot of the Necro’s playstyle that the devs seemed to have in mind involves less ‘buffing yourself’ and more ‘debuffing your enemy’. So instead of swiftness we have access to cripples and chills to slow the enemy down. Instead of aegis to block, we have blind to make the target miss, etc, etc. Again though, how successful the devs have been in making this reality you’ll find to be a controversial topic on the board.

This is on point, but the difference is that debuffs (conditions) are so easy to remove in this game compared to buffs. Yes we can spec to be somewhat good at removing those (but Corrupt Boon fails way too often and is on a longish cooldown) and classes built for buffing can keep them up almost non stop, restacking soon after we remove them.

In team situations proper boon removal can let you burst down an enemy pretty fast, but in smaller fights, or 1v1, they usually just take a brief dip in health but rotate them all back (guardians D/D eles, etc).

So what about roots? Is there a way to get out of those or just wait it out?

Entangling roots can be a pain for necros on occasion. It is a cc that 6t7requires you to dps down the roots to escape. If you are running a condition build with staff, your best bet is probably DS #4. Even though I cannot verify this, I also believe entangling roots can be removed as a condition since it is just an immobilize. I’d actually really like to test whether or not staff #4 would be able to transfer that back to someone. If you are running a power build roots shouldn’t be an issue. Just hit them a few times with dagger or if you are in a rush, one of your wells and they will die. I personally really dislike necros ability (or mainly inability) to have any effect of inanimate objects with condition spec even if it is “logical”. Although it is a stretch, I don’t see why Anet doesn’t just convert applicable conditions into something that could work on roots or other items. It is still condition damage so we would still have a disadvantage compared to power builds but at least we wouldnt be dead in the water. Maybe replace bleed with “decay” when it only effects objects? Burning of course would still work just fine and so should vulnerability. Nonetheless, I think this was a simple but important oversight.