Guild Wars 2

Hey guys so I just came back after quitting at launch. I played a condition thief to 40ish before stopping when the game first dropped.

I thought I would give the necromancer a shot since in every other rpg I have ever play I have either played the dark caster or dark assassin.
Questions:
1) Is necro a good choice for a class in general. I mean are they good at solo PvE, PvP, and group play. Or do other classes blow them out of the water and they are totally dismissed.
2) I got my first necro to level 11 what is the best leveling build at a low level. I plan to run a condition type build once I get to 30ish. If that is my plan which class shines the most at this.
3) Are any of the summons worth a slot or are they just total crap and have no place in a utility slot.

Thanks for the answers guys. Also if you can tell me anymore about the necro it would be most helpful because pretty much what I have read thus far is pretty disheartening.

1: they do excellent in pve solo, but only certain aspects of pvp do they at least meet other classes on. They, like any class though, are powerful in skilled hands regardless. No class “blows necro out of the water” though, so you’re safe there.
2: Low level necro benefits most from either a power based or minion focused build. Later on you can tailor it to your taste if you want.
3: By summons I assume you mean minions. No they are not total crap, in fact they are quite powerful. Their AI is tricky though, you hvae to do a few single target hits mainly with auto attack first to get them to lock on to your target and go for it. It’s just a skill you develop over time while using them, not a gamebreaker. Like many summons though, they do still suffer from bad survivability in hard hitting heavy AoE like bosses and WvW (although that’s not a general rule, I’ve ran with Bas and his minions through several boss fights and use my own minions on boss fights all the time and they work jsut fine, you leanr which ones you can and cannot do it on). The main thing to remember about minions that has always stuck in my head, think it was either Bas or Bhawb that said it, minions are utility skills, not core mechanics. If you treat them like utility skills, then when they die and go on cd you’re not left floundering like a fish out of water.

And my last hopefully helpful tip: do NOT take all the negative crap you see on these forums to heart. Heck even half of the people posting that angry crap will tell you to take forum posts with a grain of salt. You decide if the class works for you, they can’t decide it for you. I think you’ll have a blast with necro honestly, and if you devote the time to learning it and getting comfortable with how it works, you’ll be very happy with it.

I generally agree with Nay of the Ether, but I’ll throw in a couple of my ideas, too.

1. From personal experience, I found leveling up with my necromancer fun. Did most of the dungeons on him, WvWvW, and am slowly getting into the PvP scene as well. I don’t feel handicapped in any of these.

2. Power/precision is superior in leveling. At 30, flesh golems makes it a lot easier, too. Condition builds take some time to stack up on damage, so I prefer power for faster leveling. However, if you do manage to stack up a lot of conditions and spread ’em with epidemic, you get pretty nice results.

3. I personally don’t like minions much, with the exception of Flesh Golem. But that’s just personal approach.

In conclusion, necromancers are fun and worth the effort of getting to know them.

GW2’s Necromancer is very different to necros from other games, but still is a good class, fun and easy to play with.

1) I had played all classes in GW2, and Necro is in my top three. I do mostly PvE, and you can solo easily, since you have good HP management, and a lot of minions to help you. At PvP, the worse thing that you can say about them is that they aren’t the top damage dealers: instead, they work from the shadows, supporting friends and hindering foes.

2) Minions and power/thoughness, in that order. The minions help a lot, tanking for you and keeping you alive.

3) The minions are waaay useful. In fact, 3 out of 5 of my skills (6, 7 and are minions (Shadow, Blood and Bone). They hit pretty fine, and are very good tanks, taking agro from you. The only problem is that you can’t really comand them: they will attack what you attack, as good as they can.

1) I have an 80 Mesmer, Engi, Ranger, and Guardian. I’ve got a level 71 Necro I’ve been leveling up. I can only answer for PvE so far but Necro is as fun as the others (MM Build) and stronger than most.

2) For leveling build I’d say berserker gear and minion master. I leveled to 31 and then used Cooking and Artificing to bypass the minion-gap (where the mobs have gained hp but your minions haven’t gained hp and power). I don’t even consider switching to conditions until 60 when you have enough traits and your gear has 3x stats.

I’ve gone full condition on my Mesmer and went back to Shatter. Didn’t consider condition on my Ranger but I understand it can be very strong. Engi is condition build and I think the best class to stay alive while attritting your target(s). Necro can put conditions on folks but other than Vulnerability can’t restack them to full if they get cleared (as quickly as the Engi). Obviously folks do play condition Necros and have fun but I’ve heard it said and agree that Necro is about spreading conditions and not killing with them.

3) I’m a minion build so I would say yes. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/MinionMaster-Builds-and-Tips/first#post1541022 I’m going 20/10/20/20/0 with d/d + a/f since I love Enfeebling Blood on DS and perma weakness. It flips well enough to a Marks + Wells build when running with the zerg too.

Lanny.6987:

I’m going 20/10/20/20/0 with d/d + a/f since I love Enfeebling Blood on DS and perma weakness. It flips well enough to a Marks + Wells build when running with the zerg too.

^ there ya go, you can use that if you don’t like my build, although I don’t understand why he has only 10 in curses and 20 in death, should be the other way around so you can ground target wells but this would work good as a solo thing, i guess I always base all my builds off group play now, force of habit :P

Nay of the Ether.8913:

although I don’t understand why he has only 10 in curses and 20 in death

Well Death X (minions have 50% more hp) is mandatory for a Minion build and I couldn’t get that with only 10 in Death.

Lanny.6987:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

although I don’t understand why he has only 10 in curses and 20 in death

Well Death X (minions have 50% more hp) is mandatory for a Minion build and I couldn’t get that with only 10 in Death.

fair enough :p