Guild Wars 2

Zexy.1407:

Answer:
1) He used a scepter + dagger for opening and stacking conditions damage. His second weapon is a axe+focus for burst damage.
2) This is an hybrid build: It’s both good at burst and condition damage. It has the best of both worlds. And excells in the fact that it can adept to any situation, this is mostly a pve, dungeon build.

I haven’t watched the sPvP videos yet so i don’t know if he uses the same build there.

I wouldn’t worry to much about builds if you just have a new necro, just play the game see what fits your playstyle. To repeat what Nemesis said in one of his videos: there is no 1 build. All have advantages and disadvanteges and you just have to find the one that fits your playstyle! Nemesis is just pointing out the Do’s and Dont’s of the necro.

Feel free to correct me if i’m wrong

Exactly… i couldn’t have said it better myself, cause my english is sluggish hahaha

Great videos, keep up the good work!

Also, you speak English much better than I speak your native language. : )

Arcades Saboth.5139:

Nice work Nemesis, though may I suggest to write your tutorial somewhere?
I prefer read carefully instead of watching a long time usually.

Yes please! Video tutorials aren’t the best tutorials. You need to be able to read and re-read for understanding, and to refer quickly to specific bits of information as you work with the tutorial. With a video, doing that kind of thing is really annoying.

I agree with being able to read versus being able to hear. I asked a friend to listen to your vids (since I’m legally deaf) and he couldn’t understand your accent. So so far I’m at a loss to figure out exactly what needs to be done with my character.

I like the videos a lot, but a written summary of some kind would be helpful too. Keep up the good work!

necronotes.blog.com

a blog on help for new/old builders.

Sheobix.8796:

necronotes.blog.com

a blog on help for new/old builders.

I once said i’ve seen some of your posts and you seem like a great player. I don’t actually read posts around these forums, i just don’t have the time… yet i have been told by the people that follow me from the forums and from youtube, that you have mentioned some of my work in your blog.

You also have a few very interesting builds, one in particular caught my attention… i pondered on the idea in the beginning but i thought it’s not viable. From what i’ve heard you have made it viable, so… much respect for that.

As soon as i get the time i will do a coverage of it and give you all the credit for it. Will also include it in my initial post alongside the link to your blog.

Keep up the good work.

Hello!
What crafting skills would you recommend for a new Conditionmancer to take?
Thanks!

Bailey.1724:

What crafting skills would you recommend for a new Conditionmancer to take?

Artificer is the obvious choice for sceptres, staves and tuning crystals. As for the secondary, it’s a bit harder to choose one, since most of the jewellery and armour you want cannot be crafted (cond/prec/tuff spread is from dungeons). I guess tailor and jeweller are equally good, perhaps even cook is viable choice for those pizzas and pumpkin cookies.

Great thread, the videos are awesome. Definitely helping me determine my play style. Keep up the good work!

Good work! Thank you, Nemesis. One question: can you say that Necromancer is the best class for damage dealer builds? I mean realy (true if you want:)) DD build.

I watched most of your build, very helpful and detailed guide. Thank you.

Thank you so much! Got some very good ideas here. Did your youtube monetization work out? I saw some advertisements showing up on the videos so I hope you’re getting something for your efforts…

Hi Nemesis,
thank you for the videos, they are great and helped me a lot and I can see how these builds can cause pretty good damage in a PVE environment.
My question for you (and the other guys as well) is which of the three variations (Conditiomancer, Glass Cannon/Burst and Hybrid) would you advice to play with a warrior sword/warhorn since she applies bleeding as well?

Here is my mini encyclopedia on necromancers for Guild Wars 2. It covers all the traits and skills available, last updated as of Mar. 27, 2013. The total run time is around 2 hours and has been divided into 9 parts.

Many necros have problems in:

-selecting traits
-choosing utility skills
-picking weapons

It is my hope that this mini encyclopedia can help my fellow necros. It breaks down each necromancer traits and skills into objective discussions. I focus on the purposes that each trait or skill serve, and how they can work in specific builds and situations.

This encyclopedia will not instantly make the viewer into an elite necromancer player. There is a lot of practice and experience involved. However after watching this, a player should be much more comfortable and confident with the build that they take into battle. They should know what they want, and know what traits, weapons and skills to take to help that achieve their objective.

In the future I might further expand this encyclopedia to talk about specific topics and discuss updates. So feel free to comment and feedback.

Part 1 (Passive traits, Spite and Curses)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrAjJ1N6hxs

Part 2 (Curses, Death Magic, Blood Magic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnUdhRIIU4M

Part 3 (Blood Magic, Soul Reaping, Elite Skills, Healing Skills)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H-obRDGX40

Part 4 (Healing Skills, Death Shroud Skills, Corruption, Spectral, Signets, Minions)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDa0ix1GRUA

Part 5 (Minions, Wells, Underwater Combat Skills)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9nE72JRX50

Part 6 (Underwater Combat Skills, Staff, Dagger Mainhand, Warhorn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWEttb-n6x0

Part 7 (Dagger Offhand, Focus, Axe, Scepter, Death Shroud Spec-ing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCILqBucjSs

Part 8 (Death Shroud demonstration, General WvW tips)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xok5WRaIJaU

Part 9 (WvW Examples)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVf29eIy2yk

Bailey.1724:

Hello!
What crafting skills would you recommend for a new Conditionmancer to take?
Thanks!

Tailoring and Jeweler… and you can buy weapons with karma as you level, and basically you are fully geared every 5 levels as you make your way up.

Westwolf.9358:

Great thread, the videos are awesome. Definitely helping me determine my play style. Keep up the good work!

Thank you, i will do my best.

slovo.5803:

Good work! Thank you, Nemesis. One question: can you say that Necromancer is the best class for damage dealer builds? I mean realy (true if you want:)) DD build.

I don’t think it really is, just because ArenaNet is trying to make a balanced game, and if a necromancer is the best class for damage dealing builds (such a wide category) then it will get nerfed. Although i kind of see the necromancer being the hardest AoEer in the game… you can take pride in that.

Angin Malam.4169:

I watched most of your build, very helpful and detailed guide. Thank you.

You are welcome.

bhagwad.4281:

Thank you so much! Got some very good ideas here. Did your youtube monetization work out? I saw some advertisements showing up on the videos so I hope you’re getting something for your efforts…

I am getting something… and it’s not bad for Romanian standards… but you would literally die if you had what i am getting, almost anywhere else in Europe.

MisterG.3657:

Hi Nemesis,
thank you for the videos, they are great and helped me a lot and I can see how these builds can cause pretty good damage in a PVE environment.
My question for you (and the other guys as well) is which of the three variations (Conditiomancer, Glass Cannon/Burst and Hybrid) would you advice to play with a warrior sword/warhorn since she applies bleeding as well?

Depends on how she applies the bleeding, how many stacks can she sustain… if she can sustain 25 stacks very easily then you should go for the hybrid. If she can go up to like 20… you can go into conditionmancer without any fear.

You can even play glass cannon, but since she applies bleeding as well it would be a shame not to epidemic the target.

I want to say thanks to you Nemesis for these amazing guides. I watched all of them and now my necro is the only class I want to play! I feel I have such a better understanding of my necro and it makes it so much funner to play.

Thanks for all your hard work!

hi there guys. i just want to preface this by saying that i have 7 character slots, and 6-level 80 characters that i have mastered in my honest opinion. I’ve made even a ranger and an elementalist rock, while many people complain about them not being good…BUT now, on my 7th character, i decided to challenge myself with a necromancer. This is more of a post to complain i guess, but i think that given how well i’ve done with my other 6 toons, and being a pretty solid gamer, i’m concerned by how incredibly much i’m dying on my necromancer. I’ve never died so often on any other class i’ve played. In fact, i’ve rarely died. My necro is level 16 right now, but seldom can handle 2 vets or more than 2-3 regular enemies on her, and in every skirmish i’m having to play at max focus to make it out alive (against mobs my own level). I just find that sad. I’m using a 2-hand staff, and switching back and forth frequently to dagger/warhorn and/or dagger/focus. I also go in and out of my shadow form (forgot the exact name) while timing cooldowns of skills in my head. Why is it that with my elementalist, leveling up i could take out an entire camp on me at once, and survive? and at level 80 i could take on 12-18 mobs on me at once in cursed shore alone, just as my guardian can do….but my necro can’t handle mobs her own level?
sigh.

First of all thank you for the good work. Really helped me find my build, which is the Conditionmancer with some tiny adjustments to better fit it to my playstyle.

I want to comment on the hybrid build, though. It looks really cool and I might try it in the future. While watching the video I thought that those two coral orbs must be replaceable with something better. Since I cannot afford the build at the moment, I simulated it. I suggest skipping to the conclusion if you don’t have a lot of spare gold because the results are not very convincing considering the price. I still want to share my results to save other people some work.

This should be the build you recommend: http://goo.gl/U7k30
I decided to replace the orbs with runes of Divinity: http://goo.gl/a39q8
Considering you spend 20 gold, the result is very underwhelming. Assuming, the simulator and my interpretations are correct, the offensive stats are comparable. You gain some defense, though.

If you are willing to use buff food (Rare Veggie Pizza), all the runes can be Divinity without sacrificing bleeding duration: http://goo.gl/HcqL2
This is the original build using buff food that will produce comparable offensive stats: http://goo.gl/Dntd5
In the end you gain even more survivability. You actually get 10% more bleeding duration, too. Other conditions will also last longer than before because you trade 30% bleeding duration for 40% condition duration. (The bursting part is more reliant on critical hits because power is lower while critical damage is increased. In my opinion, this is not too important.)

Conclusion:
What does all of this mean? For about 70 gold (7x Runes of Divinity; if you aim for perfection, you have to buy one rune for underwater combat, too) you gain 60 armor, 600 HP, 60 Healing Power, 10% Bleeding Duration and 40% condition duration (poison, fear, etc.). At the same time you make yourself reliant on specific buff food because you will notice your bleeds fading much faster without it, significantly impacting your damage.

Replacing only the orbs with two Runes of Divinity has no downsides in terms of dependence on buff food. It is a slight increase of Defense for 20 gold.

As a side note: I think what this comparison really shows is that the hybrid build is adjustable to your own playstyle by using Rare Veggie Pizza because it kind of makes Runes a pick of choice.

I will also post the results using Carrion Armor and Berserker Jewelry because someone on Youtube asked whether that is possible. Here are the results:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.5|b.1m.h16.8.1o.h5|7.1g.h16.d.1g.h2|1h.714.1h.714.1h.73.1h.73.1h.a3.1h.a3|2s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0|u61b.u26b.0.0.a6|0.0|3r.4d.3u.3x.4e|e

Carrion is condition damage, power, vitality. What will happen is that critical chance goes down to 45% and condition damage decreases by 125. You also lose a bit of armor and healing power. On the other hand, power and critical damage increase, which will result in an increase of effective power by ~400.
All in all, the build will have higher burst and lower sustained damage. Considering that condition damage goes down quite a bit and crit chance also decreases (remember that crit chance is important to proc bleeds), I don’t think the trade-off is worth it.

In general the Celestial Trinkets are the best choice if you can use at least 4 of the stats they provide and don’t want to maximize a single stat. I actually think Celestial is a bit too strong. This build profits from all of the stats except of magic find (the small amount of healing power doesn’t make a huge difference as well).

First of all thank you for these tutorials they are extremely well done and immensely helpful. I have a general question. As predominantly a PvE player with some interest in WvW between the Conditionmancer and Hybrid which do you think is the more powerful and/or more versatile to play?

crizpynutz.9062:

First of all thank you for these tutorials they are extremely well done and immensely helpful. I have a general question. As predominantly a PvE player with some interest in WvW between the Conditionmancer and Hybrid which do you think is the more powerful and/or more versatile to play?

If you are interested in PvE and WvW i would recommend you go for the conditionmancer… you will then be build towards higher success rate for the amount of skill/time invested in both aspects. Hybrid is really potent in PvE and requires skill… but if you take it into PvP, requires even more skill…

I have updated the main page of this posts with the new builds, also made it a bit more… structured…

I faced you and a full team of necros once in a tPvP match with a phantasm mesmer. You were using a bunch of minions instead of your usual build in the tPvP footage you showed. Which build is that?

Nemesis if you are around to read this, I’m curious as to what you put in your infusion slots.

Thanks in advance.

RochelleFreeman.5603:

Nemesis if you are around to read this, I’m curious as to what you put in your infusion slots.

Thanks in advance.

Just normal +5 agony resistance for fractals, nothing too fancy… i don’t find it to be worth the investment at the moment.

hi Nemesis! first of all, thanks for the incredible job you’ve done with your guides.

I’ve been really willing to try the glasscannon necro, but as I mostly do fractals and CoF (and you can speed run CoF with a blindfold and no gear on), I thought that the hybrid might be a better and more versatile choice.

I have three questions about this build:

1- why the “go for all” ascended items? there are some that have the rampager or berserker stats… why go for earrings that even have magic find on them? Am I missing something?

2- does the axe output more damage than the dagger in this build? Dagger is really fun and I mostly stay at mele range from bosses (even as a wells/condition, I like dropping wells and casting enfeebling blood when entering DS).

3- have you tried dropping a few points in spite and going for soul reaping instead? the benefits would be higher crit damage (that complements well with high precision and furious demise). You could also go for double duration (and double damage) terror.

bhagwad.4281:

I faced you and a full team of necros once in a tPvP match with a phantasm mesmer. You were using a bunch of minions instead of your usual build in the tPvP footage you showed. Which build is that?

It’s my minionmaster build, i just added ogre runes and superior sigil of demon summoning to get maxed possible minions… for max possible trolling = fun fun.

Aenesthesia.1697:

hi Nemesis! first of all, thanks for the incredible job you’ve done with your guides.

I’ve been really willing to try the glasscannon necro, but as I mostly do fractals and CoF (and you can speed run CoF with a blindfold and no gear on), I thought that the hybrid might be a better and more versatile choice.

I have three questions about this build:

1- why the “go for all” ascended items? there are some that have the rampager or berserker stats… why go for earrings that even have magic find on them? Am I missing something?

2- does the axe output more damage than the dagger in this build? Dagger is really fun and I mostly stay at mele range from bosses (even as a wells/condition, I like dropping wells and casting enfeebling blood when entering DS).

3- have you tried dropping a few points in spite and going for soul reaping instead? the benefits would be higher crit damage (that complements well with high precision and furious demise). You could also go for double duration (and double damage) terror.

In the hybrid build precision helps both the power attacks and the condition attacks…

Power does not help the condition part and conditions do not help the bursting part unless you intertwine them… so what you do is add crit damage and condition duration so both power and condition damage are as close to their max potential as possible then you overlap them…

You stack up on bleeds – while you do, your normal power attacks from scepter are much higher since you have power that can crit (from precision that you have for the condition build regardless) for a lot since you have crit damage – after you are done you switch and burst with high vulnerability… and while you burst your bleedings start going down… but you still add a few to cover the loss, since you crit…

So… the rotation needs to be respected, therefor if you are at range, when you switch you need to be able to do it like… now now now !… otherwise you miss your rotation and it’s no longer worth it to switch, you do more damage just by staying in 1 weapon set… therefor why go hybrid at all ?

Hybrid has around 60% of the damage of the condition build and 60% of the power build… use any of them at one point and you do less damage then either of the builds, overlap them… and you get something magical…

Wow! Great work Nemisis! It’s clear that you have done some indeepth studying of the necromancer! You explain in such at such A high educational level it’s amazing! It’s hard not to understand the point of your videos!

I myself just got back on playing gw2 ( havn’t played since launch) and went For the necromancer and your guild has helped me alot in understanding the elementals and tkittenence of the necromancer!

Keep it up!

Thank You Nemesis!

“I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the necromancer”

I’ve figured that in every MMO ever made and every game with any kind of competitive PvP, there will be players of every class who complain that their class is broken and another class is OP. It is the universal constant. No class/prof is ever going to be perfect, we should just learn to deal with it. If you go to every profession forum on here there is countless arguments as to why their chosen prof is bad/broken/needs buffing etc… EVERY prof. That to me says more about the general state of gamers than it does about games – i.e. unless they have an advantage over every other player in the game then they will find something to kitten on about that isn’t working as it should….rather than just enjoy the game for what it is and stop thinking that winning more PvP somehow makes then better people in real life.

Nemesis i wanna thank you for helping me coming back to my necro, i’ve watched the necro guides that you did and i gave my necro a chance and since then i didn’t let him go.
Of all the build you did, the one that i like’d was the hybrid. So i got to CoF, did some gold with drops and sells and bought weapons and trinkets, etc. I have berserker weapons with rampager CoF set.
I did change the utilitys, running with CC, well of suffering, darkness, spectral walk and lich form, so i want to try out something different but not running away too much from the original concept.
Flesh golem its still most of the time away from the fight and altough the lich form does excellent damage i can be locked and be downed in no time, so with the same armor and weapons and build i want to ask you if with some minions the hybrid build would still shine?
Giving the same amount of crits with my dagger and getting the help of my minions to do an extra damage.

Thanks in advance,
Keep up the good work and videos =D

I have to say that the hybrid build looks really interesting. I also find it interesting that few seem to mention it.

I played a mesmer exclusively until the last bounce bug, then swapped to an engineer to give it a go, loved the perma-swiftness, loved the grenades, find my damage to be through the roof while adding party useful conditions such as chills and stacking vulnerability.

Thing is, grenades are what grenades are, both messy to use and my wrist already began to twinge a little bit after doing a grawl shaman fractal.

Your hybrid really interests me. 100 tick bleeds, 3k crits in DS, 5-6k crits from the axe, it seems pretty nice and much less daunting on my wrist, even though I will mourn the loss 1500 range. No vigor, though?

Nemesis.8593:

crizpynutz.9062:

First of all thank you for these tutorials they are extremely well done and immensely helpful. I have a general question. As predominantly a PvE player with some interest in WvW between the Conditionmancer and Hybrid which do you think is the more powerful and/or more versatile to play?

If you are interested in PvE and WvW i would recommend you go for the conditionmancer… you will then be build towards higher success rate for the amount of skill/time invested in both aspects. Hybrid is really potent in PvE and requires skill… but if you take it into PvP, requires even more skill…

Nemesis – So I did go Conditionmancer and I love it! The AOE and survivability is awesome. I was just thinking about setting up a second build of either a hybrid or GC set up. With the new patch coming presumably Hybrid looks like it might get a boost. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on a good build option to a conditionmancer is considering PvE dungeons and fractals specifically.

I was thinking the hybrid build. Also I’ll be curious about any tweaks to the Conditionmancer you find with the new patch.

crizpynutz.9062:

Nemesis.8593:

crizpynutz.9062:

First of all thank you for these tutorials they are extremely well done and immensely helpful. I have a general question. As predominantly a PvE player with some interest in WvW between the Conditionmancer and Hybrid which do you think is the more powerful and/or more versatile to play?

If you are interested in PvE and WvW i would recommend you go for the conditionmancer… you will then be build towards higher success rate for the amount of skill/time invested in both aspects. Hybrid is really potent in PvE and requires skill… but if you take it into PvP, requires even more skill…

Nemesis – So I did go Conditionmancer and I love it! The AOE and survivability is awesome. I was just thinking about setting up a second build of either a hybrid or GC set up. With the new patch coming presumably Hybrid looks like it might get a boost. I would love to hear what your thoughts are on a good build option to a conditionmancer is considering PvE dungeons and fractals specifically.

I was thinking the hybrid build. Also I’ll be curious about any tweaks to the Conditionmancer you find with the new patch.

Hi Nemesis, thank you for the good work!
It would be interesting to know what do you play in WvWvW after the 6/25 patch.
thx~

Nem, thank you for your contribution to the necro community. I also wanted your opinion on the abomination build? I have been playing it and would still say its very viable for wvw currently. Do you still think it is after the last patch, or could it be tweaked more?

Just some info about me. I’m not an amazing player, but I do well enough. I tend to play tankier builds, bc I hate running back to fight. I would like a power build, but I know I would just be a free rez in wvw. Any advice would be appreciated. I am not asking for a build tho. I need to get my theory craft juices flowing. Thanks

Any ETA on the new condition video?

Does anyone have write ups on any of Nemesis’ videos? I just find it difficult to absorb everything and retain it. Would like something in text I can reference. I’m leveling a necromancer and frequently need to reference the videos and can be time consuming trying to find the proper section of the video I need.

While on the subject, which route would be better for leveling?

Nemesis, thanks alot for all the vids and the work you did. Good job !!!

Just started a necro toon and I am definitely gonna work towards your hybrid build. But i’m still far away from L80 (currently L24) and that is sometimes quiet a pain in the *ss because the traits are so important for this build, not even mentioning the celestial trinkets you need to have a bit more survivabillity :-) Thats why I sometimes switch to minions to draw less aggro from the PVE mobs preventing me from dieing too fast. But I will get there :-)

Thanks again and have fun :-)

hi im new and really need help with my necromancer. What I need is good armor but at a cheap price please help.

Dalec.5082:

hi im new and really need help with my necromancer. What I need is good armor but at a cheap price please help.

If you have enough Karma you can checkout the Temple merchants around Orr

42k ish? per piece I think

Which build would you recommend for PvE leveling?

I recommend condition based builds for leveling, since condition go past armor/toughness, you can more easily level against +level champs/vets, also you will not need to upgrade your gear as often until 80

@ Nemises, your theory crafting is much appreciated, you clearly describe why you make the choices you make in your builds and you respond well to critisim from people who disagree with you.

I would enjoy it if you would create group based builds, because I play primarily necromancer (which doesnt bring much to groups that other classes do better) I am looking at, 2 warrior, ranger, necromancer, guardian, theory craft on how you would fit into situations like that I think is needed in this game as well, and no one else has as good presentation at you. [the warriors are zerk banner warriors, ranger is spirit melee and guardian is dps guard]

I feel if the community saw options other than stacking warriors that killed just as quick or almost as quick, but could handle more situations more dungeons other than cof would be ran and the community as a whole would evolve