Guild Wars 2

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

You have a very good understanding of our class, and these guides are very useful (especially in pve). Some suggestions: check the audio level of the game before recording, since they are too loud in some places, and you can’t hear your comments. Also choose a different font for the letters when writing something on the screen, because they are not that easy to spot.

Keep up the good work.

Nice vids thusfar, i’ll be checking them out in depth later.
You already gained brownie points for not making a post boasting how your a pr0 and your here to be the necromancer saviour, as everyone else seems to be doing.

So two thumbs up and thank you for taking the time!

A few things:
Skills that have Damage (x number) means that its the total damage but over that many ticks
Dagger can be a opener because of Death Shrouds Dark Path or Spectral Grasp (into Warhorn daze and then immobilize if in pvp)
Superior Sigil of Corruptions stacks stay on the character even if the weapon isnt equiped, letting you get a Superior Sigil of Agony

Andele.1306:

A few things:
Skills that have Damage (x number) means that its the total damage but over that many ticks
Dagger can be a opener because of Death Shrouds Dark Path or Spectral Grasp (into Warhorn daze and then immobilize if in pvp)
Superior Sigil of Corruptions stacks stay on the character even if the weapon isnt equiped, letting you get a Superior Sigil of Agony

These tutorials are more for PvE and a bit of setting up for PvP… Yes you can open with dagger in PvP, but is it really worth it ? You can get a gap closer from the utility as well plus the Death Shroud one, but that’s 2 skill just to do something that may not be worth it.
What do you mean by Superior Sigil of Corruption stacks stay on the character even if the weapon isn’t equiped ? Like i can unequip my weapon and still have the buff ? That may be a bug… if you mean you can switch weapon sets and still have the effect, yes… that i was trying to explain in the video. I’ll do some more testing and get back to you on that, thanks for the feedback.

Yes, you can unequip the weapon from the character overall, the sigil stacks do remain (that does mean you will have to have another weapon, to a total of 5 or 6 weapons depending if you use a two handed or 2 pairs of one handers) because they are effects.
E.g. kill 25 things with, lets say, a dagger with the superior sigil of luck, put it in your inventory and there, the stacks stay (till you go downed that is).

Also ii find that a lot of the times opening with BiP, DS-Dark Path, Chillblains, Putrid, swap to dagger is really worth it because of the fast life force generation and enemy being chilled, bleeding and weakened (then again i go with a DS and 2 well focused build for aoe farming, boons and team support).

Andele.1306:

Yes, you can unequip the weapon from the character overall, the sigil stacks do remain (that does mean you will have to have another weapon, to a total of 5 or 6 weapons depending if you use a two handed or 2 pairs of one handers) because they are effects.
E.g. kill 25 things with, lets say, a dagger with the superior sigil of luck, put it in your inventory and there, the stacks stay (till you go downed that is).

Also ii find that a lot of the times opening with BiP, DS-Dark Path, Chillblains, Putrid, swap to dagger is really worth it because of the fast life force generation and enemy being chilled, bleeding and weakened (then again i go with a DS and 2 well focused build for aoe farming, boons and team support).

Your path seems more viable for PvP rather then PvE (because you don’t need such complicated maneuvers for PvE, mobs are not such sneaky kittens), i haven’t gone into PvP tutorials yet… because it has way more depth then PvE and i have not yet mastered it, but i will… soon…
Also… i’ll test what you said today, if it’s true that’s a major bug, can’t be working as intended… i’ll stack everything then

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.

As you may have noticed, i am not very versed with the english language so it will be a far more difficult task without the graphic support. Also it may take a player a longer time to read such a long written explanation as opposed to just watch 30 minutes of the video (everything i exemplify in the video has to be written, turns highlighting a skill with the mouse in a full sentence on paper). Are you sure that is what you want ?

Nemesis.8593:

Your path seems more viable for PvP rather then PvE (because you don’t need such complicated maneuvers for PvE, mobs are not such sneaky kittens), i haven’t gone into PvP tutorials yet… because it has way more depth then PvE and i have not yet mastered it, but i will… soon…
Also… i’ll test what you said today, if it’s true that’s a major bug, can’t be working as intended… i’ll stack everything then

Works only with one sigil (at least it did, didnt try for a longer amount of time since i found em pretty useless, now gonna get the luck ones) and only in pve, thus i dont think that its a bug.

Thanks for those videos. I downloaded the builds video and I should do the same for the others. I’ve found it quite interesting. My necro is now close to 40 and I’m doing fine as a conditionmancer. I’ve started using your hybrid build so I put so far 10 in power and 10 in precision, and once blood gets to 10 too I’ll get the more advanced manual for the traits. So I switch from scepter/dagger to axe/focus here and there now.

Great videos! I was wondering if you might give a little more advice about stats/gear for a minion build. I’m learning quite well how to use my skills, but having difficultly with what stats I’ll actually want. Would something like this work?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQUQNBmWDbkQrXvVzWjePRI9IaUbaTP4G4CHUh3D;T0A5VSrUXpsiqJTTimsN5aS20KgxCbRA

Willowleaf.5721:

Thanks for those videos. I downloaded the builds video and I should do the same for the others. I’ve found it quite interesting. My necro is now close to 40 and I’m doing fine as a conditionmancer. I’ve started using your hybrid build so I put so far 10 in power and 10 in precision, and once blood gets to 10 too I’ll get the more advanced manual for the traits. So I switch from scepter/dagger to axe/focus here and there now.

I hope you have a pleasant experience with it, if not you can always opt for a burst build (glass canon) or go for full conditions… as long as you do it right
Good luck

Morvian.3270:

Great videos! I was wondering if you might give a little more advice about stats/gear for a minion build. I’m learning quite well how to use my skills, but having difficultly with what stats I’ll actually want. Would something like this work?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQUQNBmWDbkQrXvVzWjePRI9IaUbaTP4G4CHUh3D;T0A5VSrUXpsiqJTTimsN5aS20KgxCbRA

Can’t see the link, it says “BAD LINK”… really…

Nemesis, thank you for the videos. I hadn’t actually considered Axe/Focus with Dagger/Warhorn as a back-up weapon kit until you took us back to school on the basics of gap-closing. The videos were clear, concise, gave good examples and were well explained and presented.

Really we should get these videos stickied or something because they’re just that beneficial.

Hmm, strange that it doesn’t show the link. I’ll just write stuff up here then:

Skills – Staff with Blood Fiend, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Wurm, and Flesh Golem

Traits -

30 Death (+300 Toughness and +30% Boon Duration) selecting Minion Master, Flesh of the Master, and Death Nova

30 Blood (+300 Vitality and +300 Healing Power) selecting Bloodthirst, Vampiric Master, and Fetid Consumption

The last 10 points I was thinking of putting into Spite so that I could grab Reaper’s Might. Not sure if that’s a good idea though.

Gear -
Full set of Superior Rune of the Undead (not sure what armor to get to put it on)
Shaman’s Jewels (Condition Damage, Toughness, and Healing Power)
Sigil of Major Corruption (+10 Condition Damage per kill, end on down)

Good on you man. I expected some trolling, but I think it’s most excellent work what you ahve done.

I’m watching these right now and they are VERY helpful so far. I still haven’t figured out a main and have been playing a few classes to figure out which is my favorite so something that gives you the basics like this helps a lot.

Hey Nemesis, great job with the videos, I got a lot of value out of them!

Have you ever thought of being a semi-official GW2 Necromancer expert with your own blog / mailing list and stuff like that? I’d love to subscribe to something like that. You could share your thoughts with other necros about builds, the impact of patches, your experiences and so on.

I can’t seem to be able to use “reply” function anymore so i’ll just write like this.

@Invictae, i’m very glad that i helped, this was my original intent.

@WizEye, I am far from being a Necromancer expert, thank you for considering me one, appreciation is always welcomed. I thought about making a channel, about continuing my work, of improving… especially with all the positive feedback that i got. I never expected to get so many views, likes and kind words… and definitely not so quickly. So… thank you all so much.

After the initial feedback i received and all the video requests i knew i had to get a new CPU if i wanted to record WvW or SPvP even dungeons, since my current one allows me to record at about 10-15 frames. In this country the average salary is around 150$ a month, a good CPU costs about 500$ so in order to get one i had to get a loan from the bank. My initial idea was that with youtube monetization and all i may get an extra 10-20$ a month, which would help pay out the loan… Turns out i can not monetize anything. I checked my youtube account, because i haven’t before since i was more focused on making videos then the monetization aspect, and apparently i have monetization enabled on the account but none of my videos have them enabled, and i can not enabled them either.

I can live with that… it will make things harder for me, but just for all the positive feedback and kind words that i received so far i will continue making more videos… or so i thought…

Not only am i not allowed to monetize anything, i am not even allowed to change my monetization settings on my videos, they are by default turned off, yet people have told me i have adds on my videos, they even asked me how much i’ve made in these 10 days. The answer is NOTHING.
To make things even worse youtube has now flagged me and i may get shut down from youtube even though i am not making any profit what so ever.

The final verdict is… i will keep making these videos as best i can for all the people that support me thus far, until youtube will finally shut me down.

Thank you all again for your constant support and appreciation.
(everything i said now i will include in my upcoming video)

Watched all of your videos. They were great. As a new player to Guild Wars I learned a lot. Subscribed to your channel for future videos. Thanks for doing this.

Disguised.3492:

Watched all of your videos. They were great. As a new player to Guild Wars I learned a lot. Subscribed to your channel for future videos. Thanks for doing this.

I’m glad i helped, more videos coming soon… still waiting for my CPU, feels like it’s taking ages though.

New tutorial is up in this thread… i’m posting it here for all the people that have followed me on this topic.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Guild-Wars-2-World-vs-World-Necromancer-POV-tutorial/first#post308872

Weird… I have less vitality than you but more health.

I have similar stats (slightly worse since my gear isn’t as good) but I have 23,186 health at 1,287 vitality while you have 22,552 at 1,331 vitality.

Not sure if I’m overlooking something or if there is something buggy somewhere.

Probably the PvP buff that increases max hp

Ah from WvWvW? I didn’t consider that, good catch that was probably why.

When i saw that my tutorial thread got pinned i didn’t even knew how to react. It was early in the morning so i thought, this is a weird dream…
I never thought my thread would be worthy of a sticky, i was expecting someone to make some tutorials with graphs and timers and percentages and real time slow motion captures commentated with a more advance english then i have. That i would have considered something worth getting a sticky. That’s why i never asked for one.

I’m really glad that people appreciated the work i’ve done to a point where this has become pinned. I must be doing something right since i got here

I want to thank everyone that supported me thus far, and last but not least i want to thank ArenaNet for making this game, giving us a chance at something new and amazing.
Looking forward to this game’s progression, i’ll be right here alongside it.

Thank you again.

You deserve it, you deserve every appreciation you can get, i’ve been a necro since gw1 and always loved it and still do, but in GW2 i didnt quite understand how to make it usefull, even after reaching lvl80, reseting my traits so many times i still didnt get it right

you helped me big time with your tutorials, saw them all and now i got a clear vision of the game
You’re need to counter all the whinners and necro bashers out there
Please keep it up,
Thank you!

I have a level 25 Necromancer not real high but this thread helped me understand the class a lot more. I have long been thinking I wanted to use a build around dagger because I dont know..stabbing people in the eye with a dagger just excites me on the necro. These videos really helped give me a nice general idea of how I would want to build something like that.

Nice work. Thanks for the tips.

Edit: Might I suggest a tutorial on the Necromancer combo fields? Unless there is alrdy a video like that floating around here.

Great job Nemesis! Since you now have this sticky, would you mind editing your top initial post in this thread (if possible) each time you have a new vid and adding it there? For example, adding the new WvW video to your post under the other 3 vids, and subsequently adding any future vids under that one. That will make it a lot easier to find them all. Thanks so much, and once again, excellent work!

Rossy.9734:

Great job Nemesis! Since you now have this sticky, would you mind editing your top initial post in this thread (if possible) each time you have a new vid and adding it there? For example, adding the new WvW video to your post under the other 3 vids, and subsequently adding any future vids under that one. That will make it a lot easier to find them all. Thanks so much, and once again, excellent work!

Yes i thought about it, but i don’t want to look like i am “advertising”, people have already said that on a few occasions. Like i said and shown in one of my videos… i am making 0 profit from everything i do. Maybe in time i will get to a point where i get a partnership with a gaming station and then i will be allowed to get some income out of this.

I am not doing this for the views, i am doing this for the appreciation.
So… maybe if i get an official green light on this then yeah… like i said, i don’t want to abuse my sticky and start advertising.
PS: a few more videos are up already, new one coming out tomorrow.

I wouldn’t worry about people thinking that. There was enough positive response from your initial tutorials to warrant a sticky, I think you can feel confident adding your new vids to it will be viewed as helpful, so long as they too are necro tutorials.

Great job. Watched these and made a necro. Was kind of put off necros at first because i was so new to the game and they definitely seemed to be one of the more difficult classes to master. This simplified it for me, thanks.

Each time i try to edit my original post i get an error, i will try again later…
Two more necromancer tutorials i have made for a while now.

Guild Wars 2 – World vs World Necromancer POV tutorial

Guild Wars 2 – World vs World Necromancer POV example

Would you mind adding this thread to your list: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Autoattack-DPS-and-cast-times/first#post258301 ?
Oh and maybe change the name from “Necromancer tutorials” to “Necromancer knowledgebase and tutorials”

Fiesbert.9816:

Would you mind adding this thread to your list: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Autoattack-DPS-and-cast-times/first#post258301 ?
Oh and maybe change the name from “Necromancer tutorials” to “Necromancer knowledgebase and tutorials”

Have you taken into consideration bleeding duration for condition damage and critical strike chance and critical strike damage for bursting type/direct damage type abilities ?

Nemesis.8593:

Fiesbert.9816:

Would you mind adding this thread to your list: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Autoattack-DPS-and-cast-times/first#post258301 ?
Oh and maybe change the name from “Necromancer tutorials” to “Necromancer knowledgebase and tutorials”

Have you taken into consideration bleeding duration for condition damage and critical strike chance and critical strike damage for bursting type/direct damage type abilities ?

My tests were all untraited. I am about to correct the DPS for Scepter although its very tricky to calculate, since the number of conditions and the number of bleed stacks change it constantly, in addition with +20% bleed and +33% scepter condition duration the bleeds tick 8 times instead of 5. In addition condition damage can be removed before its fully applied, which happens rather frequently especially for Blood is Power, 30 seconds is an eternetiy in PvP.
Critical damage can be easyly added with the following formula:

DPS – (DPS * critchance) + (DPS*critchance*critDamage)

Then again, thats just on average. With some bad luck all crits go to weak attacks.

Nice guide, just one lil’ thing:
Can you please show us which utility skills and traits we should choose for each build?
So we can compare our build with yours.
I was trying a burst dmg build with axe/focus and dagger/horn, but i don’t really know which utilities i should go for.
Thank you!

Kensei.6197:

Nice guide, just one lil’ thing:
Can you please show us which utility skills and traits we should choose for each build?
So we can compare our build with yours.
I was trying a burst dmg build with axe/focus and dagger/horn, but i don’t really know which utilities i should go for.
Thank you!

I could tell you straight forward, but the point of my tutorial was for you guys to understand the build system well enough to be able to chose for yourselves.
Like i said… you want to burst, first get a burst weapon… how ? By not choosing a weapon that does “x amount of damage over a period of time”.
Read what that weapon can do… “vulnerability”, get utility skills that add vulnerability… such as well of suffering, anything that will help you burst more, survive more to burst more and at the same time don’t take anything that… again don’t take skills that “do x amount of damage over a period of time” or amplify those kind of damage forms in anyway… for example if you burst with axe… don’t take epidemic it will do nothing for you.
Find your own paths…
Burst: Axe – vulnerability – well of suffering – lich form (insane damage with the first skill)
Conditions: Same as before… find the right weapon… Scepter, right offhand weapon dagger; utility… blood is power (why ?… insane bleeding damage which “further increase”…), epidemic (why ?… all that insane bleeding… now spread that to all in an instant…) – plague form (why ?… you have a high amount of mobs all taking constant damage from you… gues what will happen… you will agro… then what ? they will charge you… then what ? you become a very tanking plague form and you can continue “sustaining” your battle)

This is how i wanted to teach you people to see things… Also the reason i did not simply “red” some builds… anyone can do that…
But to help people make their own choices, that’s something different…

I’m planning to try a Necro sometime in the future, and this is extremely helpful.

Thank you.

I’ve really learned a lot from your first guide about builds and game mechanics that are useful for any profession (specifically from your getting started tutorial). I enjoy playing GW2 with my sons, but don’t have much time for research. There have been many times when I have felt overwhelmed. Thanks for making this a little easier.

Must say good guide and good explanations but i will like to point out though, necro burst damage isnt much of a burst compared to other class’s. I have a 80 engineer, necro, thief, and guardian right now and Necro setup in full berserker set of gear compared to guard and thief have no wear close to a burst shot they have.

I’ve looked at your tutorials and just after I played an spvp match with ton of improvement, i’m engaging using the axe and strafing and only doing close up with dagger when I feel that it is safe. I’m not dying as much as before.

Thanks! I’ll leave a like on youtube.

gamefreak.5673:

Must say good guide and good explanations but i will like to point out though, necro burst damage isnt much of a burst compared to other class’s. I have a 80 engineer, necro, thief, and guardian right now and Necro setup in full berserker set of gear compared to guard and thief have no wear close to a burst shot they have.

Yes i know, and it is an issue… i may have a solution for it, soon
Thank you for the positive feedback.

Thank you all for your positive feedback, i’ve added a new tutorial to this thread… hope it will help you guys improve even further.

Very interesting and good videos Nemesis! Gave me a lot of pointers when I started to go into the PvP aspect of the game
I’m running a bunker build at the moment that I’ve fallen in love with, using staff and axe/focus and playing around with different wells and boon corruptions/condition removals. The main difference between your build and mine as far as I can see is that I got around 2k thoughness, while you got just below 1k! The blind well makes up for it though of course. I don’t have any crit on the other hand, think I got like 4% or something :P But it seems to be working for me!

+1!

If it says bad Link copy and paste instead

Thanks for your tips! I was thankfully heading in the right direction, but you gave me the extra pointers I needed.
Taken up hybrid, it’s awesome fun in group events where I’m in “scepter mode” bleeding pretty much everything in sight (so much loot!) and whilst solo’ing mobs changing to “axe mode” and burning mobs down in seconds.

I agree with a few that the Axe build needs some love, I’m seeing other professions burn down a mob in a couple of seconds and it takes me 3-4 and I have much higher DPS stats… but hey, the game is still young

Much love to the necro community!

I saw ur first video u posted in the thread the 30/30/0/10/0 build. Two questions, what weapons did u use, wlis this for pvp and is this build for burst damage, aoe or damage over time? Sorry I uad a hard time understanding the vid and I JUST started my necro, brand new

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