Guild Wars 2

Is it okay to play regular necromancer now in PvP? Personally reaper is fun in PvE but I feel that it would be too slow for PvP use and lack of range would limit it. Is this true though?
I guess I should try it out first before I cast judgement but I want some insight from others who transitioned from necro to reaper and who you decided to stick with in PvP and reasons why.

Reaper is superior in almost every single way compared to basic necro. I can’t think of a reason why anyone would/should play basic necro if they own HoT and are able to get elite specializations. Sure shroud takes some time to get used to but once you do you won’t switch back ever.

Base necro does only a few things better than reaper, and those things tend to not be really fun.

For example base necromancer makes a better bunker because you can take death magic, unholy martyr (from blood) and soul reaping all in the same line to turtle a point with maximum power, and since the blighter’s boon nerf, you don’t get any more extra pointholding power.

Base necro also plays with well builds a bit easier since it actually has room to take blood magic, but those builds suck anyway so I digress.

Reaper does pretty much every other build archetype better, especially condi, while power and celestial are only marginally improved due to stability and better cleave.

Also worth noting is that non-full condi reaper builds in this meta are worse 1v1ers compared to base necromancer builds pre-HoT since reaper shroud is very vulnerable to be kited, yet finds much better use in providing teamfight cleave and sustain and control.

Core Necromancer has much easier time vs. Condition Revenants (since you can take Curses instead of Reaper and bring second passive guaranteed plague sig + more boon corruption) and I think that would be it.

You really should go with Reaper in PvP, there’s really no reason to go base necro anymore if you want to be competitive. Condi if you want more ranged options, Power if you want to break diamond skin, Cele signet if you want to be competitive against some of the more popular builds in PvP today.

Anyways just go reaper, once you get used to it you won’t ever look back.

The only thing really holding base necro behind the reaper is the stability in RS. Lack of stability would make the reaper almost objectively worse except for condition DPS builds; base power necro already does substantially better burst damage with ranged pressure while maintaining better defenses across the board in terms of the capacity to take and deal with hits.

Due to the amount of CC in the game right now, on overpowered specs, though, base necro has troubles enough to warrant a lot of attention to the reaper having high stability uptime and lots of cleave.

Rym.1469:

Core Necromancer has much easier time vs. Condition Revenants (since you can take Curses instead of Reaper and bring second passive guaranteed plague sig + more boon corruption) and I think that would be it.

With the current mechanics on boon corruption (nerfed) and rev mallyx’s resistance uptime I doubt it would be any more usefull.

Exos.3472:

Rym.1469:

Core Necromancer has much easier time vs. Condition Revenants (since you can take Curses instead of Reaper and bring second passive guaranteed plague sig + more boon corruption) and I think that would be it.

With the current mechanics on boon corruption (nerfed) and rev mallyx’s resistance uptime I doubt it would be any more usefull.

I’m not sure about that because a curse necromancer removes 6 extra boons every 24 seconds. The extra pressure removal from the signet is fantastic as well.