Guild Wars 2

Hello, I’m a mesmer who wants to try necro out on the side, so I’m very ignorant of your deathly and less-glamourous ways~

I was thinking of making a Necromancer Healer [No idea what sigils] that has a side of power and good bit of vitality. Was wondering if there was any precedent to a necro in the supportive role and wondering what the more experienced necros think. Is there a better build for such support out there?

Ah, and another thing I’ve been wondering: Does Plague Signet synergize with Unholy Martyr in that the signet draw conditions and give extra Life Force, or does it deactivate upon Death Shroud or just work independently? If you don’t know or it hasn’t been tested, please don’t shatter my hopes and dreams with presumptions~ Shatter them with hard, cold, necrotic facts~

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Best necro support I’ve seen in team fights is wellomancer but haven’t taken a look at that build in months

Necromancer wells can offer great support (protection, health siphoning, blinding, etc.). But if you’re looking for a sort of “healer” necro, I would highly recommend a Minion Master.

I understand that Minion Masters get a lot of heat from the community, but hear me out. Minions can make you nearly unkillable and provide DPS while you support your team/minions through excellent heals and regen. Necronex.com has a great guide to a healing/support MM here. Not to mention extensive explanations of weapons and uses for them.

While it’s true that the minion AI is buggy, there have been great improvements to Minions in the past year. For example, minions don’t aggro things on their own, minions don’t trigger traps or AoE-based effects (mostly), etc. You can practically move around as if they aren’t there now.

Hope that helps and doesn’t summon too many MM haters. xD

while necromancer can provide some support my best advice would be to look at the elementalist.

They can provide a ton of support & do some decent damage while doing it thanks to celestial might stacking builds.

@Nex: Thanks, I’ll take that into consideration~

@Ragnar: No, because that would be too simple~

Keep in mind that Vampiric Rituals only heals yourself, not allies.

If you’re going for "healing support " you take Transfusion as a trait. Don’t argue, just do it.

It’s difficult to use, but Renewing Blast gives the highest allied HP/second out of any profession in the game all on its own. In PvP, pop a Cleric’s amulet on and you’re healing significantly over 800 per life blast. The problem? It’s only going to heal an ally in WvW zerg fights or stack & smack fights where you don’t usually need the healing.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Keep in mind that Vampiric Rituals only heals yourself, not allies.

If you’re going for "healing support " you take Transfusion as a trait. Don’t argue, just do it.

It’s difficult to use, but Renewing Blast gives the highest allied HP/second out of any profession in the game all on its own. In PvP, pop a Cleric’s amulet on and you’re healing significantly over 800 per life blast. The problem? It’s only going to heal an ally in WvW zerg fights or stack & smack fights where you don’t usually need the healing.

Amen to this! Transfusion is probably the most potent direct ally heal in the game. Also, if you pop transfusion and run out of Death Shroud juice (if you know what I mean), then Life Siphon will continue to work and heal you in the process. But I wouldn’t put your money on timing that everytime. Overall, it’s one of the best team support traits that necros have imo. You don’t even have to hit anything to throw down this massive AoE heal.

Yeah don’t use this guys website lol. has 2 bad builds and thats about it.

I’ve always wanted to try something like this. Possibly some sort of full support build which focuses on high tough/vitality and taking the conditions from your allies so they can keep fighting without worrying about Condi clear. Possibly mix in Unholy Sanctuary too for some regen in DS so you can keep taking more condis from your team. The signet (can’t remember which one) and Unholy Martyr would be good for drawing conditions to your self. Having a dagger off hand on one set would allow you to transfer those conditions off of you as well. Probably some healing/tough/vitality gear would put this build up there with the greatest of tanks, but that’s all just theory coming off of the top of my head. I will probably try soemthing like this soon. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
Best Wishes, Oscuro of Kaineng

preliminary must knows

what are you going to use the build for: pve, wvw
what sort of damage do you want to do: condi vs power, zerk vs tank
something that i missed

NeXeD.3042:

Yeah don’t use this guys website lol. has 2 bad builds and thats about it.

Yeah, it’s a new website (about 2 weeks now). We’re working hard though! Thanks for the support.

Stand The Wall.6987:

preliminary must knows

what are you going to use the build for: pve, wvw
what sort of damage do you want to do: condi vs power, zerk vs tank
something that i missed

PvP. I’d probably need to find a host and act parasite on them. Probably power damage, though, since MH dagger is a power weapon that gives me some good survivability.

If for wvw I would say Renewing Blast, but for pvp…

Youre not going to like the answer, but try engi or ele. I say this because they are well rounded classes that can provide control, condition, power, heals and boons all in one. If necro had some way to give their party boons then things would be different.

Try to think of it more as a ‘support’, than a ‘healer’.
Lot of your sustainable heals are regen, that’ll get overwritten by people with less healing power lots.
Heals well, got a big duration nerf. Which is sad as it was our most awesome combo field.
Deathly Invigoration – is a very double edged sword, you need to run into the center of danger, and then put DS on CD. While a big base heal, when you go healing power, it’s got nothing on a guard’s dodge roll heals people. (That helps them avoid kitten ot take more) – can’t recommend it unless they get rid of DS CD on exit.

Anyway, as you can prob tell by our blood magic/siphons main heals is to DPS harder and make shorter fights.

We have some very nice utils for some boss fights/situations. But def try to think of us as ‘support’ bita dam, bit of counter what’s going on, instead of strait up healer.

I played and continue to play a Necro healer (again like others said its really support). For 2 years my best experience was with a Well build that looked like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjk00TbNNG1webihBR6UryMdtg/iKAA-TlyCABAcgCIUJof6GmUNkU0wk8FBgLlfbq6hQ7PMxTAIAACATciTciT84ECYxaA-w

It worked great, had huge self-healing capabilities and had very supportive debuff/buff play for allies, but the nerf of Well of Blood’s duration really hurt the above build’s purpose (sustained healing and condi/boon conversion). It no longer worked well in SPvP/WvW because again the WoB nerf made it too short to out sustain heavy pressure over time. It still works in PvE but it always had issues with overriding beneficial combo fields along with the problems of Well targeting, people running out of them etc..

However, the introduction of the second mechanic to Unholy Sanctuary and actions allowed in DS was an unexpected boon at the right time. Now I’m playing something like this with my Apothecary:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yn0ISlNWaDW3A7Nm4ZokOCCgmdyOIDo8H2BA-TlyCABAcgCIUJof6GmUNkU0wk8FBgLlfbq6hQ7PMxTAIAACATciTciT84ECYxaA-w

Yes I use Signet of Vampirism as a passive healing skill. Signet of Locust is my emergency/active healing skill instead. It just has to be timed when there’s 2-3 enemies and you’re not blinded/poisoned. I switch out Blood is Power for Corrupt Boon, Corrosive Cloud, Epidemic or Spectral Grasp depending on the situation. Like my former Well build, I also switch out Transfusion for Mark of Evasion for more bleed stacks/regen when in a more self-sustaining/offensive role. I still use Sigil of Geomancy/Renewal/Mark of Evasion roll if traited for a great weapon swap synergy every 10s.

Getting back to Unholy Sanctuary, being able to re-enter DS on 0 health in addition to already existing regen mechanic made DS support much more viable, since you can pop in and out of DS a lot more freely. This allowed overlooked Death Shroud builds based on healing/support to become actually viable, rather than falling on their faces because they couldn’t juggle lifeforce in near death situations safely enough.

Now even without Ritual of Protection and Vampiric Rituals, my self sustain over time is actually more than my old well build. Having a 290ish regen in DS while my lifeforce takes the full brunt from damage, gives me more net sustain than Wells ever did and makes DS feel like it truly should, especially against multiple enemies. Soul Marks, Vital Persistence and Signet of Undeath combo constantly keeps the Lifeforce coming and from draining too fast. Sometimes it feels I actually have positive LF gain in DS because it degens so slow lol.

I have a lot more mobility and no longer anchor myself in Wells. My sustain is not based on how well/bad enemies play and I don’t override friendly fields nearly as much (or at all). Applying condi damage is harder but I also hit harder over time due to Blood is Power, or with CPC due to its enemy damage and sustain mitigation with 12s+ of area poison/weakness/dark field blast weakness.

As for the direct ally healing aspect of this build (aka the main concern of this topic), Sigil of Renewal and Deathly Invigoration act very much like a lesser Guardian dodge healing. Just playing offensively by going through condi weapon swap and quick DS pops should net about 4-5K self and ally healing over 30 seconds (about three weapon swaps and 1-2 death shroud pops).

MoB regeneration is still important as ever and unchanged. Using condi setup naturally means you’re spamming MoB anyways for bleeds. It’s likely you will stack the majority of Regenation boon durations. Vampiric Trait is great when using Staff/Dagger/Scepter. Most importantly transfusion is more accessible than ever compared to my former Well Build and it’s worth a lot more for self-sustain due to DS investment. It doesn’t get much better than a 600 range, non-rooting, 4-5K quick PULSE (important!) area heal, while in damage mitigation form and regaining lots of lifeforce in a slowly depleting LF bar. It’s basically a group heal and another self heal.

The downside is that other than Transfusion and CPC I no longer have/use Well of Blood, Darkness, Power or Corruption to counter spike pressure. I’m basically a heavy necro sustain build that happens to spill out friendly group healing over time, soft cc/debuff and area condi spam, while also being a great revive medic with DS in heavy DPS situations (it can be godly how much damage I can take while reviving if I start with full health/LF). Regardless, I’m pretty happy for having my previously favourite build seriously nerfed.