Guild Wars 2

Very nice guide, well done.

Though where is our new king of dots: fear?

Hey Lopez, reading through your guide right now and I’m liking it. It’s well written and there is good info in there. Thanks for writing it up!

A few corrections/additions you may find useful:

Trident, Frozen Abyss: It applies one second of chill continually (maybe every half-second, not sure) to nearby enemies while charging it up, so by the time the spell is released there is a 4 or 5 second chill on enemies.

Reanimator: in the recent patch, the 30s cooldown was lowered, and it’s possible to have more than one out at a time now. There was another thread on here where someone said they regularly had 4 or 5 out at a time.

Weakness also reduces the endurance regeneration rate of enemies, so it’s really useful against thieves and other enemies in PvP or WvW. Though I guess nothing dodges in PvE so it’s probably not worth mentioning.

Again, thanks for the write up, it’s a great guide. I will probably use it in the future if I want to make a condition build (I’m power for now).

Something else: If I was running your build, I would switch out Dagger Mastery for Mark of Evasion. It seems that would help keep up regeneration on yourself, plus you can still stack bleeds, probably faster than casting Enfeebling Blood slightly sooner. Thoughts?

good post! goooood post!!!! WOOOHOOOO

I like the guide, its very lengthy

Awesome guide! Thanks a lot for this. It really helps explain a lot about the Necro I was not getting.

Underwater I usually use DS1 as my condition transfer. If allies have conditions, DS4, BiP, DS1 till stacks are gone.

Would you say Condition damage food > boon duration foods for hybrid might builds?

Well done. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

No stun break?Seriously?
I believe u should always have at least one stun breaker in PVE~Unless they make entering DS as a new stun break method~

Krisstina.7238:

No stun break?Seriously?
I believe u should always have at least one stun breaker in PVE~Unless they make entering DS as a new stun break method~

I don’t use a stun breaker in pve at all on any class in most situations. I think other utility is generally more useful.

One nitpick, both Well of Corruption and Well of Suffering have 45 second cooldowns (16 when traited). Well of Blood also has this cooldown. You incorrectly state that Suffering has a 1 minute cooldown.

Awesome. Just what I was looking for as my Necro rapidly approaches 80. Thank you.

Another tip that came to mind, have another set of weapons with sigil of corruption, get the 25 stacks and switch back to your main weapon set. This can net you 250 extra condition damage until you zone or are downed (something we should all aim for).

I personally try to balance and get some power via might stacking so as to not have only condition damage for when we fight structures, using life blast to gain both might and put vuln on the enemy. With the right runes, you can easily attain the 25 might stacks all by yourself which equals 875 power and condition damage.

If you have a might stacker in the group already (consistently), then may as well go with runes of undead.

I’m no expert but we learn new things everyday!

that guide….is surprisingly really, REALLY good, at least for any newcomer necromancer (like myself), everything is in tight order and explained at every detail, kudos indeed, should be proposed for a sticky or something

Krisstina.7238:

No stun break?Seriously?
I believe u should always have at least one stun breaker in PVE~Unless they make entering DS as a new stun break method~

The only time I use stun break is…maybe…Lupi phase 2. And even then I don’t always take it because I can just dodge. Btw OP, great guide, I’d disagree on somethings though; I absolutely worship weakening shroud and mark of evasion. Rolling into group of mobs, hitting DS, then doing DS2, come out and epidemic is just too awesome.

Using your setup, how many stacks of bleed can you keep up on a mob by yourself on average or highest if lucky? I’m guessing it would be great damage if you are the only condition stacker in the group or if the other one stacks mostly burning etc.

some one give this man a bottle of liquid karma.

I’ve gotten the fear trait to add a little over 200 DPS from just using the DS fear on cooldown, it triggers every second fear is up, with 30 points in the condi duration traitline, and the Necromancer runes you can get fear to last 2 seconds and tick twice.

I do have one question. I notice a lot of Necro builds use 20 death magic to improve marks and staff recharge times when staff is only used as a secondary weapon. Why is that? It is mainly for the toughness?

Very nice Lopez, thanks again for the great post. Should make a berzerkermancer next!
Outta curiosity what do you use for the legendary grawl shaman fight? Usually just BiP epidemic the boss everytime the lava elementals come.

One recommendation: use Carrion jewels in your accessories and jewelery. You end up netting more condition damage as well as some extra normal damage over Rabid crests (even after taking Rune of Undead into account). Carrion does have Exotic tier upgrade components and nets you more of what you’re looking for.

Lopez.7369:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

One recommendation: use Carrion jewels in your accessories and jewelery. You end up netting more condition damage as well as some extra normal damage over Rabid crests (even after taking Rune of Undead into account). Carrion does have Exotic tier upgrade components and nets you more of what you’re looking for.

That comes at the cost of precision, though. Precision is a pretty huge deal. It ensures Superior Sigil of the Earth is essentially a free 6-second bleed every 2 seconds.

Is 4% crit chance going to make or break it? That’s all you get from 6 Crests of the Rabid. Meanwhile, you get 25.8 more condition damage from Chrysocola jewels and harder hitting base damage and 900 hp from using the Chrysocola

@Lopez,

Very nice guide, couple of comments from a dungeon cond. necro

I am in fully agreement with your curses trait line, though I am not sure I agree with all 20 in death, would those points not be better spent in spite

Now I realise you put the comment LoL next to minions however despite the gleaming AI issues, in PvE worm and shade do awesome dps and are actually very viable (when traited), worm in particular for bosses. Flesh can be used as your perm. elite contributing even more dps due to +30%

I’m also disagreement on staff mastery, in my standard aoe rotation fast marks is simply not needed – its overkill and better suited for WvW

This would give you something like

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNArYWjMa96pbub07JCpCPDSx7lW0DiZskB;T8AAzypESJlSNlSKqmMNJay2krJZTrFGVMDA

Those last 10 points could be spent in spite for close to death (doesn’t apply to conditions) or minion health in death, however in fractals +30 most boss attacks will one shot pets (unless you exploit worm placement on certain bosses)

You will also notice I use reapers might (despite your criticisms) this is because my norm single target rotation goes something like

Scepter 2, dagger 4, BiP, dagger 4 (+epidemic is necessary), Scepter 3, Enter DS, Life transfer (if necessary), Lifeblast x 3, Exit, Repeat

Those lifeblasts (due to fury) tend to all crit in the region of 2k depending on conditions, surely this would exceed the equivalent scepter dmg while still granting you might to still buff your bleeds

Your post states that the necro would stay in DS for 5 lifeblasts – this is overkill 3 is the magic number due to fury. Furthermore because the revised build provides cond duration you can maintain bleed stacks better

I would also be interested in looking more into the might stacking rune build, we did some basic theory crafting in another thread pre-ascended I believe might stacking came out marginally on top provided you could maintain more than 16 stacks consistently which is easily achievable with certain sigils traits and runes(I will look for the thread later)

Also I think we need to encourage a discussion on Rampager gear to supplement rabid, I am in two minds over rabid gear (as someone who wears full rabid lol) I think we may be limiting ourselves to much in terms of power to buff our base attack

Also on a separate unrelated note try pairing wrath die with abyss on Arah – it looks bad kitten well at least on a female char :P

Cool guide once again, apologies for any inaccuracies, sp’s its late here

I do the above rotation of attacks, ecept before going into deathshroud, switch to staff to drop all my marks and while on cooldown lifeblast x3 and pop out to MoB one more time before switching to scepter again. Have the battle sigil so switching gives me some 30+ seconds of might.

Nice guide Lopez, am a dungeon cond nec myself too.

Savan.8495:

@Lopez,

Now I realise you put the comment LoL next to minions however despite the gleaming AI issues, in PvE worm and shade do awesome dps and are actually very viable (when traited), worm in particular for bosses. Flesh can be used as your perm. elite contributing even more dps due to +30%

I second Savan above about Wurm and Flesh golem, especially Wurm, which is stapled onto my bar.

Damage aside, Wurm provides the best stun breaker/ mobility the necro has, and imo one of the best stun breakers in the game. It is invaluable in certain fights such as Lupicus in Arah, and great for all boss fights.

Flesh golem is useful as it is also essentially a 40 second on demand line AOE knockdown/interupt. Also, Golem Charge is the best object buster for a cond necro, able to take down 3/4 of a burrow’s life in AC in one charge, provided the golem is right next to the burrow. I use it interchangeably with Plague depending on situation.

Also, i just wanna mention that Plague is the only means of a Nec getting Stability outside of traiting for DS stab. Once again, really useful for things like Lupi’s poison bubble or skipping mobs in dungeons

Nice guide! keep it up! Cond nec is amazing in PVE imo.

@Lopez

Thanks for your response and theorycraft, its made me rethink my original 10 spite trait. Also there were a couple of inaccuracies in my original post (tends to happen when I reply late at night)

I fully agree with the 30 points in curses
I would then tend to put 10-20 points into death for Greater Marks (very useful), Pet health (somewhat useful) and the passive boon duration
I would then place 20-30 points in spite for 30% pet dps for flesh (very useful when exploiting with worm and general flesh), close to death seomwhat useful – I am now considering using the first 10 points on signet mastery details to follow

I am not sure I agree with those 10 points in blood and the potential full 30 in death (provided you put the last 10 points there). This is because the power gain from toughness from 25 is somewhat redundant compared to spites passive line. Furthermore the mark cooldown still seems to me to be a little excessive given the nature of trash in dungeons meaning I rarely pop more than one epidemic and 1-2 round on marks – though you mey personally disagree

What is your current aoe rotation (may help me get a feel for the build you use)?

As it stands I think the “best” condition dungeons specs are either
http://tinyurl.com/btb79ww – 20/30/20 with pet surviveability + 10% boon duration
http://tinyurl.com/cl4owt9 – 30/30/10 – with close to death (doesnt apply to conditions)

I imagine the first utility slot could be freely interchangeable depending on the situation

For example trash and “easy” bosses – plague signet for some group utility and a little dps
Harder bosses such as volcano fractals 30+ ress signet
Bosses where worm can be used exploitative i.e. ice – worm

Also lets keep this discussion going its far more interesting than necros suck!

In response to your last post I haven’t quite found a use for poisen cloud, I think it needs a buff personally

In terms of utility loss from using worm I think that’s addressed in my proposed suggestion, also not sure about you but I find corrupt boon is only applicable to dredge fractal and even then its pretty meh

Also any plans to write up a Power build guide? I have a couple of ideas but as it stands I’m just too lazy to bother formulating them into a coherent guide

Good to see people helping the community

Could also theorycraft with a more hybrid setup, putting some toughness into power. Once again great guide.

When do you change to staff in single target fights?

Lopez.7369:

@Savan:
Like I said in my guide, a lot of people overlook Corrosive Poison Cloud because they severely underestimate weakness. Way too many people don’t realize that it effectively lowers boss damage by 12.5 to 25 percent, depending on the boss’s critical hit chance.

Corrosive cloud, Dagger 4 to send your self-weakness to the target combined with fury (to reduce the weakness effect on yourself), then dagger 5 and you have around 26 seconds of weakness on the target per each 32seconds. You can reach permanent weakness on the target with more condition duration (just need +40%).

So yeah, the cloud is amazing for its purpose.

I like this guide. I leveled as a MM and once I got to 80 I knew I would have to play something else for dungeons and pvp and this hit the mark for information.

Thank you.

As someone who has loved condition-mancing from day one I wanted to say thanks for a guide well done. I always wondered about the math behind the fun and how to make the most out of my favorite play style and now I know.

As a necro interested in end game I would love it if you added fractal/boss strategies. There’s nothing worse than being the noob who doesn’t use the skills that his group was depending on him for.

All in all keep up the good work. Glad to find a guide that isn’t "Stack moar bleeds!! Be op!!! – guide written by A. Warr Ior

Looking forward to these, as I am only level 37 with my necro right now, those will come in handy when I start running the FotM.

Very nice guide! I’ve just made a necromancer the other day and am finding it to be very different than what I’m used to and am having a blast, even if there are other considerations I’ve never paid much attention to (condition caps, for example).

First, though, I found a tiny typo, where the bolded letter should probably be ‘VII’ instead:

I also had a question regarding Condition Duration and the Bleed Cap! In your guide you say:

The problem with condition duration is the bleed cap. Even if the condition necromancer is the only condition-focused party member, other party members can and normally will stack accidental bleeds on their own just by doing their normal rotations.

Second, if Epidemic is used to double bleeds on a focus target — something that can be done a lot — then the bleed cap can be reached without any other party members stacking bleeds.

Bleeds lasting longer doesn’t mean much if the extra duration just makes it harder to stack another bleed, so it’s better to maximize the damage from possible bleeds on a target instead.

You’ll have to forgive me for any naivety, I’m quite new to the Necromancer and havn’t had a chance to play a high level one yet! However, I think the last part of the quote is what confuses me a little bit. Intuitively, it would seem as though I want to try to keep as many bleeds up as possible and that anything less (or more) than 25 would be suboptimal.

Given this, wouldn’t we want to aim for something that keeps as many bleeds as possible on the target? This is purely from the damage perspective, mind you. I can certainly see the argument that Spite traits don’t generally benefit condition necromancers and that the utility gained by Death/Blood magic is substantial. It’s mostly that you seem to want to steer away from increasing stacks of bleeds and I’m curious if there’s something I’m missing there (like, perhaps, weird behaviour at the Bleed Cap).

Thanks!

What he is saying that we apply so many new bleeds, that if we get to the cap with long duration bleeds then we don’t get to apply anymore bleeds and as bleeds are the major source of our damage, we need to be able to keep applying new one. Thus if we focus on maximizing condition damage first and foremost we will see the most benefits as we really don’t have many problems reaching the bleed cap on stacks even without longer durations.

Ah, good deal. I suspected that’s what it was, but it probably wasn’t the clearest. Like I said, I’m new to my low level Necromancer and currently have trouble getting to 10 bleeds by myself.

I’d actually say your explanation above would be perfect, it really clears it up! Thanks guys.

I can definitely appreciate that! It’s a really enjoyable guide to go through though, very easy to pick up even for someone relatively new to a Necromancer.

Also, probably one of the cutest necromancers I think I’ve seen!

Update this one, I have it bookmarked!

After reading this initially it made me roll a necro, can’t wait untill endgame now to see some of this in action, have also shown the thread to a few friends and lots of them now are considering making necro’s in the future.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on using Ralena and Vassar’s bands for Ascended rings instead of Oroborous Loop and Khilbron’s Phylactry? You get the same amount of condition damage and toughness from both pairs, but you trade off 100 precision for 1k health (which with master tuning crystal translates to 40 more condition damage)

Thanks for the great guide Lopez. You’re not the Lopez from arenajunkies are ya? Anyway i’ve been playing a power Necro focusing on a Might build for a while now, and I feel like I wasn’t using the Necro to it’s full potential. I used to run Well of Blood exclusively but had recently made the switch to Consume Conditions and found it easier to keep my health up. In dungeons/fractals do you use Well of Blood (w/ reduced cd + protection) more often than Consume Conditions? I’m assuming it mostly depends on the encounter, and whether it has loads of conditions going out or not.

thanks for the guide found some usefull info

finally got back to the forums, been reading up on things ive missed since my pc gaming rig died but glad to see a another guide for condition necros around but i still like Nemesis.8593 guide at the top. More then likely its because i first used that as a reference to try to figure out the necro since my first build just was not cutting. So again nice guide and keep it up.

I wish pets were better :[

A trick I discovered recently that will make Dark Path better for condition necros. If you time your dodge with the impact of the projectile, you will not be teleported.

Is there any point even make full condition necromancer because it’s so hard to get Prec, tough, cond dmg weapons and trinkets? I don’t do dungeons and i don’t have gold to buy any overpriced “named” exotic.

Hi, Lopez – fancy meeting you here.

Used to play with you back in 2004 on Mannoroth when you were on your undead mage and I was on my undead rogue, Grep. Funny that now in 2012 we’re both maining necromancers.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that I don’t agree with your disregard for Terror strictly on a mathematical basis. It’s guaranteed burst that can only be mitigated with stun-breaks. The 4.5*level base coefficient and the .30 condition damage coefficient is huge.

Reaper’s Protection, Doom, and Reaper’s Mark are pretty much guaranteed to go off, and you are well aware that with Path of Midnight and Master of Terror , shroud-dancing to flick out Doom multiple times in one fight is key to victory against skilled mesmers and thieves. With big dick pizza (40% duration) and a master tuning crystal, Terror ticks approach 2k. Before the terror buff, I’d lose some 1v1’s against mesmers; now I don’t lose any 1v1’s. However, I do stalemate against a few thieves that run a good amount of +healing and with shadow’s embrace / shadow’s rejuvenation , they’re extremely hardy (and a huge waste of time).

Even though I started out with a nitpick, your guide is well-written and I agree with most of it. In WvW, I’ve been running Corrupt Boon/Epidemic/Spectral Walk for ages. The only reason I haven’t switched to Locust is because mid-air cliffjump jukes with spectral return still fool people on a daily basis and I get thief skull feared like 10x a day, so I stun-break that. I’m fine with shrouding Basilisk Venom and dooming the thief out of 1-spam after they’ve landed CnD/Steal/Backstab, but I’m not too fond of eating 4 second fears right after said burst. If I’m 1v1’ing a lot (jumping puzzle battles), I actually dump Epidemic and replace it with Locust for the combat mobility advantage that you mentioned.

Edit in regards to:

Yeah, a lot of people wish pets were better. It’s kind of weird not a single necromancer pet bleeds targets.

Jagged Horrors apply bleed each time they bite someone ! Ironically, the only on demand way to get said bleeding pets are via our power-based elite, lich form (4-skill: Mark of Horror ). Then, if you get one from reanimator, you’re minion capped at 6. Which isn’t really a problem, since popping Lich form will despawn all your current minions, anyway.

@Lopez

Great guild, well written and laid out. Thank you so much, I will now be returning to my Necro since my interest in WoW is dying down.

ps – Will you be returning to WoW to try out MOP?

Let me just thank you for this guide. I’ve fallen in love playing with a Necromancer after trying almost every class since BWE’s and your guide has really helped me nail down a groove for the class. I truly enjoy it, thank’s so much!

Lopez,
I have a question. In the picture of your build in your guild I see you have a Condition dmg of 1679 and I can’t for the life of me figure out how you did that as mine is only 1598.

I have HotW armor (Prec/Tough/Cond), I have a complete set of superior rune of the undead, my weapons have the same stats as you (prec/tough/cond 64/64/90). and my spec is 30/30/0/10/0. You have 20 points in Death, which would give you an extra 200 toughness which would add (200*.05)=10 more condition points (via rune of the undead).

You mentioned Cond/Prec/Tough armor, which no longer exists. It looks like you have Arah armor and If you look on the wiki it shows arah with this type, but when you go to the vendor it is all the same (Prec/Tough/Cond). Same for Khilbron. Add to this I have exquisite Chrysocola jewels in my 3 non-fractal pieces (I have endless quiver and both pieces you have). This gives me an additional 25 condition over your 20 for rabid and although you gain 45 toughness, this won’t even make up the difference I get from the Chrysocola (15 over 3 pieces).

Am I missing something?

He said “Condition damage/Precision/Toughness” because Condition damage is the primary stat.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

He said “Condition damage/Precision/Toughness” because Condition damage is the primary stat.

I understand that, but I cannot find that specific type of armor anywhere. I wanted to know where they found it, since the armor seems to be Arah, but if you go to the vendor the only combination of the above attributes is Prec/Tough/Cond.

I can’t find that gear. I went to the vendor in LA (south section) and there is no condition/prec/toughness armor that I can find. Could you screen shot it? I have both toughness/condition rings (same as yours) and the endless quiver backpack.