Guild Wars 2

I loved playing Necro in GW1 ankitten ow recreating my old guy! I’m looking for a WvW zerg build mainly conditions oriented (unless power is the way to go).

I heard some awesome stuff about Epidemic! I hope you guys can get me sorted about traits, gear stats and utilities and whatnot!

Ty in advance!

I’m not the resident expert at necro, but power is the way to go for zergs. Here’s a build I’ve used that works pretty well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAW3djMaV6haaa87JgJFdvdkiiHm6x6sfOA-jkxAYfB5kXR0YbDFRjVXjpcFkVxJFA-w

There are basically two roles to decide between; roaming or zerg/artillary. The better builds perform best for one of those tasks and worst for the other. Minion master, Fear/terror/spectral, and imilar variants are for roaming. Marks and wells are generally for zerg support and siege. The latter option is largely indefinsible but can litterally define the battle line and does so beter than an Ele but you will need to hang back and pay close attention to the flow. Roaming alone or in a small group can be satisfying because you get to achieve your own victories but your skills will be of minor utility in a zerg outside of Flesh Golem’s ram.

Rabid/Dire set
30/20/0/0/20
Corruption, Earth/Torment sigils
Staff + Sceptre/Dagger
Utilities: Consume Conditions and some combination of Signet of Spite, Signet of the Locust, Spectral Grasp, Corrupt Boon, Well of Power, Well of Corruption

Epidemic is great in theory but in half the situations you want to get it off you won’t be able to.

I never use Epi in WvW. Conditions do not stay on real players for very long. Epi is best used on boss battles in PvE where there are lot of trash mobs. Without enough targets within the AoE, and a single target both tough enough and dumb enough to allow a number of conditions to build up, Epi is largely useless.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQNBHhZakjmibbpxmG+bUEyMu2zmZ4txBVw9RFGGA-zECBoiCiEGBiIAMzsIasVNFRjVVDQbDTFbR1BAQAYo7co7coDtUAjqMC-w

Here’s what I run. Very successful, deals huge damage and is very survivable when in plague. You need a good guild group to make this build come alive.

Anchoku.8142:

I never use Epi in WvW. Conditions do not stay on real players for very long. Epi is best used on boss battles in PvE where there are lot of trash mobs. Without enough targets within the AoE, and a single target both tough enough and dumb enough to allow a number of conditions to build up, Epi is largely useless.

My heart hurt reading this….

People think about epidemic the wrong way. It is more of a multiplier that can be used at variable stages and degrees of success, but should never be held waiting for an optimal target.

Always reminds me of Rogues in WoW, and how they said they could never use their cooldowns because they were saving them for a rainy day, and then just never ended up using them. Don’t save epidemic for a rainy day, just go ahead and use it when you know it will land, even with a light bleed stack.

The range of what Epi will hit from the center target is massive compared to other AOE skills, and it can have a battle-turning effect when it is great… but even when it isn’t great, it is still pretty good.

Try to place a few strong conditions and epidemic from a fear. Target something that won’t break the fear, or go immune, and it works 80% of the time. 20% of the time someone will clear or break target for the feared guy, but that is why you pick something not in the middle of a big group.

An aoe 5 bleeds, chill, poison, and 1 second fear is still a really strong effect for something on a 15 second cooldown, using skills that have a cooldown about that long. Epidemic will only fail most of the time if you just throw it at targets that are not crowd controlled to begin with.

Now if you are talking hardcore 80v80 style stuff, yeah, just go power. But anything less than 30-40 can be done with conditions, it just takes finesse.

I know what you are saying and agree Epi can be really powerful but, if I am building for AoE conditions, I prefer wells over corruption. Well of Power has a lot of utility, as does Suffering, Corruption, and even Blood but doing that sort of precludes traiting corruption utilities because I am out of slots.

I do like running a corruption build, too, though, just not in WvW as much as in PvE, especially for specific dungeons and events. With corruption, I have (at least until next week) a nice set of +60% might duration armor that I would combine with BiP along with Epidemic in PvE, or less frequently Corrosive Poison Cloud or Corrupt Boon. I have difficulty keeping a target in WvW zerg and siege after conditioning him or her and find wells traited for reduced CD and targeting are more reliable. The opportunity cost in trait points is high, though.

Typically, I end up with a mix of utility types and need to use a partial build to support two, or more, functions. For example, running in the Orr circuit on NSP, I have been using a non-optimal staff-axe/wh SotL, WoB, WoS, WoP, Lich-build with traited axe, GM+SM staff, and RM+FR wells leaving Transfusion as Blood Magic’s Adept for another AoE heal, and Spite’s Spiteful Removal to help clear conditions. The build has below average dps, even for a Necro, but it is designed to help keep the NPCs alive while tagging everything available and helping to keep other players from getting downed. I switch armor depending on the target but the traits are locked. It will be interesting being able to easily retrait out of combat and, I think, I may be recycling armor, too.