Guild Wars 2

Necro is my last alt and I’m utterly clueless. What builds are good, which are not? Any must have skills or traits? What armor stats, cond prec toughness?

Typically I run dungeons and WvW and want to be able to blow stuff up (good damage).

Most of my toons run zerkers, so I was thinking a condition build would fun. Marks + siphoning also caught my eye, are those viable/strong?

Thanks to Nemesis.8593…

Take a look:

Guild Wars 2 – Witness my power (build) by Iamoneandiamlegion/Nemesis.8593
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n97xhVrhTL0

The build is fully explained here:

Guild Wars 2 – The definition of glass cannon (necromancer bursting tutorial)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqLt4dD93pU&list=PLsfTAd-qhsRxTk0WuXFF1I7qteSilnjcf&index=11

Necromancers have:
Condition builds
Power builds
Hybrid builds
Minion builds

There are plenty of specific builds that you can use, but if you are brand new to it I suggest looking through Nemesis’ guides. He has a lot of good builds that you can adapt yourself.

Yes, go to Nemesis channel and look at the guides, he has 4 guides of the main builts for a Necromancer: power glass cannon, conditionmancer, hybrid build, and a little guide for MM, but waiting for a better one.

There is no OP build for Necromancer. Any other class going full glass cannon does more than a Necromancer.

Ruufio.1496:

There is no OP build for Necromancer. Educate yourselves people. Any other class going full glass cannon does more than a Necromancer.

Don’t think so, glass cannon power-necro is so powerfull, and like another clases on their glass cannon don’t contribute with group member. It’s underrated.

I’m able to hit over 5k on #1 DS spam and over 10-12k crit with #2 axe. Those numbers don’t go so far from another glass cannon builds.

Airdrie.1706:

Ruufio.1496:

There is no OP build for Necromancer. Educate yourselves people. Any other class going full glass cannon does more than a Necromancer.

Don’t think so, glass cannon power-necro is so powerfull, and like another clases on their glass cannon don’t contribute with group member. It’s underrated.

I’m able to hit over 5k on #1 DS spam and over 10-12k crit with #2 axe. Those numbers don’t go so far from another glass cannon builds.

Well that’s single target. With my warrior I hit for 5k AoE with axe auto. That’s why it’s far behind..
Would love better AoE for necro since I think it’s the most fun class to play.

Except glass cannon warriors drop like rocks. Glass cannon necros have equal HP to a warrior, with a full other life bar to use, and better control. Also DS 1 can be AoE as well with one trait.

Not really. Endure pain and shield offhand(With omnom nerfed axe offhand is not as good anymore) is 8 seconds without taking damage.

If you think we do the most damage with glass cannon you need to go play some other characters. I’m not saying our damage is bad, but when you’ve seen the numbers other classes can do without being full Berserker, it’s kind of sad.

A full Berserker Warrior does more damage, and has a higher effective health, and with utilities like Ignore pain, can survive much longer.

Bhawb.7408:

Except glass cannon warriors drop like rocks. Glass cannon necros have equal HP to a warrior, with a full other life bar to use, and better control. Also DS 1 can be AoE as well with one trait.

They really don’t drop like rocks, and they are using heavy armor so have the same HP with higher defense. Since they can actually take utilites for you know…. utility… instead of damage supplements, they can take quite a few hits.

DS 1 as AOE is horrible by comparison to any cleaving melee weapon. If mobs are shifiting position even slightly, they are going to fail to line up. I would take a180 degree arc in front of me over a small maybe 20 degree spread in a linear projectile.

Comparing necro zerker dps to warrior zerker dps is a losing battle. It isn’t even close, even if you ignore the aoe buffs they bring that we don’t.

Overall effectivness of the class (including debuffs/chills/etc) you can make an argument. But not direct damage.

Straight DPS isn’t comparable, but glass cannon warriors are rarely seen in tPvP for a reason; their cleave relies on enemies grouping in a very small area, and standing absolutely still. This is why they are amazing in PvE (mobs are stupid and will happily eat 100b all day) and rarely seen in PvP (you need to unbind WASD to be unable to kite a warrior).

As you said, straight DPS warriors are amazing, it is why they are used for speed runs, but in 1v1 effectiveness they are crap, which is why they aren’t a good small-scale PvP class.

Dagger/Dagger elementalist

EzRemake.1860:

If you think we do the most damage with glass cannon you need to go play some other characters. I’m not saying our damage is bad, but when you’ve seen the numbers other classes can do without being full Berserker, it’s kind of sad.

A full Berserker Warrior does more damage, and has a higher effective health, and with utilities like Ignore pain, can survive much longer.

Sorry but warriors are a joke in pvp. They have some of the worst survivability even with endure pain.

With regards to Necro AoE. Use a power/crit well bombing build and people will melt.

Several things

#1. Warriors are a joke in pvp. This is no joke. Mesmers are also not a joke in pvp. This is also not a joke.
#2. Glass necro and d/d ele dps cannot compare to warrior dps. Hence 4war1mes, and hence me rolling a warrior.
#3. Glass necro is noticeably more survivable than glass war with plague and ds, but glass war isn’t exactly not survivable either. Base 2.23k armor, 20k hp with full zerker.
#4. Wells are powerful
#5. #5

People here have made a few good points. The difference is that ArenaNet didn’t want to make the same class twice, and it’s also the right decision.

Let me explain… necromancer even as a glass cannon can range, therefor takes less risk, and since it has death shroud, even less risk. Warriors are forced to go into melee for maximum effectiveness, and even though agro is chaotic at the moment, cleaving mobs may result in agro-ing many mobs witch will result in you getting focus slapped and fell into the ground.

Secondly necromancers can do damage while they approach a target, the switch to dagger 1 and do a very high type of direct damage. The warriors waste time when going from target to target. You may think that doesn’t matter much, and sadly the game in it’s current state… makes that not matter that much, but it still does.

So what this does is… even though warrior have higher direct damage when charging into something (so it feels like a warrior), the necromancer becomes it’s equal by a few ways that are more subtle, not in the same way. It closes some gaps… it stays at range… it does that damage more often and safe… and most importantly, even in full glass cannon it generates far more vulnerability on the target for the warrior then any other class except engineer.

Next time people say… what do you want in your team, a warrior or necromancer ?…
Everyone will go: warrior of course… that’s a no brainer…

Well think about it… The necromancer has about 15% lower direct overall damage then the warrior (it would be even lower but necromancers can hit other targets easier) but !… they also increase the damage of the warrior for 15%. So in truth… are they not equal ?

Warrior damage = best vs necromancer damage = 80% of warrior’s damage + 15% increase overall party effectiveness in terms of direct damage. I call this BALANCE.

ps: don’t talk about power AoE and cleave damage to a necromancer, that can go condition build at any time and pump out INSANE sustained AoE damage. Every 12 seconds you go up to 20000 DPS (YES… damage per second) for a few seconds in a radius of 600. So there you have it.

ps: don’t talk about power AoE and cleave damage to a necromancer, that can go condition build at any time and pump out INSANE sustained AoE damage. Every 12 seconds you go up to 20000 DPS (YES… damage per second) for a few seconds in a radius of 600. So there you have it.

Condition builds on Necro are very potent, even for single target. On my Necro i have no problems getting to 2.5k-3k single target dps and if i realy wan too and keep an eye on my rotations i can boost it to nearly 5k dps for several seconds(above that with buffs from aprty members). That all while having some aoe in there by default. Problem is: this game hates conditions. You can’t have 2 classes that deal condition damage in one team without harming individual dps(yes i can get to 25 stacks on my own, and yes, nearly every class will inflict some bleedings if they want to or not) and structures just laugh at conditions.

No build is op, and every one takes time to adjust and get decent results with. This is a class that is deadly when supporting team fights, not to have a solo insta-gib 10 second deathmatch.

Blackmoa.3186:

You can’t have 2 classes that deal condition damage in one team without harming individual dps(yes i can get to 25 stacks on my own, and yes, nearly every class will inflict some bleedings if they want to or not) and structures just laugh at conditions.

Necromancers are one of the only classes that can work with another full condition build, because you can effectively go hybrid, and just epidemic their target every 12 or 15 seconds. It will do insane AoE, and you aren’t pushing their conditions off.

The key is that regardless of what you go with, the Necro is the most versatile class we have. There is no premium damage build such as with warriors, theives, guardians, mesmers, elementalist, engineer, or ranger. We have the ability to change our builds from power to conditions to hybrid to crit condition to minions without seeing a drop in our damage output.

Warriors see significant drops if they don’t spec for GS. Mesmers see huge drops of damage outside of Shatter builds, and we can continue on.

Bas.7406:

The key is that regardless of what you go with, the Necro is the most versatile class we have. There is no premium damage build such as with warriors, theives, guardians, mesmers, elementalist, engineer, or ranger. We have the ability to change our builds from power to conditions to hybrid to crit condition to minions without seeing a drop in our damage output.

Warriors see significant drops if they don’t spec for GS. Mesmers see huge drops of damage outside of Shatter builds, and we can continue on.

Versatile at what? Ways of doing damage? Pretty sure if we’re going for how versatile a profession can be at combo field/finishers…necromancer comes dead last.

Zinwrath.2049:

Versatile at what? Ways of doing damage? Pretty sure if we’re going for how versatile a profession can be at combo field/finishers…necromancer comes dead last.

If you read my statement, than that’s what I was talking about. There are a few classes that have really bad field/Finishers. I think there is one build out there for either engineer or another class that has zero finishers and fields.

I am talking about the fact that I can run a multitude of different damage specs (this is why I mentioned specific class builds) and see no drop off. Almost every other class sees a noticeable drop in damage if they spec out of the premium build.

Definitely check out Nemesis’ guides. I use his builds, and I am never disappointed.