Guild Wars 2

I’ve been roaming a lot on my necro the last few months, always on a condi build. I started out on a somewhat “Old School” build, 0/30/0/10/30 but soon came to embrace the cookie cutter 30/20/0/0/20 (sometimes 30/30/0/0/10) But found it to be extremely faceroll unless you were fighting outnumbered. I also dabbled with Marin’s Mobile necro build which was really fun but I lacked the pressure I needed when I came across ridiculous no skill better more skillful builds, or outnumbered fights.

It seemed I needed to fight fire with duuhmfire, so I dropped necro for a while and moved onto warrior and guardian. Unsurprisingly, most terrormancers I came across while roaming my other characters relied on their AA spam too much and not their other skills to survive encounters so they were pretty much guaranteed kills. However I soon came across something out from myth and legend, a roaming powermancer, and I was turned into a loot bag pretty easily. It was nice to see that, so it got me thinking if anyone plays anything outside of the cookie cutter condi king (so close) it would be interesting to see those builds and how they play out.

reign.2369:

I’ve been roaming a lot on my necro the last few months, always on a condi build. I started out on a somewhat “Old School” build, 0/30/0/10/30 but soon came to embrace the cookie cutter 30/20/0/0/20 (sometimes 30/30/0/0/10) But found it to be extremely faceroll unless you were fighting outnumbered. I also dabbled with Marin’s Mobile necro build which was really fun but I lacked the pressure I needed when I came across ridiculous no skill better more skillful builds, or outnumbered fights.

It seemed I needed to fight fire with duuhmfire, so I dropped necro for a while and moved onto warrior and guardian. Unsurprisingly, most terrormancers I came across while roaming my other characters relied on their AA spam too much and not their other skills to survive encounters so they were pretty much guaranteed kills. However I soon came across something out from myth and legend, a roaming powermancer, and I was turned into a loot bag pretty easily. It was nice to see that, so it got me thinking if anyone plays anything outside of the cookie cutter condi king (so close) it would be interesting to see those builds and how they play out.

I don’t know many that solo roam with power. I know quite a few that roam in power “groups”. It just much more difficult to roam power in general, so you won’t see many people doing it.

(Pertaining to solo roaming)
1. It is hopeless if you are outnumbered even skill level, because you lack the surprise punch of epidemic.

2. To attain the appropriate burst damage to drop certain glassy heavy regen builds (some guardians, most thieves, most mesmers), you have to run glassy yourself, meaning you have a very strong chance of getting exploded.

3. If you run tanky enough to take hits and then also run power, your damage is too low to take down any bunker or regen builds at all.

If you can guarantee even number fights it works perfectly fine. But the only time I ever see powermancer turn the fight in an outnumbered situations is if they end up in lich form, with zerker armor, and don’t get focused, which is not common.

Rennoko.5731:

I don’t know many that solo roam with power. I know quite a few that roam in power “groups”. It just much more difficult to roam power in general, so you won’t see many people doing it.

(Pertaining to solo roaming)
1. It is hopeless if you are outnumbered even skill level, because you lack the surprise punch of epidemic.

2. To attain the appropriate burst damage to drop certain glassy heavy regen builds (some guardians, most thieves, most mesmers), you have to run glassy yourself, meaning you have a very strong chance of getting exploded.

3. If you run tanky enough to take hits and then also run power, your damage is too low to take down any bunker or regen builds at all.

If you can guarantee even number fights it works perfectly fine. But the only time I ever see powermancer turn the fight in an outnumbered situations is if they end up in lich form, with zerker armor, and don’t get focused, which is not common.

Yeah, I know that condi is a lot more viable, and fully agree it’s not the best idea to go full glass on the walking target class. I’m just interested to hear from the people who choose that path and how they find it and also to see what people are running.

Considering you talk about roaming solo and 1v1, 1v2 situations, yes, powermancer is viable in here. It’s not that easy to play, classes with high blind/weakness/block/protection/evade uptime are your nightmares and therafore good dps Guardian might be your biggest nemesis (exluding PU Mesmers which are however broken and faceroll anyone in any numbers) which is not comon for condimancers at all.
There’s a thread going on about power roaming specs on this subforum atm, on 1st or 2nd page, about “deathshroud roaming” or something like that. I’d advice to check that and maybe pick one of those.

If you want to roam with power and solo, IMO there are two ways. You either go ol’power dagger build, with mostly PVT or pick one of the Deathshroud variation. These require serious timing, kiting and knowledge of gameplay to be effective with and as Rennoko said, are weak against more opponents since both their damage and defense come from LF generation and Deathshroud.

It’s also not said that hybrids are not viable.
My suggestion would be to either try picking traits and making build by yourself, because this way you’ll know the purpose, strenghts and weaknesses. Or pick one of suggested builds and modify it. There’s no “meta” when it comes to powermancer builds

Hey,
i’d advice you to check the thread below it might have the information you are looking for. You might stumble upon a build link I posted and maybe you’ll like it^^
In fact there are several builds in that thread including the (very similar) build I referred to in that post.
Keep in mind those builds “abuse” 100% critchance and 100+% crit damage while in DS to deal damage. While supereffective (currently) in my opinion, I’d strongly advice to wait for more info regarding the upcoming critdamage “change” which might render said builds utterly useless in the end

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/death-shroud-build-for-roaming/first#post3517469

Rennoko.5731:

I don’t know many that solo roam with power. I know quite a few that roam in power “groups”. It just much more difficult to roam power in general, so you won’t see many people doing it.

Oh Rennoko that just wounds me You’ll hurt my feelings if you think I zerg it up. :P

But basically what everyone is saying right now is true it is extremely difficult to roam on a Power Necro you won’t win many fights and I think it is a style for a strange type of player one looking for fights not victories.

If I have to be honest with you most of my wins on this build have come from “Ambush” like tactics like pretending I haven’t noticed the thief following me, going round a corner and summoning my Golem then jumping out on him, Or by being around NPC’s while in the fight so I can draw lifeforce from them when they die and use them to rally if needed.

Also keep in mind what Pottross has said the mechanics behind Critical damage will soon change and that may affect us a lot we just don’t know right now.

Either way this is the build I am currently using with the exact runes, armor, traits, ect. (Yes I only have 2 Ascended pieces sue me :P and I believe it is a very common variation of the Power/Shroud roamer.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAoYWjMah7Vaeb07JEoHvHu4MRFGGqHrj78hA-j0CBYLERjkFAk3YEIRkKBJBqIasFOFRjV7ATdSpW5KQeDLrGA-w

(We are also extremely good under water but that will be for another day.)

ChapDev.7650:

Rennoko.5731:

I don’t know many that solo roam with power. I know quite a few that roam in power “groups”. It just much more difficult to roam power in general, so you won’t see many people doing it.

Oh Rennoko that just wounds me You’ll hurt my feelings if you think I zerg it up. :P

But basically what everyone is saying right now is true it is extremely difficult to roam on a Power Necro you won’t win many fights and I think it is a style for a strange type of player one looking for fights not victories.

If I have to be honest with you most of my wins on this build have come from “Ambush” like tactics like pretending I haven’t noticed the thief following me, going round a corner and summoning my Golem then jumping out on him, Or by being around NPC’s while in the fight so I can draw lifeforce from them when they die and use them to rally if needed.

Also keep in mind what Pottross has said the mechanics behind Critical damage will soon change and that may affect us a lot we just don’t know right now.

Either way this is the build I am currently using with the exact runes, armor, traits, ect. (Yes I only have 2 Ascended pieces sue me :P and I believe it is a very common variation of the Power/Shroud roamer.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAoYWjMah7Vaeb07JEoHvHu4MRFGGqHrj78hA-j0CBYLERjkFAk3YEIRkKBJBqIasFOFRjV7ATdSpW5KQeDLrGA-w

(We are also extremely good under water but that will be for another day.)

Groups indicating anything from 2-10, not indicating a very large group

Okay I will stop clutter posting, I don’t have the experience with power to weigh in further.

Rym.1469:

It’s also not said that hybrids are not viable.

I’m not sure what you really mean given the double negative but.. I solo roam with a hybrid and it plays VERY well.. so not only is it ‘viable’, but I’d even argue that it’s the best solo roaming option for necros.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Rym.1469:

It’s also not said that hybrids are not viable.

I’m not sure what you really mean given the double negative but.. I solo roam with a hybrid and it plays VERY well.. so not only is it ‘viable’, but I’d even argue that it’s the best solo roaming option for necros.

Oh, thanks for pointing it out, didn’t mean to
Yea, they’re pretty cool since they have mix of everything

As others have said, it isn’t easy to solo roam as a power necromancer, but if you do you can take satisfaction from every victory. Power necromancers do better with others. I’ve been having success with 2 or 3 other. I linked the build I’m trying in the thread Pottross linked.

Technically, a MM build is a power build variant if you take Training of the Master. You can roam with that, for sure.

If you roam in a small group, you can run almost anything.

If you zerg, try out a targetable-well-bombing, maxi-staff build with Plague. Sure, you can get swallowed up by the other side but they’ll all hate you for spamming conditions and boon conversions everywhere. Just remember to laugh an evil laugh when you get focused and try to run like a crippled Quaggon.