Guild Wars 2

Hello all, and thanks in advance for helping me work some stuff out. I’ve been reading a whole bunch of threads on the forums and only about 50% of the 50% of the stuff that isn’t about bugs or balance issues etc is actually making sense.

I picked up GW2 about two weeks ago and my necro is my first class. I am playing mostly solo PvE so I was’t even aware of balance issues among the classes until I started poking around the forum today.

So far, I have been running with a staff 98% of the time, occasionally switching to an axe/focus for a single tough veteran/champion I can’t AoE down.

My action bar is generally staff skills + Well of Blood for healing, Well of Suffering, Well of Corruption, Radiation Field, and Litch Form filling out the elite slot.

I have also been going very heavy into Power. (which, apparently, is not the right way to go about the class atm)

Combat generally goes:
run and gather as many mobs as I can
drop all marks
drop WoSuffering + WoCorruption + Radiation Field
enter Death Shroud and hit the AoE life force absorb (forget what it’s called. oops.)
exit DS and finish off survivors with marks.
Tough monsters get Litch form and a auto attack spam until dead.

Traits went into power (Retaliation in DS, +10% mark damage, and +20% dmg to enemies under 50% hp) and toughness (Mark area increase and +20% staff recharge)

This build ruled. Just decimated in PvE and Events. So, because I am of the "if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it " persuasion, I just kept on buffing power, staff, and marks, because that’s what I was using all the time.

Then around level 55-60, It broke. Big time. What used to leave 8+mobs dead in a pile, now leaves them all with 30-40% health remaining and ripping my face off.

So! I need to get my playstyle and action bar overhauled a bit, but I don’t even know where to begin!
I literally just picked up Blood is Power yesterday at level 61 <_< so that goes to show how much I know about condition management in this game. I have been doing all the skill points as I level, though, so I have plenty of points to spend picking up the “right” skills.

Is there any sort of power heavy build that can hold up through the higher levels?
If I abandon my AoE heavy tactics, what will I be looking at in terms of multiples and adds?

I’m playing around with new skills tonight but I’m not sure where to start.

Thanks again,

Hmm, I don’t see why your build would “break” just because you hit level 55-60. Are you trying to aoe 8+ mobs that are all higher level than you? Or perhaps you’ve outleveled your gear and need to update it a bit?

My only advice, if you’re running a power build, is to pick up a dagger and see if that helps. The dagger packs quite a punch against single mobs.

And then if you need to aoe, you can still drop all your wells and swap to the staff and lay down your marks

Usually the mobs are all about my level or so. Maybe a +/-2 level variation while clearing zones.

My gear might be a factor – I’ve been trying to keep it up to date through karma quest “rewards” – my power is about 1,200…

but also looking through my inventory screen, about half my gear is still mid 40s so I can try upping that. Should my current playstyle be able to support me through level 80?

I will look into daggers .

I might have gotten paranoid because some folks in Lions Arch were saying a power build was completely underpowered for necros right now. Will update the rest of my gear and see how it goes.

Have you tried minion builds? Minions are really dumb however it is actually extremely viable in PvE. Meat shields which let you go almost completely glass.

Axe (power based) actually helps minions the most damage wise but sustainability staff with Mark of Blood is the easiest/laziest. So it would be condition based.

Okay. Switched to dagger in the mainhand…. Can’t really tackle the groups like I used to, but I am taking down single enemies so fast right now it more than makes up for it.

Also playing with a few minions out and my wells and I feel a LOT more rounded.

I love the movement bonus for spectral walk – been playing alot with that, but It feels like a throw away skill otherwise. (yes, I know it breaks snares, but in PvE it’s easier to just burn though opponents hp when they snare 90% of the time…)

Yeah I think that the best way to play Power Necro right now is to use Dagger.
It’s not great, but it’s good enough for PvE, at least outside Dungeons.
Just remember that Life Stealing is really bad so you can’t really rely on it.
(tbh I haven’t tried it in Dungeons. It might even work ok there for a Death Shroud build)

The Dagger also works great with Wells because you don’t need ground targeting for them if you are at melee range already.

If you ever need to stand somewhere for a long time try using Well of Darkness.
It looks horrible on surface (“5 blinds, barely any damage?!”) but it’s surprisingly powerful.
The constant Blind spam lets you keep hitting one of the enemies for 5 Seconds over and over while enemies just go “Miss! Miss! Miss!”

I like to use Warhorn as my Off-hand when using the Dagger.
The Daze means that you are taking less hits and it can also be used to interrupt attacks.
Locust Swarm gives Swiftness and it actually gives a lot of Life Force when you get surrounded as it seems to grant Life Force per enemy hit multiple times.

With that said many people like to use something else.
Warhorn is just my personal favorite offhand for the Dagger.
Also don’t forget that Swiftness stacks duration, so you can use Locust Swarm+Spectral Walk at the same time and you get a very long Swiftness Boon.

I use Spectral Walk mostly for the Swiftness but you can also run to an enemy, drop a Well, Dark Pact to Immobilize and then use Spectral Walk to teleport back out.
You also gain some Life Force if hit while using it.