Guild Wars 2

hi. im trying to make a twin dagger/staff Minionmancer with high burst damage, but I also want my necro to be able to take a few hits in dungeon and wvw. so, can i get away using a full set of glass cannon PPC gear and toughness from my trait line? if not, how much dps am i losing by using PTV gear and how much tankier does those gear make me? Thanks!

power precision condition gear i’m assuming.. or rampagers..

It changes how you play completely. Rampagers gear is more hybrid or crit-condition focused gameplay. PTV (soldiers) on the other hand, is all power based.

If you want D/D necro with rampagers gear, your survivability will not come in the form of vitality or toughness whatsoever, and is generally bad for dungeon running. What you can do though is build with points in the blood line and focus on vampiric buildstyle with the help of vampiric foodbuffs.

That way you can regen about 3k-4k hp every time you use dagger2.

Rampager gear is hard to rock, but its also the stat combo that yields the highest DPS potential in game.

As a MM, the only thing you would need to focus on is stacking some source of toughness. power does not modify your minion’s damage, so it doesn’t matter how high you stack it.

usually I see successful MM’s roll with rabid or carrion, simply because high health or toughness combined with condition damage and precision allows for the necro to attack from afar, and let the minions take the beating.

@Sheobix: just to clarify, by PPC i meant power precision critical (if i remebered those stats correctly) . my playstyle generally include a chain of stun/debuff mixed with heavy dagger damage/putrid explosion and death nova, which allows me to quickly cut most trashmob and a large portion of wvw player down. and from what you’re saying, using gear without vitality and toughness tend to make your character very weak, so I guess ill go with your advice and use Power/ Toughness/Vitality gear. thank you!

and about the rabid and carrion gear…people in wvw dont usually expect a twin dagger necro, and seem to have no idea how to deal with me. more over, Im not personally into ranged weapons, and I only use staff when i have to, because everything seem to die ten times quicker with twin daggers, which makes up about 50% of my total damage (the other 50% being minions). In this context, power, even though it does not affect my minions, increases my dagger damage, and therefore theoretically effectively increase my overall dps? please let me know if I sound like I have no idea what I’m talking about

Regenerator.7326:

@Sheobix: just to clarify, by PPC i meant power precision critical (if i remebered those stats correctly) . my playstyle generally include a chain of stun/debuff mixed with heavy dagger damage/putrid explosion and death nova, which allows me to quickly cut most trashmob and a large portion of wvw player down. and from what you’re saying, using gear without vitality and toughness tend to make your character very weak, so I guess ill go with your advice and use Power/ Toughness/Vitality gear. thank you!

and about the rabid and carrion gear…people in wvw dont usually expect a twin dagger necro, and seem to have no idea how to deal with me. more over, Im not personally into ranged weapons, and I only use staff when i have to, because everything seem to die ten times quicker with twin daggers, which makes up about 50% of my total damage (the other 50% being minions). In this context, power, even though it does not affect my minions, increases my dagger damage, and therefore theoretically effectively increase my overall dps? please let me know if I sound like I have no idea what I’m talking about

When you said PPC most people assumed power precision condition. If you are running zerker gear… its totally fine as far as MM in pve is concerned your survivability comes from high health generation. Not as high as water ele with staff or shout guardian… but its consistent 2k+ at least in 2 seconds. The other two have high group healing while yours is fully personal and doesn’t include long cooldowns.
And you won’t really be able to increase your personal damage much by going condition with MM simply because you do not have traits to support it properly nor utility slots. If you are running full mm zerker is probably as good as it gets as far as damage is concerned.
Dagger is slightly more towards heavier survivability while axe will yield better over all dps. Vulnerability from axe + focus allows for a fairly low cooldown burst of 12 vuln stacks from focus and a constant 10 stacks from axe auto attacks. And you have boon strip from axe paired with permanent retaliation if you are aoe farming. Dagger is better if you take a lot of damage and need even more health regen.
In wvw… its rubbish tho. If you are solo… then 99.9% its against thiefs and you will get massacred simply because they can reset it indefinitely if they are terrible its not really worth discussion(in t1 bracket solo roaming is suicide unless you are guardian or thief). In zergs… aoe will mow down your minions more often then not. And if you want dual daggers in zerg… well… its suicide because as soon as minions are dead you have no defensive capabilities at all. No health regens no body blocks… no utilities. Small scale group fights… where you have assist it is doable and more or less okaish.

Also on side note… going for soldiers gear with power/toughness/vitality wont really make you more durable if you are running MM… solo it will be even more disasterous because you don’t do any damage. In zergs you will do even less damage. In small groups… its probably better then zerker gear tho. I dono… preferences.

Its simply boils down that with zerker gear you get most personal damage because you have no traits that improve your personal damage.

either zerker or soldier gear works fine with mm. but as HiSaZul states, axe would be better overall dps. This is because closing in the gaps to connect your hits with necro is incredibly difficult compared with the mobility from other classes. axe lets you… “duel” with opponents.

PTV is only good if you focus on carrying BiP and SoS around to keep your static power up to do good damage. Then you can pop lich for omgwtfzor faceroll damage.

since it seems you’re more interested in WvW i’d recommend the set inbetween zerk and soldier. Knights. You can increase your DPS curve through critical hit and still gain toughness and keep a decent power base. Although I don’t see many knights players these days, its more of a default easy-button choice for those players who aren’t into complicated playstyle. You get ++Toughness/Power/Crit so you can pretty much throw your trait points into any line and still play well enough.

It really does boil down to what you want… personal damage? zerker. You’ll be squishy though, but the high risk gives high reward.

PTV is pretty relentless when you go dagger/x because autoattacking in it just fills your LF bar in seconds… it makes your HP go a long way. 1v1 you’ll always win, 2v2 will be challenging but most of the time you’ll win.. versus underleveled players or inexperienced.. you could play 1v4 or 2v6 and win easily with good self control over your utility usage. But its slooooow. And the damage is situational. If you’ve got might, or you pop Lich, it’s easycake. But when you’re left to your own devices, nada. you’ll be whittling your opponent down. Especially vs. regen guardians.

I remember in the early days as I first got my gear for necro.. i had full zerker gear and I had barrels of fun because you’ll feel like a d/wh or axe/x paper shredder. Everything just melts away. But as soon as someone even dares to look at you, you’ll get smushed. Pretty much how any zerk build goes.

I would simply consider hybrid builds or conditions solely on the most recent updates to necro. I personally hold a zerk set, soldier set, and rabid set in my bank for whatever the meta is at the moment with our class.

thanks guys! your response have been reaally informative….i think i will eventually collect both soldier and zerker set, but for the moment being, i think ill do abit of a mush-up between the two, maybe soldier armor/zerker accessory.

as for the twin dagger, it is more for flavor than anything. And no, WvW is not my main thing, i use my necro generally for dungeons, dailies, living world and resource collecting/mapping, so i need the 25% speed boost for quickening thirst….so….yea, i will keep a set of axe/focus in my bank after ive got my daggers

thanks again people!

MM is NOT a DPS build. PVT is strictly the best for a MM build IMO. Minions do not scale off of any of your stats at all, so if you build for damage your stats are wasted, where as if your utilities did scale with your damage stats (like well of suffering) then it would be a different story.

With this in mind, you want to build survivability. Since healing power is completely wasted on a minion master (in your case the only thing scaling off of healing power and mattering would be dagger 2) PVT gear gives you the most possible with 2 of the 3 survivability stats on it.

If you wanna build a DPS setup you shouldn’t spec minions at all. Not to say minions don’t deal quite a lot of damage on their own, but there simply isn’t any reason to spec into stats that your utilities don’t benefit from.

striker.3704:

MM is NOT a DPS build. PVT is strictly the best for a MM build IMO. Minions do not scale off of any of your stats at all, so if you build for damage your stats are wasted, where as if your utilities did scale with your damage stats (like well of suffering) then it would be a different story.

With this in mind, you want to build survivability. Since healing power is completely wasted on a minion master (in your case the only thing scaling off of healing power and mattering would be dagger 2) PVT gear gives you the most possible with 2 of the 3 survivability stats on it.

If you wanna build a DPS setup you shouldn’t spec minions at all. Not to say minions don’t deal quite a lot of damage on their own, but there simply isn’t any reason to spec into stats that your utilities don’t benefit from.

That is not correct.
Example…
I run ocasinally fractals 26/28 just for the hell of it. I would not go there with soldiers gear simply because its equivalent to dragging things out when you do not need to do so. In dungeons you either dodge or you die. Pvt gear won’t save you. In pvp its a different story for spvp especially but for pve just no.
Why do you need survivability in pve? There are no thiefs that can backstab you for 15k in your pvt gear.
And like I said an actual MM not some hybrid generates some of the highest personal healing around. As long as your minions are alive you need to take either massive damage or loose minions.
Yes I do mean something like with my MM I could go to subject 7 with frailty/exastion/fire/hamstrung and come out with 100% hp while face tanking everything and never bothering with adds.

Also on top of not being that good for MM in general outside spvp. Its best for DS builds that can circumvent lack of crit chance. Tank builds… of any kind(tho as far as I’m concerned necro tanking is a sad joke).

Get a zerker gear (PPC) and go 20/0/20/30/0 with all traits related to minions (the key are Blood Magic II and VII).

This allow you to have maximum dmg (not as high as a real cannon glass but very close) with a great survival (way more than any cannon glass).
Also, if you get bored of minions (or they just turn useless in certain situation since minions are useless against anything with a strong AoE) you just need to change your traits for wells/staff for maximum AoE dmg without resetting trait points

Finally, PVT is just good to tank and though the dmg is “decent”, against champs and bosses, you will spend a lot of time if you are at your own.
In WvW, against zergs, is like being in god mode but for solo, is just not the ideal.

So yes, having both should be the best but don’t mix them. that just make all the secondary stats somehow useless IMO.

daimasei.4091:

Get a zerker gear (PPC) and go 20/0/20/30/0 with all traits related to minions (the key are Blood Magic II and VII).

This allow you to have maximum dmg (not as high as a real cannon glass but very close) with a great survival (way more than any cannon glass).
Also, if you get bored of minions (or they just turn useless in certain situation since minions are useless against anything with a strong AoE) you just need to change your traits for wells/staff for maximum AoE dmg without resetting trait points

Finally, PVT is just good to tank and though the dmg is “decent”, against champs and bosses, you will spend a lot of time if you are at your own.
In WvW, against zergs, is like being in god mode but for solo, is just not the ideal.

So yes, having both should be the best but don’t mix them. that just make all the secondary stats somehow useless IMO.

I really like this post. As he says, in a zerg, PVT is godmode. You’ll rarely get killed because you’ll be such a dense target. But anytime you’re trying to do things alone, it will be slow.

20 pts. in Death and investing in a lot of the blood tree for supporting features may be a good mix with zerker gear and MM utilities. That way you can go full vampiric spec, omnom foodbuff for more vamping, benefit from the crit on zerk gear.. and have large staff AoE and minion traits. 20Death 30Blood may be a bit much, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the blood line…

HiSaZuL.2843:

striker.3704:

MM is NOT a DPS build. PVT is strictly the best for a MM build IMO. Minions do not scale off of any of your stats at all, so if you build for damage your stats are wasted, where as if your utilities did scale with your damage stats (like well of suffering) then it would be a different story.

With this in mind, you want to build survivability. Since healing power is completely wasted on a minion master (in your case the only thing scaling off of healing power and mattering would be dagger 2) PVT gear gives you the most possible with 2 of the 3 survivability stats on it.

If you wanna build a DPS setup you shouldn’t spec minions at all. Not to say minions don’t deal quite a lot of damage on their own, but there simply isn’t any reason to spec into stats that your utilities don’t benefit from.

That is not correct.
Example…
I run ocasinally fractals 26/28 just for the hell of it. I would not go there with soldiers gear simply because its equivalent to dragging things out when you do not need to do so. In dungeons you either dodge or you die. Pvt gear won’t save you. In pvp its a different story for spvp especially but for pve just no.
Why do you need survivability in pve? There are no thiefs that can backstab you for 15k in your pvt gear.
And like I said an actual MM not some hybrid generates some of the highest personal healing around. As long as your minions are alive you need to take either massive damage or loose minions.
Yes I do mean something like with my MM I could go to subject 7 with frailty/exastion/fire/hamstrung and come out with 100% hp while face tanking everything and never bothering with adds.

Also on top of not being that good for MM in general outside spvp. Its best for DS builds that can circumvent lack of crit chance. Tank builds… of any kind(tho as far as I’m concerned necro tanking is a sad joke).

Fractals are a special exception since it’s % based damage, but the necromancer has no access to damage mitigation outside of DS which scales off of health. There are a number of fights in PvE where, yes, you do need survivability like lupicus (constantly pegging you with his 6k auto attack nuke. Your dodge can’t regenerate fast enough) or alpha in COE path 1 (instant earth spike AOE). Your party isn’t always going to be the 3 warriors and a mesmer to burn them before they can blink or 4 guardians spamming aoe blocks, so realistically you should be able to keep yourself up.

Another point is that you should never be face tanking over your minions. They’re disposable pieces of meat who not only won’t bother to walk out of AOEs, but they also deal 1.5k damage when they die and leave a poison AOE that’s perfect for spreading weakness.

In PvE, I’d say zerker. Your minions will be absorbing some of the hits, so in most situations you don’t need too much survivability. If you are worried, you can always do 20/0/30/20/0, but 30/0/30/10/0 (Minion Mastery, Greater Marks, and Flesh of the Master in DM) is really solid too when you use axe/staff combo. Stacking vulnerability will cause minions to do quite a number. Having minions potentially take hits for you reduces axe’s main weakness— the long as crap windup times.

Knight and Valkyrie (yes they exist) are good enough to be used in both modes.

Minionmancer isn’t so hot in wvw though it should be noted that they can be quite annoying in small fights, and the fact that aoe can only hit 5 targets deserves mention. (This means. for every minion that gets hit, a ally of yours may not get hit). Still it shouldn’t be too hard to swap traits and skills though.

Of course, my necro is not my main so I never felt like putting down gold for pvt/valk gear in wvw until about now. She uses… berserker gear so I’m not exactly the type to go to when it comes to talking about survivability. Though honestly, I don’t really go down that much. Well, it’s ok when she stays in the back. :p