Guild Wars 2

Hey all. I’m pretty new to the Necromancer class, I’ve been leveling a Thief and I got completely wrecked by a necromancer in sPvP the other day. I’m a pretty casual player, but I did some searching after this happened and I played around with some things. From what I’ve seen, this build is not really normal. It’s sort of a hybrid Well-o’-mancer / PowerNecro build. I know Life Steal isn’t what it should be, but I’ve incorporated it heavily into my build nonetheless.

Here’s the link: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;04c7-GK0IFJ0D4gJVJ0;9;4T9-T-05B4;317B;1JNk6W;1sV2DsV2D5BI

I hope it works, but just in case it doesn’t, I’m gonna break it down for you.
I’m 30(I, VI, XII)/10(V)/0/30(II, VIII, XII)/0. I use 6/6 Divinity Runes. I use a Berserker Amulet / Jewel (did i mention I main a Thief?) I primarily use Dagger/Dagger, though the build I’ve linked says D/Focus (I think this will be better in the long run), with Axe/WH in my second set. Anyway, I’ve been playing around with this build in sPvP and it’s been pretty successful. Any feedback (positive or negative) would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Do you find that you are able to get a good number of life blasts off? My experience in sPvP is that I only get a few casts off at best, so I don’t often taken Reaper’s Might. I think Chill of Death would work much better.

In any event, I bookmarked this so I can try it out tomorrow and will try to remember to post more feedback.

Well as far as the life blasts go, I usually get one or two off. Really when I do use that skill, it’s just to get one or two stacks before I know it’s time to use DS4 or before I’m knocked out of DS completely. The trait you’ve suggested would probably work better, as this build definitely has room for tweaking.

Really my strategy involves opening with Dagger 3 for the immob, drop both my damage wells, start in with the bread and butter (Dagger 1), then go from there. If my life force is pretty full, it’s always fun to jump down into a crowd on a capture point, blow my wells, DS4, then pop Lich and start blowing people away with that. The build’s survivability is pretty good, but again, it could probably be improved. Thanks for the bookmark! I hope you enjoy.

Alright so I gave the build a proper go. And I like it. The problem I see is that it has no way to remove conditions. There were several times during my testing when I would go down very quickly to condition mesmers or engineers that I couldn’t get the drop on, they were smart about dodging dagger 3 and staying out of wells. It may be worth changing out the heal for Consume Conditions and/or using some Sigils of Purity.

Which brings me to the sigil choice. On-crit and on-weapon-swap sigil all share the same global cooldown. So with the sigils as listed in the build link, if one swaps to the Axe/Warhorn set he would only get one of the sigils to proc (when I tested it, only Hydromancy proc’d each time). If he gets a Sigil of Blood proc and then switches to Axe/Warhorn he would get neither benefit unless he waited out the 5s cooldown.

I would also recommend swapping the offhands. So instead of d/f + a/w it would be d/w + a/f. This gives the build a melee set and a ranged set, and the warhorn goes better with dagger because of Locust Swarm.

Here’s the version of the build I used: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;04-8cFK0IFJ0D4gJVJ0;9;4T9-T-09B4;317B;1XBW7I;1sV2DsV2D5Bj
You will notice I sort of contradict myself by taking Air and Leeching sigils, but I rarely found myself switching weapons, and it’s easy to tell when the Sigil of Air procs so I was able to tell when I could switch to get Leeching to proc. Whereas with a sigil like Blood it’s pretty much impossible to tell when it goes off.

Overall, nice build. I like how it compensates for the squishyness of the Berserker’s amulet while still retaining a good chunk of the damage.

Thanks for your feedback lettuce! You might be right about switching out the healing well for CConditions. As I played this build a little more today I noticed that I was essentially dominating myself when I fought mesmers that just stacked confusion. The condition removal would be a huge boon, and I thank you for the suggestion. I don’t really find myself standing in the healing well very often to take advantage of the regen ticks anyway.

I am embarrased to admit that I didn’t know that two “on weapon switch” runes would not work together. Should have thought about the GCD on these things. I’ll definitely try out your suggested runes and see how that goes.

I like the idea of D/WH too. Makes much more sense. I found that I really only switched to Axe/WH when I was running somewhere and needed to get there faster :P

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the build! Good luck out there.

Looks very similar to the build I use:

http://tinyurl.com/necropowermancer

Biggest difference is going 20 in to Curses for added precision and additional utility from major traits in Master level. As Lettuce said, d/wh is much better for what you want to do. Locust Swarm is a big key here since you get life siphon procs from each tick of damage it does.

I have a guide here you can look at to… maybe work your build in to it a little and see how it does.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/67051-necro-power-build-daggerfocus-and-wells/

I’ve been using Takarazuka’s build to level and its been amazing for pve leveling. I tell anyone who will listen to check it out.

Very interesting stuff Taka, I had no idea that you could get the life siphon procs from Locust Swarm. I’ve just been using it as a swiftness buff because I’m bad. I definitely was able to test out the D/WH build today, and it was a lot more effective than the D/F build. Things just seem right, now that all my melee range skills are together and all my ranged skills are together.

I think I’m gonna stick with the 10 extra points in Blood Magic, just because I feel that the health siphoning from the wells helps quite a bit. I dunno. I’ll definitely play around with it a little more, and I’ll definitely try to work my build in to your guide. Thanks again for all the feedback everyone, great community!

Yea, the life siphon procs on every instance of direct damage you do. Locust Swarm, marks triggering, whatever. If you put down a damaging well like Corruption or Suffering you will get two siphons per enemy per pulse – one for Vampiric and one for Vampiric Rituals. If you are using Vampiric Precision and the well pulse crits you get three.

0-30-20-0-20 6/6 nightmare runes geomancy and earth sigil on scept dagger, geomancy on staff. Carrion smulet. Make sure u trait into fear last longer, and when u get stunned u inflict fear and ds stsbility and marks unblockable.

Consume conditions for heal
Corrupt boon/the worm/ plague signet
Epidemic
Sigil of undead
And plague for elit

Opening Combo!
Staff at start use: 3,4,2
Then Deathshroud: 3,2
Switch to scepter: 2,5 then 3 for crit

Then ur target should have 10-15 bleeds FAST, after that u can switch back to staff use ur fear so ur bleeds can tick. If u ever need to put fresh bleeds on someone just his deathshroud, hit 2 then switch weapons so ur sigil stacks bleeds and follow up with 2 on staff or if u switch staff to ds to scepter hit with 2 or 5.
Hope it helps, faster the better, use plague if ur going down, fear their heals!

ive facec tanked some champions and the mobs they spawn in cursed shore with my well siphon build. just use the WoS and the WoC for their short CD’s and use them as a heal with a nice damage bonus. I use WoD and WoB too with protection on wells.

the well siphoning coupled with the attack speed of dagger and the warhorns 5will save u in most situations in pve. I wouldn’t recommend trying that in pvp tho.

you should try a hybrid terror build :-)

Digno.6945:

Very interesting stuff Taka, I had no idea that you could get the life siphon procs from Locust Swarm. I’ve just been using it as a swiftness buff because I’m bad. I definitely was able to test out the D/WH build today, and it was a lot more effective than the D/F build. Things just seem right, now that all my melee range skills are together and all my ranged skills are together.

I think I’m gonna stick with the 10 extra points in Blood Magic, just because I feel that the health siphoning from the wells helps quite a bit. I dunno. I’ll definitely play around with it a little more, and I’ll definitely try to work my build in to your guide. Thanks again for all the feedback everyone, great community!

Glad that worked! Once you feel more comfortable with surviving and being able to avoid attacks and handle yourself you can start adjusting builds and look for more damage. The well life siphons from 30 blood magic is great for leveling up or even if you want to look in to a support type build for dungeons… more heals for allies etc etc.