Guild Wars 2

My teenager just started playing and picked a necro. I really don’t know the class. I’ve played Mesmer for a long time and gotten a lot of good answers on that forum, so I’m looking for a little help.

My son hasn’t played any real MMO’s before. I’m trying to look for an end-game build that he can work toward along the way. Here’s all the things I’m trying to do in the build:
- Minions
- Staff
- Same build can work in PVE and World vs World (in both cases, he’ll be in a group of at least 3 – he doesn’t need to be the best but he needs to be effective and survivable – the likely set is phantasm Mesmer, thief and him – but he’ll also probably play with his friends playing ele and warrior)
- Doesn’t require great skill or reflexes

This is what I came up with based on those points:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQNAW3YjM00UbXNu1webiohS6AoBKAI7xBgyd4GA-TFCEABJ8AAKUJoEXEAFV/Jl9HiS5HAHBA30NQKgLGDA-w

I’m thinking he would start with staff and put down a couple marks. Switch and try to build life force with axe. Then go into death shroud and hopefully have a nice amount of might. (Maybe it takes a couple weapon swaps to get enough life force?)

Couple questions:
- Do marks trigger immediately if you cast them on an opponent?
- Is it enough to just have two condition removal skills (one on each weapon set with three condi’s for each)

Thanks for any feedback and guidance – have a great day

My oldest character is a sylvari necro, and i’ve been through a few things with her (started out with a minion build, went to conditions, spectral, and now a well build) though i don’t consider myself to be a pro at all. One thing i can say is the build you linket meets the requirements you stated – using minions and staff and not requiring great reflexes and all. I’d add that if you trait marks to generate life force, i don’t think you must switch to axe to build lf, because with traited staff cooldowns, mark of blood would be used often and generate more life force, plus staff’s autoattack generates it too. I like using dagger as a secondary weapon, i never really liked axe, but that’s just my opinion
To answer your questions:
- marks trigger immediately if you drop them right under an opponent’s feet
- condition removal is very important in pvp, so i’m not sure having a remove on only each weapon would be enough. there is a trait in Blood Magic line: Fetid consumption that allows minions to draw a condition from their master every second…. with all those minions summoned, i’d think it’s pretty good, though if you get bombed with conditions, the minions might die fast. Plus, this trait requires 6 points in mentioned trait line…

Necro is called “master of conditions” for a reason tho, it can easily send conditions back to the opponent, but if you don’t want to build for that, what remains is to rely on party members to cleanse for each other….. thief and mesmer might not be ideal for that though. Mesmer can drop Null field but the cooldown’s not that great.
Well, this is my opinion and i think someone more experienced might say otherwise and clear things up more, but i still hope i could help Good luck to your son!

I typically just run consume conditions and staff #4 to deal with conditions, and I typically never have any issue for it. Fetid consumption would be a waste honestly even in a pure minion build. We have so much more health to outlast conditions too, so having a strong cleanse/transfer every 12 seconds or so is enough for sure. For pve its best to go with a mainhand dagger and max offensive gear, and I’m pretty sure you can roam in WvW with a minion build if you want, but I think condition builds are technically better for that overall. If you try to do zerg activities though the minions will die before they can do anything, so wells are preferred there.

Not minions, don’t do minions, they’re buggy as all hell.

Depends on what your son finds enjoyable, does he like to spam aoe? Get high numbers via auto attacks? I use a well build on mine. Trait for placeable wells and spam aoe all over everyone, no skill needed. Other than that I recommend running staff and dagger/focus. Utilities are what he wants them to be but minions are trash (at least in pve) so not those. Always trait for max power and precision.

I think teenage boy would like to choose himself…..

But for the build, really, all would work if you ain’t seeking 100% perfection.

Minion is great for open world. You can literally afk with that.
Staff+well build is great aoe and good for open world mob tagging and also wvw zerg.
power dagger is the best choice for dungeon. Although it could be a little risky and less rewarding than say a greatsword warrior.
Scepter conditionmancer is okay in most aspect. Good for wvw group roaming.

It just comes down to what he likes. Also notice, the utility skill is very interchangable. You can run a conditionmancer/power dagger necro with minion. Dagger with wells also works great. And Staff, every single build, power or condition can bring one.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

I worded my post poorly – my son choose minions and staff. I tried to make a build that I thought would work okay given those constraints.

The other constraints about same build for PVE and small-group WvW and not high skill cap are ones I’m adding based on how he is playing right now.

Thanks again for the help!

Couple other questions related to this build / topic:
- Are there any guidelines on how quickly life force builds up? I’m trying to get a feel for the timing of a fight – like how many weapon swaps are likely before going into death shroud
- How much of life force typically comes from things dying versus from skill usage?
- How long do minions typically last in a fight?
- Are there “standard” ways of playing minions (like casting fear before summoning to avoid interruptions)?
- Do all minions attack on a 1.5 second cycle?
- Does anything increase minion damage (e.g. can they get might stacks that affect their damage – for mesmers, you want the might stack on the Mesmer not the phantasm)

If there’s a good guide for this sort of stuff, please feel free to point me there. I’m sure all of these questions have been asked before…

Thx much!

Yo, give me a message IG (ovidknowsbest) if you’d like a conversation on it (I can provide ts).

Disclaimer: Lots of builds are stronger, so I’ll base my suggestions on your request for an easy entry level build, with good survivability, rather than trying to create the best build.

A couple of things:

1. Running around WvW on this build would be super slow. To prevent your son getting bored/holding back his friends, use war horn off hand. That gives some very helpful swiftness. It also has a long daze, which is useful in tough situations.

2. Heal skill: Must use consume conditions even on a MM build. It is a superb healing skill, and will handle the condition cleanse problems this build has.

3. Superior sigil of energy will give a dodge on swap – which is very useful for survivability. Use it instead of sup. sigil of strength (your crit chance is too low to use crit chance procing sigils). This will also help him to learn the importance of weapon swapping and dodging.

4. Food: Use that food that lowers incoming condition duration if you want to be more tanky. Check the wiki for the name, I’ve forgotten it.

5. Runes of Strength are vastly overrated. Use the Pirate runes instead (OP) if you want damage, Melandru (if you want him to survive for longer – a very good idea for newcomers/entry level players), Pack (for more swiftness running around and precision and power) or Traveler (for condition duration, and passive 25% speed buff – I highly suggest this for WvW).

6. Traits:

- Flesh of the Master instead of Staff Mastery. Necessary for Minion Master builds.
- Path of Midnight instead of Vital Persistence. More useful for a quicker fear and immob (use skill 5 then 3 a second after). A good defensive and offensive combo.

eldenbri.1059:

Couple other questions related to this build / topic:
- Are there any guidelines on how quickly life force builds up? I’m trying to get a feel for the timing of a fight – like how many weapon swaps are likely before going into death shroud
- How much of life force typically comes from things dying versus from skill usage?

You gain lifeforce through two main sources: the deaths of things nearby, and use of your skills. Dying is 10%, which can also be boosted to 12% through Soul Comprehension, the Death Magic 3 point trait, and skills you can see on the skill tooltips. Basically, in places where lots of things are dying, you’ll gain tons of LF, and depending on what skills you are using you can also gain a lot of it quickly there, its very situational on build.

eldenbri.1059:

- How long do minions typically last in a fight?

This varies highly depending on minion, group composition, and content. Flesh Golem, for example, has survived world boss fights completely, while I got my butt handed to me. Also some minions like Bone Minions are far less important to keep alive.

To give you an idea of HP, the healing skill/elite minions are 13k base HP, the utility skill minions have around 10k base HP (bone minions are 5.2k each), and in PvE those values are increased by 71%. Armor values range from 2k to 2.6k, so from light to heavy armor. Some minions will survive fights really well, some won’t, but if you take 20% lower minion CDs and 50% HP they will be up a lot.

eldenbri.1059:

- Are there “standard” ways of playing minions (like casting fear before summoning to avoid interruptions)?

Not needed, the cast times are too long to bother with covering. What you want to do is chain as much of your non-fear CC together. For example when you start fighting someone, charge over them with Golem, use Bone Fiend’s active to immobilize them, go into DS and use Tainted Shackles, and if you have dagger use 3 when you get out.

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Thx very much for all the great help. I’m at work, so can’t chat

One last question – it seems like with the Death Nova trait that maybe it’s better not to take the increased health trait – it seems like you want the minions to die. I’m sure you don’t want them to die all at once, but having one die every 15-20 seconds seems like a good thing. I’m probably missing something coming from my Mesmer mindset (where clones and phantasms have only a couple thousand health).

Thanks again for all the help!

Death Nova shouldn’t change your build much. Basically you have two minions (both bone minions) that will use it a lot, and that is really more than enough poison fields for your uses in PvE. In WvW/PvP death nova is more about punishing people killing your minions all at once since it spams out a lot of direct damage and poison fields, which can really hurt them, plus spreading out the poison works better with removals.

But in PvE it doesn’t matter much. Honestly I wouldn’t even suggest taking it in PvE, only really WvW.

Well if you really like him to have a minion build, then Flesh of the Master and Death Nova can work together. In PvP, a minionmancer is naturally dependant on his/her minions. It makes sense to increase their health, as they can take some beating and fight longer, thus giving him a chance to fight longer. Should it happens and all the minions are stacked together and killed (only eya to eliminate them all at once except Epidemic) then the minionmancer needs all the damage he can muster, and Death Nova is simply a good tool for that bad scenerio.