Guild Wars 2

Alright, so…

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I played Necromancer.

The path to 80 was fun, but when I got to 80, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to play. I didn’t enjoy Conditionmancer or Minion Master, so I played a power/deathshroud build.

I loved it. I was using full rare in Knight’s, and was kicking kitten Survivability, and all that good stuff.

Then, I decided to try Conditionmancer, and then got tired of my Necromancer.

Well, now I want to go back to play my beloved Necromancer. I miss him.

I was looking at the AC gear, and noticed the gearsets that have- gasp- Power/Vit/Toughness. I have not seen that combination before.

Generally, how good is that set, and would it be beastly for a power/deathshroud necromancer? I’m trying to achieve balance- to deal out good damage with high survivability.

You’ll deal pretty good damage, but you’re the kind of build that Weakness hits pretty hard. In any case though, You’ll have a ton of health to slog through and Life Blast will still hit like a truck.

All in all, I’d guess slightly above average damage with lots of survivability.

Yay, fast reply! Thanks!

And yeah, that’s what I’d like to go for, methinks.

My necromancer wears a full set of AC armor with soldier crests, has AC dagger/focus and a p/t/v staff. Gradually adding p/t/v accessories through badges of honor (although now that I think about it, I need to check if the temple vendors now have p/t/v accessories).

I’m pretty happy with it, though I keep tinkering with my traits.

WvW gear has Power/Vitality/Toughness as well. But you need badges to buy it.

I play an almost full pow/vit/tough necro (still have some valkyrie jewelry that needs replacing) and enjoy it quite a lot. It’s veeeery survivable and deals a respectable amount of damage (for a necro, at least). I’d recommend giving it a try, especially with the dagger main hand.

See the Juggermancer build:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Juggermancer-Final-Blog-Link/first#post772683

Power/Toughness/Vitality is my favorite build at the moment, it just fits my play style more. I haven’t invested into an exotic set yet but even with rares It’s really nice.

If your really good at evading damage the Hybrid Damage build looks really nice Condition/Power/Precision. I can see me liking that one also but I don’t have any gear at the moment to try it out. I really would like to have a Power/Cond/Toughness but I don’t think that gear exists at the moment. I would like it I thinks though…

I never liked the full Condition build because of the caps on corruptions and It always seemed to gimp the support options in group play.

Smoeki.2756:

Power/Toughness/Vitality is my favorite build at the moment, it just fits my play style more. I haven’t invested into an exotic set yet but even with rares It’s really nice.

If your really good at evading damage the Hybrid Damage build looks really nice Condition/Power/Precision. I can see me liking that one also but I don’t have any gear at the moment to try it out. I really would like to have a Power/Cond/Toughness but I don’t think that gear exists at the moment. I would like it I thinks though…

I never liked the full Condition build because of the caps on corruptions and It always seemed to gimp the support options in group play.

Prec/Cond/Toughness can be purchased using tokens from Twilight Arbor and Power/Cond/Vit is easy enough to find. The first is probably the best gear you can get for a pure condition necro while the second is only slightly worse then the Power/Cond/Toughness gear that you want.

Knight’s gear would be most advised if going a shroud build. Toughness effects the reduction of life force which is based on the damage dealt, while Vitality/HP is not a factor in Shroud mode. As long as you can have 19-20k HP on a shroud build, you’re good to go.

Talentless.5708:

Knight’s gear would be most advised if going a shroud build. Toughness effects the reduction of life force which is based on the damage dealt, while Vitality/HP is not a factor in Shroud mode. As long as you can have 19-20k HP on a shroud build, you’re good to go.

I actually I’ve heard that it does scale with vitality as well as toughness http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/66677-shroud-not-scaling-with-vitality-or-thoughess/. Feel free to test it though as it’s something that deserves attention.

PTV is my preferred play-style with necromancer. It’s a build that generally does well in all aspects of the game (wvw, open world, dungeons, etc..), and its a great stat distribution that can salvage a dungeon run should your group be a little wet behind the ears.

Using all rare jewelry until I got enough laurels for ascended gear. I rarely see anyone tank as well as I do.

As everyone has stated, I’m also currently sporting a P/T/V build and am absolutely loving it so far. I’m sporting D/F and Staff secondary. Don’t have any issues with LF generation and the dps is enough to keep me in the game, with the Staff AOE having gotten me out of some nasty situations. Using a Dagger primarily means I also don’t mind taking Well skills because I’m up in Melee range half the time anyways.

Traits I find are also rather malleable, I find myself switching them around a lot especially in fractals along with my skills. Overall it’s a grand ol’ time.

Just to mention, having trinkets with precision removes the big downside of playing
Power/Toughness/Vitality, with at least 25% crit chance and especially if you went for soul reaping masteries for obvious benefits and synergy with high Vitality, weakness isnt such a damage destroying condition anymore. Also DS scales better with Vitality (remember DS degenerates and conditions ignore toughness), but it also leaves you weaker to most special boss attacks and agony because of the % components.

Currently my Exotic setup is a combination of Khilbrons and Grenth armor with mixed trinkets, Scepter/Dagger & Staff (if there is a condition eater swapping to Dagger/Warhorn and Staff).

Heavy defensive Guardians, Clone Control Mesmers and Warriors with shield will always manage to outtank a hybrid, but the benefits of doing mixed damage and both doing a ok amount of damage (would say each 45% of their respective damage focused build) while still being a beastly tank, especially in tank form makes it worth it. For Runes Mad King/Lyssa combo, Melandru, Dolyak, Adventure or Undead depending on what you want seem the best choices (dolyak and melandru being i dont have more than 1 stun break and i want weak regeneration thats still better than what vampiric can offer).

Agree with everything said above, and check out that link to Sheobix’s guide to the PTV necromancer.

If you are looking for a variant with easier-to-obtain gear, try mixing Knight’s and Berserker’s gear, and make up for the lesser HP with siphoning food and sigils (and traits, if you’re crazy like me). From what I’ve seen it does more damage than the straight-up PTV build and has comparable survivability, though you do need to be actively attacking to gain the benefit of the extra life. My build has 50% crit, 60%-ish crit damage, 3k attack, 2.7k defense, and base HP unless I throw some siphoning traits in. Not sure if it’s strictly better but it fits my playstyle more.