Guild Wars 2

Hey, im trying out an idea to mix up my gameplay a bit. I dont have all the gear yet, but so far its seem pretty bad. My main goal is a kind of support Dungeon build.
This is what I got so far.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNArYWjEap7lbKb07JApCPP9o7tJP6BxHnMA-jAzAItAi4goFgUFAaDU+TaMPKkWLLiGr2M1qVhIHSq9KCRA-e
I’m having a hard time picking out utilities I find useful for this.

This kind of build is very different than how I usually play. I often go for a more self reliant build. So a support build is very different. I also havent played the necro for long enough to really get familiar with all the traits and utility combos. The necro was the first class I started at launch and only recently was able to drag his but to level 80. I just dont connect with it like some other classes.
Any advice or suggested changes would help greatly, as I have little idea what im doing.
Or if this is just a bad idea, let me know.

necro healing support:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6pnXc_Rp3k

Before you go about healing, you should read this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10wgz2/how_healing_affects_necromancers/
Its old, but still applies heavily.

Edit: I will also note that Deathly invigoration last i checked had no scaling on Healing Power, of it it does, its very poor compared to Consumed conditions and Well of Blood.

I play with a full ascended/exotic apothecary gear so I will post my WvW build/gear (minus Sclerite Backpiece which gives me 1264 Healing Power):

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.5|6.1f.h1k|b.1f.h1k.8.1f.h5|1f.719.1f.719.1f.719.1f.719.1f.719.1f.719|31m.0.31m.0.21m.0.31m.0.21m.0.3w.0|0.k69.u245.k38.0|0.0|3t.4a.4c.3x.4g|e

Depending on the situation (WvW and in PvE), I switch out skills and minor traits for others.

The first question you ask yourself is what skills heal well and benefit most/scales the best from healing power? The number one best scaling healing skill for a Necro and his group is Well of Blood. At 0 Healing Power is self heals Necro 5240 Health and group heals 150 health per second over 10 seconds. At 1264 Healing Power is self heals Necro 6504 Health and group heals 658 health per second over 10 seconds. For a total of 13084 healing to you and 6580 healing to allies if they stay in the well.

Mark of Blood is the second best healing skill for someone specced in Healing Power. Regeneration has a base healing of 130 health per second. With 1264 Healing Power it heals 288 health per tick. Mark of Blood is a 1200 range AoE Regeneration applier with a very quick recharge and can easily be applied 24/7. Other healing skills, traits and siphons do not scale with Healing Power (im looking at you Transfusion, Blood Fiend Attack). So for healing self and group support build, Mark of Blood and Well of Blood become a priority.

The next question is what is the best weapons for conditionmancers? This is an easy one. Staff and Scepter/Dagger (or other offhands for certain situations).

So basically it comes down to Staff being your primary weapon for Mark of Blood for dishing out bleeds/regeneration. Your Healing utility being Well of Blood for very high group healing per second and a 100% health restore is you stand it in yourself (if you didn’t improve vitality in your build). That means your probably going to be speccing for Marks (Staff) and Wells.

To get the most out of wells your going to be automatically putting 20 into Curses (Focused Rituals for Well Ground Targeting) and 20 into Blood Magic (Ritual Mastery for 20% faster Well Recharge). To get the most out of Marks your going to want at least 10 Death Magic (Greater Marks) so they’re unblockable and have increased radius so Marks can hit allies and enemies at greater distance. I go full Death Magic for the extra toughness, the 30% boon duration, Staff Mastery for 20% Staff Recharge and Ritual of Protection for protection boon for 3 seconds (3.9 seconds) when someone is in a well on cast. The idea being Mark of Blood gets a 6 1/2 Regeneration, 3 stacks 8 second AoE bleeds with a 4 3/4 second skill reccharge and all your Wells grant group protection (33% more damage reduction). More damage reduction = more healing effectiveness.

I think the rest of my logic can be seen in the link with sigil, rune and trait choice. Quickly if you don’t plan on playing group support but still want to be self reliant/conditionmancer, drop healing power and wells and go Rabid armor with something like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.5|6.1b.h16|b.1b.h16.8.1b.h5|1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719|3w.0.3w.0.2w.0.3w.0.2w.0.3w.0|k4a.u267.k25.0.0|0.0|3r.3w.3u.3x.4g|e

Thanks, the video and the math behind healing is really showing me how pointless trying to be a necro healer is.

The video was great as showing that, he was more focused on healing than I am and his healing amount was not impressive. Despite him talking it up the entire time.

Maybe i’ll try a tanky necro that lives off syphan health. Now that I know it doesnt scale I can freely stack on the vit and toughness.

Edit: Hmm… So my problem is I’m too busy trying to stack bleeding with the scepter when I should be focusing solely on healing. I have Cond>Healing when I need Healing>Cond. I did want a different play style than what I’m use to. But the low healing numbers still has me wondering if its worth it.

XelNigma.6315:

Thanks, the video and the math behind healing is really showing me how pointless trying to be a necro healer is.

The video was great as showing that, he was more focused on healing than I am and his healing amount was not impressive. Despite him talking it up the entire time.

Maybe i’ll try a tanky necro that lives off syphan health. Now that I know it doesnt scale I can freely stack on the vit and toughness.

Edit: Hmm… So my problem is I’m too busy trying to stack bleeding with the scepter when I should be focusing solely on healing. I have Cond>Healing when I need Healing>Cond. I did want a different play style than what I’m use to. But the low healing numbers still has me wondering if its worth it.

Being a healer necro is far from pointless! That video mostly shows trying to just heal players, which, as you point out, is pointless in gw2. That doesn’t mean that you can’t heal players (a lot) while doing damage. A healing power built necromancer can heal for about the same as a full-heal specced guardian (except for the guardian’s elite heal), but when doing so gives up far less damage (because you don’t have to dodge constantly to heal everyone). Well of blood is an amazing group heal when people are stacking (which is also a time when everyone is likely to take a lot of damage together), and I like waving my constant regeneration in the face of my guardian guildmate when he talks about his 7 second regeneration from shouts.

I play a healer/support necromancer and spend most of my time in dungeons. It can be a very rewarding spec to play, and makes you both a strong healer and a strong tank.

Here’s how I would personally modify your build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNArYWjQaR7haub87JApCPP9obyHP6BxDnMA-jgyAItAi4goFA0nImHLiGb1sIas65UruxUrCReFhIA-e

Note that we’ve pretty much given up on criticals (the 30% chance meant the on-critical procs only had a 10% chance before), but have got higher condition damage and healing. I also switched to well of blood and signet of undeath, which is amazing in dungeons (and will help a little with scepter’s difficulty in generating life force). I kept the trait trees the same (they look like a good choice to me), but swapped up a few of the individual trait choices. There are several good choices in the master slot of curses; any of – ground targetted wells, lower cooldown on corruption skills, chill on blind – would all make good choices.

Loyo.8526:

Before you go about healing, you should read this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10wgz2/how_healing_affects_necromancers/
Its old, but still applies heavily.

Edit: I will also note that Deathly invigoration last i checked had no scaling on Healing Power, of it it does, its very poor compared to Consumed conditions and Well of Blood.

Great link! Deathly Invigoration actually scales reasonably with healing power (0.4) but has such a low base (152) and is so hard to use effectively, that it’s rarely worth taking in my opinion.

A healing condition necro should be trying to apply bleeds and group healing as much as humanly possible. Regeneration doesn’t look like much for example and application of it is done by applying your bleeds anyways. Over a 10 second period a 288 regen tick can heal 2880 health, pretty much half of a ally’s main heal. Well of Blood again is a 6504 health group heal over 10 seconds without the need of a blast finisher like water fields. Combined with allies’ own healing (no holy trinity), your team can technically heal 75%-125% of their health in 25-30 second intervals. In my build if I and my team are in wells+24/7 regeneration, I heal them 15200 health and myself for 21724 over 30 seconds. Healing Power benefits in Guild Wars 2 are designed around group support over time, not spike heals. So you will never unconditionally heal someone else for straight up 6K hp for example nor do you need to.

Off the top of my head I don’t think you need a lot of healing power to be effective. My apothecary build before all my armor was complete had only about 800ish healing power and it still worked. Just as you don’t need a lot of condition damage to have effective conditions (100+ bleed ticks seems to do the trick and my apothercary build does 104 per tick).

The issue becomes you want to apply group healing because that’s the asset you have specced for. However, you need to be doing damage as well. This means trying to stack as many “area” bleeds as possible on enemies, because your dps will be is lackluster/abysmal if you don’t. That leads me personally to play my full Apothecary support Necro at about 300 range of my target ideally. I switch weapons constantly as they becomes available to optimize area bleed stacks between Staff and Scepter/dagger. Epidemic your stacks when its best.

I even turn my weapon swapping/dodge into a weapon with Mark of Evasion trait combined with sigil of Geomancy. You can even combine dodge/weapon swaps so you apply 5 stacks of bleeds (three 7 second stacks and two 8 second stacks). Mark of Evasion gives you regeneration as well, freeing up Mark of Blood for hitting enemies and/or healing allies. Also helps with keeping regeneration up while using scepter.

I would suggest not investing in a healing power/condition build right off the bat even though I love it (especially in WvW or squishy dungeon pug teams). There’s other safer investments that may be to your liking and you can always make a second set to play a support role later.

Since my original healing posts have probably been swallowed by the bloated forum long ago, I’ll repost my tips here, having run support necro for quite some time with much success. First and foremost, one thing you need to understand about necro “healing” is that you will not be a “healer”. You will be support. There’s a big difference and also why so many people say necro is bad at healing. When you combine CC to keep the enemy from even hitting your team at all, you have effectively supported them, and damage prevented is far more powerful than healing any day. Use heals to cover the damage your CC can’t handle. Blinds are a huuuge group support tool (looking at you well of darkness) as well as chills, and guess what? We have a trait specifically designed to apply chills when we blind. Go figure. Wells are what you will mainly use for the group support, however you do not just spam them then begin dumping heals out and hope for the best. You stagger them as well as follow the movements of your team with them so that you can best support them. You can’t expect people to position themselves inside where you plop your wells, you need to try to land it on them, or anticipate where they will be moving. As for weapons, on trash you strangely enough want to use axe/focus (for the CC with aoe cripple as well as the chill off focus plus the vulnerability makes targets squishier for your team) but on bosses using scepter works good because even though the bleeds may cap fast, you still have poison it can deal as well as a ground target aoe cripple which makes it easier to control movements in the area without devoting too much attention to precise placements. And of course the ol trusty staff for further support. I’m sure by now you know how staff works, but if not: and aoe regen for your team (that when coupled with well of blood, and life transfer healing, you can refill a person’s HP bar nearly completely for powerful burst healing), an aoe chill and poison with a poison field that you can blast into for weakness (another little used support tool, weakness reduces the damage that people will inevitably take, thereby supporting your team further), and of course the aoe fear which is mostly useless on bosses, but can still be used to chop off a defiant stack. So consider all of these things and necro support is actually very powerful. I know because I run it all the time. The biggest hurdle with it, is learning how to most effectively use all of these tools. Spamming skills and hoping for the best is not going to work, not at all.

MY- MY EYES!!! THEY BLEED!

Apart from the wall-o-text, I like what you all are saying. Very helpful information, indeed. I’m going to have to step back and redesign this guy.

Thanks.

XelNigma.6315:

MY- MY EYES!!! THEY BLEED!

Apart from the wall-o-text, I like what you all are saying. Very helpful information, indeed. I’m going to have to step back and redesign this guy.

Thanks.

Yeah sorry I’m notorious for long winded posts lol. If you have any questions about it just hit me up in game and we can go over your questions as they come up and you can avoid more of my eye-assaults heh.

rogerwilko.6895:

necro healing support:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6pnXc_Rp3k

This is a very nice build if you’re running with warriors who usually want to be up close to the targets.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|7.1g.h1.d.1g.h19|6.1k.h1|1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r|2s.0.21l.0.31l.0.2s.0.1n.68.2u.0|0.f4.p25.u489.0|15.7|3t.45.4b.48.4f|e Messing around really, but I wanted to try and make a cleric based supporty build. Tell me what you think. idk if it will apply to PvE or WvW sorry.

Loyo.8526:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5.0|7.1g.h1.d.1g.h19|6.1k.h1|1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r.1k.7r|2s.0.21l.0.31l.0.2s.0.1n.68.2u.0|0.f4.p25.u489.0|15.7|3t.45.4b.48.4f|e Messing around really, but I wanted to try and make a cleric based supporty build. Tell me what you think. idk if it will apply to PvE or WvW sorry.

I’m happy to see more necros using melandru runes. Idk why everyone swears by forge ones so much when melandru is so much better. Since we obviously get shorted when it comes to being knocked around and stunned, any thing we can do to lessen that effect is beneficial. However, they are kinda useless in PvE. Not many mobs (if any at all) can stun lock you to death. That along with what traits and utilities you chose seem like this would be much better suited as a wvw build. You’re a little crit heavy to be considered a support build though, but the cleric stuff you do have will benefit a small team at least. There’s a few trait skills I would change but if you find that works for you, I think it would be a decent wvw build for a small roaming group.

I don’t have too much to add that Nay hasn’t already said. I’ve been playing PvE around with a few necro builds and I enjoy healer support the most. I don’t crunch build/stat numbers in part because I’m lazy and I don’t have the time. That being said, I would like to add that my use of the build centers around watching (literally!) the battlefield and not even bothering with dps. I envision this build as a way to control what happens on the vast battlefield with the goal to optimize healing, minimizing all around damage, and possessing skills that help buy time for the party. In fact, I mostly keep track of party member hps and conditions for condition removal. Blindness aoe (Well of Darkness and Plague) acts as a defense for melee team members while I wait for my main heal/cond removal skills to cooldown. Once those are ready I pull back from front lines and start over (with liberal use of well of blood). Since I use cleric I eq I can help hold melee for a minute or two and am able to ress downed party members fairly quickly. I find that, in the majority of times, if I try to change my focus from the battlefield (and what is happening with party members) to trying to do dps, I always die, the battlefield can be more difficult to maintain, and the build is a miserable failure. If I see that someone is getting targeted by a mob, for example, I focus the resources on that person. I’ve found its a great way to change the tide into the favor of the party. I’ve also received feedback from party members who have been able to notice a strong difference as a result of my build. I exclusively use wells, staff, scepter, and swap between focus (for hp regen) or warhorn (for haste) depending on situation. My trait lines are 10/20/20/20/0 with Ritual of Protection as mandatory. I also maintain a degree of flexibility to change well utilities and weapons as needed. The corpses should be rigid, not me.

I should note that I can solo and farm in Cursed Shores with zero problems. It may take more time but I never have to worry about dying. And I can always find someone to team with. If not, I use Flesh Golem for my elite to help with dps if I desire.

I also ran this build with a boon strip/cond necro (both used Flesh Golem for our elites) and wiped up in Malchor’s Leap in part because we were able to partially tank and control the battlefield. I’d love to run a party with that same get up and some MMs. I don’t know how effective it would be but the idea of lawnmowing everything in our path is quite exciting