Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve had a Necromancer for quite a while but haven’t bothered to actually play it very much. I have spent a lot of time on Warrior, Engi, Guard, and Mes with a bit of time on Ranger and Teef (all level 80). Now it’s Necro’s turn, I want to know how it plays and what to look for when fighting one in case we eventually see them brought up into the meta. I normally enjoy high damage or CC specs so except when Dumbfire was a thing they were never a huge threat, and even then one Skull Crack on my War and they were probably dead.

More importantly to me however, I want to theorycraft. Jumping on to metabattle and grabbing a Terrormancer build is all well and good, but Necros have a ton of access to Chill, and I hardly ever see it used (granted, I hardly see any Necros that aren’t MM or Terror). Any sign of Chillmancer builds seem to be from a long time ago and are no longer up to date.

I have a busy work schedule so I wanted to get professional Necromancer’s opinions on this before I waste my free time on a worthless build. I’m sure I probably went too far into the whole chill aspect, the the idea of not having to be fast because I can just make everyone slow is appealing.

Chillmancer Concept

I only came up with this by reading traits and trying to find some synergies, and while it looks cool (get it?) on paper I have no clue how well it will do in the field. I was looking at maybe epidemic over Spectral Armor so that I have the potential to slow the entire enemy team.

I don’t expect to be the one killing the enemy team, but rather making it easier for my team to do the killing. Denying the Cele builds of their regen with high poison uptime and making all of their skills take ages to come off CD sounds fun to me.

Please be as honest as possible, unlike the other classes I’ve played a lot of, I’m totally new to Necro theorycrafting. Maybe there’s some basically mandatory traits I don’t know about like Cleansing Ire/Fast Hands on War or Deceptive Evasion on Mes.

Unfortunately your little chill support does not make up for lack of DPS (not killing enemy team). There were however, discussions about a chillomancer build that dynergized with spectrals. Your build over-focuses on inflicting chill, to the point that you get perma chill but loose too much DPS.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW3djc0UUbrNG3wfbCchCyBIAicDKBqPj44ZB-TZBFwAPuAAy3fYxTAoaZAAHEAA

I believe people agreed on something like this main idea is to kite while hitting hard lifr blasts as well as on point pressure from well and plague. You will still get a decent amount of chill. Rune can be switched for pack. Sigils can be swapped too but energy helps. Also i dont like hydromancy on 600+ range weapons as you will usually be away, kiting.

I’ll try to throw up the old build we used back in the profession tournaments, because one dude ran the most aggravating chill/spectral bunker build that had massive protection and chill uptime. Its fun, not optimal but fun.

Also worth noting, once the expansion hits greatsword will do wonders for chill builds.

I don’t really like to use chill as a focus point for my power builds. I find abusing chill works best on condi builds. Slowing the fight down (by abusing both chill and cripple) helps keep the other player from being in your face. I usually use a build that looks something likethis.

This build can be pretty tanky and with it you can hold points or deny the other team lots of boons and what not. It wont hit nearly as hard as your build but it will hold up quite a bit better under pressure.

Just remember that any chill build will work best if you spread out your chills over time. If you hit two chills in a row they are wasted because it will just be removed. If you spread them out(like right after heals) you will get a lot more bang for your buck.

Good luck with your fancy new necro.

Bhawb.7408:

Also worth noting, once the expansion hits greatsword will do wonders for chill builds.

Do you have any inside info on that? Cause if you’re right, it would be awesome, but if you’re just guessing it’s really cruel to tease us dude!

manveruppd.7601:

Do you have any inside info on that? Cause if you’re right, it would be awesome, but if you’re just guessing it’s really cruel to tease us dude!

Inside? No, but we know it has nearly 50% chill uptime just from auto attacking.

Bhawb.7408:

manveruppd.7601:

Do you have any inside info on that? Cause if you’re right, it would be awesome, but if you’re just guessing it’s really cruel to tease us dude!

Inside? No, but we know it has nearly 50% chill uptime just from auto attacking.

We know kitten. Yes, getting Marjory’s attack chain seems likely, but it could still be completely different or have bleeds or vuln or whatever on it instead of chill, or a 0.2 second chill, cause A-net decides we cannot get anything good. Or even broken with 100% condi-duration…

Oh you’re basing it on that? I hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t put much faith in it. After all, Treahearne could summon 6 Flesh Golems… :p

manveruppd.7601:

Oh you’re basing it on that? I hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t put much faith in it. After all, Treahearne could summon 6 Flesh Golems… :p

Rytlock’s “story” gave us the new profession, Marjory was given an entirely unique new animation, and a whole set of story to set her up to teach other Necromancers, and when ANet announced it they specifically mentioned Marjory.

Well, I hope you’re right man, chill on AA would be pretty good

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQFAWCt2koYQiMwCquC

Sorry for the late update. This is the basis of a chill build. You’ll notice something important, it takes less than half of your skill points, one weapon set, one utility skill, and your elite. With this, and 0% extra condition duration, you’re already looking at:
Spectral Grasp: 6s chill 24s CD, 25% uptime
Chillblains: 4s chill 20s CD, 25% uptime
Dark Path: 5s chill 15s CD, 33% uptime
And then Plague gives you a 20s chill effectively, and turns plague from pretty strong against melees to an absolute shutdown against melees

So with just 3 skills, maybe 1/3rd of your total build, and without taking traits that are too bad or barring you from much, you get 83% chill uptime. With just a tiny bit of condition duration (Sigil of Chilling is enough) you’re looking at 100% chill uptime. From this base, you generally choose a focus: spectral power bunker, wells support, or just a general tankier condition build.