Guild Wars 2

I have played a power/crit necro from the start but I am thinking about building a conditionmancer necro. After reading these forums I see a variety of answers so I wanted to get your input on the following:

1. Armor – precision, toughness, condition damage, what do you think?

2. Runes – 6/6 undead (seen all kinds of answers here, does the 6th ability use your toughness?)

3. Sigils – okay I was thinking superior earth on the scepter and superior agony on the dagger, is this good? Seen corruption and geomancy favored as well

4. Trinkets – go with Coral Orciblahblah jewelry? (stuff that has condition dmg)

5. Abilities – was thinking Blood is Power, Corrupt Boon, and maybe Well of Corruption (or Epidemic), thoughts?

6. Traits – was thinking 10 Spite (Reapers Might), 30 Curses (Hemo, Master of Corruption, Lingering Curse), where do I put the rest? I have seen alot of Death Magic (for the toughness I guess?) Not sure what to do here.

Thank you!

It looks like you definitely are on the right track here. For Sigils I find that Geomancy is my personal favorite as it really helps in stacking bleeds quickly especially on targets that cleanse often. I also prefer Sigils of minor corruption, as it’s quite easy to hit 25 stacks in one round on PvP (5 per kill). Also note that if you run Sigil of Earth + Geomancy, triggering the Earth sigil will put your Geomancy sigil on cooldown too, which can make it less effective.

Abilities → I personally run Epidemic, Blood is Power, and Plague Signet. Corrupt Boon is great too, but if you are going to pvp with this build, you really need at least one stun break.

Traits → Curses looks perfect, but I wouldn’t bother with Reaper’s Might. Life blast just fires off so slow that even if you get 5 off, you’ll start losing your stacks of might and bleed anyways.

Also, Death magic is great, especially with 6x Undead runes. Here is what I would grab: Greater Marks, Shrouded Removal, Reaper’s Protection or Staff Mastery.

Lastly, try to grab Mark of Evasion in Blood Magic (10 points). Combined with Sigil of Geomancy, you can make your dodge roll + weapon swap instantly stack 5 bleeds on targets in range. Also works with Greater Marks.

Please note this is from a PVE perspective:

1. Armor – Rabid armour (TA/Arah/HotW)

2. Runes – 6/6 undead

3. Sigils – MH scepter of earth, OH dagger of corruption, staff geomancy or corruption (helps stacking the buff faster – note you gain buff on kill when the weapon is out)

4. Trinkets – 5 Carrion (some go 3:2 with rampagers but I personally prefer the extra cond dmg)

5. Abilities – I personally use well of corruption (extra aoe dmg) Blood is Power, and Epidemic

6. Traits – 30/30/0/10/0 is generally accepted to be the highest aoe dmg spec, variations include 20/30/10/10/0

(7) AOE Rotation – well of corruption, scepter 2, dagger 5, BiP, dagger 4, Swap weapons (geomancy procs), staff 2, 3, 4, Epidemic – congratulations you’ve just melted faces

Thank you!

Regarding life blast I generally use it if everything is on cd and im lacking might, fire 3 shots pop 4 and swap back

Most of what the other two fella’s have said will see you in the right direction. There are some decent synergies in the Death Magic line which will net you 5% of toughness goes into power. Personally, I like the 30 Curses, 30 Death Magic and 10 Soul Reaping build Im running as its extremely hardy and I do wvw exclusively with a tiny bit of pve.

10 in Soul Reaping gives me Gluttony which is important to tank up as often as possible with skills to the ‘damage soak’ that is Death Shroud, being I use a lot of Spectral Skills, I also take the IV for 20% quicker recharges.
Plus, if you’re aiming to crit a lot, make it hurt that bit more.

30 in Death Magic, I don’t use pets so I ignore the traits associated with them, I run V Staff Mastery for 20% faster on the ol stick, as much as I hate it sometimes, I use it for a lot.
Also is VII Spiteful Vigor, an often little used ability that gives you Retaliation, so when Mr Thief/Warrior/Ranger unloads, you’ll probably pop a heal anyway, so the next load of incoming pain they’re going to do… all glass cannon builds utterly melt when they hit it.
Last one, II Greater Marks, because it will cover an entire zerg with all kinds of pain in short order and very useful for spraying around everywhere against ‘invisible people’ until they explode or delaying actions. Sometimes I swap that one out for Reapers Protection which isn’t a bad trait either and useful for buying that extra second to get a heal off when you’re CC’d.

30 Curses, same as everyone else with Hemophilia and Lingering Curse, I pop in VII Master of Corruption, which gives -20% on Corruption skills as I’ll also pop BIP and Epidemic in there for blowing up anyone else who isn’t covered by the 2-3-4 from the staff or sceptre-dagger beating.

Sigils, you’ll want the Corruption ones, I tend to stick one in both the staff and sceptre so I can build it up as quick as possible and for the off-hands of dagger, focus and warhorn (they all have their applications) Accuracy for the +5% crit chance.

Runes, seeing as theres so much toughness there, Undead ones are just fine, cheap and do what they say on the can.

Skills,
Consume Conditions- by far ‘the’ best multipurpose heal in the game in my opinion.
BIP, because it hurts… and hurts a lot, if you dont want to dump the bleed on yourself when low on hitpoints, it will still charge the 10 stacks of Might without selecting anyone.
Epidemic- for when you must down/kill every kitten in a massive radius, in conjunction with BIP and a few other conditions, they will not enjoy it. Collect bags, rinse and repeat.
Spectral Walk- Its a stun break, teleport and gtfo of town with a long +33% move speed when the crap hits the fan, the utility and applications are very handy anywhere. Combo it with a warhorn and you’re 100% up-time at that movement rate when you must get somewhere in a hurry.

Plague form is a zerg buster under the right conditions a last ditch survival strategy and a way of getting through mobs of enemy at the gates so to speak. In pve, the tanking potential is also very good.

I ‘like’ Corrupt Boon and Spectral Grasp, however, their reliability is extremely questionable most of the time. Wells are also fine for what they do if you must occupy/deny a location, but they have fairly lengthy downtimes for short duration, I use them a lot in PvE.

The key to condition necros is applying constant, aggressive pressure to the enemy, you must constantly dictate to them that they will be crippled, chilled, bleeding, blind and force that tempo of conflict to your pace. They want to rush in, make sure they can’t, they want to range you down, take the fight to them.
You must also pick your positioning carefully all the time and make sure, their position is manipulated with wells/marks and other AOE, keep your #5 on staff handy as a last resort to keep them well out of range.

Lastly, you biggest enemy is people with lots of crowd control and knock downs. There are not a lot of things which will end you quicker than someone able to inhibit your mobility or ability to act. Necro’s don’t have a lot of stability options, hence why you have to be very careful with your positioning more so than others who do.

Pre/tough/cond for me, trinklets I toss in vitality, power and extra condition. Geomancy seems best for one of the weapons, and then add condition damage upon killing foes.

I was 0/0/30/30/10 for a while, experimenting with 0/20/30/20/0 right now, but in Heart of the Mists I’ve been rolling 30/20/10/0/10 with power/prec gear and condition trinklet. Spectral Grasp is good for LOL’s on pulling bunker guardians out of point holds in s/tPVP and I use it often against runners in WvWvW.

Thank you for all the replies, I have decided to go 10 Spite, 30 Curses, 20 Death, 10 Blood. Just a few more questions:

1) given a 63% condition duration (hemophilia, lingering curses, 10 in spite) my bleeds will last 6.5 seconds. Unless I am wrong, power increases duration yes? With my trinkets and weapons do you think it will be enough to get my bleeds to 7 seconds (no + duration sigils) since the duration rounds down?

2) With 20 in Death Magic I was thinking of using Staff Mastery but since my build uses scepter/dagger mostly I thought about using Spiteful Vigor or Reaper’s Protection. Has anyone tried these and do they work well. I am curious how long the fear lasts.

3) What staff stats are good with this build? Should I just go power/prec/crit dmg or even try to get condition damage on it?

4) Does Sigil of Corruption on a staff stick with you when you swap or do you lose the stacks?

Thanks again,
Danjirus