Guild Wars 2

Do you like corruptions? Scepter? Signets? Necromancer’s current spot in the meta?

I don’t, so I decided to play this season with what is potentially the goofiest build I could come up with without being (entirely) useless. And, because I need to justify my choice, I felt like sharing it for craps and giggles.

This build was made mostly out of my love for minionmancer, specifically with the idea of minions helping me as opposed to me helping minions (which is the more traditional case).

Build: Rat Bomber

Unfortunately, it’s still condition based and runs both of the typical condition traits and the typical hybrid amulet. But that’s okay, because it uses dagger – which might be my new favorite spvp weapon.

With the recent addition of boon corruption to Dagger 3, it’s super duper close to finally being an actually good weapon. Due to the speed and unparalleled life force generation on the autoattack, it functions decently as a defensive choice, with the 2 skill being ~okay for kiting and sustain. The 3, however, is godlike when used at the right time. Stripping an enemies boons and immobilizing them in one ability can often guarantee a kill during a teamfight. And, since no boon corrupts into immobilize, it’s never superfluous.

As for utilities, the only minions run are those that can result in easy Death Novas – for obvious reasons. It is not uncommon to have a stack of 6 or more minions all die or expire at the same time, resulting in around 5000 unpredictable damage – and random is fun!

I initially made this build to be defensive in nature due to solo queue often meaning that nobody will peel for you, and sometimes good positioning just isn’t enough. But after playing it for a bit, I found it to be crazy fun. And, I mean, this build took me to legend around a week ago – so it’s got to be worth something, right?

Might want to try Shrouded Removal or Putrid Defense instead of Flesh of the Master, since you actually want your minions to die.

I’m not sure how well it will work, but it’s worth testing.

No Soul Marks? :/

Krysard.1364:

No Soul Marks? :/

Oops, that’s not right.
Fixed the above build to include Soul Marks – which really can’t be played without due to the prevalence of revenants.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Might want to try Shrouded Removal or Putrid Defense instead of Flesh of the Master, since you actually want your minions to die.

I’m not sure how well it will work, but it’s worth testing.

The first tier of Death Magic is dependent on the enemy comp, with Flesh of the Master being more useful against aggressive teams due to the heightened durability of Shambling Horrors.

The lack of Death Novas on most minions is a point of contention with me. In PvE, they only die against bosses fully capable of surviving or when I switch between land and sea. Against other players, most minions are not targeted and, if they are…

I kind of wish I could slot Bone Minions twice in my utility line for base Necromancer but Shambling Horror is good with the Reaper line, though Reaper means sacrificing Blood Magic if you want to keep Death Magic and Soul Reaping.

What do you think of this variant? No Reaper Shroud, though.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZakjGaqxuawvG4wxx0QRnhdYTlDQBEAzH4CqAA-TZxHABzXG4k9HA4QAIwJAIgnAAA

Anchoku.8142:

I kind of wish I could slot Bone Minions twice in my utility line for base Necromancer but Shambling Horror is good with the Reaper line, though Reaper means sacrificing Blood Magic if you want to keep Death Magic and Soul Reaping.

All things considered, I find that Reaper Shroud is just so vastly superior to Death Shroud that taking the traitline is necessary in competitive play. Without Reaper, you lose access to our only form of not-terrible stability and not-terrible Dhuumfire application. Furthermore, Deathly Chill is a cornerstone of this build due to it not taking scepter – the damaging chill and burning are “enough,” but only if both are present in large quantities.

If you must run base shroud, you become a ping-pong-ball unless you stay at range. And, if you’re staying at range, why run a defensive build instead of the standard corruptomancer that excels at ranged combat?

As far as minions not dying goes, that’s partially the reason why I slot Bone Minions and Rise! The first can be detonated on command, and the latter is guaranteed to die after 25 seconds. Additionally, due to the sheer amount of AoE spam that comes out of Tempests, Dragonhunters, and other Reapers, its very unlikely that your minions will survive a teamfight.

this looks pretty fun, i havent tried mm for a long time. gonna try it out, thanks for the share.
melandrus rune tho? isnt that redundant with minions taking your condis?

Stand The Wall.6987:

this looks pretty fun, i havent tried mm for a long time. gonna try it out, thanks for the share.
melandrus rune tho? isnt that redundant with minions taking your condis?

Melandru was chosen because I’m a huge coward. Nightmare would be good too. Grenth would be beneficial due to the low cooldown of YSIM, and probably wouldn’t be too redundant due to the prevalence of cleanse-happy tempests.

The rune component is certainly up to the user, as it isn’t really crucial to the build functioning.

yeah the build works fine, tanky as hell and actually decent damage with dagger and all the esplodey minis.

Steelstickfig.9146:

Stand The Wall.6987:

this looks pretty fun, i havent tried mm for a long time. gonna try it out, thanks for the share.
melandrus rune tho? isnt that redundant with minions taking your condis?

Melandru was chosen because I’m a huge coward. Nightmare would be good too. Grenth would be beneficial due to the low cooldown of YSIM, and probably wouldn’t be too redundant due to the prevalence of cleanse-happy tempests.

The rune component is certainly up to the user, as it isn’t really crucial to the build functioning.

You can also run rune of thorns AKA +250 condition damage & +40% poison duration in any long fight.

+1 for build name

yeah thorns didnt think of that. good choice.

Pretty fun build!

Used something close on an alt, it doesn’t have HOT with it so had to improvise, ran something like this instead, and has been doing really good. Alot of synergy all around http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBmQDbkjGKvxmawtG4wxRwQJPhUoEiJdA0A0r4L+VA-TpRHABCt/wAPAACuAAAcQAqvMQAHBAA