Guild Wars 2

So my necro just hit level 80 and I’m in love with it. Unfortunately I crafted about 30 of those levels so I lost a pretty good chunk of play/learning time. My question is this: what are some good armor stats to get for necros? With so many different good build types it seems so hard to pick something versatile. I don’t want to be the guy with 3 different exotic armor sets for different builds. My thoughts so far:

Power/Toughness/Vit – Rather beefy with good amount of direct damage. Good for wells and d/d I’d assume

Power/Condition damage/Toughness – Bit more versatility between direct damage and condition damage and still some added armor in there.

Condition Damage/Condition duration/(Power/Toughness) – Since most necro skills, even those that deal direct damage, normally have some sort of condition on them, why not capitalize on that? Assuming this would be good for “conditionmancers”

Honestly almost any armor set I can name would have its pros and cons for a necro. Just having difficulty figuring out what would be best. What armor sets do you guys run on your necros?

Also, what are some common build for necros in dungeons? People normally just run wellomancer or conditionmancer? Or more survivability/support? Thanks.

Gear depends on traits used. Minions currently count to POTATO!!! so traiting for them is not going to benefit you much. Everything else is just gearing for the traits you are using. If you are trying to do single target damage you go dagger or axe with a heavy power focus, if you are going epidemic builds you want max conditions damage and duration. Wells builds benefit from both power and conditions. Death Shroud Builds focus power/crit and crit damage. etc…

Gear for what your goal is. And you will likely need at least two sets of gear just because with minions mostly broken, and all their traits being subsequently useless, the options are to min/max or die alot. Sometimes you will need to outlast something rather than outdamage it.

Sheobix.8796 has a very good build on the forums. I was running a very similar build to his for sometime. With practice you can do a decent job at 1 vs 2 players with his build in wvwvw.

I strongly wanted to be a minion master like from gw1 but gw2 are a complete joke because of long recasts, cant have more then one of each one out, die to easy, and the AI is a major factor in then failing. Now if the ai gets fixed and they make it so recast wasnt so long i think a minion master would be a good build. They already do good damage its just with the AI they do not work right.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Update-28k-HP-3k-Armor-3-4k-Attack-Necro/first

edit: i am advising against using minions to him, for reasons as AI, long recasts, and such.

gamefreak.5673:

Sheobix.8796 has a very good build on the forums. I was running a very similar build to his for sometime. With practice you can do a decent job at 1 vs 2 players with his build in wvwvw.

I strongly wanted to be a minion master like from gw1 but gw2 are a complete joke because of long recasts, cant have more then one of each one out, die to easy, and the AI is a major factor in then failing. Now if the ai gets fixed and they make it so recast wasnt so long i think a minion master would be a good build. They already do good damage its just with the AI they do not work right.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Update-28k-HP-3k-Armor-3-4k-Attack-Necro/first

Sacrificing crit chance with a power build just doesn’t sit right with me. Sheobix build is just a combination of core components without and focus.

Changing to Staff and Dagger/Focus, using Vulnerability Well, Blood is Power, and Epidemic and Death Shroud 4 provides massive burst without so many wasted points and if you want to really focus burst damage you can also achieve that with a semi survivable Glass Cannon build with no vitality or toughness.

30 0 0 10 30 is one of my favorite DS builds. I use mainly Life Force Traits and Damage mods and I gear for power and a 35/35 crit/crit damage build. Making it a cannon you could just 30 30 0 0 10 and focus mainly power and crit damage on your gear. That is not a solo build but if you have support you can tear through whole zergs of people.

Don’t try to Hybrid though. Without minions working there is nothing to make up for the top end loss.