Guild Wars 2

I have a lvl 46 Necro alt that I abandoned 6 months ago and want to pick up again. I was using scepter/dagger + staff conditions and it was working pretty well. But it sounds like some fairly good changes have happened for necros and I’m wondering what’s new and what’s a fun way to level now. Is DS a good time now rather than merely a 2nd health bar?

By now, if you had read this forum, you should have a good idea about the changes made to necro. But there is only a good way to test how them affect you: Pick up again your necro, and test it yourself. Is the only way to judge if you like or dislike the changes.

IIRC, minions were improved for intelligence about six months ago. Since then, they have been improved with additional health and strength. Hybrid builds got Dhuumfire and DS received Torment. Also, downed state health and DS are not so squishy, signets got tweaked, wells CD shortened, etc. There have been many other smaller adjustments but I do not remember them all off hand. You will have to review the patch notes.

Overall, Necromancer has been brought up to par with most professions so give it a shot if you are curious.

@Morbridae: I have jumped back into my necro and brought her round to the Pavillion and was having fun. But before I go getting sucked into necro, I want to make sure the profession has variety and viability. I don’t care about dps-meters but I want to make sure I can mess around with my necro and bring some useful and fun tools to the party.

@Anchoku: are MM builds possible now? At least for open world? Before they were stupid and died to fast. I’m guessing their survivabilty in dungeons and WvW is still a liability.

re Dhuumfire: (100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits. This effect can only trigger once every 10 seconds). This is a grandmaster trait that is identical to an engineer (my main) adept trait. It’s a great trait that is often taken to complement engi builds. I know that comparing professions is like comparing apples and ogres, but why is this trait so awesome for necros, and so build-defining? Is it that it’s the only way for a necro to apply burning (as opposed to engi’s many ways) that makes it so important?

Dhuumfire is really great. burn is so good because its a fast condition, it hits hard and finishes fast.

I think scept/dag + staff is fine. DS these days is really good. The fixes to LF generation and the addition of DS5 is fantastic.

Seras.5702:

@Morbridae: But before I go getting sucked into necro, I want to make sure the profession has variety and viability. I don’t care about dps-meters but I want to make sure I can mess around with my necro and bring some useful and fun tools to the party.

I had played almost all the classes in-game, and my personal favorite is still the necro, my main. I enjoy a lot playing with it, but it may probably be because it suits my playstyle, so I don’t know if you will enjoy it.

At least, I am not alone in it: everybody says it’s a crappy class, every update they nerf us… and still, we necro-players keep playing and rockin’ on.

Necros are “known” for not bringing support to the party, at least directly; besides, everything the necro does, arguably another class do it better. That’s not exactly true, since the necro helps not buffing the party, but applying conditions to mobs… even the conditions already at your party-mates.

But as a whole, I find that necros do a good damage, and have a very good survivability. I tested a lot of builds for necro, and I normally play a powermancer with mostly Pow/Tou/Vit, and normally I take the mob’s agro, and also is normal that I am the last man standing.

imho, try the necro. You will enjoy it.

I can still recommend Power & DS for PvE.

And Condi/Hybrid melts face lots harder in PvP.

Oh and staff marks are bigger so you don’t need to grater marks (Tho still sexy in WvW etc)