Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been toying around with gear choices and runesets to try and get a great peripheral well necro build for WvW to use with my guild. The traits were recommended to me by one of the leading necromancers in my guild, however I’ve been playing around with the gear to try and get some passive survivability since he usually just goes full zerk when he plays power, but I basically just want enough toughness to survive pushing through moderate groups and to be able to survive enemy gank squads long enough to get away from them and back into my guild’s heavies. I’m aiming for close to 50% accuracy when using axe/wh using an accuracy sigil to make that possible. I’ve been messing around with a gearset with comparable numbers, but less crit damage (have a ton of guild commendations I’m sitting on to buy the cavalier trinkets) and so far that has been working out pretty well, I just thought I should get second opinions. I typically open with staff to spam marks until my driver calls for a well bomb, then I switch to axe/wh, drop the wells and go into death shroud so that the wells pretty much fully crit, and then I send out piercing lifeblasts into the fray or back off with tainted shackles and life transfer for the AoE damage and to help with my group’s recovery. I switch back to staff if I feel pressured or in need of it’s utility, and also if I need a 3rd dodge.

Anyway here’s the more defensive build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmWarpx2G+bUULUTFFQOnBQUdA1txcUtA-TVDBABxs/ghaB6SJxoqZUpqJScEAwSZQaKBB4EA4lSt80FsxhAIgHAAA-w

It caps out at 48% crit chance and uses divinity runes to help out with passive defense a bit. 2.4 K armor and 20K health seems to givea pretty good amount of survivability, and 220% crit damage is strong. For food I usually take lemongrass or saffron bread defending on how much I trust the guardian I’m with for stability, and I always slot a sharpening stone, but for this build template, I’ve left those slots blank.

Here is the second build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmWarpx2G+bUULUTFFQOnBQUdA1txcUtA-TFDBABdpkYU1EqU1GJOCAYpMINlgAcCA8SpGN7Pkn+gNOEAB8AAAA-w

It is more offensive and reaches the 50% crit chance thanks to eagle runes, which lets me run less assassin’s and more zerker. Since I’ll have howler in the next week or two, I can switch between zerker or assassin’s depending on which build I make. It only has 2327 toughness, and 19.3K health before vitality stacks from guards, but it also has 2% more crit damage, and a bit more power.

Which of these builds would you recommend, and do you guys have any other suggestions for runes or sigils that will help me be a true cannon in WvW, but not totally glass?

Hey, looked at your builds and it looks like you’re going with the Wells playstyle. Off of this, I recommend trying out VIII – Ritual Mastery in Blood Magic to reduce your well cooldowns. You may wish to drop Axe Mastery, as you’ll often be using Staff for the AoE capabilities (axe being single-target).

If you’re loaded and you group provides you with Might, go for Runes of Strength. Provided you have Might on your buff bar, you’ll gain 5% damage. Other good ones include Rune of the Scholar (10% extra damage above 90% hp) and Rune of Hoelbrak (-20% incoming condi duration, +20% might duration) as a slightly more defensive choice.

I don’t think you need Divinities, Necro doesn’t scale too amazingly with healing power imo. If you need personal stability, taking XI – Foot in the Grave (in Soul Reaping) is a solid choice: stability on entering death shroud is strong. If not, Deathly Perception works amazingly with your insane crit damage.

Yeah divinity was sort of a cop out rune for the stats. For now, since I’m still on the legendary grindfest for the next couple of days (I’m only 24 dungeon paths away once the 111 molten lodestone I converted using skill points sell at 83.98s, soo close) I don’t want to buy strength runes as they’re too expensive. I was heavily considering scholar runes since they give a ton of extra damage, but I was sort of hoping I could get enough precision to hit 50% crit chance between an accuracy sigil and precision gained from runes, but besides eagle, the only other runes that give precision and either power or ferocity are pack runes (which give fury, making having 50% crit chance a waste) thief runes, which give a redundant condition damage boost, ranger runes which would need a minion active, and then lyssa/mesmer/golemancer/rata sum runes which are all rpetty meh in terms of what they can offer.

And yeah I’m running death perception because I run in an organized guild group where I pretty much always have stability when it matters from having a guardian in my party. While I do like the well recharge traits, the other necros in my guild usually don’t run it so we time our bombs assuming we have the same cooldowns, so the well recharge wouldn’t benefit us too much. As for axe mastery, its what my guildmate who’s very knowledgable with necro in WvW recommends, and it allows me to maintain high damage life blasts with the trait, and I already have force on it from PvE, making it even stronger. But yeah as I explained before I basically open with marks, switch to axe, drop wells and go into DS while players melt in them.

If I were to drop axe training, I’d probably go 0/2/4/2/6 or 0/2/2/4/6, and I’d be afraid of that having too little power before the sharpening stone and too little damage, plus I’d have a lower crit chance from not having accuracy on staff unless I switched those around.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmWarpx2G+bUMMUSlCTWDxQUBA1RxVkrA-TFDBABbpUoLlEjqaRlqpIxRAAr9HlBppEEgTAgXKxyTfwGHCgAeAAAA-w

After playing around with the numbers, I made this build that can reach up to 48% crit chance meaning 98% crit chance in DS. I took a tankier trait spread with only slightly less power and more group healing potential with deathly invigoration, but it could be changed to the well recharge trait or the vampiric precision trait should the group heal prove useless for my group in WvW. It only has slightly less power than the other builds I though about, and a decent bit more toughness and a bit more HP and only 5% crit damage..

Anyway, before I buy gear, I’d love to have comments to fully flesh this out before I commit to it!

I played a build similar to yours for a couple of months. It wasn’t bad but I figured out that I was wasting my time and effort putting points into traits that help heal others. Necros are garbage when it comes to healing and those points are more effective put towards things the necro excels at.

Leave the healing to the eles. In fact I’d get out of the blood line altogether. Like I said necros are terrible at healing and putting points into blood removes a lot of your offensive power.

Hahaha thanks. I guess I can never really break the mold of 6/2/0/0/6 builds, since close to death would help a lot more using your probably correct reasoning. Most of my guild’s necro builds take transfusion if they’re not condition, but I guess the extra damage helps a lot more. Plus my guild only has 3 eles on at one time usually, since most don’t like being water bots. Or I could go 4/2/2/0/6 but then I’d feel really unspecialized.. hmm

I haven’t been playing necro in WvW all that long, so I’m just finally getting the hang of the playstyle and positioning and how to be useful, so your advice is greatly appreciated.

In particular, if I drop the points from blood and or death magic, I’m not sure how to maintain the precision and crit damage while adding more vitality and toughness, so I guess reducing power from the gear could be effective.. but I’m not really sure.

How much health and toughness would you guys say is ideal for necro?

I’m running 2100 armor, 1200 toughness at the moment. Don’t know that I’d call that ideal but I’m getting used to it and getting better about positioning myself not to get focused down.

I’ve always found range-mobility to be challenging when it comes to peripheral necro:s in guild fights, but I guess that comes down to the driver as well. I would gear a bit defensively until I got the hang of it.

Okay thanks for the input guys. After asking the other necros in my guild, most of them run 1200ish toughness as well, so I’m actually tankier than them ever so slightly.

I don’t find it to be too much of a huge problem unless our group as a whole is getting murdered by blobs. If we’re doing well the survivability seems to be no issue at all, and I feel like the 1300ish range is enough to mitigate any random damage I take, since DS and plague give me so much health the enemy has to burn through.

My final necro build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpxxG+bToLUQvmBQKE1EQ9YUGLLA-TVDBAB1s/gWKJ6TzwoqUUp6KnpEELlTAcBA84gAklSk80BwwRAIgHAQAAEgbezAwQH6QH6QHaXXo38o38mlCIilRA-w
I get about 4.1k power with full stacks and might, with 100% crit chance. For some reason it feels like anet tried to be slick and bug the crit chance of wells. Anything less than 90% crit chance feels like i get less crits then I should. 100% is 100% though so no fudging with that. If you do wanna go tankier get knights gear over cavalier’s always, since precision will give you more dps than ferocity (and those are basically the two traits your are choosing between). Basically knights always gives more dps with the same power and toughness that cavaliers does for any given equipment slot.
Edit: Sorry, since the build has100% crit, its one of the few instances cavaliers might be worth it.

Keep in mind:

With 2 guardians in group should have might up most of the time, making your own might stacking redundant and a waste.

With 2 warriors in group you can drop your crit chance all the way down to 30%, they will give you 100% fury uptime. I would recommend this for wvw but not for gvg.

Just like armor loses effectiveness over the 3k threshold, so does critical damage. If you have too much or too little crit dmg then you are hurting your build. I wish I knew the actual formula for that, but I aim for 2500 power and 200-220 crit dmg.

Runes of the Pack. Keeps your swiftness and fury up in case you get out of range of your warriors. A power rune, with some precision on the 6th bonus. Solid choice.

Running with really low armor on a necro is a really bad idea. They have no mobility or escapes. It doesnt matter how good your positioning is, sooner or later a periphery is going to demolish you. Sure you turn arou —-—- no. Against opponents of any worth, you will have no time to react.

Hi necromancer thread necros, thanks for the bump?

That is my build for wvw yes, and it works well. If you get caught you have deathshroud and plagueform, so its still survivable. In my opinion necro is one of the few classes that can get away with going full glass in wvw. I do enough damage to where I can scare off most thieves or single backline harassers that come at me. But it’s not really suited for gvg’s you’re right. For GvG i’d probably use either one of these two builds.
Build 1: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpx3G+bT8LIyGLQcJoO72oA-T1CBwA5U/RpSrzKBxqMBwFBolmhU6AeYaZzRAo3+DBeAAkCgJhRA-w

Build 2: (if fight has a faster tempo): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpx3G+bTMMIzeLYcBoO60kA-T1CBwAGVGkT9HlK9AcRAapZIlOgHm/moEczRAo3+DBeAAkCgJhRA-w

The old chill on blind trait isnt really worth it these days since most run lemongrass + melandru still. Whether you need reduced cool downs on wells, again depends on the tempo of the fights, and the play style of your guild. Also if your guild does provide a lot of aoe fury (mine doesnt) I would take out 5 points from curses.

Stazee.6749:

That is my build for wvw yes, and it works well. If you get caught you have deathshroud and plagueform, so its still survivable. In my opinion necro is one of the few classes that can get away with going full glass in wvw. I do enough damage to where I can scare off most thieves or single backline harassers that come at me. But it’s not really suited for gvg’s you’re right. For GvG i’d probably use either one of these two builds.
Build 1: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpx3G+bT8LIyGLQcJoO72oA-T1CBwA5U/RpSrzKBxqMBwFBolmhU6AeYaZzRAo3+DBeAAkCgJhRA-w

Build 2: (if fight has a faster tempo): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpx3G+bTMMIzeLYcBoO60kA-T1CBwAGVGkT9HlK9AcRAapZIlOgHm/moEczRAo3+DBeAAkCgJhRA-w

The old chill on blind trait isnt really worth it these days since most run lemongrass + melandru still. Whether you need reduced cool downs on wells, again depends on the tempo of the fights, and the play style of your guild. Also if your guild does provide a lot of aoe fury (mine doesnt) I would take out 5 points from curses.

Why would you ever use Death Shiver on that first build? I rarely go that far into death magic, and if I did it would be for greater marks (which isn’t really needed at all).

I get similar levels of toughness using mainly zerker gear with melandru runes, and a mix or zerker, knights, and cavalier trinkets, and I only go like 2 into death magic.

What are peoples opinion of this. I have been running this with everything except the ascended armor. I have the mats but waiting to finalize my build. This build was specifically made for running with double guardian, double warrior in a 20-25 man guild group that often fights large blobs. I have found chilling darkness to be a fantastic trait when combined with +duration food in combination with spite duration and sigil of chilling. This build allows me to bomb (double well, life transfer) almost as well as a full glass necro. (100 less power, 10% less crit damage) The two trinkets can be switched around for valk (more crit damage) or cavalier (more survive). I have found the sweet spot to be with the two PVT trinkets.

By grabbing Chilling Darkness I get my fury on death shroud which guarantees that I am always at 100% crit chance when I drop my wells, life blast or life transfer. However outside of DS I am sitting at 30% precision which nerfs my 1 spam. I do not GVG much but when I do I switch my weapons out for dagger/focus and switch my sigils around. Sometimes I drop the axe training and drop another point in path of corruption. In smaller 15v15 fights I have had good success with dark path combined with my many ways to reapply chill (2 hydromancy sigils).

I however am not completely sold on this build. Sometimes I put on my melandru rune set and build tanky and then I do not have to pay as much attention to my positioning in fights. Other times I put full zerk on and 6/2/0/0/2 double energy and go to town. The build I posted feels like It gives me a lot of burst, while also having the extra soft CC which really helps us lock down a groups backline. Running my duration food is probably the biggest change to the norm, it makes chilling darkness relevant against groups that run lemongrass\poultry and wrecks pug groups that do not. I guess I am looking for opinion before I drop all my mats on ascended valk gear only to regret it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBmODbkjmaabpxoG+bTULUQWnBQkhQHQdbcGVLA-TFjBABAcEA04gAUp6Hzs/AWKVmUFErUCBxDA4KlFLqE8OdDKcBACAgAczbmNbzghO0hO0hO0u5Nv5Nv5NLFgYLjA-w

Your build looks conflicted to me. A well-bomber’s job is to hang back and provide continuous fire support but most of your build is front line power. In well-bombing, you should avoid close combat because you are most effective at being a thorn in the enemy’s side. A few good staff/wells Necros can wreck an army’s defense. It is not a glamorous job and leaves you vulnerable if things go badly. Keep discipline and you will be a great asset in a zerg or roving group with enough members.

Alternatively, go to a full power build and forget staff/wells in favor of one of a few 1v1 builds.

Btw, aside from greater marks, spiteful marks, staff mastery, ritual mastery and focused rituals, everything else should be power and condi focused for an artillery build – as full zerker/rampager as the traits and equipment allow. That is a glass AoE canon. Forget survivability, be as annoying as you can. Just do not get caught out of protection.

nearlight.3064:

Why would you ever use Death Shiver on that first build? I rarely go that far into death magic, and if I did it would be for greater marks (which isn’t really needed at all).

I get similar levels of toughness using mainly zerker gear with melandru runes, and a mix or zerker, knights, and cavalier trinkets, and I only go like 2 into death magic.

The first build because I like deadly strength minor trait(all the death magic minor traits are decent), as you said greater marks isnt really needed (although i have used that instead), and because vunerability is underrated. 3-9% more damage (per necro) on targets your entire guild is hitting is bad? Oh and I like the toughness it gives. As for the mix of gear, i dont like losing power to gain toughness since wells damaged is power based.

Dawkins, the build looks ok, but i dont think chilling darkness is really worth it. When people run melandru + lemongrass your chill only ticks for like .3 something seconds. It can be ok if you hit their backline (alot of which wont be running minus condi duration) and for plagueform but i feel like its pretty lackluster now. So I would trait something else or put 5 points into something like Death Magic. Also I’m kinda iffy on axe training, but that’s probably just a preference thing. I really, really like how you combined furious demise with death perception and only had to get 30% crit chance (to have 100% in DS). I dunno why i never thought about that lol.

Axe got nerfed with dumbfire moving to DS. Not as much reason to run it, now; so sad. If axe did AoE cleave, though…

“When people run melandru + lemongrass your chill only ticks for like .3 something seconds.”

With all due respect, between my sigil, 4pts in spite and +40 duration condi food a person with lemongrass and melandru will be chilled for far more then .3 seconds. Arguments against the build that speak too the fact that I do not run lemongrass myself, or that good hammer trains will have good stability negating chills are both issues that I have been debating between. Perhaps I misunderstand how duration works. Friends in other guilds that I have played against have commented how long my chills feel compared to what they normally experience, so I imagine it has some effect. Is that effect worth losing the extra damage from close to death, is it worth losing the extra crit chance outside of death shroud. That is what I wonder.

As to axe training. Reduced cooldown on Axe 3 is nice, extra 10% for lifeblast is more the reason for the trait then anything. I run into the spite line more for the damage and the condi duration in this build then anything really. I would love to have reduced charge on wells, but this build is designed to keep the “bomb” close to its full potential. Axe training for me seems like the best trait available in 2nd tier of spite.

Thanks for the input!

Hmmm about death shiver I see your logic. It would make a lot sense if every necro ran it but my guild seems to run more offensive specs on well necros lol

The death shiver just isn’t worth it, it works better in a draw out fight small scale not in the wvw, or gvg style fights. That build actually looks fine, I run something similiar but go with a strange mix if armor, knights zerker soldiers valk. I don’t use the chill well or the chill on blind traits. I also play it on the frontline as well. Necros are perfectly capable of being frontline dps if they stay with the guards and are with a good group of players. Also I run melandru and lemongrass instead of strength, I do keep a strength set with me as well though.

Sorry dawkins I didnt pay attention to the food buffs and sigils you were using. So yeah your chills should be at around 0.8 seconds per tick against melandru user and something like 2.25 seconds on non users. Chill isnt affected by stability and it will stack in duration with other necros using it. So if that is you’re strategy the way you have it set up would be the way i would go too (if i wanted to run chilling darkness along with the other necro’s in my guild). On it’s own it still seems lackluster though, because most are going to dodge out of the field and only get 1-2 ticks. Still works great with plague form though.

Nexed, I’m not saying death shivers is amazing. I’m saying that I want to put 5 points in death magic for the toughness and all the other traits. Death shiver just happens to be the best trait for its slot imo (greater marks isnt terrible either). But like i said out of all my builds i prefer the 6/2/0/0/6 most for wvw, because the damage is so much higher. I just wouldnt use it for gvg’s.

I just think it’s a mistake to ever put points in a lone for stats > traits.

NeXeD.3042:

I just think it’s a mistake to ever put points in a lone for stats > traits.

Yeah I agree with this full-heartedly. I see tons of people complain that complain about stuff like dhuumfire being in spite or (for ranger) martial mastery and offhand training being in wilderness survival ( a condition damage line). Trait lines have their own themes that the traits follow, and the stats are merely a bonus attached to that.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAoYWjc00SbNNG3wfjihBRqUTWLYUBoO6ykA-TFjFABws/wSKhQSJDAnCgrUCakShjUGQo6CnpH4QVaS4JAgmmmAAIAO6RP6RP6R7mD9mD9mDtUAFpMC-w

frontline necro.