Guild Wars 2

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcVMcm9coGMxMoGMxoG0Gx0coMmMRb

I just recently came back to the game and bought a bunch of rare “soldier” gear for my Necro. I have everything pretty well ironed out aside from runes/sigils. Currently I just have Soldier crests slotted and “Bloodlust”/“Forceful” on D/WH with “Battle” on the staff. I was just looking for recommendations on which route to take.

I’m tempted to do 2x Strength, 2x Hoelbrak, 2x Pirate and drop another Battle sigil on my dagger and really focus on Might from weapon swaps and Life Blast. I’d lose a good bit of Vitality/Toughness from the crests in the process of doing that, diminishing the tanky power role I’m working for…

Or should I just keep the Soldier crests and swap Reaper’s Might out for Spiteful Spirit and just play tankier with Retaliation? Keeping DS just as an “oh ****” button and to proc retal… I wish there were better Toughness runes…

Depends on what you want or if you even want a secondary function, but id only think about min maxing the runes/sigils if you got full exotic.
Pure tank is dolyak despite the low regen it still saves peoples behinds, mercy since it helps a lot in pugs or helping people get into dungeons (really good on a warrior) or melandru if you didnt go 30 into SR since the 25% cuts on conditions and cc is massive.
Secondary condition control necro would be 2 lyssa 2 mad king 2 lich/nightmare
If with Knights trinkets then obvious choice would be Ruby or Emerald gems.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNBmODbESrSPTTUjfTBIVA7pHdPu4RKKeYqClD;TsAA1CtoIyQkgILROikEtAZIy2AA – seems like the soldier well setup based on team support while still being quite the hitter (and optional tanking with WoD and Plague).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNBmQDbkRraPezZjhPRMpobbDSx71F1j1xuzB;T0AA1CqoIyUkoILROikEtAZow5jtBPQA- this on the other hand being my personal Soldier setup more focused on swapping around and controling fights with DS heal (2 lich runes being Mad king that aint on the list); also swapping to WoB i do keep people that have full zerker setups that bullrush into the enemy at a ok hp rate in dungeons/fractals.

I have 2 necros so I can leave one set up as a marks/wells bunker. After a lot of fooling around I still haven’t found runes I am overjoyed with but since I started using Sanctuary I haven’t swapped them out.

Looking at boon duration times 2 (monk) and altrusim times 4 gives pretty nice duration bonuses and also 3 long-lasting might on heal. It synergizes really well with battle sigils and DS might procs, and might sigils if you use those ( on crit).

If you’re going to be jumping in and out of DS a lot, I don’t think you should super need the Crests to buff up your tankyness further. You’ll be jumping a lot between two health bars so your ability to soak up damage will be pretty hefty (keep in mind that your DS hp pool is equal to your health pool, and toughness reduces damage you receive in and out of DS). So I don’t think you’d be too bad off with maximizing the Might duration. I personally run with a Focus, so a Sigil of Peril to maximize the duration of your Vuln stacking wouldn’t necessarily go a miss, which would have the potential to increase the damage you deal and the damage they receive.