Some build advice please
You may find zerker armor to be more acceptable to you as you play more, but necros have some options for traits in Soul Reaping (Death Perception) and Reaper (Decimate Defenses) that add a lot of crit chance, so if you feel squishy, you could try valkyrie armor. Necro has a high health pool anyway and the added vitality of valkyrie will make you more survivable. Having power instead of toughness as the prime modifier means valkyrie should do a lot more damage than knight’s. You can slowly add ascended zerker jewelry over time as well for even more damage. With the shroud and high health pool Necro is so naturally survivable that over time you will want to focus almost everything toward damage. Try death magic, soul reaping, and reaper with valk/zerker armor for plenty of survivability plus a bit more damage Maybe something like this is decent…?
If cost is a factor, swap out the runes for something cheaper and power-based like ogre or vampirism. Ultimately aim toward something more like this for damage.
Other may have better suggestions. It is hard to go wrong with reaper and just picking the most damaging skills, traits, and gear.
I appreciate the response, and not to demean it in any way, but I was hoping for more than just one to see multiple ideas and get a bit of a consensus. This community has, for me anyway, always been extremely helpful. If anyone else has any advice they could offer, I again would ask you to take a minute and toss it my way.
Use Valkyrie and Cavalier gear to stat balance for maximum damage and survivability. It’s easy to be as sustainable as you want to be with a mix of Valk/Cavs armor, Valk weapons, and full Berserker trinkets. The stats balance out to be roughly 24k hp, 3.3k power with 25 might, 2.1k armor, 30% Crit Chance baseline, and ~200% Crit Damage.
[“You Are All Weaklings!”] is only really useful in specific encounters where a stunbreak is reasonably vital, such as Fractals with the Afflicted Mistlock Singularity. I would generally recommend replacing it with something like Corrosive Poison Cloud instead, as it offers more utility which is useful more often on the same cooldown.
Scrapper Runes are “fine”, as are the Force sigils, however I would recommend using something more along the lines of Superior Rune of the Companion, if you really want to drive home the feeling of synergy with your minions while increasing DPS. In general I’m not a fan of Sigil of Accuracy, and would recommend you replace it with something like Superior Sigil of Air, as the Air would probably represent a larger DPS increase when actually in practice.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
~Bhawb.7409
You can substitute toughness and minions for Shroud, Blood Magic, weakness and Spectral skills. Low toughness produces less aggro so less incoming damage in groups. Weakness, protection, and shroud do a far, far better job at reducing incoming damage, anyway.
Valkyrie, zealot, of the Shaman, magi, and giver are my preferred PvE tanky equipment. You can transition to Berserker bits at a time starting with trinkets.
I really appreciate the responses I’ve gotten guys. I have fiddled with my build and incorporated what has been offered and I do see improvement. The only question I have left is this: say I am dead set on taking death magic and reaper lines for traits, how big of a difference does taking blood magic have to taking soul reaping for the third? I realize that the outright personal damage easily goes to soul reaping, but I am wondering if the utility of blood magic, especially offering the entire party life siphon, in any way balances that out? I find myself drawn to that trait line but I don’t want to seriously kitten myself doing so. Once again thanks in advance for your time.
Blood Magic utility is marginalized by party composition, like if you have a Druid, and in those situations there isn’t really a reason to run Blood Magic at all. Soul Reaping translates to a direct DPS increase, while Vampiric Aura translates to incremental sustain and damage increases across the board.
In general I like to have sustain in my build in PvE, but I much rather have it from Blighter’s Boon and the Spite line, as this leads to the highest overall DPS with the Chill of Death procs and Close to Death.
“Reaper’s only big weakness will be that you have to play Necromancer to use it”
~Bhawb.7409
~Bhawb.7409
I take blood magic for large world events, WvW zerging, and supporting a full bar of minions.
Otherwise, Soul Reaping with its shroud and Spectral support is far more valuable.
If you have to choose between the two, go SR.