Guild Wars 2

Hi there I just hit 80 on my Necro and mainly used dagger focus/ warhorn with a set of berserker to level up.
I did some research on builds. I can only find builds which are up to date for content like raiding, pvp and wvw. I read condi builds work kind of bad for open world pve, what I am going to be doing for quite some time. So what kind of build works the best for open world content?

Second question would be about gear. For power builds it is obvious to take berserker or soldier if you need more survivability, but for condi damage I have no idea. So what kind of prefix should I be looking for if I run a condi build?

Last question about PvP I have played it and enjoyed it a lot. I watched some of the pro league matches and I did not understood what was happening there. Is there some guide that explains pvp to a detailed level so I can possibly understand the professional matches and learn to perform better as well?

Thanks in advance!

I’m no expert as I recently started playing GW2 again after a break of several years. But I can tell you what has been working well for me. I leveled up a new necro from 1-80 using dagger/WH plus staff, mostly open world PvE, and using a Spite/Blood Magic/Soul Reaping build. Never used a single minion. Worked great in the vanilla zones. When I hit 80 I bought a full set of rare (yellow) berserker’s armor and weapons, rare scholars runes and green berserker’s trinkets and headed to the HoT zones. But I felt really squishy. So I changed things up a bit as follows:

- Bought a full set of exotic cavalier’s armor and superior runes of the scrapper. This cost me a little over 20 gold using buy orders – much cheaper than trying to get exotic berserker’s plus scholars which will cost about 20 gold per piece. Kept my berserker’s weapons and trinkets.

- Switched my build to Death Magic/Blood Magic/Soul Reaping. Still basically a shroud build, but with minions (and Well of Suffering).

- After grinding out my Reaper elite I switched Blood Magic to Reaper ankitten ow using GS plus Staff. Still a primarily a shroud build (but Reaper Shroud now), but with some minions (Flesh Golem plus Rise).

I will slowly accumulate berserker’s armor for more dps in groups, but I love the extra toughness when mostly solo in the HoT zones.

The reason you might have a hard time finding open world builds is because you can pretty much do what you want in open-world, especially with a Reaper. Condi is fine for open world and you’ll find lots of condi builds if you search the forums a bit. The most accessible gear for a condi build is full rabid. As you progress through HoT, you can switch to Viper gear.

If you go zerker, you can make yourself a full glass cannon, but you sacrifice lots of survivability. In my opinion, the best option is a zerker minion master build like the one we talked about here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Reaper-Minion-Guide/first#post6116670

It combines the necro’s survivability skills in blood and death magic with minions and berserker gear. But it might feel a little… clunky… until you get Reaper Shroud.

When I first started in HoT, I got all of the hero points in central tyria first. Using maps online it only took a few hours. Then when I went into HoT I had most of the Reaper unlocked. I started with a Rabid, minionmancer condi build then when I unlocked Rise I switched to a zerker minionmancer build.

By the way, you can always mix in stats for more defense. You don’t need to max your damage in open world, so you can mix in cavalier or Valk gear.

I use a sort of mixed build for PvE, just kept experimenting until I was happy.

I’m about 1/3 condi and 2/3 power using staff/gs. Kept condi at 1k, that’s just about enough for me cause I use the 10% condi dmg to hp trait and it leaves me with 2400 power without buffs or food. So condis deal quite decent dmg and heal me, and my melee skills are good too.

Then I mixed gears to get atleast 1300 toughness, got exactly 50% crit rate and about 168% ferocity, also got 10% expertise.

With this build I can pretty much deal with every situation, solo/group doesn’t matter. Deals good dmg and good survivability. Plus I find staff/gs one of the most fun choices to use. Sometimes I use scepter for bosses you can’t get near and that’s decent dmg too.