Guild Wars 2

I’ve been reading up on the forums and found some topics on the necromancer and what the best builds and weapons are for them. I’ve been using a dagger and focus combo with a power focused build, which personally I’ve found to work great and deal quick damage( I’ve tried out every weapon and still find the dagger pretty sufficient even though necromancers really focus on condition damage), but I’ve been seeing a lot of things that are saying the dagger isn’t that great and now I’m unsure of what the best thing to use is. So I am asking of you for your input and what you think or know is the best way to go on a necromancer. Thanks.

I’d be interested to find out some opinions on this as well. Keep trying to get into Necro in GW2 since I enjoyed one in the first game. I just can’t seem to get one past level 10 before deleting it, not finding a combo I’m enjoying, but another big thing is I’m just not getting to the traits and deeper in utility abilities which I’m sure change how the class plays a lot more to where I’d enjoy the class.

I was looking to do dagger/focus also for my weapon setup. And what’s the deal with the starting heal ability? Is it really as crappy as it seems and I should just unlock a new one? Having a low hp, high aggro pet that attacks very slowly for my “passive” healing", no pet hp bar to watch, and losing the heal altogether if the pet dies, seems bad.

Well the best build for necro right now is to go Scepter/Dagger conditionmancer. You don’t really do big burst but you bleed things out with lots of consistent damage and have lots of aoe.

The dagger is nice, the problem right now is there is nothing to aid the necromancer in staying within melee range to “USE” the dagger short of the dark pact.

Which is why I personally think the Necrotic Slash should have a Cripple, Chill, or Weakness effect to help out in melee rather than just plain ol life force gain.

So for the time being scepter / dagger and staff are the combo’s everyone is rocking.

dagger is okish on pve at least. But if you plan www then you want more range . scepter/dagger and staff are common choices. though with my second necro i have gone axe/focus to make things vulnerable and it seems work ok too.

Calysto. yeah that one is quite bad and unreliable. if you go all minion then usually other minions take agro instead it but otherwise consume conditions is more reliable.. but then again blood fiend does some extra damage and on each hit it heals you bit.

Calysto.7469:

I was looking to do dagger/focus also for my weapon setup. And what’s the deal with the starting heal ability? Is it really as crappy as it seems and I should just unlock a new one? Having a low hp, high aggro pet that attacks very slowly for my “passive” healing", no pet hp bar to watch, and losing the heal altogether if the pet dies, seems bad.

Blood Fiend is pretty bad. Well, not bad per say, it’s just outshined by the other two healing spells because of the added utility they bring to the table (Condition cleansing and bonus heal when cleansing those conditions, or an AoE HoT well). Plus, it’s a Necromancer minion, so it’s going to be made of paper and have terrible A.I. Minion Masters might disagree with me on this, but I’ve never played a Minion Master build before so I can’t really comment too much on it.

On the whole, despite the abundant flaws and bugs this profession has, I too would be really interested in seeing what everyone else is rocking in terms of weapon setups, healing/utility/elite skills, and trait lines + which major traits people are grabbing. There is an incredible amount of negativity on this sub-forum at the moment, and with good reason, but for the time being, we should probably work with what we have and open up a discussion regarding builds, preferably without just reverting to “Oh I use the Wellomancer build” or “Condimancer” – you know, like in maths classes: Show your working!

With that in mind, here’s what I’m currently rocking for PvE stuff.

I like this build a whole lot when I’m out in the world. It’s also got some nice advantages in WvWvW due to having two ways to cleans conditions from yourself, and cleansing conditions is vital in that aspect of the game. It’s also got a nice snare, a blind, and a great means to spread diseases which makes it great for holding choke-points on the map or defending a point. The only real change in the build for PvP is I grab Plague instead of Lich Form – Lich Form I use more for PvE champion mobs during events to help burst things down, apply vulnerability, remove boons/conditions etc.

I open with Blood is Power, then pop Deathly Swarm on my dagger. Afterwards I land Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood. At this point I pop into Death Shroud and fire off Dark Path to get another stack of bleed going. Leave Death Shroud, let a three-hit combo from my 1-key finish and end with Feast of Corruption. That’s for single target. Because Blood is Power is such a great life force generator, and thanks to the Master of Corruption trait keeping it ready almost every fight, life force builds up quickly, and when my life force is full I pop it, and go all out with Life Blast to build stacks of might as quickly as possible, finishing with a Life Transfer. By that point when I come out of Death Shroud I’ve got a lot of stacks of might to do the job!

It sounds complicated, but when it comes down to what I’m actually pressing it’s 7, 4, 2, 5, F1, 2, F1, 1, 3.

When I’m multi-targeting it’s exactly the same but I delay the Death Shroud. Instead, I switch to my Staff and lay down all my marks, from 2 through to 5. Then I use Epidemic to spread my conditions, go into Death Shroud, and use Life Transfer to do some pretty good AoE damage.

Scepter/dagger with a staff switch is good for condition builds. Dagger/focus, staff, and axe/dagger all work for power builds. Warhorns also work but are a bit lacking compared to focus and dagger off hands.

As for what’s best it kind of depends on what you’re doing…

There are a lot of builds out there, some quite nice. One small problem. I have yet to see a build with types of insignia used with it.

Either dagger (dagger is basically pve only) or conditionmancer.

Conditionmancer in my opinion is overall better and the only build that makes sort-of sense compared to the rest. (still leaves a lot to be desired).

That’s about it.

Thanks for all the replies to my particular parts of the questions also. I want to do a lot of the leveling in WvW on the new Necromancer, because that’s a heck of a lot more fun than PvE. Will Scepter/Dagger still provide good aoe conditions, or is that more of a PvE focused weapon setup?

scept/dag is all AoE conditions basically aside from it’s basic attack on a single target, and with epidemic you can single a target out and spread whatever conditions are on a single target, to other’s in the area.

scepter/dag with staff is the best possible weapon combination for conditionmancer.

As for gear it gets a little more complicated, but the easiest set for the build is probably rampagers set.

You can also drop power and go toughness, then use a undead rune in gear for 5% toughness becomes condition damage, if you’re looking at an alternative end-game build and gear rather than going rampagers. However, you cannot craft anything with prec/toughness/condition damage so you need to grind for that gear if you wanted to try that build instead.

Calysto.7469:

Thanks for all the replies to my particular parts of the questions also. I want to do a lot of the leveling in WvW on the new Necromancer, because that’s a heck of a lot more fun than PvE. Will Scepter/Dagger still provide good aoe conditions, or is that more of a PvE focused weapon setup?

Yeah, here’s a cookie cutter pvp conditionmancer build that you can use as a base: http://preview.tinyurl.com/8rohafx

You can swap plague signet for blood is power or corrosive poison cloud for a bit more dps if you want.

If you want power heres a build.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.5.1.4.13.18.24.24.20.33.106.108.109.121.129.2.2.6.302.310.312.0.0.0.0.0.0.350.353.0.366.367.0.30.0.0.20.20

Please dont complain if you cant land wells. Wells is burst not dmg. Auto attacks hurt and you should be viable in fights. message if need to know how to use it correctly.

Rampagers for condition necro? Conditions don’t crit so isn’t it better to chose Carrion?

I am addicted to this spec ;-)

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/necromancer-out-for-blood-bleed-necromancer-condition-out-for-blood-5725.html

considering power line gives 20% condition duration, it’s better than going vitality if you’re looking to maximize damage.

you also do 20% more damage to enemies under 50% health with power tree. Overall vitality tree is honestly terrible for conditionmancer, thus that gear is pretty much obsolete. The only 2 sets for conditionmancer are rabid and rampager. Anything else either doesn’t make sense with our traits we can go into, or is obsolete for one reason or another.

You also can only really get away with rabid set by dropping power and going toughness, and getting the undead rune which turns 5% of toughness into condition damage. I’m not actually sure which build does more damage, but toughness would obviously keep you alive longer. Going vitality for anything else is obsolete unless you intend to use dagger.

Condition + Death Shroud….DoT the other team and stay in DS when getting hit -try to do it when big hits are coming and when the other guy uses an Elite.

Condition Duration trumps condition damage… (Assuming the Condition is not cleansed.) Therefore, I recommend 2x Afflicted, 2x Centaur, and 2x Krait armor runes with Sigils of Earth in all of your weapons…

Sigils of Earth will not proc two bleeds in one hit, but the two 60% rolls are cast giving an even greater chance to proc a bleed on a crit.

Thanks for all your input guys, I really appreciate it.

I’ll share my build purely just because it’s worked for me

Weapons -
Staff, Scepter either Focus or Dagger

Utility –
6 – Consume conditions
7 – Well of Suffering
8 – Well of Corruption
9 – Blood is power
0 – Plague form

Traits -

20 Spite (200 Power, 20% Condition Duration)

10 points – Either Spiteful Talisman (Focus), or Reapers might/Spiteful spirit (Dagger Work in progress)

20 points – Spiteful Marks

30 Curses (300 Precision, 300 Condition damage)

10 points – Hemophilia

20 Points – Focused rituals

30 Points – Lingering Curse

20 Death Magic (200 Toughness, 20% Boon duration)

10 Points – Staff Mastery

20 Points – Either Greater marks or Reaper protection (Work in progress)

Armor signet

Signet of the undead

+Toughness
+Condition damage
5% of Toughness become condition damage

Weapon Signets -

Staff – Signet of Corruption – On kill gain 10 more Condition damage (Max 25 Charges) – subject to change

Scepter/Dagger/Trident – Signet of Agony – 10% bleed Duration

Focus – Signet of Chilling – 10% Freeze duration

Spear – Signet of Superior peril – 10% Vulnerability duration

Amulet and jewel -

PVP Rabid amulet

+Condition damage
+Toughness
+Precision

Rabid Jewel

+Condition Damage
+Toughness
+Precision

This set up has worked so well for me, I’ve defended points, Killed single people and groups, and helped team mates by crippling people for them to pick off or finish if they go down.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.5.2.7.18.0.11.20.1.0.106.116.118.117.128.5.6.33.304.312.308.317.320.326.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.30.30.10.0.0

I currently run Scepter/Dagger with Staff. Since I am only lvl 41 currently in a 0/16/0/0/15 build. I really like the crit build, with the extra condition damage. With the 20% bleeding duration and the 15% move speed in DS. I feel like I have no real problems in PvE and am constantly pulling more to test myself. Grasp, feast, enfeeble then deathly swarm. Once they get close I Well of suffering then DS #4. Alot of AOE dmg. Minions are good at least keeping something off of me enough to burn it down, although I do end up kiting alot. Veterans are easy with blood is power and signet of spite.

I love this class, was my first toon, then went guardian, warrior, mesmer, and came back to the Necro, it is just to much fun.

There are no “best” builds for necros. There are a variety of general builds, which I’ll name below with short descriptions (most can have variations), and then its really up to you. Some do better in certain situations than others, some are very niche, some are rounded, etc. but there is never one best build.

Condition support: condition necro that focuses less on damage and more on supporting with a staff by spreading conditions that reduce enemy strength.

Power builds: focused on bursting, usually through DS or dagger main hand, with big crit damage and easily accessed vulnerability through focus 4.

Condition damage builds: uses BiP, scepter/dagger, and epidemic to spread huge amounts of conditions in large areas.

Minion masters: rely on minions for tankiness/damage and overall annoyance, since minions don’t scale with your stats, it has huge base damage that lets you do whatever you want to synergize.

And there are far more, some have builds that use fear as the primary focus, some pop in and out of DS for tankiness and easy boon access, some spread blind/chills, and there are variations of everything. Just mess around with it all and see what you like, there is NO best build, period.