Guild Wars 2

I’m setting out to organise my Necro’s gear for HoT and realised I have no idea which to choose, has anyone done any testing on this? On the one hand RS generates a huge amount of might (potentially too much?) but on the other hand its easy to maintain the scholar bonus while in shroud.

PvE in HoT actually does damage to full glass cannon specs now, so scholar will be much harder to keep up.

Is this for PvE or PvP? You might be able to stay above 90% hp in PvE. But in WvW I couldn’t keep above 90% hp often so strength runes made more sense.

gavyne.6847:

Is this for PvE or PvP? You might be able to stay above 90% hp in PvE. But in WvW I couldn’t keep above 90% hp often so strength runes made more sense.

General PvE, dungeons and maybe Raids. Obviously it’s hard to say what open world and raids will be like right now

In PvE maybe Scholar Runes work, in PvP or WvW it dosent for anything else then Stealth Classes imho.. staying above 90% is just to rare.

I guess it depends. I was messing around with both during the beta and preferred using Scholar Runes if I had Blood Magic and Strength Runes if I didn’t. Having Vampiric Presence made staying at full health while in Shroud obtainable.

Without Vampiric Presence and the life siphons from mult-hit combos like Wells, Death Spiral, or even casting Locust Swarm before going into Shroud, Strength Runes were overall better since I didn’t have to worry about staying above 90% health.

That’s just my experience experimenting with both Runes on a Berserker Reaper in Verdant Brink during beta. Worth looking more into when the expansion and Raids release, though.

For PvE, better to go for Scholar, much cheaper than Strength ^^

For PvP I wouldn’t take Scholars.

For PvE you could; it works pretty well for dungeons and solo content, especially with reaper being self sustaining with might without the need for strength runes.
That said, with raids coming up and fractals becoming harder; plus the fact reaper is taking a lot of heat in melee range. Scholars might not be the best either.

Not sure yet what i’ll take. But I personally prefer Strength out of those two.
Might go mess around with some other runes though, I think the bruiser nature of a reaper allows for some more variation. Plus with things like Chill being big and Dhuumfire making a bit of a come back, there are some options with runes that play in on chills and burning as well.

Power necro should always go for scholar. Your death shroud will shield your health so you can keep it at 100%. Even in Verdan Brink I had no issues keeping myself over 90% with reaper.
10/10 would recommend

Supposedly you can take Dhuumfire for a strong power PvE build since decimate defenses fills crit chance gaps and might makes the burn hit decently hard. For that reason, I may end up using Flame Legion. Easy to maintain 7% damage, power base, and 30% increase to the duration of Dhuumfire for above 50% mobs, and then just gravedigger spam below 50%.

Haven’t done the solid math, but it feels like a fairly safe alternative and less risk of dipping below 90%.

Personally I still prefer strength, because with Reaper you have ridiculous might up-time. Which means 5% extra damage on top of the might. And with the increased duration, you can pop out of shroud and still have full might stacks for a few seconds. Then if you’re hitting <50% hp opponents, you keep the might up and gravedigger buries them (I run a bruiser, flat power build, so the might helps quite a bit with my non-critting (everything but shroud) damage)

Captain Unusual.9163:

PvE in HoT actually does damage to full glass cannon specs now, so scholar will be much harder to keep up.

I agree. Scholar may be over tuned for the new content. More conservative or broader function builds may be more effective. It is too early to say for sure. For example Hoelbrak could be best for raids

You might even look into Runes of the ice, they give. 30% increase to chill duration, have an ice nova on hit effect, give vitality, and let you do 7% more damage against chilled foes.

With the minor GM in reaper, that’s 50% chill duration.

I’m still not sure I understand why people overlook Flame Legion as an option with the new build potential.

ronpierce.2760:

I’m still not sure I understand why people overlook Flame Legion as an option with the new build potential.

Probably because it necessitates one of your lines be Soul Reaping and locks a Grandmaster to get any benefit. Yes, Soul Reaping is great, but it isn’t necessary on all builds.

Scholar only works because PvE is brainlessly easy. Based on what I have played I don’t see scholar being viable for GS reaper. The mobs are actually slight threat even in open world, so I am going to assume that instances will be harder.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ronpierce.2760:

I’m still not sure I understand why people overlook Flame Legion as an option with the new build potential.

Probably because it necessitates one of your lines be Soul Reaping and locks a Grandmaster to get any benefit. Yes, Soul Reaping is great, but it isn’t necessary on all builds.

Still, SRS Reaper Zerker is incredibly potent. In organized (and even not organized) play, I would think Flame Legion would provide more damage increase overall compared to Hoelbrak or even Strength.

I mean I guess it does depend on build, but due to might stacking and decimate defenses, it’s even viable for Power-centric builds.

For solo strength is better. For group PvE, scholar now is king. That may change depending on the uptime on scholar for “challening” PvE content, but in general you’d have to see low uptime at >90% for scholar to become suboptimal to strength/ogre.

I’m for scholar since reaper can invest in vita instead of prec. Also I beleve aslong as your HP are over 90%, your RS can have like 10% HP and you still get the bonus. Noone has it easier than the Necro to keep the scholar bonus.