Guild Wars 2

Hello everybody!

I’ve been playing GW2 for a couple of months now and must admit that I have completely fallen in love with the Necromancer class. I’ve tried some of the “Minionmancer” builds found here in the forums and was happy playing that until I started running fractals. At the moment I am playing a modified “Well’O-Mancer” build and have found that I am a valuable asset to my team when we do Dungeon runs/Fractals. Even in WvW I get a fair share of kills.

The thing is, I want to find out if there are any type of builds for a Necromancer that is primarily focused on support. Perhaps a cleric-type build where the Necromancer is this almost indestructible character that brings a lot of healing and condition removal to the party.

Sure it may not be a conventional look/play-style for a Necromancer, but who better to heal and aid than a character that has an intimate knowledge of Death and its workings?

As a hybrid damage/support I’ll share my following experiences:

Personally I’m a big fan of Signet of Undeath (revive downed foes – I use this one a LOT) and Well of Power when it comes to being supportive.

I’m not really a fan of Plague Signet because it just doesn’t seem to want to take away those conditions from your allies (sometimes I hugged my party member with conditions and nothing happened). I can’t seem to work with Spectral Wall, my party members move around too much for it to be effective.

If you use Well of Blood, take the trait Ritual of Protection (IV) in the Death Magic tier. This also work nicely with Well of Power.

As for weapons, staff and offhand dagger are great. Number 4 of staff transfers conditions from allies to the targeted mobs (this works quite nicely) and number 4 of the offhand dagger is a blind, one of the better conditions out there imo (aka spam it).

I might list more when I think of it.

Support builds are viable as healing is not a hard mechanic to come by as a necro. Well of blood is one of those skills as it scales well with healing power to tick for a sizable amount. Also, well of blood is a nice addition for condition heavy battles to quick sweep them off teammates.

As for weapon choices…Staff is going to be your first choice 100%….from there your secondary set is kinda up to you. OH dagger is more for a conditionmancer…so I’m not sure if you want to go that route, Maybe more warhorn + something would be more up your alley.

Either or, point is…support is very viable…can get a cheap clerics set…run clerics jewels..support skills and you should be golden to be a useful member of the team;)

He didn’t mean Cleric as in Cleric jewels. At least that’s what I understood from OP. He meant priestly character focused on judgements etc(I take it you want to model your Necro upon the teachings of Kelemvor yes?).

Staff is awesome, no matter how you turn it. You are bound to use it, either as a primary or as a secondary weapon.
Sceptre is for conditions, so if you find those fun, that’s your weapon choice! Plus as an added benefit, sceptres are the second most reminiscent weapon of Clerics(right after Maces). It won’t make you tough as Clerics are tho.
Dagger Main hand makes you awesomely tanky(Life force build up). It makes you look nothing at all Like Cleric tho.
Axe gives you dmg and a bit of retaliation. It makes you tough enough but there is no support(:(). Prolly not for you, tho it can look reminiscent of Cleric.
Dagger off hand gives you condition transfer(one condi only) from YOU to the foe+blind. It also gives you Weakness which is awesome in Support. You still look nothing like Cleric tho you are supportive(I can’t understand for the Life of me why is the Dagger off hand dubbed as condi weapon…).
Warhorn gives you Daze which is awesome more in control than in support, but it is good condition anyhow and it also gives swiftness. Prolly not for you tho(is more of control weapon).
Focus gives you and all hit regeneration AND vulnerability on all foes hit(#4). Number 5 gives you nice chill(5s) which, don’t forget that part, gives 66% longer cooldowns on the recipents’ skills. It is also reminiscent of Clerics.

So I would advise you to go Axe+Focus(you can switch Axe for Sceptre) and Staff.

Tho if you wish Cleric, Guardian is waaaay better(both Clerics and Guardians wear Heavy Armour+Mace n Shield+Staff of Hammer+Holy focus).

I myself gave Dwayna as my choice to my Necro. From RP and thinking standpoints it is clear what I want to do with him. Also, a cleric(:D)!

Enjoy!

Here is a write up (WIP) on the Healing Power Support Necro I have been running since September’12. I only recently mixed things up with a condition necro build but hold on to my HP gear to go back to :P

A Necro’s guide to Healing Power
By Sanctus Messor

Traits:
Spite – 15 (+ 15% Condition Duration, + 150 Power)
5 – Gain Life when you kill something.
10 – When you kill a foe, you lose a condition.
15 – 5% of Power is given as a bonus to Healing.
Death Magic – 25 (+ 25% Boon Duration, + 250 Toughness)
5 – Chance to summon a Jagged Horror whenever you kill an enemy. (30 sec cooldown)
10 – 20% reduced staff skill cooldown.
15 – You gain 20 Toughness for each minion summoned.
20 – Increase area of marks and marks become unblockable.
25 – 5% of Toughness is given as a bonus to Power.
Blood Magic – 30 (+ 300 Healing Power, + 300 Vitality)
5 – Gain 5 seconds of Regeneration when your health reaches 90% (30 sec cooldown)
10 – You create a Well of Blood when you revive an ally.
15 – Siphon health whenever you hit an enemy.
20 – Wells recharge 20% faster.
25 – Deal 5% more damage while your health is above 90%.
30 – Your wells also steal life every time they pulse.

Weapons: Staff and Scepter/Warhorn or Dagger/Warhorn
Staff is your bread and butter.
Mark of Blood (2) allows you to maintain permanent regen with careful positioning.
Putrid Mark (4) is a blast finisher and your best damage mark. It is also key to cleansing conditions from you and the party. Again, positioning is key.
Chilblains (3) is great for crowd control. This is your second best damage mark. Use this, then Putrid Mark for a blast finish of Area Weakness! Do not under-estimate this condition, it is very powerful.
Reaper’s Mark (5) is AoE fear on demand. I personally use it sparingly. Use it to disperse mobs from a downed ally or early in a fight with a bunch of mobs to mitigate some damage. Do not use this mid-combat unless you are interrupting a painful incoming attack, melee party members will hate you.
Necrotic Grasp (1) is the worst auto attack we have. It’s slow, easily dodged and doesn’t hit hard. The only redeeming qualities are that it pierces targets, has 1200 range and generates life force. With careful positioning, you can use its strengths to negate its short comings.

Your alternate weapons will be used much less frequently than your staff. I’m not going to break down their skills. These really come down to personal preference but here are my thoughts.
You will want to run Scepter if you are looking to stay at range and provide some CC in the form of AoE cripple.
You will want to run Dagger if you like Death Shroud and want an extra source of healing, not to mention the single target 3s immobilize.
Warhorn gives you an interrupt and extra mobility. This can be instrumental when positioning to support the group.

Sigils:
Staff – Superior Sigil of Life: + 10 Healing Power per stack (+ 250 Healing Power at max)
Scepter/Dagger – Superior Sigil of Water: 30% Chance to Heal Nearby Allies (Cooldown: 10 Seconds)

Armor: Cleric’s Exalted (crafted) lv.80 Exotic
Runes of Dwayna
(1): + 25 Healing
(2): + 20% Regeneration Duration
(3): + 50 Healing
(4): 5% chance to gain regeneration for 10 seconds when hit. (30s cooldown)
(5): + 90 Healing
(6): When you use a healing skill, you and all nearby allies gain regeneration for 5s. (10s cooldown)

Jewelry: Sapphire Orichalcum ______ of the Cleric
Currently using Exquisite Sapphire Jewels in the socket. The difference between the Masterwork, Rare and Exotic isn’t that great so do what money afford you. You can always upgrade later.

Utility Skills:
Well of Blood – This will be your heal forever.
Well of Power – Support the party by cleansing their conditions.
Well of Suffering – 10 stacks of vulnerability and damage.
Well of Darkness – Blind packs early on to mitigate damage. Coordinate your party to take shelter in it. Useless against Dredge.
Well of Corruption – Not ideal for PvE as most mobs don’t have boons, but great in dungeons/fractals. The damage from this well is the only reason to run it in PvE.
Spectral Walk – Between this and your warhorn, you can balance nearly unlimited swiftness. More precisely 1m52s, at 2m you can start the 1m52s cycle again so 8sec of downtime. This is possible because of the + 25% boon duration.
Signet of Undeath – On the move AoE party res. (only from downed, not defeated)
Plague Signet – Take on the party’s conditions, then drop your Well of Power or ship them off.

Discussion:
You should consider playing a healing power necro at least once in your necro career. I have been running this spec for about 3 months and can say; it is awesome. It’s a satisfying role and you’ll get fairly regular compliments that runs go smoother when you’re around. At 80, the perma regen will tick for around 350-400 a second while the Well of Blood will tick for upwards of 900. Another benefit of running this spec is you begin to become keenly aware of the positioning of yourself, your party and game elements. You have to or you’ll start missing timings to drop a support well or a regen/putrid mark.
Hitting Spectral Walk followed by deathshroud to Dark Path teleport to an enemy, Doom-fearing them away while dropping deathshroud to res a fallen ally and then port back to your point of origin by reactivating spectral walk within 8second is the Res-Ninja challenge and is a lot of fun to pull off :P You can Dark Path to them and drop wells as well. Fighting a boss for example, you can jump in, drop Well of Darkness and Corruption and Spectral Walk back to safety.

SanctusMessor.4612:

Hitting Spectral Walk followed by deathshroud to Dark Path teleport to an enemy, Doom-fearing them away while dropping deathshroud to res a fallen ally and then port back to your point of origin by reactivating spectral walk within 8second is the Res-Ninja challenge and is a lot of fun to pull off :P You can Dark Path to them and drop wells as well. Fighting a boss for example, you can jump in, drop Well of Darkness and Corruption and Spectral Walk back to safety.

Last I remembered, Spectral Walk gets cancelled on entering Death Shroud because it was being used to generate Life Force while in the Shroud. Does the shadowstep effect remain active?? If so, I have new reasons to use it for support =D.