Guild Wars 2

’Ello all!

So I’m not that high of a level yet, only 43, but I enjoy the hell out of Necros!

I’ve so far tried 3 different builds: Minion Master, Conditionmancer, and a variant on a Power Build.

While I do enjoy being a bucket of germs and spreading sickness among my opponents I’m finding the Power Build to be very enjoyable!

My current dilemma is finding a good power build that can work, with little tweaking, for PvE and PvP.

Right now I’m Double Daggers/Staff with a 13/0/0/10/10 build.

For my final build I was thinking either 30/0/0/10/30 or a variant thereof.

I like the synergy that DS has with a power build and stacking Vul/Might with Life Blast.

I had a couple of questions for any pros with a similar build:

1.) For pve purposes I’m rocking the Double Daggers and will probably go Dagger + Focus or Warhorn or Axe + Focus or Warhorn for pvp. Has anyone noticed any significant dps difference between the axe or the dagger for pvp?

2.) My utilities, currently, are Blood is Power, Well of Suffering and Spectral Walk. Would putting 10 points into Curses for the “Chill” effect on Blinds be worth it for Well of Darkness?

3.) While I currently have points in Blood Magic, will focusing primarily on Spite and Soul Reaping make me too glass cannon or will intelligent uses of DS compensate for the lack of trait based Toughness and Vitality?

4.) For those of you who are level 80 and rock out with a similar build, do you find yourself horribly kittened in the Support department or do you find that you can still play an “ok” support role without being a condition spreader?

Again my goal is to make a power build thats viable for PvE and PvP with little to no changes to the overall gameplay or structure.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

personally i’ve tested about 12 different builds with full exotic gear for each and find that for pvp, powermancers are considerably less useful. Being able to autoattack for 1-3k a hit is nice and all, but in practice it leaves much to be wanted in terms of survivability and being able to lock down nodes. soul reaping is great for spectral utils that help skyrocket LF regeneration (therefore allowing consistent use of death shroud to mitigate damage) but the 30% LF boost passive from the trait line itself was tested to be ineffectual.

I have a love/hate relationship with blood magic because i wish it was a more viable center for builds, but it still gives much needed vitality( which scales the base for DS hp) and sources of vampirism/healing.

As for dps on axe vs. dagger, the current hierarchy for BEST dps weapons starting from greatest to least goes: dagger, scepter, axe. Kind of funny that scepter precedes axe, but that’s what the numbers come out as.

chill is a good mechanic to pick up for the necromancer, although 10 trait points is a waste to get the one trait. Its more of a core thing you have to go for.. all or nothing. sort of.

Playing a power build in pvp limits your opportunity for support since you’re going to be focusing on closing distance and unloading burst damage. since power builds lack condition duration, fear traits, runes involving condition duration or % additions to specific mechanic lengths, you’re going to be limited with our CC toolset. (since when not invested, most of our fears/chills/etc last only 1-2 seconds. I tried playing tpvp with an organized guild team over ventrilo, and powermancer was not a fun nor synergetic build to play with others in pvp.