Guild Wars 2

So the topic says it all. I’ve only ever played engineer and after putting in tons of time on it I have found well played necromancers to be one of the hardest classes for me to bring down. So I’m looking into giving one a run just to know how to play against them.

With that being said what are some viable builds? Conditions, power it doesn’t matter just looking into viability.

Thanks in advance,

Zaragoz

There are so many viable builds that it’s pretty funny. Just to give you an idea, there are four starting builds.

1). Conditions
2). Hybrid
3). Power
4). Minions

Then you get into such builds like fearmancer, You can do bunker, well, siphon life, Staff bombing, support, deathshroud damage, deathshroud bunker, deathshroud boon buff, minion boon stripping, minion bunker, minion glass, Fear bombers (with about 5 different versions of it), Chill builds, blind builds, Condition control, Condition damage, bunker killers, and so on…

The only thing we can’t build is a roamer class or signet build.

Well that’s good news, coming over from the engineer I know every single trait and which are viable and which are not, however I can honestly say when it comes to the trait lines on the necro I am at a loss.

Can you recommend a build or two that you think would be starter friendly for me and perhaps I could branch out from there?

zaragoz.6351:

Well that’s good news, coming over from the engineer I know every single trait and which are viable and which are not, however I can honestly say when it comes to the trait lines on the necro I am at a loss.

Can you recommend a build or two that you think would be starter friendly for me and perhaps I could branch out from there?

If you are looking at learning the class there are two basic starters – Condition builds or Bunker Builds.

Moving into high damage builds initially are pretty tough, because you really need to get a hang of DS before you go berzerker or rampager gear.

Let me look at a few builds and recommend an easy one to start with. Do you want to play ranged or melee?

I guess if I had to choose melee would be the way I went, but whichever you think would be more successful.

Ranged is usually easiest. What are your teammates running with? If you can check out Nemesis’s videos. There are some great commentaries.

The easiest build to see success with is a Carrion gear build with Conditions.

Dagger/Warhorn with wells is extremely powerful, but you run the option of getting clobbered.

I am the bunker killer for my team. The key is finding out what your teammates are running and then we can recommend what you should run with it.

Well we have no formal team setup as we usually just que 5 friends, but primarily on engineer I float points and burn bunkers with conditions. So I would like to kinda keep the same role if possible.

So the key when running a powermancer is asking yourself how far do you want to go. If you want to burn bunkers and float between points, it’s not possible. You either have to go offensive team or defensive back cap bunker. Unfortunately, we aren’t floaters, we move in and stay especially the powermancer. If Zombify ever gets back on I am planning on talking how a powermancer works at top tournament levels.

If you don’t have a formal team setup you will have some issues, because necromancer’s excel at matching team roles. Regardless let’s get to possible builds, and weapons.

Dagger/Warhorn or Dagger/Dagger with staff secondary is amazing depending on if you are carrying a guardian/elementalist in your offensive team. I run heavy power with lots of crit damage for certain builds. The key with any power build and any necro build period is positioning, never put yourself in a position where you can’t get away.

Once you get that figured out, If I was on the offensive team, I run 30/15/0/0/25 if I have a good support team. This build rocks and you can use DS offensively this way. However, if you aren’t really using ds except to mitigate key damage hits than a build more like 30/30/0/10/0 works really well for more of a Hybrid type build. 10 points for crit siphoning.

Key Talents:
Close To Death almost mandatory in most power builds.
Withering Precision – Weakness is underrated
Banshee’s wail – stun and longer locust swarm
Chilling darkness mmm

Runes: Ogre is really strong, but i prefer Eagle for all your crit abilities
Sigils: I like swap sigils one for might and one for Hydromancy and Sigil of Accuracy or Force

Problems – you will get trainwrecked if you don’t play fast.

I would only run that build if you have a quick hard hitting team. I am going to go test it out now ;p.

The way I am currently playing in tournaments is a bunker never say die mode where wells siphon health and I just keep killing or I run Minion Berzerker.

This is another viable powermancer variation.

http://tinyurl.com/clwtz6h

Bas.7406:

30/30/0/10/0

I run 30/30 a lot. You’re a glass cannon and need to use dagger a lot to get life force. I also use Eagle runes but can do longer boon too if you want to chill. A few skill sets work well together. For the 10 I usually go Greater Marks now but Path of Midnight, Vampiric Precision and a couple others work. After many times playing this I feel forced to use a Focus for Spinal Shivers then Spiteful Talisman and Chill of Death go well with that. I still feel like Necro damage is subpar and the utility of marks and all the chill help make up for it.

From one Engi/Necro to another, I thought I’d share this.

This is the build I run on my necro for tPvP as a roaming bunker buster and point assaulter.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;0_-3c;0kHVB0G4gJVJ0;9;4JJ9-J45-58-1;329-S-k8S;1AgV3HoF21ZK

Generates a ton of might, tons of direct and condition dmg, lots of life force, and Spectral Walk gives a good deal of mobility. Some might say you need to run res signet but you lose too much IMO by giving up spectral walk for it and will force your team to baby sit you which isn’t always ideal. If you need to res someone just use fear mark and DS fear (works while channeling revive with no interrupt).

Clear a point with Staff 2 > 3 > Well of Suffering > Putrid Mark > Staff 2 again > Staff 5 (terror dmg will tick for 1k+ of unmitigated dmg)

Focus down targets with DS 2 > 3 (DS 1 will fire at same time) > pop out of DS > Dagger 3 > Focus 4 > Dagger 1 spam

use Spectral Walk and Staff 3 to aid in kiting and opening gaps. Don’t be afraid to use the Spectral Recall, it can really throw them out of position. Abuse DS 1 Spam for uber might stacking.

obviously you should be thoughtful with your timing of skill usage but that’s basically the gist of it. The main strength of the build is that it isn’t limited to a single play style (i.e. power or condi, ranged or melee) and can’t be easily countered by a condi clear or blocking. And aside from the Spite tree, Greater Marks, and Soul Reaping X the remainder of the traits are changeable based on what you want to favor more in the build (shorter CD on BiP, spectral attunement for longer Spectral Walk, etc). There’s virtually no class/build you can’t win a 1v1 against so long as you have LF and your presence in team fights can be significant.

anyways, good luck!

I’m only rank 23, but I’ve had decent success with a standard condition build: 0/30/20/20/0, staff + sceptre/dagger.

Utilities vary. Corrupt boon is pretty much a staple, epidemic usually a secondary, with the third being either Spectral Grasp, Blood is Power, Signet of Undeath or Plague Signet.

At least on Temple of the Silent Storm, you get a lot of mileage out of teamfights and can gear to counter a lot of the trap rangers you’ll see. Your weaknesses are full condition clear/bunker guardians and stealth-oriented thieves, which can have some matches leaving you feeling helpless. But everything else you can handle no problem.

Okay thought I’d update this a bit, first off I want to say to anyone who plays powermancer and does it well hats off to you! I can honestly say that powermancers absolutely need some love, their damage is subpar when compared to any other burst classes ie. 100 nades, 100 blades, shatter mesmer, and gc theif. And if this is not bad enough they have almost no escape capabilities at all….

I’m not here to bash the necro and in fact I did quite well once I switched over to conditions, however I feel like every class should be able to play a few different ways, and I just don’t see power being good at all on the necro. That is not to say some players cannot make it happen because I’m sure they can, and after playing with Lil Zombify I realize there are good powernecro users out there, but I also feel like he would be three times as deadly on any other burst class, just because of how good of a player he is. I sincerely hope Anet takes a hard look at the handicap they have put on the powernecro and give it some love in the future.

I would also like to thank everyone who contributed to my thread and gave me builds to try out, I tried them all and had okay success over the past few days, but nothing like I had once I swapped to conditions.

Thanks again,

Zaragoz