Guild Wars 2

Currently, I run a D/D thief, but I need a break from it. I decided to go to Necro because I had one when I first started GW2, but ended up abandoning it due to some issues I had with it, I feel like I didn’t give it a fair advantage, so I’m back for more!

Now, my request is for you guys to help me pick weapons and maybe a build.

I’m used to the thief and mesmers constant movement and insane mobility, and from what I’ve seen, Necro doesn’t have too much mobility. You sort of just let your minions tank your damage for you, and hit from afar. I tried D/D, but wasn’t too impressed.

So, what build and weaponset is good for some leveling? Mind listing the pros and cons of them? Any tips you guys can give would be awesome, thanks!

For leveling I use:
Weapon: dagger/focus for lots of damage, vulnerability, and regeneration (cast focus 4 in melee range to get 12 stacks of vulnerability on the enemy and 9 seconds regen on you)
Alternate weapon: staff off-hand for AoE and kiting
Gear: power things
Utilities: Signet of the Locust (for faster movement), Well of Suffering (for AoE damage), Bone minions (summon them and immediately explode them for high AoE damage)
Elite: Flesh Golem (most consistent damage, in my opinion)
Heal: either blood fiend or consume conditions (blood fiend does a lot of healing over time, but if you dislike minions or prefer burst heals, consume conditions does well too)

Necros don’t have as much in-combat mobility as many classes, but for open-world PvE, death shroud is more than enough survival.

This is also pretty much as far from “sit back and let your minions do the fighting” as it gets – lots of fun, up-close dagger fighting. Although necros don’t have a lot of dodges, this still plays fairly dodge-heavy. For raw damage when specced power, dagger/focus is better than dagger/dagger because of focus 4, so that might have been why you weren’t impressed by dagger/dagger for leveling. Dagger mainhand is our hardest hitting power weapon though.

I like my Necro’s S/D + Staff condition stacking build. I run with minions in PvE (it’s just so much easier to let my minions do most of the tank work) so I like the Scepter’s range. It stacks up conditions pretty efficiently and has good AoE too.

Majora.6028:

Now, my request is for you guys to help me pick weapons and maybe a build.

Majora.6028:

So, what build and weaponset is good for some leveling? Mind listing the pros and cons of them? Any tips you guys can give would be awesome, thanks!

Every weapon has a valid place in one or the other build. The scepter is kind of limited in that way, because you’ll have to go conditions with it, but other than that every weapon can be used in any type of build.
So what you need to determine for yourself first is which weapon “feels” good in combat. After that I’d check out which way you can go with your weapon sets.

Majora.6028:

I’m used to the thief and mesmers constant movement and insane mobility, and from what I’ve seen, Necro doesn’t have too much mobility. You sort of just let your minions tank your damage for you, and hit from afar. I tried D/D, but wasn’t too impressed.

I’m sure some people are going to disagree here, but especially when fighting classes that can stealth up (depending on your build) you’ll be worse off if you try to catch up in movement speed (signet of the locust) or implement some teleports by using spectral walk or flesh worm, instead of trying to out-CC and out-damage your opponent.
You’ll just have to accept that the combat mechanic is totally different.

General pointers for leveling:

1. In pve aoe is key → staff+greater marks, =adept trait so you’ll be able to use it early on (btw which lvl are you atm?)

2. Buy new equipment on the trading post as often as possible as you lvl up. Master grade gear is often sold just one copper above vendor price, so having the best possible stuff is practically free.