Guild Wars 2

I was thinking that Twilight was going to be a perfect fit for my necro, but scourge is coming and by the looks of it, I probably wont be playing reaper all that much. IDK im so conflicted

What do you guys think the best legendary is for necro?

I’d say that it’s best to have a meteorologicus and put another skin on it. That’s what I’ve done personnally. Otherwise, dagger is also a good catch, tere are some pretty nice skins that can cover the legendary one.

I might even say that dagger is better since it’s the one weapon for which you might want to switch regularly from power to condi and from condi to power.

IMO
Scepter > Torch > Staff / Dagger / Warhorn / Axe

Staff should be much lower priority now, skill 2 only got 2 bleed stacks due to Deathly Chill, skill 3 & 5 on scourge doesn’t proc bleed. Also skill 4’s condi transfer can be replaced with dagger’s 4 and mostly unnecessary with Nefarious Favor and Abrasive Grit. Skill 5 can be replaced with torch’s 5.

Personally I’ll be using scepter, axe, dagger and torch. Shades and wells are plenty of AoE.

nullixin.9462:

Staff should be much lower priority now, skill 2 only got 2 bleed stacks due to Deathly Chill, skill 3 & 5 on scourge doesn’t proc bleed. Also skill 4’s condi transfer can be replaced with dagger’s 4 and mostly unnecessary with Nefarious Favor and Abrasive Grit. Skill 5 can be replaced with torch’s 5.

Personally I’ll be using scepter, axe, dagger and torch. Shades and wells are plenty of AoE.

What stats are you looking at if you wield a mix of power and condi based weapons?

Celestial? or Viper?

Legendary armor obviously. If weapon then dagge. Because it’s the best power weapon you got, if you’re not a reaper and very needed for lf generation, and quite few other professions use it for diffferent purposes.

Honestly for axe at most I’ll be using skill 2 then spam shade before, after or during offhand and utility. Scepter is definitely the go-to weapon for auto-attack, which means that in PvE I’ll probably still use scepter/dagger for Blood is Power transfer while in PvP I’ll be scepter/torch to save dagger transfer as needed.

Edit: Hmm, maybe scepter/torch in PvE also? Though traited BiP should help with constant torment/demonic lore upkeep beside scepter’s 3 the cooldown is longer than traited torch.

Axe skill 2 is definitely still a good burst with viper, usually at least 4k to players below 10 stacks of vulnerability with no Spite line, and 12k to Chak Gerent in PvE. I’m still not sure about healing power man, I’ll probably keep viper on all armors except chest and only switch chest, trinkets and weapons to Shaman/Celestial mix as needed, definitely not Seraph.

I crafted Astralaria, Howler and Twilight and they look pretty cool on my 24/7 Axe/Wh + GS Power Reaper.

The Twilight Gravedigger and Grasping Darkness visual effects are great. Astralaria is just beautiful and Howler is cheap and has a decent look.

I did not chose Incinerator because it looks like crap, it sounds like crap and changing weapon stats costs what? … 10g?

I would never craft a legendary for the stat changing ability but for the looks.

Yeah idk what you are looking for op.

Develope a build then choose which of the weapons you want to make legendary. It makes little sense to choose a necro looking legendary and then try to make a build around it.

If someone forced me to make a legendary for my necro it would probably be twilight. Then astralaria. And there is no legendary focus I want, minstrel looks terrible.

Justine.6351:

Yeah idk what you are looking for op.

Develope a build then choose which of the weapons you want to make legendary. It makes little sense to choose a necro looking legendary and then try to make a build around it.

If someone forced me to make a legendary for my necro it would probably be twilight. Then astralaria. And there is no legendary focus I want, minstrel looks terrible.

Not really looking for anything other than the communities input. I play all necro builds since I love necro. I couldn’t decide which legendary to go for so asked you guys for your input. From what you guys are saying I would have to agree Astralia is probably what im going to go for!

The problem with the idea of legendary weapons is that a) none of them fit necro class theme and b) a weapon only has one use. Necro scepter will always be a condi only weapon, dagger will always only be power, etc, staff will always only be for wvw/pvp builds which are currently all condi and are going to stay that way with scourge. Even if the new scepter comes out and it’s a cool zombie themed legendary scepter, what stats are you going to put on it, not viper?

Get legendary armor/trinkets.

Staff in my opinion has really good universal use, being great in PvP, WvW as well as having some use in PvE. For a support spec, if you decide to go that direction, staff has some of the best life force generation out of any weapon. Its not a DPS weapon but it does offer some of the best utility the necromancer can afford.

Scepter is probably the most useful of any weapon, easily being the most powerful. In terms of condi DPS you can’t go wrong with it. It also has some great universal Use on it as well, although it shines the brightest in PvE.

Dagger has a wide range of options for it for Power and Condi. And as it stands, a Power scourge might not be a bad option. It has potential, though more testing is required. Still its versatile and not that picky of a weapon.

Torch is honestly pretty potent in terms of DPS. But I found that the might gain was bugged or something, because it didn’t seem to trigger ever. Also its lack of life force puts it in a pretty tough spot for your off hand which can be a fairly competitive spot. Hopefully that problem is fixed by the release.

Axe has its uses in PvP. It has fairly high damage for a ranged weapon and can generate quite a bit more life force than scepter. Out side of PvP its uses are fairly limited. PvE doesn’t currently have a place for it, but that could change with power scourge. But we’ll see.

Warhorn is universally useful on necromancer. Its unblockable daze and ticking crippling and life force generation is useful in all game modes.

Focus is good for power and can strip 3 boons while also applying chill, which is nice. But with all the boon hate that Scourge is getting, this weapon seems like it’ll be a bit of redundancy.

The State of Greatsword is still up in the air. This either could become the necromancer’s power savior or be relegated to the being a fairly poor choice for the necromancer. it really depends on the state of reaper. I think reaper will still have use in WvW, so the GS has a means of being good. As for PvP and PvE? Time will tell. I wouldn’t count on it being very good though since arena net things that shroud makes up for every short coming the necromancer has.

So which Do I think is the best choice? Staff followed closely by Scepter. Staff just has a lot of universal use. The only area is really suffers is in Raids where its DPS just isn’t going to cut it. But in smaller skirmishes in Fractals, dungeons, open world content its great there. In WvW its a great antagonist weapon and in PvP its attacks are often unblockable, giving you some means of field control. Scepter is also fantastic, and is unlikely to be replaced by anything any time soon.

But this is my opinion. I say get what you think looks the coolest and feels right for you. What you most enjoy. My personal favorite weapon is scepter. However, I don’t feel that Meteorlogicus fits my necromancer’s theme. And I never have a need to swap stats on my scepter, since Vipers has always been just Good enough. For me though, its all about the cosmetics. The stat swapping is a perk. Go with what feels right.

I was going quite into depth on the pros and cons of each weapon, but honestly Lily got the gist of it.

The #1 factor for which Legendary you pick is the one you want the most, not the one you think you’ll use the most. I think Astralaria is gorgeous, and that will be my next Legendary.

For Scourge, my current planned weapon setup is:
Dagger/Warhorn – This the Life Force pinnacle combo. This in demo testing allowed me to spam Shade skills, and likely will be the main set for most things.

x/Torch – Situation would dictate if Axe or Scepter is better. Axe has a great LF skill with 2 and an AOE boon corruption. With LF being more important on Scourge, I can see the desire for Axe increasing even on Condi Scourge builds. If POF adds in heavier boon usage on mobs, this could make it a mainstay. Scepter is the most powerful condi weapon a Necro has, but with Scourge relying more on Shades for DPS and needing LF to maintain that, Scepter’s poor LF access will hurt it. However on targets with 5+ conditions it is equivalent to Axe, and if being used as a 10s swap only then back to dagger, the shorter CD advantage of Axe is also lost. So if you’re on a Condi build and have no boons to corrupt, Scepter is likely better than Axe… but unless I can’t escape heavy auto-attack usage, I’ll be going Axe so I can use Astralaria. We’ll see how my attack rotations land.

Staff – Not backed up by the Reaper bleeds, Staff will be even weaker DPS on Scourge and its utility overlapped a bit too. However its LF gain in zergs along with the safety of range means that it will likely never leave a Necro WvW zerg setup. I can also see it as being a part of point denial with marks + shades.

I am not sure if I will play Scourge (depends if AN will fix Mirage /crossing fingers/) but was thinking about the same as OP. I already have most of the legendaries I like (Eternity, Astaralia, Bolt, Juggernaut) so I was choosing between the rest based on usability and how I like them – at the end usability contest was between staff and scepter (usable for both Mirage and Scourge). Coolness factor made it quite easy at the end (this is extremely individual – not saying there will not be many other points of view) :
- do not like gay pride staff at all – so it is no go for me
- Nevermore is OK-ish for me – bot not really top of the list
- I actually have 3 non-legendary staff skins I really like a lot
- I really like the Meteorologicus – there is so many of cool tiny details in its animation…

So at the end I am working on scepter

Drawing Guy.3701:

I was going quite into depth on the pros and cons of each weapon, but honestly Lily got the gist of it.

The #1 factor for which Legendary you pick is the one you want the most, not the one you think you’ll use the most. I think Astralaria is gorgeous, and that will be my next Legendary.

For Scourge, my current planned weapon setup is:
Dagger/Warhorn – This the Life Force pinnacle combo. This in demo testing allowed me to spam Shade skills, and likely will be the main set for most things.

x/Torch – Situation would dictate if Axe or Scepter is better. Axe has a great LF skill with 2 and an AOE boon corruption. With LF being more important on Scourge, I can see the desire for Axe increasing even on Condi Scourge builds. If POF adds in heavier boon usage on mobs, this could make it a mainstay. Scepter is the most powerful condi weapon a Necro has, but with Scourge relying more on Shades for DPS and needing LF to maintain that, Scepter’s poor LF access will hurt it. However on targets with 5+ conditions it is equivalent to Axe, and if being used as a 10s swap only then back to dagger, the shorter CD advantage of Axe is also lost. So if you’re on a Condi build and have no boons to corrupt, Scepter is likely better than Axe… but unless I can’t escape heavy auto-attack usage, I’ll be going Axe so I can use Astralaria. We’ll see how my attack rotations land.

Staff – Not backed up by the Reaper bleeds, Staff will be even weaker DPS on Scourge and its utility overlapped a bit too. However its LF gain in zergs along with the safety of range means that it will likely never leave a Necro WvW zerg setup. I can also see it as being a part of point denial with marks + shades.

So thanks, but I have a minor disagreement with you. Only a minor one.

So I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but Staff on Scourge through traits can inflict burning through torment. Thought I’d mention that.

Some good ideas are Howler, Flames of War, Twilight, or Nevermore.

My advice though, I don’t recommend you do what I did and go for a legendary that only benefits one of your characters, I got Howler as my first (and currently only) legendary but my necro is the only class I have that can use it DX.

Lily.1935:

So I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but Staff on Scourge through traits can inflict burning through torment. Thought I’d mention that.

Yes, you can inflict Burning through Torment, but two issues with that comment: First is where does Staff have Torment access? Second is currently that ability has a 3s CD – you can pressure that CD with Shade skills alone as F1-5 will pulse a Torment.

Unless you were referring to Scepter. That does mean that Scepter 3 will also apply a single Burn stack assuming the ability is off CD. There’s no question that Scepter is better DPS on its own compared to Axe or even Dagger… the question is if that DPS gain would outweigh any DPS loss in not being able to maintain Shade DPS due to poor LF gain. If the CD were removed on Demonic Lore and Scepter 3 had the potential to apply 7 Burn stacks along with its Torment, it would become a clear winner… but I don’t see that happening. Until then, you’d also want to be wary of your Scepter burning up the use of that burning. Where your Shade skills would apply that Burn in an AOE, Scepter 3 would only give it to a single target.

Drawing Guy.3701:

Lily.1935:

So I haven’t crunched the numbers yet, but Staff on Scourge through traits can inflict burning through torment. Thought I’d mention that.

Yes, you can inflict Burning through Torment, but two issues with that comment: First is where does Staff have Torment access? Second is currently that ability has a 3s CD – you can pressure that CD with Shade skills alone as F1-5 will pulse a Torment.

Unless you were referring to Scepter. That does mean that Scepter 3 will also apply a single Burn stack assuming the ability is off CD. There’s no question that Scepter is better DPS on its own compared to Axe or even Dagger… the question is if that DPS gain would outweigh any DPS loss in not being able to maintain Shade DPS due to poor LF gain. If the CD were removed on Demonic Lore and Scepter 3 had the potential to apply 7 Burn stacks along with its Torment, it would become a clear winner… but I don’t see that happening. Until then, you’d also want to be wary of your Scepter burning up the use of that burning. Where your Shade skills would apply that Burn in an AOE, Scepter 3 would only give it to a single target.

Terrifying Descent + Demonic lore.

Admittedly I did forget about the Torment on Fear, but a single 3s (6s) Burn (assuming the burn is not on CD from your Shades) on a 32s CD hardly competes with three 5s (10s) bleeds on a 16s CD. Burns are indeed much stronger than bleeds, but not by a magnitude of 10.

Furthermore on top of it being less overall damage, CD limiting application and the application being overlapped by your main Shade skills, but it will also be tougher to apply in WvW as Fear is stopped by Stability preventing the Torment application whereas Chill is not.

It all comes back to the fact Reaper has strong weapon synergies with getting bonus bleed stacks from chills, blinds, and crits on zero CD where Scourge gets an overall weaker burn stack on a 3s CD on Torment and Fear – both of which are more limited in access. Scourge is a pretty hard hit on Weapon DPS, but Shade DPS (at least currently) has a lot of synergy with Shroud traits including said burn on Torment with Demonic Lore.

This is not to say Staff is trash and will never be used. The DPS loss is undeniable, but I (at least currently) see Sand Shades being strong enough that you build around them and select weapons that best support them for best rotation rather than just selecting the max DPS weapon with Shroud skills as filler like is current meta. Staff will always have a place in WvW due to safety, and its LF gain potential in zerg situations is great. But then again even with Reaper, Staff was never top DPS, so nothing’s really changing.