Guild Wars 2

Friend will be 80 soon, so won’t have reaper unlocked

metabattle.com, go from there, modify to your hearts content.

A few questions:

Does your friend prefer to use direct damage or condition damage?

Where does your friend plan to use this build? sPvP? WvW? Open-world PvE? Dungeons? Raids?

How good of a player is your friend?

How does your friend feel about minions?

Answer as many as you can and I’ll throw something together for you. Thanks!

As a freshly dinged 80 Necro, I’m running full Zerker Minonmancer. Death Magic/Blood Magic/Spite. Flesh Golem, Bone Fiend, Shadow Fiend, Blood Fiend, Sigil of the Loctus. Dagger + Warhorn/Axe + Focus.
With that build it feels like the minions carry most of the weight in combat and give thanks to blood magic quite much survivability, unless I’m getting swarmed.
For reference: I also tried a more Death Shroud centric build by replacing Blood Magic with Soul Reaping, but it didn’t suit me too well. Life Blast was indeed strong but I dunno it somehow didn’t feel as smooth. That’s purely guts-based though.
All above is for Open World PvE, though.

Now that entering DS counts as a weapon swap, flash DS necro is boat loads of fun.

Blaine Tog.8304:

A few questions:

Does your friend prefer to use direct damage or condition damage?

Where does your friend plan to use this build? sPvP? WvW? Open-world PvE? Dungeons? Raids?

How good of a player is your friend?

How does your friend feel about minions?

Answer as many as you can and I’ll throw something together for you. Thanks!

He wants to use a Condition build.

He is above average I’d say. He loves Minions

Wants to do open world PvE and dungeons

Kam.4092:

He wants to use a Condition build.

He is above average I’d say. He loves Minions

Wants to do open world PvE and dungeons

Hmm, ok. We have some room to play around, then.

Here’s a pretty basic, pretty tanky Condi/Minion build. I’m sure there are better builds, but this should be easy to put together and will work well for open world and dungeons. Should be very easy to use, too, with lots of room for error while he learns the ropes. He’ll want to camp S/D as much as possible since that’s his main cannon. The minions are mostly there to tank aggro, though they’ll bring some decent damage on their own.

If he’d rather go it with less of a minion focus and more condition damage, here’s a build that’s higher risk with higher reward. Same equipment so he can switch freely between these two, this version will have less room for error but more damage.

In any case, he should feel free to switch up the utility skills to fit the situation. Epidemic is extremely powerful in group situations, but against a single opponent it should be switched for something else (Blood is Power being a good all-purpose example, though he’ll want to transfer out the self-bleed ASAP).

Blaine Tog.8304:

Kam.4092:

He wants to use a Condition build.

He is above average I’d say. He loves Minions

Wants to do open world PvE and dungeons

Hmm, ok. We have some room to play around, then.

Here’s a pretty basic, pretty tanky Condi/Minion build. I’m sure there are better builds, but this should be easy to put together and will work well for open world and dungeons. Should be very easy to use, too, with lots of room for error while he learns the ropes. He’ll want to camp S/D as much as possible since that’s his main cannon. The minions are mostly there to tank aggro, though they’ll bring some decent damage on their own.

If he’d rather go it with less of a minion focus and more condition damage, here’s a build that’s higher risk with higher reward. Same equipment so he can switch freely between these two, this version will have less room for error but more damage.

In any case, he should feel free to switch up the utility skills to fit the situation. Epidemic is extremely powerful in group situations, but against a single opponent it should be switched for something else (Blood is Power being a good all-purpose example, though he’ll want to transfer out the self-bleed ASAP).

Thanks a lot for this help. What would a Power DPS build be like?

Kam.4092:

Thanks a lot for this help. What would a Power DPS build be like?

No problem! Here’s an example of a Power Necro build. You’re going to want to spend as much time spamming Dagger 1 as possible since pretty much everything else (except popping Warhorn 5, Focus 4 when facing a single opponent, or Well of Suffering) is a DPS loss. The version I’ve linked here is almost full Berserker but you can mix in a bit more Knight’s, Valkyrie’s, or even Soldier’s gear if you want more bulk. The Runes of Strength I suggest are very expensive but not actually critical to the build, so feel free to swap in something cheaper if you like (pretty much anything that gives Power or Precision will do; I like Runes of Lyssa for the extra condition removal, but it’s up to you). You can replace Axe/Focus with Staff if you want extra utility, though understand that your ranged damage will be taking a bit of a hit if you do so. You can also replace any offhand weapon for an offhand dagger if you just need more condition removal, and you could even go Dagger/Focus if you want (though that’s only ideal in 1v1 scenarios or when facing an opponent with boons).

Finally, I wouldn’t recommend switching out Well of Suffering or Well of Power very often, but Well of Darkness is a free slot. Corrosive Poison Cloud can be amazing (in spite of the self-Weakness) for the projectile destruction, as can Blood is Power for an easy way to activate your Strength runes damage bonus. Well of Corruption can even be great sometimes when facing the Dredge or other mobs that spam boons. That’s just a few examples, though; tell your friend to think actively about encounters and switch up his Utility skills as befits the situation.