Guild Wars 2

Hi, I’m relatively new to playing necro. My main is a mesmer and I lean towards using builds that will work mainly for WvW that can perform with zergs, group roaming, and soloing. It also needs to be able to work for PvE dungeons/fractals. I don’t mind adjusting one or two existing traits when I swtich between WvW and PvE. One must is to have 25% movement speed without traveler runes (too expensive). Signet of the Locust is of course an option, but for some reason I leaned towards traiting dual daggers for speed.

The build I came up with and have used so far is this one:
http://intothemists.com/guides/1930-dual_daggers_10
It has worked fairly well so far. However, I’m open to trying new builds or adjusting this one. I mainly would appreciate some critiquing for this build. Also, if you have any other builds that fit what I want I’m open to trying new ones out as well. I currently have both Rabid and Knight armor so I can switch if need be. Thanks.

I am curious why you did not choose the war horn for off-hand. You may give that a try instead of dagger/dagger. You can still switch utilities to Signet of the Locust for longer runs. War horn used to be the only good mobility option and it is still excellent for that in combat.

Anchoku.8142:

I am curious why you did not choose the war horn for off-hand. You may give that a try instead of dagger/dagger. You can still switch utilities to Signet of the Locust for longer runs. War horn used to be the only good mobility option and it is still excellent for that in combat.

Originally I did take Axe/Warhorn along with a more standard wellmancer build. I just found it to be too niche for zerg-only use. Whenever I strayed off by myself or in a small group I’d get destroyed.

I took dual daggers for several reasons. First, OH dagger is a very popular pvp choice. Then, taking MH dagger, which also happens to be a decent damage option, allows me to take Quickening Thirst which gives me 25% movement speed. Finally, I saw a necro with a similar dagger/wells build in pvp have high sustainability and effectiveness. However, I can’t just go into a full siphon build for WvW. It just isn’t versatile enough.

I’m really tired so this might come out like word salad.

The problem with trying to make a do-everything build is that, generally speaking, the necro thrives in small fights due to conditions and in zergs because of power. What’s more, while you dedicate some points to it, you aren’t set up to do any real condition damage. The staff isn’t going to get it done on it’s own — especially with the upcoming nerf ANet has planned. To max condis, you need the scepter but to do this, you’ll need to drop the staff and its do-everything utility. That’s tough. In the same vein, your power is quite low as well considering you aren’t running an abundance of armor or other stat considerations that might have eaten into your power pool. Sharpening Stones will help but at 2900 attack, it won’t exactly be a bruiser, either.

This leads to Deathly Perception. A lot of people like it but, I’m just not a fan. Personally, I think it locks you into a style of play (long bouts of DS 1 spamming) that doesn’t fully take advantage of the offensive and defensive goodies DS can proc (weakness, cleanse, bleed, stability etc) as well as the ability to use it for damage mitigation when bursted. If you’re going the DP route, you almost need to go full glass cannon with Reaper’s Might to synergize with the play style. Half-assing it will only drain DS and leave you vulnerable.

As for the d/d set up… I dunno. I like offhand dagger for small encounters but warhorn is far superior for zerging. Also, putting two traits into them seems like a misallocation of resources especially so considering the numerous traits you could grab with those extra points (Chilling Darkness, Staff Mastery, Reaper’s Might, Weakening Shroud). The trait line itself is a mixed bag as well. It’s main feature is siphon which can be very good in zerging where you can AoE a great deal but is fairly useless 1v1. Going 30 deep into it on a build that might see a lot of 1v1 is pretty scary. I’d rather run the signet if you really want the speed. Those points can buy useful things.

However, if you can give up the daggers, a simple solution is to run a standard condi build (30/20/0/0/20) that features rabid/dire gear with enough precision to proc dhuumfire consistently and run condi-friendly skills like Epidemic and SoS. This will give enough condis to be dangerous in 1v1 while the armor will also maintain your tankiness for zerging. While condis aren’t great for zerging, you can run a disruption build with no drop off in effectiveness. Simply change the traits from [WShroud, Terror, VPersistance] to things like [FRituals, CDarkness, SMastery]. If you wanted to spend the last 20 points in another tree, you could easily do that as well. It would blunt fear’s potential but you could select more zerg-friendly traits in Death and Blood or put the full 30 into Curses which gives you the flexibility to run WShroud or Banshee’s Wail as well.

I have tried going with quickening thirst, but it’s just not that good, unless maybe for hybrids, but I don’t know and not sure as I don’t run a hybrid. Dagger main is more to power side, and dagger offhand is more to conditions side. A sad tale, since dual incinerators would look good. There is no law against it, it’s just that you’ll find you are better off with a different setup.

The build looks like you are playing safe and want the best of both worlds, understandable until you refine, but most likely you will end up with locust or travellers runes anyway with this build. I’m saying, bite the bullet and get the runes, nothing ventured nothing gained. Maybe not just yet. Save up while refining.

I don’t have the runes and not using the signet, I have a spectral/ds build and between warhorn and spectral walk that’s almost perm swiftness, but tempted to get the runes now that you mentioned it since all the bonuses are good for my build and can’t believe I overlooked them.

Anyway, if it were me, I would lose the staff, go dagger/focus and axe/warhorn, and lose the wells for small scale. The invul on focus really helps dagger main hand damage, and you will have a boon strip. Axe you will need, to get some range over the dagger’s melee range, believe you me. Quickening thirst is not worth it for 1 dagger imo, and main hand dagger doesn’t really need the cooldown; since you will more likely have them up after a rotation, and with 30 in SR, might as well focus on Death Shroud. (Dark Path -> dagger -> axe). So I can move 10 points from blood to elsewhere.

For larger encounters, staff instead of the dagger/focus; axe 3 -> plague would be better. You can switch to wells, but I’d stick to consume conditions. The well has no cleanse, and more often then not, you don’t get the full heals, longer cooldown.

Anchoku.8142:

I am curious why you did not choose the war horn for off-hand. You may give that a try instead of dagger/dagger. You can still switch utilities to Signet of the Locust for longer runs. War horn used to be the only good mobility option and it is still excellent for that in combat.

Dagger/Dagger is very good for roaming because of blind/weakness and condi cleanse. Warhorn is also good, though.

@Nagato: Doesn’t Deathly Perception effect all the DS skills that cause damage (not including Torment ticks)? If not I’m certainly open to changing this and /or Unyielding Blasts to something else. Also, I’m trying to avoid condi since I want this build to be biased towards a more general wvw build that can also handle pve and some roaming. As for the low power, I agree it’s low, but was going more for survivability than burst.

@Haqqa: Isn’t OH dagger more utility than condi? It’s mainly for cleanse and aoe weaken I thought. Also, I must say, MH dagger is nice for catching runners. It looks like your comments are more in regards to roaming than zerg. I typically am always assisting the zerg even when I’m not on them. Occasionally I will run havoc with the guild though.

Wells are very zerg friendly… but I could get away with just going with Well of Corruption. Hence, when I don’t go wells and dual daggers I typically go with Ether Feat, Signet of Locust, Spectral Wall, and Well of Corruption. The thing I don’t like about that is that it typically means my utilities aren’t optimized for my build. Also, do every use Well of Corruption it’s almost a must to have Focused Rituals. Once you take that you’ve already dedicated 10 points to one skill so it feels like a waste to not take more than one well.

This almost makes the point that if you aren’t running Well of Corruption + Focused Rituals with a zerg you may as well bring a different class. The same could be said for Mesmers and Null Field, and Guardian and Stand Your Ground.

Helios, if you really want to be frugal, try to make every trait have at least two uses. Think, “synergy,” in your build.

Your build partly optimizes dagger but committing to that weapon usually draws players into a power-crit build using DS frequently as a gap-closer. It is one of the more challenging play-styles for Necromancer.

Haqqa has pointed out D/D’s popularity but, as Nagato was trying to say is that using dagger OH for its mobility boost is not a very efficient way of spending trait points.

If you put 30 points into a dagger mobility skill, do it knowing that you are sacrificing power, crit chance, or crit bonus to get there. You do get extra health and healing. Examine your gear, weapon, and sigil choices.

awesome, thanks for the suggestions and input everyone. I’ll probably be hitting the drawing board again soon and will take into account your considerations. I definitely feel I have to go power/crit and I feel I can’t go without staff. I also must have 25% movement speed or nearly 100% swiftness uptime. After that I’m open to changing things up. If I settle on something I like I’ll post it as well.

Edit/Update:
okay, I tested this 30/20/20 http://intothemists.com/guides/89-noobers_necro
in spvp 5v5 and 8v8 and it performed poorly.

I then tested this 30/10/0/0/30 build in spvp
http://intothemists.com/guides/1623-power_necro
and it performed very well and felt similar to my old build but takes into account having more power and uses axe/warhorn. I’ll give it a go in WvW.

Your build is decent(someone else posted this exact build recently with a video).

Your gear confuses the hell out of me. Your power is really low, your armor is kind of low, and all you gain is like 400 condition damage, which isnt going to make your bleeds really hit any harder.

Try ditching your celestial pieces and that dire piece in exchange for knights, cavaliers, or berserkers. You should be able to get at least 1800 power, 45% crit, and 2700 armor with this build. Also, ditch your sigil of geomancy, it isnt helping you at all. Get force or accuracy.