Guild Wars 2

My main is my Necro and I’ve heard Necros a copping a lot of flak. Since the last beta I’ve been playing only a Wells Necro.
That’s:
6) Well of Blood
7) Well of Suffering
8) Well of Corruption

To be honest I’m in love with this build. I love gathering up a bunch of critters and then slamming them with my Suffering > Life Transfer > Corruption + Blood, then Mark Mark Mark my way to success! My 9) is Pain Inverter, and 0) is Lich Form, Plague or Fleshy, but these haven’t been crucial to my play in any way.
My wells give me protection, my Life Transfer heals those around me, and soon (I’m 53) I will be able to Well my foes remotely as well as sap health.

Have many Necro players tried the Well builds, and are there many fans like me?

I’ve been playing around with wells since the previous boost (5 sec duration, etc.)
At first, I had ground-cast wells and was rolling a semi-glass-cannon. Now I’ve changed it with more focus on supportive play, getting larger marks, well protection, lower cooldown for wells and staff, and well life siphon. I personally prefer consume conditions to well of blood (for that extra condition management) and run with well of darkness and well of suffering. Under 7 (or well, Q in my case), I have either Spectral Walk or something else (depending on situation). As elite, I have plague form, for that extra stability + blind that has proven to be handy.

Generally, I’ve focused a bit more on staff, keeping my range. If I were to get close, I’d switch to daggers and use wells. I can see ground-targeted wells work well with the build, but can’t really sacrifice anything from current one to get it. :P

My Necromancer runs a more support oriented Wells Build. I use Shaman’s Gear (Vit/Cond/Healing) and run Well of Blood, Epidemic, Well of Power, Well of Darkness.

Well of Darkness combined with the trait Chilling Darkness is one of our best combinations, my wells also grant protection. With this set up, I spread whatever conditions my party poops out, drop Wells (combo fields) to lessen the damage the party takes while sometimes “tanking” with plague or Well of Darkness.

My Life Transfer and Well of Blood are basically my fat team heals, Life Transfer ticks for ~300 healing per hit while Well of Blood does 564 x10 seconds.

Only downside to playing this build is dealing with bads that avoid your Well of Blood like red circles when you’re trying to help them. Or having to rely on DPS that tunnel vision too much because well, you’re a support.

I know if they implement Build Saving I’ll swap out Well of Suffering for Darkness and Power for a great support build. I’m surprised how much I’ve enjoyed this class every 5 levels (new traits) along the way.
The worst foil I’ve found were some Ice Elementals that were purely ranged and couldn’t be herded into a nice group. Otherwise, my own hubris on taking on too many foes at once.
I find when I switch to any other profession I often dash into the fray recklessly and am fast reminded I don’t have the same strength as my Necro had. Mesmer is one such alt that becomes painfully slow after playing my Nec.

Are they worth using on champs/bosses?

From a water ele’s perspective:

snaplemouton.1294:

… Even worst, loosing my water field to the necro wells for… area blind… on bosses. Now that is the biggest waste in the universe. Valiant negating 90% of the blinds. Even worst in Sorrows embrace. T_T

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Tired-of-combo-field-being-negated-by-less-wanted-combo-fields

I use them sometimes while defending towers/keeps in WvW. They have limited usage outside that though (in WvW). The biggest problem is their combos, Well of blood creates retaliation and the other wells are lifesteal. Most people would rather we didn’t screw up the water field/blast finisher combo (it heals for a lot).

Defending towers/keeps though, they do a lot to dissuade people. Put 2 of them down on the same spot, plus marks, and you can generally get 2-3 kills without much effort. Even better when they all start banging on the door. I’m pretty sure 1 necro with wells alone could scare off groups 10+ people. Also helps that ground targetable wells is in the Curses tree, which can easily be swapped to during a siege for most people.

I’m absolutely in love with my well build and I’ve decided to call it a necro bomb. I’m pure power/crit/crit damage with blood is power to skyrocket my dps. I always cackle out loud when I mealt 5 enemys stacked foolishly on a objective within a matter of seconds, literally to death.

aivedoir.3471:

Are they worth using on champs/bosses?

From a water ele’s perspective:

snaplemouton.1294:

… Even worst, loosing my water field to the necro wells for… area blind… on bosses. Now that is the biggest waste in the universe. Valiant negating 90% of the blinds. Even worst in Sorrows embrace. T_T

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Tired-of-combo-field-being-negated-by-less-wanted-combo-fields

That’s a really good point that i wasn’t aware of. Until some sort of fix is given for that, I think i can try to be more mindful of putting my wells on the far edge of bosses, away from the fighters when possible.
I wonder how taking away the protection the wells provide compares to the blast heal, when allies will already be getting water field heals + lifedrain heals?
In pve events the difference, given the immensely random and chaotic nature of them, may insignificant in practical terms. In dungeons and smaller group efforts i imagine it’d be quite integral.

Edenwolf.6328:

I’m absolutely in love with my well build and I’ve decided to call it a necro bomb. I’m pure power/crit/crit damage with blood is power to skyrocket my dps. I always cackle out loud when I mealt 5 enemys stacked foolishly on a objective within a matter of seconds, literally to death.

Love it, describes the feeling so….Well? :p (having a bad pun day!)
See the amended topic title.

In WvW, when invaders are slamming at your door, find an elevated terrain, focus an enemy (preferably not a Guardian), cast Marks+Wells+Epidemic. Enjoy!

For some reason, ppl don’t tend to look up when slamming at the doors so they are easy targets for us.

I also love wells. I use with a bulky necromancer spec along with the trait that lets them give you protection. I sacrifice a good bit of the damage that a condition necro puts out, but become incredibly hard to kill in any reasonable amount of time. With earth runes, dropping all wells gives me about 16 seconds of protection, in addition to making a large area undesirable for an opponent to fight on.

My one issue, however, is that for their cooldown, it seems a little dumb how they can be countered with a single dodge. I think each well should do something for allies and something to enemies. Adjust the numbers as need be, but at least that way you’ll still get something out of it if the person you’re fighting just hops out.

Since I run a build that enables me to go solo with minions or Wells for party play without reassigning traits and thus I don’t have any TPs in Curses, I’ve come across a great way to ensure your poor target or targets get all the grief of the wells is using the DS skill Dark Path. You hit the target, Chilling them and any adjacent suckers (ensuring they stay chilled for a little while), optionally hit Chillblains for more chill or Grasping Dead for more cripple, then let ‘em have it. This makes it hard for the enemy to move and thus dodge wells. Haven’t tried it in WvW though.

Wells rule, yeah.

I really like using wells but am torn on what stat to stick with. I don’t see how a level 80 can 50-80 critical to hit and still manage 22K HP

.. I do agree with that well build. Going full toughness and vitality + healing makes u hard to kill ^^. I randomly tried it on SPVP and guess what -.-. It rips many glass cannon wariorrs + guardian + squishy thieves and ( i was surprised myself ) mesmer on s/p build lulz.
The problem with that build is the lack of dmg <.< and the trouble u get in when ur wells are on cd ….

@TooLateToTalk u cant have both just so u know . u have to sacrifice a stat in other to increase another stat. thats how GW2 works lol. :P

@toolate it’s possible necros have the highest base hp, I’m running full glass cannon(58 crit, 50 crit damage 2100 power+) and still maintain 22k hp.

I run a support “necro bomb” spec which specs into the healing tree instead of conditions.

I won’t post it on the forums but I will say me and my guildies who have tried it find it extremely potent at excelling in all kinds of situations for WvW and PvE.

The level of damage I can tank is just ludicrous. The CC I can dish out can be game changing. The heals I put out can single handedly hold the line. The damage while nothing great is not terrible either. There is so much synergy with wells and death shroud I don’t even know where to begin because its so awesome.

Because of the bugginess of corrupt boon/signet of spite/plague signet, I much prefer well spec in WvW simply because it’s reliable. Very useful build for tower offense/defense. You can mess up a ram pretty darn good.

Well spec is so fun in WvW, I can’t play any other spec in WvW

Been trying to retrait my ele to give me the speed and smoothness of my necro bomb and haven’t had much luck. Greater aoe radius in the arcane line is the best i can do so far

Edenwolf.6328:

I’m absolutely in love with my well build and I’ve decided to call it a necro bomb. I’m pure power/crit/crit damage with blood is power to skyrocket my dps. I always cackle out loud when I mealt 5 enemys stacked foolishly on a objective within a matter of seconds, literally to death.

Which spec you using? And does it still work?

This is basically the same setup I used from 1-80 PvE levelling and it was great. I could round up 10+ enemies and they would all be downed within 10 seconds or so.

FacesOfMu.3561:

The worst foil I’ve found were some Ice Elementals that were purely ranged and couldn’t be herded into a nice group. Otherwise, my own hubris on taking on too many foes at once.
I find when I switch to any other profession I often dash into the fray recklessly and am fast reminded I don’t have the same strength as my Necro had. Mesmer is one such alt that becomes painfully slow after playing my Nec.

If you think Ice Elementals are bad, wait for the Dredge. * shivers *. Most are ranged and ALL are immune to blind, which is basically my entire defense. Dredge and Ice Elementals are the bane of a Necro’s existence in PvE

I personally don’t like wells as a damage route, I feel like they don’t do enough damage to justify using them for just that. Instead I just use well of darkness defensively and fill the rest of my utilities with non-wells like spectral walk and consume conditions. If I need well of power to condition remove or something I’ll use it but I’ll never take a well with the plan to deal damage with it.

My necro is still fairly low level. I stack/wells/marks and primarily only play in WvW it is amazing. Chill+Stack wells/marks = dead people lots of loot bags. Love it so much fun and durable enough to be able to run in a crowd and do it solo at times too. Very effective. Surprisingly good in pve too.