Guild Wars 2

So I just started playing a a sylvari necro. I’m level 8. I already died like 5 times! lol.
So far I’m only using a staff and axe/focus combo. I plan on using a dagger with focus once I actually get one.

I encounter 3 lvl 8 nightmare courters and I can’t stay alive :c Should I be alarmed at my terrible ability to stay alive? or am i expecting too much from my necro?

Anyone have any advice for a newbie? I’ve been getting gear that gives me vitality and toughness.

Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanksss

Get power and vit gear at low levels.

Get dagger/wh staff.

Get wells and aoe faceroll everything with marks → dagger switch →WH locust swarm, 2 wells, DS life transfer and golem charge when you get it. Kite with marks, dagger immob and for champs with same….if you even have to bother kiting which usually you won’t.

One note, some mobs actually have damage that even 3 level higher mobs cannot dish out nightmare court and underwater risen being prime examples, on a brighter note just minion spamming can pretty much solo all content to 60.
For gear getting zerkers while using axe focus; soldier or knight while dagger/warhorn; carrion staff and last but not least rabid or rampagers if your main weapon setu kitten cepter/dagger will fit the playstyle or at least force adaptation into how you should use the weapons (aka not bombrush in as a condi and kite instead, not spam marks like kitten abuse range swaps, etc).

At level 8, I recommend using primarily scepter/dagger. That has 900 range, so stay at a distance and keep kiting them. Get Consume Conditions for healing, Blood is Power for a major bleed and Epidemic to spread it around (unless you are going for a minion master, in which case, of course, you go for your minion skill instead).

The necro is an attrition class, according to ANet. So we are designed to NOT have high burst damage. At high-levels, this mostly works out ok, but it can make things seem to go slow and feel weak at those very early levels.

I agree that vitality/toughness is a good way to go early on, to compensate for the slower damage rate.

You can also just go to Metrica Province for your first 15 levels, way easier, with less ranged npc. Always try to fight near walls/rocks/etc to be able to kite them around while they bleed to death. Necro in open ground against multiple ranged opponents will have a harder time. Also keep up with blue gear every 5-10 level on the trade post. It’s normally only coppers, but it helps a lot.

The necro is NOT an attrition class according to the game right now. Don’t bother with toughness, you get more DS for stacking vit. Get power instead…don’t be afraid of trying to burst on necro, when you can chain 5 aoe abilities together it makes PVE burst a breeze for most trash, and the non-trash you can kite with marks and dagger immob a little.

Necro aoe chain.

4 marks – warhorn locust – 2 wells – life transfer

With EIGHT aoe abilities NINE if you include golem charge, you WILL NOT have a problem grinding PVE trash and levelling.

You can build to facetank all the trash.

You can drop stuff pretty quick without waiting for conditions.

You can siphon life from all those mobs effectively.

Buy my e-book and learn the secrets to power necro for the low, low price of: quit listening to all the bad advice on nec forums.

I commend you for only dying 5 times on your way to L8. Get a utility pet if you do not have one ar your first opportunity. Rely on consume conditions and put off other healing skills. Minions make great bait and distractions for enemies. Use staff and scepter/dagger to keep as much range as you can while learning to dodge and the job skills.

Harvest everything and use crafting, heart quests, and area discovery as much as you can.

Hace fun, too.

dodge? make sure you do it, at low levels i just attacked and walked backwards, if i took too much dmg i would roll backwards. the only thing that really gave me troubles were ranged archers shooting me while trying to back away.

At level 8 you won’t have the best armor or weapons and you don’t need to constantly waste money buying them. By level 8 you should have already unlocked every weapon skill.

What I did on my necro was to drop 4 marks in front of mob, then fire the slow staff 1, switch weapons and keep backing up. By the time the mob got close to me they were under 20% health. You can keep the Blood Minion and use it as a meat shield until you get Flesh Golem at lvl 30.

When you get wells you can change your tactics and aggro several mobs, wait till they’re on top of you, drop wells, drop marks 2,3,4, then DS4….if any are still alive, switch weapons and hit them a couple of times…..pick up loot. Used this all the way to lvl 80.

Axe is a bad choice, its more for specialty builds. Its range is not great and it lacks the huge damage dagger does. Dagger also has immob which can help you a lot. As for offhand I dont think there is a bad choice however I like focus for the 10x weakness stack with regen, slants things your way very quickly.

I pretty much went full dmg with axe/foxus and staff to keep flesh golem up. I went axe to snipe mobs from a langer range instead of getting close and risk pulling more crap. Fury on DS and 30% more minion damage, dont think i ever had any problems levelling anywhere in pve.

Use Otaking’s suggestions for doing some pretty decent AoE as a necro. PvE becomes quite easy once you master chaining all of that together.

I’ve never used minions or condition builds in PvE, relying instead on wells, staff, dagger+warhorn, and the blood magic and spite trait lines (primarily; a little bit of curses and death magic thrown into the mix, too). This isn’t to say minions and condition builds don’t work (they do); it is to say that there’s an alternative that works equally well.

Also keep in mind you have access to two combos (well, more actually; but these two are the ones you would encounter most frequently using the AoE chain Otaking described):

1) Staff #3 followed by staff #4 will give an area weakness combo. This will reduce the mobs’ damage output.

2) Any offensive well (Corruption, Darkness, Power, and Suffering) creates a dark field. Place staff mark #4 inside any of these wells for an area blindness combo.

Starting to get overwhelmed by mobs? Drop staff #5 at your feet to fear them away from you and buy some time.

Once you get the hang of it, mobs drop like flies.