Guild Wars 2

how can a necro support his team?

can he heal? make a lot of good combo starters? buff allies?

or is the only way of support is to weaken the enemy?

i know necro has few skills like well skills that can heal and buff, but they have long cd and cant be used frequent, but is there something i can do as a necro that can help my team ? ( pvp and pve)

Most of what I’m going to say is from a PvE perspective. It might work in WvW, but PvP has its own set of rules that I can’t pretend to fully understand.

But can a necromancer support their team? Yes!

First off, take a staff. Staff gets you a really safe auto-attack, and one of the few blast finishers Necromancers have access to. It also gives you a way to spam regeneration on allies near foes (Mark of Blood) as well as a way to push conditions from allies to foes (Putrid Mark, also your blast finisher). With a couple of traits (Soul Marks, Greater Marks) it gets pretty easy to apply effects to most of your team, while also generating a lot of Life Force which keeps you pretty safe.

For straight-up heals, Necromancers are a bit restricted. There’s two traits I can think of off-hand, one that makes Life Transfusion be an AoE channeled heal (Take this it’s pretty great) and one that makes you heal on leaving Death Shroud (It’s… Not so great, but consider it?)

You can also try to cure conditions on allies with Plague Signet and Well of Power. I’d also say not to worry too much about longer recharges on utility skills. Things like Well of Power and Spectral Wall can really turn a fight while also providing combo fields, and tend to be up by the next fight.

Softspoken.2410:

For straight-up heals, Necromancers are a bit restricted. There’s two traits I can think of off-hand, one that makes Life Transfusion be an AoE channeled heal (Take this it’s pretty great) and one that makes you heal on leaving Death Shroud (It’s… Not so great, but consider it?)

Don’t forget “Well of Blood”. If traited for ground targeting, the direct heal will go to you, but the HoTs will go to the targeted area, which can sometimes be a life saver

digitz.2701:

Softspoken.2410:

For straight-up heals, Necromancers are a bit restricted. There’s two traits I can think of off-hand, one that makes Life Transfusion be an AoE channeled heal (Take this it’s pretty great) and one that makes you heal on leaving Death Shroud (It’s… Not so great, but consider it?)

Don’t forget “Well of Blood”. If traited for ground targeting, the direct heal will go to you, but the HoTs will go to the targeted area, which can sometimes be a life saver

I hadn’t thought about that usage of ground-targeted wells! Combined with the trait that gives 3 seconds of protection to everyone inside the well, you could certainly have an impact.

Necros is one of the top healers in the game. Asuming your in full healing gear here are som numbers.

Well of Blood: 10sec location AoE heal that ticks for around 700/sec.

Mark of Blood: Bleeds for enemies in the area and Regen for allies in the area. Around 350/sec

Life Transfer with Trait, heals close allies for around 300 for each dmg tick

Leaving Death Shroud with Trait (wich you should be doing on every CD) Heals for around 700.

I currently run a healing Wellomancer. Basically, yes, we can support the hell out of our allies. We can do a bunch of different things but by far where we’re strongest are healing and condition removal.

To start, the obvious weapon for support role is the Staff. Your other set is up to you and depends on which offensive stat you opt for. Unless you want to pay for Apothecary gear or sacrifice Healing Power by using Shaman gear, you’re probably looking at either axe or dagger using either Power or Precision.

If you intend to major in support, one of the strongest things you can get is ground-targeted Wells. You’ll need 20 points invested in Curses for this but I feel it’s worth the stat deviation (10 of the points would otherwise probably go towards filling Death and Blood to 30/30). For the other trait option under Curses, I consider Chilling Darkness worth picking due to its synergy with Well of Darkness alone. This will make Well of Darkness spam chill as well as blind, allowing it to be a ranged AoE crowd control and damage mitigation. Just having Healing Powered up Well of Blood and Well of Darkness is worth having ground-targeted wells. It’s worth noting as well that Well of Darkness being a darkness field can be triggered by projectiles for Leech Life. This can be a decent amount of induced healing if, for example, a Thief has the wherewithal to Unload through it.

The other relatively strong traits for support necro are all under Death and Blood. Some standouts:

*Greater Marks will make targeting much easier and help Mark of Blood and Chillblains hit more targets.
*Ritual Mastery will significantly increase the frequency of your wells dropping – this means more heals and greater uptime of mitigation.
*Ritual of Protection shouldn’t be underestimated. It will make Well of Power chain blind, chain chill AND chop a third off any damage that does make it through. A Well of Blood so traited and placed over a ram will keep the boys banging on the door like nothing else.
*Ritual of Life has an internal cooldown but effectively doubles the castability of Well of Blood during dangerous situations (when allies are more likely to go down).
*Transfusion turns Life Transfer into an AoE heal. It is worth 2600 hp per person and unlike Well of Blood, you’re very likely to get it all to land.

Healing:
*Regeneration via Mark of Blood is your main sustained heal and will tick for around 300/s with 1370 healing power – more than the average healing of Well of Blood. You can keep this up very nearly perpetually even without Staff Mastery.
*Well of Blood ticks 11 times over 10 seconds and is a burstier heal. You need 1370 Healing Power for it to tick 700 per tick or 7700 total healing. This is a pile of healing but how much of it you land varies a lot. In fights like Alpha on Path 1 CoE when everyone is stacking on him there is practically no way to go down because you will land all 7700hp on everybody in the party. And, if someone does go down and you rez, that will be another 7700 with Ritual of Life so for sure nobody else will down. Likewise, when cast over a ram at a defended gate in WvW, its effects are very noticeable. In situations where the incoming fire looks bad enough for gate attackers to pull off, dropping a Well of Blood that ticks 700 convinces them to stay and continue attacking the gate. On the other hand, for mobile open field fights in WvW or bosses that flit all over the place, don’t expect to land more than a tick or three.
*Life Transfer with Transfusion is worth 2600-2700 and is unaffected by Healing Power. In the time it takes Life Transfer to run its course, a Well of Blood at 1370 Healing Power heals for 2800-3500 (4 or 5 ticks) but you can move as you Life Transfer and keep your ally in range even if he’s dodging around.

From a WvW perspective:
Necros in general are hybrids. They are not tanks, but tanky. They don’t do as much aoe damage as other classes, but still a lot. It’s the same for healing. I don’t consider stacking healing power for a necro as a worthwile option.

Your support potential as a necro is largely dependent upon an organized group. Your main abilities are:
- Spectral Wall: It has no target limit, so casting it in front of your guild before pushing gives protection for the important early seconds of a fight.
- Well of Blood: Scales quite well and is a good addition to healing spring, healing rain etc. while stacking. The only time it will reach it’s full 10s potential is while sieging to heal rams. The main problem using this is that you will be reliant upon whirl finishers to remove conditions.
- Well of Power: Can be quite nice but is usually too situational. A shout guardian or water ele can do the job much better. It also requires your team to stack and stand still, which means you’ll usually eat more conditions than your well can cure.
- Transfusion is a surprisingly potent trait. If you can spare the 10 points to invest in blood then go for it. I just consider other traits lines to be more important.
- The regen from staff 2 is nice and in combination with the other classes you shouldn’t have problems keeping up perma regen during a fight.
- The main support a necro provides derives from his conditions. Weakness from withering precision and skale venom. Cripples, Chill, Poison etc.

“Support” in this game needs a wider definition than simply healing.

If you go 30 in Soul reaping you can get the %50 cd time for DS, which paired with Deathly Invigoration gives a 700ish heal every 5 seconds. It may not seem like a lot but it adds up when used with near perma-regen, Transfusion, and Well of blood, it’s a nice stream of heals.

- Well of Power: Can be quite nice but is usually too situational. A shout guardian or water ele can do the job much better. It also requires your team to stack and stand still, which means you’ll usually eat more conditions than your well can cure.

In open-field skirmishes, good zergs ball up and stack fields on themselves, usually Light for Retaliation and Condition Removal, followed by Water for Healing and Regeneration. The main problem with Well of Power, in this case, is that it’s a friggin Dark field…

I play Damage/Support with my Necro in WvW, mainly dropping +100% duration Chills, Dark fields and giant Marks for zone control.

Anyone else remember back in Beta when Well of Blood was a Water field? I miss those days