Guild Wars 2

build what is best for the necromancer dungeon? please advise

Full rabid/epidemic. Best dungeon build/excluding paths where destroying objects like ac burrows is important. With a decent group even those paths are not a problem.

Full rabid gear.
30 curses
10 death magic
30 up to you.

I run 0/30/20/20/0 pick up greater marks/well CD/obvious curse traits/Wob when rez

Wob/epidemic/signet of undeath/ and change out the last utility for the situation. Well of darkness is good for rezing. Locust/walk for kiting and m0vement.

Single target boss fights Wob/bip/sou/sol

There is no perfect build. There are 4 different build styles and multiple builds off that build style.

Condition
Power
Minion
Hybrid

Those are the 4 main styles than there are ways off that. Find the style you like the best and we can help with the build.

Bas.7406:

There is no perfect build. There are 4 different build styles and multiple builds off that build style.

Condition
Power
Minion
Hybrid

Those are the 4 main styles than there are ways off that. Find the style you like the best and we can help with the build.

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

Haha! That was a good joke (you were kidding right?).

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Bas.7406

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Are you serious? Minions in dungeons are a joke. They aggro everything they are not suppose to and die instantly during boss fights or against anything with an aoe attack. Also, no agony resistance, so don’t even bother attempting fractals.

Power builds are ok but in fights where range is required they are not much use, plus there are plenty of other classes that will out dps you anyway.

For dungeons the best is to go with a condition build or related hybrid build with wells for support.

Kiraki.9761:

Bas.7406

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Are you serious? Minions in dungeons are a joke. They aggro everything they are not suppose to and die instantly during boss fights or against anything with an aoe attack. Also, no agony resistance, so don’t even bother attempting fractals.

Power builds are ok but in fights where range is required they are not much use, plus there are plenty of other classes that will out dps you anyway.

For dungeons the best is to go with a condition build or related hybrid build with wells for support.

Where are you at in a dungeon that your minions are pulling? I have played just about every dungeon as an MM or Power build. Considering everyone bring conditions our Power builds are extremely strong or tankish.

Your inability to make them work is not a reflection of the class itself.

We already pointed that agony affects every pet class. That includes Mesmers who are really brought for Time Warp and have to spend whole boss fights not bringing clones. so your point again is invalid.

As for AOE Fights, if you have to aoe something down than you are again playing the game wrong. One of the strengths of MM is we can focus fire the hardest class down faster than anyone not named Thief without being trainwrecked in the process or breaking away from the fight. We have multiple ways to control a target, and we can tank or swap to full damage.

Again this seems like a playstyle issue by the user and not a gameplay issue.

Bas.7406:

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Minions die far too easily and have stupid AI. I can’t imagine why you would choose to use a minion over wells or epidemic in a dungeon, but whatever floats your boat.

kidbs.8920:

Bas.7406:

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Minions die far too easily and have stupid AI. I can’t imagine why you would choose to use a minion over wells or epidemic in a dungeon, but whatever floats your boat.

Let me help you out here.

1) Stop using them with reduced traits. None of them die easily, they can all tank bosses for a few seconds which is essentially a blind. The only time they die is if a boss or character unleashes an attack that would wipe your personal health. I have only ran into two situations where all the minions died at once. 3 are ranged and 2 are melee and one of the melee regens health.

2) AOE only wipes them out if the same aoe would kill you. They don’t dodge, but the amount of aoe that would wipe you out and that all yoru minions would be in is small.

3) Wells and Corruptions skills have significantly longer cooldowns, and during the period they are down minions are still up and do more damage. During the time wells are used well builds deal more damage. It’s a fair tradeoff.

4) Signets and Spectral skills are situational with some having almost no use in Dungeons. Let’s not get started as to how horrible epidemic or corrupt boon is on your bar when you run into anything that is less than 3 or has no boons.

Finally, there are pluses and minuses to every build. Minions work very effectively and don’t die that often. I have videos of me with other Necros where they outlived the other necros or simply outlived everyone in the party than tanked a boss while I rezzed the party.

Wait that means they are worthless doesn’t it?

Bas.7406:

kidbs.8920:

Bas.7406:

kidbs.8920:

I would say there are 3 options (minions are a joke).

You are kidding right? The only place minions have trouble is wvwvw zerg battles. In Dungeons they are strong. In tournament play they are pretty awesome. In general pve, they are awesome.

In wvwvw small team roam squads they are hilariously fun. In large zergs or wall defense they get slaughtered.

Minions die far too easily and have stupid AI. I can’t imagine why you would choose to use a minion over wells or epidemic in a dungeon, but whatever floats your boat.

Let me help you out here.

1) Stop using them with reduced traits. None of them die easily, they can all tank bosses for a few seconds which is essentially a blind. The only time they die is if a boss or character unleashes an attack that would wipe your personal health. I have only ran into two situations where all the minions died at once. 3 are ranged and 2 are melee and one of the melee regens health.

2) AOE only wipes them out if the same aoe would kill you. They don’t dodge, but the amount of aoe that would wipe you out and that all yoru minions would be in is small.

3) Wells and Corruptions skills have significantly longer cooldowns, and during the period they are down minions are still up and do more damage. During the time wells are used well builds deal more damage. It’s a fair tradeoff.

4) Signets and Spectral skills are situational with some having almost no use in Dungeons. Let’s not get started as to how horrible epidemic or corrupt boon is on your bar when you run into anything that is less than 3 or has no boons.

Finally, there are pluses and minuses to every build. Minions work very effectively and don’t die that often. I have videos of me with other Necros where they outlived the other necros or simply outlived everyone in the party than tanked a boss while I rezzed the party.

Wait that means they are worthless doesn’t it?

Sorry if I offended you Bas. I guess you’ve found a way to make minions work where countless others haven’t. I would still put minion builds below the other 3 in terms of reliability but I’m sure you’ll disagree with me on that as well. To each his own. I retract my comment about minions being worthless.

kidbs.8920:

Sorry if I offended you Bas. I guess you’ve found a way to make minions work where countless others haven’t. I would still put minion builds below the other 3 in terms of reliability but I’m sure you’ll disagree with me on that as well. To each his own. I retract my comment about minions being worthless.

You never offended me, and there are quite a few MM who helped me in game along the way, and there is even a guy who plays condition mancer who helped me out. It was not making them work, it was simply understanding how they work.

In terms of reliability, I would say MM is probably number 1 because you know exactly what you get from them without change (that’s the definition of reliable). In terms of damage out put, DS Centric with Lich Form and Wells will drop a single target much faster. In terms of group benefit, I would put MM 3rd behind Hybrid and condimancers, but before Dagger/Well/DS builds. In terms of AOE damage, MM is dead last by a long margin.

The problem is that people misunderstand minions and how they work in terms of a build. Too many Necro’s see them as Pets and so when they don’t respond as pets they get angry and cry that they fail. Being that I played a Ranger through BWE so had experience with Spirit Pets, spent the large portion of my beginning pvp days as a Guardian I learned and got used to Spirit Weapons. I also learned about elementals from my elemenatalist. I tested turrets on my engineer. So my mindset was completely different than a majority of lifelong Necros.

When I finally got around to trying the Necro, I never looked at a Minion as a pet or companion, but simply as a tool deal damage. I was very excited by them because they did a nice amount of damage, lived longer than Turrets, had better utility than Spirit Weapons, didn’t overwrite other skills like Spirit Pets, and didn’t have the ridiculous cooldown time of Elemental pets.

You see, I never worried about them dying, I always figured they would as long as I could get them back in less than 25 seconds I was fine with it. I loved that you could trait for poison on death, though a majority of the time I find it’s not needed.

I also ran into a friend who told me about this awesome minion they call Flesh Wurm to us in pvp for stun breaks. I thought hmmm, if I put this in pve it will never die, deal constant damage and healing. What’s better than that? I didn’t realize they were so hated until I reached the forums. It was then I realized that everyone kept comparing them to Mesmer Illusions (horrible comparison) or Ranger Pets (brutally OP if they were like this) instead of the comparisons that I had thought of from the beginning.

I had help, now my goal is simply to try and get more players to realize that just because 60 percent of the Necros think condition mancers is the only way to play doesn’t make them right. they were jaded by playing the Necro for 500 plus hours and only thinking of Necros in terms of one ability. The ability to reapply conditions. BTW, playing a ranger and putting 25 bleeds on someone in 3 seconds, and an elementalist where I could deal seriously strong direct damage while stacking burns and bleeds as fast a necro caused me to think Necromancers were short changing themsleves.

I am not offended. I am attempting to teach you to open your mind and look at it from a different angle.

I agree with you that necros need to branch out from certain build such as conditionmancers where personally I feel they fall behind rangers in pure condition damage. In most of the dungeons that I run I find that AoE damage is very much needed and that’s where wells really shine and minions are lackluster.

This is where I wish we had multiple build loadouts available b/c I can see that minions would probably be good for certain single boss fights. I just can’t stand the thought of having very weak AoE.

kidbs.8920:

I agree with you that necros need to branch out from certain build such as conditionmancers where personally I feel they fall behind rangers in pure condition damage. In most of the dungeons that I run I find that AoE damage is very much needed and that’s where wells really shine and minions are lackluster.

This is where I wish we had multiple build loadouts available b/c I can see that minions would probably be good for certain single boss fights. I just can’t stand the thought of having very weak AoE.

I appreciate your willingness to think outside of the box. I like wells. I just don’t like being in melee unless I am a bunker build. I prefer to stay outside hammering away, and wells are just much better if you are in melee. I think one of the reasons they are working on tweaking the AoE for every class is because every pull is turning into an aoe them down, don’t even try to control them, but burn them down as fast as possible.

I have a feeling in a few months. AoE damage will be reduced and/or dungeon pulls will see AoE damage reduction to force more 1v1 play, and controlling targets.

Sorry for entering this thread. I’m also searching for a dungeon build. At the moment I’m level 26 and running a dagger/warhorn build with wells and BiP and open world i’m tearing through mobs 2 – 3 level above without a sweat. Just a few minutes ago I’ve sent a lvl 30 veteran ettin to his ancestors.
As I want to level through dungeons as I reach lvl 35 I would like to know if such a build is valid for a dungeon at level 35 or should I go for something different. If so, what would you recommend?
Or should I stick to my guardian for the dungeon and change to the necro before the last boss until i’ve gained more levels and traits?

tropenfrucht.8963:

Sorry for entering this thread. I’m also searching for a dungeon build. At the moment I’m level 26 and running a dagger/warhorn build with wells and BiP and open world i’m tearing through mobs 2 – 3 level above without a sweat. Just a few minutes ago I’ve sent a lvl 30 veteran ettin to his ancestors.
As I want to level through dungeons as I reach lvl 35 I would like to know if such a build is valid for a dungeon at level 35 or should I go for something different. If so, what would you recommend?
Or should I stick to my guardian for the dungeon and change to the necro before the last boss until i’ve gained more levels and traits?

Stick with the Necro. AC is a cake walk despite how people treat it like it’s the most terrifying thing in the world If you run into groups that won’t take you. Simply message anyone on “But of Corpse” just about anyone there will run it with you or give you a hand with setting up a group. You could also join the all-necro guild and swap over to the guild when you want to ask a few questions than swap back to your guild to hang with friends.

Full beserker power easily best for dungeons. Theres no need for survivability in PvE. Just dodge and dps. If your running with a high dps group chances are a condition build wont allow you to stack your conditions fast enough before the boss dies. Minions are far too unreliable in most boss fights and dont provide anywhere near as much dps as other builds. So beserker or Hybrid rampager are far superior in terms of speed running and general pve if you know how to play the class and you know the dungeons.

spoj.9672:

Full beserker power easily best for dungeons. Theres no need for survivability in PvE. Just dodge and dps. If your running with a high dps group chances are a condition build wont allow you to stack your conditions fast enough before the boss dies. Minions are far too unreliable in most boss fights and dont provide anywhere near as much dps as other builds. So beserker or Hybrid rampager are far superior in terms of speed running and general pve if you know how to play the class and you know the dungeons.

If you know how to play the class, minions are the most reliable form of damage. They don’t have extended cd’s, and deal a really good chunk of damage. There are very few boss fights where they are not an added benefit.

Bas.7406:

If you know how to play the class, minions are the most reliable form of damage. They don’t have extended cd’s, and deal a really good chunk of damage. There are very few boss fights where they are not an added benefit.

Am i correct in thinking that its only viable to use minions if you trait into toughness? Because if so your missing out on alot of really powerful other traits. Beserker does way more damage. Ive tried almost every common build. Beserker i find is a clear winner. Just like it is on almost every class when doing PvE. I did try some minon master builds back when i was world exploring but i found it boring and wells were alot more efficient and reliable to nuke down large groups of enemies or even single targets.

Im not sure how you can say minions are a reliable form of damage. As soon as they die you’ve lost most of your dps. And they wont dodge a bosses aoe attacks which will kill them almost instantly. Minions are fine for exploring and general PvE but I would cringe if I was in a party with a minion master in a semi difficult dungeon.

Im all for minion masters being viable but unfortunately they arent nearly as good as they could be. I was a die hard mm in gw1 so i was pretty dissapointed with how they are in gw2. Would love them to be better, but they arent.

Bas.7406:

spoj.9672:

Full beserker power easily best for dungeons. Theres no need for survivability in PvE. Just dodge and dps. If your running with a high dps group chances are a condition build wont allow you to stack your conditions fast enough before the boss dies. Minions are far too unreliable in most boss fights and dont provide anywhere near as much dps as other builds. So beserker or Hybrid rampager are far superior in terms of speed running and general pve if you know how to play the class and you know the dungeons.

If you know how to play the class, minions are the most reliable form of damage. They don’t have extended cd’s, and deal a really good chunk of damage. There are very few boss fights where they are not an added benefit.

They are only reliable in so far as the attack your target when you want them to. You are making me want to try Minions again, but my great disappointment is that they will not attack when you do. Too many times have I seen them standing around after I have launched a few attacks at a target. They are just not reliable in my experience.

spoj.9672:

Am i correct in thinking that its only viable to use minions if you trait into toughness? Because if so your missing out on alot of really powerful other traits. Beserker does way more damage. Ive tried almost every common build. Beserker i find is a clear winner. Just like it is on almost every class when doing PvE. I did try some minon master builds back when i was world exploring but i found it boring and wells were alot more efficient and reliable to nuke down large groups of enemies or even single targets.

The bonus of minions is that their stats don’t change based on yours so you can run bunker gear or berzerker gear, and it doesn’t change their damage output. I run full zerker because they do a great job tanking damage for me.

spoj.9672:

Im not sure how you can say minions are a reliable form of damage. As soon as they die you’ve lost most of your dps. And they wont dodge a bosses aoe attacks which will kill them almost instantly. Minions are fine for exploring and general PvE but I would cringe if I was in a party with a minion master in a semi difficult dungeon.

I have explaing this before, but I will venture to do this again. You claim that when my minions die they don’t do anymore damage. When your corruption skill is on CD what damage is it doing? When you are waiting for a chance to use your spectral skills what damage are they doing? When you are waiting the 45 seconds for your Wells what damage are they doing? My point is that the question itself is ridiculous. If I am running wells, and the boss moves out of it. I just wasted 45 seconds and got zero from it. How is that better than 24 second summon of a minion that may or may not die.

Minions cannot match the sheer instant power of a well build, but they don’t have the disadvantages of a well build.

spoj.9672:

Im all for minion masters being viable but unfortunately they arent nearly as good as they could be. I was a die hard mm in gw1 so i was pretty dissapointed with how they are in gw2. Would love them to be better, but they arent.

The problem again is perception over reality. They are viable in every single play except fractals past 10 because of Agony. They do their job as well as every other utility we have does theirs. Your perception is that they should do all of our damage, but they don’t. When I don’t have minions up, I do as much damage as a dagger/well guy, or a DS centric guy, or a condimancer when their utilities are on CD.

My wells do good damage but i dont spec into wells at all. Im speced for high damage and lifeforce so i can maximise damage 100% of the time. Wells add some damage at the start and stack vuln or remove boons. And if you dont spec into death magic your minions are gonna die far too fast and often so you are really wasting your utility slots imo. All the utility and effects the minions can give you, can be produced with different builds with more efficiency.