Guild Wars 2

im an mm necromancer and i saw a guide that used all minions including the blood fiend. i have been experimenting with the mm build after this patch and have noticed that wells of blood works really well compared tot he blood fiend that you only get a little amount of dps from. i stack vit/healing/toughness, and main weaps are staff and secondary im undecided. so i will need everyones opinion ont he matter.

ok first i would like to say there is a good reason to why i’m experimenting with blood of wells. as i have recently tried dagger/focus works really great it has both good range on the weap. it has 3 types of healing with dagger as main hand. now im not sure if my heals is alot better with the dagger/dagger, i cant seem to tell. but anyways this is where blood of wells comes in, while i’m using dagger/focus it requires me to stay close combat so that is where wells of blood comes in. it heals me for a burst and regens + removes conditions, while toggling between staff and secondary weap to keep my hp afloat. not to mention death shroud form.

anyone can actually help me decide if my logic in mm wells blood is worth sacrificing blood fiend, and if the dagger/focus or dagger/dagger is a good combo as a necromancer mm build? and please tell me which you prefer dagger/focus or dagger/dagger

Seems I’ve had a similar experience to yours.
First necro was built with traditional minions in mind.
They were so lacking in tank/damage/heal and AI that they were a liability.
I deleted the character.

Gave it a new try a week or two later, no minions.
Dagger/Focus and Staff.
Necro is now easy mode in PvE.

I’m playing MM necro atm or… the times when my pets decide to play as well. -.-

Blood Fiend was “ok” for starting, then at higher levels, Well of Blood is far better (imho).

Once you get 30 point in Blood Magic trait line, all pets are going to transfer life to the master and since staff.#2 healing takes care of the melee minions, Well of Blood helps the little ranged dps pet near to you (Bone Fiend, the most hated by mobs -.-).

Plus -> Well of Blood generates a Combo Field: Light.
Removes conditions with projectile (staff.#1) and buff Retaliation (Bone Minions explosion or staff.#4).

About the weapons.
My setup is: Staff – Scepter/off Dagger.

Reason I use off Dagger is for the .#4 condition transfer when my staff.#4 is on cd or can’t benefit from it due the range. The aoe bleed is also nice.
Scepter is the only single target main weapon I can use without too much frustration and with some enjoyable skill (aoe snare).
Dagger.#1 has an impracticable range, even more if the mobs attack/follow the pets.
Axe is just boring and underwhelmed.

In any case, if I want to build life force I just stay with staff, at the end I think the best and primary weapon for a MM necro.

(sorry for the grammar mistakes, English is not my native language).

From everything I’ve seen and my own experience, well of blood seems to be the way to go if you want your minions to have any survivability. Minions don’t have any form of natural healing outside of combat, so while Mark of Blood can help keep them up IN combat, Well is pretty much required if you don’t want to find yourself going into combat with half-dead minions.

ya i just tried it out in spvp and wvw. my current setup was dagger/focus and staff. my trait was don’t know the name but greater mark, dark armor, the minion health/attack% buffer bloodthirst and vampiric something the one that siphons 50% more, and the trait that gives might to plage/lifeblast. my current armor set up was stacked for vit/heals/toughness. i didn’t use blood fiend and used wells of blood instead.

anyways the fight was very interesting. although i did die when i got ganked, any one on one or even 2 v 1 basically i was able to handle. the flesh golems charge with right cordination really helps out. and with 3 healing skills from the dagger/focus and toggling between staff + death shroud pretty much always almost kept my health up and if things got bad i would throw in the wells. i even had few warriors run away from me when i was just standing and guarding points or even roaming in wvw lol.

overall minus the garbage ai system of our minions + the bible of bugs we have for our necro, i think the profession did really well. only profession i had trouble fighting was a guardian because he blocks like the great wall of china. oh and other then guardian people who wasn’t in same playing ground as you would sometimes get annoying because well your minions would have to run to them up the ramp etc… but after playing this i def like the build i made. mostly with the vit/healing/toughness. really works well.

oh and there was situational fights where i encounterd 3 v 1 and i was able to down 2 before i died but over all most def sticking to this build. i see a bright future for necros once the bugs/ai system is fixed.