Guild Wars 2

Please don’t say zerker, I am with a zerker build now and find myself not surviving very well.

I am just starting HoT, I just barely got my glider mastery. I am not very far into it, and only got about 100 points into Reaper specialization.

Right now I have a set of Exotic Berserker gear and a Set of Solider gear for my Necromancer. So far I am having better luck with soldier gear.

So I am wondering what would be a good build for a solo player through HoT for survivability and decent damage?

Basically run minions and signet of the locust and anything else you want. I personally run the shout heal over blood fiend and rise over shadow fiend (rise is AMAZING when you get it) and I roll with ascended berserker in spite/death/reaper but soldiers is probably better if you want to solo champ mobs for hero points and the like.

Step 1: Like nearlight said, use minions.

Traits: Death Magic (1, 1, 1), Blood Magic (3, 3, 3), Reaper (1, 1 or 2, 3)

Weapon set 1: Greatsword
Weapon set 2: Staff

Stats: Any tanky set will do, I personally like cleric’s (although I would like it even more if power was the main stat).

Healing skill: Blood Fiend
Utility skill 1: Rise!
Utility skill 2: Summon Bone Minions
Utility skill 3: Signet of the Locust
Elite skill: Summon Flesh Golem

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Facetank champions.

Thank you guys. For Necro, As far as reaper goes I only have 95 points into it, so I don’t have Rise yet. In the Builds screen, for the reaper specialization I only have the first set, basically I have Minor Trait, Choose one of 3 major traits, then Minor Trait.

So what should I use instead of Rise for now? Also should I still use Reaper despite how little I have available to use?

Zerk with minions+rise or Condi Dhummfire

Would I be able to use a soldier set to get me through HoT alone? I ask because I already have a full set of exotics in my bank from a year or so ago. It would certainly save me some money.

Also, I have Reaper fully unlocked if that helps.

P.S. I haven’t even touched my reaper spec yet so don’t be afraid to state something that might be obvious to others. I am just coming back after a year away from the game.

Thanks in advance

Jackospades.4802:

Would I be able to use a soldier set to get me through HoT alone? I ask because I already have a full set of exotics in my bank from a year or so ago. It would certainly save me some money.

Also, I have Reaper fully unlocked if that helps.

P.S. I haven’t even touched my reaper spec yet so don’t be afraid to state something that might be obvious to others. I am just coming back after a year away from the game.

Thanks in advance

Yea. Use decimate defenses to get some critical chance and you are gtg.

Diovid.9506:

Step 1: Like nearlight said, use minions.

Traits: Death Magic (1, 1, 1), Blood Magic (3, 3, 3), Reaper (1, 1 or 2, 3)

Weapon set 1: Greatsword
Weapon set 2: Staff

Stats: Any tanky set will do, I personally like cleric’s (although I would like it even more if power was the main stat).

Healing skill: Blood Fiend
Utility skill 1: Rise!
Utility skill 2: Summon Bone Minions
Utility skill 3: Signet of the Locust
Elite skill: Summon Flesh Golem

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Facetank champions.

I’d suggest DM 1-3-2 and Spite 1-2-2 instead for more damage, but I guess if you want to go the really, really safe route, then BM 3-3-1 or 3 would work. I personally just run around with Rise/Bone Minions (either or for me), Blood Fiend and Flesh Golem if I go around with Minions. Other two slots are Well of Suffering and Corruption for me, I don’t like to give them up tbh.

What about leveling pre-hot? I could insta-boost to 80 if I wanted but I’m taking my time, learning the character this time around. Right now I’m running dagger/WH+Staff with sig of vampirism/well of suffering/well of corruption/sig of locust and Lich Form. SR/Spite and eventually blood magic.

Are minions really that much better to run around with? I’ve head the AI is clunky and unreliable.

Sazdek.6830:

What about leveling pre-hot? I could insta-boost to 80 if I wanted but I’m taking my time, learning the character this time around. Right now I’m running dagger/WH+Staff with sig of vampirism/well of suffering/well of corruption/sig of locust and Lich Form. SR/Spite and eventually blood magic.

Are minions really that much better to run around with? I’ve head the AI is clunky and unreliable.

Minion AI used to be awful, to the point where they would stand around and do nothing a substantial fraction of the time. Recently that was finally fixed, and they are now quite responsive about attacking what you attack. Sometimes if you are running without attacking anything and something attacks them they’ll hang behind for a while and fight it, but even then they break off and start following you again once you get far enough away (and that will happen even faster if you “tell” them to attack something else by attacking it yourself), so it’s not too much of an issue.

They also tended to die a lot to AoE in big fights, but the new damage 95% reduction they get for any attack from a NPC that doesn’t specifically target them basically eliminated that. They can now be incredibly durable – my Flesh Golem lasted through an entire 5-minute continuous chaotic battle defending one of the rally points in Verdant Brink at nighttime before finally succumbing to accumulated damage, and in anything shorter than that he often survives and regenerates to full health once out of combat.

I just completed Verdant Brink 100%, even soloed some group events on my necro. Still running exotic/ascended berserker gear, Spite/Soul Reaping/Reaper, 5 shouts with GS and Staff.
Felt a bit squishy at times, but swapping in DM or BM boosted my survivability a lot, at the cost of some damage. I’d probably use more defensive gear if I had some, since you easily reach 100%crit 25might 25vuln while solo anyway.

So then what would be the ideal traits and minions to use until I’m able to get reaper? Guessing DM for sure what with all the minion traits. What about after that?

If you don’t have reaper yet, go: Death/Blood/SR (minions). Use d/wh and staff. This will give you a deal heals through syphons, and face tank minions. I use zerk gear, but i play very aggressively so soliders might suit you better.

I ran this and had little trouble, except when massively outnumbered:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIhdu1IHN0Sj90glNwejjahauETxWAnzAYGotxcUGA-TRBBABYt/o8DgHAQe6HqU9nzUCCA-e

Well protection and siphons help and the stunbreaks on well of power and FITG come in handy. Could swap out locust sig if you want. Also comes with enough hard and soft cc to break bars.

I’d be careful about going too defensive, you still need to be able to kill stuff and kill it quickly.