Guild Wars 2

I’ve been roaming around in WvW as a D/P thief and there seem to be a lot of power necros running around from the other servers. I have no idea how to fight them. I’ve tried playing defensively with shortbow and fighting aggressively in their faces and keeping them blinded, but I just get whittled down with fears, immobilizes, and soft CCs like chill. Even when I’m in stealth, Life Transfer deals a ridiculous amount of damage to me. I always interrupt this skill when I can, but they shrug it off and proceed to annihilate me with 4k+ Life Blasts. Even when I manage to get a good backstab into them, they just immediately go into Death Shroud, fear me, and start barraging me with those massive autoattacks.

I’m pretty sure this is a L2P issue for me, so any tips? I suppose that speccing full glass and killing them before they kill me is an option, but I’d rather not go that route.

necros have no access to stability and most of their damage comes from death shroud. just stay in stealth/daze them for when they are in death shroud. While not in death shroud much of their damage will come from up close attacks so a blind field should work wonders for you.

If they start with 100% life force it’s gonna be a tough battle and really difficult to win unless you are Shadow Arts or unless you greatly out skill your enemy.
That said, these are the steps you need to follow:
-don’t miss your Basilisk Venom and your Stolen Ability.
-use Steal wisely, which means as an interrupt.
-keep them pressured by spamming Shadowshot or Black Powders on them and going in/out of their bodies.
-dodge Dark Path and the final blow of Tainted Shackles.
-interrupt the heal
-if you need to use Shadow Refuge, use it when they don’t have Life Transfer ready. The best moment to use it is when they have any spectral skills activated (like the automatic Spectral Armor at 50% hp).
Do not waste dodges.

Every time they go into Death Shroud, run like a kitten. Either stealth up, or kite them and LoS around. Walking through the Necromancer while auto attacking helps, but you need to be good enough to not eat a single auto attack. You can also try poking via cluster bombs while you LoS as their DS#1 is extremely slow that you can strafe back to your LoS while keeping decent damage. Wait for them to leave Shroud, and burst. Good necros will anticipate the burst and random dodge. Bait that out. Watch for Staff as they chill can really mess you up at this point. Get an interrupt on their heal. The 10 seconds should be enough to get them really low if they aren’t dead already. If they are below 25% health but still manage to go into DS again, spam Heartseekers.

When they enter death shroud run through them to cancel their auto attacks. Interrupt Life Transfer, Dodge/Blind Tainted Shackles, Stun Break vs the fear.

When they’re in staff blind their marks as they cast them with shadow shot, dodge roll over the marks without a skull.

When they’re in their power sets play stealth and burst.

edit
If they choose not to move while casting one from death shroud, drop black powder on them, their attacks will either be blinded or they are forced to move and you can run through them to cancel the ds one attack.

When they go in death shroud stealth up as much as possible and see if they stay in DS and run out of LF – easy kill then

But it is quite simple and easy

Is the necro in ds? evade and stealth Not in ds? attack!

dont let him hit you. Dodge and stealth while he is in death shroud. Mabye spend some time using necro to learn their skills better.

It’s Happiethyme, yes yes hi5 hi5

PP, Signet of Malice, Ricochet and maybe a cherry pie

Bye bye death shrug, oh thanks for the summoning more minions. Now I’ll be at 95% health.

press 4 (daze) auto attack, press 4 daze auto – steal fear – auto – daze auto daze auto steal auto

They literally get interrupted between each cast. You must open with a decent burst tho – so either open from stealth or black powder heart seaker steal combo.

and instantly use fear after steal

Peow peow.2189:

press 4 (daze) auto attack, press 4 daze auto – steal fear – auto – daze auto daze auto steal auto

They literally get interrupted between each cast. You must open with a decent burst tho – so either open from stealth or black powder heart seaker steal combo.

and instantly use fear after steal

This is wrong or troll, don’t waste initiatve like this.

That actually works surprisingly well if they’re at 50% lol. I’m a bad player anyway xD.

Has anyone tested if a necro is 25% HP, and has 100% death shroud, will Heartseeker hit at the 75% damage bonus or no bonus at all?

Be careful about your burst on a powermancer.
I dont think many necro’s do this but they can trait for retaliation when entering DS. Also most are traited for weakness when entering DS.
If you go into stealth and they place a mark on themselves be wary about bursting them down.
He is waiting for your burst. He will have a split second to pop DS and the retal will hurt you. You wont really survive after that if he know’s what he’s doing. He’ll prolly fear you next and then follow up with DS2 or Staff Mark 3 ( both are chill) and if he has dagger, will immobilse you and you are toast after that if it lands. The dagger spam is so dangerous against thieves.

I don’t know if a thief has a way around that but from experience they just rush in with a backstab from stealth (or whatever it is you do) and it does nothing to my necro and its a turning point in the fight.
Always interrupt their heal, that will turn the fight around for you and put the necro under serious pressure especialy if he is out of lifeforce. That is your chance to end the fight as long as his health is under 50% and his spectral armour(minor trait) is already on cooldown. Ofc he may have back up but thats your chance there.

I think maybe u need to spam shortbow from range and avoid any marks he lays down, at some point the powernecro needs to get close, either because DS1 is so easy to avoid from range or axe is easy to dodge too and if they spam DS1 hoping to land it, they will run out of lifeforce and again they are vunerable.
Keep your distance until you see his spectral armour activate, then after that if you can manage to avoid his hits he will have little lifeforce and you can time your moment.
You can step in and out, do some damage after he leaves DS to help deplete his health faster but be careful of weapon swap sigils that chill you or other effects cos that might mess you up too.
I am also looking for advice on how you guys defeat necro’s cos I just started to play my theif and I have really never had a problem with thieves in 1 v 1. They just seem so easy to counter with necro.

Stay out of the well, and blind/cc them, their attacks are telegraphed and some have long channeling. if they go lich, you can either steal their stab and CC, or just perma stealth till lich is off.

pop a dagger storm