Guild Wars 2

This is a terrible idea. Sorry. I want my flesh golem or the smoky blinding guy tanking, not rolling around. Not to mention we need them actually attacking enemies in the first place.

I love em. Even with all the bugs I had a blast getting my necro to 80, and the spec I use really helps in boosting them and keeping me alive.

I use Staff / Dagger + Horn for W v W v W. Dagger is great for an added ranged heal, plus you get dagger 3 for a single target immob on anyone trying to flee. Horn 5 is great for the speed buff / debuff. When not running down people, staff!

Part 3 of 3
Playstyle:
By 30 you have all your pets unlocked, in theory, and are getting a good feel for your class. Staff is great for long-range AoE, but has some pretty high cooldowns. That first 5 points in Death Magic seems absolutely useless at first, as the jagged horror will die before it ever even gets close to a mob…..but by the time you have 30 points in Death Magic that little guy is pretty darn useful. The 50% extra health lets him live longer, and when he does die he’ll explode in a nice cloud of poison gas, as will all your other pets. You could easily switch one of the 3 Death Magic runes out for a 20% reduction in staff skills, but I have a hard time picking one of the 3 runs to rotate out.
Running with Dual Daggers is just plain fun to me, even at 80, but basically impossible to tag stuff in group events or pvp….so while I’ll keep some daggers in my bags, they rarely get used anymore.
I will frequently pop Death Shroud just to blow the #4 AoE ability to enhance staff aoe damage while waiting on cooldowns. Death Shroud is also really nice as a “oh hell I’m about to die and need a 2nd health bar”. That combined with our high toughness and all pets siphoning health makes MM Necros quite hard to kill.

Professions:
Cooking and Jewelcrafting benefit any class, really….plus they’re great for leveling up later on. Artificing is a good one for that one day super long dream of having a Legendary Staff. Tailoring is great for armor and bags! (or just be super OCD and level up all 8 once you race to 80 and complain about being bored and lack of content!)

Some things to note:
Know going into it that Necro pets are disposable and can be resummoned in combat!
All pets have a secondary use ability. Don’t overlook the heal, immobilize, blind, or even worm teleport!
I have absolutely no idea if +heal power helps siphon life. Not sure if Cleric Insignia would be really good, or just stick to Knight runes for armor crafting.
Necros are horribly bugged in a lot of areas right now (we’ve all seen the post of +100 bugs) and can be kind of frustrating to play. It can be very annoying to play a pet class and see them die all the time, or just stand around not doing anything as they watch you die. These issues caused me to overlook the necro early on, and I am so glad I went back to give em a 2nd shot.
The bugs are being worked on, so level and gear up now for the day we’re eventually fixed! I have always loved pet classes and seeing the dev responsiveness to all issues (not just necros) gives me a lot of hope for the class in the future.

Part 2 of 3
Talents:
20 in Spite, using Runes 6 and 9
30 in Death Magic using Runes 3, 10, and 11
20 in Blood Magic using Runes 2 and 7
What this gets you:
20 Spite:
+200 power, +20% condition duration, you gain life whenever you kill something, 5% of your power boosts your heal. Then the runes boost your pet damage by 30% (rune 9) and in your shadow form every time you cast the main 1 attack you gain a power buff stack (rune 6)
30 Death Magic:
+300 Toughness, +30% Concentration, you summon a jagged horror when you kill something (30 sec cooldown), +20 to toughness for each pet you have out, 5% of your toughness boosts your power. Then the runes let you recast your minions faster once they die(Rune 3) minions have 50% more health(10), and whenever a minion dies it leaves behind a poison cloud(11)
20 Blood Magic:
+200 Vitality, +200 Compassion, Gain 5 sec of Regen when hp dips below 90%, and you siphon life whenever you hit a foe. With runes you get a 50% boost to siphon health (2), and all your minions siphon health and send it to you (7).

Gear:
Here is where I’m pretty clueless. It’s pretty obvious we want Toughness since 5% of that boosts power, and then 5% of power goes on to boost healing power. Where I get fuzzy is the Power vs Condition Damage stat. Which is better for us? Depends on the weapons you use, I guess? Do stats boost pet abilities like their condition damage? Any advice here is appreciated.

Part 1 of 3
My Minion Master Necro Spec
http://tinyurl.com/krltplps
I came up with it on my own over hours of pouring over talent calcs. I’m sure there are many out there that are similar, and I sometimes swap things out like 20% cooldown on minions vs 20% cooldown on staff recharge. I frequently have no idea what I’m doing. I love being good at the game but not super hardcore min/maxer…so use at your own risk.

Weapons:
Early levels I had a very hard time keeping pets alive longer than a few seconds. It gets better in the later levels, but think of necro pets as disposable…..NOT like ranger pets who seem to live longer to me. This was a bit of a mental block I had when I first started playing necro.
Because pets are a bit squishy, I used a Dual Dagger / Staff combo in the early levels. Face tanking and holding agro helped keep the pets alive a bit longer.
Now that I’m 80 I tend to go Axe + War Horn / Staff combo. I highly recommend War Horn offhand for the speed buff in all scenarios….but if you tend to favor pvp, Dagger + War Horn is nice for the 3 sec single target immobilize, and Scepter + War Horn is nice for the 5 sec 50% speed reduction aoe.

Slots 6-0:
Rather obvious, you fill them with pets!
6 is Blood Fiend, 0 is Flesh Golem. (You can unlock Flesh Golem at 30 as long as you save up 10 skill points by then)
7-9 gives you 3 slots to stick a possible 4 pets in. Personally Bone Fiend and Shadow Fiend are must-haves for a nice range pet that can immobilize, and a decent tanky pet that can blind. That leaves you with 2 bone minions or the flesh worm.
Early levels I hated the bone minions because a lot of times they’d die before I could even detonate them, and their damage wasn’t that impressive. The downside of the worm is that it’s more like a turret as it won’t move…but the teleport can be very handy. Later on in levels I went back to the bone minions and their hp is a lot nicer, as is their explosion damage. I also like the 2x bone minions as there’s a talent in the build that gives you +20 toughness for each pet you have out.

I’m playing a Minion Master Necro. Even with all the bugs I absolutely love it, and look forward to a time when my pets aren’t complete morons.

So, let’s pretend all the bugs are fixed. Most of them probably will be someday. I’ve got a level 80 necro, and here’s the build I’m pretty much using:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNBHhZakQrVvWzUjePRI9IaUbaTK4G4gU8epB;TwAg2yrEWJtSdlyKKbM2IsxajzGpNA
(the forums seem to be saying bad link, but if you copy and paste it, it works.)

Do any stats benefit my pets at all? If I mainly use staff should I focus on any specific stats?

My question is, how do I gear up? I’ve got 400 tailoring. Is it worth building a set of the level 400 skill “of the knight” gear? I know I want Toughness, but the only 2 toughness crafted items are Knight or Cleric. I don’t suppose there’s a hidden rune for Toughness, Vitality, and condition damage is there? Is that a trio of stats I want to stack?

How viable is it to build an entire "of the knight’ set? Does Power + Crit benefit a necro or is it all about condition damage?

How about gear slots? I was thinking about Of the Dolyak for armor, it’s all toughness, vit, and a hp regen.

Ohh, big question, does + healing stats help life syphons? So for jewelery would Shaman’s Jewel actually benefit me? (+ toughness, + condition damage, + Healing Power)

Also, if you have any suggestions about my spec, feel free to holler. I know stuff like “pets have 50% more hp” combined with “pets leave a poison cloud when they die” gets a lot of people saying don’t…..but I like having a little screw you to things when my pets do die. (though staff cooldown is tempting…)

Thanks!