Guild Wars 2

Sign me up for the all necro guild when it goes live please! I hope we can make this one work out
Necromancers Guild is also my vote for the names listed so far.

Looking forward to doing some events and activities, with all necro’s.

Interesting topic of discussion, for my two cents I would consider myself to lean rather heavily towards the introvert end of the spectrum.

When I play GW2 I find my enjoyment comes from doing solo content more so than large grouped party instances, such as dungeons and fractals (or aghast, raids). This is not to say I find myself unable to as I casually run the occasional one and have, with practise managed to solo some paths. It just requires me to be in the rare mood to undertake these. Story mode or map completion can be an enjoyable evening’s activity, although the lack of dynamic change and in some cases lack of connection to the characters can make picking up a good book a more enjoyable pursuit.

The one aspect I do find a constant challenge and enjoyment is the state of WvW, a very large amount of my game time is spent in the various borderlands and if things are especially quiet or less blobby in EBG (OCX player here) I will head there too. I prefer to roam, flipping camps, breaking tower walls down and looking for people to fight. I particularly enjoy the challenge of fighting on a quiet borderland against a dedicated defence force or defending against a small number of dedicated enemy roamers, the patterns of discerning where people will go, what actions they will undertake next make for a most enjoyable game of cat and mouse. Some of my most enjoyable encounters have come from predicting where enemy roamers would be, interrupting them mid flip or ambushing them as they move around the map. One recent evening of this ended up with a very odd gentleman’s agreement of sorts, all I had to eventually do was predict where a certain enemy player would go and /wave at them before they achieved their objective. They would then salute and port back to spawn to start again.

With regards to social contact while playing, if someone expresses an interest in joining up in a polite manner (both WvW and PvE) than I will usually facilitate. If they are newer or less experienced I also try to take the time to show them some of the tricks or shortcuts I have found. I am in a couple of guilds; two are dead and kept for sentimentality sake, one is a large WvW guild for when I rarely feel like larger group play and the final is a small social guild of friends from my dice and paper role-playing days (with most of us being the filthy casual sort due to life commitments etc.).

I also PvP a couple of times a fortnight in ranked using off meta builds, although I find this more challenging due to high OCX latency (>350 ping with spikes when fighting glass daredevils is not fun).

As an aside, for all fellow introverts or indeed anyone (especially if you have a significant other leaning on the introvert end of the spectrum) I would highly recommend a book written by Susan Cain – ‘Quiet’. It’s a rather interesting read and drew my attention to patterns or habits that I was unaware I have as well as insight into improving methods I had developed to comfortably function and even excel while falling so heavily on the introvert end of the spectrum (most of my colleagues find me a very outgoing, social person).

~Mord~

Fluff/Waffle on/PlaystyIe: mainly roam now due to work/time commitments, I find this less effective than a condi or DS build. And the lack of range is a kitten with high ping (Oceanic player).
However I enjoy the chaos I cause if I can surprise or out survive enemy bursts and then keep them in close melee while shrugging off attack chains (due to syphon heals out the wazoo/signet of vampirism). Causes quite a few players to freeze up or loose their cool and make silly skill choices (die). This is mainly a one trick pony- get in/stay in melee and kill, it’s not a burst build nor a sustain build but kind of a runty lovechild of the two. Deathshroud use is mainly to use DS 5 and 3, and soak some damage when closing distances, 2 sometimes gets used but it rarely hits so meh. No syphon in ds means I’m not in it much, and no fury means I’m not flashing.
My personal opinion is that this build only works against the people it does partially due to me playing aggressively and being unexpected, but it’s still fun ; )
It can also be hard countered rather readily, mainly from the condi/range front.

Reasoning/Why my necro is a special cupcake:
Rune of Grove; the root is great for escaping/running past/engaging people. If they attack me the root sticks, lets me get in close, or decide if I want to bunk out (works well against pew pew rangers).

Vamp Signet; It sucks. But it works in this build. I find it puts all the healing per sec when in melee on a decent level. Deal with it. (That said I don’t use the active, cast time is too long, leaving it on with a weapon swap and more melee or dropping a well can usually cover me enough)

Quickening Thirst; I’ve used travellers too much and didn’t want to put locust sig on the util bar (due to needing Well of P for condi clear. YMMV but I find just swiftness doesn’t cut it for me in combat and especially with being melee a boonstrip can be very painful/shutdown. Plus I like to save SWalk for cliff diving escapes and juking, having base 25% available lets me avoid the temptation to use it for the swiftness.

Reaper of Grenth Elite; Holds people in melee for longer with the chill pulse and the poison is great against bunkers plus it lets me keep doing my thing and syphoning away instead of transforming or having fleshy watch me.. I have also used the snow leopard Elite on my norn necro, the stealth is hilarious for surprising or fleeing people but human elite looks cooler (I’m like dark and whispy and not in ds n stuff..and synergises better with melee in your face playstyle).

Decent protection uptime; Have it from wells and rune, helps much more than expected and combined with syphons lets you melee betterer n stuff.

Blood/Leeching Sigils; Went full syphon, because in for a penny.. and for theme reasons. Going the whole way with syphons (bar the 20% trait that doesnt affect sigils at all) actually gives you decent 1v1 melee staying power (sometimes 1v2 but usually if they’re chumps and you can stack them up to dagger, in which case any build would probably work). If I wanted to use air/fire or energy I would be playing a different build and wouldn’t be touching syphoning. Swapping weapons very frequently is a nice little dps/heal boost.

Why Knights/Zerker; Because I like the extra affect a bit more toughness gives and it helps cover me when I cant always dodge properly with high ping. Makes the health I’m stealing away a bit more useful in melee too.

Why no staff (or axe)?; Because I got bored with it. Use it on too many builds. It also reminds me of spoj’s pve dps guide build I used when first starting out (thanks spoj if you read this, I found it really helpful when I was getting started). Plus I like the look of the usoku needles dagger skins. I look like an evil vampire :P

Okay that should be about it, I’ve tried to cover why I did what I did in advance so hopefully a bit less uncertainty arises. At the end of the day I enjoy playing this build, I put it here to be tried in case anyone else ends up enjoying it too.
Me sharing is not me asking you to min/max my build or rage about how horrible it is in your dungeon speedclears, or compared to your lifeblast might build, or compared to your condi/terror builds… please remember I run those builds too!
I am also aware that as with most builds someone somewhere has likely done it/posted it or something similar before, sorry in advance if that’s the case.

Necro Casual/Fun WvW Roaming Build – Daggers and Syphons

Okay, thought I’d put this build out there seeing as it will be modified once the new trait/specialisation changes come in.

This isn’t meant to be a new, serious, meta or hyper effective build or anything- I merely find it fun and even with all the other builds I run I keep changing back to it when I get bored and want some laughs.. like now after patch notes. Plus its a cheap build.

Build :
Casual WvW DaggerSyphon

Note: I don’t find the build that viable without the syphon food, seems to be what sets the syphoning at a decent enough level. Not even remotely viable for pvp.

Changes I make; Well of Suffering/Corruption either or, quick change if the person I’m going at is boon heavy. I sometimes put S.Grasp in if shadowing larger groups to help pick off stragglers.
Wurm sometimes makes it in when I can set up.
Focus sometimes comes in with focus trait if I have a friend nearby (mainly for 1200 range chill/boon strip to catch people), does hurt solo in my experience as you loose horn speed/procs or dagger 4 condi transfer).

TL/DR: Casual Dagger WvW Roaming Syphon build that I run with for fun.
If your wondering why I ran with something or planning on posting a reply please read through the stuff below first.

Main character name: Linmae De Virol
Account name: Mordresque.3095
Favourite game mode: All, preference to WvW roaming lately
Server: Sea of Sorrows
Number of Necro’s: 5