So First off I am not going to complain about the necromancer. i play it, I love it, and i know i probly suck at it. I know i am doing it wrong but thats a combination of horrible gods forsaken luck be it a stray shot slaping a champion in the face or getting nothing but whites and blues for twenty levels. thats ok though….
i soloed that champion with staff skills and running around like a chicken that was on fire. He died… it wasnt pretty or something to be proud of since anyone else that jumped in to help just instantly died… but i got it done. Im glad he didnt have any special attacks or range attacks. ANYWAY off topic!
PvE wise i find that Septers+Focus or Dagger+Dagger with staff back up will get you though 80% of what will try to eat you in the game. Daggers make you stupidly hard to kill with as much life regeneration you can have. I have never played a mage tank before this game. GW2 has had a first with me! Ontop of that there is just something terrifying about a mage charging up to stab you in the face with a couple of chainsaw looking daggers snickers and i mentioned the Scepters because well… Bleed damage much? I can easily hold about 9-12 stacks of bleed on something but by the time i get that its usualy dead. very simple very single target. veeery dead. both the daggers and the scepters can take on MOST veterans but not all and that is with one or two buddies… If you throw staffs in there its maybe possible to take on more but i have ZERO faith in the staff aoe effects to stop a very determined group of hungry hungry monsters. It does a good job but i have found myself boned on more than one occasion (i hate destroyers). as a note though daggers kill faster than scepters but puts you in the kill zone for very dangerous monsters… You might be a mage tank but remember there is still only a sheet of cloth between your squishy bleedy parts and that giant’s foot…. staff as an alt wepon will save you much fustration.
Also to point out something about WHY you asked that question… This necromancer isnt what I personaly would call a traditional necromancer… id rather call it a Cultist. Sure we use dark arts and all sorts of nasty themed spells but Necromancer is something that is supose to be pure and uncensored evil/army of darkness and end of the world stuff. I can only think of two games that did it correctly out of the countless that I played and honestly I have to say that sort of necromancer doesnt work as a player character… much better as a villian and funny thing is… only one of the two perfect necromancers im referring to were realy playable. The necromancer we get has almost unuseable minions (the best ones for pve are the ones you throw at the mobs like gernades and its debateable how useful that is in the long run) I can see that charging one be helpful when you need to stun something from using a super move but most the things i fight regarch faster than that interupt and there are better ways to open up combat. Again im not a pro but the entire minion system is counter productive and sooo utterly weak. Their reason for doing it is understandable… a gang of minion master necros could possibly cause lag death in PVP events if they had more or better minions but meh… I like the death dealing abilitys that the necro gets aside from the FAIL minions. Dont play the necromancer to throw around an army… play it with the intent of shoving your arm down that nameless dude’s throat and ripping out his soul along with his other vital juices. The necromancer can atleast do that well