Guild Wars 2

Hopefully you’re wielding it in your off hand – ’cause it looks really awkward (imo) holding a left arm in your right hand…

So at the very end of the dungeon in that big open area where you fight Howling King/Colossus Rumblus, you can climb to the top of the broken staircase and go through a doorway that’s semi-hidden by vines. This leads to a room with a bunch of pillars and invisible walkways that you can traverse to get to a landing at the other side. But that’s it – it goes nowhere after that.

I’m just wondering why this area is in the dungeon, or what was it going to be for (if anything)? Can a dev shed some light on this?

Why? Are our heroes really incapable of running backwards? Or at least backpedaling faster than at a snail’s pace?

Everyone has died far too many times because of this and it’s seriously annoying when you’re out of endurance and can’t back out of range or out of AoE because it’s so painfully slow. Personally, I’d rather not have to turn my back to what’s attacking me to move fast enough to avoid being hit.

Would increasing backward movement speed be game-breaking? I hardly think so… In fact, it’d make sense.

Okay so I haven’t read it personally, but if ArenaNet has made it clear that we’re meant to be an attrition class that takes hits but keeps coming, whittling down and out-lasting, they’re only giving us some of the tools we need to do so without falling short in some other category or spreading ourselves too thin.

As DeathenShada said, Necros CAN survive longer in dungeons. I’m sure some of that has to do with the wise use of our powerful class mechanic, knowledge of mechanics, player skill, etc., but the other other part is probably because last-man-standing Necros are specced/geared with toughness and vitality beyond what other classes typically add. It’s also much easier to survive if you’re always fighting from 900/1,200 range. And that’s where I take issue with where Necromancer currently stands compared to ArenaNet’s vision for the class.

If we’re supposed to take hits and soak damage since we’re less mobile, why is it at the cost of burning up our class mechanic or doing piddly DPS? I’d enjoy being able to use Death Shroud a little more proactively/offensively than the current “Oh kitten, im out of endurance (which is all the time) and here comes a huge burst! Better pop into DS!”

As for this quote: "“Necromancers are a bit slower as a profession, they need to move into that kill radius in order to get somebody locked down, but once they start pounding on somebody it should be that that person should have to run away or die.” Here’s where I think we have some balance issues. For me, we have 2 options:

1) Pile on toughness and vitality in order to go toe to toe against other classes or mobs in that kill zone. Meanwhile, we’re hitting like limp noodles (relatively, not "oh look at my 8k Axe #2! What’d you have to do to get that? Complete glass cannon.) and more often than not our conditions are being removed before those ticks are any cause for concern. We aren’t able to pound hard enough for the risk we take by close range fighting. Sure, landing a dagger #3 that isn’t removed and dropping 2 wells on someone hurts, but then it’s on cooldown for how long…

2) Leave T&V at the door to ramp up DPS, but then be unable to enter that kill zone without facing some very harsh realities. Drop marks & axe/scepter autoattack from range, then pop epidemic – hardly “pounding someone until they have to run away”.

Trying to create some sort of more survivable hybrid or DPS build just sees us being underwhelming in all areas. I’m aware of and actually run the Juggermancer and similar builds, but no critical hits or condition damage is pretty wasted on the Necro, wouldn’t you agree?

Sure, we can opt for a glassy power or hybrid build if we’re unsatisfied with Necro’s lackluster DPS, but foregoing any survivability as light armor wearers is asking for it in any game mode. Furthermore, in a game that seemingly punishes melee in most PvE content, running such a build requires some extremely knowledgeable/skilled/careful play when moving into axe/dagger/untraited well range.

Now, I realize Death Shroud plays a huge role in our ability to win the war of attrition. Having a secondary health bar to absorb damage that would otherwise down us – and other classes, for that matter – can’t be discounted. But even with DS in the equation I still feel as though we fall short of what ArenaNet says we should be like. As of right now, we’re too squishy (without enough damage mitigation BESIDES Death Shroud) to live up to their vision of us “getting in and pounding” (lol). And if we try to compensate for being too squishy, our DPS suffers to the point at which people can either get away before we finish them or they can make us exhaust all of our wonderful, touted ways of extending our life ‘til we’re out of options, and are then too immobile to escape with our lives.

Please don’t misunderstand – I absolutely love this profession and everything it stands for (whether it was advertised to stand for it or not). The community is great too, which is an added bonus. I know there are those who are quick to come to its defense, and I’m aware that there are problems that plague the other professions and there are X threads in the other profession forums complaining about how their class is UP and broken and whatever else…but are we really satisfied with the state of the Necromancer? I don’t want to cry UP and I’m not saying we’re broken (which we’re clearly not since people are still able to have success in all areas of the game). It’s just the degree of that success and what we have to do to obtain it that I’m questioning. I honestly think that sometimes your guys’ love for and skill at playing this class (which is NOT easy) and the game in general gets in the way of maybe realizing that indeed we are missing a piece or two of the puzzle.

Thoughts?

In no particular order (sorry):

You’re gonna catch hell from the well-bombing power Necros, but at least you aren’t getting rid of the immob completely. Actually, it’d come in handy for getting the entire Axe #2 channel to hit, so you may be on to something there. Plus, I’ve heard people say they think Axe #3 is out of place. I half agree. Since it is a mid-range weapon, the cripple is nice for kiting, but the retaliation doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to stay out of range anyway… So with Unholy Feast I’d either say keep it on Axe and change retaliation to some other boon (suggestions? vigor perhaps?), or switch it over to dagger and keep the retaliation.

As for your first trait suggestion, I’m not sure the risk outweighs the reward. Hybrid builds tend not to be in the thick of it since they build in little to no added vitality or toughness. And I’d personally want to stay alive and DPS from range as opposed to play risky for a marginal (I assume +2-5%) damage increase that could have me in downed state more often.

I agree with the general sentiment that the Death Magic line needs to be reorganized in terms of the minor traits that are dependent on minions. Don’t worry Bas, I’m not a hater! Just want traiting for toughness to be a little more useful for everyone.

About DS: It most certainly isn’t a useless class mechanic. Even for how you’re using it, which is precisely how you should use it – to extend your normal health bar. I’m with you on Life Blast feeling a bit…lacking. Too weak? Cast time a tad too long? Maybe. Traited it can be a better (piercing & vulnerability and/or might stacking, add in DS fury), but I feel too like it could be a hair better than it is currently without having to trait for it.

For the utility marks offer, doubling the effect of spiteful marks is too much. But even with SM marks 2, 3 and 5 are wimpy – I’ll give you that. So maybe bump the coefficients for Staff #2,3, and 5, and keep SM as is.

Love the bit about the dagger sound being obnoxious. Would much rather have a slashing or ripping sound…

I think Scythe is a little too niche-y… Yeah it’d be perfect for a Necro who wants to melee, and could potentially give Necros a cleave, but to me it’d be out of place with every other class. I really liked the crossbow idea, and feel that it’d be fitting for more than just our class (Guardian, Thief, Ranger, Ele, and Engi come to mind). Problem is, these classes already have decent or good ranged options (well, maybe not Guards) – as do we – and what would the purpose of adding another be when some of the existing ones could be tweaked around more?

Shortsword maybe, but it’d have to fill some sort of gap between dagger and axe, which, is there one? We currently have main hand weapons that stack bleeds (scepter), vuln (axe), do great single-target DPS (dagger), and offer amazing utility (staff). Again, the only thing they could add to a melee weapon to distinguish it from the others we can use is cleaving.

Book/tome: isn’t this a focus? Or would this be MH/2H? Eles would be the only other class to pair with such a weapon, and even then, I feel like Eles are more your typical classic Sorcerer (casting from the hip) than Wizard (casting from something written, like a book or scroll)…

Though I’m of the mindset that our weapons are good – not great – where they stand, I definitely wouldn’t complain about being able to cleave and hit multiple targets with SOMETHING or have a 900-1,200 range weapon with a quick, punchy auto attack. And by that I mean the crossbow, which would essentially be a ranged version of the dagger (single-target hard hitting with little to no condition stacking).

I think those posts are less about converting the staff into a scythe and more about wanting the necro to have a weapon with some sort of cleaving capability…

I’d advise anyone going for build that uses crit/crit damage to take a look at this table. It’s really helpful in determining how much precision and crit damage to gear for. As you’ll see, precision gives you more DPS over time than crit damage. But if you’re just going to pile on both I suppose it doesn’t really matter…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical <—table toward the bottom

Hahaha…

I didn’t see the key word “scythe” in the thread’s title – my bad.

Anyway, why is The Crossing in the scythe category?

Everyone forgets about Deathwish

Don’t know if you’re still checking this thread, but the more you gear for vitality/toughness, the less punch your hybrid is going to pack. I know that’s stating the obvious, but as it stands now, the best hybrids trait/gear vitality/toughness very little, if at all. Splitting your stats between power, precision, crit damage and condition damage to achieve a hybrid build with satisfying DPS doesn’t leave much wiggle room in terms of adding survivability.

If you’re determined on having a slightly tankier hybrid though, I’d suggest searching the forums for Nemesis’ hybrid build and switching out his rampager’s/berserker gear for rabid/knight’s/carrion/soldier’s to your liking.

Yeah, I’m with Fraeg on the Whispers light armor – looks pretty kitten.

Being as I’m a Necro and carry multiple sets for given situations, I also have the Gendarran Fields Karma set (the one with the deer skull mask) and I plan on getting the Arah set for my condition armor.

Other than those, I don’t think the other options are very Necro-y…

The Winged headpiece is pretty cool though. Too bad the rest of that set bites the big one.

Yeah the male version is so lackluster compared to the female one…

Kudos man. I really like this playstyle, and I’ve been trying to theorycraft a good hybrid build for some time now. Seems like we can achieve some pretty great combined DPS, but the cost is what worries me.

I’m assuming you armor is Rampager/Berserker or maybe Knight’s/Rabid.

This, like other builds, shows that the damage is viable, but I’m always concerned with whether a build is survivable.

After falling in love with the Profession and switching to a Necro main after playing a guardian for quite some time, I’m still learning how to play the class. I recognize the difference between wearing heavy and light armor, but I’m still used to hardly ever dying (once I’m familiar with mechanics) in dungeons – especially in Fractals – on my guardian.

I understand not traiting in the toughness and vitality lines for the typical hybrid, and not gearing for any vitality (since our base is the highest), but can you really get away with not gearing for any (or gearing for very little) toughness in PvE dungeons? For example (because of your screenshots), how do you do in terms of staying on your feet in Fractals? Is smart use of DS and dodging enough to keep you on your feet?

I’ve played the Juggermancer and Conditionmancer builds so far, and they’re both very survivable builds, but going from all of that to nothing with these hybrid builds makes me feel like I’ll have my party on constant res-watch… Hopefully that’s not the case.

For Axe I use Maw of the kitten Focus either Adam or Bloodseeker, and Dagger Malefacterym.

I’m also a fan of the Godskull weapon set ‘cause they’re all made of different bones. That axe is pretty kitten and the dagger is just a sharpened bone.

Jaws of Death is another possible axe…

I also think some of the crude-looking metal weapons are fitting – you don’t need a fancy axe or dagger to carve up a body and use the parts for minions!

Question: I assume it does, but when you Life Transfer in DS, does it heal your regular HP if you have the siphon on crit trait?

So my party and I just ran (or tried to run) AC explorable – all paths. We completed path 1 with no issue. Path 2 and 3 weren’t so kind to us.

In path 2, Detha bugged out like she always has when 2 gravelings followed us all the way into the hall of champions and repeatedly knocked her down during the part when Grast appears. I assume this is what caused her to break. We were able to reset her by bringing more gravelings up and letting her die, then ressing her. Then, during the Ghost Eater fight, GE bugged after the first time we charged a trap and had him trigger it. He didn’t move or attack for a bit, then reset to a point way off to the side of the central area. We started the fight again, but quickly found out that we couldn’t drag him to the furthest trap or he would reset on us. Using the two traps that were still “in his range” we were able to complete the fight and finish path 2.

In path 3 we were able to get to Rumblus without issue. During the CR fight though, Grast wouldn’t put up his bubble reliably. He’d instead be using a hammer attack with a super-long channel when the rocks started falling, leaving us exposed to being knock-locked into oblivion. This happened 5 times in a row before we decided to give up and leave the instance.

I’m torn between being excited that the attempt was made to improve this dungeon (make the mechanics more dynamic, challenging, etc.) and disappointed that the boss fights are bugged to the point where the bugs can’t even be overcome. Nothing is more disheartening to us as players than spending a significant amount of time doing a piece of content and having to leave without the reward, which in most cases was the goal of doing the content in the first place. And this wasn’t a case of poor play, undergeared characters, a lack of understanding mechanics, etc. The mechanics weren’t functioning correctly and through no fault of our own we were forced to give up, effectively wasting an hour of everyone’s time.

PS – I can understand (to a certain extent) bugs for these revamped boss fights, but how, when you do a complete overhaul, is Detha bugging in path 2 still even a possibility?

The Godskull weapons are nice for the whole “made em myself out of bones” look.

Windstorm isn’t bad. The Modniir Harbinger could work for you too.

Otherwise yeah, the Orrian set is probably as necro-y as you’ll get.

I love a good hybrid, but how is your survivability on this one? I realize both of your weapon sets mean you’re fighting at range, but still, only 1000 toughness for a light armor wearer seems fairly dangerous – even if you’re good at dodging/avoiding attacks…

You’re missing the point Dae – they’re running dungeons with all-necro parties for novelty and to see how they perform. Obviously there are probably better party compositions, but with different builds present, an all necro party is still a force to be reckoned with.

These are all good. Here’s a few I cooked up:

Serious: Dark Covenant, Sons Of Khilbron

Comical: Better Off Undead, Reaper Is My Homeboy, and my personal favorite: But Of Corpse

Michael Douglas fans: Necromancing The Bone

I just finished reading a closed thread on Fractals loot after the latest patch in which Colin and Mark both stated that Fractals loot wasn’t changed in any way.

I have to disagree. Based on the loot I’ve been pulling out of Fractals over the past few weeks, it simply cannot be true. I recently finished my Fractal Frequenter (500/500), so I’ve run plenty (both pre and post-January patch). Rare gear-looting has seemed to have been better in the last week or two, but it’s oddly been from mobs (which is weird ‘cause I don’t use any MF) rather than out of boss chests like it used to be.

As for the Jade Maw chest: Before the patch, a few cores/a lodestone and a rare/exotic were (seemingly) fairly common in that chest, both in 10+ and 20+ dailies. Recently, however, I feel lucky to get a piece of rare gear and/or a valuable core.

Whether or not drop rates were changed, some types have DEFINITELY been changed/added. I say this because I’m now offloading a bunch of Glyphic and (I think) Krytan weapons after each run. Aureate weapons are new to the Fractals loot table too – I don’t remember ever salvaging those rares before the latest patch (Verdant sure, but not Aureate).

Anyway, Fractals loot is not where it used to be. Maybe where it used to be was a little too good – I can’t really say. But from then to now, for me at least, there is a difference that cannot be accounted for by RNG.

Yes, absolutely. Bump the $#@! outta this thread. I’m sick of getting Solarias and Lunarias and rings with magic find on them, only to have them take up space in my bank in hopes that one day we will be able to salvage them for mists essence/relics/ectos/ANYTHING. Reduce the drop rates from daily chests if you have to, but PLEASE let us do something worthwhile with these unwanted/needed rings (as precious mists essences are hard to come by).

Couple things:

Which time zone are you in?

And Arah might be better on a weekend…

Fantastic idea though. I’ll be sure to look you up in-game if I’m on over the next few weeks!

I can’t believe the adorable quaggan backpack has a wonky eye…ruins it for me. Seriously, why would they make it like that? It looks so tacky. -__-

Yep. If you max out both crafting disciplines before doing anything else it’ll put you at around level 25. Buy yourself some L25 gear off the TP and off you go.

Can someone please explain to me why your critical damage stat takes such a hit when your level is scaled down?

I took a character with 69% critical damage into AC earlier (L80 —-> L35) and noticed the stat was scaled down to 16%. What gives? It’s a horrible waste of the traits and gear that go into builds that augment DPS with critical damage. And I run a more supportive build, so I rely on that critical damage stat to make up as much DPS as I can. Having it so severely gimped means feeling very weak in doing lower-level PvE content and lessens my contribution to dungeon parties.

I can’t see a reason for scaling the critical damage stat at all, since it’s directly affected by power and precision – both of which are scaled down “appropriately”. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Are you talking about introducing a well as purely trait-based? Either way I don’t think such an ice well will ever happen. For one, there are already 4 well utilities, and another well wouldn’t fit with the whole “4 of each skill type” (wells, spectral, corruption, signet, minion). If it were trait based only, it’d be a reiteration of well of darkness + chilling darkness – AoE which applies chill on blind. And to have it summon your simulacrum things PLUS remove a boon per pulse…I just don’t think it’s different or balanced enough to warrant any consideration. :-/

Jagged Horror shouldn’t be automatic – it’s as simple as that. There’s absolutely no reason for some version of it not to be a major trait that you can choose, but to have a minion thrust upon when you want to put points into Death Magic for toughness or traits unrelated to minion builds isn’t fair. It’s just not. Mesmers don’t have a minor trait that gives them a quick, weak phantasm or clone, Elementalists don’t have a minor trait that summons a mini-elemental, Engineers don’t have a minor trait that drops a turret when X condition is met, etc.

Minion mastery is fine, and you should be able to fully spec into it. But you should also be able to completely avoid it (as you’re able to avoid similar builds in other professions while still traiting to your liking).

Can someone please explain to me how Sheo calculates his final, unbuffed toughness and vitality of 2153? Even with an ascended PTV amulet I can’t get there. Here’s the breakdown (toughness for example):

base 916
trait 250
armor 224
armor slots 84
weapons (dagger/focus for the extra crest) 128
weapon slots 28
back 35
neck 85
accessories 80
accessory slots 28
rings 136

total 1994

where is the other 159 toughness (and even more vitality, since it has 5 less trait points in its respective line) coming from?

Actually the Whispers armor has the Rabid stat set (Prec/Tough/COND DMG), and is the gold standard for armor for condition builds. So yes, it would be good at 80. However, it’s only rare armor, meaning the stats on it aren’t as good as they could be. There are exotic sets with those same stats available, and to get them you have a few options:

-farm CM and buy the Rabid Noble’s armor
-farm TA and buy the Rabid Nightmare armor
-farm gold and buy Khilbron’s set off the TP (unfortunately it’s the most expensive named set on the TP)

Check out my Hybrid build – it’s Nemesis’ with a bit more power, a little less condition damage, and ~300 more armor. It’s the thread called “a more survivable hybrid, v2.0”. I just finished gearing it and it has pretty decent burst, considering. I do keep a 2nd set of all condition gear for when there isn’t a condition build in the party. But in PuGs there’s always too many conditions flying around to go full condition. So the hybrid is fun.

Hi there!

I’m aware that builds in this game run the gamut from the glassiest of glass cannons to the super-tanky masters of attrition. That being said, I just finished rolling a Necromancer to L80 and it’s actually the first casting, light armor-wearing class I’ve ever played in an MMO. Now that I’m speccing, I’m wondering if there’s a commonly accepted value that a light armor build should strive for in terms of Toughness/Armor. I’ve seen builds with <2000 Armor, which, even if you’re a master of dodging, seems like it would be too soft. I’ve also read posts that say 2300 Armor is a good number to shoot for if you’re a smart/skilled player. Obviously, the more you add, the more you’ll be able to get away with – I’m simply looking for a ballpark value for the middle ground of being able to gear for other attributes, while at the same time keeping my party from having to res me every 10 seconds. Thanks in advance for the input!

Hopefully this helps those of you who, like me:

-don’t want minions running with your character
-HATE the jagged horror trait in the Death Magic line, and as a result won’t trait for toughness
-want to build something other than the cookie-cutter (but don’t get me wrong, highly effective) Conditionmancer – something that can actually pack a little punch while those bleeds are ticking off
-shake you head at glass cannon builds

This is actually a re-work of a hybrid build I posted a few days ago that was fairly lopsided. ~2300 toughness was still a goal here, but I also aimed for a more balanced ~50% crit chance and ~50% crit damage, rather than pouring everything into crit chance. And of course there’s as much power/condition damage as there was room left over for. In essence, this is Nemesis’ hybrid build, but sacrificing a little condition damage (~250 or ~12 DPS per bleed) for more survivability. I figured some of the difference could be made up with consumables (tuning crystals and whichever food you prefer). Also, I’m not sure how he came up with 123% bleed duration (I didn’t watch the video as it’s like an hour long), but I’m pretty sure this build doesn’t have that either. And for the sake of covering all bases, this build has 1620 less HP and 43 less healing power than the Nemesis hybrid. If that doesn’t scare you, read on.

This build won’t be complete until the 16th when the first Ascended amulets can be purchased. So for now the exotic berserker’s amulet will have to do (meaning the power/precision/crit damage values below are slighty higher than what you can obtain at present).

Armor

Rabid chest, legs
Berserker’s head, shoulders, hands, and feet

Weapons

Rabid Scepter/Rabid Dagger
Rabid Axe/Rabid Focus

Trinkets

Berserker’s Ascended back piece
Berserker’s Ascended necklace
Berserker’s earrings with berserker jewels
Cavalier’s Ascended rings

Traits

30 Spite
30 Curses
10 Blood Magic

Runes/Sigils

6x Undead for armor
Accuracy for all weapons

Totals

Power 1843 > Attack 2838 (S/D), 2809 (A/F)
Precision 1798 > 45% Crit chance + 5% from sigils = 50%
Toughness 1420 + 920 defense > Armor 2340
Vitality 1016 > 19,372 HP
Condition Damage 902
Crit Damage 50%

The runes are fairly interchangeable, and I’m open to suggestions as to what (if anything) would be more effective. I assumed use Undead runes since they’re dirt cheap and were the best at closing the gap in condition damage opened up by adding more toughness. 3x Lyssa + 3x Mad King would give an additional 20% condition duration, plus a little power and precision. Perhaps runes that increase bleed/chill/poison duration, or even might/fury duration would also prove useful.

Let me know what you think!

Hey, thanks for the input. Unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to give up my dream of being a hybrid Necro for now. Part of the problem might be that I refuse to trait for any toughness simply because of the infamous first minor trait that summons a jagged horror. I absolutely do not want a single minion running around with me, which means that the 1st minor trait is annoying and the 2nd minor trait is wasted (since it gives extra toughness for minions). This is also a bummer because the staff is enhanced in the Death Magic Line. Is traiting in this line (and that bloody jagged horror) something I’ll have to suck up until Arenanet (hopefully) answers the call to reorganize Necromancer trait lines?

I also don’t particularly care for Death Shroud as it currently stands. You can’t see your boons in the UI, Life Blast has a 1s attack speed, and if your Life Transfer is interrupted there goes huge, multi-target DPS. I use it mainly for Life Transfer or to buy time for skills to recharge, as I suspect most do. Is there any utility to traiting for Death Shroud or is it wise to spend points in other areas and continue to use DS as a panic button?

With this build I wasn’t really counting on doing huge damage personally, and would’ve used the axe mainly to stack on some vulnerability before using Epidemic. I was aiming to provide party support by greatly weakening whatever we’re going up against. Also, I didn’t use Sigils of Earth because the first minor trait in the Curses line is 66% chance to bleed on crit. While this game is kindest to builds that don’t lean too far in any particular direction, it’s like you said, this build seems to be spread too thin to do anything really well.

So, I will definitely be speccing to a condition build over the next few weeks (or however long it takes to make gold to buy gear). Should I go full Rabid everything in that case, maxing out condition damage? What are some suggestions for transitioning to that type of build?

On the other hand, pure burst Necros seem kind of pointless to me, as our damage still feels relatively weak (to compensate for the conditions we can pile on) and we don’t cleave at all. Plus, to max out burst potential it looks like that is at the cost of all survivability. And that’s not cool either.

I forgot to mention that the traits are taken to increase weapon effectiveness/decrease weapon cooldowns and add to the conditions you’ll be stacking on your target. And focused rituals (Curses IX) lets you plant your Well of Suffering from range so you don’t have to put yourself at risk.

Greetings fellow Necros!

It seems that most Necromancers I find myself in PUGs with are either straight condition builds OR glass cannon bursters. Personally, I could never build a glass cannon for ANY profession because, as they say, a corpse does no damage! I also wanted to separate my character from the typical scepter/dagger and staff condition builds that many run. So, as a dungeon and mid-to-high-level Fractal enthusiast, I’ve hopefully added a bit more survivability to the hybrid Necro (in keeping with the minimum desired armor rating of 2300 as prescribed by Sheobix).

Since rolling my Necromancer to L80 I’ve been doing a lot of build research as I wanted to create a more user-friendly hybrid. What I’ve come up with is based on Nemesis’ hybrid burst/condition build, but sacrifices some power in favor of toughness and (what I consider) pertinent sigils and runes.

So, without further ado:

Gear:

Keep in mind that this build incorporates Ascended trinkets and back piece, and I’ve included the amulet in these figures (I obviously don’t have it yet, but will be buying it once I accumulate enough laurels. Right now I have a Rabid exotic amulet with an Exquisite Coral Jewel). If you don’t have Ascended, you could substitute any combination of trinkets with Knight’s/Rampager’s/Rabid stats. I’d suggest enough Knight’s to keep your armor rating at least 2300.

Armor

Full Rampager’s set
3x Superior Rune of Lyssa (75 Precision, +10% Condition Duration)
3x Superior Rune of the Mad King (75 Power, +10% Condition Duration)

Weapons

Rampager’s Scepter (Superior Rune of Generosity)/Knight’s Dagger (Superior Rune of Battle)
Rampager’s Axe (Superior Rune of Generosity)/Knight’s Focus (Superior Rune of Battle)

Trinkets

Back – Tome of the Rubicon (Rabid)
Amulet – Hymn to the Prophets (Rabid)
Accessories – 2x Emerald Orichalcum Earring of the Knight
Rings – Khilbron’s Phylactery and Ouroboros Loop (both Rabid)

Traits

30 Spite, taking major traits II, X, and XII
30 Curses, taking major traits II, IX, and XII
10 Blood Magic, taking major trait I

Totals

Power 1753 > Attack 2718
Precision 2146 > 62% Critical Chance
Toughness 1404 > Armor 2324
Vitality 1016 > Health 19372
Condition Damage 976
Condition Duration 50% (70% for bleeds with Curses II trait)

Utility Skills

Of course they are situational, but I typically use Well of Suffering, Blood is Power, and Epidemic. Epidemic gets swapped out during boss fights, but it absolutely decimates hoards of trash mobs after stacking conditions on with weapon skills and other utilities. Plague for elite skill, as it grants stability, doubles power, quadruples toughness, and triples vitality for its duration.

For healing I tend to stick to Well of Blood so I can offer a tiny bit of support. If I know conditions will be a problem and the 10s cooldown on Sigil of Generosity won’t be fast enough I’ll use Consume Conditions.

Summary

This build is predicated on a few things:

1. No added vitality (except for 100 from trait line), taking advantage of the Necro’s large base health pool, as well as the Death Shroud and Plague abilities to extend life
2. Normal burst damage may leave a little to be desired, but with 62% base precision (plus another couple percent with consumables) you’ll be critting most of the time – nearly all the time if a party member gives you fury!
3. High Precision is also important to proc bleeds from Curses’ first minor trait and weakness from major trait XII, in addition to triggering our main-hand weapon sigil condition removal
4. No Critical Damage. Sorry, but couldn’t afford to add any and still achieve the goals of ~2300 toughness, ~1000 Condition damage, and as much power as possible. Ideally I’d give up some of this build’s Precision for Power or Critical Damage, but with the current gear stat combinations it just wasn’t possible.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by my Guardian (Rune of the Soldier-wearing, Altruistic Healing Shout build), but I’m really unimpressed by the Necro’s lack of access to condition removal (without having to wait on long cooldowns) and ability to heal. Perhaps that has everything to do with this build. Am I losing out on healing because I don’t use the Siphoning mechanic?

Anyway, since I’m new to this profession, I’ll appreciate any/all feedback on this build – as well as any suggestions/ideas for its improvement. Cheers!

Ahh, that’s good to know. I was just going to plug the same one in my main and off-hand anyway, but that seals the deal.

And yeah I wasn’t very clear with how I worded the part about the stacking sigils. For anyone who wants to know: having 2 different stack-on-kill sigils while dual-wielding is useless – you’ll only stack from the one in your main hand. But, if you have the same stacking sigil in your main and off-hand, you’ll get two stacks per kill. However it still only stacks to 25 (not 50 as might be assumed).

Don’t bother – the best experience during crafting comes from using the discovery tab. You’ll select different combinations of materials to “discover” recipes for certain pieces of gear. I’d suggest checking out the wiki page for whichever crafting discipline you’ll be working on – it’ll have all the formulas you can use in the discovery tab to craft efficiently and for the most XP. A quick video tutorial on youtube couldn’t hurt either. Good luck!

One of my Guardian’s weapon sets is scepter/focus, and I have both the scepter and focus upgraded with the Superior Sigil of Accuracy (5% critical chance). It’s been my observation that, when using this Sigil (and I assume similar Sigils, i.e. Superior Sigil of Force (5% damage)) while dual-wielding, you must have the sigil on both weapons to get the full 5% increase to critical chance.

So now I’m wondering how effect on critical Sigils behave. If I wanted to use, say, the Superior Sigil of Fire (30% chance on critical to trigger an AoE flame blast), would I have to have it upgrading both weapons to get the full 30% chance? Or would that effect only have a 15% chance to proc if only one weapon was upgraded with the Sigil?

I ask because this isn’t something easily testable (as in differences in % critical chance increase being immediately noticeable in the hero menu, or seeing that using two stack-on-kill Sigils don’t both stack while dual-wielding).

Does anyone know how effect on critical Sigils behave while dual-wielding? Do I have to use both or can I take advantage of another different Sigil in my off-hand weapon?

I agree with most of this, especially:

1. Improve siphoning. Since main hand dagger skills are currently single target only, either make siphoning more powerful or affect more than one target. For the length of the cast it feels incredibly weak, wasteful, endangering, etc.

2. Why can’t we see boons in Death Shroud?

5. Axe auto-attack does feel wimpy, however it does stack vulnerability so…yeah.

7. Yep.

8. Absolutely. 1s fears? One second fears do so little to buy time or put space between you and whatever you’re fighting. And the fact that Necromancer fears aren’t at least on par with those of other professions is unacceptable.

9. The trait lines are the greatest source of frustration for the Necromancer currently. Bonuses affecting certain skills/weapons are too disjointed. Generally speaking, players shouldn’t feel forced into certain trait lines to achieve a build that suits their playstyle. Gear attributes should be able to make up for the attributes given by the lines you didn’t spend trait points in. And while the summon Jagged Horror minor trait may seem like an extremely minor complaint to some, it’s profoundly annoying when you want to run minion-free AND pump up staff utility.