Guild Wars 2

I love DS whether im playing power or condition. I almost exclusively use it for offence rather than soaking up damage. People that say DS is bad for condition necro arent using it to its full potential.

shroud stomping is just a matter of practice.

I use staff on my zerk necro because the auto attack hits for almost 2k and the stsff 4 hits for almost 4k . its definitely worth taking. tho I do run with dagger warhorn when im bored of staff.

I feel that as a necro (I love necro btw) that our mobility is VERY limited, in WvW this is our big down fall because if we get caught with our pants down we’re in trouble and very unlikely to escape if needed. I know we have the wurm and spectral walk etc but I dont want to sacrifice a utility slot for a skill I dont want to use (wurm – when you’re being cc’da cast time is not want u need!) so I feel that spectral armor with stability would be a step in the right direction. being an attrition class and all I would’ve thought stability was a given.

I would LOVE to see spectral armor give stability. arenet?!

I almost 1 shotted (I assume it was) a full zerk lvl 80 thief last night in EB on my zerk necro. I used ghastly claws on him and took the remaining 90% of his life. I wish he was full hp so I could say I truly 1 shotted him lol karmas a kitten.
I do not use the build the OP uses but its fairly similar.

I enjoy fighting ele’s as a necro. we are no longer easy pickings ;-)

ive facec tanked some champions and the mobs they spawn in cursed shore with my well siphon build. just use the WoS and the WoC for their short CD’s and use them as a heal with a nice damage bonus. I use WoD and WoB too with protection on wells.

the well siphoning coupled with the attack speed of dagger and the warhorns 5will save u in most situations in pve. I wouldn’t recommend trying that in pvp tho.

you should try a hybrid terror build :-)

I HATE this too. I have an asura and a charr necro and I am sure the AoE circles are the area it actually effects rather than being only visual. if this is fixed I may actually use plague on my asura.

I dont count how much gold I earn in an evening of WvW but I got 75 badges last reset. and a huge amount of kills.

p.s. im not sure where the ‘face melter’ comes from ha

I had a fight in spvp hot join last night with a D/D ele and we were fighting 1v1 for about 5 minutes until the end of the match. a thief intervened at o point so the ele backed off and I killed the thief. then we carried on. necromancer and ele are well matched 1v1 if they cant escape or get out of range.

I was running a hybrid terror build.

its tpvp u cant swap out skills. and yes the focus would counter stability nicely when followed up correctly.

lettuce I use rampagers armor and rabbid trinkets in pve with necro runes. its awesome.
and thanks for the tip on spiteful talisman, I only use 4 at close range to stack lots of vulnerability so I guess I missed that.

spiteful talisman does increase the range to 1200. I have tested this extensively in pvp and wvw

I use earth on my axe and considering using the precision stacking sigil on off hand to reach something close to 65% crit chance from the current 53% im rolling with. Therefore more bleed procs and as a consequence I get 1 less dodge from the usual energy sigil I run in off hand :-( but I think the damage will compensate.

esoteric I was about to say exactly that. u could switch it out when u see the warrior coming and sacrifice ur least useful minion. the extra damage ontop of fear will be a nice counter follow the fear from corrupting his stability with ur ds 3 them let ur minions eat his face.

I won a 2v1 against a glass thief and a staff ele the other night, the thiefs opener got me to about 3k health xand then I manged to kill both of them. was bizarre and an awesome “Yes this build is awesome” moment

yea I have a confition build that ticks around 1400 on terror, I think terror if used properly is one of the necromancers best traits.

thieves are great at pve. you should try out some different gear and builds to see if your success improves

I would agree with u if I hadn’t had so much success with it both in pvp and wvw.

when running conditions I have 70% fear duration and 4 possible fears.
when running my favored hybrid build with 30/10/10/0/20 I have seconds of fear and the direct damage from the axe and snares from the focus. I rarely die in 1v1 scenarios when playing this spec and have won a few 2v1’s due to pressure from staff and axe damage.
the 2 second fear can be chained with ur second fear so 4seconds if u need it, all the while hitting them with other attacks.
its not easy to play but I find myself really enjoying this build.

of course we share different opinions and playstyles lily. I would agree with you if u don’t run fear duration traits and condition damage. I run rampager gear with rabbid trinkets in wvw and rampager amulet in pvp

even with 1,100 condition damage fear ticks for 1k. definitely worth trying

I use the rune of the necromancer as im currently running a hybrid terror build. 30 in spite 20 in soul reaping for fear duration and the runes give you 100% fear duration.
having massive success with this set up in spvp.

I have been using 30/10/10/0/20 in spvp today with axe focus and staff. i found that I took 50% fear duration trait and rune of the necro. giving me 100% fear duration with 30 in spite. I used a rampager amulet and a sigil of energy on each weapon set (a waste maybe but I love the extra mobility as im switching weapons constantly) and a sigil of earth on axe generally getting 4-5 bleeds per ghastly claws.

I was very successful with this build and came top of the leader board 3 times out of the 5 matches I played earlier.

has anyone else enjoyed using this set up?

I got to 80 before I played with conditions so I understand that completely lol

id roll with consume conditions, well of darkness, epidemic and either well of power or blood is power. and then plague as elite.

but epidemic is the only real necessity really the other are preference :-)

I think theres alot of negativity going about regarding necromancers being weak.
I find the more I play the game and the more familiar I get with creating effective builds I get stronger as a necro and I love it (more than my guard or thief) I am almost unkillable in pve and relish the challenge in WvW.

there are so many people saying necros are bad to play but they are just the same as other classes, theres a learning curve.

I have over 600 hours of play on my necro and am still excited to try new build set ups and gear variations.

I find my conditionmacer alot of fun to play, my P/T/V and knight geared necro is fun too. im also planning on going full rampager to get the mix of direct and condi damage.

if I am still loving necro after over 600 hours play (I lose interest in things very quick usually! ) then thats a teztiment to the creation of the necro as a class.

I don’t understand why theres so many people complaining about the necromancer.

if you are playing it you must be enjoying it? and if not just roll another toon.

more necro love please. no more hate.

I can face tank AC on my 80 necro but thats mostly down to gear and traits. u would be better off going conditions in my opinion at low levels. though I always used atleast one axe or dagger main hand when I was low level.
use lots of blinds (plague and well of darkness) lots of death shroud and condition removal (heal and staff 4) normally do thr trick.

when I say go conditions I mean scepter/dagger and staff.
you could go 0/10/10/7/0
for chill on blind or weakening shroud, then bigger marks and regen in the 7 trait line. that would be a ‘safe’ option anyway. I would also run with epidemic.

I did AC path 1. but as my group were struggling with bursting the Burrows I switched ti my thief… but as soon as I switched hodgins died ALOT faster as I was protecting him when i was on my necro, I was running conditions (the gravelings apply much more bleed now). if I was running power I could’ve burst the Burrows probably just as fast as my thief did

^^ slightly biased view there maybe :-P

you should be a salesman btw epic description of the little fellas.

I have 3 lvl 80 asura toons so I am enjoying playing a bigger race now, I do love my asura thief and necro more than my warrior though. asura warrior was a bad choice!

yes fishergrip! my char is as black as he can be with the skull mask. looks awesome.

I was planning on making a 30/10/10/0/20 build myself. (cant see ur link as im on my phone) axe/focus and staff. was interested in trying this in ramgager armor and possibly rabbid trinkets for toughness. I may go full rampager though.
I will check your video later and will try this myself too in hot join.
do you think this would work in WvW too? with 40% condition duration food. 140% fear duration.

I have an 80 asura necro but am thinking about leveling my char necro purely because my asura isnt (remotely) terrifying although I love him dearly. I use my char necro for pvp hot join to try out build combinations and love how he ‘feels’ to play. like he wants to destroythings rather than my asura wwho doesnt feel particularly monstrous.
my plan (if I go ahead with it) is to play my asura as a condition spec and char as a power spec.

has anyone tried a full rampager axe focus and staff fear build? ive been theory crafting and you could get 140% fear duration, maybe a 3rd tick on fear? im not sure about that though.
ur condition damage wouldn’t be optimal (about 1200) but you would have a form of burst through axe and fear.
would be something along the lines of 30/10/10/0/20.
I think this would fit my play style. does this appeal to anyone else? or is this a ‘good in theory’ build?

axe is great if you play a good axe necro. if u play axe like a dagger necro I would imagine you’d have some issues.
not saying you play a bad axe necro btw im just saying I get lots of kills when rolling with axe and always have enough LF .

just saw it… now I feel like a plonker. Thanks for the link.

before the buff I was hitting for 5-7k on a regular basis in pve.
wvw was more like 4-6k damage.

I was using focus with this build last night and I got to 6-10 stacks of bleed, focus 5 then epidemic. kiting made easy, especially as your spamming available fears.

yea I love dagger 3. but I can now do similar damage at range with the new buff to axe so no longer REALLY need dagger as I can snare just not root. I often use spectral grasp (the pull ability) in spvp and i believe that will almost make up for the lack of dagger 3. I will miss the warhorn though.

ah ok, I played around with my usual build axe/focus and dagger/warhorn and I no longer felt the need to switch to dagger for close range DPS. so I switched it out for staff. as axe has always been my favourite weapon on necro this patch made me very happy.

ascii your build interests me. I will also try that out tonight.
your stats are also interesting thank you for your input. much appreciated

I appreciate your comment drachshyish and im aware that wells are easily avoidable. but I will be running with probably just the one WoD to negate melee damage and possibly chill if I chose to pick the trait.
I will be running with spectral skills too. and maybe corrupt boon for guardian fights if I can slot it fast enough.
ill try this tonight and update you on my progress. This will be in pvp not wvw. as I haven’t bought the gear yet.

Thanks for the numbers (damage) and tips also. my necro is my main so am familiar with most tricks but never tried zerker gear. thanks again

I personally wouldn’t roll with dagger off hand. I say what id like to use in my original post ^^^
I was thinking of the 10 points in death magic for the options in there really. so protection on wells. cleanse a condition when in ds bigger marks etc. I shouldve said that in my original post but that minor trait would be situational.
I would like the life force gain on crit or chill on blind in spite due to WoD and possibly plague form but dont want to waste the condition damage.
I will play around with my build tonight and see what is more optimal.

right ok fair points dariroch. I will mostly be in a group, but dont want to be reliant on my allies to survive and I would like to be able to roam solo too. maybe ill do more testing in spvp before I invest in gear. thanks for ur constructive comments dariroch.

any necromancers using full beserker gear advise me how viable it is for wvw roaming? id (probably) be using 30/0/10/0/30 for the toughness while channelling.

dagger and axe with focus off hand. I may use warhorn with dagger but haven’t decided yet

I have alot of success in spvp with this set up but opinions on WvW?

yea CB is very good but I find I only use SB on rare occasions when I need to escape or dodge alot as I am in melee range 90% of the time. good idea tho I will bare that in mind.

of course u can take the trait to heal in stealth, but that trait is selfish in this TEAM PLAYER build (admittedly very useful) u could also trait for 5 seconds of regeneration when stealthing an ally, which also works on urself. this trait means you could get 18s of regeneration when using hide in shadows instead of withdraw as a heal. (if u use the trait previously mentioned and dwayna runes) u could also use the ‘heal when stealthed’ trait and ur healing would go through the roof.
but like I said that would be selfish. venom share gives MUCH more utility to the group and I would rather use withdraw as a heal get 6s of regen from runes and 10s vigor from traits. on a 15s cool down. Just a case of using sword 2 to get straight back into the fight again after healing.
of course I have thought about taking the hide in shadows heal with the above set up but the 30s cool down means you are only triggering ur vigor and AoE regen once every 30secs. I would rather trigger vigor and AoE regen every 15s. aand instead of regen on stealth we take condition removal on stealth. for some more survivability when we need to cleanse. tThis build only stealths when u need to interrupt a channelled skill, as u do not need to stealth to survive. I find fighting as a thief in plain sight much more rewarding than fighting in and out of stealth.
This is of course my own opinion. you may want to choose different skills and traits etc but this works for me and I truly believe in this build and thoroughly enjoy playing it.

the leeching venoms actually heal for 602 a hit. just tested it :-)

it is fairly small range I think, maybe shout distance? I could be wrong. but I find im always moving and constantly passing people so when I pop a venom I generally share with 1 or 2 people. The effects on a fight are obvious (and very powerful) when pulled off properly.

comeandsee – I have a cleric healing guardian, and yes hes a hell of a lot more tanky but my thief is better in small scale fights. when with co ordinated or even slightly organised groups my venom sharing means that (for example a 5v5) all of our opening attacks will turn them to stone, and maybe poison them if I choose to use that one too. then they come out of stone form and I (and everyone close to me) immobilises their target all the while leeching on venom use and popping my heal iff needed to grant allies regen due to runes. iff ussed correctly this build is very effective. (also giving allies might on venom shares)
I just wish the leech on venim was applied to everyone I shared the venom with.

thank you for your comments elmuerto I agree 100% with what you mentioned there.

I believe people expect thieves to be condition specced or bursty. so they get caught off guard when they just get shut down completely unable to use any skills other stun breakers, which is where I think my success has come from so far.

would recommend trying this out if you can afford the gear!