Guild Wars 2

Considering we have no idea what trait box you’ve chosen, especially that last ten points, it’s hard for us to judge. Could you specify which?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNBmQDbESLUvZTajfPBIp45rne094bDpo3dB

Major trait points:

20% faster staff recharge and increased mark size.

In Death Shroud, Life Transfer will heal in a decent AoE and heal again every time you leave it.

5% of your power is now healing power.

Signet’s recharge 20% faster.

Wells have 20% faster recharge.

Gear:

Full Cleric’s armour (gives Power, Toughness and Healing Power). Runes of Dwayna(Healing bonus, extra regens for the group, 20% longer regens). Sigils of Water (30% chance for a small heal for the group on use).

Method:

Use your staff mainly. The 2 button has a recharge that should be healing for 1.7k+ on a 4.75 second CD with an increased radius. Enemies have to trigger it, but everyone inside gets the regen.

Use Well of Blood. If someone stays inside it for the entire duration they will get 7k+ healing. If you stand in it after using it that’s a total of over 13k healed for yourself. Anyone can also use projectile finishers to remove conditions through it’s Light field.

Use Death Shroud. Hop in and out every ten seconds for a 750+ large AoE heal unless you need to stay out of it for other specials, or stay in it longer for survival. Make good use of the Fear to support the group, it has a 20 sec CD. Use Life Transfer off CD, unless you group is fully healed – with the heal on it, it will net you and anyone in a 600 range (as far as an axe can reach) a total of roughly 2.6k health.

That’s your basic healing, but there is no true full healer in this game. You need to rely on your other abilites.

Condition removal is a big deal. As said before, you can combo with your Well of Blood to remove conditions, however there are other ways.

Any friendlies in your Putrid Mark will be cleansed of all their debuffs and whichever enemy triggered it will suffer from them all – enjoy the increased size. Secondly you have Plague Signet, which will draw all conditions away from your allies and onto you, but then allow you to target an enemy and transfer all the conditions onto him after that. So that’s two AoE Condition cures, and two Condition transfers.

If you choose to use an offhand dagger in your second set there’s a third condition transfer from yourself to enemies, but it will not cure your group – although it is a multiple target blind. You can also swap out a skill for Well of Power, which removes a condition and turns it into a boon every one second for five seconds.

Next you have your ways to make the group take less damage before they suffer health loss or condition. Namely, blinds. Your Well of Darkness blinds anyone in it every second for five seconds. That’s basically five seconds of group invulnerability from any enemy in melee range, or any ranged foes you drop it on.

Secondly you have Plague on your elite, which is effectively a twenty second long moving blind circle that restricts you from using any skills. You will get three abilities, but the second has a one second blind on it in the AoE radius around you. That one second blind has a one second cooldown. Enjoy.

On your Utility slots you should also have Signet of Undeath. Other than generating Life Force for you all fight, it can AoE rez people from the Downed state. This is effectively a free rez for people that it may be too risky to get to in time. It’s also quick, quicker to cast than an enemy can cast a Finisher in PvP even. If a friendly goes down, you can safely and almost instantly get him back up. If a group goes down close to each other from an AoE, you get them all up. Needless to say, very appreciated and very useful.

Your final skills I haven’t mentioned will be on your secondary weapons. Whilst your staff is your main weapon to spam those regen circles on the 2 key, you should make use of everything. Personally I tend to use the Dagger/Warhorn, but that may be more of a PvP choice .

It’s really up to you what you use here. The warhorn has an CoE daze and a self Swiftness buff. Offhand dagger has condition removal from yourself and it sends them to an enemy as said above, whilst also Blinding them. Offhand focus can strip buffs, snare and make enemies vulnerable.

Main hand dagger as said has the root, as well as a small self heal (around 2k) and melee ranged 1 attacks. The axe has acceptable damage considering your spec at a range of 600, although I believe all it’s attacks count as melee and thus get through some projectile reflects/blocks/absorbs – it also has a decent self Retaliation buff. Scepter has ranged damage that primarily comes from bleeds as well as an AoE snare.

Enjoy pure support/tankromaner.

Spectral Mirage – Stealth yourself and nearby allies for x seconds, Fear nearby enemies for y seconds and inflict Weakness for z seconds. This could easily be an elite if you bump up the numbers, including radius, range and the cooldown, but would work out perfectly for a Utility such as Thief’s Blind Power or Shadow Refuge, Mesmer’s Veil and Engineer’s toolbelt variant of Elixir S. Alternative names are Spectral Cloak, Shroud or Fade.

Spectral Wraith – Grant Stability and <another boon> to yourself for x seconds. Should also grant the transparent but glowie green effect other Spectral skills (Walk, Armour) grant. Should have competitive numbers to be on par with Guardian’s “Save Yourselves!” and Elementalists Armour of Earth, both of which grant Stability and something. Note Guardian’s is AoE. Necromancer currently lacks any Stability with the exception of elite transformation spells or entering Deathshroud, I really wish it had one.

Banshee’s Wail – Fear all nearby enemies for x seconds. A longer than one please, like Warrior Shouts or Theif’s stolen Fear, mm? That will put to rest the tears about our fears being weaker but make us lose a Utility if we want it. You can also add a buff with it for yourself and allies, possibly Vigour or Swiftness.

Grim Reacher – extend the range on all your skills, weapon and otherwise, by x hundred for x seconds. I’d recommend three hundred extra range for perhaps ten seconds, on a sixty second CD. But it’s subject to debate and testing. Dagger and axe suddenly suffer far less among other things. Note range, not radius. Other possible name’s aside from the original play on Grim Reaper include: Reach of the Dead and Claws of the Void.

EDIT: I really like some of the ideas in the original post, especially the Vamparic ones. Blood feast, Unwilling transfusion and Ravenous Appetite were the best, although the devs will have to play with the numbers carefully on the first and last of the three.

Many professions get a free starter item just for looks, I don’t think they really need to change that too much. It’s just for looks.

However… I really like the idea of a Wraith Necromancer. I’m not sure how much you’ve looked into Necromancer but we do have a lot of ‘Spectral’ skills. I think those are what you might be looking for, although they’re not very stealthy. I’d really like to see maybe one stealthy utility under the Spectral type of abilities, just something small. Mesmer and Engineer to name a couple also get a stealth, not just Theives, it’s not exactly exclusive.

Anyway, it’s a nice idea to have some more ‘trickery’ orientated Necromancer skills. The current Spectral skills really arn’t very Spectral to me with the exception of Spectral Walk.

In other news, I will mostly be away for a few days until Thursday. Until then, if you are interested in joining the guild, you should speak to Kodyn or Kaspar Ryn. Ingame, you can either add those character names to your friendslist, or the actual usernames we’ve posted with here (with the numbers etc). Cheers!

Amazing username.

In other news, conditions and/or support is the cookiecutter way at the moment. I can’t really be bothered to explain the specs again in all honesty, but just take a browse over the Necro forums and you’ll find what you seek.

Deathshroud is so useful. It’s not ideal for condition necros but put one way it’s invulnerability for your main health bar for a while, meaning more time for the DoTs you have on someone to keep ticking, and more time for your heal to return.

Life Transfer’s heal when traited heal my group for approximately 2.6k.

However the complaints about the fear annoy me. Did you know: it’s instant, as is activating death shroud, you can use it on your target even when it’s behind you and chasing you, you can use it (and activate DS) when knocked down and that the fear itself works as an interrupt too with long range? I don’t think I need to explain why any of these points are great.

TooLateToTalk.5670:

So a healing Necro for party support is just not Viable.

It’s very viable, I play it.

The Golem Suit’s self repair is actually a beastly heal, it is infact the only reason to ever consider using that elite skill in a serious situation.

Hmm, I’ve never really taken the Weakness on Crits trait. I’ll look into it today and give it some testing.

Level 51 Durmond Priory mission. SMASH! Carnage unlimited. It made little sense to me, but I got to kill many, many foes that day with epic style.

Woops, I spot my late night typos in your quote of me. Ah well, you get it…!

Anyway, yes. More puzzles and smart solutions instead of mindlessly stomping enemies, pretty please. There was this one Priory mission where the whole thing was a wind avoidance puzzle. That was brilliant. A shame the Magister NPC with you is able to fly with magic to skip it all. Since when can elementalists fly? It seemed like she was given a random skill that no one else has, certainly not player elementalists, as a very weak piece of story to explain why you’d have to do this alone.

The animations are a good point. I love the Staff’s 1 cast, but yes in general we’re very lacking.

I have to say I like the minions, fleshy creations instead of zombies was a welcome tough unseen to most necromancers in games – a shame Jagged Horrors are just shrunk Bone Minions, very lazy.

In regards to Feast of Corruption, it sounds like that NPC’s animation used what our daggers 1 combo uses. Give it a try. I think I’ve experienced the same.

Continued from the above post —->

Onto Asura again, the only race I’ve played beyond level 10 so far, they’re filthy little criminals. I broke the law several times, whether tracking down people framing me or simply smashing my way through government property and people. And it’s done so casually. The Snaff Savant attends… illegal gambling fights, participates and wins? All for the greater good? Murders many government security officers on a hunch? And wait. You’re tracking down the people who altered your golem. You check what each of the gambling fighters changed and the councillor, those were the three people. It’s blatantly obvious its the councillor, but you can only choose one of the two fighters even after looking over all three plans as part of the previous quest. Alright. So you do that, blah blah blah. OH! Suddenly you realise it must of been this Council woman all along! And she admits it, it turns out the evidence against her was the blueprint she gave you in the beginning. Duhh! But wait! Whilst you speak to her she’s had her secret ninja army retrieve the blueprints she gave you so you now have no evidence! Dun dun DUN! So you go on to save the day since you know her plans and what she’s done etc. So why did she ever give you the blueprints, just to take them away again, when it obviously lead to her whole plan being ruined? This story follows no logical path. What’s weird is the other Asura Councillors she tried to assasinate take it so casually after 20 giant killer golems almost slaughtered them, and arn’t even going to take action against the evil Councillor woman.

So I’ve broken into government facilities, beat up their secret security, got arrested, blasted my way out of their jail and killed some more of them there, starred in an illegal event where I was announced by my real name (not that I was ever dsgsuised at any other point anyway) and just seen the Council not care about assasination and act so casual and make out it’s common. Yet Asura being filthy criminals is not mentioned or explored otherwise. It feels so accidental and bad, like some sort of grand mistake. And those were just the ones from my low level character creation starting stories and order choosing missions.

I also find myself agreeing with Socks. In the bigger picture, the story doesn’t really add up. Play some Mass Effect, play some Elder Scrolls, watch Firefly, read Lord of the Rings. read the A Song of Ice and Fire series. There’s some good stories. They’re exciting, dynamic and intruiging. Here I’m several people’s puppet with no real story choices with any lasting meaning at all in a rather dull story that lacks character development, moral dilemmas and satisfying progress. Not to mention weak characters and weak story points in general. The giant dragon breaking the world and trying to wipe out all life was also done in Cataclysm, a World of Warcraft expansion. I realise you might be trying to appeal to some MMO players, but that’s really the wrong game (atleast in recent expansions) to take inspiration from. Dragons, undead, yeah. Lack of originality.

All in all, I think I could do a better job at writing and directing the voice acting than your staff. What shocks me is that the actual game is amazing. The combat is so much fun, the locations look sensational and immersive and it’s by far the best MMO I’ve tried that was released within the last five years. But the story lets it down far too much.

Good luck fixing it in future and thanks for listening, I’m (pleasantly) surprised and impressed to see such interest shown. The gameplay and world here is amazing as said, with better story and content it would really, really shine.

I find many of the voices too plain, the dialogue too stiff. There’s a lack of emotion that’s also caused by the animations as well as voice acting.

To use an earlier example, where you tell a certain Asura her husband is dead, she puts on a rather half hearted “Oh noes” sort of voice. The closest thing I can compare it to is my own reaction to accidentally placing a healing rune into my DPS gear. Now I know there’s only so much you can do, but the facial expressions and body language lacks entirely. In most conversations you simply stand there and talk.

Treherne or er… I honestly forget the spelling. The sylvari Orr researcher, he plays a fairly big part in the story. I’m so utterly confused. The most softly spoken man who has never lead warriors suddenly becomes a great leader that everyone accepts and… man. It’s like reading Zeus used to be a librarian until one day where he flicked a switch. That writing was confusing, as are his powers in a certain cave you go in to rescue researchers. I mean, he can do -that-?! I didn’t see that explained and I didn’t think that profession could use greatswords. His voice also lacks any real emotion in my opinion.

Now, the worst of the writing I saw really has to come from the Asura starting zone. If you don’t want spoilers to bits, don’t read on.

One big example is one of the missions where you get to choose what order’s stratagy to use. If you go with the Order of Whispers your mission is to get arrested to get into the jail to break someone out of a jail. Alright. So to get arrested you protest. You actually get a protest sign! Cool! You protest! The guards come to arrest you. You… you have to beat down about 20 of them? 30? Wait, don’t you want to get arrested? Why is there a huge battle. Finally once you get enough down another group that’s unattackable claims you’re under arrest and you let it happen? Wait, I just freaking set my huge undead minions on his pals and stabbed them with my dagger. Now I’m casually arrested? The story gets worse when it’s shown you’re put into the cell with the Whispers Agent you’re with, but you’re both fully armed and armoured still? No explanation. Madness.

Another earlier one is a Durmond Priory choice. Logic, brains, knowledge. They outsmart their opponents, was the basic concept I got from hearing them out so far! Cool! So we go on the mission. We walk straight up to the door but to the mission’s credit we try to talk our way in. We fail. Guess they’re not -that- smart. So we steal golem suits as disguises. Cool! Five minutes later the cover is blown because the Priory person was really daft again and now I’m battling all sorts of people I might as well have just killed at first to have saved time.

Again with the Priory. Your Magister mentor you’re assigned too its nuts and shows no logic whatsoever. “Join us, we are the best choice because our research gives us the advantage. Brains over brawn.” Wait. No. There’s no single part of the whole Durmond Priory quest line where anything remotely intelligent happens. I feel like I should have picked the Vigil and just gone in smashing instead of weakly disguised smashing.

The level 51 personal story quest for Durmond Priory however is quite amazing. It’s entirely ridiculous how the magic manages to work like that from what I understood. But it’s very, very fun.

Another more specifically Asura problem is well… They’re gnomes from World of Warcraft. Forced up from their underground home, really small but really smart, the most technologically advanced race of inventors with sci-fi type of items beyond the setting. If you ever need someone to write something to further that race as a whole, please spice it up a bit. It feels like a bad copy as it is that 99% of MMO players, your customer base, will notice. Fortunately I like Asura when I dislike Gnomes, the lack of squeaky helium voices is one of the main factors in this, as is making them less mini-human and giving them actually interesting non-human bodies. No breasts on females was also a very commendable thing for an MMO to do due to it’s audience, although I fear that is somewhat offset by the revealing battle bikinis other female races have to wear. Back to real story issues next.

…And it seems I’ve hit the maximum post length, so I’ll continue in a second post! —->

Allowing duels would be amazing. Whenever a friend wants to test something or we want to kill time at so and so place waiting for the last of our guildies etc etc to arrive we have no duel option. Every MMO I’ve ever played has had one. I miss it so much.

I fear they left it out over fears it would lead to crying over such and such profession not being able to beat another 1 vs 1 moreso than otherwise, when they’re probably not all even meant to be balanced for it.

Shelled, I see more of your posts on the Necromancer forum than everyone elses combined, and you’re always raging. If you want to lose some of the ‘trolls’ and be taken a bit more seriously it might be beneficial to drop the doom and gloom and grrr.

I agree with some of the list, but far from all of it. Some of them are very good.

Let’s start with 20% bleed duration. That’s actually amazing. That’s practically 20% extra damage if you’re Condition Necromancer.

Five seconds of regen helps everyone, but it especially helps tankromancers or heal specced ones. Even the Healing boost from that trait line will help.

Gain Stability for 3 seconds is really useful too. Maybe a weak duration for a 30pt Trait, but I always pick it over the other option. Now, halving the cooldown on Death Shroud, which is the other 30 pointer, I find bad. Who really needs to switch that much? No one who can manage cooldowns. Back to Stability, this is three seconds of immunity to most CC. Pretty snazzy.

The gaining Might one is ‘okay’. Could be better, but Might never hurt anyone. 25% is a bit low though, usually you are playing defensively around then.

5% of Power to Healing is good if you often stack Healing Power like me. However, the placement of it in the DPS tree of Spite is off. Really, 5% is nothing to a DPS Necro. In heal spec I have perma regen from my staff for the team, Well of Blood for the team and Life Transfer’s heal from traits too. But a DPS Necro? It’s utterly ignorable.

The extra toughness for minions is useless for non-Minion necros, I 100% agree. I suspect it works for having a Jagged Horror out which everyone with the toughness per minion trait will have, but that’s such a weak arguement. This is the one I’d -really- like changed.

Losing a Condition when you kill a foe is terrible, truly. Just one and only once your target is dead. Far too weak.

Dealing more damage when you’re above a certain point isn’t so bad, but 5% is too low. Elementalist, another light armour class with more damage gets a whole 10% atleast.

Now all the siphon ones, not just siphon on crits, are pretty bad as far as I can tell. 50% more siphoned, siphon on hit, siphon on crit, wells siphon, minions siphon… They’re not good. Not by a long way. With all 5-6 minions out I notice something from the minions, but I suspect it may just be my Bloodfiend. They all need buffing still.

I’d like to speak about the increased marks and about them being unblockable. Yes, they can still be blocked. That’s a bug. Yes, it nerfs your 3 button snare circle hard, something I personally struggle with a lot. However, it increases the size of your Bleed and Regen circle (even if the graphic is bugged small), it increases the size on your condition cure/transfer and increases the size of your fear. And the increase is big. What if it said it nerfed your 3 button but made all the others bigger, as if it was intended? That would still be useful and taken in my opinion, yet even better when they fix it. As it is I know it is a very popular trait regardless of the bugs.

I really, really, really dislike fighting underwater as Necromancer. It’s plain awful and there’s no way around it. Even as Con spec, spamming 1 is not fighting, it’s boring and bad. Underwater is my main issue with the class.

The good news about underwater is you have so much mobility. Swiftness on Spear and that charge on the 3 key of Trident. I also think that the whirly spin on 2 of the Spear speeds you up? Might just be my imagination, but it looks awesome.

Plenty of working builds. Not sure how you’re dying in four hits in full exotic gear, that stuff gives a ton of armour and you have a ton of health. Four trebuchet hit on you? x) And honestly, four hits can do between 1,000 damage or 44,000 damage depending on what the attack was. Twelve hits is also a very random number.

Being picky about hits aside, Necro is perfectly viable in WvW. WvW means groups, it often means sieges, often large scale. If you’re managing to die quickly in these situations it’s nothing to do with your profession. It’s all about positioning and how you use your ninja rolls.

I think it’s fair to say you’re fairly new to PvP or quite casual, or maybe just PvP on this scale. Either way, joining a WvW guild that is willing to teach you should help. If you can’t find one, watch them. See how they are never just standing upfront taking damage.

It’s nothing to do with Light Armour or the profession, although the right build helps. If you want help with that you should post what sort of role you wish to fill or what play style you enjoy and we’ll help with that.

But mainly, your movement and positioning. Master that and you’ll be ten times more effective in group fights.

If the problem is 1 vs 1, then WvW is not the place for that. You’d be better off making a thread for that under Structured PvP (instanced PvP).

I like the suit you get into purely for a laugh. Walking up to gate doors with it in WvW and pretending it’s a siege golem is amazing. People react well! Both enemies in targeting me and friendly awe.

Sadly it’s a terrible ability which is only useful for it’s considerably powerful heal.

I’ve never tried to pet summons myself though so I can’t comment on those.

@CureForLiving:

Take Life Transfer heals in the first 10pt Blood Magic Trait box. Now you have an in or out of combat pet heal.

The Death Magic trait line really is purely for staff and minions. You’ll likely benefit more from Life Force traits on the Soul Reaping line, the extra Death Shroud health bar will probably help you survive just as much whilst applying all the extra DPS and extra utility from Death Shroud too.

Jeez Shelled, if you need some Necro help we can hop into some sPvP later :-P It’s not Thief, but it’s not broken either.

I like the Wells, they’re awesome. However I don’t suggest taking more then 3 tops. Usually I have 2 in my builds if any. The damage wells for my DPS Necros, the healing and condition curing well for my Support/tank Necromancer. I also often mix in the Blinding well in either well setup depending on the situation, whether it be PvE, sPvP, WvW and the scale of each, as well as how much damage I think I’ll take.

The siphoning health is weak though. All our siphons need a considerable boost to be worth a trait choice. However the 20% cooldown reduction and ground targeting of well traits both have their uses.

I’m not sure we really need more Wells. It wouldn’t hurt if they released a balanced one, sure, but I don’t feel I’m missing a certain type of AoE circle that’s really necessary.

Koen.8703:

Teknomancer.8475:

Mr Lock.5079:

Teknomancer.8475:

1. Please look at the mechanics of Deathshroud and make it a little more viable and interesting.

What is wrong with it and what do you want changed?

I think everyone agrees on minions needing a change.

Imo the skills during deathshroud feel like they lack synergy with the rest of the necros abilities. most necros use it as an Oh kitten button to delay/negate death. However the skillset you get while in this form suggests it to be more of a dps usage. What is it ultimately meant for? For being the masters of conditions/ bleeds , deathshroud is weirdly lacking in giving oout any DoT type damage. Just my 2 copper about it overall.

DS is only there for utility, and survability.

False, it has DPS. In a DPS setup I crit for 3.5k with Life Blast and you can spam it.

Read this for more information on Death Shroud: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-Shroud/first#content

@Phooka:

You can do fine with daggers, especially at that level. Pour 20 points into Soul Reaping mainly for the crit damage and take some Death Shroud buffs (slower drain+piercing), 20 points into Blood Magic (Siphon health on crits+20% reduced Well damage) and 30 into Spite (Life Blast grants Might+Spinal Shivers+20% more damage on does under 50% health). Take Consume Conditions for a heal. Well of Suffering, Well of Corruption and Well of Darkness as utilities. Lich Form as your elite.

You can take double daggers for this, although dagger/focus works better in my opinion. Basically, your Wells of Suffering and Corruption will bring a lot of AoE damage although it’s burst. Well of Darkness is basically five seconds of invincibility for you and your group for every melee enemy (blind spam circle) for several seconds, it’s very useful. Lich Form is Lich Form, that 1 key hurts and the knockback among other skills does not go amiss.

Finally don’t forget to use your Deathshroud. There’s another thread on the Necro section you could read, including my post there: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-Shroud/first#content

This won’t work so well for WvW due to dagger being a melee single target weapon, that’s it’s role. But you have a staff if necessary.

Take full Beserker’s gear for Power/Prec/Crit Damage. Throw in Divinity and Might runes for even more Crit Damage. Superior Divinity are super expensive, but 3 Major Runes of Rage and 3 Major Runes of Divinity works almost as well as 6 Superior for a cheaper price. Throw in a Sigil of Air on your main hand and maybe Signil of Earth on your offhand. Sigils for Force and Accuracy are possibly cheaper alternatives.

Enjoy :-)

Power increases direct damage, that’s it.

If you’re thinking of the trait line of Spite, that’s false. Power alone from gear, jewellery and buffs, does not affect your Conditions in the slightest. That trait line however increases both Power and Condition duration, yet they remain seperate entities.

Fortunately WvW isn’t about 1 vs 1s ^^

On the Axe/Dagger vs Scepter discussion, I think both direct damage weapons equal the condition weapon, but you have to be higher level for Axe/Dagger to be as useful. Axe/Dagger are also single target.

Katai.6240:

It definitely feels like it favors Melee Necro over Condition/Support Necros. For the most part, 4 requires you to be in melee range, and 2 puts you in melee range. 1 is great you have good power (melee stat).

Power is not a melee stat, it’s simply not a Scepter stat. It -is- an Axe, Staff and Focus stat as well as the dagger (which has two rangd abilites anyway).

4 also has a 600 radius starting from you, that’s the same range as the axe. That’s an insanely huge radius and can hit many, many people.

I like Dagger’s 3 button. 600 range root, very powerful in PvP. Doesn’t need changing in my opinion, it’s not much different to any other of the root skills.

The rest of main hand dagger is lacking. I’m not sure why you want dagger damage lowered when overall an axe already does more. Both are direct damage options. Daggers 1 does a touch more damage than Axe’s 1, but Dagger’s 2 does less damage than Axe’s 2. The heal on Dagger’s 2 is terrible too, hardly worth it. The reason you bother with 2 is because you can use it at up to 600 range instead of 130. Still, the siphoned health could be boosted or have it apply some sort of debuff/buff. Same to Dagger’s 1, it’s a bit plain and as Necromancer is at the moment, I feel Dagger does need love.

Tried Holy’s spec early in sPvP for some while. Not too bad, but if they avoid the root they avoid the wells – and if they avoid the wells, they’ve won. Didn’t seem to be too good for team play either. A bit hit and miss.

But it’s still by far the best setup I’ve tried DPS-wise with the dagger. I fear it might be a bit too bursty to have much viability in PvE compared to the other weapons, but have yet to test that.

I’ve been using the dagger a lot as a support/healing Necromancer in WvW, just for the root really although the small health siphon isn’t unwelcome on occassion. Still nothing worth throwing yourself into melee for.

Unless you’re playing condition/bleed Necromancer, you don’t need to worry about it. That said, that spec of Necro is quite fun with sustained damage.

I leveled mostly as tank/support Necro though, you don’t have to change. That’s the nice thing about GW2. Any class can play how they like with several viable ways. They mgiht not all be competitive, but there are many ways to be good enough.

Death Shroud is very useful and powerful.

If your life force bar is sitting and 100% for the length of a fight you’re probably doing it wrong (unless you’re condition Necro, which gets zero bleeds from it).

Firstly, the 1 key. Boom. Your ranged damage. If you stack direct damage for axe/dagger/wells like many, this will do a fair bit of damage with great range.

The 2 key, Dark Path – a gap closer. For PvP this one is so very, very underused. Use it for it’s mobility, use it to get yourself into range of the enemy for your dagger’s root. Even in PvE, if you’re dagger necro, it can get you to the enemy quicker than running. Also consider using it on a foe ahead to escape the enemies chasing you, PvE or PvP.

3. A fear on twenty second cooldown. Tasty. 1 second feared per 20 seconds is locking them out of doing anything for 5% of the fight. What’s more is it interrupts. And it moves them. Oh, and you don’t need to face the enemy to do it. Perfect for escapes. Perfect to send foes running off of cliffs in PvP (especially when first combo’d with your staff’s fear circle). Can go up to 1.5 secs with traits, leading to a 3 second fear combo with your staff.

Then there’s 4, Life Drain I think it’s called? It’s a very powerful AoE with a huge radius. It also keeps you in Death Shroud for longer. Win-win. With support traits it becomes a good heal over it’s insane radius.

Let’s not forget all the bonuses from traits. It can buff you, increase movement and more.

It’s all good stuff.

Did I mention you get an entirely seperate second health bar?

Scepter/dagger is easily the best bet for low levels without many traits available with the exception of Minions which are dull. I really enjoy this spec. It’s damage is constant, no burst, but you can rely on it.

Scepter/dagger for your first set, staff for your secondary weapon set. Alternatively take dagger/warhorn for the second set if you go into WvW to level like I did – for the Root, daze, speed boost.

Consume Conditions for your heal, or maybe Bloodfiend. Try them both, see if you get snared too much by mobs or debuffed otherwise. If you’re okay, go for Bloodfiend for it’s passive healing and minor damage boost.

Blood is Power, Epidemic and Signet of Spite for your three utilities.

Plague for your elite.

Single target strategy:
Blood is Power to put your longest Bleed on them – however BoP puts a Bleed on you too. Then hit Deathly Swarm (off hand dagger’s 4 button) to send your own conditions (the bleed you just put on yourself with BoP) onto your target. Then it’s a matter of 1 key spam with your AoE snare/bleed, direct damage/Life Force generator and other AoE bleed as needed. At low level, before you get BoP, you can hit Epidemic despite it being purely AoE and send the Vulnerability debuff you have on yourself to the target via Deathly Swarm but it’s not needed. Hit Signet of Spite as you like. Longer CD, but it puts on six conditions. Check out what they are and you’ll learn five seconds of several of them can be nice in different situations, you’ll know when to use it then.

AoE strategy:
Blood is Power->Deathly Swarm->Signet of Spite->Epidemic. That’s your four most powerful bleeds and all of Signet of Spite’s debuffs going in an AoE area, a large one. Then you have the AoE on your two and five buttons to hit off CD. Hit Epidemic every time it’s off CD on the target your focusing down to keep the AoE bleeds flowing out from that. Combo Blood is Power to Deathly Swarm as they’re both ready. Before you get BoP just stack a few bleeds through the weapon, then signet, then epidemic to open with. Every time Signet is back combo it with Epidemic too.

Plague? Plague is pretty cool. Damage spam on the one key. Blind spam on the two key. Cripple spam on the three key. Surrounded by foes? Set your Epidemic AoE combo going with Blood is Power, then pop Plague and spam 2. They’ll be blinded once per second, meaning you take very, very little damage and your bleeds get free time to run their course. When under less pressure, spam 1 for damage. The cripple spam technique on 3 is very situational and only ever really useful in PvP.

Your staff also has decent damage with bleeds on the 2 key, a poison and a snare on 3. Both are AoE. Use it as necessary.

As for your traits, make sure you get the 20% Bleed duration as soon as you hit level 20.

…

I’d recommend this. It’s not as powerful as minion spam in my opinion, but it’s a ton more fun and decent for PvP too. Hope it helps.

Holy.2356:

Managed to exceed at it! In arenas pvp at least.
I use this build -> http://en.gw2codex.com/build/16321-dagger-pvp-necro

Not too shabby, almost identical to how I play in sPvP sometimes.

As the title says, has anyone a viable spec for a Necro based on main hand dagger? I’ve tried a few setups, PvE and PvP, but it always falls short of the mark that all other weapons can achieve.

Having leveled my own main as a Necro to 80, I can safely say Minions are amazing in PvE. If you’re having problems then you’re doing it wrong, although at low level it might be hard to set it up.

Minions arn’t meant to live. No undead pun intended. They’re expendable, and half of them blow up when you command them to do their ability anyway. Ofcourse it’s better when they live, but hey.

You’re going to want the 20% minion recharge speed as your first 10pt trait box, then at higher levels the minion siphoning health box, the 50% more minion health box and 30% more minion damage box.

Bloodfiend – it steals a small amount of health, more with the siphoning health box. Decent ranged damage, it rarely dies.

Bonefiend – it does pull a lot of aggro to itself so ends up dying more than the others, but usually it’s okay. Decent ranged damage, turns into a rooting turret when you hit the button again.

Shadowfiend – a melee tank pet, with damage on par with the above two. Very useful, it will often keep the rest of my minions alive if it can get aggro. Blinds on command.

Bone Minions – low health, low melee damage. Command them to explode for sweet spike damage and finish AoE combos (Blast).

Flesh Worm – high damage ranged turret pet, cannot move. Teleports you to it and explodes in a poison DoT cloud on command.

Flesh Golem – high melee damage, snares, high health, has a large AoE charge that knocks targets down.

You can take the Bloodfiend, the Flesh Golem and then three of the other four. Personally I suggest leaving out either the Flesh Worm or the Bone Minions. I choose the Bone Minions most of the time myself.

Have a staff in one of your weapon slots at all times. Condition removal, fear and regen all helps your babies live. Then take a DPS combo of main hand and offhand. If you stack healing your Life Transfer heal (trait) and staff’s regen will do wonders to keep them up. If you go for DPS your DPS set combined with your minions will really do considerable damage.

I’ve yet to find a better PvE spec than minions, atleast solo. Remember they attack your target, so watch what you click.

Hope this helps.

Mesmer’s 3 ability does deal some insane damage and there 2 button is very confusing for beginners. I bet he was raging :P

I play a support necro myself as my main, I hit 80 a few days ago and mostly play in WvW. If you’re more of a PvE player my help may not be as good, but I can say that Necromancer lacks in buffs. You have heals , debuffs and CC mainly. I really enjoy it and make a big difference. One nice thing about Necro for PvE is that if your group all goes down from one AoE, which often happens let’s face it, if they’re close enough you can AoE rez them all at range from Downed state through your Signet of Undeath ability. I always have it on my toolbar, PvP or PvE.

Guardians have a ton of buffs and you can get various CC effects mainly in the form of knockbacks. Might be worth a look at it.

Otherwise there’s Engineer which is a tad more difficult than the Guardian and possess less buffs but you can do practically anything with that profession.

I’ve only ever done the level 30 and 40 instances and on story mode at that, I spend most of my time in WvW. However, I find even on the NPCs there if you sit in melee range and don’t move you will keep aggro. Those who get aggro and don’t want it can back off, then you’ll retake it. Not sure if that helps.

As for healing, yes it’s AoE, but it’s there. However you have damage debuffs, blinds and stuff available to help – one 4k damage attack avoided via blind is equivilent to 4k worth of single target healing so to speak. Act instead of react.

As long as I’m not Downed then I’m cool with it

But I like how it makes you think, rather than the generic nuke them all to hell whilst trying not to die yourself strategy.

Five people to a group, no DPS, tank or healer roles.

There’s plenty of support though, pretty much every profession has some. Some are better than others. Warrior is on the lower end, even if you dedicate all your traits and utilities to it you’ll still be worse than any Guardian as an example.

Take a look at what you think you might like, it can probably do it. Then ask how you can make your chosen profession support. Or ask for a more specifc sort of support class. You can debuff, heal, buff, CC, anything.

This thread may be useful too where I’ve responded in more depth:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/If-I-want-to-heal/first#post44727

Have had a look at Warrior and Ranger’s healing and support today and wasn’t so impressed. I’ve yet to look at Mesmer, but it’s true they have some nice stealth circles and various effect fields to remove buffs from the enemy, debuffs from you or reflect projectiles.

I have no idea about Ranger healing, I honestly didn’t know they had much as it’s the only class I’ve not played. Also not -every- class can be a healer. You’ll struggle with Warrior for example.

However…

Guardian, Necromancer, Elementalist and Engineer are also fine utility and healing professions.

What you have to keep in mind is that there is no -true- healing class in this game, not like most MMOs, but you can get pretty close. I’ve been healing/supporting in MMOs for many years now, and had made it something of a quest to look into it in GW2 too. So:

Your main things to consider will be buffs(boons), debuff cures, debuffs(conditions) and healing.

Engineer’s spec for you would be Elixirs. Med kit, Elixir gun kit, and the thrown Elixir skills. You have a couple of buffs, couple of debuffs, couple of cures and couple of healing circles. It’s fairly versatile, a jack of all trades, master of none so to speak.

Guardian is one of the best for it. They have an elite which can throw out mad healing AND has a full heal for up to five people, including yourself. I would go as far as to say it’s overpowered. Outside of their elite they lack as much healing or debuffing as the others, but they have more buffs to give than any other profession in the game and multiple bubble shield abilties which are amazing. They also have a fair few cures. All in all, Guardians can guard like their name suggests and are one of your strongest choices.

Elementalist is a mixed beast. Take a Staff. You’ll have a lot of healing to give when attuned to water, more than any other profession with the exception of Guardina’s elite skill (which has a 3 min CD). You also have roots and snares and a self projectile reflect in Earth and a group Swiftness buff and a stun field ability in Air. Their downsides arethe lack of buffs outside of Swiftness and lack of debuff cures for others. They are also fairly squishy.

Necromancer is my personal favourite. Although one of the weakest classes in the current state of the game, you can do well. It has better healing than Engineer and better healing than Guardian outside of their elite. As far as cures go, Necromancer is pretty good at getting rid of them and do the opposite and remove enemy buffs if you spec that way. Debuffs are where Necro shines, having fears, snares, roots, dazes and such. Their elite skill ‘Plague’ can keep all enemies in it’s AoE circle permanently blinded by mashing the 2 key too for it’s duration if they don’t move out of it, which offers better protection than any Guardian bubble most of the time and can cripple as needed too. Their downsides are few buffs and that the regen from the staff’s 2 button requires you to the be fairly close to the target. You’ll want to mainly use the staff for it’s regen, snare, condition removal and fear.

As perhaps you can tell, I’ve spent the least time with Engineer and the most time with Necromancer. But I can safely say any of them can provide what you’re looking for.

I also feel it’s worth noting a Thief can support with stealth circles and smoke screens, and the Mesmer with it’s array of interrupts and stuns, but are not good for primarily supporting.

Whilst I do like Downed States I have to admit I would not be against lowering the Finishing duration although I’d have to test it.

Dcgregorya also has a point which I’ve thought over before. Downed states need to be balanced. I would support everyone having the same set of Downed skills in PvP environments.

Another thing is the current skills, some need a nerf:

Thieves teleport on the 2 button is too powerful, finding them when they can go in any direction is tricky, and if they went down away from you they’ll likely get a stealth from the 3 button after that AND another teleport.

Warrior’s 3 button is ridiculous too. A self rally for 15 secs is it? It doesn’t take 15 seconds for a Warrior to smash someone who just ran straight into their range to try and Finish them. I have played Warrior and really feel bad for the people I destroy like that. x)

I also think Guardian’s 2 button is too powerful to be on the 2 key. It’s an AoE knockback/knock down. Whilst Engineer has this too and with a ton more damage, it’s on their 3 key. 3 takes longer to charge. You have 2 straight away. When a Guardian goes down in group combat they can then smash the whole enemy team away, it’s a bit much to just have.

I honestly can’t remember Engineer’s 2 skill, but I know Elementalist’s which I do play is a root which can prevent the enemy from Finishing you longer than any of the others if they start at a distance, it’s situational. I’m not sure we need to change that personally. But. They do lack the true interrupts of others, so it might be worth testing too.

Jalie.1356:

That number is the total damage, “8x” only means it is divided into 8 chunks.

Firstly, this so much. The big damage comes from stacking power and crit, there’s no multiplying of that damage.

It is easy to avoid though. Other than Hundred Blades Greatsword Warrior only has a normal damage, although a lot of mobility. Get used to dodging it. Don’t stand still in combat, ever. No need, casts work while moving.

I have a much harder time against Dual Axe Warriors.

So much rage here. Chill.

You can’t stunlock and/or spike people down. About time a game had something like this to be honest, I’m so glad .

If it’s a one on one, then you have won. If you really can’t finish the kill then you’re doing something wrong. You’ll get what? Interrupted once. Or they teleport once. Then you kill them.

If a fight is won, a fight is won – you will easily manage to finish everyone you need to.

If it’s a 1 vs 2 and you get one of the two down, you’ve not won. Maybe you’re not meant to be able to beat more than one person as one person? Oh, snap!

It’s still possible, sure, I’ve done it. Finisher and all. Yes, not just in a 1 vs 2 either, even in the infamous 1 vs 3! Theives can chuck down their stealth circle and avoid all attacks, as can Mesmer. Guardians have shield bubbles. Many classes have the Stability boon they can apply to themselves which prevents all interrupts, all stuns and all knockbacks, allowing them an easy kill on all but Mesmers and Theives – check it out. There are tricks of the death blowing trade that really work. Get used to it, prepare accordingly.

In a group battle situation then they might get rezzed if your team is bad, but one stun or fear or daze or knock back or knock down or… pretty much anything will stop the rez. Cry less, play better, get kills. And that rezzing player is so open to attack for the duration of the rez. It’s like a free invite for a second kill.

It does slow down fights, sure it does. It means you need more complex tactics, more strategy in a fight in terms of positioning, being able to get that Finisher off whilst not going down yourself, whether that be by speed or backing off to heal and then going for it and the like. If you want a quick game when you point, shoot and just kill people then there’s Call of Duty. I like CoD, I’ve spent many hours on those games. But there is kitten all in the way of thinking and planning there. This game has hundreds of skills, weapons, traits and profession combos for a reason.

Practice makes perfect.

Someone clearly hasn’t PvPed much if they think there’s any whining or ‘mudfighting’. It’s a fact, even if put badly.

Problem with Necro is it’s one of the most, if not the most underpowered profession at the moment so taking on the most powerful (thief, warrior, ranger and also guardian to a lesser extent) is never going to be easy.

Minion Necro has the best damage if you combine it with a DPS spec for your weapons, but minions are hard to control and easily avoided by their bad AI. If you can get a Thief out in the open you might be able to survive via rolling and fears enough for your minions to kill it, if it doesn’t use one of it’s many escape tools, since theives are squishy even if Heartseeker spam can three shot you.

Warriors on the other hand are a different story with their various Greatsword or Dual Axe AoEs, minions will not last long. They also take longer to kill. I honestly can’t think of any Necro spec that will have any chance in any situation if the warrior is atleast as skilled but you can try.

I think overall your best bet might be an Axe/Warhorn Deathshroud crit build. Take Lich Form too. You basically want all your utilities and traits geared towards gaining Life Force, crits and axe damage. When you can hit 70% crit chance and 40% crit damage you’ll do okay. You won’t be Thief or Warrior, but you’ll be okay. The real way to win a hard one vs one with this sort of spec is wear them down with axe damage and Death Shroud, use your staff to kite them a bit if necessary and then pop Lich Form and spam the one key – if done right you’ll be hitting 2.5k to 5k every single hit in Lich Form hit which destroys most people. Don’t forget your Warhorn has a Daze (interrupts and prevents them using abilities for two secs) and self Swiftness.

The 5 piece is generally a bigger stat boost than a 3 and 3 combined, which is why you should then go for 6.

Fresh Clean Water - This is a fresh guild

Fresh Clean Water (FCW) is a guild on the EU Piken Square server dedicated to small scale PvP with our main focus on WvW, relying on coordination instead of zerg tactics. We’re not hardcore, we want to have fun and ensure the game does not become a second job – but we also want to win.

FCW was created during the game’s headstart, formed by several players who have known each other and PvPed together for a long time in various other MMOs including SWG, WoW and TOR. Now we’ve settled in we’re opening the guild doors to everyone looking for a challenge.

Our take on things is that we want quality rather than quantity. Our goal is to achieve a stable ‘core’ of 10-15 active members we can reliably have online each evening for World Vs World. Whilst some larger guilds rely on superior numbers, we’re generally seeking smaller skirmishes where more elements of teamplay and strategy come into the equation. However with that said, we still end up involved in many sieges.

As stated, WvW is our main focus but that’s not to say we won’t explore other areas of the game. Structured/instanced PvP interests many of us with a tournament team planned, as well as some of the PvE content.

- – - – - – - – - – -

Recruitment

If you like what you’ve read and are interested in joining, there are a few requirements and ‘guidelines’ to be aware of:

First of all, everyone needs a mic. If you don’t own a headset or other viable microphone and have Teamspeak 3 installed, you will need to get them to be considered for membership. Communication is a key part of any coordinated effort.

Currently we accept every profession, although this may be subject to change. However with that said, be aware you could be asked to just tweak your spec to work better as a team with us.

We ask that regardless of wht you think your skill level is, that you be willing to learn and willing play together as a team. People who want to lone wolf it, split up from the team and those who fail to follow direction will not be accepted. We may sound somewhat harsh or critical, but we’re simply trying to help you do better – those who do not welcome constructive critiscism will be better off in a different guild.

Activity is required. We’re not an alt guild, we’re a main guild. If you join, we expect to see you flying our colours for the vast majority of the time you’re online.

Finally, you will need to be respectful. We are a long way from being ‘serious’, we have a lot of laughs and enjoy a bit of banter – but we do not go around upsetting fellow guildies or any other players.

If you wish to apply, contact either myself (by the name of Rhelex), Kodyn or Kaspar Ryn.

I’ve been playing Necro since the beta, PvE and PvP you name it.

Scepter and Dagger should be your main weapon choice, they will be your bread and butter. You have bleeds on auto attack and two AoE bleeds, an attack that does more damage and grants more Lifeforce the more conditions you have on the enemy, and an ability that sends up to three of your own conditions you’re suffering from onto an enemy. There is no combo that comes close to rivaling this for condition Necro.

Take either a Staff in you’re secondary weapon set because it’s simply awesome all round, or a Dagger and Warhorn for the utility (3 second single target root, CoE stun, self swiftness).

Minions are terrible in all PvP but perhaps 1 vs 1 in open locations, so your Blood Fiend will not be doing a lot. Take Consume Conditions as your heal instead, it has five seconds longer CD than Blood Fiend but you don’t have to cast the detonation so it’s instant, it heals for more, it heals even more for every single condition you have on you, AND it clears those conditions. A condition clear is invaluable in PvP. Take Consume Conditions, really. ^^

As for you’re three utility skills, take Blood is Power I think it’s called. If I remember the name right that bleeds the enemy and yourself, and generates a bunch of Life Force, you’ll know it when you see it. For your second skill take Signet of Spite, which boosts your power passively but puts -six- conditions on your target when you activate it. And finally take Epidemic, which gives -you- a poor debuff you can ignore that lasts six seconds, but in return you spread every condition on your target to everyone in a large radius – amazing, amazing AoE damage potential there.

For your elite take Plague or Lich Form. Plague is better for groups, Lich Form solo. For Plague you want to spam that 2 key to spam blinds on everyone in the area, pretty much causing them to do no damage – needless to say it’s a giant help for your team. Lich Form just puts out insane damage with the 1 key and your summon on 4 is decent, as is the knockback on 3.

I’d type more combat strategy and say about traits but I have to get ready for work. Bleed damage, condition damage, condition duration, bleed duration. Put on your utility skill bleed first and only use Signet of Spite when the enemy is bursting or you’re going to use Epidemic to spread all six debuffs it will put out straught after in an AoE fight situation.

Wells or other corruptions etc arn’t needed. Epidemic’ing
your single target you’ve started to bleed will do far mroe AoE than a Well or other ability can dream of for Condition Necromancer.