Guild Wars 2

Nemesis’ build guides are a great place to start. He explains the entire build theory so you have the tools to learn and grow as a player.

That being said, I question his choice of zerg builds. It’s a glass cannon and I never trust those. You tend to see a lot of them downed when a hammer train comes through. It’s fine for back row stuff but… it’s just not for me.

Ascii’s wellomancer is a good place to start if you’re looking for a front line zerg build. You can also try to recagigger the formula to get Foot in the Grave in. You give up a few things but on demand stability is pretty handy.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

By the way, how about any of these changes to Toxic Landing?

Spectral Landing: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is reduced, and your lifeforce is refilled to max.

Ghostly Landing: Upon taking falling damage, you become transparent and gain a few seconds of invulnerability and retaliation.

Spectral Net: Upon taking falling damage, the damage is drastically reduced, and you leave a spectral net that reduces falling damage for any allies that land in it.

Judgement of the Reaper: Upon taking falling damage, all enemies in area immediately target the necromancer and focus fire until he/she dies because kitten you you’ll never get a block that’s why.

Lily.1935:

I don’t have a reason for not giving the necromancer a hammer besides I would rather see it on the engineer. I would be upset though if the necromancer got a hammer and the engineer didn’t.

This is fine by me. As long as I get a power weapon that cleaves, I don’t care if it’s a hammer, a salad fork or an asura on a stick.

runeblade.7514:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

I wonder if it’s worth it to spend 30 in Curses for this build. First, your crit chance is pretty low which makes depending on skills that proc on them (Withering Precision and Sigil of Fire) unreliable. Going all the way into this tree for it seems not worth it.

There are also some issues with the use of wells. Ground targeted wells aren’t the best for PvP as it’s too easy to dodge out of them so you never get the majority of their effect. This is especially true against ranged enemies. This also effects your use of Vampiric Rituals. Unless immobilized, fighting 1v1, VR will usually proc once, maybe twice before the enemy leaves the well. This is about 100 damage/siphon in total. Not very impressive, especially for a GM level trait.

What’s more, this all conflicts with Ritual Protection as you need to be within the area of the well when cast to receive the boon. If you use wells at a distance, you’re not proc’ing protection and wasting this trait.

Furthermore, with its low crit %/damage and lack of conditions, the build seems a bit light on damage.

You might look into converting into a MM build. It works very well with main hand dagger and wells — crowding with dagger and minions apply pressure and obfuscate the field. A lot of times, enemies don’t even realize they’re standing in a well. Minions also give you another immobilize to keep them in if they try to run. Also, since you seem to like the siphon mechanic, it offers much greater access through Vampiric Master.

Nice job.

Dagger’s incredibly fast attacks makes up for the low crit chance. As long as one crits, everything is fine. If not, just use enfeebling blood and weakening shroud.

AoE are easy to get out of, but they are useful in small spaces. sPvP provides many areas with small spaces. Most capture points are small enough for an entire ground.

Ground targeted wells is more helpful than not having grounded targeted wells, especially with necromancer’s lack of mobility. Instead of wasting time to get into the right position for the maximum potential lifesteal, you can just do it instantly.

And I already tried a MM Build. Thanks for suggesting though.

I get that the dagger attacks quickly and that it takes only one hit to proc weakness. This is completely true. The point is, you have to go 30 deep into a tree that yields 5 sec of weakness on 20 sec CD. This is not very much and considering you have no cover conditions, it’s fairly easy to cleanse. It could be a problem against people who manage their conditions well.

Secondly, no one is arguing that ground targeting isn’t better than not but it is in partial conflict with the protection proc. IMO, the suboptimal synergy between wells/Focused Rituals/Ritual of Protection still exists. And, if you’re using mostly dagger, you spend — or should spend — most of your time at point blank range or trying to get there so closing the gap can hardly be called a waste of time.

Furthermore, it comes at the cost of other traits. For instance, in the same Curses tree, you could select Chilling Darkness which would proc with WoD which could be used in combination with something like WoS, dagger 3, etc for pretty decent damage and lifesteal maximization (at 50 heal per tick, it’s pretty paltry unless you drop it into a big group).

Lastly, what Device says is true: this is essentially a power wellomancer which is quite good — in a zerg. In PvP, it tends not to fair too well. That’s why I suggested the minions. But I totally get not running them. They’re annoying.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Only thing that really needs to be done in WvW is rewarding defense more, in my opinion. Not one of the season 1 achievements is for defending an objective.

This is a really good suggestion. Defense wins but is never rewarded in the scoring. I think they could encourage this by:

Rewarding players with XP/loot bags/badges for refreshing siege (<30 min?) and holding bloodlust.
Giving bonus PPT per upgrade in towers, keeps and camps.
Giving more XP for yak escort. Yaks also need waaay more HP.
Road sentries are able to kill yaks. Yaks move faster on claimed roads.
Greatly reduce XP and loot for taking places. Replace with bonus loot and XP based on PPT. (This way, scoring and loot are synced.)

I’d also love to reward scouting/sentries but not sure how to go about it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

One thing that could be done to balance 1v1 and 5v5 fighting, is to more encourage those fights in WvW, instead of it being so zerg-focused. Players would have to feel the need to not always zerg and “ball up”. I think that can be achieved by taking a couple of lessons from GW1, and introducing skills that punish enemies for being balled up.

I don’t think this is a good idea. This sorta kills the idea of, well, guilds. What would be the point of creating a large guild only to enter WvW, thin out and diffuse like vapor?

Furthermore, large-scale fights add to the diversity of game play. Sure, blobs of PUGs are stupid, I’m not disputing that. I’m talking about organized zergs headed by competent commanders. They require entirely different sets of skills and strategies than other engagements. Take for instance “balling up” as you put it. You make it sound simple. But it’s not. It’s really not. If it were, PUG blobs wouldn’t look like mile-long trains or their fights like generalized riots. Besides, finding fault with tight formations and coordinated maneuvering is like criticizing the Greeks for inventing the phalanx.

And it’s not as if single roamers or havoc teams aren’t effective in WvW. To the contrary, they a key factor to map domination. Quickly flipping camps, sniping yaks, holding bloodlust, putting swords on keeps and taking empty towers are vital to overall strategy. Sure, if you run into a zerg, you’re gonna get ground into paste but zerg can only move so quickly. Small forces create chaos across the map — they score, distract and disrupt.

To punish zerging would be limiting the number of ways the game can be enjoyed. 1v1 and 5v5 already have adequate representation in PvP. There really isn’t a need for another exclusive venue.

I wonder if it’s worth it to spend 30 in Curses for this build. First, your crit chance is pretty low which makes depending on skills that proc on them (Withering Precision and Sigil of Fire) unreliable. Going all the way into this tree for it seems not worth it.

There are also some issues with the use of wells. Ground targeted wells aren’t the best for PvP as it’s too easy to dodge out of them so you never get the majority of their effect. This is especially true against ranged enemies. This also effects your use of Vampiric Rituals. Unless immobilized, fighting 1v1, VR will usually proc once, maybe twice before the enemy leaves the well. This is about 100 damage/siphon in total. Not very impressive, especially for a GM level trait.

What’s more, this all conflicts with Ritual Protection as you need to be within the area of the well when cast to receive the boon. If you use wells at a distance, you’re not proc’ing protection and wasting this trait.

Furthermore, with its low crit %/damage and lack of conditions, the build seems a bit light on damage.

You might look into converting into a MM build. It works very well with main hand dagger and wells — crowding with dagger and minions apply pressure and obfuscate the field. A lot of times, enemies don’t even realize they’re standing in a well. Minions also give you another immobilize to keep them in if they try to run. Also, since you seem to like the siphon mechanic, it offers much greater access through Vampiric Master.

Nice job.

Balekai.6083:

Zerg commanding wise…

Self-Sustain: Guardian. Easy access to many blocks, Aegis, heals and even invulnerability easily give them the advantage in high DPS zerg fights as Commander. Death Shroud does not hold up in zerg fights against lots of damage. LF and DS recharge won’t catch up.

Mobility: Guardian. Easy access to speed buffs and most importantly, Self/Group Stability. Necromancer is much more vunerable to stun locks, CC etc. and it’s never good when your commander gets “stuck” and isn’t able to direct allies properly due to being CCed in the back of an enemy zerg after a charge. Easier to direct by saying “Follow my tag North! Push with me!” then “Rally to the North! Don’t follow my tag im stun locked! Now flank and charge them from the left side! Your other left!” :p

Group Support: Guardian overall since a lot of their base abilities are geared towards buffing groups. Necromancer Support although effective, needs to be heavily specced for in order to reach the same level. Apothecary Well Support is what I use in WvW in zergs, using Marks, WoB, WoP, Transfusion, WoC/Epidemic (to convert/transfer enemy buffs to conditions…that actually do damage with condition setup), but Guardian skills are more effective when what you really need is stability, might, protection etc. Especially since conditions can be easily clensed and boons easily reapplied. I would argue that whether you’re good at support doesn’t really matter as Commander. What matters is self-sustain, mobility, knowing what you’re doing and communication.

Tanky/Bunkerish: Guardian is very tanky, but a Necro build bunker can have huge sustain as well. My personal WvW build almost never loses to a Guardian in a fair 1v1 (I mean it) and rarely 1vs2 against Guardians/Warriors (unless they get the idea to perma stun lock). It usually ends with me stomping them. It’s a different story in a zerg where Guardian has an easier time sustaining themselves on the move.

Guardian definitely wins out for commanding because they’re tougher to kill than most classes no matter the build and have better, more reliable mobility, condition removal, healing and stability than most other professions. That’s why they’re so many Guardian Commanders around. They’re made for it. I really like Necromancer for roaming though and small fights. However, you don’t need (or want imo) a commander tag for those.

If you’re willing to give up a few things on the offensive side, you can always trait for Foot in the Grave which gives access to massive amounts of stability — best in the game, IMO.

That being said, I agree with pretty much everything else you said, especially the part about the attributes to being a good commander.

I would add though that while you can get a necro’s stats somewhat close to a shout tank guardian’s, at the end of the day, the guardian’s heavy armor means a whopping 16% less damage. That’s a lot of damage mitigation.

Bhawb.7408:

But imo, it doesn’t really matter what class your on, as far as commanding goes. You don’t always have to be first in-last out as commander.

I think this is true for small groups but I’m not sure how a zerg would function if the commander led from the rear. After all, the fundamental thing in a zerg fight is to move in tight groups to concentrate damage, buffs and meat shield for one another. The more diffuse the group, the easier it is to cut swaths through their ranks. This is one of the main reasons why PUG blobs get wiped by much smaller guild groups (well, that and they tend to run some incredibly stupid builds). Without the visual of a tag leading the group, it’s difficult to see how a group could maneuver effectively.

Lily.1935:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

I think a sword would be nice as I’d like a cleave weapon that would still allow off hand warhorn. I’ll settle for a greatsword or hammer, though. Anything with cleave is fine.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bhawb.7408:

And as always, I want pistol off-hand to fire Jagged Horrors.

Yes. Just yes.

Death Nova= “Eat your heart out, Explosive Shot”

This got me to thinking, instead of Lich Form simply destroying minions, why not have it throw them instead? Or maybe eat them like engi med packs?

I’m just not a fan of having a hammer on a necromancer. I feel its better suited for the engineer. I’m of the personal opinion that mace would be a fine weapon in the necromancer’s kitten nal(shouldn’t be censored isn’t a bad word.) considering that it doesn’t fit the other professions that don’t have it very well in terms of theme. But since the necro is a dark cleric I feel this could work. A cleaving mace weapon? Could be a thing. Maces are pretty unpopular too. Less popular then swords and hammers.

Don’t clerics usually have access to all blunt weapons?

But, I’ll take anything that hits more than one person — even if it is the stubby little mace.

I think a sword would be nice as I’d like a cleave weapon that would still allow off hand warhorn. I’ll settle for a greatsword or hammer, though. Anything with cleave is fine.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bhawb.7408:

And as always, I want pistol off-hand to fire Jagged Horrors.

Yes. Just yes.

Death Nova= “Eat your heart out, Explosive Shot”

This got me to thinking, instead of Lich Form simply destroying minions, why not have it throw them instead? Or maybe eat them like engi med packs?

Here’s a weird idea: make Reanimator a GM skill that spawns a Jagged Horror when minions are killed and have it as a replacement for Necromatic Corruption (which is a pretty poor skill, IMO). MM builds are naked without minions and this would allow them to keep benefits from PotH/general minion zerg for a bit longer until the real ones come off CD.

Lorelei.3918:

If you ever roll with a proper zerg busting skill group as a necro, they are going to want you to go either Condi or Wells and for good reason.

An effective, zerg-busting condi build? Please share.

Berullos.6928:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Bhawb.7408:

ANet isn’t making WvW about power. WvW just isn’t a consideration except in more extreme cases. Don’t ever expect the game to be balanced for WvW, its impossible.

I’m not sure I understand. Could you please elaborate?

Anet only balances around sPvP. Everything else is after thought. WvW is broken from the getgo. Zerk stats scale ridiculously in WvW. You get 100%+ crit damage bonus. Making burst builds extremely potent before condis can even take effect.

Zergs are mostly immune to condis due to AoE condi clears from guardians. And a group of 5-8 can if built well can also be completely immune to condis if they move together.

Theres tons of condi reduction foods and runes in WvW.

The runes in WvW are also completely broken. Just look at perplexity runes. Any cc class runs that and now they get 25+ stacks of confusion all the time.

Tbh, with all the nerfs to condis I might ‘have’ to start playing a powermancer just to kill things. Theres so much anti condi now its getting ridiculous.

Thanks for the info on ANet ignoring WvW. I didn’t know that. Given the amount of attention WvW got with the restructuring and all, I am very surprised it’s never consider in gameplay.

As for conditions, I think that food and runes have as much to do with their lack of effectiveness as guardian cleanses. It’s the combination that completely kills it.

Bhawb.7408:

ANet isn’t making WvW about power. WvW just isn’t a consideration except in more extreme cases. Don’t ever expect the game to be balanced for WvW, its impossible.

I’m not sure I understand. Could you please elaborate?

Umut.5471:

Necro needs aoe power based new weapon options and passive defenses asap, because condition builds are dying. They were already dead in pve.(you know, 25 stack limit) And it’s near death in wvw too because of over-cleansing with over-buffs to other classes. Like conditions do so much damage, they are still nerfing…

Perfectly said.

There are so many cleanses that conditions are a joke. Between Lemongrass food, Melandru runes and everybody running guardians and warriors, why not simply remove conditions entirely? They’re already worthless in 2 of the 3 game modes.

If ANet is so hell-bent on making WvW all about power, just give us a kitten cleave weapon already.

TheDevice.2751:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Okay, first, guardians get 10 sec of protection on a traited 48 sec CD from Save Yourselves and 4 sec on 28 CD from Hold the Line.

Sure, wells occupy four slots and give only 12 seconds of protection which is not as good as the guardian. Having said that, wells do damage, blind, strip boons, heal and give stability. They can be further traited to chill and siphon health. Thus, protection is not their main purpose. While Guardians slot shouts for the boons, necros run wells for other things (devastating, zerg disrupting things) and protection is nice little addition that can be traited for.

Furthermore, necros get 9 on 48 CD from Spectral Armor and 7.5 on 36 from Spectral Wall. This is greater uptime on protection than the guardian skills, SWall can be a game-changing CC move and can give protection to AN ENTIRE ZERG! SArmor is the only form of protection that heals at the same time when up (life force gain is functionally a heal skill) and it’s a stunbreaker too.

I’m not saying that the absence of blocks, invulns and vigor isn’t kinda messed up. We can’t run so it makes sense that we can block a bit, right? Anyway, the fact is, these skills aren’t crappy. They’re not great for every build (well, SArmor pretty much is) but when employed correctly, they are pretty great.

-So 10 second prot only needing one trait, 5 second prot on a 35 second cooldown, shield 4 granting bout 5 of prot to you + allies on a 30 sec cd, mace 4 on a 15 second cooldown for 4.5 seconds of protection, hammer 1 on 3’rd auto attack grants a second and a half protection. And again this is not including all their other boons. And all easily accessible while maintaining high dps. They have support like no other class with the damage to back it up.

But you’r saying that 4 slotted utilities that our opponents can easily escape which will give us about 12 seconds of prot is better than that? Or the two spectral skills both needing 2 separate traits in two separate trait lines for best specs? This is equally if not better than guardians? XD

I mean I’m not even bothered too heavily obviously since I still go necro every game nearly. But imho I still believe they’re slacking. Saying that necro’s can only focus on one thing at a time but can do it pretty ok is not a pro lol. That’s still a con. If all other classes can perform multiple roles and do them well, then the necro is slackin XD.

The original comment was that we have little access to protection. I pointed out that wasn’t true at all. That was the only point.

Furthermore, if you read carefully, you’ll find I’m not saying necros’ protection is better that those of another class. I said the skills that can proc them are highly useful in their own right AND they can proc protection, too. That’s pretty good.

Interesting build. Power’s great, crit chance is good and the crit damage is very strong.

I was wondering why you opted for three wells. Most DS heavy builds take either SArmor or SWalk to help refill their life force bar. I guess dagger 1 does a pretty good job of this, though.

I was also curious about the PVT armor/gear this build is running. You have a sizable health pool but it seems to me that your armor’s a bit on the thin side. Was this done to maximize power/HP in favor of toughness/crit chance?

Looks like a fun build to play. Could be effective in PvP … three wells can really heal clean out bunkers. =)

It’s a bit easier to discuss if you put it into a build editor first.

Okay, first, guardians get 10 sec of protection on a traited 48 sec CD from Save Yourselves and 4 sec on 28 CD from Hold the Line.

Sure, wells occupy four slots and give only 12 seconds of protection which is not as good as the guardian. Having said that, wells do damage, blind, strip boons, heal and give stability. They can be further traited to chill and siphon health. Thus, protection is not their main purpose. While Guardians slot shouts for the boons, necros run wells for other things (devastating, zerg disrupting things) and protection is nice little addition that can be traited for.

Furthermore, necros get 9 on 48 CD from Spectral Armor and 7.5 on 36 from Spectral Wall. This is greater uptime on protection than the guardian skills, SWall can be a game-changing CC move and can give protection to AN ENTIRE ZERG! SArmor is the only form of protection that heals at the same time when up (life force gain is functionally a heal skill) and it’s a stunbreaker too.

I’m not saying that the absence of blocks, invulns and vigor isn’t kinda messed up. We can’t run so it makes sense that we can block a bit, right? Anyway, the fact is, these skills aren’t crappy. They’re not great for every build (well, SArmor pretty much is) but when employed correctly, they are pretty great.

Overkillengine.6084:

flow.6043:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab,..

…is a good way to waste Chillblains and Putrid Mark. If thieves see you standing on a mark they will always dodge through it first before attacking you, so at best Mark of Blood alone can serve as an early warning system.
I’m not against precasting marks, but you shouldn’t stack them, spread them out instead for area controll. Or save Putrid for the blast finisher, an extra combo blindness or weakness can make a big difference.

This. Spread them out so one dodge roll can’t blow them all or cast just one and hold the rest in reserve. Works against Mesmers who hide in stealth a lot too.

I did say this was for the average thief — that is, backstab, spam auto attack and Heart Seeker. This is fine for those guys. Apparently, you fight a better class of thief than I do as the ones you encounter always dodge through it but this isn’t my experience at all. The good ones are tough but by and large, thieves are terrible players.

I’ll admit that staff 4 is overkill but the chill keeps them from scurrying away. Besides, I usually don’t need my staff for anything other than this so blowing a few marks doesn’t bother me. After the DS rotation hits, they’re either dead, running or getting spiked down by my dagger.

This would take the “attrition” out of the “attrition class.”

Brando.1374:

what defense? lol

we only have the ablility to tank dmg or lower the dmg done to us with weakness.
we have limited access to blinds, limited access to protection, no access to vigor, No Blocks.

Necros have Spectral Armor which can be traited to 9 sec on a 48 sec CD and 7.5 sec of protection when using Spectral Wall. They also have the ability to proc protection from wells of which you can slot four in total.

That’s a LOT OF PROTECTION.

garythesnail.8475:

What about utilities?
I’m honestly a bit lost regarding utility skills, there are many good ones (imo).

Seems like the standards are Signet of Spite, Corrupt Boon and either Epidemic of one of the lifeforce generating spectrals (at least for condimancer builds).

Wells are pretty handy too, especially if it’s one of those sPvP games that seems to always be about group fights. In a big scrum for a point where there’s a lot of action and confusion, bombing wells (damage, blind and boon strip) can melt a group of enemies. They’re also extremely hand to gank the plethora of Heart Seeker spamming thieves you’ll find.

Rennoko.5731:

Brando.1374:

dumbfire condi build
30/20/0/0/20 with scepter/dagger + staff Rabid gear

Dont really play power that much so I dont want to give incorrect or non up to date info.

Most power players accept Dagger/X as the best bet. Minon mancers tend to like axe, and sometimes other power builds use axe for range (such as WvW builds). Most builds like staff on swap for utility, especially in a pvp environment.

I personally like scepter in a zerker build (lol), even though it gets horrible scaling and is completely unconventional, it cannot be projectile reflected like staff, it is still 900 range, and it hits instantly. Plus the 3 skill can hit for 6k or so with a few conditions ( in WvW that is). I am still seeing auto attacks on scepter in the 1.5-2.2k range (with ascended).

That is a nutty build. I gotta try it now… XD

Honestly, I don’t know what to make of this post.

Getting rid of Dhuumfire is fine. Almost everyone agrees with this.

I laughed at nerfing MM. No on uses this build outside of a few in PvP so the idea should be to make it more attractive to promote build diversity not to make it more useless than it already is. If you nerfed those traits, you might as well add new trait “Immoral Summons”: Summoned minions attack necromancer because kitten you that’s why.

The new swiftness trait is redundant with Speed of Shadows already in the same branch.

The idea of nerfing terror’s damage by 75% is strange. It’s not that powerful and has a prerequisite for damage boost (existing conditions). The least you could do it raise the uptime from 50% to 100% to make up for it.

Moving Last Gasp to master tier is ridiculous. Engineers get an auto Elixer B at 25% as an adept trait — an ability that most necros would kill for. Elemetalists also get Armor of Earth in the adept tier.

Lich Form is only beneficial to glass cannons. Why take this away from them? It’s not like the build is particularly great to begin with for PvP or WvW.

Your changes have made Signet of Spite do basically no damage and one less condition to protect bleed stacks. Useless.

Not sure why you want to reduce the uptime on the scepter 1. The duration is pretty reasonable in comparison to what other classes get for spamming 1.

Basically, I don’t see how any of this promotes “fun”. It’s an across-the-board nerf without any improvements to balance the class or promote build diversity. And the idea that you’ve improved control is curious when all you’ve done is make the fear duration increase 10 points more. That’s less accessibility.

Kashijikito.1864:

sorudo.9054:

flesh golem is quite powerful tho, it can take down enemies that most professions need help with.
then again, the biggest problem with it is that it can’t be used underwater, all elites except plague (which is so useless i never use it outside the water) can’t be used under water.
the biggest problem with elites is that it’s seen as a normal skill by Anet, they need to see them as critically powerful skills.
see them a bit like a limit break, instead of doing some normal stuff you pull all gears and take the enemy down in full force.
make plague have a constant effect when passing an area, make lich form like certain doom on the battle field.

Plague is ridiculously powerful in pvp and wvw.

Even if you’re a pure power build, it applies an AoE blind, gives you stability, and a ton of toughness and health.

It’s a fantastic initiation or escape tool.

Plague is one of the best skills for zerging in the game. Constant AOE poison, blind and, if traited, chill. It messes zergs up and greatly facilitates offensive pushes through front lines.

Also, Golem is a great elite in small fight situations. It procs elite-tied runes like Mad King both on spawn and rush. Fairly awesome.

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab, DS, DS 5, DS 2, DS 3, SoS, scepter 1 spam or staff 5 to fear chain.

That’s 8 bleeds, chill, weakness, 3 torment, everything on SoS and whatever else of smear on with weapon 1 spammed crits. With Terror, that should pretty much kill the average thief.

Also remember that DS 4 hits cloaked thieves so you can still apply pressure this way.

SrebX.6498:

You have to ask yourself what are you looking for in the build
If you want to go backlines in zergs and DPS from afar, you can go Glass cannon.
Here’s Nemesis’es WvW glass cannon video build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdmGLBR6sLE
It’s highly detailed and Nemesis is probably the best information source for Necros. you should check out his channel, he got lots of interesting stuff

If you want to go mid-front lines, you should go for something more like Acii’s build, here’s his thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Ascii-s-WvW-Wellomancer-Build/page/4#post3061235

The WvW zerging meta is Power build, because conditions have many issues when it comes to Zerging…

Good luck

Consider these your two primer courses in necro play. Once you go through them, you’ll have 90% of the fundamentals.

Morbridae.8607:

Each time someone says “Necro is a crappy class”, I heard “you need to be a superb player to play a necro!”.

Yes, I want necros to be improved, a lot, and to have their niche in the game… but in the meantime, each time I win a match, I know that I did it with a highest difficulty level… and that makes me extra happy. XD

Personally, I don’t get this. I agree with SrebX: to me, the necro isn’t terribly hard to play. While it isn’t as elementary as a warrior or guardian, it certainly doesn’t have the complexity of a d/d ele, engi or mesmer. With the right build, condition spam is easy in sPvP or WvW without complicated rotations and DS is extremely effective on a short one. What’s more, given the large health pool, edge gaming is unnecessary — we have a change to recover if mistakes are made.

I think TheBandit had it right. Necros are quite powerful. While we don’t have a do-it-all, OPed super-build, we have access to three viable WvW builds (well, glass cannon, condi) and even more in sPvP (power MM, condi MM, condi, glass cannon). What’s more, I believe we are also the only class that allows builds for both viable back line and front line zerging. Although this involves buying multiple sets of equipment, we have options which is more than most classes can boast.

As for PvE, I have no idea… not my thing really.

Chuck Nizzle.6283:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

45% to 50% is optimal but like Dranor says, around 35% with fury every so often procs fine too. The scepter hits fairly fast so you’ll get plenty of chances to apply conditions.

Just curious, does anyone have any data for this?

Ah, I think I confused you by using the word “optimal.” My bad. There’s no real optimal number. It’s just a number that allows you to proc conditions at a reasonable rate while maintaining a bit of balance in your build. For instance, you could get a build up to 95% crit chance but it’d lack complimentary stats like critical damage and the health is pretty low.

ronpierce.2760:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Personal-Death-Magic-Revision/first#post3164899
This is what I think about Death tree overall, but specifically about the minors:

- Move Shrouded Removal to 5 point minor. (Possibly increase to 2 conditions removed? Discussable, I’d have to see it in action.)
– new Shadow Cloak – (15 point minor) Death shroud now gives you and nearby allies protection for 2 seconds. (My reason for this; it really brings the death tree into perspective. It’s a tanky tree, for one, it has boon boost, but not enough boon share, and works well by giving Minion masters active control over protecting their minions when expecting heavy AoE, assuming the Necro stored/saved some life force for the occasion.) I’m thinking something like 900 range, with like a max of 5-10 targets other than yourself.

I think both of these are kinda overpowered.

Shrouded Removal is a really good thing to have as it provides condition removal every 10-13 seconds. This clearly needs to stay as an Adept major or maybe a GM minor. I see a lot of people want this moved to Adept minor but I think this is a reflection of how useful it is rather than it being objectively worth a lowly five points. Lastly, it removing two conditions would make it a GM major. It would be like Cleansing Ire — maybe a little worse.

Shadow Cloak is too strong as well. To put it into perspective, Spectral Armor, at best, gives 6 second on a 42 second CD and requires a dedicated slot skill. Ritual of Protection is a trait that rides on wells so it’s closer in nature to what you suggest but it’s a major trait and only provides 3 seconds of protection on 30-or-so seconds of well CD. So as you can see, it’s greatly superior to what’s available at the moment. This becomes exponentially more powerful if it is allowed to be given to allies. In comparison, the guardian’s “Hold the Line” gives 4 sec of protection and 6 sec of regen on a 35 sec CD (600 range) while requiring the use of a slot skill.

Ascii’s build with knights and cavalier trinkets is almost unkillable in a zerg fight… well, not unkillable but if you play decently, you will survive as long as anyone else in the zerg. That includes PVT guardian commander builds as well. Lots of armor, decent health pool and the siphon ensures it has more than enough to stay in a fight. Just make sure you run Melandru runes and Lemongrass food.

If you run this, I’d suggest not taking Withering Precision. Weakness is good and works great in a 1v1 but a lot of the time, it’s only going to hit one person so it’s not very reliable in a zerg fight. Oh, and, yes, your instincts were correct: as a condition, count on it to be cleansed rather quickly. It’s probably best to stick with Deadly Strength to maximize damage.

Next, it’s more than feasible to run a tankier build with PVT armor and trinkets. You’ll have a massive health pool and elite survivability. That being said, your lack of crits is going to hurt your damage output.

To offset this, you can turn yourself into more of a disruption-style necro. If you take 5 points out of Death (difficult because you’ll have to sacrifice 50 toughness and 100 power from the bonus) you can reinvest it into Curses. This will allow you to take both Chilling Darkness (don’t forget it procs off of Well of Darkness as well as Plague) and Banshee’s Wail for greater access to warhorn.

I would stay away from Ritual of Protection. It doesn’t synergize with ground targeted wells as you actually need to be within the target to get the protection.

Good luck!

Like everyone says, guardians are pretty squishy… if you run Corrupt Boon. For me, the majority of dagger 2 spamming thieves are the best. Between marks and DS, they die pretty quickly. But, as Drarnor said, the good ones can be very tough.

alanis.6094:

In addition, he could (as I do) spec for ranged Wells and run Epidemic, SWall, and WoC and throw the WoC prior to the zerg hitting the SWall, in an effort to strip some of that stability off.

I love SWall —> WoC --> WoD (with Chilling Darkness). It can really soften up a front line for a push and gives everyone protection to boot.

There’s a foreplay/condom/penetration joke in here but I’m too tired to make it right now. XD

Draehl.2681:

For 2s after entering DS you gain X toughness and conditions applied last 50% normal duration.

Or bake it into DS as a passive effect for all Necros. Obviously along with the Dhuumfire removal patch =D

I think what the necro lacks is something to deal with focus fire. I’m not sure if there’s enough toughness to deal with this.

I also worry about putting something like block/invuln on DS. I believe since you’re usually not allowed to attack during these types of moves, this would interfere with DS’s offensive burst application.

That being said, we really do need a block of some kind. We are SLOW! Give us something to use against being instantly melted by the horde!

Firstly, you are correct about the first part. This skill will only hit 5 which is not an entire zerg. It is, however, 1/10th of a monster, 50 man zerg. 10%. (And, yes, against a highly organized guild, it will be easy to get five enemies in a 240 range) And this is the best case scenario; that is, there’s only one necro per zerg — which is highly unlikely. Each necro can draw condition from another necro and pass it to five more people. It can get really bad, really quickly.

In any event, let’s try something different…

This trait you are proposing takes conditions received in DS and copies their effects onto five targets within 240. This is essentially the effects of Plague Signet (sans the cleanse) and Epidemic (-360 radius) combined. While each individual aspect is inferior to the original skill, the new trait procs passively and does not require two thirds of your slot skills to use.

So, it does the job of two slot skills (albeit not as well) without having to carry them. That’s quite an advantage. How is this not overpowered (if not a little redundant)?

Despite all this, I’m still not sure why this would even be necessary. Traited correctly, DS applies a nice pile of conditions (although I think it’s asinine that the warrior can apply 5 stacks of torment on sword 4 on a 20 sec CD while we only do 3 on a 40 sec CD on DS4) in addition to the kittenton of super-easy bleeds, poison and fire the scepter slathers on.

Do we really need that much more? Do we really need the potential of huge stacks of incoming conditions to be effective? Or put another way, when you play other classes and fight a condimancer, do you really think to yourself, “Wow, that was pretty weak. They’ve got a serious lack of condi application.”

Maybe you do. I certainly don’t. I think this is the main difference.

To each their own, I suppose.

Like I said, it’s not about condition TRANSFER which is losing a condition by giving it to someone else. It’s about the effect of doubling all incoming conditions via this condition COPY trait—>exit DS—>Plague Signet. A mere six stacks on you could be returned for 12 and then returned again for 24. If this trait is given to more than one class, condition stacks like those you see on PVE champions would snowball within fights until they landed and instakilled the one poor schmuck who couldn’t transfer them.

What’s more, think about the potential for disaster in large WvW fights. Snowballing of conditions would happen quickly and frequently. One condimancer with a well placed Epidemic or a necro simply in DS passively broadcasting conditions could infect a ton of people and wipe out chunks of a zerg instantly. That’s just unreasonable. You cannot allow conditions to double in this manner.

But, wait… It’s actually worse than this. Far, far worse, really.

Imagine two necros fighting. Both hit DS at close range and one of them pops DS 5 and DS2. Because of the way that conditions are copied onto those who are within range, this means that:

Necro1 gives 3 Torment (T) and 2 Bleeds (B) to Necro2
Necro2’s passive trait procs and copies 3T and 2B onto Necro1. Necro1 now has 3T and 2B.
Necro1’s trait procs copying those 3T and 2B to Necro2. Necro2 now has 6T and 4B.
Necro2’s passive procs again sending 6T and 4B to Necro1. Necro1 now has 9T and 6B.
Etc.

Get the picture?

The torment and bleeding would bounce instantly back and forth between them until there were 25 stacks of both torment and bleeding on both resulting, most likely, in a simultaneous down.

Messy, huh? Anyhoo…

Condimancers have so many ways to apply conditions as it is. And DS will still proc Dhuum, Barbed, bleeds from Dark Path and torment. I’m pretty sure sigils will proc too. That’s a lot of conditions, especially when they’re feared and you’re pounding them in the back with Life Blast at point blank range.

Nemesis ran a glass cannon. Back row stuff that’s too squishy for my tastes — if the hammer train reaches you in the back line, you’re pretty much hamburger.

What I’m talking about is more like Ascii’s wellomancer running knights armor with cavalier trinkets. I run a similar build but one that’s more focused on CC disruption. This style of necro has epic survivability and can front line with any warrior or guardian. Here’s the link.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Ascii-s-WvW-Wellomancer-Build/first

Bhawb.7408:

Essentially the trait simply Copies (like Epidemic) any conditions applied while in DS to enemies within the radius.

Could you could it up? Yes, but you can do that right now with any AoE condition application + Epidemic, and that doesn’t require anything but the skill and any of our condition weapons, and it is far from OP.

Yes, but that involves using multiple skills which is a big thing. This would proc as a passive in DS then double conditions on a cleanse which you needed anyway. There’s no downside or balance. Someone could empty their skill bar burst stacking on you and get back double the conditions on one active skill. That’s OP in my book. And if you don’t think so, imagine giving the 2X ability to multiple classes. Conditions would ping-pong back and forth until someone caught it and died instantly.

For a newer necro player, you certainly went to two good sources for build advice. =)

Now, here’s my take on your build. You are indeed correct: the build seems it light on damage from being condition heavy. Using the scepter is even worse in a zerg as it really requires concentration on a single target to apply enough conditions to do any significant damage. However, the greater concern as I see it is that not only has greatly diminished survivability due to reduced armor and health but most alarmingly, no stun breakers or no condition duration mitigation from food or runes. The food part is especially odd since you’ve said you understand that conditions are quickly cleansed in zerg fights.

To me, this build seems to be a fairly typical terrormancer type build (minus the elite skill) except you put 20 into Death instead of Soul Reaping. According to conventional wisdom, it’s best suited for 1v1s or small group fights where conditions aren’t continually washed away. In this capacity, it should work very well (although the lack of stunbreakers can be fatal). As a zerg build, to be honest, it’s fairly suspect.

Have you tried running a power well build yet?

Lily.1935:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.

Thank you for the comment. I must point out though that while you are in death shroud you don’t get the benefits from Plague signet. So this would be a non-issue. Also the descriptions states that when you would suffer a condition and not conditions already suffered. Radius also makes a difference. Although I would like a 360 radius I can’t see this getting larger then a 240 radius.

Ah, I see. Only incoming and not preexisting DS. My mistake though it’s kinda hard to discern this from the description — probably because I didn’t really play the original GW.

Anyhoo, would the condition(s) (I’m still not sure if it’s a single condition or all of them) sent to enemies or those inflicted on the necro in DS get cleansed at the end of DS? I ask because if the conditions survive DS, they can still be “given” twice — once from DS’s proposed “condition copy” trait and again upon exit via Plague Signet, dagger 4 or, if it works, Putrid Mark. This would still be fairly overpowered. I suppose they can be made non-transferrable but it seems a bit punitive since there are fewer options to cleanse and might lead to the necro’s death.

If the conditions on enemies simply expire when DS ends, this is much simpler. All you need to do is stick a timer on it and have it work like retaliation — say, three to five seconds with an ICD of 20 seconds or so to prevent too much spamming.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

What’s more, I could be wrong but I don’t believe there are any other classes which receive a mastery-type trait at so low a cost, or as a minor for that matter.

Only one I can think of is Illusionist’s Celerity for Mesmers, but that affects a wide variety of skills (all clones and phantasms) and it is impossible to make a Mesmer that doesn’t have illusion access (since all weapons have them).

On the note of Siphoned Power, what are thoughts on my suggestion in the OP?

Kiriakulos.1690:

Vampiric – Recover HP whenever you gain LifeForce. 50% of gained LifeForce is added to your current HP but HP recovered is capped at 50% of your current HealingPower (If you gained 2000 LF but had only 1000 healing power you’d be healed for only 500 HP).
1 Second ICD.

Might as well gain life when you gain lifeforce.

While I like the idea, I don’t think it should have an ICD. That would punish Dagger and Axe users unfairly. On Dagger, the trait would proc on the 2% life force gain in the third swing of the chain, then be on cooldown for the 6% gain on the fourth hit. On axe, it would proc once on a single 1.5% gain, then proc again on a second 1.5% gain. While they gained 12% life force, they only would get the healing from a quarter of that.

Well, from what I can see, all other minor traits that give might do so for much longer durations (10-15 seconds) and have far less dire requirements to proc. “Hey, I’m gonna die. Thank goodness for that one stack of might for five seconds, huh?”

Anyhoo, this is an interesting idea but I’m not sure why ANet thought might needed to get involved as straight damage increases abound throughout the classes. Personally, I’d like to see a permanent, tiered increase in damage as we get closer to death with a cap of, say, 9% damage at 25% health. I think this fits with the necro theme and provides some incentive to edge without making it overpowered.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ascii.9726:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m not sure you get it. The problem with the minor traits right now is that they only really work for one kind of build (using minions). What you propose is bad because it does the same thing (only works for using staff). You may like it more, but it still creates the same problem, just with a different culprit.

No, i dont think you get it.

There traits that are bound to a build type/ utility type (minion master) staff is a weapon type that is used in almost all builds and is much more flexible then having to be a minion master to use these traits. Any decent Necromancer will tell you the only incentive to go into Death Magic at the moment is Greater Marks and Deadly Strength.

Replacing them with non-specific traits would see this tree have no obvious purpose, and I’m not sure if you noticed but every trait line on every class is themed.

The trait line is themed. The minor traits are not. Minor Traits need to either be generic (the stat conversions, for example) or self-supporting (Barbed Precision) Even though the staff is a general-use weapon, minor traits related to only it are a bad idea. It forces you to use Staff or have useless minors (in this case, the current ones are actually better since they are only mostly useless without a minion build, not completely).

On other classes, the closest we get to having skill-specific minors (either utility or weapon) is the Guardian Zeal line, which influences symbols on its minor traits. However, 4/6 main-hand weapons have a symbol skill, which provides much more variety than being locked into Staff to get any use. Even if a Guardian runs Sword and Scepter in their two weapon sets, the minor traits at 15 and 25 aren’t useless because the 5 point minor creates a symbol itself!

What you are suggesting may be an improvement in your eyes, but it is no better than the current minors we have in that line and, in fact, is worse. While I agree that we need different minor traits in Death magic, at least Reanimator means Protection of the Horde still does something, even if we don’t run any minion skills. With what you are suggesting, then it’s Run Staff or GTFO of Death Magic. You want Shrouded Removal, Reaper’s Protection, or any minion traits? Well, you’re locked into staff as one weapon.

While I have great respect for Ascii, I think Drarnor’s right here. While I’d love getting a free staff mastery at 5 and Greater Marks at 15, this is the same type of specific minor trait pigeonholing that makes Reanimator and PotH annoying. What’s more, I could be wrong but I don’t believe there are any other classes which receive a mastery-type trait at so low a cost, or as a minor for that matter.

Personally, I think moving Dark Armor or Spiteful Vigor to 5 and Reaper’s Protection or Shrouded Removal at 15 seem like good options.

BTW, Siphoned Power is ridiculous, especially for a GM tiered minor. The only worse minor trait at that tier is the warrior’s Reviver’s Might, I think.

Stx.4857:

Firstly, different classes are different, so making a comparison like that somewhat pointless.

But if you want to make a direct comparison, you have to consider that Healing Sig is their Heal slot, and siphons are additional healing to our heal slot.

I would argue that Consume Conditions and Blood fiend are both superior heals to Healing signet… CC for obvious reasons and Blood fiend more as a direct comparison for numbers(even if it does die fairly easy, its still more healing overall)
What your argument really comes down to is that warriors are allowed more passive survival, which is true. However they give up their heal slot for it.

Necro actually has really good passive survival between high health and DS. What we lack and I feel we need a boost to is active defense(blocks, aegis, evades, immunes, invulnes, etc).

I think the Necro needs at least some access to vigor for PvE, and also at least one short duration invulnerable skill for PvE. In PvP I feel our survival is high enough since we have nice control options plus high passive defense.

Firstly, classes are, indeed, different but direct comparisons are not somewhat pointless. These are wholly-created and fully adjustable professions within a game and not elements from the periodic table. They can play however the devs choose and are therefore actionable. Secondly, character traits have wide commonality. That is, the professions share more game play elements than they are in possession of unique ones so they are comparable. Lastly, seeing how these traits play out in one class against competition gives direct insight as to their potential benefits/weaknesses when applied to others. This provides access to copious amounts of observable data. Thus, not only is this exercise not pointless, one would be somewhat remiss not to.

Next, I thought it was obvious from the context of the comment (citing the thief and the warrior) that putting heavy regen abilities into a healing slot was a given. Granted, I exaggerated: giving necros warrior-regen numbers is ridiculous when taking DS which converts certain attacks to “health” into account. That being said, as it is, siphon is hardly adequate in its present state.

I also failed to mention that this wasn’t to say the necro shouldn’t continue to have access to multiple means of proc-ing siphon even after the addition of passive regen. Given that other classes like the guardian and elementalist have access to varied healing abilities, this wouldn’t be so outrageous.

As for whether Consume Conditions is superior to Healing Signet, well, given that the warrior has the same ability in Mending (necros heal per condition, warriors have 5 sec less CD) but they all run the signet should tell you something. Of course, the choice is made a no-brainer due to Cleansing Ire and Dogged March but that (in conjunction with with stun locking) is simply part of the horrifically overpowered warrior synergy. Given that there are many other ways for the necro to manage conditions, ClCo seems like overkill. I’d much rather have the option to choose copious health regen/siphon. Not only does it promote build diversity in choosing slots/weapons to balance the loss of cleanse, it is especially needed considering we have no access to (and I totally agree with you here) focus fire mitigation.

Lastly, that you’d argue that Blood Fiend is better than the helaing signet… well, I dunno what to do with that.

I’d be satisfied if we got a healing sig like the thief’s Signet of Malice. If we could get siphon numbers comparable to what the warrior does for doing nothing, I’d be happy.

Bhawb.7408:

Nagato no Kami.4980:

I might feel differently about Reanimator if:
1) The minion lived longer than three seconds.
2) It had more than half a hit point
3) If it proc’d Death Nova upon death
Other than that, it’s fairly awful.

1) Minion lives 40 seconds if he just ticks away with no help in any direction (traited, dunno about untraited).
2) It has at least as much HP as Bone Minions, which is base 5200, now 8900something in PvE. Not bad for a free minion.
3) It does.

Reanimator has plenty of issues, the Jagged Horror himself isn’kitten

1) Still too short. Most of my minions die from natural causes rather than in glorious battle and reach Stovokor. I simply don’t see why something so weak needs a timer.
2) That’s three shots tops from a melee class, two with typical degradation.
3) I meant untraited. If you have to trait for it, only people running a MM build care about that. So, nobody cares. lol

Lastly, it’s not a “free minion.” Let’s put it this way: here’s every other professions’ minor in the toughness tree.

Elementalist: Gain 80 toughness in Earth
Warrior: 100 toughness when over 90% health
Ranger: +50% Endurance regen
Guardian: Gain Aegis when hit below 50% health
Thief: Blinding powder at 25% health
Engineer: 10 sec of regen at 25% health
Mesmer: 10 seconds of regen at 75% health

You see, there’s a very real opportunity cost associated with this poor trait.

Endurance? Regen? Toughness? A free block? I’ll take ANY of these over what we’ve got.

It’d be nice if #2 granted regen without having to stand in it and if #1 flew a bit faster but other than that, I think it’s fine (without the upcoming nerf, that is).

As I see it, the staff is a bit of an odd weapon as it seems to be designed to work at both long range and melee. It has nice and quick casting AOEs and #1 pierces (untraited) which improves the number of potential targets the closer it is used. I think it’s a great zerging weapon for the necro, suited for front or back lining.

Personally, I’d rather replace dagger 2 with something a bit less useless.

1. If it’s one condition, I certainly wouldn’t want this to replace Weakening Shroud. If it’s all conditions you’re suffering from… well… if this was combined with Plague Signet and Signet of Spite, it’d make the necros condition-proof because all conditions would be returned X2 + Signet of Spite (+Epidemic??!?!??!). Even if you eliminated Plague Signet, it’s still too overpowered on a 10-13 second CD.
2. I dunno… It seems like you’re rewarding necros for not properly managing condition cleanse on themselves. And, along with #1 above, it helps augment an already overpowered trait.
3. Isn’t this (or at least the bleeding part) covered by Barbed Precision? Or doesn’t it proc in DS? In any event, this is fine at the master tier as long as there’s an internal CD of 5 seconds. If there’s no ICD, it’s overpowered as you could put and keep 5 stacks for as long as DS lasted (not to mention the 3 additional stacks from Tainted Shackles). That’s too much, I think. What’s more, it’d have to be a Grandmaster trait and you’d have to lose either Foot in the Grave or Deathly Perception because neither can be moved to a lower tier.
4. I think this is way too overpowered, 1-2 stacks of torment for just for spamming 1? On scepter, this would proc three different conditions (four if you trait dhuumfire). That’s unfair. This would also combine with trait #3 enabling 10 stacks of torment bursting. Another insta-kill.

General notes: You have some creative suggestions for new traits which is good. A lot of the existing ones are broken so new ideas should always be welcomed. That being said, many these traits would completely overpower the profession — more specifically, it would overpower condimancers as there is little here specifically for anyone running a power build.
I like the idea of incorporating more torment. It seems like a condition made for the necro attrition style or play: I’m not saying you can’t run from a necro, I’m just saying it will hurt like hell of you decide to. That being said, new traits should be more balanced in terms of countering and fostering build diversity as well.
Lastly, I know you feel that you aren’t getting everything out of DS but the truth is 2 of the 5 traits deal conditions, you can trait for fear damage and (I think) all crits can proc Barbed Precision, Dhuumfire, etc. That’s a ton of condition damage available in DS. Add to that the damage mitigation offered by Weakening Shroud and DS should be used in an aggressive manner as a part of a normal rotation rather than a last resort.

Nice job!

Bhawb.7408:

Reanimator can be debateably useful for all builds. It summons a minion, however that minion will apply bleeds (condition necros), can potentially cover a better condition for a power necro, and just deals some damage. Those are all good things. Not great, its still a bad trait, but at least there is something there for everyone.

I might feel differently about Reanimator if:
1) The minion lived longer than three seconds.
2) It had more than half a hit point
3) If it proc’d Death Nova upon death
Other than that, it’s fairly awful.