Guild Wars 2

Would a 1 handed build look like 10/30/30/0/0? Or can that vary and still be successful?

Thank you for the responses so far, by the way!

Greetings, guardians.

I have decided to roll a Guard to 80 after maining a Necro since launch. Guardians are definitely a much different experience being…. Well, a more powerful overall class, as well as having some seriously viable options.

I’ve read the guides posted and searched for similar threads, but I still have a lot of questions. I mostly roam either alone or in small groups in wvw. I like playing a support role, so I don’t think an AH build is out of the question, but I think a meditation build is more up my alley. Does anyone have a meditation build they can show me? What weapons should I use? I am leaning sw/sh and staff. Is that an ok combo, or is staff a bad choice outside of AH builds?

What runes and armor are best? What consumables do you use?

Forgive the questions. I’m not new to the game, I’m just not used to having so many options. Generally most Necro builds are pretty set with what paths you take, so being able to choose from so many weapons and different playstyles – even within the same build – is a bit new to me.

Thanks in advance to any responses!

I’ve been noticing lately that Dagger #4 fails from time to time and sometimes doesn’t transfer conditions even when it connects in WvW.

I never really noticed until I played around with it in sPvP where it seems to work without a problem. But in WvW it doesn’t work pretty regularly for me.

Rennoko.5731:

I cannot understand how everyone is saying this change is necessary and understandable, considering this skill was not, and has never been on the hit-list as supremely overpowered. I would content the changes to it when they put in LOS inadvertently changed the targetting for immune/dodging targets. That wasn’t even in the patch notes.

I am not arguing that epidemic isn’t stong, isn’t worth taking, isn’t going to continue to be taken, but everything being said here screams theorycraft. The “what if” scenarios are eye-roll worthy. A team of coordinated fear epidemic necros would get face rolled by stability/condition removal/stun breakers. Just because you can come up with a seemingly overpowered theory, there is always a seemingly overpowered theory counter. People dodge rolling your corruption boons, fears, whatever.

Retaliation and glamour confusion got nerfed in WvW becauae it was out of hand. Every coordinated zerg was running them. Some were also using epidemic necros to improve the effect, but the smart ones realized an extra source of glamour and confusion was better than the “chance” at more confusion.

I am not against a skill that requires setup, or a skill that has a high risk vs. reward, but right now, as is, the skill is out of line for what it can do in WvW.

I am going to pass on continuing the argument here, as I don’t think the people responding I am going to be able to convince, and I am sure everyone else is tired of me posting. I personally miss having epidemic on my bar, but in WvW, at least for me, it isn’t worth taking with such a low hit rate (on average), compared to a power based build with wells and marks.

The strength of epidemic was in a condition build, and conditions were already second-bananna to power in WvW, except in certain circumstances. Since I can’t kill supervisors anymore, condition removal is just as prevailant as ever or worse because of lemon grass, I guess I will just go with zerker marks/wells and say goodbye to the way I used to enjoy playing. Could be a L2 kitten ue for me, but I consider myself to be a good enough player, and if its effectiveness is going to remain sub-par, I will just avoid it, though it makes me sad.

The nature of WvW as it currently stands with how the down-state works, and how conditions work in general is playing against epidemic. This nerf was unnecessary, at least in WvW.

I don’t want to jump into any argument, but why should epidemic and corrupt boon get special treatment for working even though dodge rolls, invulns, etc.? I don’t know of anything else in the game that can be used on a player who is actively trying to avoid an attack, so I don’t see why epidemic should be an exception.

Like you said, it’s still a very strong skill, and even was when it was blockable.

What did everyone expect?

They flat out told us the changes would be to the corruption skills, signet Passives and minion health and to some extent the AI.

They are already adding a 5th DS skill which will be a buff no matter what. They are looking at traits and hopefully looking more at the signets. I mean the SOTG was just posted a week ago… You didn’t all expect improved marks just since then, right? The only thing I see worth complaining about is a possible lack of a fix to downed HP.

The class as a whole got stronger, so be thankful nothing was taken away. There is always next month and the month after and things overall have gotten better for the Necro over time since launch.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

That’s actually a good one.

• Acid: Cannot be cleansed, deals damage and reduces armor value over time. Can be applied to structures. (Deals moderate to high damage like burn)

That way you can give Corrosive Poison Cloud a better use by implementing that condition into it.

Classes with it: Necromancer (Obviously), Engineer (Obviously), Mesmer, Thief, Ranger (On pets)

This just sounds like poison and vulnerability that can’t be cleansed. I’m not sure this is creating new gameplay like they are looking for, and it doesn’t do much for a power build in my opinion.

I get wanting to damage structures but I don’t think it’s so important as to base a whole condition on it.

Conditionmancers are absolutely effective in zergs. Time an epidemic right (especially if you have some confusion specced friends) and you can turn the tide of a close zerg fight by making a lot of enemy players run for cover. OR if you can find the enemy commander and blast them with a corrupt boon and watch them drop.

The only thing you need to watch is picking the right targets to start loading up with conditions. Don’t pick a Guardian, Ele, or another Necromancer. Mesmers and warriors are great targets, as are any pets or minions.

You can also give a lot of support too, if played well. Putrid and Reaper’s Mark can do a lot of good, and Plague form if amazing for reducing enemy damage.

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

Reapers mark, Doom, Corrupt boon, Well of Corruption give 4 from utility/skills. Reaper’s Protection + Fear of Death is 2 more from traits, and then Fear in downed state. So my bad, 7 fears on your own.

ridiculous argument is ridiculous

we have 2 reliable on demand fears

the rest are situational and unreliable and as such not worth taking over other traits depending on the build.

oh btw you forgot mark of revival in your ridiculous argument…

Situational and unreliable is an understatement. 2 of those fears happen when downed. 2 more are directly from converting stability into fear, and I really doubt you’ll ever do both to one person, especially since taking both of those utilities is redundant, and one is clearly more condition based and the other is more power based.

Reaper’s protection is on a 90 second cooldown and also doesn’t fear people at range.

You have 2 fears on demand, maybe a 3rd from utilities and maybe a 4th if someone CC’s you at melee range and you take that trait. The rest pretty much happen once you’ve already lost.

I believe this signet’s passive during the BWE was 1% per second, and then it was changed. But I agree, the passive is very weak. I wouldn’t trade a passive buff for an active ability nerf, but the passive is weak.

Perhaps this is an ability that will be buffed when they talked about signets during the SOTG interview.

Bhawb.7408:

Dots that affect movement are bad from a gameplay side of things. It is counterintuitive, counters many classes far too hard (most classes die outright if they don’t move), and doesn’t really involve interesting play/counterplay. Its just oh great, I have that stupid condition now I get to stand still until it wears off.

I think it would be pretty obvious that any condition such as this wouldn’t demolish someone for moving. What I meant by the idea I put forward would be something similar to, perhaps poison damage for simply running around normally, but if, for example, a Thief would Shadowstep away, it would deal a lot more damage.

Not to mention that conditions obviously have durations and it wouldn’t stay on someone for an entire fight. You would use something like this if you’re trying to get away or trying to keep someone from running. It wouldn’t be an I WIN button like you’re implying unless Anet completely messed it up.

In my opinion it really creates a more interesting gameplay dynamic.

I would love to see a condition that punishes movement in the same way that confusion punishes action.

I think this would work very well in keeping with the idea that Necros are designed to be 1.) an attrition class and 2.) slow, but terrible to engage with.

I think it could deal damage based off of how much a class moves in distance. For example, normal kiting would deal damage, but huge movements like gap closers or RTL would be devastating in the say fashion that spamming abilities with confusion on leads to a quick death.

I don’t know what to call it, maybe “Death’s chase” or something. But it could really allow Necros to keep people from running as well as give them a way to create distance, all in another way to deal damage.

EDIT: My idea is pretty similar to “Chains” above. Either way, it’s what I want to see the most of the posted ideas.

cuge.5398:

Trait lines are fine as they are for necro, and i can tell u why, usually if u run crit damage means you will be probably squishy, SR line increase life force pool which is our second hp bar, this way increasing your crit damage you also increase your survivability with LF.

If crit damage was with toughness, it would improve survivability more so than increasing the life force pool.

And then if you go 30 into SR, you could have 4 seconds of stability instead of 3 if you take foot in the grave.

The problem though is boon duration and increased life force pool isn’t very attractive, at least to me it isn’t.

^^ I was roaming with nearly the exact same set up, but I used corrupt boon instead of locust signet. So many boon heavy guardians and eles to pass on CB, in my opinion. But it works very well, the best condition build I’ve used.

I’ve also had success with hybrid builds, but I lose too much of my thief killing strategy without the staff.

I am trying a PVT set up of my own right now, I’ll post it if it seems to work well.

I don’t really play other classes so I never noticed this as a problem, but ever since it was posted I have been very aware of how quickly player’s die when being hit in downed state and it seems like I die much faster than others.

I think the problem with all the discussion in this thread is people are looking at 2 sides of the same coin.

I think some people are saying that eles are better and we should be as good, and the other saying that we aren’t bad. Eles are, in general, the strongest class in the game. Necros are bottom half, I think. But there isn’t a huge gap. So we see some people saying that we aren’t as good as eles, and others counter arguing that we aren’t bad. I think both thought processes are correct at the same time.

The ele played well as did the group, but this would be the worst video ever if that group just continued up the stairs and rolled over those guys after the commander died instead of standing around like sheep.

No matter how talented they are, there’s no way 7 guys should of held off that zerg unless the zerg stood around like they did in that video.

Plus there is a necro in that group…

I don’t use fast ground targeting either. I’d rather take the extra half second and make sure my attack lands exactly where I want it to go.

D/D else are tough to play against, especially if they just try to wear you down by running away and coming back into the fight, which they can do as often as RTL is up. But they are beatable if played right. I like to start with staff out, dodge RTL (and updraft because it is almost always cast immediately after) and spam some marks. They are almost always in melee range, so marks are usually easy to land if you cast on yourself. Spamming bleeds may seem futile but they are either blowing cantrip cool downs or switching to water to cleanse, so keep putting them on because the more they cleanse, the less damage they do (because water is low damage). Save corrupt boon for armor of earth which gives them stability. Transfer any burning to them ASAP to reduce the effectiveness of their dagger 5 attack. Transfer their big earth 5 attack back to them too if they are dumb enough to use it on a condi necro. And lastly remember to kite. They are still melee despite being eles.

They need to be handled aggressively IMO, but it works.

Or the ones moving around, not doing the same animation, or having a good star next to their name if they have world completion.

Ascii.9726:

What are you aiming for exactly on your Necromancer, we excel at multiple roles in WvW, for example;

• Havoc squad
• Solo roaming
• Power zerg farming
• Bunker zerg control

Fear builds really aren’t effective in WvW, its mainly a SPvP thing. You would be better off going for full condition damage over duration and bursting down targets with the usual bleed rotation.

In zergs the fear build is nothing special but in small scale fights it is great. If you string together a couple 2 second fears it changes a whole encounter.

What traits and utilities are you using? Are you using the food buffs? I run something very similar and I have a lot of success in small scale wvw. I usually run with corrupt boon/epidemic/flesh wurm and plague in a 0/30/20/0/20.

It seems pretty intentional to me that necro has no invulns, no blocks, no vigor, no reflects, no stealth. We were meant to tank damage with death shroud, IMO.

Fixes should be to life force degen and regen so we can hop in and out of it more often, and to the synergy of the skills so there is more reason to be in it. It certainly would feel more like attrition if we could quickly build up life force in more builds and hang onto it for a longer period of time.

Really disappointed that corrupt boon wasn’t addressed. Hopefully it got one of the hidden fixes, that skill is great but fails far too often.

I kill a very high percent of thieves I encounter while roaming in wvw. Some people feel that Necros can’t roam, but I roam solo regularly with a condition build and I do just fine. But if you read these forums, apparently it’s not even possible. I don’t know where all these super thieves are, but I’m not encountering them on t1.

Unlike how I feel with any other toon, debatably OP profession or not, I never feel as useful in evey situation as I do with my necro. From 1v1s to Zerg fights to sieges, you can do it all. Get a good build ( Nemesis’ fear build is a good place to start) and you should be fine.

Don’t listen to the naysayers, this class has a huge amount of strengths that aren’t often talked about and it isn’t as weak as people will make it out to be.

Especially if you like sieges and are under leveled, I would stick with conditions and liberal use of epidemic. Power builds can be wildly effective but with less damage and survivability from not being a fully geared 80, you’ll want to stay in the back and get your kills that way.

Try to group up with other condition builds to call out targets for big epidemic uses. You’ll get a lot of credit for kills that way.

I believe that if you have axe training it still affects your DS damage as long as you had the axe equipped when you entered DS. Then again this may have changed with making DS more of a transformation with no weapons, but last I was aware axe training affected DS damage.

I agree that there isn’t a huge amount of synergy, but it can be easily worked around with a good build. Despite any real of imagined lack of synergy this class is not broken.

What Necros lack in my opinion are more combo fields and finishers. Give us some play synergy there and I would be ecstatic.

Grab Well of Suffering and Well of Corruption with that set up, and use Lich form.

I don’t know if you’re thinking of PVE or PVP but this set up gets a lot of use out of Death Shroud, too. You have the ability to dish a lot of damage in a short amount of time if done correctly.

Ninein.4782:

Powermancer, I had a hard time stacking condition in WvW. No one lets you get within 1200 distance to stack conditions for 10+ seconds. With powermance, I run in drop marks/wells and run back out.

I have a hard time accepting the rationale that people don’t stay still long enough for conditions but wells are effective at taking people down, considering they are a dodge roll from being avoided.

I would say that both have their place and can be effective, but that the conditionmancer is more versatile. I could have this opinion because I think a powermancer has some movement issues in the open world, or that the conditionmancer fits my playstyle a little more.

I have also been looking into this and went back to the Chantry of Secrets, but I did not receive any rewards for going back. I also went to Lion’s Arch in case there were extra POIs out there, but no dice there, either.

I didn’t mean to create another thread on this, but it’s an issue for me too that I wanted to get out there. I never received any rewards, although I do believe I have the title.

I recently finished every map in GW2. It was long, sometimes confusing, and rewarding when I finally got things down to a final waypoint in a map I had no idea existed until I was completing it. But once I ran through it, I did not receive the World Completion rewards. I have no gold star next to my name, no explorer’s commendation (or whatever it is called). I completed it and nothing happened.

Below are screen shots of what happened as I hit that last waypoint, and then proof that I am at 100% world completion. Please help a necro out.

I’m not sure it needs discussion, but I have the Orchid coat on my sylvari toon and the dye change won’t work. I apply a new dye and exit the hero screen and the color changes in the panel, but the color doesn’t change in the world.

Why is there a gear set for all types of PvP amulets (knight, berserker, rampager, etc.) except for the rabid gear? I know celestial doesn’t fit either, but that’s more understandable as it’s so spread out as far as the stats go.

I’d love to spec my character to Rabid like gear, but I can only get somewhat close with karma gear. There are no boots or chest piece in the light karma sets that contain the rabid stats. I can’t get weapons or accessories with rapid stats (+precision, +toughness, +condition damage), so even if I do my best, I’m still well short of being properly geared. There is a light armor set that has these stats, but they can’t use runes and they are very expensive on the BLTC.

Can these stats please be added in a more common manner? There are a lot of stat combinations that could potentially exist, but this one is actually in the game in a few different ways as it is with the amulets and some karma gear, and a few special sets. Can we just finish the job? It seems like it would be simple enough to make sure that I can get a completely full set of gear through mostly normal means.