Guild Wars 2

Kill.6973:

Dakiaris.2798:

Kill I’m not going against you but on the forums 99% of the posts are pve or wvw people that’s why every build is that way… t/s pvp builds don’t really exist outside of aoe condition/well area denial builds because the only suggestions they get are for pve… Suggestions that players make for pvp get completely brushed under the rug and if it’s something that would work for both it REALLY gets shot down by the community…

Honestly I don’t see the class improving all I can do is keep playing and hope to god that a.net does something good sooner or later for the class… I don’t like being stuck into a condition only role for pvp when I was able to do direct damage back in the beta weekends… In pve and wvw I can get away with my axe build just because I can mix stats and make a much more powerful build then I can in s/t pvp.

tl/dr
Stats in pvp need to be mixable not just all on a neck and then runes.. It limits the build options immensely.

Ya, i agree with you. I don’t know why i even bothered arguing with a person who doesn’t focus on pvp.

p.s – he is still attacking me look at the posts above. Moving along now lol.

I do focus on pvp buddy.

Dakiaris.2798:

Kill I’m not going against you but on the forums 99% of the posts are pve or wvw people that’s why every build is that way… t/s pvp builds don’t really exist outside of aoe condition/well area denial builds because the only suggestions they get are for pve… Suggestions that players make for pvp get completely brushed under the rug and if it’s something that would work for both it REALLY gets shot down by the community…

Honestly I don’t see the class improving all I can do is keep playing and hope to god that a.net does something good sooner or later for the class… I don’t like being stuck into a condition only role for pvp when I was able to do direct damage back in the beta weekends… In pve and wvw I can get away with my axe build just because I can mix stats and make a much more powerful build then I can in s/t pvp.

tl/dr
Stats in pvp need to be mixable not just all on a neck and then runes.. It limits the build options immensely.

This is a pretty accurate view of the content he’ll find on these forums.
The one thing people can learn from the builds hidden away here though are the different strengths each build works with. Only posting to tell people everything they say is invalid because they don’t have hours of narcissistic footage is extremely irksome.

Kill.6973:

Sheobix.8796:

Kill.6973:

Sheobix.8796:

Kill.6973:

Copenhagen.7015:

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

Post video or all what you are saying is simply pathetic. Perhaps you are doing something wrong with other classes when you say necro is in the top tank class.

Conditions: I can put more and quicker conditions with a ranger/warrior than a necro.
Tanky: any other class can beat this crap. Engi/warrior/guardian/D.D ele/ranger.
Vampiric: LOL, not going to even comment on that.

The class is simply bad, it needs a revamp. I tried all the other classes and it is far much better in terms of balance than the necro (i do enjoy the necro/mesmer the most though).

Oh and p.s – Engi also have the right to complain, they are on the same boat as us. But at least they got a good bunker build.

Search the following terms in the forums: zintair critmancer, how to hit like a truck, juggermancer, mr.freeze.

I think you probably have recently just hit a roadblock and decided to complain on the forums. Please read the listed threads.

And i think you just go back to PvE. I’m talking about pvp here.

Have you even tested out your “juggermancer” build in tPVP? Please do and then come back.
Hitting like a truck? Try hitting people with those wells verses people who actually know how to dodge the dagger immobilize.
Mr.freeze? never heard of it but im guessing it has to do with chill. I tried a chill build, it is team focused though.

I am not just talking about pve, and i do in fact test my builds in pvp.

If you’re going to complain on a public forum, act prideful, and refuse to take advice, you only succeed to make yourself look ignorant.

If you paid attention to actual posts in threads instead of just glancing at the OPs, you might learn a few things.

If you don’t even practice enough to know how to fear, snare, or immobilize someone in a well bombing move, you shouldn’t be making claims as if you have the experiencd to dismiss the validity of such builds.

You’ve never heard of the mr.freeze build so obviously you havent even tried to search before you posted, never run an attrition based control build, and you try to minimize its viability saying “its meant for team play” when you are asking for pvp advice.

If nothing pleases you and you do not wish to learn on a forum, you can go play another class.

Take advice from you? I know people who do tpvp on a daily basis, i take advice from them on how to improve, not from a pve hero.
I saw what other classes are capable, and whenever you said “search up those builds” i know they are fail verses people who actually know what they are doing.

In pvp it all comes down to being a conditionmancer. But show me a tPVP to prove me otherwise. Other than that please don’t lecture me about pvp anymore.

On the bright side ill take your advice during pve, cheer up.

If you only think im a pve hero, that’s your judgement. If you take advice from such great daily pvpers, obviously you should be omgwtfpwner good by now. Just saying, if you dont think you can get anything useful from studying a few builds (two of which you ignored, roflmfao) then you’re truly missing out.

LanceKing.3017:

Sheobix.8796:

Kill.6973:

Copenhagen.7015:

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

Post video or all what you are saying is simply pathetic. Perhaps you are doing something wrong with other classes when you say necro is in the top tank class.

Conditions: I can put more and quicker conditions with a ranger/warrior than a necro.
Tanky: any other class can beat this crap. Engi/warrior/guardian/D.D ele/ranger.
Vampiric: LOL, not going to even comment on that.

The class is simply bad, it needs a revamp. I tried all the other classes and it is far much better in terms of balance than the necro (i do enjoy the necro/mesmer the most though).

Oh and p.s – Engi also have the right to complain, they are on the same boat as us. But at least they got a good bunker build.

Search the following terms in the forums: zintair critmancer, how to hit like a truck, juggermancer, mr.freeze.

I think you probably have recently just hit a roadblock and decided to complain on the forums. Please read the listed threads.

I have all the gears for all those build, personally i like your juggermancer build the most because of high survivability ( im doing fractal with that build) . I wanted to try the glass cannon build to see how ridiculously weak it is compared to other classes. Sure we can work around to make the build better but you gotta agree that necromancer axe needs some serious improvements.

Axe needs a lot of help. I avoid it like the plague.

Kill.6973:

Copenhagen.7015:

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

Post video or all what you are saying is simply pathetic. Perhaps you are doing something wrong with other classes when you say necro is in the top tank class.

Conditions: I can put more and quicker conditions with a ranger/warrior than a necro.
Tanky: any other class can beat this crap. Engi/warrior/guardian/D.D ele/ranger.
Vampiric: LOL, not going to even comment on that.

The class is simply bad, it needs a revamp. I tried all the other classes and it is far much better in terms of balance than the necro (i do enjoy the necro/mesmer the most though).

Oh and p.s – Engi also have the right to complain, they are on the same boat as us. But at least they got a good bunker build.

When people post ultimatums against others because they want a video on how to be the best, it pisses me off.

Its extremely evident to me that you have not played this class for very long and you only seek to flame every attempt to provide valid claims about this class.

We have the highest hp base in game, shared by warriors.
We have the highest potential static toughness for a caster class.
We have 3x the benefit from vitality and toughness than all the other classes.
We have elites than can give us 52% crit chance, or +1200 toughness, and nearly 49k hp at best.

If you haven’t tried to use any of those things, i only pity you for the hours you have wasted trying to build a glass cannon expecting it to work like any other easybutton build.

Kill.6973:

Sheobix.8796:

Kill.6973:

Copenhagen.7015:

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

Post video or all what you are saying is simply pathetic. Perhaps you are doing something wrong with other classes when you say necro is in the top tank class.

Conditions: I can put more and quicker conditions with a ranger/warrior than a necro.
Tanky: any other class can beat this crap. Engi/warrior/guardian/D.D ele/ranger.
Vampiric: LOL, not going to even comment on that.

The class is simply bad, it needs a revamp. I tried all the other classes and it is far much better in terms of balance than the necro (i do enjoy the necro/mesmer the most though).

Oh and p.s – Engi also have the right to complain, they are on the same boat as us. But at least they got a good bunker build.

Search the following terms in the forums: zintair critmancer, how to hit like a truck, juggermancer, mr.freeze.

I think you probably have recently just hit a roadblock and decided to complain on the forums. Please read the listed threads.

And i think you just go back to PvE. I’m talking about pvp here.

Have you even tested out your “juggermancer” build in tPVP? Please do and then come back.
Hitting like a truck? Try hitting people with those wells verses people who actually know how to dodge the dagger immobilize.
Mr.freeze? never heard of it but im guessing it has to do with chill. I tried a chill build, it is team focused though.

I am not just talking about pve, and i do in fact test my builds in pvp.

If you’re going to complain on a public forum, act prideful, and refuse to take advice, you only succeed to make yourself look ignorant.

If you paid attention to actual posts in threads instead of just glancing at the OPs, you might learn a few things.

If you don’t even practice enough to know how to fear, snare, or immobilize someone in a well bombing move, you shouldn’t be making claims as if you have the experiencd to dismiss the validity of such builds.

You’ve never heard of the mr.freeze build so obviously you havent even tried to search before you posted, never run an attrition based control build, and you try to minimize its viability saying “its meant for team play” when you are asking for pvp advice.

If nothing pleases you and you do not wish to learn on a forum, you can go play another class.

Quillixx.7034:

Dakiaris.2798:

As for the max range thing that would be fixed if they simply made it so our projectile tracked targets again…. If not that they need to raise the projectile speed by 50-60%.

The thing that resonated the most with me was the projectile speed increase to the other professions’ projectiles in the Dec patch, but not ours. That really felt like they looked at it, and decided it didn’t warrant a speed increase.

To take the time to match up the water abilities across the professions and then blatantly leave the necro out of the projectile speed increase was quite specific and deliberate. What was even more disconcerting was the fact that the projectiles that did receive a speed increase, were already faster than the staff 1 projectile.

There is a reason why it is slow btw. Use it to kite while you run in an arc. The straight trajectory hits a lot of foes and can fill your LF bar in a couple hits. If they made it a super fast projectile, you would have a lot of necromancers in pve upset.

I can tell you right now that if you keep your eyes on the target and not your bar and strafe to keep your back away from thieves, you will deny them backstabs and waste their stealths. When they drop out of stealth from a failed bs they are 3s in sight and in close range. You can lengthen their time in non-stealth by double fearing, immobilizing, or chilling while you see them.

Tbh gcan thieves are total easycake and i dont lose to them in 1v1 or 1v2. Condition thieves are more fun to fight because they actually use stealth to gain range and surprise. Those tend to be closer fights, but i still win because the necromancers condition management is fantastic.

You could also farm jump puzzles for your daily 25.

Kill.6973:

Copenhagen.7015:

Perhaps your expectations are too high.

Conditions: not underwhelming. Perhaps you’re doing it wrong.
Tanky/damage: no problem here either, 2nd or 3rd tankiest class in the game.
Vampiric: Could be better but definitely not underwhelming.

Post video or all what you are saying is simply pathetic. Perhaps you are doing something wrong with other classes when you say necro is in the top tank class.

Conditions: I can put more and quicker conditions with a ranger/warrior than a necro.
Tanky: any other class can beat this crap. Engi/warrior/guardian/D.D ele/ranger.
Vampiric: LOL, not going to even comment on that.

The class is simply bad, it needs a revamp. I tried all the other classes and it is far much better in terms of balance than the necro (i do enjoy the necro/mesmer the most though).

Oh and p.s – Engi also have the right to complain, they are on the same boat as us. But at least they got a good bunker build.

Search the following terms in the forums: zintair critmancer, how to hit like a truck, juggermancer, mr.freeze.

I think you probably have recently just hit a roadblock and decided to complain on the forums. Please read the listed threads.

I do not invest in precision unless im working in procs or life stealing only because lich already bumps our critchance to 52%.

This has got to be a super low vit build.

The most effective way to tag for badges with this class is to wellbomb with full berserker gear on. Go to an enemy bl, flip a camp and wait for a small group to gank for badges.

Donedusted.9846:

Sheobix.8796:

pooping BiP+Sig also grants you a few extra seconds of duration, which is a plus because BiP might doesn’t last long at all.

If I ever find myself pooping a signet, I’ll be paying a trip to the proctologist. Ha!

On a serious note, I wanted to thank you Sheobix for all your time and effort spent here.

I used to run conditionmancer, then changed to Feral Shadowmancer for a change and now have started using a variation of the Juggermancer with a little more crit and a little less HP.

I am now absolutely owning face in wvw. Seriously, I feel so powerful now. Where I was a bit more tentative in battle and used to hang back, I now run fearlessly ahead of the pack and start carving people up with my dagger. People absolutely don’t expect it, either, so you have the element of surprise on your side, too. Death Shroud now packs a real punch and is far more useful, too. I use it proactively to close distance and do damage as well as just absorb damage. Since using this build, I have had numerous whispers from fellow necros asking me “what spec are you and how did you kill everyone and still survive 0.0”

I wouldn’t have considered this possible without Sheobix’s posts. Thank you again!

Anyone else who thinks they can “only play conditions” like I used to think: try it! You will be so pleasantly surprised! Suddenly being in melee range takes a little getting used to in terms of playstyle, but it’s so much fun. I feel like an assassin who has made a pact with death itself; a dark thief who has traded stealth for endurance and spike and burst for consistent, unrelenting raw damage. It’s amazing!

Thanks a lot for trying it out. A lot of wrinkles were ironed out thanks to the findings of glock, ascii, warmonger, and many other players on the forums. This thread was the product of a players who learned about the strengths from others and only serves as a stable build point for powermancers alike.

I highly encourage people to play with the trait points here.

Edit: typos are my joy in life.

As for those who really like to push the juggermancer to the tanking limit, 60-70% is going to be the dueling norm for larger encounters. But thank you for pointing this out. it’s an important part of players deciding how they want to play and how to receive the stronger benefit.

As for CTV, I have a hard time believing it will ever be implemented in the game because curses25 minor trait, large EHP efficient necromancers with stacked condition damage will run around with scepter/focus + staff and absolutely dominate. When i originally made this build, I actually desired the nonexistent CTV combo because the curses trait line is far superior to the spite line.

This is a fantastic example of a good DPS hybrid. Of course you should already know im a toughness based freak so the first thing i look at is survivability, but this is a fine example of squeezing every last drop of power and condition damage out of the necromancer. good post +1

its only a tooltip error. it gives the buff.

Dietzen.6127:

I’m slightly confused, and I might be a bit slow, but this seems rather like a somewhat conventional condition build? With terror in the mix. With only 10 pts in the power line, does this build do much physical dmg? Does the P/T/V gear make up for the loss in power from the 30 pts in spite that power builds have?

In comparison to your juggermancer build, how do you see this fairing? Better or worse, in a wv3 scenario? (Ps. sorry if this has been asked previously, it might have skipped my attention)

The power is absolutely retained between the juggermancer and this build. I already did the power breakdown and when BiP is running, you keep the power level almost the same as the jug. The exact trade offs listed in this build compared to the jugg are:

- Vitality
- (300-500) toughness
+ condition usage (lots of bleeds)
+ BiP and Epidemic usefulness
+ ranged fighting
+ larger variety in your toolset
+ plague form utility

jim.2150:

mucking around in the mists with a similar build to this and i’m only getting the 2nd tick on terror when the target has another condition.

stripped down the build a bit and i can get a 2nd tick using this setup with a condition present:

2x rune of lyssa
0/10/0/0/20

so i dropped the rune of lyssa entirely and put 10 into spite for spiteful talisman and i am hitting the 2nd tick with a condition present.

doesn’t seem to be working as intended, but opens up the build possibilities for now.

playing with 10/20/20/0/20, for the 2nd tick on reaper’s protection as well.

as a reply to your post and the guy above you, Im sorry i could not find the time to update and sync-up the OP to match information on the trait spread. I’ll try to do so asap but currently i am sick and suffering from a long drive from San francisco from the holiday.

@Cake

you make very good points in your post, and they’re very concise and organized. I think the thing you may have overlooked (the bigger picture of this build) is that the traits and utilities are extremely flexible. This is one of the strengths of the trait setup. I obtain trait slots that carry multiple popular and useful/strong traits that are used in many different builds, not this one. I’ll supplement your bullet points to shine a light on some of them.

1) DS is a powerful tool. Both Spiteful Talisman and Reapers might are good traits to use in this build. The only problem is, if you commit to dealing DPS in DS because of the incentive of 1might/per DS1 shot, you will allow yourself to play in a very predictable manner. Because of the high toughness and vitality in this build, Death shroud (even when under attack 1v1) can last in upwards of 20-25 seconds. at 50%, DS1 loses its potency and the player should drop out of DS. in theory, you could gain 10 stacks of might (more like 8, as you gain more stacks their duration are shorter) but in reality, those 8-10 stacks are only going to last you about 5-6 seconds at best. this gives you 2.5 dagger chains if you happen to connect with your target, and that is a lot of ifs. It’s a good trait nonetheless, and can allow you to increase your DPS curve, but the more reliable source of utility and skilled play will come from a cooldown mod’d focus.

The focus has 33% shorter cooldowns than the warhorn and when traited, is an extremely reliable tool for snaring, catching up, regenerating, and creating vulnerability. These effects are chain-AoE and therefore provide a strong toolset for duo/trio WvW play. I only included Spiteful Talisman in the build link because it is the forerunner for that slot; But keep in mind, there are other strong situational traits available to hot swap.

2) Spinal shivers pre-cast trait is a wasted slot. your focus SS is already 16 seconds when traited, which means if you truly need SS casted on your target, it should be up on your bar.

As for BiP vs. Sig trait, it’s not an but/or decision. It’s an and/or. As I stated in an earlier post, I not use the new locust sig to run point to point, and swap out the sig and trait when i reach large engagements. If i get ganked on my way to my destination, that’s a good bubble heal and 3 insta-might that i can use to properly re-cooperate from a burst opening. BiP isn’t excluded from use in this build, it’s a fantastic tool. pooping BiPSig also grants you a few extra seconds of duration, which is a plus because BiP might doesn’t last long at all. (if you want a build that showcases the good use of BiP to bridge the might and bleeding, please refer to my Feral Shadowmancer, read up on condition duration vs. condition damage)

imho, at the end of the day, chill of death would be a wasted slot. Something that is readily available and already in your regular toolset should not be traited for a specific moment. It’s too situational to be beneficial in the long run.

3) DPS calculation between the usefulness of vulnerability and the damage over time rundown for 20s on putrid mark vs. 25 seconds on putrid mark (which hits for 1600 regularly when geared) is 3200 damage (2 casts) vs. 4800 damage (3 casts) over the course of 60 seconds. That’s a 1600 damage rift w/o the staff mastery trait. If a player decides to go into DS, sit for 9 seconds (3 stacks of vuln) and cast putrid mark, they get only a measly +48 damage (making it 3248 damage over the course of 60 seconds) from putrid mark. This translates across all the marks cooldown time. My strong opinion about vulnerability in this game is that currently it is too weak. either the stacks need to be increased per proc/cast on our skills, or the percentage gain from each stack needs to be increased. Vulnerability is just not a valid strategy at this current time for necromancers. (and yes, i’ve run a test gimmick build that was axe/focus 30 spite to max vuln stacks to see how it fares vs. might stacking)

4) I agree with the majority of what you say about the difference between the two minor traits. but it ties back to how flexible the trait points are and what you can pick to utilize the maximum EHP. I only picked 25 spite because i am frequently heading 5-man teams or zergs and i rarely am in that golden 90% HP range. Because our HP acts as a buffer and not as a regenerative pool (like other classes) i usually end up in large fights with 60-70% hp (bouncing between healing+cleansing and going into DS to soak) Both are valid minor traits. To me, it’s an even split with the deciding factor being playstyle. If you’re a more conservative player who is more of a stealthy/mindful gank-necro that attacks with the element of surprise, the extra 5 in death will in fact increase your EHP and give your more damage while you duel with your HP above 90%.

Sefiror.1034:

What do you think about splitting the gear 3 Knight / 3 Soldiers?

Still with full Crests of the Soldier

if you slide into a half split between soldiers or knights, you’re losing out on the better halves of each combo set.

The build does not rely on precision whatsoever (unless you go full knights and pump into curses) and therefore if you go 3knights/3soldiers you’re going to lose vitality, gain ~100ish toughness, and lose power. imo that is not a good trade off at all, and should retain the 6 flush of soldier.

This makes no sense.

No problem! I try to put these on the forums to provide solid builds that allow players to tweak trait choices without losing perfomace. Thanks for the support

spite siggy> bip > epi is a gimmick condition move and it only useful if you’re mega-amping the damage output given from curses25 minor.

at lv80, the passive power from spite sig is actually pretty good if you don’t need a 3rd util, like if you’re facing a tank and spank boss.

brickforlife.1364:

rogerwilko.6895:

Hi,
please explain the reason behind choosing Spite -> Master -> Signet Power.
This gives might for 10s every 60s, if you use signet of the locust.
Is that worth it?

No. I think it may have been a mistake. You should never use signet of the locust. Ever. The passive beats the active everywhere. I suggest you pick Spiteful Marks or Chill of Death. I personally picked Spiteful marks because having 10% extra damage on such a useful weapon never hurts.

If you are running in WvW or a dungeon with locust sig and you get hit into combat for any reason (getting ganked, don’t have time to swap util for S.walk) you can use the 3 stacks of might from popping the small heal from locust sig with the 10 stacks from BiP to get a total of 13 stacks and a slightly longer duration. This gives you more damage over time than a 10% increase for marks, situationally. (marks have long cooldowns, even when traited)

Burjis.3087:

Sheobix.8796:

Burjis.3087:

Sheobix.8796:

Total Stat Spread:
+2355 power
+2153 Toughness "
+2153 Vitality "

I don’t understand. How did you manage 2153 vitality? I try to add up the stats on the gear you posted but I can never get that high. Is that without boosts?

it’s not +2153 +916 base. Its 2153 total, and that’s with ALL the ascended pieces.

It still doesn’t add up. Tell me where I’m wrong please:
The following are for the minor stats (vitality or toughness):

Chest 72
Legs 48
Head 32
Shoulders 24
Gloves 24
Boots 24
Necklace 64
Ascended Rings 68×2
Accessory 40×2
Ascended Back 35
2x 1h weapons 64×2

The raw armor and weapons are: 667
Since your back and rings are ascended, you can’t upgrade them further, so you only have 11 more slots for Crest of Soldier:
11×14 = 154

Also, 200 points from your traits in Blood Magic, that’s a total of 1021, added with the 916 base, it will be 1937. I still can’t get that high.

Am I missing something?

you’re missing a +100 vitality from a food buff.

If you have at least 25 points in curses with a power build, then yes. You can amplify your damage output by popping spite signet and using epidemic.

ThCakeIsALie.5306:

Sheobix.8796:

go 20/30/0/10/0 with full rampager gear, go D/D and work with power/condition/siphoning. You’ll feel a little more together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_wrqBWFZDw

very PvE oriented. With the stealth buff to parasitic bond, you’ll get even better healing and AoE than what is shown in the vid.

^ This build actually seemed rather weak compared to the wellomancer build I posted. It’s taking you WAAAAY too long to kill all those minions and you’re taking WAAAAY too much damage and kiting WAAAAY too much.

Go wellomancer, has better burst damage when everything gets off c/d. Those mobs he’s fighting I have down in half the time and I never have to run around too much.

Oh, and in party dungeon runs I always see every other Necro have a hard time keeping up their life compared to wellomancers.

<— Sorry, huge wellomancer fan here. It just never let me down.

veteran giant in orr? you do know the minions aren’t even important, right? they disappear when you kill the vet. The build was showcased to display the siphoning, regen, AoE abilities, and sustainability. You can drop a crapload of spectral juggs with that build without even moving if you go bip/epi/wos and sit in plagueform2.

XiL.4318:

Sheobix.8796:

XiL.4318:

All you need in WvW is toughness and Vitality combined with ranged AoE traits. Everything else is personal flavor or the avoidance of broken Traits. And in a very real sense none of those Traits matter as much as the stats on your gear. You can swap jewelry and turn and conditions build into a power build, tank build, etc..

And they are all played exactly the same.

So what this means kiddos is you slot as much Vitality and Toughness as you can, then you just flip a coin for whether you want physical AoE damage (power) or Condition AoE damage. And it really doesn’t matter which you pick. You are still dependant on DS and having more than 30k health.

you’re pretty close to the gist of how to build a necro

but just flipping a coin on the third stat doesn’t really work. there is no CTV gear, and when you start to flush in Conditiondmg, you lose out of toughness and vitality. As soon as you do so, you also have to rethink your traits to make the use of Cdmg more efficient. All of a sudden, you’re losing a couple hundred stat points in a needed area from trait flushing.

Extremist silliness.

You don’t need CTV gear specfically. You can PTV and run C/?/? Jewelry. There is no need to max condition damage either because you will be using power based damage as well.

Like I said. You stack as much Vit and Tough as you can, the third stat matters very little as far as overall usefulness. You are still essentially doing exactly the same thing only trading some wells damage for condition damage or vice versa.

And this “pretty close to the gist” necro is a 1 player zerg. There is no number for the scores of butts I have touched in WvW. I have so many kills the number rolled back over to 1 and errored out. It just says 1e.

I didn’t mean to downplay your substantial experience with building the class, XiL.

I just mean that its not as simple as just picking and choosing your secondary mix with ?/T/V in your base. If people start using PTV gear and just throwing anything in their trinkets thinking they can go willy nilly on the trait selection, it’s going to cause a lot of people problems.

I agree, building a necro is basically ?/T/V and then any Cond/Power in the secondary accessories to flush into cdmg or power, but when someone starts picking up some other set like rampagers, carrions, apothecary, etc. to put in their accessories thinking they’re guaranteed a winning build, they’re going to be sorely disappointed. I think carefully choosing which traits to compliment both skill usages and stat allocations to cover the holes respectively is the way to go. Not really an extremist POV.

maintaining stat balance in a build is important.

Yumad.7341:

I like option 1 best, though the values are too high I think. Option 2 has the issue of being obscenely overpowered, perma weakness is a huge debuff on a target that you can maintain at 600 range indefinitely. Option 3 is boring but workable, which is why I like option 1 better.

Currently no weapon really generates an acceptable amount of life force, dagger and staff are about close on generation, dagger seems to do a complete combo every approximately 2 seconds, and staff seems to cast every 1.25 seconds, generating 3% and 2.4% life force per second respectively. Having a build focused around power (axe) and generating a lot of life force to utilize death shroud more than the other weapons would be perfect.

with gluttony, dagger1 has a perfect amount of LF gen.

staff1 in a large crowd can skyrocket your LF in moments.

Axe2 with gluttony is about a 60% LF fill on a single target from range.

Scepter sucks with lf gen. period.

if you take the marks dmg trait in master spite slot, and the close to death trait, have an axe/focus on offset..

you can get a lot of vuln+ % dmg modifiers on marks. If you set up the vuln, might stacking, and use Mark4, you can get crits of upwards of 5k+ on putrid and around 3k for each of the lesser marks.

I have seen it, and i’ve tested it. Its a good well bombing rig.

Axe is more of a set-up weapon, it’s handy at a medium range, and when you combine its skills with other utilities and trait stacking, you can get some pretty good performance. imho I don’t use it because I find that relying on set-up and combinations is a very risky way to play competitively, because if they cleanse or if you get CC’d in your setup (guaranteed to happen) you will not get those results.

Burjis.3087:

Sheobix.8796:

Total Stat Spread:
+2355 power
+2153 Toughness "
+2153 Vitality "

I don’t understand. How did you manage 2153 vitality? I try to add up the stats on the gear you posted but I can never get that high. Is that without boosts?

it’s not +2153 +916 base. Its 2153 total, and that’s with ALL the ascended pieces.

CrazyAce.3842:

Burjis.3087:

Sheobix.8796:

Total Stat Spread:
+2355 power
+2153 Toughness "
+2153 Vitality "

I don’t understand. How did you manage 2153 vitality? I try to add up the stats on the gear you posted but I can never get that high. Is that without boosts?

Are you remembering to include the Crests of the Soldier?

Crest of the Soldier:
+20 Power x 13* = +260 pwr
+14 Toughness x 13* = +182 tough
+14 Vitality x 13* = +182 vit

*Assumes you’re currently wielding dual weapons that also have Crests of the Soldier in addition to all your modification slots, like me.

yes, this includes the total from crests.

edit: it’s actually 280/196/196 since its x14. two weapons.

XiL.4318:

For that build you want more points in healing so you get siphon on hit. Then you want to be using Blood is Power and Wells. No Epidemic.

imo siphon on hit is weak. it returns only double digit hp points per hit from what i remember. like… 32 when buffed with 50% efficiency trait? so thats only 256 or so for a channeled x8 skill.

alanis.6094:

Silverone.3452:

alanis.6094:

Halo.8976:

Reaper’s Protection is bad for survivability in my opinion. 1 sec of fear won’t save you from zerg, especially only once in 90 seconds.

RP is 2s with 0 condition duration. With my build, my RP is 4+ seconds and does 800-900 damage per second.

It certainly is better for smaller engagements, but is quite useful overall in WvW, as there will be times where you get charged at the front lines, or stunned/knocked down while trying to get back into a keep/tower.

Alanis would you share your build for comparison?

Thanks

Its not anything terribly complicated — Terror, Reapers Protection, Master of Terror, Staff traits, Corruption cooldown.

this.

full carrion has no source of toughness, your vitality density is really low, the added HP numbers have no sustenance behind it and LF generation is a little slow. DS dropout will be fast when you’re targeted.

go 20/30/0/10/0 with full rampager gear, go D/D and work with power/condition/siphoning. You’ll feel a little more together.

very PvE oriented. With the stealth buff to parasitic bond, you’ll get even better healing and AoE than what is shown in the vid.

Karl McLain.5604:

We’re always reading the forums, even if we don’t have the time to respond.
Chap (Jonathan Sharp) and I play every profession in PvP. We have multiple of each profession type and play each of them regularly. My necromancers do have several hundred games since launch.

Why do I like you so much better than Jonathan Sharp >.>

I appreciate the informative response. Glad to know the internal cd is 5s. : )

thanks for the praise, papaganoosh. A lot of other player’s work like ascii, glock, warmourner, Oozo, etc. went into the thought process and testing for this build. I’m sure there are many others out on the forums that I’ve read from and have taken into consideration, so if you’ve been on these forums before, posted something useful, and its stuck on the first 3 pages longer than a couple days… chances are i’ve seen it, read it, taken it under consideration, and it’s probably helped me make this build to some extent.

Of course, not every build is perfect. Anyways, glhf!

updated the post to include ascended items, changed the trait setup to upcurve the critdmg mods, and gave more flesh to DS from lack of vitality doing it passively. grabbed master of terror to properly flesh out the terror performance.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/necromancer#3|15|1200|1194|2064|4322|1205|0|0|0|0|10|2234|0|0|25|1569|1566|0|10|1580|0|0|20|1242|2240|0|0|0|2|28026|28029|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

use full emerald gear or PTV gear. Your original build had no source of precision so a couple of your traits were useless and another two traits were gimmicky.

RP isn’t worth the trait slot. improve your survivability in WvW, you won’t need the RP.

PTV or T/P/Pr

axe/focus or dag/focus + staff. Deadly strength and target the weak are some of the best passive traits for the necro.

use the following runes:
2 mad king, 2 lyssa, 2 ice

you’ll get 2-3k dmg from fearing people, and the soul reaping traits are wonderfully hot-swappable.

Terok.7315:

This is a really good duelist build and I’m starting to prefer the focus to dagger OH. Although I think that spinal shivers in CQC has a really lame cast time. In fact, I can’t imagine why it is so long.

rely on the 25% spinal shivers pre-cast trait. when you enter a fight, start with the spinal shivers, and if they run, tag them with spinal shivers. only use it if they get a gap btween you and them and you need an additional time buyer. Chill is good for slowing them down, and if you swap the adept trait in curses for chilling blindness, you can rock a pseudo-Mr. Freeze build and stack chill on them to totally lock them out with chillblains and WoD.

XiL.4318:

All you need in WvW is toughness and Vitality combined with ranged AoE traits. Everything else is personal flavor or the avoidance of broken Traits. And in a very real sense none of those Traits matter as much as the stats on your gear. You can swap jewelry and turn and conditions build into a power build, tank build, etc..

And they are all played exactly the same.

So what this means kiddos is you slot as much Vitality and Toughness as you can, then you just flip a coin for whether you want physical AoE damage (power) or Condition AoE damage. And it really doesn’t matter which you pick. You are still dependant on DS and having more than 30k health.

you’re pretty close to the gist of how to build a necro

but just flipping a coin on the third stat doesn’t really work. there is no CTV gear, and when you start to flush in Conditiondmg, you lose out of toughness and vitality. As soon as you do so, you also have to rethink your traits to make the use of Cdmg more efficient. All of a sudden, you’re losing a couple hundred stat points in a needed area from trait flushing.

brickforlife.1364:

Thanks for the update Sheobix. I still think warhorn is useful for those chase and getaway situations using Locust swarm because of cripple. The .75 second windup time for daze makes it hard to time for stopping people using attacks but works great when it does. the main problem I have with it is the long cooldown.

Focus appeals to me much more because of bouncing vulnerability and regeneration. The chill powerful as well because it gives -66% cooldown speed and -66% speed. However using a focus means we lack a getaway utility so that’s the only flaw I think it has.

actually, focus provides a good getaway util because of the ranged chill. it will slow your target down if you try to run. It’s not considered a stun so they can’t stunbreak like daze, and it sticks more often because more classes can get around cripple easily.

Fazzi.4876:

i went to buy all my karma PVT gear, am i missing something or is there no legs with pvt stats for karma?

there are no karma legs for PTV. I have no idea why, but that’s just how it is. go run AC/hotw once and you’ll get some nice legs that match karma gear

For people rusing about these posts in the thread, This build isn’t for everyone, but it is really good in the hands of someone who moves intelligently. This build is more rotational in playstyle than the juggermancer, but if you’re looking for a dungeon-star and WvW zerg leader, go with the jugg.

Each build plays differently, survives differently, and kills differently. If you have the resources to test this one and stick with it, i’m glad. I just know some players wanted a more powerful build than the jugg so I went ahead and made sure to tweak it without making it a squishy 19k hp 2300 armor Carrion/rabid conditionmancer that doesn’t take that long to come up with.

The key to making this an even bleeding build to any 0/30/x/x/x conditionamncer is through condition durations. By pumping condition duration instead of condition damage, the bleed numbers are not so much improved through the roof in value (as in, you won’t see ungodly ticks for 140-150 like a full conditionmancer) but the duration of your bleeds are greatly lengthened. This means that you don’t have to spend all of your time applying bleeds to ensure they’re on your foe. The bleeds will last longer, allowing you to fight with power on top of the bleeding that your opponent has to manage. having a long-duration 8-9k Bleed on your opponent ensures they HAVE to get rid of it within 15 seconds or they will drop quickly under your strikes. This gives you additional opportunities to retaliate when they move to cleanse, or even if they super-cleanse through multiple shouts, etc. Your BiP and EB uptime will be so frequent that as soon as they get rid of it, you can just hit BiP+F1 to put the same stack of bleeds on them again.

Universal Sage.8715:

Ty Sheobix for your helpful builds and posts.

I have started enjoying my necro a lot more in wvw since using the juggermancer, with my only hindrance being the inability to gear fully pvt since i dont do dungeons.

I will give this build a try. Thanks again for your contributions and input.

Edit: By the way, is the reason why the rune of svanir’s 6th effect (ice block) not something that is utilized in any of the wvw builds because it immobilizes and prevents you from doing anything (albeit while not taking dmg for 5 secs).

I guess I was wondering if you’ve ever tried it out and what your thoughts about it were.

yes. the problem with the ice block transform is that is gives your opponent to gain a few seconds on cooldowns and to prepare himself for a combo counter attack as soon as you pop out. in duels you always want to break their LoS and keep it tight, maintaining the upper hand.

The reason why i emphasize playing tight and staying mobile/strafing breaking LoS so much with my builds is because our class is the least mobile in game. We have ONE skill that lets us jump to target, and that’s DS2. DS2 is blockable, dodgable, obstructable, and kitable. Every other class has leaps, non-target gap closers, charges, etc. So to stay “on top of things” its important to be close when you’re power-built.

A while I go I played a lot of Allods Online, and I learned how important it is to strafe when you’re fighting someone… from a guy named Taugrim. http://taugrim.com/2010/02/12/allods-online-melee-healer-spec/

check the russian AO pvp video there if you wish to learn how to move really well. You can skip through the video and get the gist of how the russian player moves when he fights, and apply it to WvW and PvP.

People underrate strafing a lot of the times, because if you break your opponent’s LoS, they have to spend many extra seconds between casting to face you before they can use a skill. This forces them to deplete their sources of mobility/dodging very quickly in your fight and allows you to bring players down to your playing field movement-wise when they get cooldown-lockout.

good post! goooood post!!!! WOOOHOOOO

I like the guide, its very lengthy

lettucemode.3789:

I still find warhorn useful in WvW, personally. I like interrupting heals, stomps, and stealth-stomps, and the fast life force regeneration Locust Swarm gives is good too.

Though I am traited to siphon life on hits and crits, so that makes Locust Swarm more attractive for me.

i still have a soft spot for warhorn. but going from wvw to dungeons and back again.. focus still does it better. Siphoning is an all-or-nothing mechanic to implement to see fruition so I have to avoid pumping it. It also needs good precision to really pop out.

Signet of the locust takes an additional slot in your utils selection and can make your toolset feel cramped. As for warhorn, due to the new update to the sig and defiance, I don’t like using it in dungeons or wvw anymore. The focus is the last thing still useful to the class. And apologies, i should have made it clear what crests i was using in the OP

station.6421:

Just gave it a shot, some of my thoughts

-rune of grenth gives 20% more chill duration + condi damage, used it in place of MK
-Would take 10 points out of spite in to soul reaping for 20% reduction to spectral
-Change epidemic for spectral walk for a stun break

ofc this is from a spvp prospective. I’d rather have more spectral grabs for the chill and life force.

You lose bleed efficiency by dropping the runes and points in spite, you also lose 100 power and gain a small boost to chill times. I agree on the utility selection for PvP though. imo i’d keep the condition duration. Runes of Ice are already in the build and the condition duration already stacks for chill as well.