21 replies to this topic

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Hi there. A lot of people have come up to me and mentioned that they hardly ever see necromancers on our server in WvW. This has made me feel a bit lonely, in all honesty. Fortunately though, I have seen more comming in and making appearances. Along with this, I have also recieved a lot of questions from people such as "How do you set up your necro?" "What weapons do you recommend?" "Why is it that I never see you die even though you run into zergs?".
This post will hopefully answer any curiousities that you have had about my character build.

For starters, I'd like to say that I am not a condition spammer. While in WvW, it seems that I only see enemy necro's being used for spreading conditions across our players. This type of necro is typically easy to destroy because they are glass cannon built with power, condition damage, and condition duration.
Not only this, but my necro build can also be used to reverse those condition effects, as well as used to transfer those conditions back to enemies.
When used correctly, this build can be far more useful.

So down to business.

Trait lines:

I have set up 20 points in curses, 20 points in death magic, and 30 points in blood magic.

For the Curses chosen effects I have roman numerals I and IX. Feel free to change out the first slot as you see fit. The IX ability allows you to ground target well skills, meaning you can manually choose where to place them instead of placing them underneath you at all times.

I have chosen roman numerals V and II for the Death Magic line. V allows your staff skills to recharge 20% faster. II allows your staff mark skills to take over a larger area, hitting more foes.

In Blood Magic I have chosen slots II, VIII, and XII. II can be exchanged if you so choose, but it enables better siphoning. VIII allows your well skills to recharge 20% faster, while XII makes your wells siphon and steal health from enemies every second they are in them.

While primarily using a staff and a full arsenal of wells, this enables your necro to hit a wide space of enemies - all while gaining health for all of the enemies you hit in the process.

Add that along with a toughness, vitality, and power focused equipment set up, and you have it made.

This gives you the power to not only inflict great effects on mass amounts of enemies, but you also get paid in return by stealing your opponents' health.

By all means, I encourage necro players to mess around with this set up.
I personally use the wells of Blood, Power, Corruption, and Suffering. It gives me the ability to be both supportive and offensive.

Another tip for WvW players- this is also a great set up for both preventing enemies from repairing doors, as well as preventing enemies from ramming our own doors. The area attacks still have effect through them.

As for equipment, I just use anything that emphasizes vitality, toughness and power.
For runes, I like to play around with different sets such as the Mad King, the Dolyak, and the Undead.

I primarily use staff skills, but for my other weapon set I keep a dagger main hand and a focus offhand for one on one fights.

As for my elite skill, I have chosen the Take Root sylvari skill. Simply because it keeps me invulnerable for a short duration to give me time to think and recharge skills. Otherwise feel free to choose any elite skill that you like.

Let me know if this was at all helpful. And if you're curious about my underwater set up, I can post that as well.

I hope this answered all of your questions. I could go into more detail on staff skills, but I think you already get the ideas.

-Adamas

[Madison]

I decided my first Alt would be a necromancer ~ I haven't gotten far but so far I'm enjoying the class

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Yeah I originally started as a ranger but my first alt was a necromancer as well. The necro fits me much better and I feel like it's a class than can do more than what people give them credit for   I havent switched back ever since

[Anubbyss]

Not bad at all and pretty close to the same thing I run in WvW as well. Only difference is I don't put that last 10 in Blood for Well Siphoning as it is a little questionable on its effectiveness. Instead I put at least 5 more into Death Magic to make it 25 points there. The last minor trait is very good with this build since your gearing for tons of toughness.

For the last 5 points its kinda up in the air really. Can put it into Death Magic as well and take IV for wells giving protection but thats questionable as the vast majority of the time your throwing down wells at range and nobody is standing in them but enemies. VIII could be pretty useful for countering enemy cc a bit. On the other hand you could put the last 5 into either Spite or Soul Reaping as both of those minor traits can be rather useful in wvw with this build as well.

As for runes on the gear I actually use Crest of the Soldier on all my armor and jewelry alike. It nets you the most Power overall while still adding quite a bit to survivability, with the addition of more power from the added toughness with the Deadly Strength trait in Death Magic.

I like using the axe and focus or warhorn for my secondary myself but thats just a matter of personal preference for me really. The dagger is great but I've just never been a fan of close range melee style combat in all my years of gaming so I enjoy the axe since it still has a decent little bit of range with it.

I usually always keep plague up for my elite in wvw but I may have to check out take root. I wasn't aware of the invulnerability on it so thanks for pointing that out

[Inextirpable Adamas]

I was about to mention the same thing actually. I glanced over your build and thought that it was rather similar in cases haha.
I'm also a distance type of fighter and I have also looked at using the axe quite a bit, and yeah I definitely understand the benefits it has. It is though, like you said a matter of preference. I personally like the main handed dagger because it does considerable damage, as well as a siphon skill and an immobolize. I also like it because it complements the Vampiric passive trait in blood magic with its rapid strikes.
and granted, I'm usually up against thieves when ever I'm stuck in 1vs1 situations in wvw, so I pretty much have the enemy up to my face anyway lol. So a main hand dagger just seems best for me. I choose a focus in offhand primarily for that vulnerability skill. If you are close enough to a solo opponent and use the skill you can actually stack up to 12 vulnerability in a blink of an eye. The dagger kicks in fairly well after that. That's just my preference though. I still keep an axe to experiment with on occasion.

If I could, I would probably switch into your build where you use the last ten trait points for alternate things, but I'm just way too fond of my vampiric aoe attacks XD.
So I'm making an alternate norn necromancer but I'm making it a personal challenge for myself to never use the staff or well skills with it. I will most likely be using daggers, axes and a focus. I've never really liked the warhorn and can't really say why. I guess just because of the cone-spread attack... I'm not sure really.
for the elite I intend to use one of the norn forms. Most likely the wolf or bear.

and here is a bit more info on the vampiric well trait http://wiki.guildwar...ampiric_Rituals when placed correctly, they sustain me fairly well. but I definitely need to trade in some of my vitality for toughness. I'm going to definitely look into your suggestion with the armor upgrades.

I first went with full invaders armor along with full mad king runes. When ever I would use my Take Root skill, enemies would swarm around me and try to hit me while I was invulnerable. Once the invulnerability would end then the mad king's final raven effect kicked in, which counts as another aoe attack hitting the swarm of enemies again. Plus it added to power and condition duration, so it seemed like a fun idea at the time. Just sort of my last act of defiance before I got downed lol

[Anubbyss]

Your right on all accounts about the Dagger and I really should try it out, and will eventually. For your new necromancer your playing with to try and stay away from staff and stuff you might want to check out some of this guys stuff: https://forum-en.gui...WvW-Gank-Movie. It is pretty much a pure pvp based build but I tried it out a bit and actually found it quite fun, though I only did so in sPVP.

Though he does use wells a little bit still he uses a power/tough/vit setup and for weapons he uses dagger/focus and axe/warhorn. It's focused mainly on a lot of DS up time for shroudstomping/reviving but you also get a lot of damage from the dagger. Main thing with the warhorn is keeping swiftness up with the added chill effect which makes it easier to keep enemies in your face for your dagger attacks not to mention the daze for stopping heals and such. When paired with the spectral walk as i'm sure you know you can keep swiftness up permanently. I do really like the focus though for the vulnerability/regen and I've had many say that dagger damage really shines after throwing a decent stack of vulnerability on a target, which I can see.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

for some reason it wont let me view your link

[Anubbyss]

Looks like the thread discussing it is no longer there or something but you can find the video here:

and the link posted on the video description for the build is: http://www.intothemi...0I;1OZG5OZW55Bk

[NullMad]

I can confirm that build in that video is damn fun and wrecks stuff. Really high DS stats basically makes you a ridiculous tank due to massive health pool (more so after the patch I think)
Was chatting with Adamas about it yesterday in game. Thou since the patch I prefer running signet of locust. It's less hassle than spectral walk, granted spectral walk is probably better in the actual fight due to shroud regen on hit.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

LOL XD hahahahahahahaaha!!!! okay I gotta level my other necro so I can try this out XD this looks hilarious and fun.

I think it's interesting that he uses dagger/warhorn and axe/focus. I'll have to keep on watching and analyzing this =D this is awesome, thanks for posting it!

[Inextirpable Adamas]

And yeah I would definitely put that well of darkness in there and the well of suffering would make them even easier to chop down if you can keep them still.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

I've tried dagger/warhorn out a few times lately and I can now understand why they would be used together. It's actually not that bad

[Riz]

I've been running Dagger/Focus  Axe/Warhorn on my power build for a week now and I'm finally getting the hang of it.  It's sickening.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Sickening? lol

Not sure if that was a necro pun or if you were being sincere that you dislike it haha

[NullMad]

See i'm really torn on this. Dagger/Focus is very very good. It has mad dps, two controls (immobilized and chill) and instant 12 stacks on vuln with focus 4. I need to remember to open with life siphon while I close but otherwise I don't use it.
As for the other set thou. Axe is just so meh... I'd only use it for it's #3 so I can get 15 of retaliation when I hit max targets. 2 second daze is great on the horn, but that's about it.
Meanwhile I run staff as secondary. It doesn't synergize with dagger at all but it gives completely different set of utilities for wvwvw.
Hard choice. 2 second daze/15 second retaliation, or templates and 1200 range. I'm really at a loss as to what's best.
With locus sig I'm already good for speed.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

I've been in the same pickle a lot. The only benefits that I like with the axe is that it causes vulnerability and can get you retaliation and life force instantly with that #3 skill. On the downside, I just don't feel that the axe does the amount of damage I'd like it to. I also like that it is ranged, and it's certainly good in a jam when you have an overwhelming amount of enemies around you. I guess what could help it out would be a choice of sigils to make it more effective. I would guess a sigil dealing with vulnerability, power, or an aoe attack could suit it well.
I used to really not like the warhorn at all, but I can see some of the benefits it has, especially with a dagger mainhand. I never really liked how the warhorn dazed in a small forward cone because I am accustom to larger areas of effect such as circles. Although, with a dagger mainhand, that gives you the ability to immobilize a target and hold it still to really pull off that daze.
Along with the warhorn you also get that skill that grants you switfness, as well as damaging and crippling close foes in the process. I figure with a dagger you're going to be up close and personal to get hits anyway. So that skill helps cripple your foe, and helps keep them from getting away from you when you get close enough, and damages them a bit on top of it all.
I feel that it's a much more one vs. one type of combination.

I also have to agree that the staff is a hard thing to let go of in wvw. I admit that I feel naked without it. It allows you to cause all kinds of havoc on tower and keep walls, as well as helps you establish crowd control on open ground. And you just can't pass up mass fearing enemies off of cliffs.... You just can't.

So aside from the staff, the other weapon choice is really what ever you feel most comfortable with. I would probably roll with dagger/focus or dagger/warhorn. Perhaps even dagger/dagger if you have no other way of condition removal.

[Riz]

When I say sickening, I'm discussing how good it's meshing with what I want to do.  Yesterday I ran around solo for a bit.  Ignoring the upleveled lowbies I ran into (which I rolled over with ease), I lost 1 1v1 with a very good guardian.  I won 4 1v1 fights (thief, elementalist, necro, warrior).  Actually, I beat the warrior 3 more times (in his case, he was a bad rifle warrior).  I won 2 1v2 fights (warrior/elem, warrior/thief...that one was HARD).  I won one single 1v3, but one of them was upleveled and none played particularly well.

I was using the shroudstomp spec just to try it out.  For Utilities, I ran Well of Darkness (nice with the chill trait) and Well of Corruption.  I switched between Signet of the Locust and Spectral Armor depending on what I was doing.  I ran Consume Conditions for my Heal (which was my only real condition removal).

I'm running all Knight's gear and Emerald jewelry.  In my gear, I have all Ruby Orbs and I'm running Berserker's weapons.  I forgot about food all day for some reason.  I run Sigils of Bloodlust and Strength, but I'm going to switch out strength for Purity to have more condition removal.

For weapons, I like Axe/Warhorn and Dagger/Focus.  They mix close and mid-range abilities.  I try to stay close, but I HATE when somebody gets slightly out of my range and I can't hit them because I'm stuck on weapon switch cooldown.  I used to favor dagger more, then I favored axe more (because the 2 hits like a truck), but honestly now I just move back and forth as often as possible to get the most from my abilities.  Favoring one over the other made me a worse player.  Half the reason I won the fights I did was because the guy had half his abilities on cooldown and just autoattacked rather than switch weapons (aside from the elementalists).

As for staff, I have one  in my bags.  I've used it rarely though, outside of PvE (where it's still nice for the range in some fights) and the occasional wall battle.  For the latter though, I'm more likely to just put down siege than I am to use the staff.  It just feels slow now.

The setup tears apart any glass cannon build.  I'm having a lot of fun with it.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Over the past few weeks I've been making some changes to the build. I'll post them sometime today If I can

[NullMad]

Speaking of which I really did underestimate the axe. Yah auto attack is crap but #2 get's you enough shroud back to use it immediately and #3 gives you what I believe is the longest retaliation in the game "15seconds" if you hit max targets. Makes it a super start off/switch to weapon combo. Thou horn actually doesn't synergize with it well since you don't want them dazed while you have ret up, but i'd rather keep focus on my dagger.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Grrr I was halfway through typing a detailed response on the new build when suddely my internet dropped. -.-
I will give the abridged version and if you wish for any details and explanations I can give those as well