Possible Reaper Roaming/Zerg Build?

[Jenny.4831]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been having a lot of trouble lately with my Elementalist and thought I'd try for something sturdier. Plus, my poor Ele keeps getting wrecked by everyone she meets, especially Reaper Necros, and decided I wanted to try my hand at it in WvW. I cannot 1v1 for the life of me, let alone 1v1+. Now, objectively, I can honestly say I am not that good at this game and that is especially true in pvp situations. I was terrible in WoW and I'm terrible in this when it comes to that sort of content. Rather than stay away though, I am trying to get better so I can enjoy it more. Besides, I want a set of legendary armor and I need a lot of skirmish tickets for it since I don't raid.

 

I know from past experience Reaper Necro works really well in PvE, which I am also having issues with on my Ele, and am very close to giving up on her and switching to Necro full time. Thematically, I love the Elementalist even if I'm not in love with the game play of it. This is especially true of Weaver. I'm just getting too frustrated to really continue with it and games are supposed to be fun.

 

Anyways, this is a build I constructed using the build editor that I thought might work and I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSxAEd3lVUxO6YKpMv8WZlOyXntbA-zRRYDR9KQMc+lRgVVmpqffgA+tdaEwrF-e

 

Gear wise, this is what I have available at the moment:

 

Ascended full Marauders (light armor, trinkets, ax, focus, warhorn, scepter, staff [in the form of Bifrost])

Ascended full Celestial (light armor, trinkets, staff [in the form of Bifrost])

 

I would need to acquire the Valk amulet from S3 (I have enough S3 currency for a complete trinket/back set so no issues there)

I would also need to craft the Valk GS, Ax and Focus, that or reforge the Ax and Focus. I do not have an ascended GS at this time but I have enough mats to craft one.

 

 

Thank you in advance,

 

Jennifer

 

[KrHome.1920]

If you follow a commander then you should change GS to staff and speed of shadows to soul marks. That's a viable build then. Reaper shroud is your melee weapon in the zerg.

 

If you are doing more your own thing in an unorganized pug zerg then GS is fine, but the build is a bit too squishy and lacks condi cleanses and life force generation, if someone singles you out with a pull/immob/stun lock (that's what I do with well necros, because they are an easy prey, as they run basically a pve build).

[Shroud.2307]

Looks quite good to me. You definitely understand how to read traits and skills, so that's a good start.

 

I'll share two builds of mine and give you a little description for them.

 

**For zerging**

* You can replace Well of Darkness or Well of Suffering with; Spectral Armor, Spectral Walk, Well of Power, or "You Are All Weaklings!", it's up to you. Having at least one stunbreak is always a good idea, and personally I prefer to do so as well. I find using 3 Wells to be a bit too risky, but it is preferred from many commanders that you do so to have maximum damage while your support provides you Stability to avoid the need for stunbreaks.

* You can use Marauder over Berserker, but the more Berserker the better. You really don't need the additional crit chance, and you lose quite a bit of Power even if Might and being in Shroud provide plenty. If you're more comfortable with Marauder though, that's a good way to start, and you can work in more Berserker as you get more familiar with the class.

* Strength or Scholar, which ever you prefer. Eagle could also work, but as with Marauder, the extra crit chance really isn't necessary. You're likely to always have Fury while with a zerg and when you enter Shroud you'll have over 100% crit chance in full Berserker. With Eagle runes you'd be even more over capped, but they do provide a nice damage boost. Personally I prefer Strength runes because they have the most consistent and easy to maintain modifier and it's easier to stay stacked at 25 Might.

* You can take Axe/Focus over Staff if you prefer, it has an additional Boon rip that also deals heavy damage to low health targets, but you'll mostly be spamming 3 off cooldown if you do decide to take this _(and there's nothing wrong with that because I'd say objectively Axe is a slightly better choice than Staff strictly for the extra Boon hate)._ I feel Staff is also a good choice however because it's much safer to use at range, Putrid Mark is a great damage buffer to toss inside your Wells _(that can crit as high as 10k),_ and Reaper's Mark is great for Fearing backliners or tossing inside a Spellbreaker bubble.

 

**For roaming**

* You have a lot of flexibility with your utilities here and it's mostly up to you what you feel to work best. Personally, I think Spectral Walk is near mandatory and Flesh Wurm is very high value, but not as necessary. Both can allow for extremely clutch escape or kiting/juking and are important to your survival, but I wouldn't recommend taking Wurm over SWalk. Because there's so much CC in this game it is honestly not over doing it to take a full bar of stunbreaks.

* You can replace Greatsword with Staff, or even Axe/Focus with Staff, but I think GS + Axe/Focus is the best choice for the Boon hate, ranged pressure, and area denial. Staff + Axe/Focus is much better in PvP than WvW roaming, where as the Boon corrupt, pull, and Vuln stack damage spike that GS provides are all very strong and not as niche as what Staff will give you. I highly recommend taking Axe/Focus with what ever you decide to take in the second slot.

* Chill of Death is also a good choice over Awaken The Pain, but because it's single target I often prefer to take ATP. I think Chill of Death is objectively the better choice here though. You can also drop Soul Barbs for Fear of Death if you decide to take Spectral Ring and/or Staff as it will provide you with a bit more sustain, and Chilling Victory is also an okay choice, though I think Soul Eater is better in this case.

 

**A little more about the roaming build:**

I've been using that build for... Maybe nearly 2 years now? I haven't changed much about it other than swapping traits/utilities around from time to time depending on the situation, but the stat alignment has been the same this whole time. It has a good amount of armor and health to allow for trading, it's only slightly overcapped on crit chance _(which I don't mind because I won't always have Fury or be in Shroud when roaming),_ and basically zerker offensive stats while in Shroud without losing a whole lot while out of Shroud. It's well rounded, albeit not necessarily perfect, and doesn't waste too many stats. Some traits and utilities are more based on preference and circumstance while others are more mandatory, and the runes are pretty much necessary to stay roughly around 50% crit chance so I've never bothered to swap those out.

 

Reaper is generally a very user friendly spec. It has an extremely low skill floor and is pretty forgiving against "average" players. That said, as with Necro in general, it is also _extremely_ punishing against better players and very demanding of resource management and positioning. It may take you some time to adjust to the difference between Ele and Necro in that regard because Ele can recover much faster and more consistently than Necro, where as Necro is pretty much boned if it takes a bad hit.

**My rule of thumb with Necro is to always play as though the next hit will be the one that kills you, and to always be trying to make people commit to _you_ rather than you committing to _them._**

 

Anyway, good luck and I hope this helps some.

[Anchoku.8142]

In the simplest terms, WvW roaming builds tend to be like PvP builds while zerging builds lean more toward AoE. Because the zerg builds focus more heavily on support, corruptions and area denial, they tend to be quite glassy when caught out of the zerg so keep that in mind.

 

Necromancer's largest contribution in zerging is often related to conditions so you can feel free to pick up toughness and Death Magic for a small added sustain.

 

Necro's have difficulty with control effects and being kited. A good player will wear you down at range or disable you with CC.

 

Shroud is Necro's immunity skill but there is an important caveot: Shroud requires constant charging by using specific skills on an enemy. You can be disabled while in shroud or knocked out of it by damage so, addition to Shroud's cool down, you have to generate life force or you have no immunity skills besides two dodges. Either strike enemies or have them die nearby is how you fuel your main defense. Managing Life Force generation and consumption is how to play Necro and all good opponents will know that.

[Al Masone.1274]

A non meta thing I'm using for group wvw is the following:

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMBmHbjtwKxz+arlD-e

I haven't put the itemisation cause I'm still still mixing stuff to see what I like most. That said, I think Knight gear should be the best, possibly mixed with cavalier, and use the Rune of Vampirism. As for sigil, right now I'm using sigil of strength and impact, but I'll prob try other stuff.

 

Basically I wanted to exploit the fact that, as the necro in general lacks stability, he's often the target of cc, followed by burst damage. This build basically tries to get the best direct damage mitigation and just enough personal condi cleanse to survive that first moment when to blobs collide with eachother. The runes of vampirism I find are a great sustain tool once the bodies start hitting the floor.

I like to act more or less as a meat shield for my team, taking damage that could've been better spent on squishier party members, and landing as much CC/ boon corrupt as i can.

Your damage isn't great (quite the contrary) and I don't expect to survive to most meta builds or duelists, but I'm not doing that anyway.

"Nothing can save you" I feel works pretty well in wvw, since it has a low cooldown, that gets lower the more targets you hit, is an unblockable boon corrupt, and makes your next attacks unblockable, which I'm 99% sure includes "spectral grasp" and "chilled to the bone" (just don't quote me on that). That means unblockable hard cc, and spectral grasp hits 5 targets at 1200 range.

 

Damage is pretty much secondary, but again, your just is to tank and disrupt, you should think of yourself as a moving well that tries to stick to the opponents. Your sustain isn't very good from the get go, but"your soul is mine" has a fairly low CD, and rune of vampirism works surprisingly well even when a fight isn't going very smoothly for your side. Still, for actual sustained healing you fall back on your team.

Shroud I use mainly defensively, and that is why I picked "unholy sanctuary": it's definitely worse than "corrupter's fervor" In almost every situation, but here is a neat saving tool; still, try to use it actively to withstand burst damage that you see coming your way. It reduces all damage by 50%, which stacks with your toughness, albeit with diminishing returns (still good enough though). In any case though, you want to use shroud defensively first and foremost.

Of course you don't want to rush big blobs on your own, you need your group to follow, you just act as the tip of the spear, possibly behind a warrior with disenchantment if there is one.

 

Again, I think this is as far from the meta as it goes, but I have so much fun in wvw with this build, acting as a sort of battering ram, and actually surviving many fights.