Most Active Necro Playstyle?

[notstephcooper.9852]

Trying to level one character of each profession, but am finding Necro suuuuper painful. I prefer “piano play” like Engi/Ele, where you’re constantly reacting/rotating through skills, and am struggling a bit with Necro as all of the weapons/skills feel super passive to me.

 

Is there a more quick, reactionary playstyle available? Or is Necro just a super passive profession? Maybe there’s some synergistic-micromanagement I’m missing, like lining up a fear for some specific followup? Play equal parts PvE/PvP, so would be happy with build ideas for either.

[KrHome.1920]

Reaper has an agressive playstyle (GS and reaper shroud - both skillsets are 90% offensive) and scourge is a kind of buttonmashing that's almost as overloaded as ele (some people are confusing overloaded with "needs skill") - but you said you like it, so... go for the elite specs.

[Shivvies.3921]

I honestly love Reaper with axe/warhorn - GS with as few minions as possible. It is pretty active.

 

The only problem is, it is too easy to fall into the habit of face tanking everything which makes some minions more valuable. Still, it is a pretty active style - core necro is not super good.

[Aplethoraof.2643]

Personally, I've been having a lot of fun with corruptionmancer here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnc04ohme90Y1Nqbw7G3Nwfj/GLCDWUAIBMu0rr71AL1UIK0rA-jxSAQBhU53NVCqgHEQ0OBAh4IE0vDgQEV/xa7P4hDBQA13AgDIw6ABg39z////fz////vUA8u2C-e

 

You circle mobs and drop AoEs. You load enemies with torment, get them to start running with either Staff or Shade Fear. For large groups, drop your elite + Sand Shroud. For extra large PvE groups you can drop your F1 Shades, though that only becomes helpful with groups of over 5 mobs.

 

For bosses, you have epidemic which is seriously helpful. As long as you stay on the offensive, you get enough healing with Parasitic Contagion to heal yourself. Your heal skill provides some burst healing, but you should try to transfer conditions you cause to yourself with all your corruption utilities with Staff 4, rather than eating them for HP (unless you really need the health).

 

This build pretty much promotes an active playstyle instead of a reactive/passive one.

 

For sPvP, I play a similar build though I relegate myself to what necro does best: Boon stripping. I target boonbeasts, guardians, and other builds with lots of boons and strip, strip, strip. For PvP, I bring this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArfWnc0AN9i10Au2As9iFhBTvuuXDsUThoQvKKAUuGXA-jZxHQBA4RA8tTAwAPCA8rMAZ2fAA

 

I tend to place AoEs on the point to force them off in team-fights. I either use spectral grasp to pull enemies off points or into a swarm of AoEs (either way works well and tends to shred people). I try to stick to targetting enemies with boons first. If none are present, I'll harass boonless enemies from a distance, often using fear to turn the tides in favor of my team-mates.

 

As with PvE, loading enemies up with torment then fearing them (especially with how much damage your torment does) is always good.

 

---

I don't really have a "set rotation" (or maybe I do and don't realize it). For sPvP, I just do what the situation calls for. Same for PvE, depending on the situation I do whatever will work best. I was never really a "stick to rotation and spam buttons in their proper sequence" sort of person though, if that is what you are looking for.

 

 

[Ojimaru.8970]

Unfortunately, there isn't much of what you're looking for in a leveling core Necromancer. Power builds just rely on entering and exiting Shroud to make use of Soul Barbs, but without Reaper form, your burst damage is just mediocre. The most excitement a Condi build gets is landing the condition transfer after Blood is Power, and maybe hitting your Epidemic button.

[Rhyse.8179]

Power Reaper has a great gameplay sequence where you pressure the target then use Shroud to burst execute them at 50% health.

 

That's not available while leveling though, so you may try a Corruption/Condi build. Basically you use Blood Is Power and Corrosive Cloud to build conditions on yourself, then use Dagger 4/Staff 4/Plague SIgnet/Shroud Traits to transfer them to your target. You can also feed your own sustain with Consume Conditions. It's not fast paced, but it's dynamic and requires really knowing your build and skill sequences.

[Anchoku.8142]

Necro has always felt like the opposite of "piano play." With Necro, the skills are all meant to be used when appropriate and not so much as on rotation.

 

Necromancer's have to save skills as counters while autoattacking more than many other professions. Epidemic is an example. Epi is all about waiting to time a potentially huge attack for when you expect to maximize damage while misstiming could yield zero damage. Necro is like this all over.

 

Use the condi pressure at key moments, shroud to soak damage, corrupt stability when it comes up but not some other boons, know when to un-shroud so you do not miss heals, track the skirmish front and do not trust allies to pull your slow bacon off the fire...

 

Necromancer can lurk one moment and shut down opponents the next but is highly vulnerable at the same time. Rotations, though, are rough guidelines, at best. Necro was designed for soft CC burst.

[Nimon.7840]

So what most people seem to forget is the simple fact that you are still leveling?!

 

Yeah, necro is just a slow profession. Some huge aftercasts (time before you can activate the next skill. Because the animation of the current skill isn't finished even though the skill already did its effects) on skills.

Long casttimes, no dodges or blocks on weapon and utility skills, low mobility.

Overall a very slow class, and anet isn't even trying to move away from this because of design and second healthbar (that does little to nothing in the current powercreep. Just an example: yesterday I fought someone and won in wvw as a reaper. Had to use all my stunbreaks, then the holosmith and revenant came, after the first cc of the holo, I immediately went into shroud, he just chain cc'd me and bursted me out of the shroud+ killed me within less than 2 seconds. That should be 21k health + 16-17k lifeforce (which should be 32-34k effective health against power dmg due to some dmg reduction in shroud (that doesn't always work in my opinion)) so around 50k effective health with 3k armor, gone in under 2 seconds is a huge joke.

 

If you still want to play necro more actively, you should try playing dagger+horn/focus. Something like this:

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZakkGapxiawnGYvxRuQNHilYKgBQDsC0z4NaWA-jFSBABLcIAA4JAQz+DXp8DP9BGfCAMTJIlq/AA-w

 

That is still some passive gameplay as you are basically throwing your wells down, activate horn 5 then autoattack with dagger, maybe knock the enemy down with the golem, or stun them with horn4, but that's a pve build

[Aihao.5824]

took dark harvest, and enjoin reaper now. Pretty active, tons of direct damage, but inmobile compared to other classes

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Core condi is the more active playstyle. Stack condies with scepter, use blood is power, then transfer those self bleeds into a mob for more damage. Pull them in with spectral grasp along with their friends, then drop your aoe condies (staff, corrosive poison cloud, maybe plaguelands). That's just a a very simple and rough example.

 

There are things to play with like might stacking as a condi necro by reversing condies into boons (traited blood is power + well of power), or terror builds (fear of death trait + terror trait), epidemic mass wipeout builds, maybe bit of healer on the side builds (transfusion + vampiric presence and ritual of life).

 

There's a lot of fun to be had on condi core necro, before you get to 80. Do keep in mind that after that things will explode fun wise. necro has some very fun runes and gear sets he can use that aren't available pre 80 (and without xpacs). But with those a ton of new build possibilities will unlock. If you can brave it till he's max level, it'll be well worth it.

[Methuselah.4376]

Support scourge. I find this highly engaging and very pleasurable to play :)

[Kagusaki.3176]

Support scourge all the way if you like piano play. Transfusion is the key for scourge success but you really need to know when to use it. I've been playing support necro since HoT and when PoF came out, it made the support build more viable.

[Lily.1935]

Scourge has a lot of micromanagement required and it requires wide use of your life force in order to be effective. It's far more difficult to max out its dps compared to reaper which is much more intuitive for the average play. There absolutely is a suboptimal way to play a scourge and anyone that tells you its "just button mashing" hasn't actually played the spec in any meaningful capacity.

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> Scourge has a lot of micromanagement required and it requires wide use of your life force in order to be effective. It's far more difficult to max out its dps compared to reaper which is much more intuitive for the average play. There absolutely is a suboptimal way to play a scourge and anyone that tells you its "just button mashing" hasn't actually played the spec in any meaningful capacity.

 

Well if you get to the point, in which you know necro good enough it's more like:

 

Bad player: button mashing

Good player: manage lf and use shade abilities properly

 

Pve: button mashing with having to wait 1second between f-abilities, but also having to keep an eye on lf

Wvw:button mashing while bombing and carefully managing f-abilities cd-wise and lf-wise while sustaining

 

So I think it's both.

Only support scourge needs careful management of barrier skills

[Lily.1935]

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"Lily.1935" said:

> > Scourge has a lot of micromanagement required and it requires wide use of your life force in order to be effective. It's far more difficult to max out its dps compared to reaper which is much more intuitive for the average play. There absolutely is a suboptimal way to play a scourge and anyone that tells you its "just button mashing" hasn't actually played the spec in any meaningful capacity.

>

> Well if you get to the point, in which you know necro good enough it's more like:

>

> Bad player: button mashing

> Good player: manage lf and use shade abilities properly

>

> Pve: button mashing with having to wait 1second between f-abilities, but also having to keep an eye on lf

> Wvw:button mashing while bombing and carefully managing f-abilities cd-wise and lf-wise while sustaining

>

> So I think it's both.

> Only support scourge needs careful management of barrier skills

 

Actually I raid, or I did before I got super busy. And my guild leader who didn't understand the rotation of the scourge when attempting it couldn't keep up with my damage. The difference was about 10k between us. He's since been able to close that gap with a bit of help from me. I've spent hours training some of our guildies in the scourge condi rotation and the general consensus among them is that its more difficult to pull off than they initially thought.

 

I don't think it's too difficult personally, but that's because I've been using it for years now. I'm both able to do the revenant and holosmith condi rotation fairly effectively with little issue. I'd say between the 3, Holo is slightly harder than scourge while revenant is the easiest. They're all fairly close in terms of difficulty though. And yes I do do the holo kit rotation. It's fun.

[WolfSparkSmack.2649]

I am trying to make an immortal scourge build to maintain constant farm without having to stop at all (dps/sustain balance) so there is the build but i'm wondering what is your idea for sigils and runes (focused more on higher condi dmg instead of duration as im looking for better burst, in open world doesnt seem to be very benefitial to have long duration as enemies die long before you stack much) http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYBWKGs4eYRMJGFAGAJAqmwU4WB-jxRFQBJV9HA8EAan+gEcKAGpSwUs/QDV+FA4AY8iHAjP+4jP+4994jP+4jP+4jP+4lCYRlVA-e

[Biff.5312]

For levelling, make a build that doesn't use minions (or just the flesh golem). I found axe/warhorn probably the most fun in terms of having to keep moving. The problem is that it's an artificial handicap - you could always just do minions and staff and be virtually asleep the whole time, and you'd be killing stuff faster. So the question is whether you'll be more bored by moving through mobs more slowly despite being more mobile within each fight.

[Despond.2174]

For non-active utility builds If you want to solo anything including all HoT masteries with ez then you can do a power/condi reaper minionmancer. You'll only have 1 non minion ability which actually spawns more minions. I go Reaper/blood magic/death magic--but it's flexible--GS+Staff, staff for tagging, kiting champions while your minions munch. GS when it's safe to get right up close and personal or if you're in a group. It can solo paths too for currency.

 

It's so tanky with so much cc you can just go full offensive stats and the disparity of GS/Staff being power/condi makes little difference. I am 19.2k HP with 4 default stacks of flesh of the master. That gets turboed up with "RISE!". Shroud is just a huge bonus.