18 replies to this topic

[konggorilla]

I'm looking for a melee (dual daggers), tanky, necro build. Something that doesn't rely on minions as well.

Can anyone provide me with a good tanky necro build? I don't mind if it may have quite low damage.

Armor and accessory recommendations would be helpful too.

Thanks.

[Heartlust]

What you're looking for is a death shroud build. It is the tankiest you can go, and it does have great damage if used well. If you want to be as tanky as possible the focus off-hand is the better choice, but the OH dagger provides more damage and the warhorn provides more cc and mobility at the cost of damage so you're free to choose whatever you like for the slot. As for utility skills, it's all about being tanky and sticking to people.

The hardest thing with a main-hand dagger build is being in range of your enemy, and I feel like spectral grasp is a must. As for spectral armor: it's one of the best necromancer skills is in almost every build. Makes you tanky, and both of these utility skills provide life force which is great. The last slot is up to you, but what I prefer for TANKINESS is well of darkness because you will practically be invincible for eight seconds if your enemy is inside the ring. Great for both PvP and PvE. You can go with spectral walk for lower travel time if you want though, and it is affected by Spectral Mastery which reduces the cooldown (same with spectral grasp and spectral armor).

Elites are pretty straight forward, always go Flesh Golem for solo PvE and Plague form for PvP and dungeons. A lot of people don't like the golem, but they don't realize that if they use any of the other elites in PvE, they practically rarely use them due to the long CDs and very few situations that you get overwhelmed by enemies. Lich Form is also really great, but use it in dungeons if you want thirty seconds of insane power. Up to you.

For armor, you can go with whatever you want to be honest. For runes I prefer rune of the Dolyak which provides vit/toughness + regen. Great to be tanky. Accessories are optional and completely up to you.

Traits are specced towards being tanky and using death shroud. You can swap any of the soul reaping traits for Soul Marks which makes your staff marks generate life force, great trait but I prefer the others. Dark Armor in death magic can also be swapped for Greater Marks, but I like the 400 toughness whenever I vamp with Life Siphon AND Life Transfer in death shroud. With so much invested in being tanky so far you'd think that your damage would be low, but it isn't. Main-hand dagger is probably our highest damage weapon and a huge thing to take advantage of is Reaper's Might which gives you a stack of might every single time you use your Life Blast (1) in death shroud. INSANELY good.

The most important thing to remember for this build is to SPAM DEATH SHROUD. It has a FIVE SECOND cooldown and a lot of your skills generate life force. Very important to hop in and out of it, you don't need to drain all of your life force. Take advantage of Reaper's Might and steamroll. The beauty of it is that it works both in PvE and PvP. Have fun, and ask questions if you have any! ^__^

Edited by Heartlust, 29 October 2012 - 12:18 PM.

[nzac]

Can you give more detail about why you want to tank? I am going to assume this is for dungeons.

First of all my recommended build should be centered wells with the most important being Well of Blood (gets massive bonus from healing power, stay inside for the duration and you get 5 times you healing power back as well as the base heals, think this figure is still current).

First 25 in Death Magic getting some combination of Dark Armor (best for low level dungeons), Ritual of Protection and Reaper Protection and
30 in Blood getting well traits including WoB on revive.
Then 15 into Soul Reaping taking vital presence.

Now assuming fights you get into are long (3 heals or more in length) healing power becomes a better stat than vitality and therefore the 3 stats you want are Healing Power, Toughness and Vitality in that order on your amour. I don't think this is possible so try to get Cleric's amour and add vitality as needed for Max HP. I would use Runes of the Grove.

Utilities are whatever wells are good for the enemies and spectral amour should add to protection up-time. Use Death Shroud effectively as described by others.

You can swap out Death Magic traits for staff ones if you need a good ranged weapon.

The build is a theory crafted modification of a build takes full Spite.

[konggorilla]

Wow. Thanks guys for the quick and detailed replies.

@nzac, yup mostly for dungeons (and PvE) since my main is a ranger, and I made two alts after - a elementalist and a necro. But atm, I just can't bring myself to play my elementalist for long periods of time due to its FRAGILITY. I die so often. T.T (that's why I want to try a tank. haha)

I'll test these out in the Mists as my necro is still quite a low lvl. But i'll be testing both builds in PvE over the next few weeks.

Thanks again guys. You've been a lot of help.

[Tamiyadd]

Heartlust, which trait do you use for armor and weapon?

i think knight insigna will be the best because toughness is better than vitality, do you agree?

[Heartlust]

Tamiyadd, on 29 October 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

Heartlust, which trait do you use for armor and weapon?

i think knight insigna will be the best because toughness is better than vitality, do you agree?

What do you mean when you write traits? I use these sigils - bloodlust for staff, sigil of rage on the dagger, and hydromancy on the off hand (I use focus in PvP and horn in PvE for mobility but the main goal is to stick to your target with the freeze)

For PvP I use Solider's amulet and jewel for power and tankiness.

For armor runes I use runes of the Dolyak. You can use rune of earth if you'd like, but we don't have that much protection available, unfortunately.

[dandelions]

Emerald jewels. Knight weapon. Either knight armor or pow/tough/vit armor. Bloodlust or life leech on swap or sigil of force or endurance on swap for weapons. Or whatever your preference is.

Dagger/dagger and staff as weapons. Probably switch to something else for boss fight as offhand dagger (weakness, blind) isn't very useful against bosses unless they have lot of conditions.

Spec 30 in power to take the extra damage on <50% health target. Other points in blood and death magic e.g. 20 pt in each. You probably want at least 20 in blood.
Vary utilities depending on fight. Wells good vs trash. Minions are good in some situations (where you take minions and use as cannon fodder+ for the "minions steal life" trait. Mostly they are crap though). Change traits depending on which utilities you use.

For food use life steal on crit or maybe the hp regen one.

Having high toughness effectively buffs the life steals to be decent. You should be able to keep regen up a lot on yourself as well. Dagger 2 with the increase life siphon trait is a decent heal. I have played this build and it is fairly forgiving. Dagger AA damage is not terrible.

Another possibility (and maybe higher damage?? idk) is a heal power + condition damage + toughness build. Harder to gear for though in pve afaik. Or even above build but power/tough/healing power gear (not knight gear). The damage would be less thru loss of crit, and the heal power basically does not affect life steals at all, but the regen heals and well of blood ticks would be increased.

if ur talking about pvp, roll a guardian.
if ur talking about wvw, roll a thief (yes srsly the only good survivability in wvw is not getting caught aka massive mobility.)

[Heartlust]

dandelions, on 29 October 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

Having high toughness effectively buffs the life steals to be decent. You should be able to keep regen up a lot on yourself as well. Dagger 2 with the increase life siphon trait is a decent heal.

THIS is very important. If you want to run a Vampomancer build, go for toughness rathen than vitality.

[konggorilla]

Heartlust, on 30 October 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

THIS is very important. If you want to run a Vampomancer build, go for toughness rathen than vitality.

Vampomancer? So.. focusing on stealing health? How viable is it and how does it compare to a tank?

[TGIFrisbie]

What about Vigil armor?

Vigil Chest
Def: 278
Pwr: +89
Tgh: +64
Vit: +64

Knight's Exalted Chest
Def: 314
Pwr: +72
Pre: +72
Tgh: +101

Or is there a better option on stats?

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 30 October 2012 - 07:21 PM.

[PouBelleDeNuit]

Heartlust, on 27 October 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

What you're looking for is a death shroud build. It is the tankiest you can go, and it does have great damage if used well. If you want to be as tanky as possible the focus off-hand is the better choice, but the OH dagger provides more damage and the warhorn provides more cc and mobility at the cost of damage so you're free to choose whatever you like for the slot. As for utility skills, it's all about being tanky and sticking to people.

The hardest thing with a main-hand dagger build is being in range of your enemy, and I feel like spectral grasp is a must. As for spectral armor: it's one of the best necromancer skills is in almost every build. Makes you tanky, and both of these utility skills provide life force which is great. The last slot is up to you, but what I prefer for TANKINESS is well of darkness because you will practically be invincible for eight seconds if your enemy is inside the ring. Great for both PvP and PvE. You can go with spectral walk for lower travel time if you want though, and it is affected by Spectral Mastery which reduces the cooldown (same with spectral grasp and spectral armor).

Elites are pretty straight forward, always go Flesh Golem for solo PvE and Plague form for PvP and dungeons. A lot of people don't like the golem, but they don't realize that if they use any of the other elites in PvE, they practically rarely use them due to the long CDs and very few situations that you get overwhelmed by enemies. Lich Form is also really great, but use it in dungeons if you want thirty seconds of insane power. Up to you.

For armor, you can go with whatever you want to be honest. For runes I prefer rune of the Dolyak which provides vit/toughness + regen. Great to be tanky. Accessories are optional and completely up to you.

Traits are specced towards being tanky and using death shroud. You can swap any of the soul reaping traits for Soul Marks which makes your staff marks generate life force, great trait but I prefer the others. Dark Armor in death magic can also be swapped for Greater Marks, but I like the 400 toughness whenever I vamp with Life Siphon AND Life Transfer in death shroud. With so much invested in being tanky so far you'd think that your damage would be low, but it isn't. Main-hand dagger is probably our highest damage weapon and a huge thing to take advantage of is Reaper's Might which gives you a stack of might every single time you use your Life Blast (1) in death shroud. INSANELY good.

The most important thing to remember for this build is to SPAM DEATH SHROUD. It has a FIVE SECOND cooldown and a lot of your skills generate life force. Very important to hop in and out of it, you don't need to drain all of your life force. Take advantage of Reaper's Might and steamroll. The beauty of it is that it works both in PvE and PvP. Have fun, and ask questions if you have any! ^__^

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm level 30 now, so I feel the fun can begin.
My question is, what is the best way to use my traits most effectively while leveling?

[Bloggi]

dandelions, on 29 October 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

if ur talking about wvw, roll a thief (yes srsly the only good survivability in wvw is not getting caught aka massive mobility.)

In WvW, position on the field is more important actually, at least that's what I found. The only times I've actually died here were when I was trying to explore on my own and got caught by a massive zerg coming in the opposite direction, or got too carried away and strayed too far ahead of the rest of the group. Key thing is not to stick out too much and turn yourself into a target board.

Then again, people probably smack their lips with pleasure whenever they smell a necro, because they believe it's going to be an easy kill.

[Heartlust]

Sorry for the late answers.

konggorilla, on 30 October 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Vampomancer? So.. focusing on stealing health? How viable is it and how does it compare to a tank?

Vampomancer build is doable, but won't work if you only focus on stealing health. To make it work, you have to use more of a healy-regen build where you go for specific traits so all your wells heal you for a good amount. It's definately great, and it's good for holding points in PvP etc because you become an immovable object for a while. To be honest, anything is viable for open PvE. This is not the case for dungeons however, and most necromancers are waiting for some changes to give us variety for WvW and explorables.

TGIFrisbie, on 30 October 2012 - 06:47 PM, said:

What about Vigil armor?

Vigil Chest
Def: 278
Pwr: +89
Tgh: +64
Vit: +64

Or is there a better option on stats?

Sure, these work just fine. I use the Vigil chest myself and it works great as well as look great!

PouBelleDeNuit, on 31 October 2012 - 03:02 AM, said:

Thanks for your suggestions. I'm level 30 now, so I feel the fun can begin.
My question is, what is the best way to use my traits most effectively while leveling?

At lower levels most people enjoy going into power, and Reaper's might is very good. I would go 10 in spite > 10 in Death Magic to pick up Greater Marks (Greater Marks for general PvE, dark armor for dungeon/PvP in a lot of cases) > 30 into Soul Reaping if possible > 20 in Blood Magic. Just try to have as much fun you can as possible, most builds are viable leveling-wise. ヽ(*≧ω≦)ﾉ

Edited by Heartlust, 02 November 2012 - 01:58 PM.

[TGIFrisbie]

Karma armor (different pieces from different vendors in order to aquire the same stats for a set) have better stats over Vigil.

I think Vigil is the better deal at least initially at 80, perhaps with a couple of Karma pieces to start out with.

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 02 November 2012 - 10:52 PM.

[Heartlust]

TGIFrisbie, on 02 November 2012 - 07:49 PM, said:

Actually I later discovered through research a version of the drop named set (Khilbron's) and the Karma armor (different pieces from different vendors in order to aquire the same stats for a set) have better stats over Vigil.  However they are rather pricey (Khilbron's shoulders were over 10g the day I checked, the rest was under that but still not cheap, and Karma sets being 42k Karma each).

I think Vigil is the better deal at least initially at 80, perhaps with a couple of Karma pieces to start out with.

Definately. I'm still waiting for A-net to release the tribal set, and until then i'll probably save up for these sets so I can transmutate them on release. Where did you find the vendor? the 10g one.

[TGIFrisbie]

Heartlust, on 02 November 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

Definately. I'm still waiting for A-net to release the tribal set, and until then i'll probably save up for these sets so I can transmutate them on release. Where did you find the vendor? the 10g one.

Sorry I was mistaken about the named set, that one had other stats I was looking at at the time.  I guess it's only the karma set, which is what I have been working on for my Necro.  The Power/Tough/Vitality pieces are spread across different vendors as they are spread across the different sets.

http://www.gw2armor....ght/display.php

Mouse over the bottom items to find the sets they belong to.  Have to cobble it together.

I edited my previous post to remove the comment about the named set since it was incorrect, so as not to mislead any future readers.

Why anet chose to not allow crafters to create all variations of stats available on armor is beyond me.  When I read how the game would not be a grindfest and you could get the same armor/weapon stats from PvP, PvE and Crafting I was content.  It has turned out to not be the case.

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 02 November 2012 - 10:53 PM.

[Heartlust]

TGIFrisbie, on 02 November 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

Sorry I was mistaken about the named set, that one had other stats I was looking at at the time.  I guess it's only the karma set, which is what I have been working on for my Necro.  The Power/Tough/Vitality pieces are spread across different vendors as they are spread across the different sets.

http://www.gw2armor....ght/display.php

Mouse over the bottom items to find the sets they belong to.  Have to cobble it together.

I edited my previous post to remove the comment about the named set since it was incorrect, so as not to mislead any future readers.

Why anet chose to not allow crafters to create all variations of stats available on armor is beyond me.  When I read how the game would not be a grindfest and you could get the same armor/weapon stats from PvP, PvE and Crafting I was content.  It has turned out to not be the case.

These work, as do the dungeon sets. They probably did it for balance reasons though. I was interested in precision/vit/tough sets but couldn't find any for instance.

Going back to the dagger build, I hope we get some grandmaster traits that we can use to our advantage - as they stand right now they are pretty useless, contending with mesmers for the worst grandmaster traits. (in my opinion)

[konggorilla]

Heya, been testing different builds over the last few weeks, and i've been wondering.. how does a power build compare to a tanky build?

[nzac]

konggorilla, on 17 November 2012 - 11:07 PM, said:

Heya, been testing different builds over the last few weeks, and i've been wondering.. how does a power build compare to a tanky build?

As far as know their aren't any vital traits (there are some good ones in each line) to either build.Its all in stats and you can balance those anyway you like. Just pick the traits you want and then choose the amour you need to make the stats you want. Hybrid builds of any balance between the two should be easy. You are wanting primary stats (except maybe Healing for WoB) so choosing the armor you want should be easy.There are builds like the BiP might up-time ones where this does not work of course.