As I already said, my impression is that power builds are the main option a necromancer has in wvw. So here is a build suggestion to refine and talk about. The skills are mainly focused on condition control as I think that is where necros outshine other classes. WvW: Necro Power Support Build (10|15|20|10|15) Alternative with stronger marks (20|0|20|10|20) Alternatives: Weapon: Off hand dagger is a great option. It offers another condition control skill but requires you to change weapons once you are out of combat. Skills (Switch depending on play style / situation): Blood is Power Summon Flesh Wurm Corrupt Boon Well of Corruption Amulet: Knight's or Soldier's amulet for more survivability, but keep Berserker's jewels for their crit damage.
I feel like this is a good attempt to move away from more pure power builds to more versatile WvW builds. Still, I'd probably change a few things. I was under the impression that power builds were more like a "glass cannon" kind of build focusing on burst dps. Your initial skill choices suggest more of a team-based approach. Then again, WvW is all about teamplay of course. Going for a power build and only speccing 10 points in spite feels a bit strange to me. I would choose to get rid of Transfusion and get Spiteful Marks instead. One could even opt to fill out spite and get Chill of Death to prevent runners.
Hi, based on your suggestions I alternated the build a bit: alternative. I also added the build to the first post so it's easy to find. I like your suggestion of using Spiteful Marks of the spite tree. So I freed up some points from curses in order to get Spiteful Marks and Soul Marks (soul reaping). Also, I prefered to keep 10 points in blood magic as the group heal from Transfusion used to be very decent (unfortunately I can't provide any numbers, but I can test it on 25th ;-). Btw regarding low spite for power builds, I think it's most important to get traits that fit the build. If there are better traits in a trait line that is associated with a different stat (power, precision, healing, ...) I'd just go for them. The influence of the actual stats that come with the traits is rather small. For example 100 precision and 100 vitality are both useful but it could mean healing my party members for 3k+ or casting Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud.
Remember you don't get the amulet as well as all the gems in PvE/WvW. The big amulet is reserved for SPvP to make switching between setups easier. Apart from that it looks like a pretty solid spec, bar any traits turning out worse than expected. I would use Spectral Armor or Spectral Wall instead of Plague Signet though, without any condition damage to give the transfer to enemies that extra bit of power I'm not sure the added strain on your HP of eating conditions constantly would be worth it. This spec looks a bit more support-ish, if you want to go properly into condition control then the traits would have to be adjusted with shorter cooldowns on wells, perhaps minions drawing conditions, and Epidemic to make the transfer of conditions to enemies much more useful.
The more i play, the less i get convinced about the Power build for WvWvW. Epidemic has always been a killer and has great sinergy with Marks
Yea I didn't like it too much either. But on the other hand I'm not sure if it's worth to go for condition damage if the main weapon is a staff. Only skill number two applies some bleeding.
Well, to be correct all Marks can apply conditions (but not condition damage) but still... have to retest how Putrid Mark works because it seems more powerful than what i expected.
Mabye something like this or this could work? Decent amount of power and nice amount of condition dmg, lacks a bit in crit chance and crit dmg tho.
Lingering Curse seems to me a subpar trait. You only have two skills from scepter that give conditions and they have 900 range. All in all its all about how do you play with the build, everything can be fine tuned according to your game style, but imo the traits shouldn't focus any weapon besides the weapon you're gonna use the most - usually the staff. This is what i've been playing the most during all the stress tests, switching out of combat to Warhorn / Signet of the Locust for speed buffs. The axe to me is still the best 2nd weapon for the job, Barbed Precision + Ghastly Claws in close quarter combat is a real killer.
Yea, I just threw something together while having my morning coffee and wanted to see it was possible buff both power and condition dmg but I don't really like the low crit chance. We need more stress test so I can play Necro more
Remember that you start at level 1 and you climb up to level 80, you will have plenty of time to play around with your builds - trait reset only costs 1 silver
Yeah and up to level 40 you can only have 10 per trait line, so meh. Where will your first 10 points be? I figure I'd go for survivability and spend the first 10 in Blood for regeneration and Mark of Evasion. Any ideas on smart leveling builds?
First 10 I always go Death so i can get Greater Marks/Close to Death depending on the build and to improve my Toughness - better than Vitality in WvW imo since you have many tools to cleanse conditions from yourself. The rest of the points depends of personal choices, in my case i use the next 5 in Curses for Barbed Precision.
