I need some help with Necro 101.

[Fallesafe.5932]

Hey there. I've been playing a power daredevil for the last three years. And I decided to make a necro to help with daily farming of LWS3 materials. According to Metabattle, condi scourge was my best choice for this (http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scourge_-_Condi_Scourge ). So I spent this afternoon putting together a set of trailblazer gear, went out to farm the maps, and realized I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'm getting killed by trash mobs and doing like 1.5k dps (lol). All I really want to do with this character is eat up groups of trash mobs very quickly in the open world. And I've got two quick questions:

1) Is condi scourge the best choice for this purpose, or is there a better build? I'm just looking for a fast, easy, trash-mob lawnmower.2) Can anybody recomend any good gameplay guides for this class? Spamming skills isn't working too well for me.

[Methuselah.4376]

In open world you're better off going full viper's as you would be doing much more damage and that adds to your survivability because you will kill enemies faster than they kill you. Make sure you are proccing Dhuumfire at the right time, using your barriers, placing your shades (making sure to have at least two always out), and making sure you use your skills according to the priority list. Spamming skills no longer works on Scourge. Personally I'd say you're better off on Power Reaper; amazing cleave, though relies on melee but this is where Spectral Grasp and Grasping Darkness become your friends, and the tool that you will use to deal your highest damage will also be protecting your health i.e. Reaper's Shroud. More often than not in open world, power damage will always be better than condi damage as you will kill things with power damage in half the time it will take you to ramp up those condis on a condi build (Firebrand being the exception).

[Fallesafe.5932]

@Methuselah.4376 said:In open world you're better off going full viper's as you would be doing much more damage and that adds to your survivability because you will kill enemies faster than they kill you. Make sure you are proccing Dhuumfire at the right time, using your barriers, placing your shades (making sure to have at least two always out), and making sure you use your skills according to the priority list. Spamming skills no longer works on Scourge. Personally I'd say you're better off on Power Reaper; amazing cleave, though relies on melee but this is where Spectral Grasp and Grasping Darkness become your friends, and the tool that you will use to deal your highest damage will also be protecting your health i.e. Reaper's Shroud. More often than not in open world, power damage will always be better than condi damage as you will kill things with power damage in half the time it will take you to ramp up those condis on a condi build (Firebrand being the exception).

I just swapped over to power reaper. It's absolutely perfect. That's just what I was looking for. Thanks man.

[Anchoku.8142]

Power Reaper is better, imo, because you can burst down trash mobs and move on. If you need any additional sustain, try adding a minion or more. Minions will delay fights but pull aggro from you. Swapping Soul Reaping for Death Magic will give you and your minions even more sustain but I find DM unnecessary in open world.

[KrHome.1920]

Wow the build in the link is an absolute trash build for pve. I have no idea why this is rated that high on metabattle. This is pretty close to the bunker roaming scourge you could run in wvw to annoy other players (extremely hard to kill 1v1), but that is a completely different purpose compared to pve.

Now, since you already have the expensive trailblazer gear then you should switch to chill (to stack bleeds) and dhuumfire spam condi reaper. This will grant you a lot more damage and still a lot of surivability.

Build:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAsiFlVwAZfMFGJWuX9NVA-zRJYkR3fZUZq2ZVp3JJI+D-e(You can change the poison cloud to plague signet, if you need an additional condi transfer to deathly swarm for your self applied conditions.)

Hints:

• A good part of your damage are your self applied and then transfered conditions. Alternatively you can use them to increase your healing.
• Don't place nightfall and well of darkness at once as the chill on blind has an IPC. So place them one after another.
• Cast your shroud fear when you are at about 50% life force to gain 15% life force in shroud to increase the shroud uptime.
• When in shroud cast 5, 4 and then autottack spam.
• Use GS only for nightfall (blind>chill), grasping darkness (chill) and death spiral (life force+vulnerability). The rest of the time camp scepter and shroud.

[Dadnir.5038]

Wow the build in the link is an absolute trash build for pve. I have no idea why this is rated that high on metabattle.

That was exactly my thoughts.

[Teratus.2859]

Condi aint so great for PvE really.. not unless you're running a hybrid setup and have quick stacking capability.. Necro kind of sucks there as most of it's condi's are really slow to stack up.Best I ever made was a hybrid corruption based condi Reaper running vipers gear and Dhuumfire but even that was inferior to just a straight power Reaper.

For open world PvE farming i'd probably recommend a Marauders Reaper running wells and shouts.. lots of AoE damage and damage multipliers to take advantage of to just slaughter most mobs in seconds.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

In OW PvE power dps is the way to go unless you can pump out huge stacks of a single condition within 1 second like a burn guardian. Reaper is great, you'll love it. If you have sustain issues then try Runes of Vampirism.

[Junkpile.7439]

Epidemic + parasitic contagion and it's impossible die. Only problem is that you can't aggro enough mobs.

[Lily.1935]

Scourge has some advantages over reaper in open world but its mostly reaper who's on top there. If you're in a fight where enemies frequently are spread out and in extremely high numbers or they have high damage pulses around themselves scourge tends to do much better in those situations since they don't have to get in close to do decent DPS. This isn't so much of a problem as you can usually be efficient enough with reaper to make up the difference.

These are the different builds I've used for Open world, which are fairly similar in many situations to my raiding builds.

Condi Scourge: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFs81aYZDMQWITjRiF7V/TF-zRJYmxfZEXF0RKo5A-eOpen World Power Reaper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMB2BTh5xKxR6qsZD-zRIYRU/XG1mqVUV2OA-e

These above two are the best builds in most situations.

Necro Dancer Minion Master: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFsE1aYZBMQ2HjiNij6i1xC-zRJYkxfZEZKUZFY1A-eChilling Dread Reaper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAsiFlJwUYhsGGJOuK3NXA-zRRYmR3mNsxIeV1JF8NA-e

These two are fun and situationally good. And they should serve you just fine. But they're not as effective.

Labyrinth Power farm: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MssCWDbjxwKxx26sdD-zRIYRU/XG1mqVUV2OA-e

This last build is a labyrinth farming build. its good when there aren't enough people around to do runs. They immobilize you a lot which slows you down so this build is designed to be highly mobile and offer a lot of pulls.