Help a newb with Necro gear

[statikcat.8134]

I am new and making my way through HoT story. Afterwards I will be doing living story and PoF. When I hit 80 I bought some rare armor. All Carrion with Superior Runes of the Undead. I want to buy or make some exotic gear but am not entirely sure what I am doing. Ascended seems a bit off so I figure I might as well grab some exotic as it seems pretty cheap at the moment. So I have some questions:

1. How do necros, and other profs, deal with changing builds between power and cond? Do you have two sets of gear focused more on one than the other? Or do you make armor that has a power/cond split and use it for both? Then it is a bit weaker all around but more flexible?

2. Can you change the stats on exotic gear? For example, can a tailor change carrion chest piece to berserker? Or does new armor entirely need to be bought/crafted?

3. I keep reading about viper when it comes to necro but I can't find any viper gear on the TP. That makes me think it might be strictly for ascended? If it can be used on exotic I assume then that it can be made by a tailor but then bound to the player?

4. Assuming I can't get viper, and it is better anyway, should I stick to Carrion for exotic? It seems to favor cond. Or should I use Rampager and make power/cond a more even split?

I just don't want to dump 5-10g on exotics and make a mistake since I will probably be using it for awhile and it is most of the gold I have left. Thanks!

[Sephylon.4938]

@statikcat.8134 said:

1. How do necros, and other profs, deal with changing builds between power and cond? Do you have two sets of gear focused more on one than the other? Or do you make armor that has a power/cond split and use it for both? Then it is a bit weaker all around but more flexible?

2. Can you change the stats on exotic gear? For example, can a tailor change carrion chest piece to berserker? Or does new armor entirely need to be bought/crafted?

3. I keep reading about viper when it comes to necro but I can't find any viper gear on the TP. That makes me think it might be strictly for ascended? If it can be used on exotic I assume then that it can be made by a tailor but then bound to the player?

4. Assuming I can't get viper, and it is better anyway, should I stick to Carrion for exotic? It seems to favor cond. Or should I use Rampager and make power/cond a more even split?

1. Some prefer to choose to 1 play style and stick with it. Others prefer having multiple sets of armors, others still prefer having multiple alts, each with their own set of armor, i.e an alt with power gear, 1 with condi, 1 with support, etc.
2. No, only ascended can be stat-swapped, as for new armor, depends on the stats. Hot and Pof stats needs to be crafted, core stats can be obtained through dungeons, random drops, karma vendors, bladed armor offers some of them, etc.
3. Yes, you can craft exotic vipers, no vipers can't be bought on the tp. Hot and pof stat armors are account bound, same goes for ascended armors.
4. Either or, they're perfectly fine tbh. Vipers is only if you really want to min-max your build.

[statikcat.8134]

Thanks for the information, that helps a lot.

[Zero Solstice.9754]

@statikcat.8134 said:I am new and making my way through HoT story. Afterwards I will be doing living story and PoF. When I hit 80 I bought some rare armor. All Carrion with Superior Runes of the Undead. I want to buy or make some exotic gear but am not entirely sure what I am doing. Ascended seems a bit off so I figure I might as well grab some exotic as it seems pretty cheap at the moment. So I have some questions:

1. How do necros, and other profs, deal with changing builds between power and cond? Do you have two sets of gear focused more on one than the other? Or do you make armor that has a power/cond split and use it for both? Then it is a bit weaker all around but more flexible?

2. Can you change the stats on exotic gear? For example, can a tailor change carrion chest piece to berserker? Or does new armor entirely need to be bought/crafted?

3. I keep reading about viper when it comes to necro but I can't find any viper gear on the TP. That makes me think it might be strictly for ascended? If it can be used on exotic I assume then that it can be made by a tailor but then bound to the player?

4. Assuming I can't get viper, and it is better anyway, should I stick to Carrion for exotic? It seems to favor cond. Or should I use Rampager and make power/cond a more even split?

I just don't want to dump 5-10g on exotics and make a mistake since I will probably be using it for awhile and it is most of the gold I have left. Thanks!

1. You'll need different sets of armor, each with the proper stats, for each different build you will want to play. Many players keep a set for Power, a set for Condi, etc. Some people choose one singular build and stick to it, but I think it's good to be ambiguous since it keeps the game fresh longer when you're able to switch up play styles, and some builds are better at certain jobs/times than other builds.
2. No, exotics are locked in and soulbound on equip, so be sure you get the right stats before purchasing/equipping!
3. Viper's stats have to be crafted, and they can not be directly bought off of the Trading Post. You can craft Viper's as either exotic or ascended, however it's my opinion that it isn't really worth the money to craft exotic instead of ascended.
4. Carrion is perfectly fine, but you could also use stats like Sinister as a holdover for Viper's.

I understand how you feel; gearing out when you don't have a ton of knowledge or income can feel a little daunting since a mistake can take a while to repair. I sent you a bit of funding to work with to hopefully take some of the weight off of your shoulders. Happy hunting!

[Pipilipu.4201]

First of all, welcome to the game! It's always refreshing to see new people coming to the game! :) Now onto your questions:

1) As a necromancer you'll mainly play condition damage when playing meta. In Open World however you can play whatever your heart desires, so that doesn't matter. So the main stat combos are: Viper/maybe Sinister for condi, Berserker for Power. You don't want any hybrid stats because you'll gain more DPS by focusing on one playstyle (I recommend watching Nike's video on Griefing gear).

2) No, but with the Mystic Forge you can stat-swap ascended gear. The Wiki is perfect for these kind of questions. Also, if you find yourself stat-swapping a lot, you may want to consuder looking into legendary armor.

3) Viper's is only craftable but I'd recommend against crafting exotic Viper because you only really benefit from the stat combo when min-maxing.

4) I can only repeat what I wrote in 1) here.

I should mention that my answers are based on the meta and such but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't experiment! It will only increase your understanding of the game. Have fun!

[maelstrom.6492]

If you are just doing story and things like dungeons, low tier fractals etc, I find that the named armors are really good and not very expensive, and exotic. They don't have the best selection of runes, but for open world it isn't super important.

For Carrion, look up Ogden's armor, Dire is Jatoro's armor... Sinister doesn't have a named armor equivalent to my knowlege, but I find Carrion to be a great bridge to the more optimal gear. For Vipers, I'd honestly wait until you can stat swap Ascended unless you have little interest in raiding or the top fractals. It is quite expensive to craft, even for Exotics.

I am personally running Jatoro's armor, carrion scepter and dagger and Vipers torch on my Scourge for more survivability and its working a treat.

If you want Power, Valkyrie is nice for the vitality for a massive life force pool and hp pool, but you lose out on Precision so runes (Rune of the Mesmer is inexpensive and has +Power +Precision on 5/6 bonuses, use a different rune in 6th slot), beserker trinkets and weapons will help with that.

[Coffietire.2783]

The answers so far have answered everything related to PvE, consider this reply only relevant if you want to do some World versus World. Glass cannon power necromancer and tanky power reaper are a blast to play in large scale world versus world battles. I if you're interested, I highly recommend looking into solder or marauder gear.

[statikcat.8134]

Thanks for all the feedback! I have a lot to think about. Definitely feel like I have a better grasp on how all of this works now.